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I had one of these in the pre-colour screen days. It was a hand me down from my Dad, who got a new phone on upgrade every year and therefore distributed his old ones amongst the family. I got this one when it was brand new, because his new car didn't support it; this was the time before Bluetooth, and the car came with a plug for a different Motorola, although because it was Tri-band where his wasn't, we swapped over again for when he took trips to the USA.
This would have been around 2002, and back then flip phones were all the rage. I loved it, despite it feeling a bit less complete as a package than the Nokia 3210 it replaced (which was passed onto my sister). But it was very simple to use, it did calls and texts, there were a couple of games on it, it had some good and some awful ringtones, and that was about it. But back then it was amazing, and the best phone out of all my mates, which at age 12 is what mattered most.
There was one trip to America for my dad that ended in disaster. He came back and told me that he'd washed his coat at the hotel laundrette, with the phone still in the pocket. I was pretty upset, but the phone still worked extremely well, it must be said, although people on the other end used to say that the quality of my voice on their phone dropped a bit.
This lasted me until 2004, when dad upgraded again and I ended up with a Sharp GX30, which at the time felt like the dog's dangly bits, but I soon found out it was far from it. But that's another story.
All in all, I loved the 2 years I spent with the V66, and if it weren't for dad constantly upgrading, and the shift in technology, I'd probably still have it.
I searched for the V66e - but Dooyoo didn't want to oblige! - what's the difference between phone with the 'e' suffix and one without? Nothing with the phone itself, its just that as I discovered, phones with an 'e' suffix are solely for use on the Orange Network. The time had arrived change my phone AND network. Having suffered with BT Cellnet for around 11½ months (subsequently O2) I hated them - signals in the depths of mid-Wales were something the police did in the middle of the road whilst directing traffic and I used to open my bills with all the confidence of someone expecting the bailiffs as they were horrendous - the costs of running a phone on a similar contract to Orange had doubled . I had been conned at the outset by not realising that calls to other networks were not included in my free minutes - so I was spending my money calling my daughter, dad and beloved whilst losing my free minutes every month, as they are not rolled over with O2 as they are with Orange. I fell out with Orange but now it was time to go back, but what were my choices? Pay as You Go, Some form of Orange pay up front for line rental and just pay for calls or a good old-fashioned 'where have you lived for the last 10 years?' contract. After a lengthy conversation with my friend Stephen at the Carphone Warehouse I opted for a Talk 200 contract - now, which phone? A quick glance through their myriad of selections on the wall saw my eyes fall upon the Motorola V66e, a very sexy dinky little silver number with a small black covering on the front, carrying the large 'M' significant of the Motorola Brand - well they are a good company aren't they? How could things go wrong? The small black covering is easily removed and hides the SIM card; other colours and patterns for this covering are available from all good telephone stockists - but I do like Black, it gives it a rather sexy and business
like feel. The phone also has a rather sizeable and static aerial. Everyone who sees this phone wants a closer look; it oozes finesse and sexiness as far as it is possible for a phone to do so, it has a flip-over lid with the buttons and the mouth-piece on the bottom part and a surprisingly large display and the ear-piece on the top half. It is very comfortable to use and conversations are usually very clear providing geographic reception is OK. THE COST? Well I am sure this varies between shops, but in the Carphone Warehouse in early June 2002: · Pay as You Go - £199 · Orange No Line rental - £149 · Contract - £30 Although the Carphone Warehouse had an offer on during the Jubilee weekend of providing it free, so it didn't cost me a dime; incidentally if you buy through the Orange website at the moment you will get this phone free and £149.99 for the Pay as you Go version. USAGE This phone is a tri-band, which I understand means you can literally use it anywhere (subject to your contract arrangements and network availability) including the US. WAP ENABLED You can 'surf the web' using the phone, loosely interpreted from my limited experience with it, that you can obtain a dearth of information on latest news stories, share prices and hot gossip on your favourite football teams and stars, although with the wide use of the internet I don't really see that much benefit from this function at a cost of 5p per minute, but hang on - this phone also has another feature which I was really excited about, but haven't actually had reason to try out yet, it doubles up as a modem and the relevant cables and discs were supplied to allow you to use your laptop to surf the internet whilst travelling in cars and trains (make sure you are not driving at the same time with the former). VITAL STATISTICS o Length 84mm o Width 44mm o Depth 21mm o Weight 73g As you can see it really is small and lightweight, so small in fact that when it gets into the depths of my handbag I can never find the damn thing even when it is ringing. RING TONES All boring stuff I'm afraid, no Jingle Bells and Robbie Williams received tones here - it is all classical, although it does vibrate in 5 ways, great for those guys and gals who keep their mobile in their trouser pocket and enjoy a cheap thrill. Unlike Nokia, it doesn?t vibrate and ring at the same time, it either simply vibrates, or vibrates 5 or 6 times and then rings and yes it is a very noticeable vibrate that has seen my bag shaking and me desperately looking for it. There is also a little light at the top which flashes red intermittently when the phone is active. MESSAGE TEXTING Yes, why shock horror you can send text messages from this phone. The reason I mentioned it separately is because whereas with the Nokias and other phones I have used you can just press the appropriate button until you get to the required number of letter; with this phone you have to use the backward and forward arrow keys to select your character - gone are my discrete days of quickly wapping out a text message to my nearest and dearest whilst travelling. In addition the buttons are very small and trust me you need very nimble fingers to use it. My other half gave it back to me in disgust the first time I asked him to make a call on it. The Message centre on the phone has boxes for Voicemails, Text Messages, Quick notes, Outbox and saving Draft Messages (if your sending a long message this could some in very handy - I have found that if you accidentally press the wrong button whilst texting you will lose the whole thing and have to start from scratch. Using this phone for texting has become akin to the same chore that my thesis is going to be in the coming months, hence I am sending far less text messages ; result, increased phone bills. TALK-TIME AND LONGEVITY Yes I am a woman, but I do not spend hours on my mobile, using it just for work and family related quick calls - so can't tell you whether it lives up to its claim of 2.5hours, but I do use it regularly and seldom charge it. Standby is stated as 4.5 days, although I haven't run the battery down at all yet as I need to keep the thing charged sufficiently for when I am out and about travelling. I purchased an in-car charger at the same time as the phone which set me back £14.99 less 10% discount for buying it in the Carphone warehouse at the same time. It has different connections from the Nokia range and therefore I needed to literally start from scratch. OTHER FEATURES Calculator - numbers as expected are used off the keypad, actions such as multiply and divide are selected from a row of pictures using the navigation buttons. GAMES BlackJack - which is exactly what its name suggests - not mind blowingly exciting and the bloody thing nearly always beats me. MindBlaster - Haven't quite worked this out. Paddleball - Like computerised tennis from basic computers many years ago, you try to keep a bouncing ball on the screen and the game is over once you fail. The keys are so small, I find it quite difficult to move the cursors fast enough, plus again it is not exactly what I would call exciting, not like Pairs and Snake on the Nokia range which are slightly more stimulating. TELEPHONE BOOK This is a particularly pleasing feature of phone and I believe it can store up to 590 numbers, 90 on the phone itself and 500 on the SIM. When inputting numbers you are provided with a range of options to select whether it is home, work, mobile, fax or pager and you can store all five numbers under the one name, making them easily identifiable when browsing the phonebook. The keys are so small however that transferring all my numbers took a ges. In addition
, a speed-dial number is automatically allocated to every phone book entry and there is also a facility to use Voice Activated dialling. BEWARE Some of the V66e mobiles have a fault; I have had mobiles for nearly 7 years and have never come across it before. I tend to store ALL useful contact numbers on my phone, save me digging through diaries or scrappy bits of paper. I turned my phone on Friday to get a number I didn't ring regularly only to find the phonebook empty. After a couple of minutes hyperventilating, I controlled myself sufficiently to contact Orange, only to discover that there is a recognised fault which is being investigated and it does not affect all the handsets, therefore they didn't think it necessary to notify customers - aaaaaggggh. However, I was advised to remove the SIM, put the phone on, turn it back off and put the SIM back in and they would return - true to her word this worked, but I really could have done without the hassle and the panic. I have since been advised that Orange are not offering replacement handsets or refunds to those customers affected. This has already happened to me twice and it is quite nerve-wrecking. I have recently discovered however, that by using the data cables, the information contained on the SIM card can be transferred to your computer for safe keeping - this also apparently applies to downloading ring tones from the web although unclear as to how it works. STORED NUMBERS Your last 10 received and dialled calls will be recorded. DISPLAY The display light background can be changed to green, red or orange and can be set not to come on at all, or at 5-second intervals whilst in use lasting up to 20 seconds. For those with sight problems you can set the screen to zoom in or out, making it much larger and scrolling can be on a continuous wrap around or top-bottom. VOICE NOTES You can record and write in short notes when out and about on y
our travels and set yourself diarised reminders - although it doesn't work like a typical alarm clock like the Nokia range do (oh how I miss it) PERSONALISATION Is there such a word? The lack of ability to receive personalised ring tones, coupled with the inability to change the welcome greeting really frustrated me, funny how we get hooked to the silly things in life. You can also set the phone up for headset and in-car hands free use with the right equipment. PROS o It is very very sexy and petite and everyone will want to look at it (or maybe that's just in Wales as we have a fascination with small things and most locals still have the old fashioned great hulking Nokia and Bosch phones) o You don't need to buy a case as the phone is folded and therefore cannot accidentally be switched on/off or dial you local police station (which I did a number of times on my Nokia phone which for obvious reasons allows 999 and 112 calls whether the keypad is locked or not. o Nice large visual display o Can be used as a modem for the laptop in times of emergency CONS o The keypad is TOO small o Can't personalise it as much as I would like o No proper alarm clock o The fault with the phone book o Its accessories are not interchangeable with our other phones and are not cheap - hands free kits and in car chargers are around £15, the USB connection if you don't receive one with the phone are around £37, cases £10 and replacement batteries £45. o Very difficult to send text messages on SUMMARY I have had this phone for around 3 months now but don't think I have got the best use out it. Not a bad little phone, but think I will definitely be going back to Nokia when I can change for free/low charge with Orange.
The 1st thing you'll notice about the v66 is its size. Its tiny! No bigger than the palm of your hand when closed, but although it is small its not so delicate that you'll be scared of breaking it, it is very robust for its size (I've found this out after dropping mine!) The v66 has a clamshell design, which means it opens up, like a clamshell. This is what gives it its amazingly small size and it?s very comfortable to hold. The phone itself looks great, very stylish. Mainly aimed at the Yuppie/Business type but it's still cool if you?re a lowly student such as myself. The v66 can be personalised although its nothing compared to the Nokia?s X-Press On. The coloured triangular panel on the front can be changed to suit your tastes. Interestingly, under this panel is where the SIM card is inserted, rather than behind the battery like in a lot of phones, which makes swapping SIMs so much easier, and you won?t lose your clock settings! One drawback of the tiny size is the also tiny keypad which can make text messaging and dialling numbers a little tricky although with practice you'll get used to it. The screen is clear and it displays all the information you need. One cool feature is the ability to change the backlight colour on the screen! There are 3 colours to choose from, Red, Orange and Green although personally I would have preferred Blue to Red and its much the same as Orange. The menus are slightly harder to navigate than the more simplistic style of Nokia phones but everything is there for you, and there are lots of features there when you eventually find them, there?s WAP access, predictive text, games, 35 ring tones (and space for 35 more) and huge amounts of space for phone numbers on the phone and your SIM and also lots of room for text messages. If you're a businessman and you?re constantly on the move this phone is a must for you. It has tri-band technology so you can use the ph
one in nearly every country in the world! It is also GPRS enabled for data sending/receiving and has WAP internet access. Another cool feature is the True-Sync function for use with your laptop or notebook, and of course it serves a handy modem. Overall, this is the best phone I've ever had and I'd choose it over a Nokia any day. Designed for businessmen but equally at home in the grubby pocket of a student, although I wouldn't recommend it for young teenagers or children. Get it on contract to get the best of it! I love it!
In my local area, there had been a lot of hype and enthusiasm over the motorola v66. My pay check came and i went out and got it from a local store for £200. Everyone had been saying how good it was and that I should get it but i don't really think i should have done. It is a lovely little smart phone. It has voice activated dialing and you can make your own voice notes or even record a short song on there so that you can listen to it whilst you are travelling around but it only lasts for one minute. It has an excellent number memory so you can store up to 500 numbers on there. The ringtones are varied and it has it's own ringtone composer but I have found it slightly difficult to use and can't find any websites that have the combinations to put on the phone in order to create one but you can't download ringtones from the inernet or over the phone for it nor can you download screensavers which i believe you can do with other motorolas. It has 26 ringtones which can also be used to alert you of a text message or voicemail and has 5 different vibration details as well as the ring and vibrate combination. It has interchangable covers which is great if you can actually get them. I asked around in a lot of shops and none of them sold the facias and then I was told I had to get them directly from motorola. I hadn't tried buying one over the phone but I did try the internet. They come in packs of three when really I only wanted one and i couldn't even use my debit card to pay for them and even though they are just three pieces of plastic, they cost £12.99 for a pack of three which I first thought was slightly expensive but now i don't really think that that is too bad. The games aren't too bad. Paddleball, memory and blackjack are the three games that come with the phone and like the ringtones, you can't download them so you are stuck with those three and after a while you do get bored of them
. The phone is WAP enabled so you can use the internet although I think that it is a waste of time and money because it doesn't really give you the information that you are after and as I am sure with many phones, you don't realise how long you are on there for and how much you end up spending. The reception is generally very good but I'm not sure if that is the phone or the network. It has the standard messaging and stuff that you get on all phones and you can also use it in the USA because it is triband. I'm not sure what that means but I haven't tried it yet. However, I am going to New York in February so I'll have to see how that goes and get back to you. I also recently found it at £150 with the same network so I'm kind of disappointed that I lost out on £50 but that's the way it goes. Registering the phone was very quick and easy. I believe that Motorola have brought out the new V66i. Which is a bit more advanced than the V66 I think but I haven't properly looked at it so that may be worth considering. It is a smart phone and it's nice to flash around with a few good features but i wouldn't really advise people to get it.
The V66 was to become my third mobile, but only for a short while. I had admired its charm and form whilst browsing the local high street mobile merchants, and always wanted to actually own one. My feelings of this kind actually began way back when the Motorola 'Startac' models were around, (also then the smallest of their kind). I remember seeing the V66 prototype picture in the leading national press before it came to be. It really was like something out of Star trek perhaps, a mobile that could virtually be used anywhere in the world (even the USA and Canada, as well as Europe). A mobile that was so small, but that also had the power to browse the 'world wide web'. Motorola claim that whenever you want to communicate in style, then the V66 phone is the way to do it. I certainly say that the phone does look absolutely gorgeous. The first thing you'll notice about this phone is its smooth, silver or blue/black casing (It's supposed to be available in two colours, but I've only ever seen it in silver), that gives it an overall sophisticated look- especially with its interchangeable front cover inserts, some of which are absolutely stunning. This really is one hell of a sexy phone. The curvy lines are reminiscent of a woman's powder-compact but this is definitely not just a mobile phone for the girls. A nifty new addition to the classic curves is the removable front bezel, which reminds me of the Star Trek badge. It can be swapped for a bezel in different colours and designs. Also you don't have to fiddle about taking the battery off to load your Sim card. The cardholder is hidden beneath the stylish bezel or 'interchangeable cover'. These are a 'must have' with this phone, since it is designed around a showpiece high fashion statement. They can't cost more than 50p each surely? ? Whoops wrong again- they are sold in packs of three at about £15!!!!!!! So the
V66 is a very nice phone to look at and is remarkably small and thin, even by the standards of Motorola's seminal V50 flip phone. It's a nice touch, the arrow-shaped bezel on the front they supply, which covers the SIM holder. This is in fact really handy. It can literally be removed with your fingernail, but it won't fall off. It means that underneath this interchangeable cover, the SIM card can be replaced easily. Handy if you?re on a couple of different networks (as I am), and do have to change SIMS occasionally. Be warned though, the SIM holder looks extremely flimsy. At least the battery and back cover is a neat one-piece affair, even if it is fiddly to remove. Travelling and working around the world (now we all do that sort of thing, don't we?) should be easy then? The phone has tri band capabilities, so you can make and receive calls across five continents. There is also a currency converter and calculator to help you keep track of your money. And if you get a sudden flash of inspiration when you're on the move, you can even record a voice memo into the phone for up to three minutes or even a complete telephone conversation. (That's if you can hold the button that long). A clever designed leather case and belt clip is included with the phone. This enables unobtrusive storage and good security, since it seems difficult to snatch from ones belt, but still easy to remove by the user to accept calls. A great pose buckle! You even walk around actually feeling like Captain Kirk! The phone can also work as a modem with your laptop and is able to support the GPRS (Global packet relay service). With continuous access to the Internet, you can send and receive information when it suits you, but only pay for the information you download, saving time and money. Ok this is the same as WAP (Wireless application protocol), but it's always on, so, things happen much faster when you browse those stupid text lines they cal
l the 'mobile internet' ? (not a patch on the real thing is it?) There's an organiser too, with a Personal Information Manager to remind you about appointments, a 'TrueSync' function that allows for synchronisation between a PC or laptop, and voice activated dialling, so you don't have to lift a finger to make a call. (That's if you can get it to work). Just like the voice word processor, in the perfect world things really do work first time every time, of course. No such luck with computers though, so why should a mobile be any different? Great, an alarm clock! No Sorry its really part of the scheduler that beeps a few times to give you a reminder or two on a certain date you might go to all the trouble of setting. It will never ever wake you up. Arrrrrggh! OK so if you're looking for a phone that lets you communicate with style and advanced technology, this is certainly the kiddie to be seen with, and the features are in fact, really pretty surprising, I guess, considering its extremely compact size. It is certainly lovely, -the smallest 'clamshell' design on the market with a good sound quality, voice memos and voice dial, personalisable ring tones and more. Hang on a minute though there are a couple of ergonomic problems: the flip cover doesn't open enough to comfortably hold it to your ear, the hang up and answer keys are inverted, keys are hard to press and the function keys at the top of the keypad are too small and hard to reach. Or is it that my fingers are too big? One tries to blame this in ones heart on it's small size, but somehow it just seems like hurried design. Then there is that annoying bold stub of an antenna. Fortunately its a bit less obtrusive when the little phone is open, but when its shut it becomes just a sore thumb. Some aspects of the software are also deceiving. For instance, the melody composer is quite limited and the games
are just downright boring: paddleball, blackjack and, maybe the most interesting, mind blaster, a Mastermind type of game. But there are just three levels, so after 20 minutes, the excitement and challenge is gone. Along with its multitude of the latest features, the V66 responds to your voice and brings the 'Internet' to your fingertips with a fast-flow, five-line text display and animated graphics. (Sounds good doesn't it, -but all it means is that scrolling through lines and text looks smoother than a step scroll would). Its display is not brilliant either. Not really vivid or bright, more like the old LCD watches of days gone by. It seems almost inadequate by modern standards for WAP viewing. Not only is the display small?which can be excused by the small size of the chassis?but also it is difficult to see at the best of times. The backlight can be changed to orange or red, (now I could not see how to do this, - I think the software in my version was too old), - I got 'one to one' displayed when I should have got 'Virgin'. I couldn't even read the display at all in bright sunlight outside. The four-way controller had me whizzing around the screens in no time, in this instance, Motorola's designers don't seem to have taken full advantage of the available space. Despite this, up to five lines of text can be viewed at once, which is more than adequate for the majority of WAP users. Petite as it is, however, its wealth of features sit somewhat uncomfortably in what's best perhaps regarded as a 'fashion' phone. Although the instruction booklet is a nice handy size, and in one language, it is only fairly written, giving no real explanations of the technology or of what everything really means. The silver casing on the V66 looks like it is sprayed on. If you put it in your pocket along with your keys it will, without doubt, scratch and mar. (Perhaps one should choose the
blue/black model for this reason- I?m not sure if that one is sprayed). Best of all though the phone is not as chunky as its predecessors so there is no telltale sign when you slip it into your pocket. In fact you have to be careful it doesn?t slide out of your pocket without you noticing. In use, its tiny soft-keys and menu button seem too close to each other and the hinge of the flip for anything but the daintiest of hands. The innovative four-way navigation key arrangement would be great if only it was not so cramped. It is also under-utilised in most options and does nothing when the phone is in standby. This phone would have been useful as a GPRS modem for a handheld or laptop, given its restricted screen. But since it features neither infrared nor Bluetooth, you will need to invest in a data cable if you want to do this?network operators permitting. The sheer complexity of the WAP setting entry and the clunky Openwave browser implementation would put off even the most determined user. Even sending SMS seems more of a chore than on phones from Ericsson, Nokia or Siemens. When using the GPRS there is no clear indication that you are online or even using GPRS instead of a circuit-switched connection?a common failing in the first crop of GPRS handsets. Then you only have three lines of WAP page to view, with status information filling the lines above and below. On the plus side, I found the V66 particularly quick to establish connections and process pages under GPRS. Certainly buy the V66 for its physical design then (looks), but bear in mind its usability is heavily compromised by a poor key layout and unintuitive menu structure and lack of a colour screen, and infrared or Bluetooth connectivity. This should seal its fate for more serious use. Call quality indoors as well as outside is exceptional. You can be heard loudly and clearly whether you happen to be in a heaving bar or on a busy London street. To focus just on its classy looks, however, is to do the Motorola V66 an injustice. While it might be tiny (84x44x20mm) and tips the scales at a mere 79g, it is certainly no lightweight in the performance stakes It is the first mini-phone to support GPRS (general packet radio services) for high-speed WAP browsing. Connect to the mobile 'Internet', leave it on as long as the battery lasts and you only have to pay each time you transfer data. This has the benefit of cutting down on constant scrolling through screens. Simply download the information or page, for example that you want and go back as often as you like. Business users, for example, can leave their email open and check it throughout the day. So when you whip a quick email off to colleagues then it's going to hit you in the back pocket, otherwise you can stay connected for the whole working day in order to receive messages to your email account. So, overall the Motorola V66 is a mobile phone that, once you've got it in your hands, you won?t want to put down. Its easy to use, incorporates enough features to keep even anoraks (like myself) fairly happy and its really sexy as well. It's taken some time, but Motorola has come up with a classic union of form and function for this clamshell phone. It is certain to be near the top of everybody?s wish list. I think it really will become a classic museum piece. Sadly though, I have decided to return my sexy V66, in exchange for the Sony ericsson T68i, but that's another story!
Motorola V66 £199.99 Talk time (up to) 3hr 00 mins Standby time (up to) 120hr 00 mins Recharge time (up to) 2hr 30 mins Size (mm) 44x84x21 Motorola V66 Standard features Talk time (up to) 3hr 00 mins Standby time (up to) 120hr 00 mins Recharge time (up to) 2hr 30 mins Size (mm) 44x84x21 Phonebook memory 500 Dual band / Tri band Tri Additional features Bluetooth No Data compatible Yes Detachable fascias Yes EMS No Games No GPRS No Handsfree included No Internal modem Yes IrDA (Infra red) No Java enabled No MP3 player No Optional car kit No Personal organiser Yes Picture messaging No Picture messaging (MMS) No Predictive text Yes Ringtones - download and/or composer Yes Sync with PC Yes Vibrating alert Yes Voice activated dialling Yes Voice commands Yes WAP Yes well when i got this new phone on pay as you go four work i look like a very nice phone and it is easy to use it has no game on the phone but if it is four work then you do not need games not your phone, it can go on the internet with a easy to use internet part no the phone. and i has a good voice activated dialling which is better at you can use at i a nosie place and at will work but no with all mobile but with this one. you can also use the personal organiser on this phone so you can put info that you need right on your mobile phone all in all this is a good little phone
Motorola are an American company who have been around since the dawn of mobile phones so you would think they would know abit how to make them. Well in answer, yes they do know how to make them. The V66 is one of the smallest and stylish phones on the market that looks sexy and can fit into your coat or handbag. Its ultra light, lighter than Nokias 8310. The screen is about the same size at the Nokia 3330 so really its a combination of the Nokias. BUT, really this phone does lack alot. First up I would say this is for people that only want to use it for the WAP or making/receiving calls. Txting really is out of the questions because the text is very hard to see when in 'zoom out' mode (normal). The buttons are small and they are indented into the phone and don't stick out like the Nokias. It has an annoying habit that you have to wait a while if you want to select 2 characters on 1 key. E.g. AA so you type A then wait about 4 secs before you can touch that button again. Its also not that handy because the flip isn't at the right angle for you to write your txt, its to upright. You don't get reports back when you have sent a txt, can't send smiles or pics etc. Games, stick with Nokia because they games are pretty boring and simple. They have tried to copy Nokia with the changing faces at the front but it doesn't really pay off because the strip on the front must be worth like 10p but your paying about £8 to change it. Scrolling down a txt message, the phone doesn't like. Imagine you have a slow PC and when you want to scroll an email, it stutters abit and it slow, well its like that on the phone. The good thing I think is that the WAP browser works very well. I have never been able to log into Yahoo before on my Nokia 7110 but managed to do it with this. Its fast and simple to use. The screen, you can choose 3 colours (Red, Green or Orange). All 3 are pretty bad and not tha
t clear, infact its better when your in the pitch dark. For a phone that was released last year, its not got that much cutting edge equipment, the good think is that you can record notes on it but I don't know many people who would find that handy. I would stick to Nokia for personal use and if get a Motorola just for the calls. But I think the 8310 is a better phone than the V66 so I would pick that if I had the choice. Alex
This is a beautiful little phone, light, robust, stylish and guaranteed to make people go "Oooh! Isn't it cute!" But, but, but after having one for three months I've got to say that more attention has gone into making it pretty than making it efficient. It has an infuriatingly complicated system for sending and receiving text messages and calling up phonebook details - nothing that can't be learned but very clunky after my previous phone which was an Ericson and much simpler to operate. The flip lid looks great but means you cannot see who is calling. If you open it to find out you have already answered, so it's too late! The thing that really infuriates me though is that it has no alarm. I've always used my mobile as an alarm clock for the last five years and it never occurred to me that it wouldn't have one. It has a fiendishly complicated "datebook schedule" wich gives you a tiny little "cheep cheep" signal if you can figure it out and that's it. Grr!
The newest model from the motorola company the v series is the new project. I have got the v66 and have had it for 2 months. Unlike most mobiles the sim card is under a flap on the front which is easily accesabl and the battery at the back which can be popped out. To be honest motorola isn't the best company or have the best history but i think that they have really got something with the V series. With the v 66 on your hip you will definately turn heads. Unfortunately it cannot receive ringtones and logos from all web sites so it is much easier to go to your local motorola store and get them to download them. The v66 contains all of the new technology there is to offer.Such as GPRS, WAP, BLUETOOTH, TRUESYNC, FLEX VERSION, TRI-BAND. What you all want to know is what games they have, well they have BLACKJACK, MINDBLASTER, PADDLE BALL. And you can download games off the motorola fun site. On the phone you can txt, fax, e-mail, call and everything all phones can do. You can store 18 messages in you inbox and i haven't got to the limit in my outbox yet and i'm on 54. It can store 500 names in the phonebook. Contains voice notes, datebook, reminders,calculator ect A good buy!
The Motorola V66 is a very sexy great looking phone it follows on from the V50 design with its flip open. This design of Motorola can now be traced back quite a few years to the Motorola Startac if any of you can remember it. What I can tell you though is that Motorola have improved the phones a hell of a lot from their first efforts into flip design technology. The startacs used to be terrible for poor signal and battery performance this new V66 does not suffer from those problems. This phone really is feature packed for its small size and it must be a contender for the ultimate mini phone. With it weighing only 79g as well it really does qualify as a mini phone. The major addition to the software of this phone is its GPRS capability which will allow you to have high speed data transfer and high speed wap access thank god I here you all cry. Hopefully the GPRS system can give Wap a much needed boast. Another major feature for a phone so small as this one is its tri band ability which means as well as use the phone in the UK and Europe it will also work in the USA. The phonebook size has also been increased so that you can now store a total of up to 500 contacts this is in keeping with many of the new business aimed phones. This allows you to store home, mobile etc numbers for each person in your phonebook without having them all under separate headings. Some people may also find its voice dialling feature useful although I did personnel find it a little difficult to operate and found it sometimes dialled the wrong person. I have to question myself weather this feature should be removed from current phones until it works correctly. The phone also includes a recording facility so you can record a call you are having with someone, this can be very useful when someone is giving you directions and you do not have a pen and paper to write them down. Of course the people at Motorola hav
e not forgotten the child in us all and have included some great games to play when you are sat on the platform waiting for that delayed train. While using the phone I found it to have an impressive talktime and standby they quoted times for the phone are talktime 180mins and standby 120 hours. I would say the talktime is about 100mins and 80 hours on standby. Which is very good and the phone would always last me around 48hours which is very good compared to the likes of the SamsungA300 which was lucky to last 8 Hour. So overall I would say the Motorola V66 is a great phone and well worth the extra you might have to pay over the likes of the Samsung A300.


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With renr
With kagetsuki.
Noah doing demo.
Me, supposedly signing, and looking evil.
This pic is posted for the sole purpose of showing off my awesome Alice Auaa top (which you can't see much of, except for the sleeves).
Noah insisted that my signature's so simple his book should cost $5 more just for his efforts in producing a complex one. =_=
Random camwhoring pic~
Had dinners with Asuka111, vic-mon, manda, sandara, kidchan and many more, who're all super awesome in their own ways and styles, I'm so so happy to see you guys again~
And I absolutely cannot thank enough the ones who came over to our booth, I'm so sincerely, utterly grateful for your support. I have no words, only thank you, thank you, and thank you. <3

subset: commoncrawl


text:
US military to test new hypersonic aircraft
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Like many X- series aircraft, the X-15 was designed to be carried aloft, under the wing of a NASA B-52 mother ship, the Balls 8. Release took place at an altitude of about 8.5 miles (13.7 km) and a speed of about 805 kilometers per hour (500 mph).[5] The X-15 fuselage was long and cylindrical, with rear fairings that flattened its appearance, and thick, dorsal and ventral wedge-fin stabilizers. Parts of the fuselage were heat-resistant nickel alloy (Inconel-X 750).[4] The retractable landing gear comprised a nose-wheel carriage and two rear skis. The skis did not extend beyond the ventral fin, which required the pilot to jettison the lower fin (fitted with a parachute) just before landing.
The first X-15 flight was an unpowered test flight by Scott Crossfield, on 8 June 1959. Crossfield also piloted the first powered flight, on 17 September 1959, and his first flight with the XLR-99 rocket engine on 15 November 1960. Twelve test pilots flew the X-15. Among these were Neil Armstrong, later a NASA astronaut, and Joseph H. Engle, later a commander of NASA Space Shuttle test flights.
In a 1962 proposal, NASA considered using the B-52/X-15 as a launch platform for a Blue Scout rocket to place satellites up to 150 pounds into orbit.[12][13]
In July and August 1963, pilot Joseph A. Walker exceeded 100 km in altitude, joining NASA astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts as the first human beings to cross that line on their way to outer space. The USAF awarded astronaut wings to anyone achieving an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) (80.5 km), while the FAI set the limit of space at 100 kilometers (62.1 mi).
On 15 November 1967, U.S. Air Force test pilot Major Michael J. Adams was killed during X-15 Flight 191 when the (X-15-3) entered a hypersonic spin while descending, then oscillated violently as aerodynamic forces increased after re-entry. As his aircraft's flight control system operated the control surfaces to their limits, acceleration built to 15 g vertical and 8.0 g lateral. The airframe broke apart at 60,000 ft (18,000 m) altitude, scattering the X-15's wreckage for 50 square miles (130 km2). On 8 June 2004, a monument was erected at the cockpit's locale, near Randsburg, California.[14] Major Adams was posthumously awarded Air Force astronaut wings for his final flight in X-15-3, which had reached and altitude of 81.1 km (50.4 mi, 266,000 ft). In 1991, Adams's name was added to the Astronaut Memorial.
The second X-15A was rebuilt after a landing accident. It was lengthened 2.4 feet (0.73 m), a pair of auxiliary fuel tanks attached underneath its fuselage and wings, and a complete heat-resistant ablative coating was added. Renamed the X-15A-2, this plane first flew on 28 June 1964, reaching a maximum speed of 7,274 km/hr (4,520 m.p.h., 2,021 m/sec). in October 1967, flown by William "Pete" Knight of the U.S. Air Force.
NB-52B takes off with an X-15
Five aircraft were used during the X-15 program: three X-15s planes and two B-52 Stratofortress bombers:
* X-15A-1 – 56-6670, 82 powered flights
* X-15A-2 – 56-6671, 53 powered flights
* X-15A-3 – 56-6672, 64 powered flights
* NB-52A – 52-003 (retired in October 1969)
* NB-52B – 52-008 (retired in November 2004)
A 200th flight over Nevada was first scheduled for 21 November 1968, to be flown by William "Pete" Knight. Numerous technical problems and outbreaks of bad weather delayed this proposed flight six times, it was permanently canceled on 20 December 1968. This X-15 was detached from the B - 52 and then put into indefinite storage. This X - 15 was later donated to the museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base for display.
|Experimental Aircraft to Go From Zero to 13,000 in Hypersonic Test Launch
|THE SECRET AND EXPERIMENTAL MILITARY AIRCRAFT OF THE PAST AND PRESENT:Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle 2
|ONE HOUR TRIP - London to New York, Military Testing Radical Hypersonic Aircraft Scramjet Engine Accelerating to Over Mach 6!!!
|DARPA: "Oops!" Hypersonic Unmanned Aircraft LOST During Test Flight
|Scientists lose hypersonic aircraft on test flight
|Related Topic: Military and War (Mainstream Media)


text:
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text:
The Charisma of Coastal Ecosystems: Addressing the Imbalance
- First Online:
- Received:
- Revised:
- Accepted:
DOI: 10.1007/s12237-008-9038-7
- Cite this article as:
- Duarte, C.M., Dennison, W.C., Orth, R.J.W. et al. Estuaries and Coasts: J CERF (2008) 31: 233. doi:10.1007/s12237-008-9038-7
- Citations
- 3k Downloads
Coastal ecosystems including coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, and salt marshes are being lost at alarming rates, and increased scientific understanding of causes has failed to stem these losses. Coastal habitats receive contrasting research effort, with 60% of all of the published research carried out on coral reefs, compared to 11–14% of the records for each of salt marshes, mangrove forests, and seagrass meadows. In addition, these highly connected and interdependent coastal ecosystems receive widely contrasting media attention that is disproportional to their scientific attention. Seagrass ecosystems receive the least attention in the media (1.3% of the media reports) with greater attention on salt marshes (6.5%), considerably more attention on mangroves (20%), and a dominant focus on coral reefs, which are the subject of three in every four media reports on coastal ecosystems (72.5%). There are approximately tenfold lower reports on seagrass meadows in the media for every scientific paper published (ten), than the 130–150 media reports per scientific paper for mangroves and coral reefs. The lack of public awareness of losses of less charismatic ecosystems results in the continuation of detrimental practices and therefore contributes to continued declines of coastal ecosystems. More effective communication of scientific knowledge about these uncharismatic but ecologically important coastal habitats is required. Effective use of formal (e.g., school curricula, media) and informal (e.g., web) education avenues and an effective partnership between scientists and media communicators are essential to raise public awareness of issues, concerns, and solutions within coastal ecosystems. Only increased public understanding can ultimately inform and motivate effective management of these ecologically important coastal ecosystems.
KeywordsSeagrass Coastal habitats Charisma Media Decline Conservation
Public awareness of these losses, as well as understanding of the processes and causes of loss, is necessary to motivate effective management and protect or restore these ecosystems. Even though these ecosystems are highly connected (Fig. 1), the information presented has been proportionately lacking for some coastal ecosystems such as seagrasses and salt marshes. Coastal ecosystems cannot be preserved in isolation from the adjoining ecosystems; therefore, a common public communication approach is required, presenting threats and issues related to all ecosystems in the coastal zone.
Losses of coastal habitats remain large even for the habitats, such as coral reefs, for which public awareness is highest, a fact that may discourage further actions. It is indeed important to recognize that local action alone does not suffice to revert all losses, since some impacts derive from global pressures (e.g., climate change), which cannot be controlled through local management actions alone. However, we argue that effective local management actions can help maintain and even expand the resistance and resilience of these systems to global pressures, so that, without this awareness, losses would likely be even higher.
Valuable Coastal Ecosystems are in Decline
The global loss rate of threatened coastal ecosystems is estimated at 4–9% year−1 for corals (Gardner et al. 2003, Bellwood et al. 2004), a minimum of 1–2% year−1 for saltmarshes (Adam 2002; Lotze et al. 2006), 1–3% year−1 for mangroves (Valiela et al. 2001) and 2–5% year−1 for seagrass meadows (Short and Wyllie-Echeverria 1998, Duarte 2002; Marbà et al. 2005; Orth et al. 2006; Fig. 1), all of which are more rapid than the global loss rate of tropical forests, estimated at 0.5% year−1 (Achard et al. 2002). If these loss rates continue for yet another five decades, the amount of remaining coastal ecosystems would be reduced to less than 15% of the area present at the end of World War II. Impacts of these losses will be far reaching, not only continuing to erode biodiversity but reducing the provision of valuable ecosystem functions associated with these coastal ecosystems. Coral reefs, mangrove forests, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows have been estimated to deliver the highest annual value, in terms of ecosystem services [US $6,000–19,000 ha-1(1997 value)] of all natural ecosystems on the planet (Fig. 1; Costanza et al. 1997). In comparison, tropical forests were estimated to supply US $2,000 ha-1 (1997value; Fig. 1; Costanza et al. 1997). One practical and dramatic service provided by coastal ecosystems is to deliver protection to coastal communities from natural disasters (Adger et al. 2005). This was dramatically shown in December, 2004 when a large tsunami hit Southeast Asia, and a higher death toll occurred in villages devoid of mangrove protection than in those with preserved pockets of mangroves (Kathiresan and Rajendran 2005). It is also now recognized that damages from hurricane Katrina (August 2005) were exacerbated by the extensive loss of salt marshes in the Mississippi River delta (Tibbetts 2006). One response to these occurrences has been an effort to increase understanding of these processes.
The Imbalance in Research Effort
The Imbalance in Public Awareness
To investigate the public awareness on coastal habitats, a survey of a range of international media outlets was carried out: National Geographic, USA (www.nationalgeographic.com); the New York Times, USA (www.nytimes.com); The Economist, UK (www.economist.com); the Internacional Herald Tribune (www.iht.com); the English version of the People Daily, China (www.english.peopledaily.com.cn); the English and Spanish versions of GoogleTM news (www.news.google.com/); El País, Spain (www.elpais.es); El Universal, Mexico (www.eluniversal.com.mx); the Discovery Channel, USA (www.dsc.discovery.com/); CNN, USA (www.edition.cnn.com); Le Monde, France (www.lemonde.fr); and Journal do Brasil (jbonline.terra.com.br). The electronic archives of these media outlets were searched between February and March, 2006, for reports on seagrass meadows, salt-marshes, mangrove forests, and coral reefs contained within their electronic archives. These electronic archives did not encompass the same period for all media outlets, precluding the consistent evaluation of the time course of news reports on the different ecosystems. The adequacy of the reports was verified individually whenever the number of reports was <500 and corrected proportionately to the results of the verification of a random subset of 400 records for larger returns. A news item was considered adequate whenever it did not only include the key word but reported on some relevant element (status, functioning, management, science news, etc.) of the ecosystem of interest. The median percentage of reports received by any one ecosystem was calculated combining the calculated percentages for all 13 media sources.
We agree that the relationship between public awareness and newspaper reports may not be a simple one, as it involves feed backs: public awareness triggers interest and leads to newspaper reports, whereas more news reports lead to increasing awareness. We use news articles as a proxy for the level of awareness while avoiding discussing the causal link between these two aspects of society. To ascertain public awareness independently would require a broad questionnaire that will be possible, without huge resources, only at local scales, rendering the global scale addressed here impossible. The competition for space in top national journals is often as tough, or tougher, to provide a comparison, as that in Nature and Science. Hence, the perceived interest to the public is a prime component of the allocation of newspaper space to different items, so that more news items are assumed to correlate with greater awareness. As in our own research field, correlation cannot, however, be equated with causation.
The survey revealed public awareness to differ greatly across threatened coastal ecosystems (Fig. 2b), indicating that seagrass ecosystems receive the least attention in the media (1.3% of the media reports) with greater attention on salt marshes (6.5%), considerably more attention on mangroves (20%), and a dominant focus on coral reefs, which are the subject of three in every four media reports on coastal ecosystems (72.5%; Fig. 2b). These ratios are similar to those delivered by GoogleTM, which returned, in May 2006, 1.6 million items on seagrasses compared to 80.6 million on coral reefs. Since research effort is not evenly allocated among threatened coastal ecosystems, it is hardly surprising that public perceptions are also imbalanced. Yet, public perceptions are far more skewed toward coral reefs than scientific efforts. Indeed, there are approximately tenfold lower reports on seagrass meadows in the media for every scientific paper published (ten) than the 130–150 media reports per scientific paper for mangroves and coral reefs (Fig 2c). These ratios are relative rather than absolute values, as the media search did not encompass all media produced globally, but they are, nevertheless, indicative of the apportioning of media attention relative to scientific effort. The impact of salt marsh scientific research on their visibility in the media has an intermediate position, with approximately 45 media reports per scientific paper published (Fig 1c). This contrast clearly indicates that research efforts on seagrass ecosystems have been particularly ineffective in raising public awareness compared to research on other coastal ecosystems, particularly coral reefs and mangrove forests. The relatively high awareness of mangrove forests may derive from a general concern on tropical forests rather than an interest in mangrove forest themselves, which are often poorly appreciated even by residents of mangrove areas.
Scientific efforts and public awareness are not independent, since public awareness of acute environmental problems, such as threats to the conservation of endangered coastal ecosystems, strongly affects patterns of resource allocation by public funding agencies. Research efforts and public awareness interact on a feed-back loop that helps address problems in charismatic ecosystems or species but may leave other similarly important issues behind in less appealing ecosystems. The results presented conclusively show seagrass meadows to be, in contrast to charismatic coral reefs, the 'ugly duckling' of coastal ecosystem conservation. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defined charisma as "a special magnetic charm or appeal" (www.merriam-webster.com). The results presented show coral reefs to be appealing to the media and the public that consume it and portray other ecosystems, such as seagrass meadows, as comparably uninteresting. We interpret this contrast to suggest that seagrass meadows are not, at present, charismatic to the public. The apparent lack of charisma of seagrass meadows is to some extent the result of their submersed growth, which hides them to the casual observer, and their resemblance to grasslands on land, which hardly raise public interest. In contrast, the dense array of dazzling and colorful fish and invertebrates that populate coral reefs fascinate the public, as indicated by the important tourism revenues supported by coral reefs. Coral reefs are popular subjects for nature documentaries and have been further popularized by top-hit films (e.g., Finding Nemo by Pixar Animation Studio, 2003).
The Unobtrusive Charisma of Seagrass Ecosystems
Seagrass meadows do host large organisms that could also attract the general public, such as tiger sharks, manatees, dugongs, turtles, seahorses, and giant bivalves (e.g., the Mediterranean Pinna nobilis). These are mostly endangered species and occur in far less numbers today than in the past due to overharvesting and habitat destruction (Jackson et al. 2001). The comparative lack of charisma of seagrass meadows to the public contrasts with the perception of scientists that these habitats rank among the most valuable ecosystems in the biosphere (Fig. 1; Costanza et al. 1997), which indicates that there is potential to raise the public knowledge of, and interest in, seagrass meadows. Indeed, the disproportionate media attention to corals relative to seagrass meadows is not a universal phenomenon, as seagrass meadows receive more attention than coral reefs in the French newspaper examined (Le Monde, 54.2% vs. 14.7% of reports on coastal habitats, respectively). This exception shows that the media, and the public, can become interested in seagrass meadows if, as in France, efforts are made to communicate the values of these ecosystems. Indeed, we envisage a positive feed-back loop, as exemplified by coral reefs, between increased information to the public and further demand for more information, which scientists may be able to catalyze.
Effective Communication is Essential
Scientific understanding on the causes and consequences of ecosystem loss will be most effective in reversing the negative trajectories of coastal ecosystems if the science is converted to public awareness, which is essential to ensure ecosystem conservation (Inglehart 1995). However, scientific materials, typically as research papers, are not suitable for this goal. Increasing public awareness needs an overall strategy providing synthesis, visualization, and context, mediated through graphic rich materials which are content-rich and jargon-free (Thomas et al. 2006). One tool that can be a focus for this communication is the use of conceptual diagrams to synthesize key ecosystem features, functions, and threats (Dennison et al. 2007). Specifically, a successful strategy might include: (a) creating interest in these ecosystems, (b) providing pertinent information about their status and ecological role, and (c) encouraging involvement of citizens, governments, and non-government organizations in preserving and restoring coastal ecosystems. The elements of this strategy are mutually supportive, as information on the status and role of coastal ecosystems will help create interest and engage citizens and organizations in their conservations.
Raising the charisma of threatened coastal ecosystems, particularly necessary for seagrass meadows, requires, an increased effort by ecologists to share their insights with scientists working in other ecosystems and the public, raising awareness on their functions, their role in protecting biodiversity, and the threats to these habitats. Provided the small size of the scientific communities involved in seagrass research (e.g., typical attendance of about 150 to biannual International Seagrass Biology Symposiums), efforts to reach the public through community-level interactions appear, while effective for the individuals involved, insufficient to raise significant awareness within time scales appropriate to improve or revert the loss of coastal habitats. Scientists cannot be the sole actors in this process. Scientists can generate and convey information on the status and role of the ecosystems but need to work together with professional educators and communicators and governmental and non-governmental organizations to effectively reach the public, raising their interest on coastal ecosystems to help generate a public demand for further information and to conserve these ecosystems. Only the development of strong partnerships between coastal ecologists, networks of educators in direct contact with children, and mass media can expand the outreach at an appropriate scale and pace (Fig. 3, Rose and Bridgewater 2003). The conservation of threatened coastal ecosystems ultimately depends on the level of success in raising the charisma of these habitats by building public awareness on their values and the pressures responsible for their losses, a task that requires more dynamic and effective communication between scientists, science educators, the media, and coastal resource managers.
This work was conducted as a part of the Global Seagrass Trajectories Working Group supported by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, a Center funded by NSF (Grant #DEB-00-72909), the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the State of California, as well as a project funded by the Fundación BBVA (Spain). We thank R. Martínez and M. Sánchez-Camacho for help in data collection.


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Faced with growing public discontent over traffic jams amid warnings that the roads system is overloaded, the Government is considering plans to introduce tolls on the extra 'hot' lanes, which would be faster and freer of traffic.
Transport Secretary Alistair Darling will announce details of the scheme, which is likely to include widening part of the M42 in the Midlands to a 12-lane motorway; parts of the M25 round London and several stretches of the M1.
Following a series of studies into congestion hotspots across the country, Darling is considering funding the projects by private toll road companies, which would charge drivers to use the extra lanes - another idea imported from America.
The package of widening, bypasses and new junctions would be the biggest single road-building announcement since Labour came to power.
However, it is likely to prompt a backlash from environmental campaigners worried about the effects on sensitive areas and noise pollution, while motoring groups fear the plans will not cope with the rising scale of the congestion problem.
Darling, who last week signalled plans for satellite charging of motorists in congested inner-city routes at peak periods, hopes he can head off criticism that he is building new roads without planning longer-term measures to manage demand.
Before he makes the roads announcement later this month, Darling will also oversee a series of major statements on some of the biggest problems on the railways and improving use of existing road space, in an attempt to quash criticisms that he is simply intent on building more roads.
'You can't have one without the other. You can't build your way out of trouble, nor can you price your way out of trouble. There are many strands to this,' one transport official said.
The new measures follow growing government concern about how to rescue Labour's tattered transport policy. Ministers have been forced to admit that they will miss virtually every significant target in their 10-year transport plan, including the single most important promise - to cut congestion by 6 per cent over the decade. Instead delays will rise by 11-20 per cent.
As the Government plans to expand the road network, the Government's Strategic Rail Authority is due to make two key statements this week, claiming that cutting and changing train services can make the timetable easier to run and better able to recover from disruption.
The second announcement from the SRA will be an agreement to rescue the troubled upgrade of the West Coast mainline for Virgin's tilting trains, costing billions of pounds over-budget but freeing officials to plan much-needed improvements on other routes.


text:
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text:
Published: January 28, 2014 - 04:50 PM | Updated: January 29, 2014 - 06:49 AM
The Browns will interview former Washington Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan today and Oakland Raiders quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo on Thursday for the organization's offensive coordinator opening, a team spokesman confirmed.
New Browns coach Mike Pettine's background in the NFL is on defense, so the hiring of his offensive coordinator is crucial. Not only will the successful candidate call the offense's plays, but he also should be instrumental in helping the Browns target a quarterback this offseason — almost certainly in the draft in May.
Shanahan has been passed over twice this offseason for offensive coordinator jobs for which he interviewed.
Instead of picking Shanahan, the Baltimore Ravens hired former Houston Texans coach Gary Kubiak on Monday and the Miami Dolphins hired former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback coach Bill Lazor on Jan. 15. According to reports, Shanahan will not join Kubiak's staff with the Ravens despite speculation about him possibly doing so.
The Redskins fired Shanahan and his father, Mike, the team's former head coach, after they went 3-13 during the 2013 season.
The younger Shanahan, 34, had been the Redskins' offensive coordinator since 2010. He also served as the offensive coordinator of the Texans from 2008-09.
Shanahan's offenses finished in the top 10 in the NFL in yards per game four times — 2008 (third), 2009 (fourth), 2012 (fifth) and 2013 (ninth). The other two seasons were 2010 (18th) and 2011 (16th).
But Shanahan's reputation was damaged this season partly because trust issues reportedly surfaced between the Redskins' coaching staff and quarterback Robert Griffin III, creating friction between the two sides.
DeFilippo, 35, is in his second tour coaching the Raiders' quarterbacks. He did it from 2007-08, left for an assistant quarterback job with the New York Jets in 2009 and then returned to the Raiders in 2012. He has coached their quarterbacks in each of the past two seasons.
DeFilippo, a Youngstown native, also coached at San Jose State for two seasons, serving as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2011.
Pettine was the defensive coordinator for the Jets from 2009-12 and the Buffalo Bills last year. So he and DeFilippo were members of Jets coach Rex Ryan's staff in 2009. Pettine and Shanahan have never worked together.
Former Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains and Chicago Bears quarterbacks coach Matt Cavanaugh have also been mentioned as potential candidates to join the Browns as a play-caller.
NFL Network's Albert Breer reported Tuesday that the Browns considered Ravens wide receivers coach Jim Hostler for their offensive coordinator vacancy. Breer, though, reported that Hostler "may be out of the mix now." Hostler interviewed for the Ravens' offensive coordinator position before they chose Kubiak instead.
The Dallas Cowboys hired former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Scott Linehan as their play-caller. But the Cowboys still won't let Bill Callahan, who called their plays last season, out of his contract, according to reports. Callahan also had been listed as a possible candidate for the Browns' offensive coordinator opening.
Louisiana State offensive coordinator Cam Cameron told the Times-Picayune that the Browns showed interest in him last week, but he won't be joining them.
"I don't plan on going anywhere soon," Cameron said Sunday. "I don't want to uproot my family right now."
Defensive addition
The Bills announced Tuesday that they have granted the Browns permission to interview defensive line coach Anthony Weaver.
FootballScoop.com reported Tuesday that Weaver will leave the Bills to become the Browns' new defensive line coach. Bills coach Doug Marrone said Monday that he didn't "feel good about" Weaver remaining in Buffalo.
Weaver would become the fifth assistant coach Pettine has hired from the Bills' staff.
Not the right time
Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase explained Tuesday why he declined to interview with the Browns during their head-coaching search. The Browns targeted Gase, but he withdrew from consideration Jan. 21, two days before they moved on and hired Pettine.
Gase, 35, has never been a head coach.
"I guess I didn't really think about it until it came up this year, and it just wasn't the right time, as far as the timing with us coming here and the focus I wanted on this game," Gase told reporters during Super Bowl media day. He'll coach the Broncos in the title game Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks. "I'm not worrying about it right now. It's on the backburner for me.
"I mean, who's to say they're really ready for anything, right? When those opportunities come up, and you decide, 'Hey, that's the right opportunity for me,' then you go ahead and jump in, and you just do what you're born to do."
Fleeing Cleveland
The Tennessee Titans hired Mike Sullivan as an assistant offensive line coach, the team announced Tuesday. He spent the 2013 season with the Browns.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at email@example.com. Read the Browns blog at http://www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ and on Facebook www.facebook.com/browns.abj.


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Fluorescent light on garage door?
To work on my car I want to put lighting on the garage door. I could bolt a 2x4 to a horizontal brace and then screw a 48" fluorescent fixture (3"wide) to that. Electric motor sets the door down nice and smooth but I am wondering if, even with a smooth action, the bulbs will still want to work their way loose.
Sounds like a great concept, but a bad idea in practice. Sorry. :(
I'd be more worried about the wiring working loose over time than the bulbs.
But that's not going to stop you, so... Use those shatter resistant covers for the tubes, and be sure it's a good quality solid fixture, not some Chinese POS.
As for the power cord, one of those retractable extension cord reels set (or modified) so that it can't "lock" seems like a good idea. I've seen something similar in commercial overhead doors that I assume is for the safety sensors. I also assume it's low voltage, so different building codes would apply, but it's an idea that could work if you decide to go through with it.
All that said, I'd find a different way if possible. Maybe some sort of suspended support structure that attaches to the ceiling on either side of the tracks--a light bar if you will--which allows the opened door to fit between ceiling and your light fixture.
The car's open hood will block lighting that is more than about six feet high. Those dark horizontal supports are 2" wide.
seriously, why not a trouble light with hook onto the door or the car hood. then it could be moved as needed. the moving door would make me nervous, no matter what wire you used
lets say you use AC for the wiring. youll have some sort of stationary junction box or switch on the wall and say 10 feet of the AC going to the light on the door. It is only a matter of time before it would become jammed, tangled or otherwise damaged. plus, it has to have enough slack for the door's motion so now it's just in the way.
its your house of course.
How to plug in the lights will get important if there are no "bulbs vibrating on a moving door" issues . For now though I'm thinking: fasten a 1x6 to the inside of that horizontal support and then fasten the dual T8 fixture to that.
The garage door switch is on the other side of the garage so it's not like the bulbs will fall on my head when the door moves, but I would rather have them not fall at all! Ideas welcome!
I, too, think an alternate solution would be better in the long run. Maybe two retractable flourescent or LED shop lights hanging from the ceiling. You can pull them down as needed. Hang them on the garage door, the hood, fender, underneath, wherever you need them to light up the area you're working on.
This is just a bad idea. In your photo it doesn't look like there is any room to stand there anyway. If there is do you really want the light to your back so you are standing in front of it and blocking all the light?!?!?!:eek:
They make nice bright fluorescent trouble lights. Get two of them and hook then on alternate corners of the hood. Your back won't cast a shadow on the engine bay and the two opposing directions will will cancel out some of the harsh shadows.
Clever idea. But I think you are asking for trouble.
A flourescent underhood light will solve your problem, work even better, be more flexible, and allow you to move on to the next project.
Google: "fluorescent under hood work light"
An articulated loading dock light on one or both sides of the door might meet the case. Could be spendy though.
Many of the t-8 tombstones have a twist in / locking device to hold the bulbs. They won't easily fall out, but a 4' piece of glass is easy to break. If I was going to do it I would use the protective sleeves and wire a plug to the fixture so it can be unplugged when not in use or when the door is to be moved. I wouldn't chance a cord flexing with each door operation. (but I like the dock light idea better)
If you want lights for when the door is up....put them in the ceiling where the windows are. The light will shine down through the windows.
No windows? The some of the above advice is better..
Adding weight to the door without changing to thicker springs (or at least adjusting the current springs) can cause problems.
What about a light on the wall, or a light on the wall that can extend out into the engine bay (as Jack Hottel suggests)?
I have a different situation, but I have lights that attach to arms that extend out from the side wall in my garage. The door opens and closes above them.
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Apple-Raisin Pork Chops RecipeRead Reviews Be the first to add a review
4.5 1 6
When I was growing up, we couldn't afford to have meat very often, so it was a special evening when we had these tender chops. The apples, raisins and apple cider give this dish a sweet touch and a pretty appearance. —Shirley Joan Helfenbein, Lapeer, Michigan
Recommended: 40 Easy Pork Chop Recipes
- 8 bone-in pork loin chops (3/4 inch thick and 8 ounces each)
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 2 cups apple cider or juice
- 3 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
- 3 medium apples, sliced
- 1/2 cup sliced green onions
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup dried currants
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1/4 cup cold water
- In a large skillet, brown pork chops in oil in batches on both sides. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Return all chops to the skillet.
- Combine cider and mustard; pour over meat. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 13-18 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 160° Remove chops to a serving platter; keep warm.
- Add the apples, onions, raisins and currants to the skillet. Cover and cook over medium heat for 5-6 minutes or until apples are tender. Combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into apple mixture. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Serve with pork chops. Yield: 8 servings.
Originally published as Apple-Raisin Pork Chops in Taste of Home October/November 2007, p35
Light-Bodied Red Wine
Enjoy this recipe with a light-bodied red wine such as Pinot Noir.
Reviews for Apple-Raisin Pork Chops
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Reviewed Oct. 4, 2009
"Not as sweet as I expected. Might try it again without the mustard? Looks pretty."


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CLEVELAND — The Detroit Tigers started out strong Thursday night. Nine innings later, they finished even stronger.
After scoring four times in the first innings, the Tigers' offense went into a slumber until the 11th when it broke through for seven runs in an 11-4 win over the Cleveland Indians.
"It was a little bit of a dogfight," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. "We jumped out to the early lead and felt pretty good about it and they fought their way all the way back. It became a battle to the end."
Eugenio Suarez's two-run single and Victor Martinez's three-run homer highlighted the late eruption, which didn't seem like it would be necessary about four hours earlier.
"I was just trying to survive," Martinez said. "I went up there like I always go, just trying to be a tough out and put a good swing on it."
The Tigers sent 10 men to the plate in the first and 11 batted in the final inning.
Cleveland chipped away against defending Cy Young winner Max Scherzer and tied the score against the Tigers' bullpen in the seventh.
Phil Coke (4-2) pitched 1 2/3 innings.
Josh Tomlin (6-9) gave up five runs and three hits in one-third of an inning.
Detroit, which holds the American League's second wild-card spot, won three of four in the crucial series to pull one game behind Kansas City in the AL Central. Cleveland is six games out in the division and five games back for a wild card.
J.D. Martinez's three-run homer in the ninth off closer Cody Allen gave Detroit a 4-2 win Tuesday.
"Two very good wins that we've had in the last three days," Ausmus said. "Two of the better ones I think we've had all year."
Tomlin, who returned to the team Tuesday after being on the paternity list as his wife gave birth to their first child, issued a one-out walk to Rajai Davis in the 11th. Ian Kinsler's blooper then fell between right fielder Tyler Holt and second baseman Jason Kipnis, and Holt's throw to third was late, allowing Kinsler to take second.
Ezequiel Carrera was intentionally walked to load the bases before Suarez, who pinch-ran for Miguel Cabrera in the 10th, lined an 0-1 pitch to left.
Martinez followed with his 29th homer, a line drive to right. Andrew Romine, who grounded out to start the inning, added a two-run single.
Scherzer staggered through six innings, allowing three runs and throwing 124 pitches before being pulled.
"Absolute physical grind for me," he said. "Didn't pitch efficiently, fell behind in counts. Battled as hard as I could. Pitched as deep as I could even when my pitch count ran up as high as it did."
Michael Brantley's seventh-inning double tied the score.
The Tigers scored in the first on Trevor Bauer's wild pitch, Bryan Holaday's two-run single and Davis' RBI single.
OF Torii Hunter didn't start after fouling a ball off his left foot in the first inning Wednesday. He struck out as a pinch-hitter in the sixth, but didn't stay in the game defensively.
1B/DH Victor Martinez was named the AL Player of the Month for August after batting .350 with six homers and a league-leading 30 RBI.
"Victor goes through periods when it looks like he's playing softball," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "He goes up there and swings as hard as he can and he rarely misses. That's not a good feeling."
Tigers: C Alex Avila missed his second straight game after being hit in the mask by a foul ball Tuesday. "It was a little bit of a lingering side effect from the head shot, so we're going to give him another day," manager Brad Ausmus said.
Tigers: Detroit returns home Friday to begin a three-game interleague series against San Francisco, the first time the teams have met since the Giants swept the 2012 World Series. RHP Rick Porcello (15-9) starts for Detroit against RHP Jake Peavy (4-13).


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by Tyler Durden ZeroHedge.com 04/26/2013 And it was shaping up like your typical boring, noonish "gold-smackdown-so-JPM-can-refill-its-vault" Friday. Trust the White House to come out, guns blazing, false flags waving, and make those selling hard assets into the weekend think twice: US PURSUING "DEFINITIVE" EVIDENCE ON SYRIAN CHEMICAL WEAPONS WHITE HOUSE SAYS OPTIONS FOR DEALING... »
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Jeffry John Aufderheide Activist Post.com Friday, April 26, 2013 The Centers for Disease Control has been quietly rolling out a nationwide program called the Immunization Information Systems (IIS), registering your vaccine information into a database. This effort has been run in parallel with state vaccine registry implementations. What is the intention of such... »
Gun Grabber Chris Christie — Exposed!
AmmoLand.com Thursday, April 25, 2013 Colorado -–(Ammoland.com)- Last week he announced he's again teaming up with the radical anti-gunners in Trenton to force even more gun-grabbing restrictions on New Jersey residents. Worse, Governor Christie isn't just interested in gun control, he thinks he can legislate something even broader — he calls it "violence control."... »
Washington planned Boston bombings: Republican state legislator
Presstv.ir Friday Apr 26, 2013 The US government is responsible for the Boston Marathon twin bombings which killed three people and left hundreds wounded, says a state legislator. The Republican state rep from New Hampshire Stella Tremblay of New Hampshire said on April 19 that the Boston Marathon twin bombings and subsequent search for... »
By Dr. Laurie Roth April 26, 2013 NewsWithViews.com This week I faced the fear that had kept me from covering the growing and endless questions surrounding the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting December 15th, 2012. Like so many, I wouldn't dream of hurting the grieving parents and family members of all the murdered children... »
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by Dean Garrison Freedomoutpost.com 4-26-2013 California inched closer to passing a gun confiscation bill last week. The bill returns to the Senate for some "non-controversial" amendments and then goes to the desk of Governor Brown. What the people of California need to realize is that this is all a formality. The gun confiscation is... »
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Inhofe.senate.gov Friday, April 26, 2013 WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Congressman Frank Lucas (R-OK-3) today introduced in their respective chambers the Ammunition Management for More Obtainability (AMMO) Act of 2013. The legislation would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a report on the purchasing of ammunition by federal... »


text: Ridiculous. Between Kalifornistan, NY, and Maryland, this kind of crap can only be taken for so long. It's just retarded; I can't even comprehend the mindset that these people must have to think that this is okay. All the same arguments apply; do we make people buy extra insurance if they own a knife? A tire iron? How about a hammer? Stupid, stupid, STUPID! Man this crap gets under my skin, but fast.


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How do you choose the right word? Some just don't fit what you're trying to convey, either in the labor of love prose for your creative writing class, or the rogue auto-correct function on your phone.
Can you shed lacerations instead of tears? How is the word barren an attack on women? How do writers such as Joshua Ferris, Francine Prose, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, and Simon Winchester weigh and inveigh against words?
We sat down with Katherine Martin and Allison Wright, editors of the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, to discuss what makes a word distinctive from others and what writers can teach you about language.
Writing Today, the Choice of Words, and the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus
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The Use and Abuse of a Thesaurus
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Katherine Martin is Head of US Dictionaries at Oxford University Press. Allison Wright is Editor, US Dictionaries at Oxford University Press.
Much more than a word list, the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is a browsable source of inspiration as well as an authoritative guide to selecting and using vocabulary. This essential guide for writers provides real-life example sentences and a careful selection of the most relevant synonyms, as well as new usage notes, hints for choosing between similar words, a Word Finder section organized by subject, and a comprehensive language guide. The third edition revises and updates this innovative reference, adding hundreds of new words, senses, and phrases to its more than 300,000 synonyms and 10,000 antonyms. New features in this edition include over 200 literary and humorous quotations highlighting notable usages of words, and a revised graphical word toolkit feature showing common word combinations based on evidence in the Oxford Corpus. There is also a new introduction by noted language commentator Ben Zimmer.
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Get an overview of this hotelBeach hotel with restaurant and outdoor pool
Popular property highlights
Situated in Isla Mujeres, this beach hotel is within 2 mi (3 km) of Crayola House, Mundaca House, and Norte Beach. Secreto Beach and Tortugranja Turtle Farm are also within 3 mi (5 km).
Hotel Features
A restaurant, an outdoor pool, and free WiFi in public areas are available at this hotel.
Room Amenities
All 10 rooms offer free WiFi, hair dryers, and safes. Showers and free toiletries are also available to guests.
Guest Highlights
- Helpful staff
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
The hotel offers a restaurant. Public areas are equipped with complimentary wireless Internet access. This beach hotel also offers an outdoor pool and a terrace.
- Total number of rooms - 10
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Front desk (limited hours)
- Free WiFi
- Terrace
- Restaurant
- Offsite parking discounted rates available
- Outdoor pool
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi
Offsite parking discounted rates available
Room Amenities
- Air conditioning
- In-room climate control (air conditioning)
- Daily housekeeping
- Private bathroom
- Free toiletries
- Hair dryer
- Shower only
- In-room safe
- Iron/ironing board (on request)
- Free WiFi
Where to Eat
Cooked-to-order breakfasts are available for a surcharge and are served each morning between 8 AM and 11:30 AM.
Da Luisa - This restaurant specializes in Mediterranean cuisine and serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Guests can enjoy drinks at the bar. Open select days.
Nearby Things to Do
Recreational amenities at the hotel include an outdoor pool.
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Yoga classes/instruction on site
Hotel Policies
Check-in time starts at noon
Check-in time ends at 5 PM
Minimum check-in age is 18
Special check-in instructions:
Check-out time is 11 AM
Payment types
Children and extra beds
- Children 12 and younger are not allowed at this property. All guests older than 12 are welcome.
- Rollaway/extra beds are not available.
- Cribs (infant beds) are not available.
- Pets not allowed
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
No rollaway/extra beds available
No cribs (infant beds) available
Hotel Name
- Casa Ixchel Aparthotel Isla Mujeres
- Casa Ixchel Isla Mujeres
- Casa Louise Ixchel Hotel Isla Mujeres
- Casa Ixchel Hotel Isla Mujeres
- Casa Ixchel Hotel
We should mention
Children 12 years old and younger are not permitted at this property. Only registered guests are allowed in the guestrooms.


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One of the goals of WREP is to facilitate the placement of NAU undergraduate and graduate students into internship positions related to environmental biology, environmental policy, water resources management, and environmental engineering. Topic areas should relate to the watersheds, riparian areas, streams, and rivers of northern Arizona.
Send an email message to WREP along with a description of your interests, academic major, and your preferred timeframe to participate in an internship. Interns funded by WREP are expected to write a summary report of their activities at the conclusion of the internship period.
Please submit by email to WREP descriptions of internship opportunities.
Internship descriptions will be circulated by email to NAU faculty,
staff and students and may be posted in an abbreviated format on the
WREP website.
Please include the following points in your internship description:


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Robin Williams' ashes were scattered in San Francisco Bay two days ago, and it's been a week since he committed suicide, so, as a blogger, I guess I am behind the curve. Still, there are a couple of things I would like to say.
First and most obvious—Williams' death made me very sad, since it means there won't be any more wonderful movies with him. I also felt sad for him as a person—which lead me to muse right away about what a fascinating, profound, and somewhat paradoxical fact it is about artists and celebrities—there is often an illusion (although it is always all it is?) of closeness that leads us to identify with their fortunes much closer than with those of a guy or a gal two doors down the street (or two or three or three hundred or a thousand people somewhere on the other side of the globe—or just a few streets over).
The artists' and celebrities' status also make it inevitable that people will use their lives—and deaths—as sounding boards for their own concerns and opinions, sources of speculations, and pretexts for all kinds of discourses. It is par for the course and when celebrities or those around them complain too loud about it happening, it is usually a little disingenuous, and not infrequently—at least in part—a way to attract the very attention that is being denounced. I won't pursue this endless spiral here, suffice it to say that I believe there is always a middle way, an invisible line beyond which legitimate public gaze becomes that of an intrusive peeping tom, and legitimate use of celebrities' lives as sources of subjects for conversation slides into insensitive speculations.
Obviously, there can be no clear formula for distinguishing the two, and well-meaning people will always be likely to disagree in any particular case.
With this important caveat in mind, I would like to respectfully disagree with the posts by Brad Warner and Peter Coyote about what lessons a Buddhist might draw from Robin Williams' demise.
(By the way and for the record—this is not how I wanted to introduce Brad Warner of the Hardcore Zen in this blog, by polemicizing him! I consider Brad a significant voice on the modern American Zen scene and I will talk about him and his books soon in this space).
As far as I am concerned, a Buddhist qua Buddhist can learn from Williams' suicide exactly…nothing. And, barring a deep personal acquaintance with Williams—or maybe even then—can postulate anything about Williams' actions…not at all. Zilch. Nada. Not a thing.
Allow me to explain.
Everybody's life is infinitely complex and involves myriads of closely interwoven chains of causation. Nobody knows them all. Nobody ever can know them all. By definition.
This leads to an apparent paradox. Obviously, we can talk about suicide in general. Based on the statistical analysis of the available data, we can draw up lists of likely causes and conditions and even propose various preventive measures—keep the weapons away, make suicide hotlines readily available, train people to identify warning signs and provider immediate bystander intervention, etc.
We are also, all of us, free to hold various opinions on suicide as such—and those opinions are going to be informed by, and tied in, and expressed in the language of, our overall outlook on life (how consistent and logical those ties are going to be is a different matter).
"Your life is not your own; you have a responsibility to yourself, your loved ones, and the universe as a whole not to [end your own life]; there is no oblivion into which I [and, by extension, anyone] can escape"—all these statements from Brad Warner's post are not particularly new or original, but that doesn't make them trite or untrue. In addition, coming from him, they are obviously deeply personally felt and thought out, and nobody can quarrel with that.
Equally unobjectionable is Peter Coyote's exhortation to balance one's life and mental faculties.
What rubbed me the wrong way in both authors—strong enough that I am writing about it now—is the implication that all of these things could have had a bearing on Robin Williams' fate, could have changed the reality as it transpired.
Perhaps they could. Perhaps they couldn't. Assenting to the proposition "your life is not your own" is, in a way, trivial. I think there is a good chance Williams would have agreed with every one of Warner's statements. And I am sure he was not purposefully and consciously neglecting balance or just being lazy and not working hard enough on reigning in "the horse of his imagination."
But, to think about it, I can't even be sure about that either. And if he was willfully neglectful, there was a reason for that in his mind—and there is no way to know what if any amount of meditation or meds or anything else could have changed that.
Overriding such a fundamental instinct as that of self-preservation, shutting the door on the only life we can feel and know right here, at this moment, in this body (whatever our believes or intuitions or convictions about what lies beyond) is an essentially incomprehensible, incommunicable, and non-reproducible event.
Both Warner and Coyote—completely unintentionally, I would like to think—let the cold draft of judgment sneak in under the door.
Williams was too clever. He didn't handle his gift as he should have (strictly speaking, if we try to stay within the Buddhist metaphysics, should we even speak of gifts? Or should we perhaps speak of simple conditioned reality that might, under different light and at different time, look like anything—a gift, a curse, or just something that is. And perhaps the presence of that reality, that talent, created some conditions that ultimately made the person's suicide more likely. Or maybe without that talent he would have been another unknown dead by his own hand before the age of thirty). He allowed himself to forget that, in Coyote's words, "there is always something we can do."
Is there?
For sure?
Apparently, this time there wasn't. And, as far as I am concerned, that is all we can be certain of.
Two more things.
One: Brad Warner criticizes official psychiatry and especially the way it handles depression. He contra-proposes his personal experience, indicating that for him, Buddhist practice has been the way out of depressed states. Again, this is wonderful and unfalsifiable—for Brad Warner. But it doesn't warrant the generalization "just about anything a drug can do to us, we can also do for ourselves."
It doesn't follow that modern psychiatry has all the answers or that it is never a seething pit of big pharma's greed, rusted bureaucracy, and every possible failure of human ethics and judgment. Sometimes it most certainly is.
But not every time.
And for someone, somewhere today a right pill—or a right word by a professional psychiatrist—offered at the right moment, will save his or her life.
Specifically from the Buddhist point of view, I feel, it is justifiable to venture one kind of generalization: "we are overrelying on chemicals in modern life," but not the other: "everything a pill can do, a meditation can do better." The first one is a reasonable statistical observation, buttressed by the fact that, from the point of view of Buddhist teaching, if you don't work consciously with your mind at least to some degree, you are missing the biggest opportunity being human affords you. The second one is hubris. (Sorry, Brad!)
Two: Peter Coyote concludes his post with these words: "Our great-hearted friend will be back as the rain, as the cry of a Raven, as the wind." This is beautiful and poetic and I don't want to look picky, but this is no kind of Buddhism I know. This is New Age (I plan to make the complex relationships between the two the subject of some of my future posts).
In my understanding of Buddhism, we are not "back" as anything. There is no "back." There is no "forward." There is no essence changing forms in time. Form, essence, and time are indivisible.
Ironically, Coyote's next sentence rings true to me: "He, you and I have never for one moment not been a part of all it."
But right now, right here, the human being called Robin Williams is dead. He killed himself. We have his movies. We have our memories of him.
We cannot learn anything from his death. But we can be jolted by it to contemplate such things as life and death, the nature of talent, the problem of suicide, and many other things.
And we can put on "What Dreams May Come" and let Williams enact and thus, through the magic of art, make real, immediate, and close for us the abstract concepts of love, forgiveness, courage, and sacrifice.
What we do with all that stuff once the movie is over, will be up to us.