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|30th Annual UND Writers Conference: "Expressing the Sacred"
Reading: Mark Doty
March 27, 1999
© 1999 Mark Doty and the University of North Dakota
Chris Stoner: Thank you. Welcome everyone to the three o'clock reading, which is Mark Doty. And, as I read through Mark Doty's work in consideration of the Writers Conference theme, what I was especially touched by was his wonderful sense of experiencing the sacred in ways which are accessible to everyone. His articulation of the sacred does not require extensive study of any religious texts or devotion to any specific system or, of beliefs. In Doty's work, one experiences the sacred in the remains of a dolphin beached in a marsh, in a black, beaded dress and the memories of a cherished and tortured friend that it embodies, in the small gestures of kindness which unite strangers. Just a small example of that is from his memoir Heaven's Coast. It's a short scene in which he relates being in New York at the cathedral St. John the Divine where the altar is decorated for people in remembrance of people who have died of AIDS.
And he writes: "People came and went--boyfriends, teenagers, a Hispanic woman who knelt alone at the alter, crossed herself, prayed, smiled at me as she rose. I asked her if she might have a Kleenex; she rummaged in her black patent purse and apologized for finding nothing.
I tried to leave then, but I couldn't seem to walk out of the orbit of the altar, some magnetic pull in those ranks of candles, the unrevealing banners of appliquéd felt. I'd begin to walk away and some little spasm of grief would break free, as if floating loose from below, rising to the surface, choking, blinding. I sat back down on the column base, and in a moment there was a tap at my shoulder: the Hispanic woman, come back with--where had she gotten them?--the kind of paper napkins you get with an ice cream cone. It seemed to me the most genuine of gifts, made to a stranger: the recognition of how grief moves in the body, leaving us unable to breathe, helpless except for each other."
Heaven's Coast, which is Mark Doty's first volume of memoir, received the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for non-fiction and was also named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. For his five collections of poetry, he has received the National Book Critic Circle Award, a Whitings Writers' Award, and Britain's T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and a new memoir entitled Fire Bird is forthcoming in 1999. Please welcome Mark Doty.
Mark Doty: Thank you, and thanks for being here. It's...it feels good to read to an audience of such heartiness. [Audience laughter] You know, you sort of, you made this effort to come out through the blinding drifts this morning. And it also feels wonderful to be at a conference, which I feel has been educating me. Often coming to an event like this, you expect to be putting energy out more than taking things in, but the conversations that my colleagues and I have been having yesterday and today have felt rich and provocative and troubling in ways that I know are going to go on generating new thinking as we leave, and that's a wonderful gift.
I thought that I would read for you a couple of poems and then a prose piece, which I'll tell you about when I get there. I want to begin with a pair of poems, which, in different ways, I think, have to do with some of the things that we've been talking about. This poem is set in Southeastern Massachusetts. It's called "Migratory."
Near evening, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts,
and I was up there, somewhere between the asphalt
the shopping carts shining, from above,
of those who know how to fly in formation,
the parking lot, the wet field
and its exits, one shattered farmhouse
erases the mechanical noises, everything;
and then, out of that long, percussive pour
Assertion, prayer, aria--as delivered
which plays nonetheless down the length
rise above, ineluctable, heedless,
--so little between spirit and skin,
as they headed toward Acushnet
either, with the cars nudged in and out
would remain unfilled. I wasn't there.
I seemed to be nowhere at all.
Not so long ago, I got an invitation to contribute a poem to a new anthology called Unleashed, and the sole requirement for this anthology was that the poems had to be in the voice of the writer's dog. [Audience laughter] And I thought, "No, this is...no. Not something I'm gonna do." Well, about a week later, I was walking my dog Beau in the woods near where I live, and he began to send these sort of telepathic signals--these phrases and lines. It turned out he wanted to write a sonnet [Audience laughter], which was a surprise to me: he does not have the demeanor of a formalist by any means [Audience laughter], but...this is his poem. He's fond of puns, as you will hear, and his poem is called "Golden Retrievals."
[Audience laughter]
Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
I'm off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
or else you're off in some fog concerning
a Zen master's bronzy gong, calls you here,
[Audience laughter]
So, I sent this poem off to the editors of this anthology, who liked it, and shortly thereafter let me know that they were sending a photographer to photograph the author of the poem [Audience laughter], and the book is out now, and so you can see Beau sort of...he's doing a kind of three-quarter authorial profile [Audience laughter], a very glamorous shot.
This is something I don't usually do. But, this is a prose piece, it's called "An Exile's Psalm," and it's...I wanted to read it for two reasons. One, because it's part of this book which just came out called Here Lies My Heart: Essays on Why We Marry, Why We Don't, and What We Find There, which is a wonderful and interesting book about relationship from all kinds of points of view. And, because this is new, I thought it would be interesting to read from it and also because of what my piece here addresses has to do with many of the issues that we've been talking about over the last two days. This is too long to read you the whole thing, so I'm going to skip the beginning. And that means I need to give you a little bit of background.
For twelve years, I lived with a man named Wally Roberts, who died of AIDS in January of 1994. After his death, I wrote a memoir called Heaven's Coast, which was about our lives together, about his illness and death, and the time thereafter, that period of raw, new grief. I wrote the book because I needed something to read about that sort of experience. I could find many books, which were written from the point of view of the urge to console the grieving, either psychologically or spiritually, but I could find very little that was written out of the anger and tumult and beauty, which grief is at its rawest. So, when I had finished that book, I found myself in the odd position of having published a very intimate story about how I felt a little while ago, and then having lots of people read that book who didn't know how I felt now. About fourteen months after Wally's death, I became involved in a new relationship with a man named Paul. So the ... I found myself both enormously happy about this and terrifically confused. What could it mean to love again? What did that say about my old relationship when a new one was beginning? Those are some of the things with which this piece is concerned.
The Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco: an early afternoon sheened with silvery coastal light. A mother-of-pearl layer of cloud thinned to a high glaze by sun, then the atmosphere darkens to something softer, the muffling intimacy of rain.
I'm thinking of the world in layers, a meditation provoked by the koi: beneath the surface of the absolutely clear ponds that thread through this garden, these calm presences drift and angle. They seem to float without effort, though now and then a purposeful flick of the two translucent fins on either side of the body propels them forward. Who was the Japanese philosopher who said, "A fish never makes an aesthetic mistake"? These big, lovely fellows are the confident princes of another world, gleaming in their supple chainmail. Just when I round a curve in the path or come up over a little rise, another's revealed, the garden's secret jewels: here a speckled opal, here a blazing orangey-gold "like shook foil." Here's the most startling of all: a pale chiffon yellow, its vibrant intensity amplified by the grey light of the day. He turns on his side as he swims, as if to scratch his lemon flanks on the pond bottom, flashing to heaven a belly of birthday-candle yellow, a shimmery lemon merengue. He makes me catch my breath; what in all the world glows like that? And his happy, doglike, rolling and scratching--who'd have thought a fish capable of evidencing pleasure?
These koi move beneath a complicated surface--even, occasionally, break through that horizontal scrim which is busy giving back the dull sheen of sky and the bulk of trees, reflections even of individual leaves, as well as the interruption of actual leaves floating on the water. And, as if the surface didn't already have enough work to do, it's begun to rain a little, so that the drops of rain send out spreading rings which shiver all the other reflections and overlap with other circles. The black-and-silver skin of the pond becomes a kind of dreamy geometry lesson, demonstration of an indecipherable mathematics.
I wouldn't think so much about the third layer, above water and surface, save that it is threaded now by birds--sleek black citizens whose predominant feature, beside their elegant necks, always in motion, are the shiny little black beads of their eyes, which are vivid pinpoints of subjectivity--places where the air seems to look out at itself, at us all. Strange to think of so many vantage points, the air full of locations: points of departure, perspectives, places to stand, intensions. These feathered stances pulse and hurry, pause and cock their heads, shift back and forth on wire legs, turn those glamorous necks every which way.
And there is, too, a pair of blue jays, the Virgin-of-Guadalupe azure almost impossibly bright in the rain, a cobalt leap and flutter from branch to stone lantern to boulder to branch, in some kind of a chattering and gesticulating dialogue with each other, two quick blue thoughts circling around and around in the air. One goes down to the water's edge and jumps in, splashing its wings rapidly to beat the water into a tumble of droplets in the air, comingling the three layers of things I've been watching into one. Is it me who has made this separation? Obviously the boundaries between air and water are permeable ones--the koi break the surface to feed and splash, the rain and leaves rattle the reflective skim, the birds leave off throwing their darting reflections on the water in order to enter into it and worry the surface further. Water is the physical demonstration of responsiveness; nothing is more immediately and visibly reactive. Water plays back for us every force affecting it, every nuance, every bit of life.
Today it seems to me that time has just the layered quality of this garden. I've come here in a taxi, essentially by mistake, since I'd planned to go to the Museum of Asian Art. Tired of talking (I'm on a book tour, a round of readings and interviews which require me to try to articulate again, what I have already written about love and grief), I wanted the silence and poise of Japanese ceramics or Chinese scrolls. But almost as soon as the taxi doors, taxi's pulled away, I realized the museum's closed; the sign on the door tells me I've come on the wrong day. I turn from the door to the round ornamental pool in front of the museum, and realize first that the turtle sitting on the lip of stone protruding from the water is not bronze but alive, and then that I have seen this before--have, in fact, done this before. In 1989, on a vacation in San Francisco, Wally and I did exactly the same thing, arriving at the museum doors on a Monday or a Tuesday and watching a turtle--this turtle?--among the water lilies in the ornamental pool. And then we wandered next door, to the Japanese Tea Garden. So the warm fragrance of brewing tea coming toward me from the sheltered area where people are sitting with teapots and rice crackers takes me back to that day, those flavors: seven years passed, same mistake, same pleasures. And new ones, since the garden seems engineered to ensure that we notice the complicated matrix of this particular day. New sadness, as well. I feel rather like that blue jay, mixing up the layers of time till they're indistinguishable.
Though, in fact, the scent of the tea--more present, in the rainy air--does not bring back the past as I would like it to. I hope that some particularly vivid, buried memory of Wally, of an hour together, will come back to me here. But it doesn't; I'm more aware of the irony--here we were, here I am--than of any vivid sense of him. Memory of this kind can't be willed; if it isn't the time for it, then it isn't. But I am wishing for such an encounter with the past because my relationship with the past is in a state of confusion.
It's been spun around by this tour, by reading to audiences about Wally and his death, by talking to journalists and interviewers about grief. I am no longer in the habit of talking about him every day. I talk to him nearly daily, but it's an interior conversation, and I am not accustomed to all this bringing of memory out into the outer world. This brings him closer, particularly when I am reading to audiences for whom I know the epidemic is a pressing reality. Their faces remind me that these words have the force of actuality for them; they're here because it is important for them to find their experience mirrored in language. And writing is only capable of that when it is crafted and honed--not just journal entries in which the writer's feelings are paramount, but the shapely work which allows the reader to feel.
But therein lies a paradox: these word both evoke the past and hold it at a distance. As I read them to audiences, I sometimes re-experience the past but I always re-experience my own language, as if my words were gradually taking the place of my memory, covering the past over with bits of phrases--like a sort of elaborate mosaic pavement, something from the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, assembled over the surface of my memory--so that it becomes a surface, a made replacement for the felt thing.
One night, not long before the visit to the garden, I had an awful paroxysm of doubt, a terror that by repeating my story, by turning my life with Wally into art, I had made it more difficult to remember him. In the act of making him memorable to others, had I removed him from myself? Had I only intensified my loss? Or worse, done some disservice to him, made him smaller? I don't want my story, the artifact of memory, but something less pure, less selected: the unpredictability, the otherness, of another being.
And this is another way the dead die to us. They are not there to correct our impressions, to keep us from getting to confident in our understanding of them. The living will always make sure that we can't fool ourselves into thinking we totally know them; something will always confound our perceptions, challenge our certainty. But of the dead, we know what we know, and over time our memories and the narrative we make of them begin to seem fixed, not subject to revision by experience.
What I was feeling was, finally, simple, familiar. I missed him. All the stories I'd made to represent him, all the writing I'd done to capture something of us, are at last doomed to fail; nothing is captured, nothing is held, because no matter what gesture we make to render the world, no matter how seemingly large and encompassing the gesture is, the world resists. The world is larger than art. "The world is wily," Susan Mitchell says in one of her poems, "and doesn't want to be caught." My poetry and my prose sometimes seem to me a complicated set of negotiations with death, of attempted accommodations to mortality: Here is a way to think of dying which might be bearable, which might be something close to all right. And yet it's not acceptable, not all right, though one cannot stop making the negotiations, cannot stop the proposals of possibility, in spite of the possibility, in spite of the fact that death will knock the papers from the table, will end all discussions, will break off talks without hope of resolution.
In the landscape of this garden, I locate myself, not with the splendid yellow fish or the quick aerial cogitations of the jays; it's that calm but nonetheless never-still surface of the water with which I identify. I am trembled by wind, written upon by the sky and all its passages of cloud and of wings. I am fluid in time as well as in space; it's foolish of me to wish to recapture the past, because I am the past, what there is of it; it's entirely entwined in my subjectivity. I carry it. And I am now, as well, inscribed by every passing force, unstable, rain-marked, clear.
I don't have the experience I might wish for, of vivid memory, the past recaptured. Wally and I are not here. But I am, and more to the point, the garden is. This matrix of levels, this common flesh in its multiple forms, these winged and finned thoughts and surfaces upon which the forces of the world meet. I am happy here, seeing all this life, implicated in it, even if my grief is useless, even if my longing and my work have come to nothing.
Not redemption, not reclamation. But perhaps not nothing. I am thinking of the chilling statement of Yeats's: "All that is personal," he wrote, "soon rots, unless it is packed in ice or salt." He meant the preservative chill and saline of form, the poet's icy verbal brine which might pickle poor mortal forms caught in time. I've quoted it to students a thousand times, but suddenly I think he's wrong; all that is personal rots anyway; it's the ice and salt that last.
I'm not reading that because we're in North Dakota, by the way.
It's the ice and salt that last. All the particulars of love and desire and memory and doubt poured into poetry vanish, as the poem becomes, in time, a vessel for the reader's feeling, the writer's distinctive experience faded away. The form lasts long beyond the life it was made to hold.
And even the preservative container will vanish, when no one can read the language anymore, or the book that contained it falls to pieces. Think of the poems of Sappho torn to shreds in Egypt to wrap the mummy of a crocodile, and the little strips of paper come to light only a century ago, which display just those shards. Stays against time are temporary; our attempts to hold time at bay, of course, are made inside of time, exist within in it, as everything does. The shreds of paper survive and then, nothing.
And yet the flux, the moment, the participation in the life of the world in that shimmered and inscribed surface, erased and rewritten, scribbled and trembled and reconfigured--isn't that something more than nothing? What could we ever be but the flux, the liquid page, written by this day, right now, in which is involved all of the past as well as all tomorrows?
Not nothing. A man comes up to me at a book signing and asks me to sign his book. "I'm Mark," he says, "would you sign this for Jim and Mark?" It turns out Jim's been dead for one month. Mark's face is open and radiant, the look that people have when the world has cracked open in front of them, when they have themselves cracked. He could burst into tears at any moment, or sing, or praise something. "I'm a Buddhist," he says. I think he wants me to know this because it's meant to tell me he's all right, that he can stand at some distance from attachment, from life and death, that he doesn't believe that Jim has ended exactly, because was "Jim" there in the first place? At least I think that's what he means; "I'm a Buddhist" seem like complicated shorthand.
Then he tells me that someone read a passage from Heaven's Coast at Jim's memorial service; the book hasn't been out long, and it seems extraordinary that someone should use it, the book is already involved, independently of me, implicated in lives (and deaths). And then I realize I don't care if what I make lasts for fifteen minutes or fifteen years or (imagine!) fifteen centuries. It makes no difference at all. It isn't the preservative part of art that matters; it's the use. It's the word that works as water-surface, mirroring back human life and feeling; it's the act of writing and reading which extends the small size of my humanity in the direction of others. I am not allowed to keep Wally or anything else, but in fact I am allowed to give him, or a version of him, away. I cannot even keep myself, but I can give the word that's written by the world on the surface of myself away. To be spoken by Mark, for Jim; to be spoken by that Mark for himself; to be written by this Mark for that one; to be said on the air, as it is written on air, by my hand of air, out of my history of breathing.
Not nothing. Not yet. There's some faith in art that won't quite leave me. Maybe we can't get the world just right, can't get it captured in language, but it seems to be possible to suggest enough of the way the clear bright skin of the pond shines. A version of the world which could exist between us, not exactly capturing the uncapturable past but indicating, somehow, through the agencies of art, enough of that complexly wavering surface, enough of the skin of the world, so that you might see beneath it the mystery: the pale-side-of-lemon-teal fish swims and shines, turning first to one side and then the other, rolling, himself liquid, a big pale treasure, alive.
For weeks now, Paul has been casually working on a song. He has a sort of semisecret life as a composer of liturgical music; his settings of psalms show up in hymnals and songbooks all over the country. I didn't know this about him at first; he screens his avocation behind his public identity as a writer. What a delicious identity to keep in the closet!
The song has been coming in little snatches he hums and sings when he's vacuuming or otherwise occupied, but today he seems to have composed enough of it in his head to be ready to move to his electronic keyboard. He's at the dining room table with the instrument and staff paper for noting down the arrangement, a translation of the Psalms open beside him. The one he's setting is number 137, and he's playing the opening bars again and again with slight variations:
Beside the streams of Babylon
He doesn't know that I have come into the next room. He's shy about playing and singing in front of me, which seems odd given how much time we spend together, and oddly touching. Watching from the doorway, I love the way he hunches forward, as if he's fitting his lanky frame around the keyboard; because I'm watching from behind, I can see the play of muscle on his neck as he mouths the words. I love the slightly tinny sound the keys make when struck--like a badly recorded harpsichord--and the sunlight through the old lace in the east-facing windows, his soft voice working out the details and harmonies in this cheerful song of exile.
I am, myself, in strange land, and I don't know the harmonies here yet. How could I? And yet the song seems entirely full of promise; the melody seems to say that if exile will not end, it will be accepted, there will be terms for it. My lover has that concentration, that absorption in the moment, in which it is impossible not see his handsomeness, his--how to say it?--his presence as himself, both so forgetful and completely involved. It draws everyone around him into the present, too.
Including the dogs, who are lying at his feet as if they like the chime of the keys, the subtle variations of the repeated phrases. Arden has his head on his paws. As the tune continues, Beau leans back, as if the song were entering into him, and then begins to roll on his back, as if the music and Paul's voice, and the warm sunlight through the lace curtains were playing all along the length of his spine. He's the same color as the light through the lace. So much pleasure, in this constellation of things: warmth and sun and the sweet configuration of voice and music. It's as if Beau can't contain his happiness; it wells up and requires him to move. Soon Paul will notice that I am here, watching, and though he'll be happy to see me, I'll also break the moment's domestic spell, this little bright instance of what I love, which I am grateful now to stand and watch, unseen.
Thank you very much.
[Audience applause]
We seem to have a tradition of questions going so if there...we could take a few minutes for that here. If there are things you would like me to talk about, I'd be happy to.
Audience member: [inaudible]
Mark Doty: Yeah, hi.
Audience member: [inaudible]
Mark Doty: Oh, you bet.
Audience member: [inaudible]
Mark Doty: Sure...New York is a city that has been very generative for me. And, why is that?
I think it's because it is a place of such collisions. And, the fact that so many people are compacted upon such a tiny island means that there are constant human encounters in which one sees people at their very best and at their very worst. In many places, we are held apart by the design of the cities in which we live. In Houston, where I'm living right now, everything happens in automobiles, and there is no sidewalk life. If you walked down the street, people look at you and think you're strange, you know; whereas, if you walk in a New York street, what happens is that there is a whole complex intermingling of culture, languages, histories, and points of views and I find that enormously stimulating. I come, to some degree, as a poet from a tradition of affirmation of the city, which is a tradition of--it's really, it's not a very old tradition, it really goes...You know for Romantic poets the city was a location of evil and suffering, where human beings were diminished. William Blake said, talks about walking through London, he says "I mark in every face, I see marks of weakness, marks of woe." But when Walt Whitman came to the city, circa 1850 or so, moving from rural Long Island to New York, it was this great thrilling zone of possibility, and this certainly probably connected to Whitman's sexuality because for him moving into city life meant escaping narrow strictures of possibility and going into a world where you could be anybody, and you could try out different kinds of identities. So, he fostered a tradition which is also furthered in the work of Hart Crane and great New York poet of the 1950's Frank O'Hara, all of whom were celebrants of, in particular, Manhattan and of cities in general. I'd like to line up behind those guys. [Audience laughter] Yes?
Audience member: I have a question from this morning. Am I talking right?
Mark Doty: Mm-hmm.
Audience member: And that is: could you talk a bit about faith and grieving?
Mark Doty: Sure. Well, as some elements of the prose piece that I read may have indicated to you, one of the consequences, I think, of an experience of profound loss is despair. A sense that, you know, "why should I love again? Why should I participate in the world if what love leads to is, is loss, inevitably?" I remember having, not so long after Wally died, looking at couples, like happy couples together, and thinking "don't you know?" You know? "How can you celebrate life in this way," you know, "don't you see?" And that's because I was so, so much looking at the world through the lens of loss. In some ways, the experience of his death and of new grief brought me into a relationship with ultimate things that strengthened my faith and strengthened my perceptions. I mean I believe that grief really is a heightened state of perception. And that I could see the world more clearly--that was at the beginning. But as time went on, my grief dulled into something more like despair. And that's the place where I think one's faith, in the sense of one's will to go on participating in life, is really tested. And, for me, it was, it was the support of other people. It was particularly the support of my friends who were not in the flesh, but on the page, you know, reading the struggles of others. And it was also--I don't know how to say this without sounding, well, I'll just do it--there's a poem in my book, Sweet Machine, which is about seeing a juvenile whale. And this whale was in our harbor in Provincetown. And it was young; it was about a 20 feet long Humpback. And it spent days swimming around and around the pier, where the last of our fishing fleet is docked. And the whole town turned out to watch this, and it was thrilling, and it was also really scary, because we were very concerned that this creature could be beached. And of course, if a whale is on land, its body is so heavy that its lungs and heart are crushed by its own weight. And when I first looked at that creature, all I could feel was fear: "oh my god, that beautiful thing is going to die," because that's where I was then. And then, I began to look further and realized that what it was doing was playing. It was jump, leaping around. It was showing off for us. It was reaching, you know, ten feet away from the pier, it was [flipping] its flukes up in the air. And I thought, "here is this incredibly heavy thing that is so full of joy." And I thought, "if that, that's what the world offers us." So that became the source of a poem, and, and more profoundly the source of instruction that there were, there were things around me which were occasions of the will to persist. And that if I keep my eyes open, and if I didn't just look down at my own two feet, you know, but if I kept looking out and around, I would find those things that could lead me forward.
Audience member: [inaudible]
Mark Doty: Yes.
Audience member: [inaudible]
Mark Doty: It's not the preserv...I said not the preservative part of art that matters but the use...
Audience member: the mirroring back...
Mark Doty: The mirroring back, yes. Yes, I know it's a real...in a way it's a stay, an argument with myself, all right, because to some degree I'm a, I'm a Romantic poet. And the project of Romantic poetry is making a stay against time: I will make some thing, which preserves that lyric instant of perception. And, so what I'm doing there is arguing with myself that that's not what art is for, because you can't fix time; you don't get to keep anything. But what you do get to do is to make some thing, which can be a meeting ground, if you're lucky, between people, which can be, not something you make just for your own self-expression, but something which is made as a gift. And that gift giving enlarges us beyond our own little, limited selves. In a strange way, Wally and I, together, now have a larger life because, and this has been the real gift to me of publishing that book, is that he's become an element in other people's imaginative lives. And that is a kind of continuation. What a...I mean, what a strange fate, to persist in the imagination of other people. Maybe that's a good place to stop. Thank you.
[Audience applause]
[Transcription by Beth Schoborg; Reviewed by Dr. Crystal Alberts 11 November 2012]


text:
Arts & Sciences Senate
October 22, 2012
I. Approval of tentative agenda: approved.
II. Approval of minutes from September 24, 2012: approved.
III. President's Report (T. Sears)
Administration is on-going.
V. Report from the College of Arts & Sciences (N. Squires)
VI. Report from the Curriculum Committee (R. Calvin)
VII. Report from the Director of the Faculty Center, Teaching, Learning and Technology (P. Aceves)
VIII. Other business: none.
Adjourned at 5:10 p.m.
Submitted by:
Laurie Theobalt

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Hi,My name is Tim,
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ok seems as you and I have come up about the same, so would it meybe be better to replace this 305 with a 350 ? could this be a better choice to improve the mpg, also this car has the 700 trans in it, could there be something that could doon with this .
ok I already had this answer, so I didnot ask the question as I should have , What can I do to improve the mpg on this car, would a 350 engine help , or maybe different heads, the 700R trans seems ok , but could it be recallculated, how about a better ingnition system like maybe a msd or mallery , and can you think of anything else . Thank you for your time Joe.


text: On Tue, 2012-05-08 at 15:56 -0700, Jonathan Blake wrote: > On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Over on the forum is a post about something we intend to alter for the next > > release of Book 13, specifically the hoary old chestnut about re-picking > > stats when transitioning from Book 12 -> 13. Since you don;t repick your > > starts in transitioning from Book 1 -> 2 (just in case you might get better > > numbers), it seems obvious to me that you do NOT re-pick stats, but some > > feel otherwise. > > > > <http://projectaon.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=helpwanted&action=display&thread=2248> > > > > Anyone want to field a reply/response? Are we happy with the changes we > > intend to make? Am currently laid low with a very unpleasant bug, so I'll > > leave it in the capable hands of the rest of the PA staff! ;-) > > Hope you're feeling better now. > > This seems to have gotten very little discussion the first go 'round > because we got caught up with +3/+5 Bow bonus. I can see the point of > someone being at a disadvantage if they started in the middle of the > series (although I wonder if anyone does that now that all of the > books are freely available online). Should we just reverse our > decision and leave it as "can"? > I believe we should leave it as "can". Its my opinion that the Grandmaster books are balanced for a player not carrying stats over from previous books. Therefore playing with stats that are lower than the lowest possible book13-only stats puts you at a distinct disadvantage (especially if you have not obtained the Sommerswerd for whatever reason) - I actually get the impression this whole thing was a way to nerf the CS imbalance by those with the sword and those without (it would have been much better if the sword set your base CS to X while wielding it rather than adding X - ah well). I cant see any reason why a veteran player should not have the option of dumping all their stats and resetting them for books 13+ if they so choose. The word "can" implies you have this option, as does "should" - but "should" is pushing an interpretation of the rules that is not backed by any official (ie from Joe or newsletters) recommendation (as far as I am aware). Basically it seems like a case of changing wording for no benefit. ~~~~~~ Manage your subscription at http://www.freelists.org/list/projectaon


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May 29, 2013 5:49 am
Josh offers seven players worthy of your waiver-wire attention, plus a wild card in the Brewers' fluid bullpen landscape.
Logan Morrison, 1B/OF, Miami Marlins
Morrison played in his first minor-league rehab game this season with High-A Jupiter on May 20. He has played in six games for Jupiter, and he served as a designated hitter in three of those games and played first base in the other three. He took the next step in his rehab assignment by moving up to Double-A Jacksonville on Tuesday. Morrison is recovering from surgery on the patellar tendon in his right knee, the second time he has undergone that type of procedure on it. In the spring, I wrote about him being worthy of a disabled-list spot. At the time, I was optimistic he'd be playing for the Marlins at this point, but alas, he is not. Morrison doesn't have an exact target date for his return, but Joe Frisaro reports that it could be around June 10.
May 7, 2013 5:00 am
Dodgers speedster Dee Gordon races to the top of this week's list of possible reinforcements for your fantasy roster.
Dee Gordon, SS, Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers, and their fan base, are likely crying uncle at this point. They are hurting. Less than one week after being activated from the disabled list, Hanley Ramirez suffered another injury that required a return to the DL. His injury prompted the team to promote Gordon from Triple-A, where he hit .314 with 14 stolen bases in 16 attempts through 25 games.
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April 8, 2013 1:46 am
Last year's top pick Carlos Correa delivered an outstanding performance on Saturday.
Games of Friday, April 5
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February 27, 2013 11:00 am
Ryan Braun and Mike Trout top a list that is teeming with high-upside talent.
The Baseball Prospectus fantasy team has been rolling out its positional rankings over the past couple of weeks, and will conclude the process next week. Each team member assigned to cover a position will create an initial top 15 (more for outfielders and starting pitchers) on his own. He will then send that list to the rest of the team for discussion, at which point we will debate the rankings, both in terms of each player's specific placement and the merits on which he was included in the top 15. This back-and-forth debate will yield the final list, which will be presented by the original author with notes on the pertinent players. We encourage you to bring your opinions into the fray using the comment section below.
Today, we continue the rankings with a look at our top 25 outfielders. Comments on the outfielders ranked 26-50 will follow on Friday.
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February 15, 2013 5:00 am
No matter how hard you try to discredit Trout, he stacks up as an elite fantasy option in 2013.
Like many fantasy players, I spend little if any time during the season worrying about what a player will earn the following year. Even in keeper formats, I don't invest a significant amount of time trying to figure out future earnings.
While I didn't have an exact dollar value assigned to Mike Trout for 2013 back in October, I assumed that I'd have him ranked first or second in AL-only formats and first, second, or third in mixed formats. Besides Ryan Braun and Miguel Cabrera, there were few players who seemed capable of putting up big enough fantasy numbers to come close to Trout.
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January 7, 2013 11:08 am
A peak back at contemporary accounts of Curt Schilling's rise to stardom.
With the Hall of Fame announcement scheduled for this week, now is a good time to look back at the early careers of some of this year's most talked-about nominees. (And with the early exit polls looking as they do, it might be nice to remember just how great some of these players were.) This post was originally written (mostly) in 2009.
If this year's Hall of Fame ballot weren't explicitly designed by the baseball gods to ruffle a serious amount of feathers, one of the most intriguing new names would almost certainly be Curt Schilling. He's been in the news recently for many non-baseball reasons, but, as a player pitching for the World Champion Diamondbacks and Red Sox who struck out more than 300 batters three separate times, he was a great regular season pitcher whose postseason success may legitimately boost him into Cooperstown. With the hoopla at the top of the ballot, however, it might be a while before voters give him his fair due.
October 8, 2012 5:00 am
Maury looks at 2012's attendance winners and losers as well as some early postseason ratings.
With the 2012 regular season in the books, it's time to look at how clubs did at selling tickets. Yes, they call it "attendance," but it's really "paid attendance," a showing of tickets sold and rarely reflective of actual butts in the seats. The league's 30 clubs drew 74,859,268 over 2,423 games this year: an increase of 2 percent. While this wasn't as good as I projected before the season started, it was the league's largest year-to-year growth since the 2007 season total rose 4.6 percent over 2006. Nine clubs drew more than three million in paid attendance this season, while 13 clubs eclipsed the 2.5 million mark. In addition, this is the second consecutive season that total attendance increased over the previous year and marks the highest attendance since 2008. When things are all said and done, 2012 will rank as the fifth-best single-season in MLB history in terms of attendance.
That's the good news. The bad news is that attendance between 2010 and 2011, while technically up, was basically the same. The league sold 397,715 more tickets last year than 2010, or an increase of less than one percent. Let's call that what it is: flat. In fact, over the last four years, the league has seen attendance pretty much remain flat. When you factor in new ballparks for the Mets, Yankees, Twins, and Marlins over the period, this tells us that either the sour economy still holds its grip on America's discretionary income or MLB's true "golden era", as Selig likes to call it, was really 2004-2008 when attendance soared. Still, the league has to be happy; last year, the Dodgers' attendance cratered during Frank McCourt's tenure, and there were a considerable number of rainouts. This season, rainouts weren't as high, and with the two additional Wild Card teams added in, the races for a postseason berth were more compelling.
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July 5, 2012 8:10 am
See at a glance how teams have stacked up in terms of WARP, TAv, FRAA, and BRR by position so far this season with the new Visual Year-to-Date Stats.
We've added a link on the Depth Charts for Visual Year-to-Date stats, which goes to:
This has the same mouseover capability as the Depth Charts, so that if you mouse over WARP for Baltimore catchers, you see the breakout for Wieters, Paulino, and Exposito, for example. Note that there are 4 stats available: WARP, TAv, FRAA, BRR.
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May 29, 2012 3:00 am
Our first look inside the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This is Part 1 of a multi-part series on the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement
On November 22 of last year, Major League Baseball and the MLBPA did something that the NFL and the NBA could not: reached a new labor agreement without a work stoppage. For those that follow baseball's labor history, it has become a miraculous run. By the time the current five-year Basic Agreement (read here) expires on December 1, 2016, it will have been 21 years of uninterrupted labor peace.
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April 23, 2012 3:00 am
Examining attendance trends throughout Major League Baseball in the early going of 2012
You're reading Baseball Prospectus, and I write for them. So, maybe not everyone will understand when I say that numbers are flat. They don't tell the whole story. They can only get you close. What you have to have with numbers is "context." I don't care what the application of numbers is; if you don't explain them, you're only telling part of a story and, possibly, the wrong one.
Major League Baseball attendance is no different. The variables underneath what drives attendance figures are often overlooked. Each year I look at the numbers, and each year there seems to be something else to throw in to try and determine the underlying facets of them.
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March 27, 2012 3:00 am
Why do teams sign older pitchers when they have younger hurlers in the minors?
Kevin Millwood is 37. Bartolo Colon is 39. Jamie Moyer is 49 and coming off Tommy John surgery. Each signed this winter with a team that should be looking to rebuild with young players. What do these teams hope for—or expect to gain—by adding these old pitchers? What should they expect?
With the common and easy argument being that such pitchers block youngsters from getting a chance, why are the old guys here? Will they mentor the kids, soak up innings, or help make fans feel younger? All of the above and more?
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February 20, 2012 3:00 am
Roundtable discussion of the most pressing issues facing each AL East team entering Spring Training
PECOTA Team Projections
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This property has been removed by the agent. It may be sold or temporarily removed from the market
6 bedroom detached house for saleForest Drive, Keston
Property Description
Full description
An exceptional detached family home set behind electric gates and situated in one of Keston Parks most prestigious roads, convenient for local schools and within easy reach of mainline railway stations, motorway links and both Bromley and Bluewater shopping centres. The property is of a unique design with accommodation of approximately 8,000 sq ft.
The accommodation with gas central heating, ceiling speakers in the principal rooms and double glazing briefly comprises: Pillar covered entrance porch, reception hall, open plan drawing room with feature fireplace / dining room, kitchen / family room with feature glazed floor with views down to the swimming pool, utility room, family room, cloakroom. Lower ground floor with access to the games / cinema room and indoor swimming pool with gym area, sauna and steam room. The first floor offers three bedrooms all with ensuite bathrooms and the master with access to a balcony, a study with fitted units and a laundry room. The second floor with atrium skylight offers two further bedrooms both with ensuite bathrooms.
There is a large gated driveway leading to the double garage with electric up and over doors and having the added benefit of a studio flat above with access to a WC, bath and sink area.
Spectacular grounds with patio and steps leading to a large rear garden with full size tennis court and floodlit outdoor swimming pool. Pool house with shower cubicles and cloakroom.
With courtesy lights, oak double doors to:
A large spacious hallway with natural light coming in from two sides and featuring a wide curved oak staircase, fitted oak storage cupboards, oak flooring, solid oak arched doors to various rooms, part glazed door to the garden, radiators with fretwork covers.
OPEN PLAN DRAWING ROOM / DINING ROOM 25'1 x 18'7 & 18'7 x 14' approx.
Drawing room features a large open fireplace with raised marble hearth and inset gas fire, solid oak flooring extends throughout, large arched French doors opening onto the patio, sash windows to either side with radiators below.
Dining room has twin sash windows overlooking the front garden, oak flooring, ornate ceiling coving, radiator with fretwork cover.
KITCHEN / FAMILY ROOM 26'1 x 20' & 21'6 x 17'2 approx.
The kitchen area is comprehensively fitted with a range of solid oak cupboards at eye and base level with solid granite worktops over, built in stainless steel Thermadore kitchen range with overhead extractor, further built in stainless steel steam oven and microwave, AEG dishwasher, central island unit, one and a half bowl stainless steel sink unit with mixer taps, tiled floor, steps down to the family room which is covered with a glazed floor with views down to the swimming pool, wall mounted television.
Further range of oak cupboards, inset stainless steel sink unit with drainer to each side and mixer tap, door opening onto the side aspect.
FAMILY ROOM 15'11 x 14'2 approx.
Twin sash windows overlooking the front aspect, oak flooring, ornate coving, radiator with fretwork cover.
Tiled walls, low level WC with concealed cistern, wash hand basin set into marble top, oak flooring, fitted shelve unit, sash window overlooking the front aspect, radiator with cover.
GAMES / CINEMA ROOM 39'7 x 23'5 approx.
This room falls into three sections, the lower level being used as a cinema room with a roll down cinema screen, ceiling with inset speakers, bar area with twin fridges, marble worktops and inset sink unit and a sitting room area featuring a large open fireplace and part glazed French doors opening onto the terrace with matching windows either side.
Features a 26 x 16 swimming pool with floodlight terracing to all sides, numerous pillars, inset Jacuzzi, full width double glazed windows and doors opening onto the terrace, gym area, steam room with sauna, shower and boiler room.
Large spacious landing area offering a delightful outlook over the rear garden, solid oak doors to all rooms, radiator with fretwork cover, ornate ceiling.
BEDROOM ONE 17'8 x 15'2 approx.
An excellent size double bedroom which has doors opening onto a balcony, solid oak flooring, range of fitted wardrobes to one wall, large walk in dressing room fitted with comprehensive range of matching fitted wardrobes, twin sash windows overlooking the front aspect, radiator with fretwork cover.
Luxury five piece bathroom featuring Jacuzzi bath with mixer taps and handheld shower attachment, mirrors to all sides, fully enclosed tiled shower cubicle, bidet, low level WC, matching twin wash hand basins set into a marble surface with cupboards below, matching overhead mirrors, heated towel rail, obscure double glazed window to the side.
BEDROOM TWO 15'11 x 12'5 approx.
With twin sash windows overlooking the rear garden, radiator with fretwork cover, wall mounted television, oak flooring, fitted mirror fronted wardrobes.
Comprising four piece suite to include inset bath with mixer taps and handheld shower attachment, low level WC with concealed cistern, enclosed fully tiled shower cubicle, hand basin set into a marble surface with mirror over, obscure double glazed window.
BEDROOM THREE 15'4 x 10'11 approx.
With twin sash windows overlooking the front aspect, full range of fitted wardrobes, radiator with fretwork cover, wall mounted television.
Fully tiled to include white suite with panel enclosed bath with mixer taps and separate wall mounted shower unit, low level WC, vanity wash hand basin with mixer tap and mirror over, heated towel rail, window overlooking the front aspect.
With fitted desk area, further range of fitted cupboards, sash window overlooking the front aspect, radiator with fretwork cover.
Housing the hot water tank, ample shelving for laundry, radiator, window overlooking the front aspect.
With natural light coming through the ceiling atrium skylight, access to deep storage space.
BEDROOM FOUR 14'7 x 14'4 approx.
Oak flooring, windows overlooking the front garden, double radiator, fitted wardrobe, wall mounted television.
Walls tiled to half height, panel enclosed bath with mixer taps and wall mounted shower unit, wash hand basin with mixer tap, low level WC with concealed cistern, radiator, heated towel rail, window to the front aspect.
BEDROOM FIVE 18'4 x 10'8 approx.
With dormer window overlooking the front aspect, radiator, oak flooring, wall mounted television.
With white suite comprising tiled panel enclosed bath with mixer tap and handheld shower attachment, low level WC with concealed cistern, wash hand basin, walls tiled to half height, tiled floor, radiator, heated towel rail, dormer window overlooking the rear garden.
The front garden has a large paved terrace, numerous matured trees, well stocked raised boarders with parking for numerous cars.
DETACHED DOUBLE GARAGE / STUDIO ROOM 19'5 x 19'5 (garage) & 23'4 x 13' (studio) approx.
With electric twin up and over doors, door to WC with wash hand basin, stairs to first floor studio with roll top bath, sink unit and sash windows at either end.
An excellent size garden which has screening trees and hedges to all sides, large terraced area with paved pathways leading to the outside swimming pool and tennis court, pool house with shower cubicles and cloakroom, barbecue area with a range of fitted units including a fridge and cooler unit to include a single drainer sink unit with mixer tap, covered roof with halogen downlights, steps down to a lower terrace which gives access to the indoor swimming pool and games room.
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Disclaimer - Property reference WIW2W1571. The information displayed about this property comprises a property advertisement. Rightmove.co.uk makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the advertisement or any linked or associated information, and Rightmove has no control over the content. This property advertisement does not constitute property particulars. The information is provided and maintained by William Wesson, Locksbottom. Please contact the selling agent or developer directly to obtain any information which may be available under the terms of The Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 or the Home Report if in relation to a residential property in Scotland.
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Silicone Sealants
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Altered States
Not to rag on the hard-working educators who shaped our young, impressionable minds, but if they'd illuminated U.S. History half as amusingly as author Sarah Vowell does, then maybe we wouldn't have texted through fourth period.
You can bet that we wouldn't have felt the slightest tinge of excitement had our Peanuts-esque lecturer zoomed in and focused on Hawaii's path to statehood. But in Vowell's latest nonfiction book, Unfamiliar Fishes, released in 2011, the bestselling author morphs the seemingly dull topic into casual, engaging entertainment that simply happens to educate. Vowell explores the imperialism explosion that found 1898 America annexing what would become its 50th state as well as Puerto Rico and Guam (not to mention invading the Phillipines and Cuba).
School is in session on Saturday, April 28, when Vowell takes the stage at the Virigina G. Piper Theater at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, for a reading, audience discussion, and book signing.
Sat., April 28, 8 p.m., 2012
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Olympic opening: the other bits, Seb Coe's speech etc
I've already said in various places what a convert I was to Danny Boyle's Olympic opening spectacular -- I started off as a curmudgeonly refusenik and ended up a Boyle-style patriot. Boyle has a better ear for the passions of the nation than most politicians, and he got it right enough (not wholly, but enough) for me to feel proud. To hear the Sex Pistols played in front of the Queen, that was it... I remember how they were once banned for heaven's sake. Now the world was listening, and I loved it.
So, richly deserved plaudits for Boyle, but what about the rest of the three and a half opening ceremony? We seem to be drawing a veil over that.
First the parade of athletes. OK I know this has to happen (otherwise we might just as well have no more than Danny Boyle and forget about what the Games are really about). But, heavens, two hours of 204 nations in the world didn't make for hugely exciting viewing. And although the BBC commentating team did a hell of a lot better than in the Jubilee pageant, the Wiki style factoid, carefully up-beat stuff they came out with about the third world countries rather undercut the real version of un-pc inclusivity that Boyle had tried to host (next time get Boyle to write their fact sheets).
Try these snippets.
Rwanda..? 'Trying to get on the map' (according to its flag bearer, they said) "as a country of skilled cyclists". (It was only the next morning that the news came that British and other aid was being cut because of something other tham skilled cycling.. but who knows?)
Somalia.. ? "Finally on the road to recovery after renewed international efforts to defeat the piracy problems." Patronising..?
Tunisia..? "Probably the most successful transition so far from the Arab Spring that we were talking about earlier"....Err??
But OK (plus a few jokes about languages with the longest alphabets and country names with only one vowel that were sprinkled into the commentary) so far, so necessary.
It was the speeches etc that got up my nose. Not just the oaths of the athletes and officials (these do have an ancient precedent. and were no doubt just as soon broken then as now... no doping, eh? We've already seen that one disappear, like written in water). But it was more the Rogge and Coe presentations.
To be fair to Seb Coe, I'm sure he's done a good job getting these Games off the ground, and deserves more praise than I am about to give him. But did anyone actually listen to what he said at the opening ceremony -- the "sport is all" line?
"I have never been so proud to be British..." .. well I had just been beginning to feel a bit proud of the old country after the Boyle exravaganza, but now -- with this kind of explicitation -- I was back-tracking a bit.
And it went on "There is a truth to sport .. a purity , a drama, an intensity.. For every Briton, just as for the competitors, this is our time...".
Well, hang on.. it's only a load of sport, which -- sorry sunshine -- does not encapsulate the whole of human existence and talent.
And try this: "In every Olympic sport there is all that matters in life." Come again... It's worthy and fun and probably good for us. But no more.
It really doesnt include all that matters in life. Anyone who believes that is bonkers.
It's great to have fun with these Games, to have a good time, and to praise all those who do well. But where was the mention of all the other things that matters in the world.. art, literature, etc etc . No reference in these eulogies of "quicker and stronger" and sporting fair play, to the cultural Olympiad, or all the otehr things that might .. yes .. actually be MORE important and longer lasting that running a bit faster . (We dont flock to Florence in our millions to remember the Renaissance skill at the 100 metres...)
The Olympics are not a bad idea in itself, and I was just about getting a bit keen on them. But let's not get carried away.. the future isn't written in sport, doping or no doping.


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Madonna Has An 'Anti-Aging Machine'
What you're looking at is Madonna's Intraceuticals machine, an anti-aging device she reportedly has with her at all times in case she ages 10 years on the way to Starbucks. Except what's really bizarre is that she actually allowed it to be photographed in public, alerting everyone that her sorcery can no longer compete with human technology. Unless, of course, that's what she wants us to think and I just wasted all afternoon building an electric trident to lunge through her heart. Damn your black trickery!
Photos: INFdaily


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Everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts, as the late, great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said.
This past weekend, on his show "The World Over" on EWTN, host Raymond Arroyo spoke of the Pope's speech at the Synod in Rome.
There was much he could have focused on in that speech, but Arroyo chose to focus on the thing that jumped out at me too. The Pope said, "Let us remember all the great powers of today's history, let us remember the anonymous capital that enslaves man, which is no longer in man's possession, but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even killed. It is a destructive power, that threatens the world."
In explaining this, Arroyo said the Pope was refering to foreign capitals.
No he wasn't. I will grant that the Pope's reference was a bit opaque, especially for someone as clearly spoken as Pope Benedict. But, he was clearly not refering to capital in the plural, to cities that house governments, he was refering to the capital in capitalism.
Arroyo's commentaries are always tendentious, but this was during the opening segment, when he at least pretends to be reporting news. I have seen Mr. Arroyo twist the Church's teachings badly before, but I have never witnessed him try to put into the Pope's mouth a meaning that was clearly not intended. For anyone who relies on EWTN as a news source, you need to find a better source.
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This spinach soufflé is flecked with green and flavored with green garlic. Of course, the Parmesan and fresh goat cheeses don't hurt. It's an ideal breakfast, brunch, or light lunch dish.–Deborah Madison
LC Just The Thing Come Spring Note
We find this lovely soufflé to be just the perfect thing come spring, whether morning, noon, or night. No need to fear the pungency of green garlic, which are scallion-like precursors to garlic bulbs available only during spring at farmers' markets, as the cheese in the soufflé rounds any sharp edges.
Spinach and Green Garlic Soufflé Recipe
- Quick Glance
- Serves 4
- For the garlic infusion
- 3/4 to 1 cup minced green garlic, about 5 small heads
- 1 cup cream or half-and-half
- 1 thyme sprig
- For the spinach soufflé
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for the dish
- 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 bunch spinach, stems removed, or 12 to 16 ounces loose, young spinach leaves
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 1/3 cups milk
- Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
- 1 scant cup (about 4 ounces) mild goat cheese
- 4 egg yolks
- 6 egg whites
- 1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Butter a 6-cup soufflé dish or gratin dish and dust it with a few tablespoons of the Parmesan cheese.
- Make the garlic infusion
- 2. Combine the garlic, cream, and thyme in a small saucepan and heat over low heat. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil, then turn off the heat, cover, and let it steep for 15 minutes.
- Make the spinach soufflé
- 3. Wash the spinach well, then wilt it in a skillet, over low heat, with the water clinging to the leaves. Dump it into a colander, press out the moisture, then finely chop the greens.
- 4. Melt the 4 tablespoons butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, and cook for 1 minute, stirring continually. Whisk in the milk and continue stirring until it thickens. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, then stir in the goat cheese and the remaining Parmesan cheese. Turn off the heat and stir in the egg yolks, spinach, and the garlic-cream mixture. Season with a healthy pinch of pepper.
- 5. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form firm peaks that are just a bit on the soft side. Fold the whites into the spinach-egg base. Scrape the spinach soufflé batter into the prepared soufflé dish and bake until the top is golden brown and set, about 25 minutes for a gratin dish, 30 minutes if using a soufflé dish. Serve the soufflé immediately.
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Spinach and Green Garlic Soufflé Recipe © 2008 Deborah Madison. All rights reserved.
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On Wednesday John Howard said the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad showed "there is no hierarchy of targets when it comes to the mindless acts of terrorism".
In fact, it almost certainly proved the opposite.
Far from being a nihilistic, random act of indiscriminate violence, it seems the attack had a rational strategic purpose for those who planned and perpetrated it. It is highly unlikely the UN was chosen by chance, or simply because it was a "soft target".
John Howard thinks the bombing "simply underlines that nobody is safe from terrorists", but it would be a serious mistake to conclude that this is the primary lesson from such a tragedy.
Four important observations can be made about this attack and recent events in Iraq.
First, the self-delusion that the US in Iraq is only facing resistance from Saddamite remnants and "dead enders" is a major strategic miscalculation.
It is a tempting view because it implies that the overwhelming number of Iraqis actually support the US-led occupation and that only pockets of resistance from renegade Baathists remain. This now seems implausible.
The saboteurs, grenade-launchers and bombers may, in fact, locate themselves in the long-standing Iraqi tradition of anti-colonial struggle. Both Sunni and Shiite groups are consolidating their opposition to what they increasingly see as the re-colonisation of Iraq. Many will be captured in the days ahead but they will probably keep coming until Western troops and the puppet government they plan to install in Baghdad are removed.
Opposition to what may ultimately be years of military occupation could even become the glue that binds post-Saddam Iraqi society together.
Second, Washington's efforts to blame terrorists from outside the country is hallucinogenic and unlikely to persuade many. Are they suggesting that Iraq has become a locus of terrorism since it was "liberated"?
By raising the possibility of infiltration by al-Qaeda, pro-Syrian or pro-Iranian "terrorists", the US is effectively conceding it is incapable of providing basic levels of security under its occupation - even for senior diplomatic officials. Investors, non-government organisations and carpetbaggers will have taken note.
Third, Canberra and Washington blamed Saddam for the privation caused by 12 years of economic sanctions. The Iraqis blamed the UN - with good reason, although in truth responsibility is shared. No doubt the Iraqi people were especially angry when sanctions were maintained even after the West conceded they were only hurting the ordinary citizens of the country and having little if any impact on the ruling elite.
How did the UN expect its officials to be received in Baghdad? There are always dangers in believing your own propaganda ("but we are here to help the Iraqi people"), and a very heavy price has been paid.
Finally, it is possible - even likely - that this attack was designed to stop what the UN was planning to do in Iraq, not as retribution for what it has done in the past.
The bombing thwarts plans by Washington to use the UN as a fig leaf for its occupation.
UN member states will now be even less willing to send troops as part of the occupying force. The resolve of member countries, such as Australia and India, to stay clear of postwar Iraq has been vindicated and will intensify.
Since May, UN members have tried to reassert UN control over the reconstruction of Iraq, while Washington has been open to greater levels of burden-sharing with countries that opposed the war.
Both of these trends are now likely to wither.
Washington is in denial. It says it has enough troops to maintain law and order in Iraq, while simultaneously calling for help as attacks against officials and infrastructure escalate. As long as it treats the problem as a psychic disorder rather than as a political problem, the mayhem in Iraq will continue.
Scott Burchill lectures in international relations at Deakin University.
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Joshua Moreaux, performer
"It's a gift and it could be gone tomorrow" said Joshua Moreaux, an Air Force Veteran, of his musical talent. His beautiful voice placed him first nationally as a soloist in this year's and last year's competition.
A native of Louisiana who now resides in Massachusetts, Moreaux has been singing since the tenth grade, coaxed into it by his cousins. His talents earned him a scholarship to college, but finances prevented him from graduating and he joined the Air Force. While on active duty he auditioned for "Tops In Blue," an Air Force Vegas-style singing group, and he made it into the group. A classically trained opera singer, Joshua spent three years touring with this group expanding his musical horizons.
Upon discharge from the military, Moreaux noticed a sign for the Creative Arts Festival at his local VA, The Edith Nourse Rogers VA Medical Center in Bedford, Mass. He entered the local competition as a solo singer, and the rest as they say is history. This is Joshua's second Creative Arts Festival and he is thrilled to be here among so many talented Veterans.
"This is such an awesome opportunity. How many people ever get the opportunity to do something like this? I feel blessed." Everyone will get to hear Moreaux's fabulous voice when he performs the song "Tomorrow" at the Stage Show.
By Diane Keefe, public affairs officer, VA Boston Healthcare System


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PICTOU - Testimony from Amber Kirwan's boyfriend wrapped up this morning.
Mason Campbell relayed events Thursday during his return to the witness stand that focused on the time that he started searching for her on Oct. 9th.
Campbell said he left his home in Pictou Landing and drove around North Provost Street hoping to spot her walking. He than drove Ian Muir home to Stellarton and circled back to the front of Dooly's in hopes of seeing her.
When he couldn't find her, he said he thought she probably stayed with a friend and admitted the longer he looked for her, the more worried he got.
"At that point, it's not common to be too worried about the worst that can happen. I was a little bit worried. Not like her to stay out and not tell me about it. I wasn't expecting worst at that time. "
He said he returned to his apartment between 2:40 a.m., and 3:30 a.m. but left again a while later to look for her. He turned around a short distance from his home after seeing two cabs heading towards his house, but neither pulled into his driveway.
Campbell said he waited on his bed with three phones beside him and in the morning he called her friends and his mother to tell her that Kirwan didn't come home.
"I started texting on her phone, contacted my mother, got really worried at that point. I told my mother what happened. My mother called the police station and hospital."
He said he also put up a Facebook post and started searching around Dooly's for her with her friends that afternoon. He said he didn't want to contact her parents right away because he didn't want to worry them.
Campbell said the next weeks were a blur to him because he was living on lack of sleep and cigarettes. He was chasing down tips even though the police were telling him to stay out of the investigation for fear of him contaminating the scene.
He said he received a phone call from his mother to come home on Nov. 5, 2011 and she told him Kirwan's remains had been found.
"I was numb. Everything came crashing down. It was our worst nightmare."
Under cross-examination, Taylor asked Campbell about an assault charge involving a wooden spear. Campbell said the matter was settled with a peace bond because he wanted to "turn the page on that situation".
Taylor asked him why he didn't tell police he was intoxicated the night he went to pick up Kirwan or the state of his car's inspection or insurance. He said he was focused on Kirwan and figured the information was irrelevant.
The defence also asked about police seizing Campbell's Ford Focus and the contents inside of it. Campbell said he knew there was clothing, a small shovel and duct tape inside his car. He said the shovel was part of a roadside kit.
Campbell told the defence and Crown many times he had difficulty "recalling" some of the exact details of 2011 because he was exhausted at the time.
The day's second witness was Nathan Goodall who lives in Heathbell Road with Lisa Williams.
He worked with Campbell at Michelin and found out two days later at work that it was his girlfriend missing. He said his girlfriend, Lisa Williams, was upset over the news.
"Through the week, we wanted to do whatever we could. I went to work one day and came home and it was bothering Lisa that she saw a car on the field access road," he said.
She walked down the road and he followed a while later with the baby. As they were about to leave, she stepped around a tree and bent down to pick up a piece of material on the ground.
He said it was a small pair of pants or leggings, but the size of them didn't belong to anyone he knew in the area. When they looked around a little more, they found earrings and tire tracks. He testified that the pants were on the ground between a tree and rock while the feather earrings were in a tree.
Goodall said they returned to their home and looked up a photo of Kirwan online to see what she was wearing that night. They called the police a short time later.
After police left the area, he asked if he could continue to search the area and was granted permission with the condition that he call if he found anything.
In their search, he walked up a logging road off Heathbell Road and found disturbed, swampy area. He said they looked at it and dug with hands, found big rocks and roots. It just looked like turned up ground. Dug with shovel and nothing, more roots and rocks and we left.
He said RCMP were at the end of the access road about two weeks after he found the clothing.
Goodall said he knew Chris Falconer as a child and Scott Falconer lives in the area.
The court breaks for afternoon recess.


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Best post title ever. Could be used about 47 times per season.
I completely agree with the criticism of Lou, but he'll get there. Yes, he's been in the league a minute, but he keeps getting better. Last season he showed flashes of being a playmaker, but was inconsistent. I expect we'll see more of that this year. The key for him is his head, and I don't mean mental. He can get a step on anyone. But when he drives he puts his head down, and doesn't look up again until he needs to do something (anything). More often than not, that something is either 1) easy layup, 2) wild shot, or 3) wilder pass. But the real point is that he commits to making his move at a certain place and time, and he telegraphs it. Compare that to Dre Miller, who isn't nearly as fast but NEVER drops his head. When he shoots or passes depends on when and where he gets space and where his teammates are. He knows this because he can see it. If Lou can learn to slow down a bit and keep his head up, he'll ge OK. He's still a pup.
Regarding Iguodala, I hope we see more nights like this one; nights where he doesn't need to score a bunch for us to dominate. People always use this phrase as an excuse, but he really is a player who can have a huge impact without scoring. I'll take a line of 7's with a 30 point win any day.
On an unrelated note, can I just say that Kate Fegan is vastly better than Narducci on the Deep Sixer blog. It actually reads like a blog now, and she seems genuinely interested (rather than obligated to) the topic. Wonder how long she'll stick...
Yeah, I've enjoyed her blog. If you want a good laugh, check out Jasner's blog. I'm thinking we should keep track of the mis-spellings and factual errors in every post. His editor must absolutely hate him.
As for Lou, you're on the money. He sets his mind on driving and puts his head down. Don't know when this started, but it needs to stop.
Iguodala w/ 7's across the board is fine with me as well, as long as he can turn it on when they need hoop.
One thing to note about last night's game, the Knicks refused to double Brand for most of the game, and when they did double it was so slow and sloppy he could just split it and still get his shot off. When a good defensive team doubles him, they'll force the ball out of his hands, that's when Iguodala will need to step up his scoring and hit open jumpers.
now that's more like it.
A nice win and I was really glad to see that Brand isnt going to be another Chris Webber for us. He looked good...it will be VERY interesting to see how he plays against the man who the sixers could have had instead of him...Josh Smith.
I know everyone here hates Willie Green--but he did look good and to be honest may be a better SG for this team than Iguodola....hes not a better player...but he can shoot it better than Andre...for now.
I hope Iggy is working on those jumpers day and night. Its the one thing that stops him from being an All NBA player.
On a side note....would you guys swap Iggy for Michael Redd--straight up ?
I would...for this team.
When Willie is hot, and I mean can't miss hot, he can play with anyone. It doesn't happen often, so the key for Mo is going to be to recognize early when he's on and ride him, but more importantly, to recognize when he's off and get him the hell out of there quickly. As we've noted a million times, when he's off, he's a team killer.
As for Redd, I wouldn't want him over Iguodala. I realized he hasn't shot it well so far, but we're only 2 games in. Give him some time. To me, Redd's a shooter and nothing more, this team has 5 versatile guys in their starting lineup, that's going to pay dividends down the road.
I Don't want to be disrespectful, but the Josh Smith stuff needs to stop. Smith isn't good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Elton Brand and he never will. Smith blocks shots... and dunks. Brand is better in every other imaginable way. This is like comparing Paul Pierce and Richard Jefferson 3 years ago. It isn't fucking close.
Agreed on Brand over Smith. I think as soon as Elton opted out Stefanski lost Josh Smith's number.
I like Smith, he can absolutely change games with his athleticism sometimes, but Brand can, and will, carry this team offensively for stretches every single game. Smith can't do that now, and he'll probably never be able to. Brand's better on the boards, and he isn't too shabby in the blocked shot department either.
The one advantage Smith has is age.
To be devil's advocate. Watch Game 3 of the Hawks/Celtics series last year. Smith CAN absolutely carry their offense from time-to-time. He needs to improve his shooting but with his size, strength, speed and vertical he can get through the lane whenever he wants.
I didn't make my point clearly, Brand does it night in and night out. Smith doesn't have the consistency. He can definitely take over once in a while, game three being a great example.
Im not implying Smith is better than Brand. Hes not and I would take Brand over Smith anyday...I just think its an intriguing early season matchup given the summer the sixers have had pursuing both players. Id like to see Brand do what he did last night against a team that should have a pretty good interior D....
Walt Frazier was ridiculous last night.
Good old Clyde. Never let a fact get in the way of a good rhyme.
Can I just point out that we wouldn't have lost this game if not for Iguodala's five fourth-quarter turnovers and that terrible shot he took late? Not worth the money, not a second option. Thad has already - already! - surpassed him.
I don't agree with you, but I'm not going to argue with you tonight. That fourth quarter is on Iguodala. Post is going up now.


text:
GENEALOGY-DNA-L ArchivesArchiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-03 > 1111004417
From: Charles <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Fw: Bridging connections.
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:20:17 -0500
References: <00d001c52a60$d446bd80$5102a8c0@PC238587905109>
In-Reply-To: <00d001c52a60$d446bd80$5102a8c0@PC238587905109>
How many markers tested in the persons A, B, & C haplotypes. You always
need to provide that information ... as a GD of 3 when only 12 markers
are tested is a significantly different issue that a GD of 3 with 37
markers tested. Also, I assume these people share the same or a similar
surname. Is that true?
If the GD's you give below are for a 12 marker test I doubt if upgrading
will yield a positive outcome. But if the results are for a 25 marker
test, and the people share the same or similar surname, then I would
recommend investing in upgrading to 37 markers to see if the GD closely
holds or diverges with more markers.
Chris wrote:
> I thought I would ask this question again:
> Using the Y-Comparison Utility for the Atkinson DNA Study I came across the following 3 results all based on 26 markers:
> A & B have a genetic distance of 3
> A & C have a genetic distance of 5
> B & C have a genetic distance of 4
> Is this too vague to imply a connection? Are the distances too far? Or is it an indicator of a confirmation of shared ancestors but at some distance in time with B a bridge between A & C. A & B being most recently connected. Based on the strength of this should one recommend upgrading markers?
> Help appreciated,
> Chris
This thread:
|Re: [DNA] Fw: Bridging connections. by Charles <>


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It isn't quite April 1st yet, so I suppose this must be true.
New Humanist reports that PETA, the US animal rights group, is objecting to a new "inclusive language" version of the Bible, on the grounds that the language isn't quite inclusive enough. The translators' politically correct agenda extends only to human beings, you see: animals are routinely afforded the pronoun "it". I find it hard to think of a more inclusive pronoun than "it", personally - it's not as though creatures are assumed to be male - but PETA nevertheless finds it rather undignified. Animals are people too - a spokesman is quoted as claiming that the pronoun "denies them something" and that "God cares about animals". "He or she" would have been both inclusive and respectful of the unique personality of each of God's creatures, from the elephant down to the humblest flea. We're not told how the translators should tackle the pronounisation of hermaphrodites, such as earthworms.
This is all a trifle odd. The strongest argument in favour of inclusive language, where human beings are concerned, is that the old grammatical principle that "the male embraces the female" is offensive to women. In other words, that many women are offended by it. Are animals offended by being called "it"? Are they even aware of such nuances of language? And if not, why should it matter?
As for God caring about animals, the evidence for this in the Bible would seem ambiguous at best. Yes, the Lord did instruct Noah to rescue two animals of every kind (rather more of the edible ones) and preserve them from the Flood. But the cramped conditions of the Ark would scarcely answer to modern animal welfare standards - and with only one breeding pair of each species I worry about the health of the genepool. And what of all the myriads of other creatures, those not lucky enough to be selected by Noah? God was quite happy to drown them all for the sins of humanity, it would seem. Perhaps he cares more about fish.
In the Old Testament, God's concern for animals seems to revolve mainly around their suitability for eating and sacrifice. The Bible records, usually without adverse comment, several instances of what looks like casual cruelty. In Numbers, Balaam beats his ass (which does, however, answer back). A little later, in Judges, Samson catches 300 foxes, ties their tails together and sets them on fire, just to frighten the Philistines.
And God himself takes revenge on the serpent that tempted Eve: "On thy belly shall thy go, and dust thy shall eat all the days of thy life". He might, though, be said to have a soft spot for frogs and locusts, which he sent to plague the Egyptians. And, as Alexander Waugh noted in his eccentric biography of the deity, God does have at least two pets, Leviathan and Behemoth. Sadly, though, "When God has finished playing with them his intention is to crush their heads and feed their flesh to the wild beasts of the wilderness". Ouch.
The New Testament starts off well, with Jesus talking warmly about the birds of the air and claiming that not one sparrow falls to the ground without God being aware of it. But before long he is casting demons, with cavalier disdain, into an entire herd of quite blameless pigs. Not, I would think, quite the behaviour PETA would want to encourage.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Does God care about animals?
It isn't quite April 1st yet, so I suppose this must be true.
Posted by Heresiarch at 1:13 pm


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What does it take to turn silver into gold? For NASA scientists, the answer is "two protons." For Manhattan Construction Company, it is creative green building solutions which have resulted in the Exploration Sciences Building project becoming the first at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to receive LEED Gold certification.
GREENBELT, MD /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – What does it take to turn silver into gold? For NASA scientists, the answer is "two protons." For Manhattan Construction Company in Washington, it is creative green building solutions which have resulted in the Exploration Sciences Building project becoming the first at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to receive LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
At 200,000 square feet, the Exploration Sciences Building is the largest green building on Goddard's campus in Greenbelt, MD. The building includes space for administrative and research purposes and contains nearly 60 laboratories which are used to study a variety of scientific fields, including: microwave, infrared, optical, UV, x-ray, gamma-ray and cosmic ray astronomy, and astrophysics.
In addition, the Solar System Exploration Division performs a variety of research pertaining to the composition, chemistry, and dynamics of planetary atmospheres, planetary and cometary magnetism and magnetospheres, planetary geology and geodynamics, planetary electrical processes, geodetic very-long baseline interferometry, astrobiology, and studies of the Moon, asteroids, and Earth as a planet.
The NASA project manager, David Larsen, believes that, "The LEED Gold certification for the Exploration Sciences Building is a major accomplishment for the Center. This was achieved through the successful partnership between EwingCole, Manhattan Construction Company, and the Center. Through the life of the project, the project team has worked hard towards building the most sustainable facility ever built at the Center. I am very proud of our accomplishment."
"Initially, the project was designed with a goal to achieve LEED Silver certification," says Sean Evans, Manhattan Construction Company LEED representative. "As the project progressed we identified additional green building opportunities that helped NASA exceed that goal and earn the higher LEED Gold certification."
"Every green project presents unique challenges," explains Evans, "During construction a hidden site condition revealed concrete that is not normally recyclable. It threatened to negate two points for waste management. Manhattan responded by bringing a concrete crusher on-site to turn this landfill concrete debris into RC-6 [RC-6 is recycled crushed concrete]. The RC-6 was then used for the parking lot aggregate base."
The project also earned an additional LEED credit for "Exemplary Performance" in recognition for recycling of construction materials, according to Evans.
The NASA Exploration Science Building was designed by EwingCole of Philadelphia. Construction began in June, 2007 and was completed in 29 months.
The U.S. Green Building Council is the nation's foremost coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. The LEED Green Building Rating System™ is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. Members of the USGBC representing all segments of the building industry developed LEED and continue to contribute to its evolution. For information on the LEED, visit www.usgbc.org.
NASA Goddard is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe. For more information and images of NASA's Green Building, visit: www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2009/exploration_bldg.html.
For more information on Manhattan Construction, visit www.manhattanconstruction.com.
For renderings of the building, visit EwingCole's Web site at: www.ewingcole.com.
Source: NASA (www.nasa.gov)
For additional information, contact: Rob Gutro of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, (301) 286-4044, firstname.lastname@example.com; or Natalie Pagano of the Manhattan Construction Company, Washington, (918) 583-6900, firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Nov 8, 2012
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will travel to Australia, Thailand and Cambodia next week as part of America's strategic tilt to the Asia-Pacific, even as crises in the Middle East demand the Pentagon's attention and resources.
In a week-long trip starting Sunday, Panetta will head to Perth, for an annual US-Australia meeting of ministers that will include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the US military's top officer, General Martin Dempsey, and the head of Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, officials said Thursday.
The summit comes after the arrival of US Marine and Air Force units to northern Australia, billed as evidence of an American "rebalance" towards the Pacific after a decade of ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The talks will "provide an opportunity to review the alliance's progress on successful Marine Corps and Air Force deployments to northern Australia and to discuss the next steps in this important cooperation," Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters.
In his fourth trip to the region since June, Panetta "looks forward to this opportunity to further advance our long-term strategy of rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific," Little said.
After Australia, Panetta will fly to Thailand, the first visit by a Pentagon chief since 2008, before heading to Cambodia where he will join 10 counterparts at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Panetta will stress "the importance of ASEAN unity for regional stability," Little said.
The United States, anxious about China's growing military power and assertive stance on territorial disputes in the South China Sea and elsewhere, has backed calls from some nations in the region for a "code of conduct" designed to avoid clashes over potentially resource-rich waters.
Regional divisions about how to handle China on the issue prevented ASEAN members from issuing a joint statement after a July summit in Phnom Penh, the first such impasse in its 45-year history.
The United States has sought to reassure allies in the region that Washington will sustain and expand its military presence, but some partners question if the Americans have the financial means to back up the vow given fiscal pressures at home. The Pentagon has already deployed additional aircraft and naval ships to the Middle East amid tensions with Iran.
Panetta's tour of Asia reflected his belief that US security and prosperity were tied to the Asia-Pacific region, his spokesman said.
The secretary's trip was announced as tensions flared in the Middle East, with US officials acknowledging that Iranian fighter jets intercepted an American surveillance drone last week over the Gulf and fired at it at least twice.
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