text:
Oh, Rickey, He's So Fine
The only disappointing thing about Rickey Henderson being admitted to the Hall of Fame is the fact he'll be going in alongside long-time Red Sox fan favorite Jim Rice. Don't get me wrong, dear readers. I have absolutely nothing against Jim Rice, as a person or as a player; in fact, I would even say he deserves to be included in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.
Thing is: I feel sorry for him and the subsequent upstaging he'll be forced to endure come July. I mean, Rickey Henderson is the "greatest of all-time".
Okay, well, maybe he meant he was the greatest base-stealer of all-time. In any case, I think we all know how much swagger Henderson brings to any field, locker room, podium. The man has always been the cynosure of self-confidence, the quintessential self-promoter, the Barack Obama of baseball perhaps.
And that's why I'm already salivating at the unscripted heroics of his forthcoming acceptance speech this summer.
Verily, I think we all have our favorite Rickey Henderson story. Whether it's his persistent third person self-references, sliding into home plate after hitting a homerun or his penchant for talking to himself in the most supportive of ways like "Don't worry, Rickey. You're still the best", I think we can all agree that his undying, unwavering, unparalleled belief in all-things Rickey Henderson made him the greatest lead-off hitter of all-time and an icon for baseball fans like myself.
I, too, have had the luxury of owning personal Rickey Henderson memories — memories that I will always hold dear to my heart. Henderson's career started the same year my life did and I can't ever remember not being mesmerized by his speed, his bat, his patience at the plate. For someone so fast, I never could get over how many pitches he was able to take in order to wear a pitcher down early. And though I had no affiliation to the teams with which Henderson played, I remember coveting his baseball cards and having the sudden need to check box scores of A's (and later Yankees) games to see how many bases he'd stolen, how many homeruns he'd hit.
So when I finally had the chance to see Rickey Henderson play in person during the 2003 season while living in Los Angeles, I told my buddy before the home half of the first: "Wouldn't it be something if Rickey led off with a homerun?"
And by golly he did it.
Watching him jog around the bases brought an indescribable chill up my spine and a few man-tears to my eye.
I said a few. Gimme a break. I love this friggin' game.
But that wasn't the end of my personal Henderson drama. Before a 2007 Saturday afternoon game at Wrigley pitting the Mets against the Cubs, I made it out to the left field wall for batting practice and was pleasantly surprised to see none other than Rickey himself shagging fly balls.
"Hey, Rickey, when ya gonna make another comeback?" I yelled from about 20 feet away.
"Hey, Rickey, you're the greatest of all-time!"
"Hey, Rickey, you're a first ballot Hall of Famer!"
After ten minutes of relentless hollers, Rickey finally acknowledged my existence with a simple yet earnestly eloquent: "Rickey fine!"
Indeed, Rickey fine.
So, so fine.
So don't hate me 'cuz I'm right.
9 Comments
Jeffy, one of our local reporters asked Jim Rice about going into Cooperstown with Rickey and about what he thought Rickey would say. Rice just laughed and said he wouldn't have to worry about talking that day! I hope that let Rice go first or he won't get a word in. Congrats on the #1 ranking in the new leaderboard!
Jeff, Rockpile Ranter's all about Rickey's third person self-references, best Rickey story the Ranter read all day🙂
That is SWEET!
Those are some great stories! Nice call on the lead-off home run (indirectly, but still). I love calling home runs, and hollering at players. When I sat on the monst-ah at Fenway, I got Manny to wave to me, and also Dustin (sitting near the dugout) and then he hit a two run homer. I really wish I could've seen Rickey Henderson play for longer…
Julia — Yeah, Rickey better go last otherwise no one will even know that Rice is there.
RR — Jeff appreciates RR's kind words. Jeff says 'thanks!'
Redbirdchatter — DOUBLE SWEET!
Elizabeth — Rickey was a delight to watch. Before Manny being Manny, Ricked was being Rickey.
Great stories there! I wasn't around when he played, but from what I've read he seems like a pretty funny guy!
Awesome "Rickey" story. He is truly an original.
Rickey might be the first person ever to give a speech and hear some sort of music trying to get him off stage. Hey, that would be a great sound byte gag.
If I were Rickey, I would get a local high school band to stand behind the stage and after 5 minutes start playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." That would make a memorable send off and a great way to make the entire crowd love "Rickey" more than ever for being clever.
I might just send that idea to him………….what is that email again?
Rickeyisthegreatestbasestealerintheworldandcanhittoo@ yahoo.com
Rays Renegade
Kaybee — One of the best I've ever seen… hands down.
Renegade — I'll send an email off and see if I can get that band booked. I'm sure he'll enjoy that😉
In his prime, Ricky could do it all. Steal bases, play great outfield and even drive in runs and hit homers. He might have forget who he was playing with sometimes (bouncing around from team to team i.e. John Olerud), but was an outstanding talent and deservant of the Hall.


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GV Now
Report tracks area health care, jobs outlook
Posted on January 10, 2014
More than 45 percent of area businesses have passed additional costs to workers as a result of implementing the Affordable Care Act, according to a report by Grand Valley researchers.
Economics professors Sonia Dalmia and Paul Isely released results of their report, "Health Check: Analyzing Trends in West Michigan 2014," on January 10 during the fifth annual health care summit sponsored by Grand Valley.
The 2014 report includes survey results regarding the impact of the Affordable Care Act on local businesses in Kent, Ottawa, Muskegon and Allegan counties. Dalmia and Isely used findings from the survey conducted by economics professor Leslie Muller in collaboration with Priority Health and found 48 percent of companies have passed additional costs to workers and 40 percent are considering that option. Seventy-six percent of employers have, or are creating, wellness plans for employees.
Health Check 2014 also was able to show how performing the suggested tests for diabetics would reduce costs by 10 percent compared to not doing the tests. In addition, the report showed how having diabetes combined with other conditions increases costs. These results support the effectiveness of testing diabetic patients for complications.
Other key findings are noted below.
• Although colleges and universities in West Michigan are generating 745 new registered nurses annually, this still falls short of the projected annual demand for nurses by more than 100.
• Binge drinking in West Michigan increased 2 percent in 2012 compared to 2010. Heavy drinking is higher in West Michigan than southeast Michigan.
• More than 36 percent of West Michigan residents were overweight in 2012; this trend is similar to the number reported in 2010. However, the rate of obesity in the area dropped slightly to 27.3 percent.
• About 10 percent of West Michigan residents are diabetic; researchers said the number tracks closely to obesity.
Jean Nagelkerk, vice provost for Health, said if the risk factors in the area, like those listed above, continue to trend upward, it could pose challenges to the cost of health-related services and the number of health professionals in the area.
The full report is available online at www.gvsu.edu/vphealth. It was made possible by a grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Blue Care Network, and Priority Health.

subset: commoncrawl


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Published On: Apr 02 2013 01:10:42 PM CDT Updated On: Apr 04 2013 09:10:41 AM CDT
Take a look at the top 20 cities for young adults according to 2013 rankings from The Business Journals.
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Related Reading
Apache: The Definitive Guide
An excerpt from Chapter 3, "Security," of Apache: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition. Enable Apache to communicate securely over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Covers building, configuring, and securing an SSL-enabled Apache server under Unix.
The object of what follows is to make a version of Apache that handles the HTTPS (HTTP over SSL) protocol. Currently this is only available in Unix versions, and given the many concerns that exist over the security of Win32, there seems little point in trying to implement SSL in the Win32 version of Apache.
The first step is to get hold of the appropriate version of Apache; see Chapter 1, Getting Started, and the Apache-SSL home page at for current information. Download the source code and expand the files in some suitable directory. An src subdirectory will appear. So far, so good.
The next, and easiest step of all, is to decide whether you are in the United States and Canada or the rest of the world. Then follow these guidelines:
The first thing to do is to get SSLeay. SSLeay is a a freely available library, written by the Australian Eric Young, which does pretty much everything cryptological that the most secretive heart could desire. We went to ftp://ftp.psy.uq.oz.au/pub/Crypto/SSL/ (which seems to belong to the psychology department of the University of Queensland, Australia, and why should we quibble?), downloaded SSLeay-0_9_0b_tar.gz since it looked the freshest, and put it into /usr/local/etc/SSL. We uncompressed it with:
% gzip -d SSLeay-0_9_0b_tar.gz % tar xvf SSLeay-0_9_0b_tar
producing a surprising amount of stuff in a subdirectory SSLeay-0.9.0b . Go there. First, read INSTALL, which describes a configuration process not unlike that for Apache, but somewhat rougher. Things will go more smoothly if you have already liberated Perl and it is in /usr/local/bin. The script will put SSL in /usr/local/bin;if you don't like this, you can change its home. You are told to run ./Configure system type but, slightly alarmingly, INSTALL doesn't tell you what the possible system types are. However, we remember that if anything goes wrong, we can just go back to the top directory, run tar again to start over, and boldly type:
% ./Configure
A list of systems appears, among which is FreeBSD and, we hope, yours. We ran ./Configure again:
% ./Configure FreeBSD
This sets up a number of system variables and reports them to the screen. As long as there is not an obvious error, we don't really care what it says. INSTALL then tells us to tidy up the place, make SSL, make the test certificate, and test the result by using these four commands:
% make clean % make % make rehash % make test
Again, a lot of prattle outputs to the screen that is probably really interesting if you are Eric Young, and less fascinating otherwise. The output ends with a printout of your signed certificate, newcert.pem.
And then we perform the final step recommended in INSTALL:
% make install
It turned out that ssleay hadn't been installed in /usr/local/bin as promised, but was in /usr/local/ssl/bin. This may have been fixed by the time you do all this, but if not, add the new directory to your path. Just how you do this depends on the shell you are running, so we won't confuse you with advice that may be inappropriate. See your administrator in case of difficulty.
It is important that if you have already made Apache you should delete the whole directory with:
% rm -R apache directory
To answer a FAQ:
No, Apache-SSL cannot be a pure module; the Apache API is not powerful enough to permit that.
Reexpand the original Apache .tar file to create a complete directory (see the section Making Apache Under Unix, in Chapter 1) and download the Apache-SSL patch file from Oxford University: ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/SSL/ or one of the mirror sites. It is important that the file you download is as new as you can get and matches the Apache version you have just expanded. The reason you should reexpand Apache is that Apache-SSL has to patch the source of Apache, so it must be "as-new." * In our case we got apache_1_3_1+ssl_1_22_tar.gz, copied it into the .../apache/apache_1.3.1 subdirectory (not the .../src subdirectory, as in the previous edition), and expanded it with:
% gzip -d apache_1_3_1+ssl_1_22_tar.gz % tar xvf apache_1_3_1+ssl_1_22_tar
You find a number of *.SSL files. The immediately interesting one is README.SSL, written by one of the authors of this book (BL), which you should, of course, read.
The next step is to do as instructed in README.SSL:
% ./FixPatch
Note: Some operating systems (notably Solaris) come with an exceedingly out-of-date version of patch, which doesn't work properly with Apache-SSL's patch files. The current version of patch at the time of writing is 2.5.
You will be asked if you want the patch applied, to which you reply y. A good deal of chat ensues on the screen, but as long as it does not stop with an error, all is well.*
patch is a Unix utility. If you get the message:
Looks like a new style context diff File to patch:
and not much else, you may have an out-of-date version of patch. You can get the version number by typing:
% patch -version
If you have a version earlier than 2.1, you need to upgrade. If you have 2.5 and you still have problems, you may find that:
% patch -pl < SSLpatch
will work.
A useful site, which has FAQs about Apache-SSL, is http://www.apache-ssl.org.
You then have to rebuild Apache. Since you have replaced all the files, including the original Configuration, you may want to copy the version you saved in the top directory (see Configuration Settings and Rules, in Chapter 1) back down. Check that this line in this file has been correctly altered:
SSL_BASE=<current location of SSL>
This should be the directory where SSLeay has unpacked itself -- in our case /usr/local/etc/SSL/SSLeay-0.9.0b.
Run ./Configure to remake the Makefile, and then make to compile the code. The end result, if all has gone well, is an executable: httpsd. Copy it into /usr/local/bin next to httpd.
We now need a test certificate. .../apache_1.3.1/src/Makefile has the necessary commands in the section headed "certificate":
certificate: $(SSL_APP_DIR)/ssleay req -config ../SSLconf/conf/ssleay.cnf \ -new -x509 -nodes -out ../SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem \ -keyout ../SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem; \ ln -sf ../SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem ../SSLconf/conf/`$(SSL_APP_DIR)/ssleay \ x509 -noout -hash < ../SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem`.0
Now type:
% make certificate
A number of questions appear about who and where you are:
/usr/local/etc/SSL/SSLeay-0.9.0b/apps/ssleay req -config ../SSLconf/conf/ ssleay.cnf -new -x509 -nodes -out ../SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem -keyout ../ SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem; ln -sf ../SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem ../SSLconf/conf/ `/usr/local/etc/SSL/SSLeay-0.9.0b/apps/ssleay x509 -noout -hash < ../ SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem`.0 Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key ...........+++++ ...........+++++ writing new private key to '../SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem' ----- You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank. For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be left blank. ----- Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:US State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Nevada Locality Name (eg, city) []:Hopeful City Organization Name (eg, company; recommended) []:Butterthlies Inc Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Sales Common Name (eg, ssl.domain.tld; required!!!) []:www.butterthlies.com Email Address []:firstname.lastname@example.com
Your inputs are shown in bold type in the usual way. The only one that really matters is "Common Name," which must be the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your server. This has to be correct because your client's Netscapes (and presumably other security-conscious browsers) will check to see that this address is the same as that being accessed. The result is the file .../conf/httpsd.pem (yours should not be identical to this, of course):
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- MIICXAIBAAKBgQDBpDjpJQxvcPRdhNOflTOCyQp1Dhg0kBruGAHiwxYYHdlM/z6k pi8EJFvvkoYdesTVzM+6iABQbk9fzvnG5apxy8aB+byoKZ575ce2Rg43i3KNTXY+ RXUzy/5HIiL0JtX/oCESGKt5W/xd8G/xoKR5Qe0P+1hgjASF2p97NUhtOQIDAQAB AoGALIh4DiZXFcoEaP2DLdBCaHGT1hfHuU7q4pbi2CPFkQZMU0jgPz140psKCa7I 6T6yxfi0TVG5wMWdu4r+Jp/q8ppQ94MUB5oOKSb/Kv2vsZ+T0ZCBnpzt1eia9ypX ELTZhngFGkuq7mHNGlMyviIcq6Qct+gxd9omPsd53W0th4ECQQDmyHpqrrtaVlw8 aGXbTzlXp14Bq5RG9Ro1eibhXId3sHkIKFKDAUEjzkMGzUm7Y7DLbCOD/hdFV6V+ pjwCvNgDAkEA1szPPD4eB/tuqCTZ+2nxcR6YqpUkT9FPBAV9Gwe7Svbct0yu/nny bpv2fcurWJGI23UIpWScyBEBR/z34El3EwJBALdw8YVtIHT9IlHN9fCt93mKCrov JSyF1PBfCRqnTvK/bmUij/ub+qg4YqS8dvghlL0NVumrBdpTgbO69QaEDvsCQDVe P6MNH/MFwnGeblZr9SQQ4QeI9LOsIoCySGod2qf+e8pDEDuD2vsmXvDUWKcxyZoV Eufc/qMqrnHPZVrhhecCQCsP6nb5Aku2dbhX+TdYQZZDoRE2mkykjWdK+B22C2/4 C5VTb4CUF7d6ukDVMT2d0/SiAVHBEI2dR8Vw0G7hJPY= -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY----- -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIICvTCCAiYCAQAwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEEBQAwgaYxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMQ8wDQYD VQQIEwZOZXZhZGExFTATBgNVBAcTDEhvcGVmdWwgQ2l0eTEZMBcGA1UEChMQQnV0 dGVydGhsaWVzIEluYzEOMAwGA1UECxMFU2FsZXMxHTAbBgNVBAMTFHd3dy5idXR0 ZXJ0aGxpZXMuY29tMSUwIwYJKoZIhvcNAQkBFhZzYWxlc0BidXR0ZXJ0aGxpZXMu Y29tMB4XDTk4MDgyNjExNDUwNFoXDTk4MDkyNTExNDUwNFowgaYxCzAJBgNVBAYT AlVTMQ8wDQYDVQQIEwZOZXZhZGExFTATBgNVBAcTDEhvcGVmdWwgQ2l0eTEZMBcG A1UEChMQQnV0dGVydGhsaWVzIEluYzEOMAwGA1UECxMFU2FsZXMxHTAbBgNVBAMT FHd3dy5idXR0ZXJ0aGxpZXMuY29tMSUwIwYJKoZIhvcNAQkBFhZzYWxlc0BidXR0 ZXJ0aGxpZXMuY29tMIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDBpDjpJQxv cPRdhNOflTOCyQp1Dhg0kBruGAHiwxYYHdlM/z6kpi8EJFvvkoYdesTVzM+6iABQ bk9fzvnG5apxy8aB+byoKZ575ce2Rg43i3KNTXY+RXUzy/5HIiL0JtX/oCESGKt5 W/xd8G/xoKR5Qe0P+1hgjASF2p97NUhtOQIDAQABMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBAUAA4GB AIrQjOfQTeOHXBS+zcXy9OWpgcfyxI5GQBg6VWlRlhthEtYDSdyNq9hrAT/TGUwd Jm/whjGLtD7wPx6c0mR/xsoWWoEVa2hIQJhDlwmnXk1F3M55ZA3Cfg0/qb8smeTx 7kM1LoxQjZL0bg61Av3WG/TtuGqYshpE09eu77ANLngp -----END CERTIFICATE-----
This is, in fact, rather an atypical certificate, because it combines our private key with the certificate, whereas you would probably want to apply more stringent security to the private key than to the certificate. Also, it is signed by ourselves, making it a root certification authority certificate; this is just a convenience for test purposes. In the real-world, root CAs are likely to be somewhat more impressive organizations than little old us.
This certificate also is without a passphrase, which httpsd would otherwise ask for at startup. We think a passphrase is a bad idea because it prevents automatic server restarts, but if you want to make yourself a certificate that incorporates one, edit Makefile (remembering to reedit if you run Configuration again), find the "certificate:" section, remove the -nodes flag and proceed as before. Or, follow this procedure, which will also be useful when we ask Thawte for a demo certificate. Go to wherever you need the results -- .../site.ssl/conf would be good. Type:
% ssleay req -new -outform PEM> new3.cert.csr ... writing new private key to 'privkey.pem' enter PEM pass phrase:
Type in your passphrase and then answer the questions as before. This generates a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) with your passphrase encrypted into it. You will need this if you want to get a server certificate, together with the key file privkey.pem.
However, if you then decide you don't want a passphrase after all, you can remove it with:
% ssleay -in privkey.pem -out new3.cert.key
Either way, you then convert the request into a signed certificate:
% ssleay c509 -in new3cert.csr -out new3.cert.cert -req -signkey privkey.pem
You now have a secure version of Apache, httpsd; a site to use it on, site.ssl; a certificate, new3.cert.cert; and a signed key, privkey.pem.
SSL uses a session key to secure each connection. When the connection starts, certificates are checked and a new session key is agreed between the client and server (note that because of the joys of public key encryption, this new key is only known to the client and server). This is a time-consuming process, so Apache-SSL and the client can conspire to improve the situation by reusing session keys. Unfortunately, since Apache uses a multiprocess execution model, there's no guarantee that the next connection from the client will use the same instance of the server. In fact, it is rather unlikely. Thus, it is necessary to store session information in a cache that is accessible to all the instances of Apache-SSL. This is the function of the gcache program. It is controlled by the SSLCacheServerPath, SSLCacheServerPort, and SSLSessionCacheTimeout directives described later in this chapter.
You now have to think about the Config files for the site. A sample Config file will be found at .../apache_1.3.1/SSLconf/conf. After we edit it to fit our site, the Config file is as follows:
# This is an example configuration file for Apache-SSL. # Copyright (C) 1995,6,7 Ben Laurie # By popular demand, this file now illustrates the way to create two # websites, one secured (on port 8888), the other not (on port 8887). # You may need one of these. User webuser Group webgroup LogLevel debug # SSL servers MUST be standalone, currently. ServerType standalone # The default port for SSL is 443... but we use 8888 here so we don't have # to be root. Port 8887 Listen 8887 Listen 8888 # My test document root DocumentRoot /usr/www/site.ssl/htdocs <Directory /usr/www/site.ssl/htdocs/manual> SSLRequireSSL # This directive protects a directory by forbidding access except when SSL is # in use. Very handy for defending against configuration errors that expose # stuff that should be protected. </Directory> # Watch what's going on. TransferLog logs/transfer_log # Note that all SSL options can apply to virtual hosts. # Disable SSL. Useful in combination with virtual hosts. Note that # SSLEnable is now also supported. SSLDisable # Set the path for the global cache server executable. # If this facility gives you trouble, you can disable it by setting # CACHE_SESSIONS to FALSE in apache_ssl.c SSLCacheServerPath /usr/local/etc/apache/apache_1.3.1/src/modules/ssl/gcache # Set the global cache server port number or path. If it is a path, a Unix # domain socket is used. If a number, a TCP socket. SSLCacheServerPort logs/gcache_port # The number should either refer to a path consisting of a directory that # exists and a file that doesn't, or an unused TCP/IP port. # Set the session cache timeout, in seconds (set to 15 for testing, use a # higher value in real life). SSLSessionCacheTimeout 15 # Set the CA certificate verification path (must be PEM encoded). # (in addition to getenv("SSL_CERT_DIR"), I think). # (Not used in this example) #SSLCACertificatePath /usr/local/etc/apache/apache_1.3.1/SSLconf/conf # Set the CA certificate verification file (must be PEM encoded). # (in addition to getenv("SSL_CERT_FILE"), I think). SSLCACertificateFile /usr/www/site.ssl/conf/thawte.cert # Point SSLCertificateFile at a PEM-encoded certificate. # If the certificate is encrypted, then you will be prompted for a # passphrase. Note that a kill -1 will prompt again. # A test certificate can be generated with "make certificate". # If the key is not combined with the certificate, use this directive to # point at the key file. If this starts with a '/' it specifies an absolute # path; otherwise, it is relative to the default certificate area. That is, # it means "<default>/private/<keyfile>". #SSLCertificateKeyFile /some/place/with/your.key # Set SSLVerifyClient to: # 0 if no certicate is required. # 1 if the client may present a valid certificate. # 2 if the client must present a valid certificate. # 3 if the client may present a valid certificate but it is not required to # have a valid CA. SSLVerifyClient 0 # How deeply to verify before deciding they don't have a valid certificate. SSLVerifyDepth 10 # Translate the client X509 into a Basic authorization. This means that the # standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control. The username # is the "one-line" version of the client's X509 certificate. Note that no # password is obtained from the user. Every entry in the user file needs this # password: xxj31ZMTZzkVA. See the code for further explanation. SSLFakeBasicAuth # List the ciphers that the client is permitted to negotiate. See the source # for a definitive list. For example: #SSLRequiredCiphers RC4-MD5:RC4-SHA:IDEA-CBC-MD5:DES-CBC3-SHA # These two can be used per-directory to require or ban ciphers. Note that # (at least in the current version) Apache-SSL will not attempt to # renegotiate if a cipher is banned (or not required). #SSLRequireCipher #SSLBanCipher # Custom logging CustomLoglogs/ssl_log "%t %{version}c %{cipher}c %{clientcert}c" <VirtualHost www.butterthlies.com:8888> SSLEnable </VirtualHost> ScriptAlias/scripts/usr/www/cgi-bin
We have changed the user and group to webuser and webgroup in line with practice throughout the book. The default port for SSL is 443, but here we get a replay of port-based virtual hosting (see Chapter 3, Toward a Real Web Site) so that it is easy to contrast the behavior of Apache with (port 8888) and without (port 8887) SSL.
Remember to edit go so it invokes httpsd (the secure version); otherwise, Apache will rather puzzlingly object to all the nice new SSL directives. Run ./go in the usual way. Apache starts up and produces a message:
Reading certificate and key for server www.butterthlies.com:8888
Later versions of Apache may not show this message if a passphrase is not required.
This message shows that the right sort of thing is happening. If you had opted for a passphrase, Apache would halt for you to type it in, and the message would remind you which passphrase to use. However, in this case there isn't one, so Apache starts up.* On the client side, log on to:
remembering the "s" in https. It's rather bizarre that the client is expected to know in advance that it is going to meet an SSL server and has to log on securely, but that's the way the Web is. However, in practice you would usually log on to an unsecured site with http and then choose or be steered to a link that would set you up automatically for a secure transaction. If you forget the "s", various things can happen:
SSL_Accept failed error:140760EB:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_CLIENT_HELLO:unknown protocol
If you pass these perils, you find that Netscape's product liability team has been at work, and you are taken through a rigmarole of legal safeguards and "are you absolutely sure?" queries before you are finally permitted to view the secure page.
We were running with SSLVerifyClient 0, so Apache made no inquiry concerning our credibility as a client. Change it to 2, to force the client to present a valid certificate. Netscape now says:
No User Certificate The site 'www.butterthlies.com' has requested client authentication, but you do not have a Personal Certificate to authenticate yourself. The site may choose not to give you access without one.
Oh, the shame of it. The simple way to fix this smirch is to get a beta certificate from one of the following companies:
Log on to one of these sites, and follow the instructions.
In the interests of European unity we chose BelSign NV/SA first and tried to download their Class 1 Demo Certificate, lasting 30 days. BelSign's own certificate had expired and the process failed -- in our experience, this is quite usual when dealing with "secure" sites and is an indicator that secure e-business is not yet a reality.
Ho hum, try IKS GmbH. They take things more seriously and try to explain the whole complicated business in slightly fractured Germlish, but don't seem to offer a free demo certificate, so that was no good.
The attempt to contact Uptime timed out.
Certisign lives in Brazil and is lavishly documented in commercial Portuguese -- interesting in a way, but it didn't seem to offer a demo certificate either.
Finally we fell back on Thawte, who do offer a demo certificate; however, they use it to test their procedures -- and your understanding -- to the limit. You need to paste your CSR new2.cert.csr (see "Make a Test Certificate," earlier in this chapter) into their form and then choose one of a number of options. In our case, we thought we needed the "PEM format" because the certificates we generated seemed to be PEMs. But no. We got the following error:
Can only generate PEM output from PEM input.
Thawte has an Apache-SSL help page, which tells us that what Apache and SSL call "PEM" files are actually not. What we should have asked for was a base 64 encoded X.509 certificate -- invoked by the radio button on Thawte's form labeled "the most basic format." This time Thawte did its thing and presented a page with the certificate on it:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIICXTCCAcYCAw9CQDANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQQFADBkMRowGAYDVQQKExFUaGF3dGUg Q29uc3VsdGluZzEoMCYGA1UECxMfQ2VydGlmaWNhdGlvbiBTZXJ2aWNlcyBEaXZp c2lvbjEcMBoGA1UEAxMTVGVzdCBTZXJ2ZXIgQ0EgUm9vdDAeFw05ODA4MjgwOTM2 MzFaFw05ODA5MjgwOTM2MzFaMIGHMQswCQYDVQQGEwJHQjEPMA0GA1UECBMGRG9y c2V0MSEwHwYDVQQKExhJbnRlcm5ldCBXaWRnaXRzIFB0eSBMdGQxHTAbBgNVBAMT FHd3dy5idXR0ZXJ0aGxpZXMuY29tMSUwIwYJKoZIhvcNAQkBFhZwZXRlckBhYmJv dHNidXJ5LmNvLnVrMIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDT1KRNwOwT kCHkYqpJmXj10U9pH4YZ7Koccwe87rAdDJ8NM5WTNa9VR4BEBWzFd34bGt6GPn1P qBpZ8fBMgT7x5XQH1wXK32Itf7NZJJvFO0XBuA4i9C8VMVEUefTRFL8mZSFCmO3N A1EnXvwjpF85c37pNDyYipAU9iUa+nrKEQIDAQABMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBAUAA4GB AJeufu9DTQw8l941pnzW8UmTqGATmFxf01IwrN88bWS+I1YzhZZ0ZQQSs8IKVQPG to38aaeSMeE7TauGdqs5+xv0QY8WrzrY4rbGliiW/H3kfMukOiRbiJAyXJepXhRJ ezE1n2v9E16dlF6T6LI0IXSzwJ2JsCTtD/IDkSgg9Tqo -----END CERTIFICATE-----
We copied this as thawte.cert to .../site.ssl/conf. This triggered changes in the Config file:
SSLCACertificateFile /usr/www/site.ssl/conf/thawte.cert SSLCertificateKeyFile /usr/www/site.ssl/conf/privkey.pem
Finally, we had to change the way we ran Apache to cope with the new demand for a passphrase. The file go became:
% httpsd -d /usr/www/site.ssl ; sleep 10000
When we ran it, we got the following message:
Reading certificate and key for server www.butterthlies.com:8888 Enter PEM pass phrase:
You type in your passphrase and then hit CTRL-C or Delete, depending on the flavor of Unix, to kill sleep.
When we finally logged on to https://www.butterthlies.com:8888 from the client, we got the following encouraging message:
Certificate Is Expired www.butterthlies.com is a site that uses encryption to protect transmitted information. However the digital Certificate that identifies this site is not yet valid. This may be because the certificate was installed too soon by the site administrator, or because the date on your computer is wrong. The certificate is valid beginning Fri Aug 28, 1998. Your computer's date is set to Fri Aug 28, 1998. If this date is incorrect, then you should reset the date on your computer. You may continue or cancel this connection.
This message suggested, in a perverse way, that we were doing something right. Finally, because we had changed SSLVerifyClient to 2, the exchange correctly expired in a complaint that the client didn't have a certificate.
If you kill Apache in the time-honored way, make sure that gcache disappears too. The version of SSL (1.21) that we used to test all this left gcache hanging and it had to be killed before Apache-SSL would restart properly. The symptom was a message in error_log:
[<date>] gcache started bind: address already in use
followed by irrelevant complaints about the private key file. If this happens with later versions, please report it as a bug.
Apache-SSL's directives follow, with a small section at the end of the chapter concerning CGIs.
SSLDisable Server config, virtual host
Disable SSL. This directive is useful if you wish to run both secure and nonsecure hosts on the same server. Conversely, SSL can be enabled with SSLEnable.
SSLEnable Server config, virtual host
Enable SSL. The default; but if you've used SSLDisable in the main server, you can enable SSL again for virtual hosts using this directive.
SSLRequireSSL Server config, .htaccess, virtual host, directory
Require SSL. This can be used in <Directory> sections (and elsewhere) to protect against inadvertently disabling SSL. If SSL is not in use when this directive applies, access will be refused. This is a useful belt-and-suspenders measure for critical information.
SSLCacheServerPath filename Server config
This directive specifies the path to the global cache server, gcache. It can be absolute or relative to the server root.
SSLCacheServerRunDir directory Server config
Sets the directory in which gcache runs, so that it can produce core dumps during debugging.
SSLCacheServerPort file|port Server config
The cache server can use either TCP/IP or Unix domain sockets. If the file or port argument is a number, then a TCP/IP port at that number is used; otherwise, it is assumed to be the path to use for a Unix domain socket.
SSLSessionCacheTimeout time_in_seconds Server config, virtual host
A session key is generated when a client connects to the server for the first time. This directive sets the length of time in seconds that the session key will be cached locally. Lower values are safer (an attacker then has a limited time to crack the key before a new one will be used) but also slower, because the key will be regenerated at each timeout. If client certificates are being requested by the server, they will also be required to be re-presented at each timeout. For many purposes, timeouts measured in hours are perfectly safe, for example:
SSLSessionCacheTimeout 3600
SSLCACertificatePath directory Server config, virtual host
This directive specifies the path to the directory where you keep the certificates of the certification authorities whose client certificates you are prepared to accept. They must be PEM encoded.
SSLCACertificateFile filename Server config, virtual host
If you only accept client certificates from a single CA, then you can use this directive instead of SSLCACertificatePath to specify a single PEM-encoded (according to SSLeay) certificate file.
SSLCertificateFile filename Config outside <Directory> or <Location> blocks
This is your PEM-encoded certificate. It is encoded with distinguished encoding rules (DER), and is ASCII-armored so it will go over the Web. If the certificate is encrypted, you are prompted for a passphrase.
SSLCertificateKeyFile filename Config outside <Directory> or <Location> blocks
This is the private key of your PEM-encoded certificate. If the key is not combined with the certificate, use this directive to point at the key file. If the filename starts with "/", it specifies an absolute path; otherwise, it is relative to the default certificate area, which is currently defined by SSLeay to be either /usr/local/ssl/ private or <wherever you told ssl to install>/private. Examples:
SSLCertificateKeyFile /usr/local/apache/certs/my.server.key.pem SSLCertificateKeyFile certs/my.server.key.pem
SSLVerifyClient level Default: 0 Server config, virtual host
This directive defines what you require of clients:
SSLVerifyDepth depth Server config, virtual host
In real life, the certificate we are dealing with was issued by a CA, who in turn relied on another CA for validation, and so on, back to a root certificate. This directive specifies how far up or down the chain we are prepared to go before giving up. What happens when we give up is determined by the setting given to SSLVerifyClient. Normally, you only trust certificates signed directly by a CA you've authorized, so this should be set to 1.
SSLFakeBasicAuth Server config, virtual host
This directive makes Apache pretend that the user has been logged in using basic authentication (see Chapter 5, Authentication), except that instead of the username you get the one-line X509, a version of the client's certificate. If you switch this on, along with SSLVerifyClient, you should see the results in one of the logs. The code adds a predefined password.
CustomLog nickname Server config, virtual host
CustomLog is a standard Apache directive (see Chapter 11, What's Going On?)to which Apache-SSL adds some extra categories that can be logged:
Obsolete -- do not use.
The SSL protocol does not restrict clients and servers to a single encryption brew for the secure exchange of information. There are a number of possible cryptographic ingredients, but as in any cookpot, some ingredients go better together than others. The seriously interested can refer to Bruce Schneier's Applied Crytography ( John Wiley & Sons), in conjunction with the SSL specification (from Netscape). The list of cipher suites is in the SSLeay software at ... /ssl/ssl.h. The macro names give a better idea of what is meant than the text strings.
For most purposes, the webmaster does not have to bother with all this, but some of the following directives need entries from this list.
SSLRequiredCiphers cipher list Server config, virtual host
This directive specifies a colon-separated list of cipher suites, used by SSLeay to limit what the client end can do. Possible suites are listed in the preceding section. This is a per-server option:
SSLRequiredCiphers RC4-MD5:RC4-SHA:IDEA-CBC-MD5:DES-CBC3-SHA
SSLRequireCipher cipher list Server config, virtual host, .htaccess, directory
This directive specifies a space-separated list of cipher suites, used to verify the cipher after the connection is established. This is a per-directory option.
SSLBanCipher <cipher list> Config, virtual, .htaccess, directory
This directive specifies a space-separated list of cipher suites, as per SSLRequire-Cipher, except it bans them. The logic is as follows: if banned, reject; if required, accept; if no required ciphers are listed, accept. For example:
SSLBanCipher NULL-MD5 NULL-SHA
It is sensible to ban these suites because they are test suites that actually do no encryption.
One directive affects the writing of CGIs.
SSLExportClientCertificates Server config, virtual host, .htaccess, directory
Exports client certificates and the chain behind them to CGIs. The certificates are base 64 encoded in the environment variables SSL_CLIENT_CERT and SSL_CLIENT_CERT_CHAIN_n, where n runs from 1 up. This directive is only enabled if APACHE_SSL_EXPORT_CERTS is set to TRUE in .../src/include/buff.h.
Copyright © 2017 O'Reilly Media, Inc.


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Tag Archives: tracing patterns
To Trace or Not to Trace…That is the Question!
So one thing I've always been annoyed with in the sewing world is how darn flimsy those paper thin tissue patterns -mainly from the "Big 4" – are! I said in my second post that there are great new goodies … Continue reading


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Ai Yori Aoshi
Episode 11 | TV-14
Mayu, another typhoon heiress from Kaoru's past, enrolls at Meritsu University. Giddy at the sight of Kaoru, she greets him with a kiss and demands his attention for the entire night. Vague informants leave Aoi engrossed in fear of the worst.
Dub Expires: 07-25-2014
Official Site: www.funimation.com/shows/ai-yori-aoshiHide Details


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QUOTE (Eagleraider @ Feb 7 2010, 06:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
matter of stats ...... Kirkpatrick was escorted from the pitch when Eagles played Wakefield on 26th March 1995 iin the Stones Bitter Championship and Eagles won 14 - 10
And that was the day we all walked it there to raise money for, Oh God I can't remember his name arrgggg Lee ? from Hull? I'm ###### aren't I, I'll prob have the day wrong too hahah ah well, at least now I know Aquilla is a bald headed man (apperently ).
Ooo I think it was Jackson!


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Each day we'll bring you the very latest tabloid rumors as the biggest clubs around splash the cash to bolster their rosters. True or not, they're always entertaining...
Danny Welbeck scored twice to fire England top of Group H - but his big night was ruined by a crazy booking.
Gareth Bale was an £86million cheerleader last night as he was left on the bench by Chris Coleman as Wales slumped 2-1 against Macedonia.
Manchester United have been forced to do a U-turn and bring Alexander Buttner in from the cold because of their failures in the transfer window.
Nottingham Forest are keen to sign Hull striker Matty Fryatt when the loan window reopens on Tuesday.
Struggling Bolton are offering Northern Ireland defender Chris Baird a way back into football.
Birmingham boss Lee Clark wants to sign Manchester United midfielder Jesse Lingard on loan - if his board let him.
Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert may rest goal ace Christian Benteke to prevent burn-out.
David Moyes has been backed to overcome his jittery start at Manchester United and build his own trophy-winning reign.
England mauled Moldova to boost their World Cup hopes - but boss Roy Hodgson was still fuming.
Gutted Danny Welbeck insisted he is not to blame for the yellow card which rules him out of England's clash against Ukraine.
Gareth Bale was confronted by two pitch-invading yobs in Macedonia last night.
Arsenal have launched a probe after academy coach Mark Arber boasted he bet on the deadline-day signing of Mesut Ozil.
Roy Hodgson blew his top last night as he lost yet another striker from the squad that will fight for England's World Cup future in Ukraine on Tuesday night.
The Giovanni Trapattoni era finally appears to be coming to an end after the Republic of Ireland suffered a bruising World Cup qualifying defeat to Sweden in Dublin.
Manchester United coach Steve Round has defended boss David Moyes after the club's poor start to the season.
Juan Mata insists he is happy at Chelsea despite being heavily linked with a summer move.
Vincent Kompany could be sidelined until October and miss this month's crunch Manchester derby.
Sunderland boss Paolo Di Canio has hit back at Greg Dyke's claim that foreigners are ruining English football.
Roberto Martinez has taken a dig at Manchester United by insisting that Everton did better out of the Marouane Fellaini deal.
Two goals by Danny Welbeck helped England back to the top of their World Cup group but a ludicrous booking rules him out of Tuesday's crunch clash in Ukraine.
Tom Carroll believes FA chairman Greg Dyke is right - England can win the World Cup in 2022.


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Monday, November 25th, 2013 Mill Valley Public LibraryCreekside Room7 PM (doors open at 6:45)David Hockney: A Bigger ExhibitionNovember 25th, 7:00pm
A docent will be presenting a lecture on the exhibition, David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition. This show was assembled exclusively for the de Young and marks the return to California of the best-known British artist of his generation. It is the first comprehensive survey of Hockney's work since 2002, arguably the most prolific decade of his career. As the title makes clear, this exhibition is grand in scope and scale. Many of the landscapes are of monumental proportions, including multi-canvas oil paintings and large-scale digital movies shot with multiple cameras, some requiring as many as 18 monitors for their display. More than 300 works in 18,000 square feet of gallery space make this the largest show in the history of the de Young.
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Wisconsin can expect at least one more day of hot and steamy weather before seeing some relief.
Temperatures rose into the 90s across Wisconsin on Thursday. Milwaukee, Eau Claire and Menomonie reached 94, Waupaca hit 96 and La Crosse was at 97 by late afternoon.
The National Weather Service says heat index readings were near 100.
Rock County in southern Wisconsin opened several cooling centers so residents could find a place to beat the heat.
Forecasters expect a chance of rain to spread as far south as southern Wisconsin by late Thursday. But the heat and humidity will continue into Friday.
Highs will range from the low to mid 80s in northwestern Wisconsin to the low 90s in the south.


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Our strategy
Improve community infrastructure, health, resiliency and economic opportunities in Indonesia's most challenging urban and coastal areas.
The context
About half of all Indonesians live on less than two dollars a day. Employment growth has been slower than population growth. Public services remain inadequate by middle-income standards, and health indicators are poor. The island is also one of the most disaster-prone nations in the world.
Our work
- Economic opportunity: Providing technical assistance, training and financial services to microfinance institutions throughout the country and helping spice farmers earn more income
- Health: Raising awareness and supporting mothers to practice and promote exclusive breastfeeding
- Water: Improving sanitation and hygiene in crowded urban areas with a mobile sludge removal service
- Disaster preparedness: Identifying and mapping areas at risk and helping those communities plan, train and practice how to respond when disasters occur
- Emergency response: Maintaining a response team ready to quickly deploy and provide immediate relief to survivors during the critical first months after a disaster strikes
All stories about Indonesia
Indonesia: Farmers Celebrate Their First Post-Tsunami Rice Harvest
Indonesia: A Love Affair with Soccer
Soccer is big in Indonesia.
Indonesia: Conquering Malnutrition Together
Indonesia: Restoring the Acehnese Spirit
Indonesia: Donations Become Mundane But Life-Saving Tsunami Aid
[Editor's Note: This article appeared in USA Today and is originally an Associated Press story]
Indonesia: Mercy Corps Providing Relief on Nias Island
Mercy Corps is providing emergency food rations, temporary shelter supplies and blankets for approximately 1000 people on Indonesia's Nias Island, which was struck by a massive earthquake on March 28.
Indonesia: Huge Earthquake Strikes Southern Asia
Indonesia: High Hopes in Johan Pahlawan
Indonesia: Starting Anew in Layeun
A bone-rattling one-hour drive still separates the village of Layeun from Banda Aceh, the capital of the tsunami-decimated Aceh province of Indonesia. Roadside scenes along the way provide mind-boggling reminders of the force carried by the wave.
Indonesia: Responding to Disaster, Preparing to Rebuild
On December 28, 2004, Mercy Corps' Nigel Pont became one of the first international relief workers to reach the tsunami-decimated city of Banda Aceh, Indonesia.


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About 350 members of the Airlift Wing will be affected if sequester goes through
MARTINSBURG – Approximately 350 members of the 167th Airlift Wing would be furloughed if the federal sequester goes through Friday, Lt. Col. David Lester, West Virginia National Guard public affairs officer, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
"The situation is dynamic in the sense that it's changing, but from our perspective now, there are 56 individuals with the Army National Guard who will be unemployed," Lester said. "And across the Air National Guard, 906 individuals will be affected. A significant number of those will be with the 167th."
He said the number of 167th members furloughed could be a little higher or a little lower, but based on current information provided by the National Guard Bureau, 350 members of the 167th would be furloughed.
The 167th has about 500 full-time employees and about 670 part-time employees, Lester said.
Sequestration is the term used for automatic spending cuts triggered by the federal Budget Control Act of 2011. Across-the-board budget cuts to nearly all federal departments are supposed to take effect Friday.
Lester said most of the furloughed Guardsmen with the 167th would come from aircraft maintenance.
"They would be furloughed one day each week for 22 weeks," he said. "That would be about a 20 percent pay cut."
The furloughs would take effect in about 45 days, or around April 15, Lester said.
"This will have a significant impact on the 167th, because it has the highest mission capable rate in the entire Air National Guard, if not the entire U.S. Air Force," he said. "The average mission capable rate is about 46 percent. The 167th has a 61 percent mission capable rate and over the past 12 months, the 167th's mission capable rate has never been below 56 percent."
Mission capable means an aircraft is ready to fulfill its mission when called upon.
"The 167th is prepared to shuffle shifts to meet every mission," Lester said.
He said the reason the 167th is getting hit so hard is probably because it is scheduled to change from C-5 transport planes to C-17 cargo planes beginning late next year.
"We are anticipating transitioning to the C-17s – we haven't been told anything different by the Air Force," Lester said. "It may be more significant on the jobs at the 167th because we know they wouldn't have jobs after the mission transition."
It was announced in February 2012 that the 167th Airlift Wing's fleet of 11 C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft would be replaced with eight C-17 Globemaster cargo planes.
In addition to a smaller fleet, C-17s take fewer crews to fly and maintain than C-5s, so a reduction in the 167th's force would be expected after the changeover.
Lester did not know how many members of the 157th Military Police Co. would be affected by the sequester, but it probably would not be many because the unit does not have many full-time members.
Currently, there are three full-time and 159 traditional, or part-time, members assigned to the 157th, Lester said.
He did not know if the control tower at the Eastern Regional Airport would be affected by the sequester. The tower is operated through a contract with the National Guard Bureau.
Five general aviation airport control towers across West Virginia would be closed by the Federal Aviation Administration if sequestration goes through, according to an Associated Press report.
Towers at Bridgeport, Wheeling, Huntington, Lewisburg and Parkersburg are slated for closure. Towers at Morgantown and Charleston would remain open.
Bill Walkup, manager of the Eastern Regional Airport, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he was not aware of the control tower at the airport closing.
He has been in touch with the FAA every day about the sequestration's impact on the airport, he said.
"It looks like we are not going to be affected, nothing now," Walkup said. "The Airport Improvement Program will be funded. We'll get $150,000 through the AIP, as usual."
– Staff writer John McVey can be reached at 304-263-3381, ext. 128, or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Tuesday, October 1, 2013 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Your Jewish Legacy: Delaware's Jewish Legacy
Featuring Special Guest Speaker
Bryan Clontz CFP, CLU, CHFC, AEP, CAP
President And Co-Founder Of Charitable Solutions, LLC.
Siegel Jewish Community Center Auditorium
101 Garden of Eden Road, Wilmington, DE 19803
Exploring Legacy Giving with Bryan Clontz, CFP; Discover ways you can ensure a strong and sustainable future for you most valued programs and institutions.
Although geared to the Jewish community, Legacy giving can be applied to any organization that you have a special connections with. Legacy giving is possible for everyone, everywhere and will allowed your loved institutions to continue for generations to come.
Bryan Clontz, CFP serves as the president and co-founder of Charitable Solutions, LLC. Bryan has extensive experience in planned giving consulting, charitable gift annuities, non-cash asset receipt/disposition, donor advised funds and emergency assistance funds. For more information about or to view his bio, please visit charitableszolutionsllc.com.
Bryan's extensive planned giving background, coupled with his Legacy Giving presentations across the country, ensures that this will be the most educational and energizing presentation you will see all year!
We hope you will join with members of Delaware's Jewish community for this engaging presentation on Creating a Jewish Legacy.


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Adolf Hitler was nearly an artist before he got rejected from art school. Dolph Lundgren has a master's degree in chemical engineering but chose to go into direct-to-DVD action movies instead. And they're not the only ones; somewhere, there's an alternate reality completely different from ours, where the following people went with their first career choice (for better or worse).
5Fidel Castro: Major League Baseball Pitcher
Fidel Castro's passion for baseball is often seen as just another dictator's eccentricity, like Hitler's love for Disney characters or Saddam Hussein's romance-novel-writing hobby. Actually, it was much more than that: Not only did the human embodiment of international communism play the most American of sports in his youth, but he was close to moving to the U.S. and pitching for the Giants.
"Play ball! I mean, uh, power to the people and stuff ..."
Back in the 1940s, Cuba was just a sunny little country with a U.S.-backed government, and Fidel Castro was just a student at the University of Havana who loved baseball. Castro was a pitcher for the university's baseball team, and he threw such a great curveball that Major League Baseball teams began sending scouts to check him out. The Pittsburgh Pirates even sent a few of their players to test out the young pitcher, which resulted in Castro striking out future Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg.
fangraphs.com Wiki
"I still see that beard every time I close my eyes."
In 1949, the then New York Giants offered Castro a juicy contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus to come play baseball in the United States. Castro was already politically active and critical of U.S. imperialism at this time ... and yet he still took several days to think over the offer, consulting with his friends and family about what he should do. Eventually he turned down the contract, which took the Giants completely by surprise: Apparently, he was the first Latin American to say no to them.
"Thanks, but being a communist dictator pays pretty well, too, it turns out."
Ten years after turning the Giants down, Castro had overthrown Cuba's U.S.-backed government and was ruling the country himself. As we mentioned, he was already into Marxism while in college, but seriously, who wasn't? The main difference is that instead of putting Che Guevara on his T-shirts, Castro actually went on to hang out with the guy.
Our point being: There's a chance Castro would have said yes. Without him, or with a leader who was less charismatic, less stubborn and less impossible to kill, the Cuban Revolution would have failed and the Cold War would have unfolded differently. Keep in mind that the closest the world has come to a nuclear war happened when the Soviets thought it would be a good idea to put missiles in Castro's Cuba. In fact, some have pointed out that the successful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis is what emboldened the U.S. to jump into the Vietnam War.
"We're on a roll; what's the worst that could happen?"
4Tony Blair: Rock Star/Concert Promoter
Tony Blair is the longest-serving prime minister (1997-2007) in the history of the United Kingdom's Labour Party, the first Labour prime minister in 18 years and the second youngest person to become PM ever. Whatever you think of the guy, that's pretty impressive -- of course, this wasn't what he really wanted to do with his life. Blair's original ambition wasn't going into politics: It was being a rock star. More specifically, Mick Jagger.
He's the one with the permanently fixed grin and the fur coat.
Back in the 1970s, young Blair went as far as to dress and prance around like Jagger. Lots of teenagers dream of being famous rock stars (only to become something boring like an accountant or a world leader), but Blair did more than just fantasize about it: At age 19, he moved to London on his own in order to break into the music industry, actually having some success as a band promoter. Blair started taking on smaller bands in the London area and doing everything from driving them to gigs to presenting them onstage to fetching burgers, but it worked, and he did make some money.
Not enough for shoes or shirt buttons, apparently.
Some band members saw Blair as "quite pushy" and "over-friendly," but that's precisely what made him good at the job. After a year of building up credibility, it was time to move on to bigger things: In 1972, Blair booked a 400-seat auditorium in London for a show and talked to the manager of the band Free about playing there. The only problem was that the manager wanted 25,000 pounds up front, and Blair couldn't afford that. And so instead of Free, Blair hired another not-quite-so-famous band called Fruitbat McTang -- only 60 people showed up for the gig, and most demanded their money back.
Actually, yeah, that sounds better.
If Blair had managed to score something better than Fruitbat McTang for his first major gig, he probably wouldn't have given up on rock promotion a few months later to go into Oxford University. Once there, Blair joined a band called Ugly Rumours, but they broke up after six gigs. Blair has said that he "definitely wanted to carry on with the band," but had to settle for a career in politics.
Without Blair and his efforts to bring the leftist Labour Party to the center, there's a chance the Conservatives would have continued winning elections, and today the United Kingdom would be the setting for V for Vendetta (with cyborg Margaret Thatcher as Leader). Or maybe Labour would have won with a more liberal candidate ... one less willing to follow the U.S. into Afghanistan and Iraq. And this is without even counting the massive impact Tony Blair as a rock promoter would have no doubt had on the world of music and pop culture.
"What? Sure, I'll accept those 16 Grammys on behalf of Fruitbat McTang."


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It all started when I heard it for the first time. It was mingled with an acoustic guitar and blended with syncopated harmonies; a vision softly creeping that left its seeds while I was sleeping. The Sound of Silence.
It was the winter of 1966 and I had just purchased Simon and Garfunkel's debut album, "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." As a fledgling left-handed folk guitarist, I remember sitting next to my Silvertone portable record player and listening to that song over and over and over again, my amazement with the depth of its beauty and meaning intensifying with every spin of the record.
When I mustered up enough courage to actually think about trying to play it on my guitar, I just sat there bewildered, feeling a bit unworthy to replicate its melody. But when I finally got up the nerve, I knew exactly where to start: the magical opening measures of the guitar lead-in.
It consisted of four simple notes: Da-da-da-da ... repeated three times before the vocals started. I knew those notes were somewhere on my guitar's fretboard, just waiting for me to find them. It would be up to track six of side one of the record to point me the way.
So I listened. And I listened. And I searched for the notes. Found one. Found another. Then the last two suddenly fell into place. Da-da-da-da. I played that sequence a million times that night until it sounded just like the record. Da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da. I didn't know what chord I was forming or the names of the notes. All I knew was that my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, that split the night, and I was touching the sound of silence.
Sure, it seems a bit melodramatic. Four notes. But somehow finding those four notes opened up the floodgates to the discovery of infinitely more notes and chords and fingerpicking patterns. Yep, from that small start I was homeward bound and feelin' groovy, and not even Mrs. Robinson could stop me.
Later my high school friend, Paul, and I began to sing together. He could astonishingly duplicate Art Garfunkel's harmonies, and before we knew it we were performing at local coffee houses.
Not long after that we added Jack, our upright string bass player, and Jan, our second harmony female vocalist, as we bopped around the Chicago area doing gigs and actually getting paid. And all the while, I would be playing those four notes at every performance, somehow reminding me of where it had all started.
But, as it can happen, life got in the way of our path to fame and fortune. Our group split up as we moved on to college and careers and marriage and babies. But the music we had made together laid a foundation for lives that would be ever enhanced by lyric and song.
Jan went on to become a singer with Harry Belafonte. Jack continued as a talented musician performing for many years. Paul eventually built his own home studio and to this day writes and produces his music.
As for me, through the years I have continued to write, record and perform. I still have my trusty old 1968 Martin guitar, the one that so many years ago traveled with me in the back of my VW Bug into the city to do some sets on the North Side.
And now, whenever I pick up that old instrument, somehow my fingers always seem to gravitate to those four notes. Like old friends reminiscing as they sit like bookends on a park bench. So, hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again. Da-da-da-da.
• Michael Penkava is a retired teacher who taught for 35 years at West Elementary School in Crystal Lake. He will be performing Sunday evenings during January at the Village Squire in Crystal Lake. Stop in and you'll probably hear those four notes. He can be reached at email@example.com.


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My friend had a baby 10 days before me! (my lo is 6.5 mo) we had a playdate last week and she was shocked that my lo didnt get vitamins at her 6 mo checkup. I quickly said I guess bec I breastfeed and I take prenatals so it is not necc!!!...is this true???..or did I make that up??
OH and i was secretly happy my lo doesnt take any bec the liquid vitamins she gave smelled and made his poor lil breath smell too!!


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OFFICE SPACES FOR RENT Starting at $250/mo. Parking spaces also available. Located on US 1, Cudjoe Key. 305-304-0776More info Email a friend


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Green Valley Country Club
Greenville, South Carolina
June 21-24, 2004
Wang paces Girls Division
GREENVILLE, S.C. â Sixteen-year-old Paul Haley of Dallas shot a 7-under-par 65 to distance himself from the rest of the Boys Division following the second-round of the Dunlop Carolina Junior Championship. Catherina Wang of Sarasota, Fla., carded a 73 during her round for to take a four-stroke lead in the Girls Division.The seventh annual Dunlop Carolina Junior Championship is a 54-hole stroke-play event, conducted by the American Junior Golf Association at Green Valley Country Club. The tournament includes 99 boy and girl junior golfers, ages 12-18, from 16 states and Canada. Five Rolex Junior All-Americans and 27 South Carolina natives highlight the field. Haley came into the second round tied with Ryan LeFevre of Boca Raton, Fla., and managed to fire a 32 on the front nine and 33 on the back. During his stellar round, Haley hit 12 fairways, 12 greens and needed only 23 putts to take a four-stroke lead. One day after shooting a 68, Haley took advantage of his accurate driving and was able to get the ball onto the green.âI drove the ball well,â Haley commented. âMy irons werenât as good as the first-round, but I made good putts when I hit the greens. I had all aspects of my game going today â driving, irons, chipping and putting.âHaleyâs scorecard included birdies on Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6 and 9 on the front nine, and Nos. 12, 16, 17 and 18 on the back nine. Haley sank a 35-foot putt on the par-4 ninth for birdie, and credited his birdie on No. 12 for getting him going down the stretch.âI bogeyed No. 11 and coming back with a birdie on No. 12 really gave me the confidence I needed,â Haley said. âGoing into the final round, Iâm going to just play the course and continue to hit fairways and greens.âTrailing Haley by four strokes is Nicholas Smith of Ocala, Fla., who carded a 6-under-par 66 and has a two-day total of 137. Right behind in third-place is LeFevre who totaled a 70 in the second-round and a total of 138. Charlie Holland of Dallas and Jon McLean of Weston, Fla., shot 69 and 68 respectively, to bring the their two-day totals to 140 and 141.Smith is hoping to have another strong round on Thursday and feels his comfort with the course has him playing strong. âThese greens are similar to the ones I play at home and it feels like I am just playing a round on Saturday morning,â Smith explained. âI really felt at home and was having fun with the guys.âIn the Girls Division, Wang continued her steady play and will be looking to add a victory at the Dunlop Carolina Junior Championship to her recent win at the Ringgold Telephone Company Junior Classic. Wang needed only 28 putts to complete her round and hit 13 greens in regulation. Wang noted that keeping the ball in play and hitting her driver well led to her consistent play. Wang believes she has herself in position to win and is playing with confidence.âI like my chances, but Iâm going to treat it like itâs just another tournament day,â Wang said.Jessica Yadloczky of Cassleberry, Fla., and Whitney Simons of Aiken, S.C., sit tied in second-place at 146. Yadloczky tallied an even-par 72 and Simons finished with a 71 during the second-round.The final round of the Dunlop Carolina Junior Championship will begin Thursday morning at 7:00 a.m. off No. 1.The American Junior Golf Association is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the overall growth and development of young men and women who aspire to earn college golf scholarships through competitive junior golf. The AJGA has a membership (boys and girls ages 12-18) of approximately 5,000 junior golfers from 50 states and 30 foreign countries.
Titleist, the AJGAâs National Sponsor, has been the catalyst and driving force behind the Associationâs success since 1989. Rolex Watch USA, a supporter of the AJGA since 1983, became the inaugural AJGA Premier Partner in 2004. For more information about the Dunlop Carolina Junior Championship, please contact tournament headquarters at (864) 246-3941 or visit the AJGA Web site at www.ajga.org.
The Foundation
The Achieving Competitive Excellence (ACE) Grant program provides financial assistance to junior golfers who wish to play in AJGA events. Its goal is to give top-flight golf opportunities to young golfers regardless of financial resources. This program helps to fulfill the AJGA's mission of developing young men and women who aspire to earn college golf scholarships through competitive junior golf.
What is Leadership Links?
Leadership Links is a new program whereby the AJGA is able to further its mission to help develop young men and women by teaching charitable giving skills and service-oriented practices at an early age. This program gives juniors all the tools necessary to donate their time, talent and resources to local charities and the AJGA youth development programs. Please click here to learn more about the program and the different opportunities available.


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When it comes to industry trends, it was only a few months ago that Bob O'Brien, president of NPD Foodworld, told attendees at RESTAURANT HOSPITALITY'S Concepts of Tomorrow conference that breakfast is the bright spot in all dayparts. This month's recipes provide some rise-and-shine ideas that can put your breakfast and brunch menu on the local map of appetizing places to start the day. In Chicago, Orange is a brunch spot known for its inventive dishes and freshly squeezed juices. Hip ...
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Mark Myers, choral director at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, IL, has been honored with a Vocal Vanguard award, a 2012 Aspire Award sponsored by FAME, a national show choir competition. The award was based on the number of online nominations Myers received from fellow members of the Academy of Show Choir Professionals around the country.
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Kelly McMasters; Reader, writer, independent bookstore owner
TRR: Tell me about your column for The Paris Review. How did that come about?
KMcM: Well, I had an essay published in the American Scholar right as the shop was staring to open. The American Scholar is like my nerdy crush (laughter), so I was very excited, because I'm a religious reader. They had this column by Michael Dirda, who was a huge bibliophile, and I saw in one of his columns that he was going to be leaving and that they hadn't found a replacement yet, so I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is perfect. I can write for the American Scholar on a column basis."
So I put a pitch together and sent it to my agent. And she said, "I love your pitch—just the idea of leaving the city and coming to the country and opening a bookshop. Can you let me have this pitch for two weeks and let me try to [send it around]?" And so she sent it to The Paris Review, and they wrote back immediately and they said "yes." Later on I asked why they were so quick to say, yes, and [my editor] said she thinks it's every literary person's dream in New York City to (a) leave the city and (b) open a bookshop. She also said she [didn't want] this to be a sort of glowy thing; she wanted the real stuff, and that is what I think I'm giving in the column. But it's also helped me figure out how I'm feeling [about the bookstore] and how it's doing. I'm just trying to be honest on the page, but it's also reaffirmed—not that I thought running a bookshop would be easy—but it's just reaffirmed my relationship with books.


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President's Welcome
Biblical Seminary is known as the missional seminary and I am rather protective of this reputation. It seems that everyone is now missional. An ever increasing number of seminaries, church-planting organizations, missionary agencies and churches, have now appropriated the term. Led largely by younger leaders, evangelicals have moved from suspicion to celebration of the missional turn. We are gratified that others have embraced the missional imperative, but we must not allow it to become a mere buzz-word or the latest Christian fad.
It is important to understand that missional is not a static proposition; rather it is a dynamic way of living the gospel in a culturally complex world. Missional requires a humble recognition of our own finitude and fallenness; it is a quiet confidence in the redemptive power of the mission-Giver; and it is always authentic and generous as it engages this muddled world. The missional mindset changes everything.
At Biblical Seminary our faculty and staff understand that missional impacts every aspect of our institution. Our innovative curriculum is geared specifically to prepare women and men to engage our postmodern culture. To be missional means that we love the Bible and are committed to reading it with a penetrating honesty and with an ear to what it teaches about urban ministry, poverty, social justice, sex-trafficking, child abuse, sexuality and violence against women. For us the missional outlook extends to every quarter of the globe and requires greater sensitivity to the resident cultural complexities and a commitment to work within such complexities.
To be missional takes courage. We invite you to join us on the missional journey as we Follow Jesus into the World.
Semper Reformanda (always reforming)
Frank A. James III, DPhil, PhD


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Somehow, my current home studio setup is consisted of three AKAI products... MPC1000, APC40, MPK mini...
I have recently sold all of my hardware synths. I am solely relying on VSTs and my iPad for any synth sound sources. Oh, I still have a Banshee talkbox which I connect to my iPad & MPK mini to play.
DAWs I use are Logic Pro and Ableton Live.
(I used to use Cubase for the last 15 years or so...)
Thanks for checking out~
My current home studio gear set-up...
Started by Nitro Fresh , Jul 09 2012 08:27 AM
3 replies to this topic
Posted 09 July 2012 - 08:27 AM
Posted 09 July 2012 - 02:02 PM
recomend me some ipad synth apps?
Posted 11 July 2012 - 12:02 AM
recomend me some ipad synth apps?
Sunrizer - it's like Roland JP8000
Moog Animoog - what more can i say?
Moog Filtatron - an amazing little synth & bass and effector
ThumbJam - great tool to spice up your music... great brainstorming tool as well
Posted 11 July 2012 - 10:41 AM
thanks man i had the animoog as an app on my iphone but im getting a ipad next week so il defo be copping that again thanks for the recomends
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Friday, April 9, 2010
My Walnut-sized Brain
I'd read a sentence, reread the sentence, read it again…and finally move on just to turn the page. My family made fun of me; called the book, and the bag in which I carried it, my security blanket, because I wouldn't leave home without it—though I rarely touched it en route.
I've been reading people's lists of the ten most influential books of their lives. I don't think I remember a word of anything I read before I was twenty-one. My brain wasn't ready—too overwhelmed by hormones and drama—to pick up on nuances and symbolisms. So I picked out the fattest, most conspicuous books I could find to carry around in order to appear intelligent.
My seventh grade year was marked by a hard-backed copy of Anne of Avonlea. It shouldn't have been too hard for me to read, but it was. My freshman year of high school was Eleni by Nicholas Gage, which I could actually talk about when people asked, because I had seen the movie.
Interspersed in the fat and impressive books, were books that I did read: books about ESP and the paranormal, Babysitters Club books, Vogue Magazines. I didn't advertise these reads. I gobbled them up in private, just like I'd horde chocolate in my drawers so that no one else could see my appetite for junk.
Part of the problem of growing up in a well-read family is that we all knew that some books were better than others. I could read a thousand Sweet Valley books and they wouldn't total the value of one Dostoevsky. As it should be. The problem was that I didn't "get" Dostoevsky, and Sweet Valley was a piece of cake. It wasn't fair. None of my reading counted.
Meanwhile, in our living-room, my older sister had curled her body into a pretzel and was squinting her eyes into the minuscule print of Gone With the Wind which she finished in all of two weeks. Her concentration was unbreakable. I was invisible to her, though I crawled up behind the wing-back chair in which she sat and put my finger in her ear, or whispered words like "suburban" and "couperf" and "satchel" because I knew she hated those words.
Her friends would ride their bikes over to play, find her reading, and have to be satisfied with my company. And I would be playing Barbies, no doubt, making the dolls do naughty things, and then saying, "It's ok, they're married," even though in my head, they were not.
One of my boys recently said, "I have a walnut-sized brain for school and a football-sized brain for comedy." That's me. My brain was too full of the junk to make room for anything of importance. I wanted to entertain, and be entertained—not to learn. As my husband told my son, however, "If you don't change those proportions, you'll be able to look forward to a walnut-sized salary someday."
And so, in my later college years, I set about acquiring the skills of an intellectual—which meant, getting rid of my junk-food literary diet, becoming sort of somber and withdrawn (partially the outcome of failed relationships), and emulating my sister's reading habits.
I hate to say that my brain was just waiting for someone to turn the lights on. Either it came of age, or getting serious, and having a few more "adult" experiences under my belt, helped me to understand more serious matters. In any case, I suddenly understood. I began to read literature for leisure. I read with a pen in hand to keep notes of things that interested me—I still do.
And I felt personal connections for the first time with characters in my books.
I met my husband while I was a senior in college. Every now and then, this Duffy guy would call up and ask me to go to a Pacers game or something low-brow like that, which didn't fit my new intellectual standards. But apparently he still liked me, and was interested enough to read Anna Karenina because it was my favorite book at the time.
When I asked him what he thought of it, he said he thought Anna was kind of a slut. It would be two years before I would go out with him again after that comment. Criticize Anna, criticize me. I took books very seriously and anyone who couldn't comprehend the nuances of Anna's situation had no business with me.
What I didn't realize at the time is that my future husband was being glib. And it was I who couldn't comprehend glibness in the face of a literary master. I had slid from one extreme to another, from book avoidance, to book worship. The only way out of my predicament was to read more, and more. The more I read, the more I could compare. The greater my literary experience, the better equipped I was to critique, and even at times, to poke fun.
I read for ten years. Throughout my twenties, while I was having babies like hotcakes, and they were all little and slept a lot, I would lay on my bed in the afternoon with sleeping kids around me, reading. I read out loud to them, at least the early ones, from whatever I happened to be reading at the time. I read a couple books a week, or more. I read Anna Karenina again, and found a couple things to laugh at.
I wish I still read like that, but I don't. I go on reading benders here and there. And then I go on a writing bender. But the kids are older, and I can't languish in bed in the afternoons anymore. Reading is after dark, which puts it at stiff competition with sleep, and writing, and surfing the internet (which somehow never puts me to sleep).
I want to read again. I need to read again. I feel a bender coming on, but it's going to take some work, as reading benders don't always come with the ease of, well, other types of benders. Junk out, good stuff in.
Things may be slow on the blog for awhile.
31 comments:
- Rebekka said...
I did that to my Barbies too.
- April 9, 2010 at 8:37 AM
- Hope said...
I carried around War and Peace in high school for a brief time. I never read it but I wanted it to look like I did.
My daughter asked me once if we were book snobs. I always commented if she was reading anything I considered fluff. And they all remember the time I stopped reading a book to them because after every other sentence I lamented about the wretched writing.
Now I know that every so often only a fluff book will do. I still haven't read War and Peace.
Of course I want you to be able to go on both a book reading binge and a blog writing binge.
- April 9, 2010 at 10:39 AM
- nicole said...
I made myself read War and Peace. I didn't really like it, but I wanted to be able to say I read it. Which is just plain silly.
I LOVE to read. I read at the expense of just about everything, which is not really a good thing. I read a lot of fluff with some more "serious" literature included once in a while. I stopped worrying about the value of what I was reading and decided that it didn't matter. Very freeing.
Oh, and if you do find time for a reading bender, I hope you will share with us what you read.
- April 9, 2010 at 11:05 AM
- Karyn said...
Your comment about being able to read more when the kids were young gave me the shivers - I keep hoping I can get back to reading more once my kids are older. I picture all of us spending languid afternoons reading silently to ourselves. Darn it.
- April 9, 2010 at 11:47 AM
- Suburbanbanshee said...
Re: War and Peace
Most translations of it are incompetent, cut out all the funny bits, and then abridge the story without telling you. I'm not saying it's all for funzies, but Russians didn't make it a bestseller originally out of some masochistic urge to suffer. I don't know why most translators are so allergic to translating wit, though. (Granted, it's not easy to do; but an attempt would be nice.)
(Like the usual school versions of The Count of Monte Cristo. Nothing like cutting out all the non-main character moments, and then asking you questions on the quiz about the characters who are now barely there. Like cutting out all the witty banter at decadent parties. That sort of thing.)
I haven't gotten through W & P either, but I was really enjoying the unabridged good modern translation until my eyes started crossing and I got a headache.
Re: Crime and Punishment, we had to read it in high school. I'm not much into thrillers about killers, so neither that nor Dreiser's American Tragedy did much for me. Porfiry was cool as a detective, though I couldn't get over the fact that the Tsarist police wasn't All That Nice.
Re: literature opening up -- I never had much trouble reading Big Books o' Doom, but I'm still not much for a lot of mainstream literature. Early 1800's literature came alive for me in my late twenties and early thirties, though, so I sympathize.
- April 9, 2010 at 12:16 PM
- Mark Brentano said...
Extraordinary. I've just sauntered into an internet cafe to post about books, and I was going to tell everyone to avoid Crime and Punishment and read The Brothers Karamazov instead. Popped over to your place, and it's books all over the shop. Small virtual world.
- April 9, 2010 at 12:59 PM
- Peter and Nancy said...
Jane Eyre in the 8th grade was the first "serious" literature I ever read. I re-read it 3 years ago for a book discussion group, and found that it stood the test of time very well -- particularly since I became a Christian at age 21, and there are some lovely words in there about our heavenly Father and redemption. I love, love, love a well-written mystery though -- that's my biggest reading vice.
Couldn't make it through War and Peace, but I did my time with Moby Dick.
- April 9, 2010 at 2:01 PM
- mrsdarwin said...
I hate W&P with a passion (and I have read it all the way through -- I didn't like any of the characters, and I loathed Natasha). And your husband was right -- Anna was a slut.
I read Babysitters Club voraciously in sixth grade, when everyone else was doing it as well. Now I'm divided on whether or not to let my girls get hooked on an interminable series like that. I did veto the Rainbow Fairy books from Scholastic that all the little secular homeschoolers are passing around (yes, the books are innocuous and inoffensive) because my girls would check them out in great armfuls and we'd lose them and the little brother would throw them in the toilet. And eventually the covers gave me morning sickness.
- April 9, 2010 at 3:13 PM
- TS said...
whispered words like "suburban"
Smiling broadly.
I knew my wife loved me when she read the turgid Art of Loving by Erich Fromm at my request (naively I imagined this as 'marriage insurance' given my worship of books).
Meanwhile I'm still pondering something you said from a much earlier post: I have no problem picking the scab. Or maybe I don't want it to heal because I'm afraid of having nothing to do without it. Does this mean in the sense of courting drama merely for drama's sake, because it makes us feel alive or is it because we would (paradoxically) feel more vulnerable if our weaknesses were taken away?
PS My word verification is: beertinv - a Godincidence!
- April 9, 2010 at 3:33 PM
- Laura said...
I go on such binges whenever I'm home from school. Finally, time to read for fun! Why is reading a book for pleasure so much better than reading it for class? Why are novels so much more fun than nonfiction?
- April 10, 2010 at 12:16 AM
- Sally Thomas said...
I need a reading binge. Several summers ago I went on one, a big fat book binge, in which I read Brothers K, which I had not read before and am not sure I "got" -- aside from the distinct impression that the mere fact of being Russian seems stressful -- and The Pickwick Papers, which I loved and read aloud to anyone who would listen, until the children begged me to stop.
Dreiser: bleah.
I used to think novels were more fun than nonfiction, but in recent years, I've been far more able to read nonfiction than novels, maybe because I really want to write one, and when I read them, they get in the way of what I want to write. Not that I'm making any better progress on the writing front than the reading one . . .
I'd love it if you'd leave a link to this post in the little linky-carnival widget over on my blog, by the way. Things are a little slow getting going, and I think this would be a great addition to the conversation. I myself have been discursing on Sagas of the Icelanders -- another big fat book which I find I can put down, though it is pretty fascinating in its own bleak way.
My v-code word: tagri.
- April 10, 2010 at 6:24 AM
- Sally Thomas said...
Discoursing, I think I mean. Being discursive. Whatever. I mean I'm talkin' about the Vikin's.
And now my word is "sqhsmerd." I think we ought to start a dictionary.
- April 10, 2010 at 6:27 AM
- Sally Thomas said...
Sorry, I'm flooding your combox, but perhaps the actual link to the post would be useful.
- April 10, 2010 at 6:36 AM
- BettyDuffy said...
You wait at home most days hoping someone will stop by, then you leave the house for just a minute and everyone shows up. Party in my combox, and I want to be here. I'm thinking about all of your comments. I'll be back as soon as I can.
- April 10, 2010 at 7:59 AM
- lissla lissar said...
Oh, heavens. I read Les Miserable and The Canterbury Tales. At 14. To show I was smart.
I didn't enjoy them. I was just being a prig.
I have a mental separation between 'fluff' or popcorn books, and decent books. I have books from both categories in my 'too tired to read anything new' book pile, but it tends towards fluff.
I also read a huge amount of terrible stuff in high school. I'm annoyed about how much time I wasted on Heinlein.
Sorry this in incoherent- I have a new baby.
- April 10, 2010 at 10:53 AM
- Rae said...
Oh dear. I go through times of reading and times (er years?) of not really reading, but I don't have the excuse of children. It seems that sometimes my brain is simply smaller for no reason.
But I am guessing that I am not fit to comment on "the Russians" since I am only 24. :-) I must say though that I doubt your grandfather ever read Chernyshevsky, or he might not have had such a high view!
- April 10, 2010 at 3:41 PM
- Dawn Farias said...
I enjoyed this post!
- April 11, 2010 at 3:57 PM
- BettyDuffy said...
War and Peace: started it twice. Got halfway through twice. Gave it up twice. Oh well.
Crime and Punishment: I did revisit a couple years ago, and was sort of surprised by how simple the story arc really is. Guy contemplates murder. Guy commits murder. Guy goes nuts with guilt until he turns himself in. Written out like that, it's so obviously a snoozer, and the whole premise assumes that the readers will all share the same abhorence of Raskolnikov's crime. I was struck while reading it though that most people really don't obsess like that over their own sins. Lies, stealing, cheating, whatever...so easily forgotten, but murder, the BIG GUN, I don't know. I'd like to interview an actual murderer just to see if it's as affecting as Dostoevsky wants it to be. Not to downplay murder, but to paraphrase Don Draper (Mad Men) on how he gets over his sordid history: "You will be shocked at how much this didn't happen." Anyway, C&P and Sigrid Undset's Master of Hestviken are both giant novels whose narrative drive depends on the main characters remaining unrepentant for murder, and I think both novels fail for some reason.
Karyn, I could be wrong, but it's looking like the next languid afternoon comes in the nursing home.
Mrs. D, I'm a few years older than you, which means that while you were reading Babysitters Club in sixth grade, I was probably in high school. That's embarrassing.
- April 11, 2010 at 8:40 PM
- BettyDuffy said...
One more thought on C&P and the Master of Hestviken: I think the reason they don't work (for me, anyway) is because they want to illustrate the natural law, but I think in actuality, the natural law works in more subtle ways than flattening with guilt anyone who disobeys it.
TS: "Does this mean in the sense of courting drama merely for drama's sake, because it makes us feel alive or is it because we would (paradoxically) feel more vulnerable if our weaknesses were taken away?"
I think it's a bit of each, but mostly the latter, along with a healthy fear of sanctity, because it's an interminable labor.
- April 11, 2010 at 9:05 PM
- JMB said...
My favorite novels were read in conjunction with some fabulous teachers. I read Dickens in high school, Shakespeare & Chaucer (of course). I wouldn't have enjoyed these half as much if I read them on my own.
Later on, I read Flannery O'Connor, more Austen, Jane Eyre, more Dickens, Anna Karenina, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, the list goes on. This was during college when I had plenty of time and plenty of people to sit around and discuss books with.
Books to me have to be read and discussed. It's really lonely to read something and have no one to talk about it with. It's also hard when you have a tendancy towards being a readaholic, when you would rather read and be in your own little world than be in the big world.
And some books I never got, nor don't care if I ever did, like Moby Dick.
- April 12, 2010 at 6:11 PM
- Darwin said...
I'm a few years older than you, which means that while you were reading Babysitters Club in sixth grade, I was probably in high school. That's embarrassing.
I suspect that "when everyone was reading them" in regards to Babysitters Club is a little like the golden age of science fiction: it's an age not an era. It looks like the series started in 1986, so I think you can safely claim you read them in Junior High, even if MrsDarwin did so a few years later.
If truth be told, I read two Babysitters Club books myself in fifth grade -- but that was because a girl I knew said she'd only try the science fiction series I recommended to her if I read two of her babysitters club books. (She read the rest of the SF series and I never cracked another Babysitters Club book, so I figure I won.)
- April 12, 2010 at 7:39 PM
- mrsdarwin said...
One more thought on C&P and the Master of Hestviken: I think the reason they don't work (for me, anyway) is because they want to illustrate the natural law, but I think in actuality, the natural law works in more subtle ways than flattening with guilt anyone who disobeys it.
Kristin Lavransdattir has that same flair (though it deals with fornication, not murder) -- the guilt from sin seems to drown the story in melodrama.
I think an interesting contrast is Absalom, Absalom (though maybe that's a discussion from another blog). None of the characters seems to have the remotest sense of sin, and yet the consequences of sinful actions stretch through the years and doom an entire family (all of whom, to some extent, have bought into the lifestyle afforded by sin, so all of whom bear the guilt -- there are no innocent bystanders hurt in that novel, except maybe the narrator, who isn't really involved in the drama).
- April 12, 2010 at 8:02 PM
- BettyDuffy said...
Mrs. D, I'm still trying to figure out who the narrator is. Am I getting that the narrator changes almost every chapter, and yet it still somehow always sounds like Faulkner? But yes, for another blog.
JMB, speaking of other blogs, if you like talking about the books you're reading, you may enjoy the blog Mrs. Darwin and I share with some other very interesting people, readingforbelievers.blogspot.com
We're just getting started on Faulkner right now and commenters are welcome if you'd like to join in.
Mr. Darwin, Good save.
- April 12, 2010 at 9:03 PM
- mrsdarwin said...
And some books I never got, nor don't care if I ever did, like Moby Dick.
Preach it, amigo. I had a college professor who was convinced that Moby Dick was comparable to the Summa Theologica for spiritual depth. I thought he and the book were Looney Tune.
- April 12, 2010 at 10:16 PM
- eaucoin said...
Three great books I would recommend are Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, and Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro. There, I'm done. P.S. The youngest of my five daughters turned 20 at Christmas--I sometimes have time to read--your best strategy might be to keep a book in your purse for when you have to wait for someone--I've spent about a third of my life waiting for somebody somewhere. And I will admit that the time is better spent praying (as a mother it's advisable to be proactive rather than reactive). Also of interest, our old neighbours remember that my children were nice, not that the yard was usually a mess.
- April 13, 2010 at 5:58 AM
- JMB said...
Thanks Betty, I actually checked you guys out because my book group just finished Donna Tartt's Secret History. I really appreciated your comments about the book. I liked it immensely, but it was way too long and seemed to get lost in the middle. I'm surprised there isn't a screenplay out - I think it would have made a great movie.
Our next book is Lit by Mary Karr.
Have you read it?
- April 13, 2010 at 8:12 AM
- BettyDuffy said...
JMB, I wrote down Mary Karr yesterday so that I'd remember that I want to read that very book. How funny. Let me know how you like it.
Eucoin, thanks for the encouragement.
- April 13, 2010 at 8:34 AM
- Emily J. said...
Poor Moby Dick. Dear God, please bless Dr. Alvis for sharing his clear-eyed understanding of this book in his captivating Dallas drawl. Amen.
- April 13, 2010 at 2:01 PM
- JMB said...
Loved Lit, but then again, I am a sucker for train wreck families, alcoholism and agnostic literary types who convert to Catholicism. She was also a former girlfriend of David Foster Wallace which really piqued my interest. Now I'm interested in reading some Tobias Wolff, who was her RCIA sponser and Godfather.
- April 13, 2010 at 6:31 PM
- BettyDuffy said...
I just picked up Tobias Wolff's "This Boys Life" from Goodwill the other day. I too am a sucker for agnostic literary type converts. I'm going to read Lit.
- April 13, 2010 at 6:59 PM
- Lucy said...
Moby Dick and all of Hemingway can go in the garbage disposal. What can you expect from a guy who comes from a family of suicides and succombs to it himself. I give him credit for delving deeper than the average joe, trying to find meaning in this seemingly meaningless existence. I'd probably be just like him, (with a much lower IQ) if I hadn't finally discovered that this isn't our home. What a relief! I kept trying to figure this place out, and it doesn't make sense without some understanding of the meaning of suffering. Reading about suffering fools who strive for something on earth which turns out to be so unsatisfactory only led me into further despair. But perhaps it was this despair which made me keep looking for more, until I finally found the truth.
He was probably melancholic, like me. We've seen through everything on earth and we are ready to leave it all for Heaven, now!
My 8th grade summer I checked out all of the classics I had ever heard of and began my quest for superior knowledge and a great tan by reading on a mat in our pool. Foolish me! I have Irish skin with freckles, so all I did was burn, and my abition with self-taught superior knowledge was short lived as reality that I wasn't ready for it sank in.
In my late thirty's I was disgusted with men after finding out that so many, including some of my friends husbands, were addicted to porn. I decided to escape into a big long book and checked out The Brothers K. from the library knowing nothing about it. Needless to say, the book hit the wall within a few chapters!
Alas, I grew up with a thorough knowledge of Gilligan's Island and could tell you about almost every episode. My children, who being homeschooled, had plenty of time to read and no access to television have read so much more than I have. They have a great outlet for a deeper relationships with novels by being involved with a national speech/debate club and view every novel as a possible "winner" next year.
Thanks for your very honest and self-revealing post. I really enjoyed this!
In Christ,
- April 17, 2010 at 3:15 PM


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