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Increase Blog Traffic with These 12 Ideas
Increase Blog Traffic. Following is a list of 12 things to increase blog traffic and beat the summer doldrums. The post Increase Blog Traffic with These 12 Ideas appeared first on Spin Sucks. by emmahardy This is a smart blog. Related Stories Fear of Feedback Needs a New Perspective Why Spin Sucks is the Best Blog for Guest Posts Gin and Topics: Tom Cruise is Still Hot.
Nine PR Blogs to Read
Spin Sucks
By Gini Dietrich On the ninth day of Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to you… nine PR blogs to read, eight PR up-and-comers , seven must-listen podcasts , six communicator gifts , five communications trends , four free webinars , three strategy games , two Crazies secrets , and the PR win of 2014. PR Blogs to Read Without further ado, here are the nine PR blogs you should read.
Six Online Tools for Blog Post Inspiration
Spin Sucks
The post Six Online Tools for Blog Post Inspiration appeared first on Spin Sucks. Blog Social Media Article Generator Pro automated content generators Blog Title Generator App blogging tips come up with effective post titles Creative Titles Lead to Incredible Results HubSpot Blog Topic Generator iDeas for Writing app Impact Branding and Design online tools SEOPressor.com title generators
Eight Common Blogging Mistakes
Spin Sucks
We created an editorial calendar and everyone was responsible for blogging, from the interns on up through me. Our goal was to blog about the silly things people do to hurt the perception of the PR industry and perpetuate the "spin doctor" image. So I've created a list of eight things to consider while you're blogging. Was. A. Disaster. Link to people.
Master The Next Wave Of Social
As social media adoption becomes more and more mainstream, marketing leaders race to keep up - creating blogs, communities, and Facebook pages, all too often without a clear road map in mind
Four Types of Blog Posts Proven to Generate Organic Traffic
Spin Sucks
To increase the number of organic visitors to your blog you need to produce content that is so compelling to your visitors that they deem it worth sharing. Your blog posts must be well-written, unique, useful, and frequent. Here are four types of blog posts that are most successful at attracting organic traffic.
13 Great Guides to Growing Your Blog Audience
Webbiquity SMM
You've put extensive effort into your business blog design, content strategy, research, and execution. Why isn't your blog attracting a higher level of traffic? Find guidance on those topics and more here in a baker's dozen of the best guides to growing your blog audience from the past year or so. Got a well-written business blog, but a shortage of readers?
Introducing The Modern Blogging Masterclass
Spin Sucks
Today we launch our very first (hopefully of many) online course… The Modern Blogging Masterclass. What is The Modern Blogging Masterclass? What is The Modern Blogging Masterclass, you ask? The post Introducing The Modern Blogging Masterclass appeared first on Spin Sucks. By Gini Dietrich. Alright, boys and girls…ladies and gents. It's for everyone.
Blogging Most Certainly Is Not Dead
Spin Sucks
People still want to say blogging is dead, but au contraire! The post Blogging Most Certainly Is Not Dead appeared first on Spin Sucks. It's the same song, different tune. The truth is far from that. Gini Dietrich explains. Comments By: madi | Restless Worker by madi | Restless Worker So much food for thought in this post – a whole smorgasbord.
Business Blogging: Five Reasons You Have No Readers
Spin Sucks
By Eleanor Pierce It's a common complaint: You have a business blog , but no one's reading. Maybe your blog's boring, hard to find, or poorly written. But maybe the reasons no one reads your blog are a little harder to suss out. Business Blogging: You're Too Clever for Your Own Good Look, I love clever wordplay as much as the next nerd. You read other blogs.
Is Blogging Dead or Are Companies Not Trying Hard Enough?
Spin Sucks
But the stat I want to talk about today is the number of blogs on the Internet. According to Technorati , there are 158 million blogs floating around, which is partly why I'm so surprised to keep reading that blogging is dead. I get it. My guess is many people or companies say, "Let's start a blog!" And the blog fails. magazine. So, I see.
7 Blog Post Ideas for Nonprofits
If you maintain a blog for your nonprofit, chances are you've come up short on ideas more than a few times. Well, in fact there are lots of creative ways to keep your blog active and interesting. Here are some top ideas for writing awesome blog posts for your nonprofit: Photo Essay. Whatever it may be, why not share it with the rest of the community through your blog?
Five Ways to Draw Traffic to a Blog Post
Webbiquity SMM
As buyers spend more time with online articles, blog posts and reviews, and rely less on advertising for product information , companies have quickly caught onto the fact that they need great content to attract new customers and retain their current ones. Here are five methods you can use to get your blog posts more exposure amongst your audience and beyond.
Linkedin Launches Blogs for Members
Janet Fouts
In 2012 Linkedin launched the beginning of what has become a powerful stream of thought leadership blogs through their " LinkedIn Influencer " program. The best part about the Influencer blogs is the ability to share their insight with your social networks and the conversations generated on LinkedIn and other platforms. How does this work?
The Spin Sucks Blogging Process
Spin Sucks
Last week, Mitch Joel wrote a blog post called, " Watching Me Blog." " It was in response to Chris Brogan's piece, " Watching Mitch Joel Blog ," which he wrote while we were all in Norway and, literally, watching Mitch blog. And, let's be real, it's a pretty easy blog post for me to write. Blogging Philosophy.
Five Reasons People Aren't Reading Your Blog
Spin Sucks
You've talked to enough marketing gurus and experts to know blogging can be a powerful way to expand your online presence and communicate thought leadership. So you upgrade your website, include a WordPress blog, post a few recent news releases and articles, and…Nothing. Five Reasons People Aren't Reading Your Blog. Your blog is not the Field of Dreams. .
How to Write Blog Posts that Get Read and Shared
Spin Sucks
Therefore, next Thursday, I am going to host How to Write Blog Posts that Get Read and Shared. Andy and I have a friendly competition and, let's be real, this is my blog, so I'm hoping to beat him in number of attendees and in the super positive feedback. How to Write Blog Posts that Get Read and Shared. How to generate blog post ideas. By Gini Dietrich.
Responding (Or Not) to Blog Comments
Spin Sucks
During our stay there, we ended up having a conversation about blog comments and replying to them. Valeria, who is one of the smartest people I know, rarely gets any comments, but her blog is one of the go-tos for nearly everyone in marketing. It's one of a handful of blogs I have come into my email (instead of my RSS feed) so I don't miss it every day. love that.
Seven Must Read PR Blogs
Spin Sucks
On the seventh day of Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to you…seven PR blogs, six must-watch PR webinars , five PR books , four PR podcasts , three productivity tools , two Spin Sucks Crazy secrets , and the one PR tool you need for 2016. Let's talk about PR blogs, shall we? Seven Must Read PR Blogs. It's impossible to talk PR blogs without mentioning PR Daily.
How to Promote Blog Posts: 200+ Ideas from Eight Experts
Webbiquity SMM
Company blogs have become virtually essential, and very powerful, component of digital marketing. In addition to their SEO benefits and role in maximizing web presence for brands , blogs produce sales and leads. Which blog post promotion tactics are most effective? Is it still worthwhile to get listed in blog directories, and if so, which ones?
20 Social Media Marketing Blogs You Should Read in 2013
Looking for the best social media marketing blogs? Social media is now mandatory for businesses. I'm always trying to keep pace with the evolving social media marketing landscape, and reading many of the fantastic blogs out there helps me stay on top of best practices. You've come to the right place! Here are some that [.].
Your Blog Stinks! You Should Quit!
SocMed Sean
What to do…It's 2012 and you've been blogging for almost a year now with no success. To add insult to injury, your Google analytics show that you get about 25 visitors to your blog every day, and you're pretty sure that you, your family, and the GoogleBot account for about half of those. Maybe it's time to give up and pull the plug on that blog.
The End Of Blogging?
Twist Image
The other week, I celebrated 12 years of blogging (not a typo). have posted anywhere from four to seven items a week, over on my Six Pixels of Separation blog , every week. To know me, is to know that I am still deeply passionate about my blog, writing and the digital publishing experience. I was there when it first started (remember Blogger ), embraced the power of RSS feeds (remember those?), For years, we've been seeing the "conversation" shift from the comments section on blogs to places like Facebook, Twitter , Snapchat , YouTube and beyond. my blog)?
Blogging Upstream
Waxing UnLyrical
Tootzypop , the lifestyle blog I founded for savvy women over 40 , is no exception. In women's online media, the formula is one part fashion and beauty, one part yoga and fitness, one part recipe swap, a ginormous dose of mommy blogging; mix and cover with a thick frosting of e-shopping. The world doesn't need another fashion blog, yoga site, or recipe roundup. Not the formula.
Happy Belated 9th Birthday to My Blog
Ari Herzog
May 2016 marked the ninth birthday of my blog! You can visit the archive and read my initial blog posts about apartment life, later posts about digital marketing, and ultimately about minimalism and productivity. Are you receiving my blog posts by email? Please sign up to receive blog posts by email. Blog News birthdayIt's seen three URLs and numerous designs.
Recipe for Successful Blogging
Tweet Blogging can be complicated and it is quite different from traditional writing styles. Blogging is a quick and an interactive way of expressing your ideas – more like online diaries, but written with an aim of making people read it. We have also written about it in our previous posts, explaining how important blogs have become in the social media strategy of a company.
My Blog Monetization Results
Jason Yormark
About a month ago I decided I wanted to test out ads on my blog to see what kind of return I would get by devoting some right sidebar space for a medium sized ad. I was a bit leery about the idea, but figured it was worth a shot seeing as my blog traffic had reached a point where I thought the return could be worth it. I decided to go with Social Spark (IZEA) since they offered a model that pays on impressions rather then click-throughs. I knew the return probably wouldn't be as high as a click-through model, but I figured it was a good starting point. Blogging
Blogging Mistakes Equal Lessons Learned
Spin Sucks
A couple of weeks ago, I made a blogging mistake. That week, a handful of people sent me the Chick-fil-A Mashable story about fake Facebook accounts and, because I needed a blog topic, I was in a hurry, and it seemed like an open and closed case, I blogged about it. But, because they hadn't done it, it became a moot point for this blog.
Top Three Spin Sucks PR Blog Posts of 2015
Spin Sucks
Dig into analytics to see what the most popular PR blog posts on Spin Sucks were for 2015, and then write a post on it for the end of the year.". But alas, I'm just going to share the most popular PR blog posts that analytics was able to record. Top Three Spin Sucks PR Blog Posts (that aren't mine). By Laura Petrolino. So this is exactly what I did. None of them.
Is Your Blog On LinkedIn?
Small Business Mavericks
By this time, I hope you have been convinced that adding a blog to your site has great potential for enhancing your marketing efforts, adding to your site's authority, and increasing your audience. But where is your blog being seen? Business2Community & Business.com ask a good question: " Should You Be Blogging On LinkedIn? But why would your blog be a good idea to post on this site? Here's the way the post puts it: Think of the time spent developing a blog post that you aren't getting paid for as an advertising expense.
My Top 33 Digital Marketing Blogs
Convince & Convert
Digital marketing blogs may be numerous, but I find them to still be critical. I've been in digital marketing for 20 years, and the only way you can stay relevant that long is to read A LOT. Read the whole entry. » Digital Marketing blogs content marketing blogs digital marketing digital marketing blog email marketing blogs online marketing blogs social media blogs
Six Tips for a Blog Redesign
Spin Sucks
Look at Seth Godin's blog. He does nothing more than plop 200 words down with a headline in a running column, and his blog attracts a gazillion readers. Having just bulldozed my own with a storytelling blog redesign, I'd like to share some thoughts that came out of the experience. Consider the various ways your blog potentially engages with the reader. Blog Redesign.
How Social Media Can Be Magic For Your Blog
Peg Fitzpatrick
Social media can be the magic that helps people find your blog articles. A few years ago, blogging and social media were separate. Blogging was long-form, serious, and crafted. Some people predicted that social media would replace blogging because of declining attention spans. Blogging and social media not only amicably co-exist, they complement each other.
50 Tips to Make Your Company's Blog Rock
Spin Sucks
I'm taking a few days of vacation time (before Patti Knight kills me) so we went through the 2010 most popular blog posts and updated a couple to run here again. It's interesting to go back and look at both what I was reading two years ago and where I was getting blogging ideas. 50 Tips to Make Your Company's Blog Rock. Run polls and surveys on your blog.
My Blog Monetization Experiment
Jason Yormark
Have I succumbed to the temptation of ads on my blog?!?! Let's be honest, monetizing blogs is no new secret. In fact most blogs do this very thing through display ads, affiliate links, or sponsored posts. If handled well, there's nothing wrong with it don't you think? IZEA also has an interesting referral program as well, so for those of you interested in monetizing your blog or website, check it out using this link. BloggingThat's an ad over there on the right. Well, at least for a bit the way I see it.
How to Bring Your Business Blog to the Next Level
Your business blog is a failure. But you keep updating it because all your competitors have blogs. Many company blogs are like this: Business owners start them because everyone else does but you are not sure what to do with it. You just haven't brought your blog to the next level. What Constitutes A Successful Blog? Why do you have a business blog?
12 Most Creative Strategies to Craft an Effective Blog Post
Peg Fitzpatrick
Do you wonder why some blog posts tend to attract a lot of readers and get a lot of reaction? This In these 12 most creative strategies to craft an effective blog post, we'll look at ideas how you can accomplish more on your blog. Talking about great blog posts, these are the ones that we would love to read through all the way to the last period. Use subheadings.
7 Simple Blog Post Ideas for Your Small Business
Even with all of the emerging storytelling technology for small businesses, blogging remains an effective way to reach an audience with your marketing messages. It's smart to experiment with your social channels and video options like Periscope , but great blog content is also really important. Blog posts that give information that may seem overly simple to you may actually draw in the exact consumer base you want. Blog about it. What blog content fares best with your audience? Blog Internet marketing ToolsHere are just a few: Behind-the-scenes.
Three Essential Blog Writing Tips for Just Before You Click Publish
We've talked about blog writing tips for when you need ideas. That's what these blog writing tips are for. You've read enough blog writing tips by now that you should have already spent some time on your headline. Take the title of this blog, for example. Do any of the tried and-true-tricks-of-the-trade make sense for your blog? Your Blog Writing Tips.


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After hanging close for the majority of the first half, the Neosho boys basketball team couldn't keep up with Rogers (Ark.) through the final two quarters and fell, 62-26, Thursday at the Republic Tournament.
The Wildcats (0-2) remained within 12 points with just over two minutes to go in the first half before Rogers began to pull away. The tail of the tape came in the second and third quarters, where Rogers outscored Neosho, 40-13.
Zach Jones, a 6-foot-4 senior, threw his weight around to the tune of 21 points while manning the paint for Rogers. His effort inside the paint eventually led to open looks for teammates Keifer Holt and Hunter Hill on the outside as each drained three 3-pointers in the game. Holt finished with 13 points while Hill had 11.
Darrian Guillory scored nine points to lead Neosho's scorers while Chris Paullus chipped in five, Cadin Hendrix four, Cole Bishop three, Andy Lett and Lucas Werneke two apiece and Logan Stewart one.
Neosho takes on Lebanon at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Republic Tournament.
Location, ST | website.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Flashpoints in global justice, democratic process, and the history of ideas
Making sense of Russia's Olympic resort.
Sochi seems like a weird place. With the Winter Olympics beginning at the Black Sea resort last week, Western correspondents have uncovered everything from murderous gangsters to toothpaste terrorists to the hundreds of stray dogs that call the city home. And I'm sure by now you've caught the Twitter storm over the less-than-ideal accommodations there. "Ok, so my hotel doesn't have a lobby yet," tweeted Mark MacKinnon, an international correspondent with Toronto's Globe and Mail. "Missing drapes, dangerous water, dog extermination … welcome to Russia's problem Olympics," lamented National Post sports columnist Bruce Arthur, later adding, "We're all going to look silly when all of Sochi's stray dogs come back with little surveillance cameras strapped to their adorable heads."
Is Sochi really that seedy? The Olympic infrastructure may have seen a rocky start, but the resort town has long been a popular tourist destination. Since the 1950s, Sochi has attracted some of the most powerful people in Russia, including Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin. But like much of Russia, Sochi also struggles with poverty and corruption. The average income in the area surrounding Sochi is just under 19,000 rubles a month—about $550. Less than half of residents have an active internet connection. The region has seen a half dozen major wars over the past two decades and is home to more than one active insurgency.
I guess that's what makes coverage like this a little hard to stomach—it smacks of ruin porn, a kind of imperial gaze at the bizarreness of Russian poverty. And it's not just "advenjournalist" hubs like VICE or Buzzfeed. In sources as serious and respected as the Washington Post and CNN we can read bemused correspondents live-tweet the "hilarious and gross" hotel rooms they were given in Sochi. "To appreciate the hotels in this area," writes David Segal in the New York Times, "it is probably a good idea to think of them not as hotels but rather as a rare opportunity to experience life in a centrally planned, Soviet-style dystopia."
Undoubtedly nationalism plays a part as well. From homophobic laws to the Pussy Riot controversy to crackdowns on free speech, Westerners certainly have every reason to distrust Putin's Russia. Comparing this to places where marriage equality and free speech are better protected, it's easy to feel smugly progressive. But focusing on Russian homophobia and authoritarianism seems odd when many Americans encounter similar laws everyday (is Putin's crackdown any more nefarious than, say, being prosecuted as a terrorist for passing out leaflets?). Think about it like this: inviting openly gay activists to join the U.S. Olympic Delegation is a powerful statement for human rights and solidarity with oppressed people in Russia. But it also masks the very real homophobia and transphobia many Americans experience to this day. As David Zirin points out in a recent Democracy Now! interview, nine U.S. states continue to enforce laws that are remarkably similar to Putin's "gay propaganda" law.
And in a larger sense, a lot of this has to do with our preconceived notions of Russia, its culture, and our mistrust of its political intentions. For centuries Western Europe and the U.S. have tended to define their "Western" identity in opposition to anything they saw as "Eastern" or, in particular, Russian. So if the West could be defined by progress, innovation, and freedom, Russia was the opposite—reactionary, backward, and unfree. And if the East-West cultural divide seemed sturdy a century ago, after 70-odd years of Soviet Communism it was positively cemented. Even the fall of the Berlin Wall couldn't help as two decades of economic chaos and increasing authoritarianism seemed only to reinforce old stereotypes. And it's not just news media. Hollywood's Russophobia may have reached its zenith during the Cold War, but to this day, its boilerplate villains hail from Mother Russia. Combine all that with flashy news reports of "flesh-eating zombie drugs" and internet sensations like dash cam videos, and Russia appears lawless, backward, and very quickly falling apart. Even Google thinks Russia is insane. Type in "Why is Russia so" and it gives you the standard suggestions: big, poor, homophobic, crazy. A lackluster Olympic Village plays into this narrative nicely.
But in terms of Olympic branding, this is all a bit strange. Traditionally, events like the Olympics accompany a highly organized PR campaign that whitewashes a whole host of human rights abuses, from forced displacement of locals to worker exploitation to "clean up" campaigns that target sex workers and the homeless. According to a 2007 report by the UN-funded Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), policies like this have been the rule rather than the exception for Olympic events over the past two decades. According to the report, more than 1,000 people were displaced from East London to make way for the 2012 Games; the '96 Games displaced more than 30,000 in Atlanta, including 6,000 people kicked out of public housing projects, which were then demolished; in 2004, Athens evicted close to 3,000 Roma from the city to pave the way for their games, worsening, the report says, their second-class status in Greece.
These figures are surprising because they're not supposed to be part of the story. And, for the most part, they're not. Major media were mostly silent about crackdowns and displacements in Atlanta: a 1996 New York Times story was among the only mainstream pieces to shed light on an anti-homeless campaign there, but it didn't mention displacement. Eight weeks before opening ceremonies, in fact, an AP story touted the millions of federal dollars that would go to "rehabilitate public housing" in the city. But neither AP nor the Times followed up when evicted low-income tenants found that among the small number of new units built to replace their homes, most now sold for skyrocketing market rates. Even in retrospect, when major media look back on the Atlanta Games, the controversies they do remember are more about local economic growth and the event's effects on tourism. Same for other Olympic hosts, from Athens to East London to the upcoming games in Rio. Large-scale displacement, exploited migrant labor, and human rights abuses aren't really part of the picture.
There are good reasons for this. One is that corporate sponsors go to great lengths to avoid a scandal during Olympic events. This was the case in Vancouver when Olympic sponsor Coca-Cola hired private spy firm Stratfor Global Intelligence to collect information on animal rights activists in Canada, particularly PETA, ahead of the 2010 Winter Games. Two years later, Stratfor found itself on Dow's payroll (a sponsor of the 2012 Games), this time tracking groups concerned about Dow's role in the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India. In both cases Stratfor spied on activists through social media and looked for signs of large-scale organizing at Olympic events. And amazingly, when WikiLeaks blew the whistle on Stratfor's spy operation, Coke defended its actions and hinted that spying on activists wasn't so uncommon: "We consider it prudent to monitor for protest activities at any major event we sponsor, as such activities may affect our partners, customers, consumers or employees."
Olympic branding, after all, is serious business. Every two years corporations pay billions for sponsorships, exclusive monopoly rights, and sophisticated marketing strategies to associate their brands with the Games' multicultural, humanitarian image. For athletes, who are barred from using their talents in any professional way outside the Games, the result is often a kind of indentured servitude to the media image of their sponsors. "I was not allowed near any camera without giving a visual and verbal statement of thanks to Verizon for making all of my dreams come true," writes 2006 Olympic U.S. Luge Team member Samantha Retrosi in The Nation, adding,
I went through intensive media training each year to reinforce this allegiance—to learn how to be a better spokesperson for Verizon. During my Olympic year, I signed away my rights to use media time for just about anything other than gratitude to sponsors. It was a condition for entrance into the Olympic Village.
I went through intensive media training each year to reinforce this allegiance—to learn how to be a better spokesperson for Verizon. During my Olympic year, I signed away my rights to use media time for just about anything other than gratitude to sponsors. It was a condition for entrance into the Olympic Village.
The Olympics may be a corporate PR bonanza but it's also an airtight, elaborately rehearsed, and overwhelmingly privatized spectacle. With billions to be made, the world's most powerful corporations aren't interested in encountering surprises. It doesn't hurt, of course, that Olympic cities are also in the habit of banning protest before the Games begin.
All of which makes Sochi's experience that much more extraordinary. At the most expensive Olympic Games ever, how did such an elaborate corporate whitewash get punctured? How did the loudest media message from the Games' opening week become, "Ok, so my hotel doesn't have a lobby yet"?
There are probably many reasons, a big one being Western media's open distrust of anything at all Russian. But one thing's for sure: it won't be Western sponsors that pay the price of Sochi's PR disaster. In fact, Putin's authoritarian style may even be profitable. Take a look at AT&T. Last week they managed to earn some good press by publicly condemning Russia's "gay propaganda" law. Left-leaning sources like Think Progress and Daily Kos wrote quickly and admiringly on the move, and already more than a dozen other sponsors have followed suit, from Visa to Coca-Cola to that darling of social responsibility, BP.
Of course, this is the essence of a PR whitewash: taking a risk-free, popular position on an issue that in no way affects profits (what stake does AT&T really have in Russia's anti-gay law?). Critically, AT&T sponsors not the International Olympic Committee (IOC), but the U.S. Olympic Team, meaning there's little the Russian government could do in retaliation (and can you imagine the PR nightmare if they tried?). And just like when it sponsored the '96 Atlanta Games, AT&T will never shed light on the forced evictions or exploitation of workers that have already occurred in Sochi—that is, things that could actually affect the profitability of the event.
Which brings us back to Sochi itself. Behind the PR blitz and Olympic shimmer, and behind even the snarky advenjournalism, Sochi's experience with the Winter Games is a familiar one. Over the past seven years Russian officials have evicted some 2,000 families to make way for new construction, sometimes paying little or no compensation. Construction has also destroyed local water wells, leaving whole villages without safe drinking water. Elsewhere in Sochi toxic dumps have destroyed otherwise healthy water sources.
And it's not just locals paying the price. Since winning the rights to host the '14 Games, Sochi has been home to tens of thousands of migrant workers, many coming from impoverished former Soviet republics like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, these workers have been regularly forced to work 80+ hour weeks, often for as little as $1.80 an hour. Lured by ads touting $1,500-a-month salaries, workers have been lucky to earn as much as half that—when, that is, they see a paycheck at all. Wage theft, reports HRW, has also been rampant, with employers withholding pay for months at a time and often failing to pay wages at all.
Even more egregious, employer-provided housing has bordered on the Dickensian, with more than 200 workers sharing a single family house in some cases, according to the report. On top of that, working conditions have ranged from unsafe to deadly. To date, 25 construction workers have died while building Sochi's Olympic infrastructure. And don't expect pushback from workers themselves: employers in Sochi have been in the habit of confiscating passports and work permits, cutting down on turnover and organizing. Those that do protest are often deported.
But shameful as these abuses may be, they're not that unusual in Sochi's history. Located in the North Caucasus, Russia's poorest and most violent corner, Sochi is no stranger to exploitation or instability. Sochi's unemployment rate is low for the region but within a hundred kilometers it tops 50 percent and human rights violations become much more common. Nearby places like South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Georgia, and Chechnya all have very recent memories of brutal war, conflicts that stir much older ethnic and imperial clashes. Rather than a "Soviet-style dystopia," Sochi's identity draws on centuries of upheaval, imperialism, and tradition.
But then, Sochi has long been a kind of manufactured place—a sleepy resort in one of the world's bloodiest regions. In their exhaustive multimedia "Sochi Project," journalists Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen write of Sochi as the meeting point of hundreds of contradictions: a winter resort where snow doesn't fall in winter, a proletarian palace modeled on the exclusive spas of Germany, a destination remembered fondly by both Stalin and Tolstoy. In the Middle East, the surrounding Caucasus is known as the "mountain of languages," while in Moscow it's synonymous with corruption and criminality, a Russian Wild West. "Never before have the Olympic Games been held in a region that contrasts more strongly with the glamour of the Games than Sochi," they write. It's a place of unfathomable cultural richness and unspeakable tragedy. If the Olympics can't make sense of Sochi, perhaps the feeling is mutual.
Image by John Morn, licensed under Creative Commons.
Last month, progressives celebrated the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's declaration of War on Poverty. In January 1964 Johnson laid out an ambitious set of programs that have helped countless low-income families afford housing, medical care, education, and basic nutrition. In policy terms, the programs were the clearest expression yet of what Franklin Roosevelt once called the Second Bill of Rights—the idea that the government had a responsibility to ensure economic well-being for everyone.
But even before neoliberal reforms gutted War on Poverty programs beginning in the 1970s, Johnson's war never really succeeded. Even as his reforms went into effect, cities across the country exploded in riots as the violence of entrenched poverty became starkly visible. Half a century later, these programs continue to fight a losing battle. Within weeks of Johnson's anniversary, in fact, Harvard economists released a landmark study on social mobility that includes a startling finding: children born into poverty today are no more likely to escape it than they were 50 years ago. There couldn't be a more appropriate time to rethink this war.
One problem with Johnson's approach has been that it mostly attacks the symptoms of poverty—hunger, lack of medical care, barriers to education. But what if we could attack poverty's roots? What if a government program could simply eliminate it? That's the thinking behind universal basic income (UBI), a proposal to give every American enough money to stay above the poverty line—unconditionally and for life.
OK—stay with me. This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Alaska has had a similar, if smaller, system for decades and Swiss voters will soon decide whether to introduce a much larger basic income in their country. Proposals and pilot programs have, in fact, sprung up around the world. And people in unlikely places are starting to take notice.
One of them is Charles Murray, the libertarian author of The Bell Curve and Coming Apart. A longtime critic of welfare programs, Murray estimates that, compared to the current system, giving every American $10,000 a year would be far cheaper. Within two decades, the government could be saving around $1 trillion annually. Tim Harford, a more progressive economist at the Financial Times, more or less agrees. Although his basic income is closer to $6,000 a year, Harford says it's perfectly affordable as long as most people use it to supplement income they're already earning, meaning they'd still make enough to pay taxes. And under his plan, large parts of the welfare state, from housing subsidies to medical benefits, would remain intact.
Of course, there are about as many approaches as there are supporters, and plenty of questions remain unresolved. Should basic income replace welfare programs or supplement them? What happens to public education, or health care? How much money is enough to stay out of poverty?
Specifics aside, it's worth considering what all a basic income could accomplish. For one thing, it would make workers less dependent on any single job, forcing employers to improve working conditions and wages to retain them. Basic income would also make it easier for workers to organize unions without the risk of losing everything. In the U.S., close to one-in-five union supporters is illegally fired for organizing, a number that's jumped over the past decade. UBI could help cushion these blows, providing a safety net for workers and their families, and allowing more to organize.
It could also have huge cultural impact. As anthropologist David Graeber points out in a recent conversation on basic income, it's impossible to know the real cultural effects of inequality. How many books, art pieces, or bands have never come into being because young people are working extra hours to pay off student debt or afford exorbitant rent? In other places and times, welfare benefits have been critical in the arts. Joe Strummer famously met Mick Jones on an unemployment line; J.K. Rowling spent years on the dole as a single mother while polishing her early manuscripts for Harry Potter. For generations after World War II, Britain's expansive welfare state subsidized some of the most exciting and vital artistic expression in the nation's history.
Welfare programs, of course, come with their own set of problems, from being too low to alleviate poverty to stigmatizing and humiliating those in need. But the biggest problem may be the latest trend toward "work first," an idea pioneered when Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced welfare in the U.S. in the mid-'90s. Here's how it works: the single mothers who make up the bulk of TANF participants don't see any benefits unless they seek unpaid "workfare" outside the home, often in retail or food service. And going to college doesn't count. So instead of recognizing the critical and demanding work single mothers are already performing for their families, the attitude behind TANF is "any job is a good job." As long as it comes with a paycheck (which recipients don't actually get), any work is more important than raising children or getting an education.
(And by the way, that policy hasn't made much of a dent: while TANF participation has dropped 60 percent since the program began—recipients are now kicked out of the program after 60 months—the number of families living in deep poverty has jumped 13 percent.)
It's this work-obsessed ideology that basic income turns on its head. Rather than use work requirements and means tests to determine who deserves to get assistance, UBI applies the same standard to everyone. Whether someone should be kept out of poverty is not a question of their intentions or actions—with UBI, it's something everyone could reasonably expect. At its core, it's about trust—can we trust people to live outside of poverty, to escape their dependence on low-wage labor, to define success for themselves?
Of course, for most of us this is all still pretty utopian. Basic income may be making the rounds of activist and policy circles for the first time in decades, but it's going to be a tough sell in Congress. For it to be possible, attitudes about inequality and the value of labor would have to change quite a bit in Washington, and Democrats would probably need to get over their aversion to new ideas. That doesn't mean it won't happen; it'll just take a while.
But maybe that's not important right now. Maybe for now the takeaway is in the conversation itself—about labor, about inequality, and about who deserves to live in poverty. The very idea of a universal basic income forces us to confront the fact that poverty is to a large degree a political problem rather than an economic one. Entrenched poverty is what happens when you shred the safety net, bust unions, and let corporations write public policy. It's not natural and it's not inevitable. There's no real reason we can't win this war; we just need a new strategy.
Image by the USDA, licensed under Creative Commons.
Something about Thursday's
New York Times top story stayed with
me. You know, the one about the NSA searching Americans' email and text
messages to recipients overseas. I wasn't thrown off by the story itself—after a
summer of PRISM slides and XKeyscore leaks, it's hard to be surprised that the
government is reading the emails we send to other countries. What stayed with
me was how it was reported.
Written by Charlie Savage, the article describes how even
Americans "who cite information linked to" foreigners under suspicion can be
targeted for surveillance. After describing the operation, Savage considers
whether casting such a wide net is legal—and specifically whether it violates
the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which allows the government to surveil cross-border
communications between Americans and foreign nationals without a warrant. Toward
the end of the article, an unnamed "senior intelligence official,"—all of
Savage's sources for the leak are anonymous—assures us that the program is
legal and does not result in "bulk collection" of Americans' private data.
Oddly, Savage doesn't mention any NSA programs by name, but
it's clear he's describing something close to PRISM, which allows NSA agents (and
private contractors) to monitor electronic communications between Americans and
foreigners. Even stranger, Savage doesn't mention XKeyscore, the data-mining
NSA program revealed
last week by the Guardian's Glenn
Greenwald. XKeyscore goes far beyond anything Savage describes, and would seem
to contradict what the anonymous officials told him about NSA surveillance
being so legal and precise.
But what really stuck out was the sourcing. Although there
are some experts Savage quotes on the record from the ACLU and the Bush White
House, all sources relating to the initial leak—that is, the backbone of the
story—are anonymous. It reminded me of a
column Robert Fisk wrote a few years ago about mainstream coverage of the
Iraq War. Taking an LA Times profile of insurgency "mastermind"
Abu Musab Zarqawi as an example, Fisk describes a pattern he sees in the paper's
Here are the sources—on pages one and 10 for
the yarn spun by reporters Josh Meyer and Mark Mazzetti: "US officials said", "said one US Justice Department counter-terrorism
official", "Officials ... said", "those officials
said", "the officials confirmed", "American officials
complained", "the US officials stressed", "US authorities
believe", "said one senior US intelligence official", "US
officials said", "Jordanian officials ... said"—here, at least is
some light relief—"several US officials said", "the US
officials said", "American officials said", "officials
say", "say US officials", "US officials said",
"one US counter-terrorism official said".
Here are the sources—on pages one and 10 for
the yarn spun by reporters Josh Meyer and Mark Mazzetti: "US officials said", "said one US Justice Department counter-terrorism
official", "Officials ... said", "those officials
said", "the officials confirmed", "American officials
complained", "the US officials stressed", "US authorities
believe", "said one senior US intelligence official", "US
officials said", "Jordanian officials ... said"—here, at least is
some light relief—"several US officials said", "the US
officials said", "American officials said", "officials
say", "say US officials", "US officials said",
"one US counter-terrorism official said".
Of course, the LA Times is hardly
alone in this, says Fisk. Open the international section of any major U.S. paper and
you'll find the same thing: reporters relying almost exclusively on anonymous,
high-level government officials for tips, stories, quotes, and analysis. Leaks
like this, adds
State Department whistleblower Peter Van Buren, ensure that official messages,
perspectives, and stories get priority coverage. And the Obama administration
has this down to a science, from the bizarrely laudatory "kill
list" story in the Times to cyber-warfare
against Iran
to the details
of the bin Laden raid. This is exactly
how the Bush administration's fantasies about Iraqi WMDs became reported
fact, says Glenn Greenwald. "Reporters are trained that they will be selected as scoop-receivers only if
they demonstrate fealty to the agenda of official sources," he adds. "It
converts journalists into dutiful messengers of official decrees."
Contrast all of that with the treatment the papers dished out to actual
whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Before contacting
WikiLeaks, Manning famously attempted
to get in touch with reporters at the Washington
Post and the New York Times.
Neither got back to him. In retrospect, that
may have been a good thing, says Kevin Gosztola at Firedoglake—the Times has
a history of checking with the White House before publishing top secret information,
as they later did with the State Department cables.
Three years later, when Edward Snowden approached Barton
Gellman at the Washington Post with his own groundbreaking leaks, he
faced similar barriers. In exchange for the leaks, Snowden had asked
Gellman for assurances that the paper would publish the full NSA PowerPoint
presentation describing PRISM within 72 hours. Instead, the Post consulted with government officials
who raised red flags about several of the 41 PRISM slides. When the story
appeared two weeks later, the number of slides was down to four.
The most startling thing about this episode is that all of
this information came directly from Gellman and the Washington Post. Gellman simply reports exactly what happened,
without comment. Like the New York Times,
the Post's policy on national
security leaks is apparently to check with senior officials before
publishing—that way anything unflattering or embarrassing can be deleted. It's
as if—and this is hardly an exaggeration—Bob Woodward had contacted officials
in the Nixon White House to approve the leaks he received from Deep Throat.
Ultimately of course, it didn't matter that the Times ignored Manning or how the Post edited the PRISM slides. Miraculously,
both leaks found their way to readers, sparking rigorous debates about national
security, privacy, and American imperialism. But that may not always be the
case. The more reporters and papers rely on government officials to provide and
approve their stories, the less we're all likely to know.
Image by Thomas
Roggero, licensed under Creative Commons.
Students in England bring feminism out of the history books and into the here and now.
Do you remember having a serious conversation about feminism
in high school? Neither do I. There were history lessons on the suffrage
movement, sure, and English reading lists included the occasional Ibsen
play. But if we did talk feminism or gender equality, the message was clear—feminism
was something you study. It was something that mattered to other (mostly dead)
people. Not something that had much to do with our lives now.
It's that silence that students at Altrincham
Grammar School outside Manchester, England,
wanted to break. Witnessing and experiencing sexist harassment and abuse on a
daily basis, the students decided their school could use a dose of equality.
So, back in March, they kicked off a campaign called We Need
Feminism in which female students photographed themselves holding homemade
signs, each beginning with "I need feminism because…" Inspired by a campaign begun last year at Duke University, the messages range from biting
social critiques ("…because people still ask what the victim was wearing") to
deeply personal statements ("…because my cousin shouldn't be 'on the shelf' at
24"). Taken together, they evoke a deeply chauvinistic social and institutional world that
millions of young women face on a daily basis.
The campaign was only latest for Altrincham's Feminist
Society (FemSoc), a student group cofounded by 17-year-old Jinan Younis after experiencing
particularly hurtful harassment on a school trip last year. "After returning from this school trip I
started to notice how much the girls at my school suffer because of the
pressures associated with our gender," she
writes in the Guardian. "Many of
the girls have eating disorders, some have had peers heavily pressure them into
sexual acts, others suffer in emotionally abusive relationships where they are
constantly told they are worthless."
FemSoc suffered abuse from peers and reluctance from school
administrators from the very beginning, but the opposition reached fever pitch
after the group's "We Need Feminism" posts appeared
on Facebook this past March. Almost immediately, Younis' male peers
unleashed a torrent of sexist and racist abuse, much of it on Twitter. "I was called a 'feminist bitch,' accused of
'feeding [girls] bullshit,'" Younis recounts. "The more girls started to voice
their opinions about gender issues, the more vitriolic the boys' abuse became."
But here's where it gets really messed up. Instead of confronting
the male students and using the incident to kick off a discussion about gender
issues, administrators at Altrincham simply told FemSoc to take down the site. This
left the girls isolated, says Younis, and more vulnerable than ever to abuse
that was somehow going unpunished. "It
is appalling that an institution responsible for preparing young women for
adult life has actively opposed our feminist work," she writes.
Thankfully, that
wasn't quite the end of the story. Hearing what had happened at Altrincham, a
group of students and teachers in London
started a Tumblr page in solidarity called Feminism Belongs in Schools.
Launched just last month, the page combines the personal and political in way akin
to FemSoc, but also has ties to the worldwide Who Needs Feminism? project that emerged last year. These
connections have helped lend the Altrincham story international attention.
The solidarity
campaign's worldwide scope underscores how big this problem is. American
schools, for instance, are no better. "High schools overwhelmingly
disregard the subject," writes
Anna Diamond for Ms. Magazine.
After a high point
in the 1970s, when public schools across the country began moving gender
equality into the curriculum, progress stalled. "When my mother attended public high school in Santa Monica in the 1970s… she was lucky enough
to take [a women's studies course] at her school," Diamond adds. "As a high
school senior in a similar public school in 2011, I have not had access to any
such classes, and women's contributions still don't get as much attention as
those of men."
Part of the problem is that topics like these are just not
priorities in American education. Even finding data on how many women's studies
courses exist in U.S.
high schools is a daunting task. The Department of Education has plenty of
numbers on the gender gap in math and science performance, but nothing on how
many female writers a 10th grader can expect to read in English lit,
or how many schools teach their students about intersectionality.* By and large
feminism is a similarly
low priority in British schools.
But that doesn't mean people like Jinan Younis and her
classmates are slowing down. With the We Need Feminism page still online (they
never actually took it down), and supporting actions in London and worldwide, FemSoc continues to bring
feminism into the 21st century—that is, into the here and now. "If you thought the fight for female equality
was over," Younis writes, "I'm sorry to tell you that a whole new round is only
just beginning."
*To be sure, there are
inspiring exceptions. Check out Ileana
Jimenez's experiences of teaching intersectional feminism in a New York high school for
an exciting alternative.
Image above: Activists
from Latin America, Europe, South Asia, and North America
express solidarity with Altrincham's Feminist Society (Feminism
Belongs in Schools Tumblr page).
Faced with widespread
union busting and a feckless NLRB, a more aggressive labor movement is brewing.
The National Labor Relations Board has a long history of
dysfunction, but its job just got a lot harder. In January, a federal appeals
court ruled that Obama had illegally appointed three of the board's members
while the Senate was in recess early last year. Now, recess appointments are a touchy
subject in Washington,
but Obama had good reason. Republicans in the Senate had threatened to block
any and all NLRB appointments, leaving the president with few options.
(Oddly, there's no law against deliberately obstructing a vital government
If the decision stands, the
board is toast. With only one remaining member, the NLRB lacks a quorum,
and legally loses all decision-making power. The bedrock of labor law
enforcement would grind to a halt. What's more, all decisions since the January
4 appointments last year could be nullified—that's hundreds of rulings on
everything from workers using social media, to who handles union dues on a
day-to-day basis.
This is bad news for organized labor, but not as bad as you
might think. While few doubt the board's importance in protecting things the
right to organize, the NLRB also has a long history of institutionalizing the
bureaucracy and hierarchy that have plagued American labor for decades. The
board was born during an era of historic labor militancy, and reforms that
established basic workplace protections also went hand in hand with bans on
more militant actions like sit-downs, sympathy strikes, and wildcats. In their
place, the board set up channels like union elections and regulated
negotiations. The new system was more predictable for everyone, but also more
top-down, less democratic, and arguably much less effective for labor.
So, alienated by the rigidity and hierarchy of the NLRB
system, many workers and organizers have begun learning to live without it,
preferring to engage in struggles on their own terms. Indeed, with or without a
functioning labor board, many of the movement's brightest flashpoints are operating
well outside the system.
One of the clearest of those flashpoints was certainly last
year's unprecedented organizing effort at Walmart, a grassroots campaign that
united unions, labor groups, and activists across the country. The push began
in September, when workers at a Walmart-controlled warehouse in Mira Loma, California, walked
off the job and began a "Walmarch" to Los
Angeles to demand safer working conditions. Earning
well below a living wage, the Mira Loma workers had suffered 120-degree heat,
inadequate ventilation, and broken equipment—conditions that lead more than 80 percent
to experience on-the-job injuries. They were also mostly part-time workers, and
often relied on a "buddy system" during slower workweeks.
The symbolism of the 50-mile march, inspired by the 1966
United Farm Workers march to Sacramento,
was striking. Like the UFW, the warehouse workers found themselves excluded
from the protection of the NLRB system—the UFW because the board explicitly
excludes agricultural workers, the warehouse workers because of Walmart's
notorious (not to mention illegal) union-busting. But also like the UFW, where
the warehouse workers lacked legal support, they found an outpouring of
community reinforcement. During some of the march's hottest days (with temps
climbing above 100 degrees), volunteers set up impromptu clinics to provide
health care to the mostly uninsured workers. A few days later, the warehouse
workers were joined by more than 100 California
farm workers as well as activists from Students
Against Sweatshops, who marched alongside them in solidarity. By October 5,
the marchers returned to work with a guarantee of better conditions.
That extraordinary victory soon galvanized Walmart workers
in other states to more militant action. Within a couple of days of the Mira
Loma strike, workers at a Walmart warehouse in Elwood, Illinois,
presented a petition for safer conditions, consistent schedules, and an end to
forced overtime. When supervisors began firing those who had signed, workers
walked out. On October 1, hundreds of community activists joined the striking
workers, where riot
police arrived and arrested 17 protesters for civil disobedience. But like the
workers in California,
the Elwood strikers quickly won victories on core demands. By October 15, increasingly
under the umbrella of the labor group OUR Walmart, actions had spread to a
dozen cities nationwide.
Such early success had a lot to do with strategy, writes
historian Staughton Lynd in December's Industrial
Worker. Although they relied on support from recognized unions like the
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), their grievances, demands, tactics, and
victories were entirely their own. At every step of the way, including the climactic
Black Friday actions throughout the country, Walmart workers operated decidedly
outside the NLRB system of petition and arbitration. Instead of channeling time
and energy into the tedious process of requesting recognition and electing representatives
to negotiate, workers in Mira Loma and Elwood decided collectively to organize
and take action themselves. This direct action approach had a big impact.
For one thing, it meant a much quicker process. Workers in Illinois and California
organized, went public, and won concrete victories within a matter of weeks—an
unheard of timeline for unions sticking with official channels. Eschewing
official recognition also meant sidestepping legal restrictions like no-strike
clauses and bans on civil disobedience, sympathy actions, and boycotts. In California, Illinois, and
across the country, much of the campaign would've been difficult under the NLRB
umbrella—from the "Walmarch" in California
to the civil disobedience in Elwood, not to mention the spontaneous way it all took
But most importantly, workers took the company by surprise. For
decades, Walmart has remained union-free by exposing and undermining union
campaigns in whatever way it could. A 2007 Human Rights Watch report found that
the company routinely
breaks US labor law to snuff out labor actions, from spying on workers, to
banning discussions of unions on company property, to firing those who join.
The report added that because labor law in the US is so toothless, Walmart's
illegal conduct usually results in little more than a "slap on the wrist."
And if workers can somehow make it over these barriers and
go public with their demands, retaliation can be swift. When organizing workers
at a Quebec Walmart went public in 2005, the company pulled
up roots and left. When a handful of Walmart meat-cutters in Jacksonville voted to
join the UFCW in 2000, Walmart announced it was terminating
meat-cutting operations in 700 stores. And like many big-box companies,
Walmart's managers have long been
trained to put a stop to organizing efforts before they get off the ground.
One "Manager's Toolbox" from 1997 urges supervisors to be "constantly
alert for efforts by a union to organize your associates." It also gives instructions
on curbing unionization at every step of the process, from initial organizing
to petitions to elections and bargaining. The handbook even provides a "Union
Hotline" to alert upper management at the first sign of trouble. Bottom line: Walmart
knows the NLRB process very well, and how to subvert it.
Which is what made last fall so exciting. If workers in Mira
Loma had circulated a petition, signed cards, or went public with demands,
management would've been all over it. But there's nothing in the "Manager's
Toolbox" about a Walmarch. This is what gives unofficial actions their power:
instead of working through a process stacked against them, workers in Mira
Loma, Elwood, and across the country took up the fight on their own terms. In
so doing, Staughton Lynd argues, Walmart workers revived the tactics and
strategy of the labor movement's zenith—the heady decades before the NLRB put a
lid on labor militancy in during the Depression.
But as groundbreaking as these victories have been, they've
not been alone. Workers in Mina Loma and Elwood are part of a growing trend in
organized labor, one that relies more and more on decentralized, grassroots
action outside the NLRB system—what the American
Prospect's Josh Eidelson calls "alt-labor." It's a method
more radical unions like the Industrial Workers of the World have been pushing
for a long time, and lately, it's been catching on. Especially in big cities
like New York,
workers in traditionally unorganized sectors have started to organize in a
different kind of way, and it's led to more than a few concrete victories. From
broad-based movements like Coalition to
Immokalee Workers to local restaurants like Hot and
Crusty, workers, particularly in food service, are winning critical
victories by taking a more militant and creative approach to demanding their
One of the most interesting approaches has been that of the Restaurant Opportunities
Center, a radical labor group based in
New York City. Like
OUR Walmart, the ROC is not a formal union and has no desire to become one. Their
strategy is a familiar one: direct action, unofficial strikes, and building
community support for campaigns. Not only that, with a cadre of lawyers and
worker advocates, the ROC helps educate workers on their rights, and when
necessary, provides legal support against the industry's worst offenders. It's
also adept at publicizing ongoing struggles. When food service workers win a
victory on, say, overtime violations, like they did at Mario Batali's Del Posto
restaurant in Manhattan
in 2012, the ROC labels them a "high road" establishment. To date, the ROC has
won more than a dozen settlements against employers in New York City, along with millions of dollars
in workers' back-pay.
The ROC has been active in the New York area for more than a decade, but
last year, they were joined by Fast Food Forward, a coalition of community
groups and unions including the SEIU. Unlike OUR Walmart and the ROC, Fast Food
Forward would eventually like to see their workers gain NLRB protection. But
instead of petitioning for recognition and then entering into negotiations with
employers, the group decided to take action in a more direct way. Less than a
week after Black Friday, the group organized a mass walkout in New York to demand
higher wages and greater labor protection. Workers pulled off the largest
strike in fast food history before anyone even signed a union card.
Now, at first glance, the fast food strike doesn't make a
lot of sense. Historically, big unions like the SEIU have not been fans of acting
outside the NRLB system. Even during the Depression, when wildcat actions and unofficial
strikes broke out in hundreds of cities nationwide and labor's power was at its
height, large, established unions like the AFL and CIO urged moderation. The
difference today, argues Labor Notes
reporter Jenny Brown, is that the moderate strategy hasn't
worked. If labor was at its militant height in the 1930s, today it's at an
historic low. Faced with employers like Walmart that regularly violate the law to
impede organization, and an NLRB system that offers few prospects for victory, some
labor leaders have started to rethink and retool. The result has been a labor
movement that is more grassroots, more democratic, and more about action.
And it seems to be working. The last few years have seen a
wave of unprecedented achievements, often in industries long thought impossible
to organize. Numbers are still small, but activists and strikers in New York, Mira Loma, and
across the country have shown an energy and creativity that's been hard to
ignore. Whether supported by established unions or not, this new militant wing
of organized labor has in many ways brought the movement back to its roots—rank
and file workers, organizing themselves democratically to fight for their
rights in direct and meaningful ways. If the campaigns spearheaded by OUR
Walmart and the ROC can continue this trajectory, it will have much more to do
with their unique vision and spirit than whatever ends up happening at the
Above image, of a Fast Food Forward/Occupy/RiseUpNY day of action in July 2012, by Katie
Moore. Used with permission.
The humanitarian crisis in
Palestine is
not something you hear much about these days. It didn't come up in the presidential
policy debate on Monday, though of course Obama and Romney spent a long
time talking about Netanyahu's "red line" with Iran. G8 nations were similarly
silent on Palestine during the group's
conference back in May, although Israel's
ongoing blockade of Gaza
was a major
G8 talking point just two years ago, as was the peace
process a year later.
When we do see Palestine in the news, it's
mostly about why and how the two-state solution is dead—a theme that's been
driven home repeatedly over the last year by the likes of Jimmy
Carter, Atlantic senior editor Robert
Wright, and Haaretz journalist Gideon
Levy. Not that there's much reason to believe otherwise. In fact, the
crisis there only seems to be getting worse.
For one thing, Jews are
now a minority in Israel and
the Occupied Territories, raising serious questions about
minority rule and apartheid. Last week, Israel
officially declared that of the 12 million people living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean,
Israeli Jews represent about 5.9 million (a fact Israeli demography expert
Sergio Della Pergola had already
pointed out in 2010). "Apartheid
is here," says Haaretz columnist
Akiva Eldar. "The Jewish majority is history."
And apartheid is not
a subjective term, says UC Irvine professor Mark LeVine at Al-Jazeera. Since its formal
implementation in 1948 in South
Africa, a series of international treaties like
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination of 1966 and the 2002 Rome Statute have defined apartheid
in no uncertain terms. Despite cosmetic differences in how it's implemented, Israel's policies toward Palestine
fit the international definition—as Rome
calls it, an "institutionalised
regime of systematic oppression and domination"—to a bill, says LeVine. Arabs in Israel may have some basic political rights like voting and holding office, he says, but it's hard to ignore the widespread economic discrimination they face, "as well as in access to land and most components of social citizenship
(education, healthcare, language and access to upper echelons of political
life)." Not to mention the entangling maze of checkpoints, settlements, and walls dotting and dominating Palestinian territory.
Of course, the charge has been raised
before, most famously by Jimmy Carter in 2006. A year later, John Dugard, a South African international law professor and UN human
rights envoy to the Occupied
Territories, echoed the same concern. "It
is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel's laws and practices violate
the 1966 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination,"
he wrote at the time. And late last year, Dugard reiterated his
point, writing in Al-Jazeera that,
"Most South Africans who visit the West Bank are struck by the similarities
between apartheid and Israel's
practices there."
But whatever we choose to call it, human
rights abuses in Palestine
are only escalating, whether our political leaders discuss it or not. Last
week, Israel released its "red lines" document,
which spells out some of the tactical specifics of the Gaza blockade, and their intended impact on
Palestinians living there. (The revelation was almost totally ignored in the U.S. media.) The
idea, reports Amira Hass in Haaretz,
was to allow Gazans access to only the minimum
number of calories each day to avoid outright starvation. Despite the fact
that the blockaded Gaza is almost entirely
dependent on outside resources, Israeli government attorneys defended such "economic
warfare" as entirely within Israel's
rights, while also attempting to prevent the document's disclosure.
So what's the minimum number? 2,279 calories
each day for each person, or 131 truckloads entering Gaza, says Hass. (To put that in perspective, the average American has access to about 3,800 calories each day.) But, says Hass, UN data show the
actual number entering the territory has been far less. And Israeli prohibitions
on seeds and agricultural technology served to make food insecurity even more
of a serious problem for Gaza's
1.7 million residents.
Though the specific policies outlined
in the "red lines" document officially ended in 2010, the blockade continues to
enforce a real and growing hunger crisis in Gaza. A report by the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency, released in August of this year, finds that in a territory where
a majority are under 18, three
out of five families face, or are at risk of facing, food insecurity. The report
went on: With unemployment now nearing 30 percent, and Palestinians there
already facing a severe shortage of schools and medical care, Gaza's future looks grim unless serious
changes can be made. By 2020, it concluded, by which time Gaza will grow by half a million residents, the
territory may be completely uninhabitable, unless serious steps are taken to
reverse the humanitarian crisis.
This is a bleak portrait, but a more
humane future for Palestine
is certainly possible. The work the Middle
East Children's Alliance has been doing for 25 years gives us an inspiring
vision of what that humane future could look like, as do the flotilla movement's ongoing efforts to break the Gaza siege. If a two-state solution is
indeed finished, writes Gideon Levy, the real fight is for human rights. And
that fight has much to do with us: because crimes like the blockade are so
dependent on U.S.
aid and support, Americans have enormous influence on the future of the crisis.
Human rights in Palestine
may not be a campaign issue this year, but neither was South African apartheid
in 1984. It was only through popular struggle—here and in South Africa—that
more humane alternatives became politically possible.
Image by Paolo Cuttitta, licensed under Creative Commons.
One of the ironies of
American political culture is that in such an overwhelmingly urban and increasingly nonwhite society, issues of poverty, segregation, and race rarely figure
into presidential races in a meaningful way. Listening to campaign rhetoric,
it's hard to find evidence that America
is becoming poorer, more divided, and less integrated than it was a generation
This was especially true
of Tuesday's town
hall debate. Despite pointed questions about issues like crime and economic
growth, both candidates chose not to connect them with the persistent poverty
and racial division that increasingly define American cities. Instead, Obama
got into a lengthy joust with Romney over who supported natural gas drilling
more (and coal and fracking). Meanwhile, America's racial and class makeup
continues to change in profound ways.
For one thing, we're
becoming a more segregated society. A recent report by the Pew Research Center finds that income
segregation in American cities has increased dramatically since 1980,
especially in places like New York and Philadelphia. While
middle-income neighborhoods have shrunk over the past 30 years, low-income and
high-income areas are more concentrated than they have been in decades—problems
only intensified by the recession. Racial segregation is no less prominent. On
average, U.S.
cities are more
racially segregated now than they were in 1940, says the Economic Policy Institute.
Divisions like these are
deeply felt in our public schools. A recent study by UCLA's Civil Rights Project finds that race
and income segregation have been rising quickly in American schools,
especially since 1991. Today, most students of color attend schools that are
overwhelmingly low-income and nonwhite, and one in seven attend what are called
apartheid schools, where whites make up less than 2 percent of the student
body. In some areas, like the Western U.S., a
full 43 percent of Latino student attend such hyper-segregated schools.
And while the Obama
administration has touted its support for underprivileged and underachieving
schools and students, they haven't seen much success. In particular, Obama's
support for charter schools, the UCLA report finds, has undermined modest
desegregation efforts, as charters remain by far the most segregated branch of
public schools. What's more, issues like these don't make it very far in the presidential
race. "Though
segregation is powerfully related to many dimensions of unequal education," the
report concludes, "neither candidate has discussed it in the current
presidential race."
That issues of urban
segregation and unequal education are so absent from this year's election cycle
is more than a little
ironic, says Richard Rothstein at the American
Prospect. When racial segregation became a visible political issue in the
late 1960s, even Republican leaders became active in fighting it. One
Republican in particular, George Romney, the head of the Department of Housing
and Urban Development under Nixon, supported a broad-based policy of
residential integration—of the kind unthinkable today.
Not content with
approaches like busing that attacked school segregation at the student level,
Romney saw integration as an expansive, holistic public issue, says Rothstein. A
student's success in the classroom, he believed, had as much to do with their
access to health care, their parents' employment situation, and the safety of
their neighborhood as it did with the racial makeup of their class. Following
advice from 1968's Kerner
Commission (which President Johnson flatly ignored), Romney's plan was to invest heavily in low-income and
subsidized housing mostly in white suburbs, and to force suburbanites to
reverse racist zoning practices. But the plan, despite having (conservative)
supporters in high places, did not see the light of day. Nixon, whose ideas on
school and residential integration might today be considered liberal, believed
that forcing communities to integrate was the wrong approach. As a result, the
principled Romney, who as a presidential candidate had strongly spoken out against
segregation in the tumultuous year of 1968, chose to resign.
Needless to say, Mitt
hasn't followed in his father's footsteps—but then, Obama hasn't made much
noise on poverty or race either. In the first three debates this year, the GOP
team has actually mentioned poverty far more
than the Dems, says Seth Freed Wessler at Colorlines.
At the same time, Obama has spoken "less
about race than any other Democratic president since 1961," writes Ta-Nehisi
Coates in The Atlantic.
That's a shame, because
problems of inequality and segregation won't go away without dialogue and serious
action. An Obama presidency may be somewhat
better overall than a Romney presidency in terms of race and poverty, but that
assumes structural solutions are impossible. To really tackle segregation and
inequality, we need a holistic approach—like the kind that might have worked in
Image of Milwaukee's
racial makeup from 2000
U.S. Census (public domain). Milwaukee is famously the most
segregated city in the United
States; blue dots represent black residents.
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There were 71 bookings at the San Joaquin County Jail in the 24 hours ending at 8 a.m. Saturday. At that time, there were 1,448 people held at the jail, which has an official capacity of 1,411. When the jail is full, some inmates might be released early.
Assault with a deadly weapon: Patrick Johnston, 31, was arrested after allegedly threatening a nurse with a knife before throwing it at her. He also allegedly assaulted an employee and made threats during the incident at 8:15 a.m. Saturday at St. Joseph's Medical Center, 2510 N. California St.
Explosives arrest: Two 15-year-olds were arrested for detonating a pipe bomb on a sidewalk on 5:21 p.m. Friday at Brookview Drive and Pine Lake Circle.
The Stockton Fire Department responded to 104 calls for service in the 24 hours ending at 8 a.m. Saturday, including four vehicle accidents, 88 medical calls, two structure fires, one grass fire, two hazardous-material calls and five miscellaneous calls.
Location, ST | website.com


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United States Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
Forage and Livestock Production Unit
1a.Objectives (from AD-416):
Evaluate and make selections across approximately 100 festuca interspecific hybrids at Kansas State University, Southeast Agriculture Research Center, Parsons, KS.
1b.Approach (from AD-416):
Interspecific hybrids developed at ARS in EL Reno, OK, will be transplanted in a spaced planting nursery near Mound Valley, KS, that is operated by the Southeast Kansas Agricultural Research Center, Parsons, KS. Hybrids will be evaluated for tolerance to local diseases, local environmental stress components, vigor, appearance, and crude protein content. Following 1-2 years of selection, exceptional surviving individuals will be intercrossed and seed bulked for 3-4 years of performance testing.
3.Progress Report:


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UPDATE: "The Flash" Hasn't Cast Savitar, Says Berlanti
TV, Comic Books
Showing results 72-111 of 163
Brian Michael Bendis continues his GIANT-SIZE X-POSITION, answering fan questions about his take on the original five X-Men catapulted to the present in "All-New X-Men" and teasing their future.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics, CBR presents an unlettered advance preview of "All-New X-Men" #9 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen. Mystique makes her big move March 20.
Marvel has released a preview of Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez's "All-New X-Men" #8, which features the first meeting of the original five X-Men and the mighty Avengers. The issue hits stores March 6.
This week, Jean Grey strolls down memory lane, Terry McGinnis faces one of 10,000 clowns, Josephine goes on the run, magenta rules "The Manhattan Projects" and John Ka enjoys the sunrise.
Kelly Thompson gives "All-New X-Men" #5 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen 4.5 stars, saying Bendis "writes with a confidence that announces he knows exactly where he wants the series to go."
Doug Zawisza gives "All-New X-Men" #4 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen 4 stars, saying Immonen is "at the top of his game … and brings out the best in his visual collaborators."
Scott Summers meets Scott Summers in next week's "All-New X-Men" #5 as Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen pit Cyclops Vs Cyclops on December 19!
Kelly Thompson gives "All-New X-Men" #2 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen 4.5 stars, calling Bendis' handle on the characters "a remarkably innocent, undamaged, naïve and optimistic mix that's just good reading."
Marvel has released a preview of Stuart Immonen's interior pages of "All-New X-Men" #5 written by Brian Michael Bendis. The escapades of the original five X-Men in the present continue January 2.
Greg McElhatton takes a look at Brian Bendis and Stuart Immonen's launch issue of "All-New X-Men," calling the Marvel NOW! debut "an extension of the last year or so of the various 'X-Men' titles."
Writer Brian Michael Bendis and editor Nick Lowe expound on upcoming Marvel NOW! series "All-New X-Men" in a special press conference call that explored the past and future of Marvel's merry mutants.
In "All-New X-Men," Brian Bendis introduces the new reality for the mutants of the Marvel Universe in the wake of "Avengers Vs. X-Men." We spoke with him about his plans for the time-traveling first-gen X-Men.
Brett White lays down his laws for those attending New York Comic Con this weekend, though they're pretty much applicable for any convention from now through infinity.
In an exclusive script excerpt and page from "All-New X-Men" #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen, the modern X-Men reflect on the post-AvX world and Cyclops' recent activities.
Cyclops casts an optic blast and takes on himself in Stuart Immonen's covers for "All-New X-Men" #3 and #4 written by Brian Michael Bendis. The past and present X-Men continue their collision course in December.
Marvel Comics has released the first glimpse at Stuart Immonen's interior pages for "All-New X-Men" #1 written by Brian Michael Bendis as part of the publisher's upcoming Marvel NOW! initiative.
James Hunt gives "Avenging Spider-Man" #7 4.5 stars calling the issue by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen "an oasis of understated brilliance and gives you exactly what you want to read."
James Hunt gives "AVX: VS" #1 5 stars saying of the issue, "the real joy is seeing the characters deploy their powers in interesting ways on an unusual stage, without any interruptions."
Marvel Comics has provided CBR with an exclusive preview of the first three pages from both "AvX: Versus" #1 stories in their final, lettered form featuring Iron Man and the Thing throwing down with Magneto and Namor!
Marvel has revealed Stuart Immonen's variant cover for "AVX VS" #1 modeled after a boxing marquee poster featuring the conflicts of Iron Man vs. Magneto and Thing vs. Namor. The battles begin April 25.
Marvel has released a first look at "AVX: VS" #1 written by Jason Aaron and Kathryn Immonen with art by Adam Kubert and Stuart Immonen. Magneto and Iron Man battle it out on land, while Namor and Thing take to the seas April 25.
The writer whose passion for digital comics has been well known brings his tablet-first findings to Marvel as Mark Waid explains how his Nova "AvX" tie-in story for Marvel Infinite Comics is just a first step.
Chad Nevett gives Warren Ellis's final issue of "Secret Avengers" 4 stars, saying Stuart Immonen's art is "fantastic" and "it's a shame to see this run end."
Courtesy of Marvel Comics, CBR presents an exclusive preview of Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen's "Secret Avengers" #21. The assault on O.N.E. continues January 11.
Marvel has released a new variant cover for "Defenders" #1, illustrated by Matt Fraction's "Fear Itself" collaborator Stuart Immonen. Fraction and Terry Dodson's super team title debuts in December
Marvel has provided CBR with an exclusive preview of "Fear Itself" #7, the final chapter in Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen's epic storyline.
Marvel has released Stuart Immonen's variant cover for "Fear Itself" #7 along with a 2-page spread by Immonen showing the Mighty heading into action against the Chosen.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics, CBR presents an exclusive first look at "Fear Itself" #6. The penultimate issue of Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen's event series hits stores September 14.
Marvel has released an advance look at "Feat Itself" #6, the penultimate issue of Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen's Marvel Universe-spanning event series. The issue hits stores on September 14.
Doug Zawisza gives Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen's "Fear Itself" #5 3.5 stars, calling the latest installment of Marvel's event series a "wildly fun, explosively entertaining story."
Marvel has released a pair of potentially spoiler-filled teasers for September's "Fear Itself" ##6, the penultimate issue of Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen's Marvel Universe-changing event series.
Courtesy of Marvel, CBR presents an exclusive preview of "Fear Itself" #5 by Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen. Thor faces off against the Worthy-possessed Hulk and Thing on August 10!
Marvel has provided CBR News with an exclusive first look at "Fear Itself" and "New Avengers" artist Stuart Immonen's Marvel Architects variant covers, hitting stores in September.
Marvel has released an advance look at "Fear Itself" #5 featuring Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen's throwdown between Thor and team of the Worthy-possessed Hulk and Thing!
Marvel has released a mysterious "Hero for Hire" themed teaser image with hints of new Iron Fist developments spinning out of the "Fear Itself" summer mega-event
Marvel releases its second teaser of the day with a veiled introduction of The Mighty, as "Fear Itself" rolls on and the heroes of the Marvel Universe power up to face down the Serpent's chosen warriors.
It was a big week for comic book releases, and CBR reviewer Doug Zawisza weighs in with his thoughts on "Fear Itself" #4 and "Flashpoint" #3!
Marvel Comics has released a new pair of teasers for "Fear Itself" #5 promising one of the biggest throwdowns the Marvel Universe has ever seen as Hulk, Thing and Thor collide!
Archives: All | Comic Books | TV/Film | Video Games | Web Comics


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GYPSUM - It was a walk-off.
It wasn't Game 7 of the World Series nor did it cap a a dramatic comeback. But give the kid a break, it's not every day you finish a game by going yard.
Eagle Valley's Travis Edgar threw six innings of two-run ball and iced matters with a solo shot to center as the Devils downed Battle Mountain, 12-2, Tuesday afternoon in Gypsum.
"That was fun. It felt good," Edgar said. "I hit it and looked up and said, 'Please go out.'"
And that helped the Devils (1-3) snap a three-skid to start the season from last weekend's season-opening tournament at Montrose.
"It was great to see them bounce back," Eagle Valley manager Jesse Meryhew said. "As far as last weekend down there, I wasn't too upset. We had five sophomores seeing varsity for the first time. They played well. Montrose and Durango are tough."
Huskies starter Abakar Souleme struggled with his control early, and the Devils capitalized. Eagle Valley's Harrison Stevens rapped a two-run single in the first and the Devils picked up two more runs on wild pitches. Eagle Valley put up another four-spot in the second, with RBIs coming from Wade Ticer and Stevens.
"I think it's a work in progress," Huskies manager Jose Meza said of Souleme. "When he works down, good things happen. He's learning."
Meanwhile, Edgar looked sharp on the mound. He fanned eight Battle Mountain batters and walked just three. His only blemish was a two-run double from the Huskies' Heivan Garcia.
"Travis threw a gem," Meryhew said. "He's a good athlete and a good competitor. We know we're going to get his best every time he goes out there."
Eagle Valley added two more in the top of the fifth, including a sacrifice fly courtesy of Sam Boyd. Edgar ended it with his booming shot to center.
The Devils are at Paonia Thursday. Meanwhile, the Huskies (0-4) are scheduled to host Glenwood for a twinbill Saturday, but the weather could well change those plans.
In the meantime, Meza remains optimistic about his club.
"When Abakar was throwing strikes, our defense was making some plays," Meza said. "That's something we're getting better at. We're not throwing the ball around too bad. I think our pitchers are learning if they throw strikes, we've got some guys who can make plays."
Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 970-748-2934 or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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The second Jersey Shore spin-off, Snooki & JWoww is set to premiere Thursday, June 21 on MTV. It doesn't look as miserable as The Pauly D Project, so that deserves at least a faint, "Yeah, buddy!" But you know, fuck these people and the dead horse they rode in on. I'd recommend sending them to another planet to save us all time, but Jersey City seems like an adequate alternative.
Get More: Jersey Shore (Season 5), Full Episodes


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When Steuart Bremner created his first public art piece, the Moving Rock Field outside the Frisco library, he wanted to evoke emotion out of non-human forms.
In high school, pop art influenced him, but when he moved to Colorado in the early 1970s (and earned a fine arts degree at the University of Colorado), nature became such a strong influence in his art, it actually became his medium.
From 1994 to 2007, he competed five or six times in the International Snow Sculpting Championships as part of Team Breckenridge and also carved ice in international competitions. Now he regularly goes outside and arranges snow, stones or sticks, building structures just to watch them morph or melt.
"What drives me is just the excitement of the little relationships between things - either little shapes or their juxtapositions," he said, adding that light and shadow also play into the surprise of the pieces for him.
His public workshop will revolve around nature artwork. He plans on leaving the exact projects to the group: They'll decide if they want to make individual pieces, a group piece or both, and what medium they'll use.
Bremner lived in Summit County from 1985 to 2007, and owned Breckenridge Goldsmith Gallery. He and his wife moved to Denver to experience "city life," where they bike downtown, and where "a branch of a tree becomes even more special because there's not as many of them," he said.
He's using his time at the Tin Shop to Nordic ski and see friends, as well as produce large 6x4-foot pencil drawings of sticks, rocks and other natural arrangements.
"Steuart is a minimalist who can take the line and transcend space, both in his drawings and with sculpture," said Arts District coordinator Jenn Cram. "He is thoughtful and spontaneous, and that allows for the perfect recipe for cooking up environmental installations."


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BEAVER CREEK - As the Vilar Performing Arts Center (VPAC) prepares for the summer season, the venue has announced more performances to add to the growing 2013 summer lineup. Soft rock singer/songwriter Kenny Loggins, country duo Montgomery Gentry and comedian Brian Regan will all be taking the stage this summer at the Vilar Center.
Loggins, a multi-platinum recording artist and legendary Grammy-winner, will be performing at the Vilar Center on July 20, with tickets on sale and available now. Loggins has been a major force in the music industry with a consistent string of hits in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. He was a part of the '70s mega-duo Loggins and Messina and is also responsible for some of the most memorable songs of all time including massive movie hits "I Believe in Love," "Footloose," and "Danger Zone." Tickets are $125 or $155 depending on seats.
In addition, country duo Montgomery Gentry will make a stop in Beaver Creek Aug. 1. Tickets to their performance will be on sale starting Monday at 11 a.m. With a new album, a new label and a renewed sense of musical purpose, Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry are poised to stake their claim as one of country music's all-time greatest duos. With 14 Top 10 singles, including five No. 1 hits: "Something To Be Proud Of," "If You Ever Stop Loving Me," Lucky Man," "Back When I Knew It All" and "Roll With Me." Tickets are $120 or $150 based on seating.
Adding to the all-star lineup is comedian Brian Regan who will perform on Aug. 11. Distinguishing himself as one of the premier comedians in the country, Regan's non-stop theater tour has taken him to more than 80 cities each year since 2005. The quality of his material, relatable to a wide audience and revered by his peers, continues to grow Regan's fan base and fill theaters nationwide. Tickets to Brian Regan are on sale now for $60.
"We are thrilled to announce the start of a very strong summer schedule," said Kris Sabel, executive director of the Vilar Performing Arts Center. "The Vilar Center has always offered a diverse summer lineup and this year will be no different - there will be something wonderful for everyone to enjoy."
Tickets are available online at vilarpac.org, by phone at 970-845-TIXS or in person at the VPAC Box Office in Beaver Creek.


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- Oct 4:
- By the numbers: ALDS Game 1, Oakland A's vs. Detroit Tigers
- Oct 4:
- Yoenis Cespedes lone bright spot in Oakland A's loss
- Kawakami: Detroit Tigers' fast start silences Oakland A's, big crowd
- Oakland A's lose Game 1 of ALDS, 3-2 to Detroit Tigers
- Antsy A's and their fans ready to get loud
- ALDS notebook: Oakland's Coco Crisp says the A's need to have short memories after Game 1 loss to Detroit Tigers
- ALDS: Oakland A's fans keep faith, underdog status while rocking Coliseum for Game 1
- Justin Verlander might be peaking at the right time
- Dennis Eckersley says A's need to win Game 1 vs. Tigers
- A's Game 2 starter Sonny Gray hopes to keep up with Pittsburgh's Gerrit Cole
- Oakland A's not planning to play little ball against Tigers
- A's-Tigers game times for Games 3-5 of ALDS
OAKLAND -- The tendency is to think of the A's as having a three-man bullpen in closer Grant Balfour, right-handed setup man Ryan Cook and left-hander Sean Doolittle.
Lefty Jerry Blevins has to be added into the equation, though, to add balances, and if you're talking to A's manager Bob Melvin, you're remiss if you don't include right-hander Dan Otero.
He was called up by Oakland to be a long man in June, but he's forced a reworking of his job description by pitching lights-out for over three months now.
Otero ended the season having allowed four runs (three earned) in 351/3 innings from June 25 on, good for an ERA of 0.76. For the season he was 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA.
"I include Otero in that group," Melvin said. "He's put himself in that group. With him we have the ability to make the game even shorter. He's good to come in with guys on base with that sinker he has."
Otero said he hasn't spent too much time reflecting on his rise from minor league closer to a member of one of the best bullpens in the game. It has been quite a rise. In 2009 he missed the season while recovering from Tommy John-style ligament replacement surgery. And as recently as the final five days of spring training he was going to be released by the Mets before the A's claimed him on waivers.
"To have the manager include me like that is an honor," Otero said. "I want to thank Oakland for the opportunity. I'm happy for us to be where we want, and I'm living in the moment."
The moment has been made possible by Otero's single-minded focus on his job.
"The most important pitch isn't the one I just made, it's the next one I have to make," he said. "The most important game isn't the one we just played, even if we won. It's the next game."


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Seventeen cadets graduated from the Junior Police Academy in Camdenton on Friday. After one week of training, classes, guest speakers and interactive activities, the students gained enough knowledge to stand proud and earn a medal.
Lieutenant Jeff Beauchamp said that the purpose of the program is "to give students a clear understanding of the Police Department and emergency services."
Camdenton Police Department along with many other community sponsors made the week happen.
"This week would not have been possible without the help of the community," Beauchamp said. "We are fortunate to have the help from the community that we have."
Student Resource officer, Chris Williams, addressed the crowd. '
"The kids really got it this week," he told the graduation attendees.
Before the ceremony began, students were asked to evaluate a mock crime scene.
"They very quickly gathered the evidence and were right on track," Williams said.
Before concluding the ceremony, Beauchamp challenged the students to continue learning about the areas of emergency services that interest them. He also asked them to find a way to help keep their school safe, speak up to friends about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, explore how to get involved in their community and if their friends have questions for law enforcement, help them get the answers they need.
2013 marks the fourth year of the Jr. Police Academy in Camdenton.
Cole Bennett
Thomas Bradford
Kylee Cahow
Evan Crowson
Clayton Hoy
Brandon McNerney
Hannah Moore
Jacob Morgan
Casey-Simone Puckett
Johnathan Randazzo
Patrick Randazzo Jr.
Cole Randsbury
Caleb Redman
Maxwell Spurgeon
Kailyn Stradt
Clayton Tungate
Jacob Ziegler
Academy Assistants:
Hannah Robinson
Cole Serrage
Riley Stidham
Location, ST | website.com


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ok just figured this out this is so cool. how come when i have the maximum bandwidth set to default in advanced network settings my mkv's are choppy. when i take it down to 15/mbs it works perfect. also this is on wireless.
Return to General Help and Support
Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 4 guests


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td3 wrote: "Was it necessary for an otherwise decent thread to get hijacked by TDIII/DjDee bitching? " - Shane
i dunno, that kinda looks like he was saying that I was bitching
BiPolar Barer wrote: If I were Matthew Scott (the patient) my subliminal would be fuckin with me at the night time. I would manifest the killer in my dreams and he would tell me all kinds of sick shit to do or say he wanted his hand back and he was coming from the dead to get it.


text:
Everything worked well when i started to use this but suddenly i have this problem: when i try to play music (mp3) it takes long time to start and then it plays for a while then break and then plays again. With videos i had only black screen for ages. Maybe someone can help me to fix this. Thanx
When whatcing videos buffer is on use but picture goes like really slow slide show and when playing music buffer shows empty.
Funniest thing is that i had done nothing else but updated my graphigs cards firmware and maybe ps3 firmware.
It seems something is too slow but what is it? I have cabel connection via A-Link, Windows Vista 32.
Please someone i was so happy when it worked well. I'm not genius with computers but with good tips i maybe can fix it...


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I-75 crash in Manatee kills at least one
Published: Monday, March 4, 2013 at 5:52 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, March 4, 2013 at 5:52 a.m.
An early-morning crash on Interstate 75 in northern Manatee County has killed at least one person, authorities said.
The name of the victim or victims has not been released yet, as the Florida Highway Patrol investigates, and few details are available.
Troopers reported the incident occurred around 4 a.m. near the U.S. 301 interchange, in the southbound lanes of the highway. All traffic lanes remained open.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Check back for details on this developing story.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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Autism in the News – Friday, 06.25.10
A boy and his dog: After being kept out of Columbia school, Carter and Corbin are thriving in Fairview (Fairview Heights, Ill.)
There have been no outbreaks of allergic reactions, no wild, uncontrollable children disturbed by a dog at school and no issues with the dog going to the bathroom in the school hallways. Read more.
Autism law a personal victory for L'Italien (Andover, Mass.)
Rudy Hall was reading at a level several grades higher than his public elementary school classmates but struggling to adjust socially. By the second grade, his parents made the difficult decision to send him to a private school. Read more.
FDA warns maker of product used as alternative autism treatment (Chicago Tribune)
A product promoted to parents of children with autism is not a harmless dietary supplement, as claimed, but a toxic unapproved drug that lacks adequate warnings about potential side effects, including hair loss and abnormalities of the pancreas, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned in a letter to its maker. Read more.
Business community receptive to autism center fundraising effort (Naperville, Ill.)
For Kim and Randy Wolf, founders of the Turning Pointe Autism Foundation, battling autism is more than just a way to give back to the community. It's personal. Read more.


text: Stellino Productions is a multimedia marketing and production company. We specialize in creating strategies that use a unique mix of media platforms to deliver your brand message. Our inimitable style of storytelling is designed to make your products' message relevant, compelling and appealing to both your end users and your retailers.