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Reverse confusion. Bullying. Potentially large damages. Bad faith. The dispute brewing over the PAPER trademark invokes all the relatively rare theories that trademark lawyers love to obsess over. The big question: Who will win and why?
In one corner is Facebook, which just announced its much anticipated news-reader application, PAPER. Facebook's new app uses a Flipboard-like interface for viewing content, including articles from well-known publications, in the user's Facebook timeline.
In another corner is a small application developer, FiftyThree Inc., creator of the PAPER sketching application. FiftyThree's app allows users to sketch, draw and create designs on an iPad. It's been a popular iPad title and has even won an Apple Design Award in 2012. It is listed as a must-have app in the New to the App Store section, and was named App of the Year, too. Paper has also been honored with awards from AIGA, IxDA, Communication Arts and Time.
In yet another corner (do we have a triangle?) is Paper Communications Inc., publisher of fashion and style magazine Paper, since 1984; its website has been online since 1996.
So: Who can use PAPER for their particular product? And who cannot?
If FiftyThree or Paper Communications were to challenge Facebook — and various news outlets are reporting that one or both might do so — each would likely argue that Facebook's new PAPER app is likely to cause either confusion or more likely reverse confusion with their prior rights in their own respective PAPER marks.
Typically, the argument for a finding of confusion rests on a judgment that the second user of a mark will in effect cash in with consumers on the goodwill generated by the first user of that same mark. But reverse confusion occurs when the second user becomes better known than the first. In reverse confusion, the first user loses the opportunity to control its own reputation and goodwill. So the provision for a finding of reverse confusion protects the trademark rights of small, senior users against junior users whose marks have gained commercial strength through extensive marketing.
One notable characteristic of reverse confusion cases is that they often involve large damage awards due to the high sales volume of the infringer. Successful plaintiffs often receive either a reasonable royalty with or without an enhancement for deterrence, or 10 to 30 percent of the defendant's profits. Another characteristic is that plaintiffs risk little in a lawsuit because of the nature of damages awarded. The expected value of the lawsuit is skewed by the opportunity for large damages.
Proponents of strong reverse confusion protection often struggle to identify its specific harms. Depending on the circumstances, a small senior user may see a jump in sales when a large junior user adopts the same mark and begins promoting the product line. In addition, the senior's mark is not causing confusion as to the source of the junior user's good, so it does not fall into the auspices of traditional likelihood-of-confusion analysis, where a court would look to see whether consumers believe that the senior user is the producer of the junior user's goods.
However, victims of reverse confusion still contend that they are harmed by the junior user. One harm is the diminished value of the senior user's mark. A second is that the senior user loses its control over its own mark. A third harm is that a senior user may lose its ability to expand into new markets. These harms are therefore most notable because they differ from the traditional harms of trademark infringement.
By way of contrast, in a typical trademark case, the consumer suffers from confusion in the marketplace when there is a likelihood of confusion. The senior user is harmed because the junior user infringes on the senior's mark and siphons off its business. As a result, the infringer is unjustly enriched because it profits from the goodwill associated with the senior user.
The harms associated with reverse confusion are therefore distinguishable from the harms associated with forward confusion. While the infringer is not reaping any of the benefits typically associated with trademark infringement, the senior user loses the significance and distinctiveness of its mark, a consequence similar in fact to dilution.
In the case of Facebook's PAPER, FiftyThree's CEO explained it clearly: People now believe FiftyThree Inc. is associated with Facebook. The confusion over the app names has already led to questions about FiftyThree's status as well as the future of their Paper app. People have begun asking FiftyThree if it has a licensing deal with Facebook or has been purchased by it.
Interestingly, FiftyThree appears to have also jumped on the recent trademark bullying bandwagon. The USPTO has defined "trademark bullying" as the practice of a trademark holder's using litigation tactics in an attempt to enforce its trademark rights beyond a reasonable interpretation of the scope of those rights. That's not exactly what FiftyThree has been insinuating about Facebook's response to FiftyThree's request that Facebook change its app's name, but it is pretty similar.
As FiftyThree posted on its website, "What will Facebook's story be? Will they be the corporate giant who bullies their developers? Or be agile, recognize a mistake, and fix it?" FiftyThree's use of "bullies" is non-mistakable and it is particularly relevant in trademark law, as courts and commentators alike have been fixated on it for the past few years. FiftyThree seems to think Facebook's actions constitute bullying; so, FiftyThree is now bullying back — turning to the court of public opinion to pressure Facebook into changing Paper's name. This is often a very sound strategy. If you're concerned about entering litigation from a cost or outcome perspective, trying everything you can before litigation, including seeking to sway opinions by blogging and using other social media outlets, is often a good way to go.
Make no mistake, if FiftyThree or Paper Communications do seek a day in court against Facebook, Facebook will have defenses at its disposal. For example, one area where either would-be plaintiff could have a particular problem is in the fact that so many other smartphone and tablet applications are available through the App Store with similar — or even the same — names. Facebook could argue that neither plaintiff has defended its trademark with other companies, so why should this case be any different?
Also, Facebook could make a strong argument that PAPER is merely a descriptive term for newspapers and drawing paper so that no company should be able to prevent Facebook from using it as well. Facebook wants users to see its Paper app as a kind of dynamic magazine, or paper that shows what their friends are up to, along with curated content from other sources. With that in mind, "Paper" makes sense for the app's name.
The question of how related or unrelated the parties' goods are will also be important in any future litigation. FiftyThree's PAPER is an app for drawing and sketching in life-like brush strokes on a tablet, while Facebook's PAPER app is a synthesized social media feed that includes news and other Web content. But the Facebook app is also meant for sharing and creating, as is that of FiftyThree. FiftyThree will also be able to say it is selling roughly the same product as Facebook: smartphone and tablet apps. FiftyThree may argue that what it is doing is similar to what Facebook is doing, in the same trade channels to the same types of consumers.
Ironically, Paper Communications may have a stronger case on the merits than FiftyThree. A magazine website such as the one operated by Paper Communications, which is publishing editorial content over the Internet to end users, may seem to judge and jury more likely to be confused with Facebook's PAPER than FiftyThree's drawing app. Between Facebook and Paper Communication there is an overlap between delivering content via social media, in the former's part, and content creation and delivery, in the latter's part.
Audiences may not care much one way of the other. They probably care only about whether the apps work well, and not about their source. But don't say that to the trademark attorneys on each side in this one: they'll be too busy printing the reams of paper that make their case, and one way or another, someone will get cut.


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Concert Crush
Who knew that boy band concerts were so dangerous? First an Oregon mother allegedly lost her hearing during a particularly loud Justin Bieber concert. Now a disgruntled fan of the Jonas Brothers is suing the trio, claiming that she was nearly crushed by a crowd of frenetic fans at a free concert almost three years ago. Ashleigh Johnson says the band should have known that a large number of people would attend the event at The Grove mall in Los Angeles, and that it failed to take proper security precautions.
According to Johnson's suit, she suffered "severe injury to her body and shock to her nervous system," along with "great mental…and nervous pain," after being pinned against a fence during the concert.
Skull Skirmish
After taking on Nazis and aliens, Indiana Jones is now going up against one of his own: an archaeologist. Dr. Jamie Awe, the director of the Institute of Archaeology in Belize, claims that 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," the fourth installment of the famed adventure series, centers on a purloined Mayan artifact.
According to Awe, Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of British adventurer F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, discovered an actual crystal skull in a ruined Maya city in Belize. Mitchell-Hedges brought the skull to the U.S. in the 1930s, where it remains in the possession of her husband. Awe contends that the explorer illegally removed the skull from Belize and that the studios behind the "Indiana Jones" franchise unjustly enriched themselves by using a replica of the skull in its film.
He is suing Lucasfilm Ltd. and the movie's distributor, Paramount Pictures, for unspecified damages, and is seeking to return the skull to Belize.
Nettlesome Neighbors
Basketball player Andrew Bynum attracts his fair share of controversy, and it appears the drama may be spilling off the court. The former Laker is embroiled in a nasty lawsuit with his former neighbors, Raymond and Cindy Beckett, who he claims took issue with "his profession, his race, his friends, his cars and his taste in music." According to Bynum's suit, the Becketts expressed their disapproval by throwing coins at his Ferrari and banging on his house with "a long stick."
The couple filed a countersuit containing a litany of allegations, including that Bynum blasted profane music and video games "at window-shaking volumes," allowed marijuana smoke to drift into their backyard and "conspicuously brandish[ed] firearms" in an effort to frighten his neighbors.
Reward Reluctance
Ryan Leslie must shell out a hefty finder's fee to a German man who reportedly recovered the rapper's missing laptop. In 2010, a backpack containing the computer, an external hard drive, cash and jewelry was taken from a car shuttling the Grammy-nominated artist through Cologne, Germany. Leslie offered a $20,000 reward for anyone who returned the backpack, and later upped the amount to $1 million for any of the files or intellectual property—including several unreleased songs—stored on the laptop or hard drive.
Armin Augstein subsequently contacted police, claiming to have found the computer in a garbage bag in a forest. His hopes for a $1 million reward were dashed, however, when Leslie refused to pay out after discovering that the music files were corrupted. Augstein sued for the full reward, and a federal court in Manhattan agreed, ordering Leslie to pay the full $1 million reward plus $180,000 in interest.
Pink Predicament
Singer Pink would probably like to blow one last kiss to two former producers who are suing her for royalty payments. According to Specialists Entertainment, the singer owes it more than $36,000 for co-producing two of the songs on her 2000 debut album, which was released by two labels now under the control of Sony Music Entertainment.
According to a letter that Sony sent Thunderstone last fall, the label accidentally paid Specialists' share of the royalties to its co-producer, Thunderstone Productions, E! News reports. Sony informed Thunderstone that it would withhold all further royalty checks until it returned the entire amount of the overpayment.

subset: commoncrawl


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Schumacher's long buzzer-beater lifts Craig over Parker
JANESVILLE--Annie Schumacher etched her name in Janesville basketball history with one shot on Saturday night.
The sophomore guard buried a 24-foot heave as time expired to lift her Janesville Craig girls basketball team over crosstown rival Parker, 38-35, in a WIAA Division 1 regional final.
Schumacher's shot will undoubtedly help city fans erase their memories of what was an otherwise choppy, grind-it-out victory. It also put the Cougars in a sectional semifinal game against Mukwonago at Beloit Memorial High on Thursday night.
"I'm mind-blown that that happened," Schumacher said moments after her teammates hoisted her and the regional-title trophy into the air. "I was just in the right spot, thankfully. I just had to throw it up, but it felt pretty good, I'm not going to lie."
The Vikings called timeout with 9 seconds remaining when Kathryn Dubanowich's short jumper tied the game, 35-35.
Craig inbounded to junior point guard Al Hughes, who dribbled up the left sideline into traffic. The ball was stripped as she crossed midcourt but bounced right to Schumacher's feet.
Schumacher collected the ball and let it fly. Nothing but net.
"I was trying to go four-low for Al, and she got it stripped," Craig coach Kerry Storbakken said. "But Annie was right there and knew how much time was left and just picked it up.
"We talked about the X factor, and tonight it was Schumacher."
Her 3-pointers in the fourth quarter—she hit three of them—were the difference in a game where offense came at a premium.
The teams made just 10 of 54 shot attempts in the first half, including an 0-for-15 mark from beyond the arc. The Cougars and Vikings also combined to miss 18 of 38 free-throw attempts in the game.
Thus, when Parker junior Paige Smith used a three-point play to open the fourth quarter, the Vikings' 25-21 lead felt more like double digits.
But Schumacher cashed in from beyond the arc to answer at the other end. With about five minutes remaining and Parker up by three, Schumacher again had the answer with a 3 to tie it.
"Honestly, we were all really doubtful and nobody really had their heads up in the first half," Schumacher said. "But coach Storby tells me every day to forget every shot, whether it's an airball or anything else."
Schumacher finished with a game-high 11 points and Hughes added nine.
Junior guard Morgan McCulloch paced Parker with 10, while Smith had eight.
"When they throw up something like that, it's not meant to be," Parker coach Tom Klawitter said. "We needed to execute at the end, and we didn't. But our effort was there. Hopefully that's something that will hang around for a while and get (our players) ready for next year."
The Vikings finished with a 12-12 overall record.
Craig, the top seed in the region, faces second-seeded Mukwonago at 7 p.m. on Thursday in Beloit. The winner will play the winner of Madison West and Sun Prairie for a trip to the state tournament.
Last updated: 11:28 pm Saturday, March 8, 2014


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State Views: MacIver analysis finds holes in group's Obamacare report
Citizen Action of Wisconsin seems to have cherry-picked data and overlooked major factors while laying out its argument that Minnesota has lower health insurance premiums than Wisconsin because of certain policy decisions each state made.
The group released a report Oct. 23 (column, Oct. 30) that claimed Wisconsin has higher health care premiums under Obamacare because the state rejected the Medicaid expansion, did not set up its own exchange and lacks a comprehensive health insurance rate review process.
An analysis by the MacIver Institute has found many holes in Citizen Action's report, including many instances of inaccurate and incomplete data.
The first problem with Citizen Action's analysis is its misrepresentation of rates in Minnesota. The report relies on information released by the federal government Sept. 25 that only included health care rates for the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, instead of the whole state. By leaving out areas such as Rochester, where rates can reportedly be double what they are in the Twin Cities, the average used by Citizen Action could be much lower than the real state average of Minnesota.
Second, in addition to the data being incomplete, it is also out-of-date. The federal Department of Health and Human Services released the data prior to official rate information being available.
Third, Citizen Action's assertion that Wisconsin has higher premium costs because of the state's decision to reject the Medicaid expansion and not develop a state-run exchange is simply not true when you look at other states.
According to the HHS chart, there are states that both expanded Medicaid and set up state-run exchanges that have higher premiums than Wisconsin.
Connecticut has premiums that are 15 percent higher than Wisconsin's. Vermont and Washington are also higher.
According to an analysis by HCTrends, a health care research organization, there is also no statistical difference in premiums between states that rejected the Medicaid expansion or created state-run exchanges and those that did not.
The median lowest-cost silver premium for state-run exchanges ($319) is 4 percent higher than the median premium for federally run exchanges ($307).
The median premium for states that accepted Medicaid ($319) is 3 percent lower than in states that did not ($328).
Finally, Citizen Action claims that Minnesota has "used a robust rate review process" to lower health insurance rates in the state and claims Wisconsin does not have the same oversight.
According to the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI), Wisconsin can and does send out rates for actuarial review to make sure the health insurance company's assumptions are correct. The OCI also said the federal government approves of Wisconsin's rate review process. If it was not effective, the feds would take it over.
While it tried to portray its report as factual and comprehensive, Citizen Action was clearly just looking for a provocative headline to distract Wisconsinites from the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
Brett Healy is president of the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, 44 E. Mifflin Street, Suite 201, Madison, WI 53703. Contact him by email at email@example.com.


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Glen Loyd Videos: Pelicans return to Rock River
Glen Loyd
Friday, April 4, 2014
As warm weather returns to the area, so are the pelicans.
Believe it or not, these once-scarce pouched birds now are appearing in ever-growing numbers in Wisconsin, the DNR says.
Glen Loyd lives on the Rock River in Janesville 15 days a month. He is a former public information officer for Wisconsin Consumer Protection, publishes a weekly consumer protection blog. Glen is a community blogger and is not a part of The Gazette staff. His opinion is not necessarily that of the The Gazette staff or management.


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The Voice of the Black Community
Lupus Foundation Support Group
Lecture | Seminar
Date: May 8, 2013
Time: 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Location: Show map
Myers Park Presbyterian Church
1073 Providence Rd.
Outreach Center-Room F102
Charlotte, NC 28207
Contact: Christine John-Fuller
Phone: 704-716-5640
Email: email@example.com
This group meets the second Wednesday of each month and provides participants with an opportunity to receive introductory information about lupus, encourage the expression of concerns, provide an opportunity to share experiences, encourage and support positive coping strategies, and emphasize the importance of medical treatment. Meeting programs vary from guest speakers to DVD presentations and open group discussion.There is no charge to attend the meeting, and drop-ins are welcome.
Contact the LFAPC at email@example.com or at 877-849-8271, ext. 2. For more information, visit www.lupuslinks.org.
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Minimum wage debate has local supporters, detractors
JANESVILLE--Local restaurateur Scott Acker is a strong believer in the free market.
As such, Acker doesn't believe a nearly 40 percent increase in the minimum wage fits the model.
There's once again a groundswell for an increase in the minimum wage, which hasn't increased since 2009.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25, the same as Wisconsin's.
States can establish their own minimum wages, and when the federal and state rates are different, workers must be paid the higher rate.
President Barack Obama said in his recent State of the Union address that he would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for government contract workers.
Democrats in Wisconsin unveiled a bill in January that would immediately raise the state's minimum wage to $8.20 and incrementally increase it to $10.10 within two years of the bill's passage.
"Recent polls make it clear that a majority of Americans … support an increase in the minimum wage," Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, said in announcing the legislation. "The public recognizes that even if you work full time at or close to the minimum wage, you simply cannot makes ends meet."
"Wisconsin's working families deserve a raise."
The bill got the early support of 34 state representatives and 12 state senators, all of them Democrats.
It does not, however, have the support of Acker, who opened Quaker Steak & Lube in Janesville last year.
"What I don't think people are taking into perspective is that not every single job has to be a living-wage job," said Acker, who also owns Quaker Steak restaurants in Middleton and New Berlin.
"This idea that you can just step out of high school and into a living-wage job. … I don't know. I struggle with that because I just don't think it's realistic."
In 2012, about 14.9 percent of Rock County's workforce was earning an average hourly wage of less than $10.10, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly 54 percent of them were working in the food service industry.
Most proposals to increase the minimum wage target employees who don't earn tips. The state proposal, however, would raise the minimum wage for tipped employees from $2.33 to $3 per hour.
Acker said his tipped employees earn about $15 per hour. Because of the vagaries of tips, they might average $25 an hour one day and $8 an hour the next.
Acker's non-tipped employees make between $8 and $11 per hour.
"My cooks in Middleton earn a little more, but that's because it's harder to find cooks up there," he said. "That's a function of the free market."
While Acker's non-tipped employees now earn more than the minimum wage, any mandated increase would shift his entire pay scale up.
Entry-level employees at $10.10 would force Acker to pay his experienced employees more, he said.
"Any increase would bump up the entire wage scale by two or three bucks, and the cost of your hamburger would probably go up a buck or two," he said.
He'd also have to deal with price hikes that come from wage increases at his suppliers, he said.
Acker said he keeps coming back to what he believes is a wrong-headed notion that every job must support a living.
"Does the 16-year-old bagger at the grocery store or the kid who is handing food out my drive-through window really need to be paid $15 an hour at this point in their life?" Acker said. "Maybe the entry-level jobs should instead be something that gets someone in the door and gives them the opportunity to get experience, better themselves and move up to higher wage jobs."
Last month, Gov. Scott Walker reiterated his opposition to raising the minimum wage in remarks to the Wisconsin Grocers Association.
He said it would lead to employers hiring fewer teenage workers or force them to give smaller raises to more experienced workers.
"It is a job-killing agenda," he said. "It's done for political expediency. It's a cheap headline."
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke said she supports the increase and that "the research shows in states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal wage that it has absolutely no impact on unemployment rates."
Among local legislators, the Democrats are in favor of a minimum wage increase and the Republicans are opposed.
Democratic Reps. Deb Kolste of Janesville, Andy Jorgensen of Milton and Janis Ringhand of Evansville all have signed on in support of the state legislation. So, too, has Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville.
"It's sad that we've got people living in poverty who are working full time, getting food stamps and medical assistance, especially at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high," Kolste said.
Kolste said the main argument against the increase is that it's a job killer because employers faced with a higher wage scale will not hire new employees.
Kolste said the evidence doesn't support that. Nineteen other states and the District of Columbia have wages higher than the federal minimum wage, and they haven't lost jobs solely because of the increase, she said.
"The governor wants to give back $50 or $100 in the form of property tax relief because he thinks that will stimulate the economy," Kolste said. "I think more money on paychecks will really stimulate the economy."
Kolste said she's a realist, and given the GOP control of both houses and the governor's office, the state is unlikely to increase its minimum wage anytime soon.
"The truth is that it will be hard to even get a hearing on the bill," she said.
She denied accusations from the other side of the aisle that the effort is a political stunt to generate votes in an election year.
"More people are in favor of raising the minimum wage than are opposed," she said. "We know that our minimum wage has not kept up when indexed for inflation.
"If people truly believe that it's OK to have people who work full time live in poverty while corporate profits are at an all time high and those corporations' employees are forced to live on subsidies, then I think they need to rethink that."
Rep. Amy Loudenbeck, R-Clinton, said she would not sign on to the bill, but she is following the issue and is interested in what her constituents have to say.
"From a workforce development standpoint and what we're trying to accomplish in the Legislature, we're really focusing on the skills gap and matching people to jobs that are available," she said. "We're focused on giving people the soft skills they need to enter the workforce and fill positions we have and get people back to work.
"That will remain a priority--getting people back to work."
Much of the minimum wage debate will center on who would be affected by an increase.
Just who is making the minimum wage? Neither side seems to agree on the makeup of those on the bottom end of the earning scale.
Mason and the Democrats pushing the state bill say it's a misconception that most workers earning the minimum wage are teenagers. They cite federal and state data that indicates 82 percent of the people in Wisconsin who would benefit from the increase are at least 20 years old.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported Tuesday that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could lift 900,000 Americans out of poverty but also cost a half-million jobs.
The 43-page report by the Congressional Budget Office found that the proposal would increase earnings overall by $31 billion, although only 19 percent would go to families below the poverty line. That's because many people who work low-income jobs come from families that collectively make far more than the poverty threshold, the CBO said.
The plan would move nearly a million people above the poverty line, the CBO report found, with 16.5 million workers seeing hourly wages rise.
The CBO estimated, though, that the plan would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers once fully implemented in 2016.
In December, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported that more than half of the 3.55 million U.S. workers who were at or below the federal minimum in 2012 were ages 16 to 24. Another 20.3 percent were ages 25 to 34.
In Acker's case, many of his employees are younger people in first jobs or working while attending school. Some employees, he added, are working for him and other employers in an effort to make ends meet.
Acker said his small business is not one of those corporations raking in record profits.
"Our margins are already so thin," he said. "I get a 5 percent royalty haircut right off the top, so then if you raise the minimum wage, you take a 3 percent to 5 percent profit margin and cut it down to 1 percent or 2 percent.
"That's really tough, and at some point the consumer is not going to pay $13 for a hamburger."
Last updated: 6:53 am Saturday, February 22, 2014


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Death notices for Sept. 23, 2013
Goodrich "Jack" Gevaart, 80, Janesville, died Friday at Fairhaven Senior Services, Whitewater. Services will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Henke-Clarson Funeral Home, Janesville. Visitation will be from 5 p.m. until the time of services Tuesday at the funeral home.
Roland H. Kerns, 83, Clinton, died Thursday at Alden Meadow Park, Clinton. Private services will take place at a later date. Brian G. Mark Funeral Home, Clinton, is assisting the family.
Marilyn K. Kingston, 70, Lake Geneva, formerly of Pell Lake, died Friday at Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center, Milwaukee. Services will be at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the chapel of Derrick Funeral Home and Cremation Services, Lake Geneva. Visitation will be from 2 p.m. until the time of services Wednesday at the funeral home.
Charles "Chuck" Nelson, 91, Roscoe, Ill., died Saturday at home. A Mass of Christian burial will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Peter Catholic Church, South Beloit, Ill. Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. Friday at Daley Murphy Wisch & Associates Funeral Home and Crematorium, Beloit,


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Lovers seal their love by hanging a padlock with their names on the Bryggebroen bridge that overlooks this beautiful and romantic city. The story goes that if you throw away the key, you and your beloved will be together forever.Take your loved one by the hand and enjoy Romantic Copenhagen and all the WonderCool events going on in February. Try a gourmet meal at one of the many fantastic restaurants, indulge in Danish Design, unique designer boutiques or wander through streets steeped in history.
Romantic Copenhagen
Visit Copenhagen in February and enjoy intimate concerts, gourmet experiences, fashion and design in a completely new way. Five major lifestyle brands – Jazz, Design, Fashion, Food and Rock – join forces to create a new COOL Copenhagen – Copenhagen WonderCOOL!
Copenhagen Jazz FestivalBaby, it's cold outside… but there's plenty of hot live jazz to enjoy in Europe's jazz capital: Copenhagen. WinterJazz's extensive programme includes major international names, edgy and quirky club events, as well as a jazz programme for the very young, Jazz for Kids.
Copenhagen Cooking Winter EditionWelcome to the winter edition of Copenhagen Cooking. During February Copenhagen will be sizzling with an array of markets, outdoor eating experiences and great offers on gastronomic experiences. Look forward to events such as cookery schools, beer tasting, city-crawls, gourmet food at budget prices, and much more.
FROST - Copenhagen Music FestivalFROST Festival is a homage to the great music, the city, and the feeling of belonging together. Throughout February, FROST arranges concerts at Copenhagen's music venues, as well as in some more unusual settings around the city.
Copenhagen Fashion Festival – Fashion Week for All!
Copenhagen Fashion Week is not just for the fashion trade. Parallel to the official fashion week, there's a full programme of shopping, shows, competitions, events and parties that everyone can take part in. Check the website for details, and a printed programme is available in the weeks before Fashion Week.
Danish Design Centre
Escape the February chill for the warmth of the Danish Design Centre. Enjoy a cup of coffee or lunch based on Nordic winter produce and discover everything you never knew about Danish design. The Danish Design Centre is your specialist knowledge centre for design and innovation and during the month of February the centre is abuzz with activities and interactive exhibitions.
Scandinavian Airlines © 2017


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Bystanders chase down purse snatcher, police say
JANESVILLE—The 69-year-old woman whose purse he tried to steal didn't stop a Milton man Saturday afternoon, police said, but a group of bystanders who chased him down and restrained him until the cops showed up certainly did.
Curtis E. McGill, 28, 5340 N. Sweet Briar Drive, Milton, grabbed the woman's purse from her shopping cart as she loaded items into her car outside the Janesville mall around 4:45 p.m. Saturday, according to a news release.
The woman fell and suffered minor injuries as she tried to get her purse back, police said.
A handful of people who heard the commotion saw McGill running away with the woman's purse and ran after him, eventually catching McGill at the intersection of Refset Drive and Hancock Lane, police said.
The bystanders detained McGill until police arrived and arrested him on a felony charge of theft of moveable property from the elderly, according to the release.


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Vaccine for HIV
About microscopic forms of life, including Bacteria, Archea, protozoans, algae and fungi. Topics relating to viruses, viroids and prions also belong here.
Moderator: BioTeam
2 posts • Page 1 of 1
Vaccine for HIV
Why there is no vaccine for HIV?
In 1984, after the confirmation of the etiological agent of AIDS by scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Pasteur Institute, the United States Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler declared that a vaccine would be available within two years.
However, the classical vaccination approaches that have been successful in the control of various viral diseases by priming the adaptive immunity to recognize the viral envelope proteins have failed in the case of HIV-1. Some have stated that an HIV vaccine may not be possible without significant theoretical advances.
There are a number of factors that cause development of an HIV vaccine to differ from the development of other classic vaccines:
Classic vaccines mimic natural immunity against reinfection generally seen in individuals recovered from infection; there are almost no recovered AIDS patients.
Most vaccines protect against disease, not against infection; HIV infection may remain latent for long periods before causing AIDS.
Most effective vaccines are whole-killed or live-attenuated organisms; killed HIV-1 does not retain antigenicity and the use of a live retrovirus vaccine raises safety issues.
Most vaccines protect against infections that are infrequently encountered; HIV may be encountered daily by individuals at high risk.
Most vaccines protect against infections through mucosal surfaces of the respiratory or gastrointestinal tract; the great majority of HIV infection is through the genital tract.
HIV structure
The epitopes of the viral envelope are more variable than those of many other viruses. Furthermore, the functionally important epitopes of the gp120 protein are masked by glycosylation, trimerisation and receptor-induced conformational changes making it difficult to block with neutralising antibodies.
The ineffectiveness of previously developed vaccines primarily stems from two related factors.
First, HIV is highly mutable. Because of the virus' ability to rapidly respond to selective pressures imposed by the immune system, the population of virus in an infected individual typically evolves so that it can evade the two major arms of the adaptive immune system; humoral (antibody-mediated) and cellular (mediated by T cells) immunity.
Second, HIV isolates are themselves highly variable. HIV can be categorized into multiple clades and subtypes with a high degree of genetic divergence. Therefore, the immune responses raised by any vaccine need to be broad enough to account for this variability. Any vaccine that lacks this breadth is unlikely to be effective.
The difficulties in stimulating a reliable antibody response has led to the attempts to develop a vaccine that stimulates a response by cytotoxic T-lymphocytes.
Another response to the challenge has been to create a single peptide that contains the least variable components of all the known HIV strains.
Currently, there is no effective vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Vaccine development is one of several strategies to reduce the worldwide harm from AIDS, with other approaches based upon antiviral treatments such as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and social approaches such as safe sex prevention and awareness campaigns.
Last edited by suzidoc8 on Mon Jul 23, 2012 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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text:
Slideshow: Chip vendors shine at Game Developers Conference
3 comments
SAN FRANCISCOA handful of chip vendors showed up in force at the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC), the video gaming industry's largest and most important event.
Intel, Nvidia, ARM, AMD and Imagination Technologies were among more than 350 firms exhibiting on the show's floor here. Most have been exhibiting at GDC for years. The conference is becoming more important to the chip industry as the industry becomes increasingly reliant on the popularity of mobile computing systems, most of which are natural gaming platforms.
Several staff members working the booths for chip firms acknowledged that enticing developers to develop games for their technology is a primary motivation. Some also said that GDC is among the most important conferences that their firms attend.
More than 23,000 people attended GDC this year, a new record, according to UBM Tech Game Network, the organizer of the event. (Both UBM Tech Game Network and EE Times are owned by UBM plc).
Scroll through the following pages to see photos highlighting chip vendors' booths and other compelling scenes from GDC 2013.
Click on image to enlarge.


text: John Mellis looks after 400 colonies of bees and produces a range of top quality honeys from the diverse wild forage to be found in Dumfries and Galloway. These honeys are popular not just locally, but also have a loyal fan base throughout the U.K. and Continental Europe. In December John won the Dumfries & Galloway Life award as Food/Drink Producer for 2011. Since this is a natural, raw honey, it will crystallize over time or at cooler temperatures. To return this honey to a liquid state, simply heat the jar in warm water, stirring to smooth the texture.


text:
Nine overseas finance officials urged U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew to limit the cross-border reach of Dodd-Frank Act swaps rules that they say are fragmenting the $639 trillion global market.
Seven finance ministers joined Michel Barnier, the European Union financial services chief, and George Osborne, U.K. chancellor of the exchequer, to tell U.S. officials to allow for broader recognition of overseas swaps rules. Their letter to Lew follows complaints by JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and overseas officials about the planned reach of U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission rules.
"We are concerned that, without clear direction from global policymakers and regulators, derivatives markets will recede into localised and less efficient structures, impairing the ability of business across the globe to manage risk," the nine officials wrote in the letter sent to Lew yesterday.
The CFTC, led by Chairman Gary Gensler, has pushed for cross-border swaps rules that cover transactions involving overseas offices of U.S. banks and hedge funds incorporated offshore. The conflict over the international reach of the CFTC's swaps rules has led U.S. lawmakers to introduce legislation that would restrict the agency.
"If a run starts in one part of a modern financial institution, whether it's here or offshore, the risk comes back to our shores," Gensler said in a March 20 speech for an International Monetary Fund conference in Washington.
Steve Adamske, CFTC spokesman, didn't respond to a request for comment yesterday about the letter.
The U.S. "has been working hard with regulators from key foreign jurisdictions to find practical compromises," the Treasury Department said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The U.S. and Japan are "furthest along in the reforms while other countries' efforts have been delayed." The Treasury also said the U.S. is the first country to introduce "cross-border proposals to strengthen the transparency and oversight" of over-the-counter derivatives markets.
The overseas officials said U.S. and other regulators need to allow for greater use of substituted compliance, in which one jurisdiction allows another's to satisfy goals to curb risk in the market. Individual companies shouldn't need to apply for substituted compliance, and jurisdictions shouldn't seek a precise rule-by-rule test of comparability, they said.
"An approach in which jurisdictions require that their own domestic regulatory rules be applied to their firms' derivatives transactions taking place in broadly equivalent regulatory regimes abroad is not sustainable," the officials wrote.
The letter was also signed by finance ministers Guido Mantega of Brazil, Pierre Moscovici of France, Wolfgang Schaeuble of Germany, Anton Siluanov of Russia, Pravin Gordhan of South Africa, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf of Switzerland and Taro Aso, Japan's deputy prime minister.
Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, has filed suit against the CFTC challenging one of the agency's proposed swaps rules.
Bloomberg News


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Cougar boys open with win
Basketball is a game of adjustments.
Some are made on the fly, while others need to be addressed during timeouts or halftime.
Janesville Craig boys coach Mike Miller waited until the halftime break to change the complexion of Tuesday's night's season-opener against Monroe.
Craig trailed by four at half, and Miller was not happy with the tempo at which his team was playing. He ordered them to push the ball even harder up the court to try and wear down the Cheesemakers.
The strategy worked as the Cougars went on a 7-0 run to start the second half and never looked back in a 69-61 win.
Behind 15 points from Nolan Maresch, and 14 each from Jerry Ngobi and Mike Murphy, the Cougars got out of the gate with a quality win against a Monroe team that will surely be in the thick of the Badger South Conference race.
"A lot of things we needed to adjust to were things we were doing, or more like not doing, especially rebounding," Miller said. "Our goal was to continue pushing it because we felt like they were getting a little tired.
"But give credit to Monroe. I was nervous coming into this game because they're very physical and play such good defense. And a lot of our problems on offense were because of their defense."
Craig led by seven after three quarters and kept Monroe at bay thanks to Maresch. The senior had 12 of his team-high 15 points in the fourth. His three-pointer with 3:42 left to play pushed the lead back to seven after the Cheesemakers had made a 7-2 run to cut the lead to four.
Kevin Noriega came off the bench for Monroe to lead all scorers with 21. The junior had the hot hand in the fourth with 11 points, but Monroe coach Pat Murphy felt like he should've had more.
"We don't always know where the offense is going to come from, and tonight it was Kevin's turn," coach Murphy said. "But I really felt like he needed to get more touches, especially in the third quarter. I didn't think he got his hands on enough balls considering he was making shots.
"But we've got a lot of guys that haven't played in a varsity game before tonight, and I was really pleased with their effort. I thought both teams played especially hard."
Both teams played well in spurts, but for the most part, it was a typical first game of the season. The teams were whistled for 50 fouls between them and there were 62 free throws shot.
"We were far from perfect," Miller said, "but we'll iron some things out and get back to work Monday."
Craig opens the Big Eight Conference season Tuesday night at Janesville Parker.
Monroe (61)—Flannery, 0-0-0; Thompson, 0-5-5; Kind, 4-1-10; Helmeid, 2-5-9; Hirsbrunner, 1-4-6; Noriega, 8-3-21; Hendrickson, 2-0-4; Tordoff, 2-2-6. Totals: 19-20-61.
Craig (69)—Ngobi, 5-2-14; Maresch, 5-3-15; Murphy, 4-5-14; Carlson, 1-2-4; Morgan, 2-1-6; Smith, 0-2-2; Negus, 2-0-6; Payton, 1-2-4; Cox, 1-0-2; McCann, 0-2-2. Totals: 21-19-69.
Monroe������������������������ 14������ 18���������������������������������� 6 23—61
Janesville Craig���������� 16������ 12�������������������������������� 17 24—69
Three-point goals—Monroe 3 (Noriega 2, Kind), Craig 8 (Negus 2, Ngobi 2, Maresch 2, Murphy, Morgan). Free throws missed—Monroe 10, Craig 13. Total fouls—Monroe 24, Craig 26. Fouled out—Flannery, Hirsbrunner, Maresch.
Sophomores—Craig 47, Monroe 36. Craig leading scorer: Peter Larson, 11.


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California is well known for labor regulations that are typically more stringent than elsewhere in the United States, and as a result it is often a hot bed of activity for labor and employment suits. These suits have increasingly focused on the employment standards of tech companies, including well-known names in the Silicon Valley and Southern California. Most recently they've targeted Elon Musk's SpaceX operations, with allegations that the company did not follow state regulations before a layoff.
In early August, two former Space X technicians filed suit against the company, saying that it did not follow state law when it laid off between 200-400 workers. Under California's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Law (WARN), companies must give employees notice of an impending layoff so they have an opportunity to seek employment elsewhere.
Related Articles:
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According to that law, a company "may not order a mass layoff [defined as 50 or more employees in a 30 day period], relocation, or termination at a covered establishment unless, 60 days before the order takes effect" the employer gives written notice of the order to the employees, California "Employment Development Department, the local workforce investment board, and the chief elected official of each city and county government within which the termination, relocation, or mass layoff occurs."
Failure to comply with the law can result in the offending company paying up to 60 days worth of salary and benefits to the terminated employees. Plaintiffs are seeking class action status with their complaint.
According to the L.A. Times , SpaceX spokesman John Taylor said July 25 that the company conducted a "headcount reduction" of less than 5 percent of its work force after an annual review cycle and "some rebalancing of resources." Other representatives of the company have indicated that the terminations were performance related; however, plaintiffs lawyers have argued that this was a tactic to get around WARN regulations.
Recently, other well-known Californian tech companies have also felt been the subject of labor and employment probes. Linkedin announced that it would pay $6 milllion in unpaid overtime to sales staff members in California, Illinois and New York. Adobe Systems, Intel, Google and Apple also recently settled a three-year-old class action lawsuit with 64,000 employees for allegedly conspiring to suppress worker pay.


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Re: $ $ $ $ $ CARVERaudio INTERCONNECT ROADSHOW $ $ $ $ $
Toy Maker wrote:Anyone really still interested in the XLR's ??
I think I have a few more 1-meter pairs in stock.
If enough people want the try the XLR's I can box up (2) 1-meter pairs, and get a 2nd RoadShow going....
Let me know
I am interested in purchasing a set. PM me with a price.
Transfiguration Phoenix Cartridge
Devialet 440PRO Mono Blocks
Audioprana SP/DIF-AES/EBU cable
Aurender N100H Music Server
Audioquest Diamond USB cable
B&W 803D3 Speakers (black)
Auditorium 23 Speaker Cables
Raysonic CD-168 CDP (silver)
Carver TX11


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TCPDF is a PHP class for generating PDF documents without requiring external extensions. TCPDF supports all ISO page formats and custom page formats, custom margins and units of measure, UTF-8 Unicode, RTL languages, HTML, barcodes, TrueTypeUnicode, TrueType, OpenType, Type1, and CID-0 fonts, images, graphic functions, clipping, bookmarks, JavaScript, forms, page compression, digital signatures, and encryption.
ADODB is a set of advanced PHP database abstraction classes. It supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, Interbase/Firebird, Informix, Sybase SQL Anywhere, Oracle, MS SQL 7 and 2000, SAP DB, Sybase, DB2, FrontBase, Foxpro, Access, Netezza, LDAP, ODBTP, ADO, and generic ODBC. A metatype system is built in, making it possible to figure out that types such as CHAR, TEXT, and STRING are equivalent in different databases. It also features portable database creation, database-backed session support (with encryption), SQL performance monitoring, and database health checks.
HTML Forms generation and validation is a PHP class that generates HTML forms supporting many built-in validation types on server and client sides. It prevents security attacks by discarding spoofed values, has multiple submit protection, outputs HTML for fields displayed as fully accessible or in read-only mode, and has field value filtering and reformatting. It can be extended with custom control plug-ins. AJAX based form submission, upload monitor progress bar, auto-complete text input, automatic layout renderer, calendar date, CAPTCHA, Google Maps world location selection, linked select, and animation effects plug-ins are available.
This is a PHP class that attempts to validate a given e-mail address at four levels: matching the address against a RFC compliant regular expression; checking whitelists and blacklists of domains with typing mistakes, disposable email addresses, and temporary and fake domains; verifying the existence of the destination SMTP server by verifying the respective DNS MX record; and connecting to that server to see if the given address is accepted as a valid recipient. The class also features a debugging output option that lets you see the remote SMTP server connection and data exchange dialog to see the real cause why an apparently valid address may not be accepting messages.
Horde Groupware Webmail Edition is an enterprise ready browser-based communication suite. Users can read, send, and organize email messages and manage and share calendars, contacts, tasks, and notes with the standards compliant components from the Horde Project. It bundles the separately available applications IMP, Ingo, Kronolith, Turba, Nag, and Mnemo. It can be extended with any of the released Horde applications or the Horde modules that are still in development, like a file manager, a bookmark manager, a forum, or a wiki.
PHP OAuth API authorizes user access using the OAuth protocol. It abstracts OAuth 1.0, 1.0a, and 2.0 in the same class. It provides built-in support for popular OAuth servers: 37Signals, Amazon, Buffer, Bitbucket, Box.net, Dailymotion, Discogs, Disqus, Dropbox with OAuth 1.0 and 2.0, Etsy, Eventful, Facebook, Fitbit, Flickr, Foursquare, github, Google with OAuth 1.0a and OAuth 2.0, Instagram, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Rdio, Reddit, RightSignature, Salesforce, Scoop.it, StockTwits, SurveyMonkey, Tumblr, Twitter, VK, Withings, Xero, XING, and Yahoo!. Every other OAuth server is supported by setting an endpoint URLs and other parameters using specific class variables or an external JSON configuration file. The class can also send requests to an API using the previously-obtained OAuth access token. For servers which support offline access, the class can renew expired tokens automatically using refresh tokens.
Horde Groupware is an enterprise ready browser-based collaboration suite. Users can manage and share calendars, contacts, tasks, and notes with the standards compliant components from the Horde Project. Horde Groupware bundles the separately available applications Kronolith, Turba, Nag, and Mnemo. It can be extended with any of the released Horde applications or the Horde modules that are still in development, like a file manager, a bookmark manager, a forum, or a wiki.
Xapian is a search engine library, scalable to collections containing hundreds of millions of documents. It's written in C++ with bindings for Perl, Python, PHP, Java, Tcl, C#, Ruby, and Lua. It is a highly adaptable toolkit that allows developers to easily add advanced indexing and search facilities to their own applications. It supports the Probabilistic Information Retrieval model and also a rich set of boolean query operators. Omega is a Web search application built upon the Xapian library. It can index a Web server's document tree (including HTML, PDF, OpenOffice, MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Works, WordPerfect, RTF, PS, etc.), or data exported from arbitrary sources (e.g. SQL databases).


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Risk managers have plenty on their plates as 2014 begins. Cyber risk is front and center after the recent data breaches experienced by retailers, most notably Target. The possible expiration of the U.S. government's terrorism backstop at the end of this year is another concern.
"This breach at Target, I think, is a wake-up call and should be a wake-up call for individuals as well as organizations," said Al Gorski, chief risk officer for the Orange County Transportation Authority in Southern California and a board director at RIMS.
Gorski said a 2012 data breach at the South Caroline Department of Revenue "pushed security and privacy risks higher on my list." He notes that the South Carolina incident also involved a lot of data—it exposed sensitive information from almost 4 million taxpayers and 700,000 businesses.
Insurance Only Part of the Solution
The Orange County Transportation Authority, which deals with everything from buses and paratransit routes to toll roads, has three types of information to protect, Gorski said: that of consumers who use their accounts to pay for buses or tolls, information about the agency's employees, and data related to its business partners. "As a public agency, we want to make sure we're concerned with the public," he said.
The authority has been buying cyber insurance for the last few years, since before the South Carolina cyber breach, but cyber insurance is only part of the solution, Gorski said.
"We have to look at other things—the security of the premises, password control," he said. "We have lots of exposure we didn't have, say, five years ago, with smartphones and things like that."
The authority has responded by working to improve security, said Gorski, pictured at left. "We've tightened down the security internally. We've tightened down the security dealing with laptops, the information provided on laptops, the access to our system from outside the organization—
say accessing business information for business purposes.
"According to the manager of the information technology department, there's lots of knocks on our door every day from cyber," he added.
Gorski said the decaying U.S. infrastructure is another of his key concerns. "One of the things I think risk managers are not thinking about is our infrastructure is getting older, and the amount of money from gas taxes is not meeting the need of maintaining that infrastructure."
He noted the role the nation's roads play in companies' supply chains. "Forty percent of all goods coming into this country come in through Los Angeles and Long Beach ports," Gorski said. "We have to maintain those roads for those goods to be moved."
Leslie Lamb, director of global risk management for Cisco Systems and also a RIMS board director, said cyber issues are a big concern for many companies, as are natural catastrophes. And catastrophes can result in business interruptions, another topic that risk managers are looking at these days, she said.
Lamb also cited compliance concerns and noted that for companies doing business around the world, that includes the challenge of ensuring they have the correct policies and limits in place in each country. "In some countries, you're required to carry certain types of insurance, and if you don't, there are stiff penalties," she said.
Insurance brokers can provide information on what's needed in each country, Lamb said, but there are gray areas: "If you talk to 10 different people about what's required and what are the ramifications, you might get at least seven or eight different answers.
Terrorism Risk
Lori Seidenberg, a RIMS board director and senior vice president of enterprise risk management for Centerline Capital Group, a real estate investment and finance company, cited "grave concern" in the real estate industry about whether Congress will renew the terrorism backstop. That facility, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (TRIPRA), will expire on Dec. 31; it was enacted in 2007 to succeed the original backstop, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA).
Seidenberg noted the likelihood that the backstop's renewal will "come down to the wire" given the many other issues Congress has to deal with. In addition, she said, "there are a lot of new congressmen and women who were not around the last time this happened. They don't understand what terrorism is expected to cover and the consequences of
not renewing .
"There is concern that it's very possible it is going to sunset, just because of those factors," she said.
"There's a consensus in Congress that terrorism is readily available on the regular market," Seidenberg said, but she argued that that is true only for organizations located in geographies where the risk of terrorism is not great. "If you're in New York, two blocks from the Freedom Tower, it's hard to find coverage."
Given the possibility the backstop will expire at year-end, insurers renewing policies this year will attach sunset clauses saying that if the terrorism backstop sunsets, the policy's terrorism coverage will end as well on Dec. 31, she said.


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Royal blast: Prince's homer lifts NL past AL
By Steve Gilbert / MLB.com
The 2011 All-Star Game MVP smacked a three-run homer to power the National League past the American League, 5-1, in the 82nd Midsummer Classic, providing the Senior Circuit with home-field advantage in the World Series.
"It's hard to beat great pitching and a three-run homer," NL manager Bruce Bochy said.
The Brewers slugger had been booed during Monday's State Farm Home Run Derby for leaving the D-backs' Justin Upton off the NL Derby squad, and Fielder was greeted likewise by a sellout crowd of 47,994 on Tuesday right up until he connected on Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson's cutter in the fourth inning.
"He threw me a couple of cutters away, he threw me a two-seamer in and I fouled it off my foot and that kind of hurt," Fielder said of the at-bat. "And then I hit another cutter to left-center. It was a good at-bat."
The win was the second straight for the NL, which had not won in 13 previous tries before last season. The last time the NL won back-to-back All-Star Games was 1995-96 as part of a three-game winning streak.
While the AL lineup was a formidable one, the NL clearly looked to have the advantage in pitching going in, especially with the Junior Circuit missing top hurlers Justin Verlander, CC Sabathia, Felix Hernandez, Jon Lester, David Price and Mariano Rivera.
The AL pitching was dealt another blow when Boston's Josh Beckett, who had been scheduled to pitch the second inning, felt discomfort in his left knee while warming up and was shut down.
Still, pitching dominated the first three innings of the game, with a Matt Kemp walk and a Lance Berkman single providing the only baserunners.
Phillies left-hander Cliff Lee, who replaced teammate Roy Halladay in the third inning, retired the first two batters of the fourth before giving up a home run to Boston's Adrian Gonzalez on an 0-1 cut fastball.
The homer was the first in an All-Star Game since Boston's J.D. Drew hit one off Edinson Volquez in the seventh inning of the 2008 game at the old Yankee Stadium, a span of 208 at-bats between homers.
It also marked the first All-Star Game run allowed by Lee, who had previously pitched in the 2008 and '10 games, tossing three scoreless innings and striking out four.
The damage could have been worse as the AL strung together three straight singles, but NL left fielder Hunter Pence saved the day when he came up throwing on Adrian Beltre's single and nailed Jose Bautista trying to score from second to end the fourth inning.
"I had a weird intuition he was about to hit a line drive and was like, 'OK, if he hits a line drive, I'm going to try and make a good throw,'" Pence said. "I was anticipating it a little bit. It happened the way I envisioned, kind of."
Wilson came on to pitch for the AL in the bottom of the fourth, and the Rangers left-hander immediately found himself in a major jam. Carlos Beltran singled deep in the hole at short, and Kemp followed with a single to left-center.
That brought up Fielder, who worked Wilson to a 2-2 count before hammering a cutter just over the left-center-field wall for a three-run homer to give the NL a 3-1 advantage.
"I didn't have a good grip on it," Wilson said of the pitch. "Instead of gripping and ripping, I was gripping and slipping, and he hit it out. Pitch one inning, one mistake, Prince Fielder ... that's why he was in the Home Run Derby."
The ball actually struck the yellow line that runs along the top of the padded wall and bounced over into a camera area.
"I thought I hit it good, but I saw [center fielder] Curtis [Granderson] running it down. It made me nervous, because he was at full speed," Fielder said. "So you know, I knew if it wasn't a homer, I'd better hurry up and get to second, because he might throw me out, because he was on it. Got a little scared there for a second."
Fielder became the first Brewers player to homer in an All-Star Game, leaving the Arizona Diamondbacks as the only franchise never to have a player hit a homer in a Midsummer Classic.
The NL added a run in the fifth when pinch-hitter Andre Ethier, a Phoenix native, lined a single to right to score Rickie Weeks from second and put the NL up, 4-1.
The NL almost scored a run earlier in the inning, when Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki led off the frame with a single to right-center.
The Cubs' Starlin Castro pinch-ran for Tulowitzki and promptly stole second and third bases, becoming the fifth player to swipe two bases in a Midsummer Classic. With one out, Weeks hit a dribbler to the third-base side of the mound that Angels pitcher Jordan Walden fielded with his bare hand and flipped to Tigers catcher Alex Avila to nail Castro at the plate.
The NL added an insurance run in the seventh, when Pablo Sandoval drove home Pence from third with a ground-rule double to left off Seattle's Brandon League.
Bochy went to his bullpen after Lee, and it shut down the AL. Tyler Clippard, Clayton Kershaw, Jair Jurrjens, Craig Kimbrel, Jonny Venters, Heath Bell, Joel Hanrahan and Brian Wilson limited the AL to just two hits after the fourth inning.
"Pitching stops hitting, and I mean, those guys over there pitch very well," AL manager Ron Washington said. "The arms he brought in and the stuff that they threw up there at that plate, I think we had two innings where we had an opportunity to maybe get some runs, but they constantly shut it down."
That's been a recurring theme for the NL during its two-game winning streak, as Senior Circuit hurlers have allowed just two runs in their last 18 innings during the All-Star Game.
"It was great to have the pitching set up the way it was," Bochy said.
Things got a little dicey for the NL in the ninth as the AL capitalized on a throwing error by Castro at short, a single by Matt Joyce and another miscue by right fielder Jay Bruce that put runners at second and third with one out.
Then Bochy went to Wilson, his club's closer, and the bearded hurler got Michael Cuddyer to fly out to shallow right before Paul Konerko worked a six-pitch at-bat before grounding out to end the game.
"It's a great at-bat by Konerko, a good battle there," Bochy said. "I was glad to get the game over with to be honest, because they had some good bats coming up."
On this night, though, the AL bats were no match for the NL arms.
Steve Gilbert is a reporter for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @dbackswriter. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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Two-car crash in Lyons kills Lake Geneva man
TOWN OF LYONS -- A Lake Geneva man was killed and two people from Illinois were hospitalized following a two car, head-on crash on Wisconsin Highway 120, north of Prairie Road in the town of Lyons shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday, according to a release from the Walworth County Sheriff's Office.
According to initial investigation, Jeffrey D. Peiffer, 52, of Lake Geneva, was driving a 2013 Nissan Sentra southbound on Wisconsin Highway 120 north of Prairie Road when he crossed the center line and struck a Chrysler 300 going northbound on Highway 120, driven by Wolfgang H. Schubert, 69, of Wauconda, Ill.
Peiffer, who was not wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident by the Walworth County Coroner. An autopsy will be performed to determine the exact cause of death.
Schubert was taken by Flight for Life with critical injuries to Aurora Medical Center in Summit. A passenger in the Chrysler, Rosalina L. Deinlein, 40, of Morton Grove, Ill., was taken by ambulance to Aurora Lakeland Medical Center in Elkhorn with unknown injuries.
According to the release, the road was closed for four hours while the accident was being investigated.


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Russell P. Stewart, Janesville, Wi (1941-2014)
July 27, 1941 - January 26, 2014
Russell P. Stewart, age 72, of Janesville, was called home on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014, after a long illness. He was born in Lake Geneva, WI, on July 27, 1941, the son of the late Roy and Grace (Dabson) Stewart. Russ graduated from Milton High School and Honorably served in the US Army. Over the years, Russ has been married three times and he has three children who survive him. Russ retired from GMAD after over 30 years of service and he is a member of the GM Retirees Local #95. He enjoyed country music, riding Harley Davidson motorcycles, and was an avid baseball, football and hockey fan. He was also very proud of his 1968 and 1993 Oldsmobile Convertibles. Russ was a very easy going person, who loved to banter with his children. He was known to be a very honest, and dependable gentleman, with a heart of gold.
Russ is survived by his three children: Lonny (Lori) Stewart of Janesville, Bruce Stewart of Janesville, and DeEtte Stewart of Hayward, WI; grandchildren whom he was very proud of: Taylor Stewart, Sadie Stewart, M. Grace Stewart, Jacob Stewart, and Alex (Lizzi) Brockman; and great-granddaughter, Scarlett Brockman. He is further survived by his brother and sister-in-law, William and Judy Stewart of Janesville; long time childhood friend, Pat Keister of Milton; brother-in-law, Raleigh Reece of Janesville; many other relatives and friends. In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by four sisters and six brothers.
Funeral Services will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, at the WHITCOMB - LYNCH FUNERAL HOME with Rev. Wendee Nitz officiating. Private interment will be at Oak Hill Cemetery at a later date. Visitation will be on Friday from 10 a.m. until the time of the service at the FUNERAL HOME.
Whitcomb - Lynch Funeral Home & Cremation Services
21 S. Austin Road, Janesville, WI (608) 752-2444


text:
Normandy Playground Park
6660 W. 52nd St. Chicago, Illinois 60638
(773) 229-1421
Fee: Free
Age Range: Any
GreaseRydell High's most famous graduating class is going back to school. A newly restored print brings the highest-grossing musical of all time, GREASE (1978), to the big screen as a sing-along. Join Danny and Sandy with your own crew of T-Birds and Pink Ladies for a carnival ride back to those amazing summer nights!
Rated PG-13 | 110 minutes | 1978
Presented by Charter One, with additional support from RCN.
Movies in the Parks is presented by:
With additional support from:


text:
Hamilton heads promising crop of Reds prospects
Speedy switch-hitter closing in on big league callup, Cingrani highlights young arms
By Spencer Fordin / MLB.com
The future success of every Major League team lies largely in its Minor League pipeline. With that in mind, MLB.com is looking at each team's farm system, from the Top 20 Prospects to under-the-radar types.
It may seem like a misprint, but it's real. Billy Hamilton set a record with 155 stolen bases between two levels last year, and now he's back to prepare his game for a transition to the big leagues. Hamilton, one of the most dynamic prospects in baseball, fronts a rich collection of talent for the Reds.
Cincinnati hopes to get Hamilton to the big leagues as soon as possible, and he's moved to center field in an effort to let his speed work for him. The switch-hitter batted .286 with 51 steals in 50 games for Double-A Pensacola last season, proving that he can be a force at the upper levels.
Hamilton had previously played shortstop, but Chris Buckley, the Reds' senior director of amateur scouting, believes that the speedster will have no problems at his new position.
"There's some little coaching things he's going to have to learn, but he's a terrific athlete," said Buckley. "He's going to be out there early. He's going to be in big league camp and I'm sure the staff will work with him. I don't think it will take him real long to be an outstanding center fielder."
Hamilton has batted a combined .289 through four Minor League seasons, and he has stolen 320 bases in 379 games as a professional. Now, he just needs to do it again. If Hamilton shows that he can handle center field and gets off to a hot start with the bat, he could tempt the Reds into calling him up.
The Reds also have a group of impressive starting pitchers coursing through their system, and Tony Cingrani managed to make it to the Majors in his first full professional season. Cingrani went 10-4 with a 1.73 ERA between two levels last season before earning a late-season callup.
Cincinnati selected Robert Stephenson with the 27th overall pick in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft -- two rounds before Cingrani -- and the right-hander made some progress last season. Stephenson, a high school draftee, may take a few more seasons to work up to his full potential.
The Reds also have a potential high-leverage arm in Daniel Corcino, and they're trying to figure out whether he can stick in the starting rotation in the big leagues. Throw in Nick Travieso, the team's latest first-round draftee, and Cincinnati has acquired strength in numbers on the mound.
"You have to sign a lot of pitchers to get a few," said Buckley. "That's where the attrition rates are in baseball, but you can't be afraid to keep picking them because someone got hurt. The reason the Giants are so good is [Tim] Lincecum, [Matt] Cain and [Madison] Bumgarner, and they developed those guys. We're getting there, with [Aroldis] Chapman, Mike Leake and [Johnny] Cueto."
Top 20
Infielder Ryan Wright had a mixed season last year, thriving for Class A Dayton and struggling after jumping a notch to Class A Bakersfield. Wright hit 10 home runs last year and stole 17 bases while only being caught twice, but he'll have to prove he can handle hitting at the higher levels.
Henry Rodriguez played at two levels in the Minors and made it to the Majors last season, and he may have a big league future as a utility man. The Reds also have high hopes for outfielder Ryan LaMarre, who struggled with a bout of plantar fasciitis last season but played through the pain.
Sean Buckley gives the Reds another outfielder with a chance to move quickly, and Jesse Winker is one of the best young hitters in the system. Winker batted .338 with a .443 on-base percentage in the rookie-level Pioneer League last year, setting a high bar for his second pro season.
reds' top prospects
|Billy Hamilton
|Tony Cingrani
|Robert Stephenson
|Daniel Corcino
|Nicholas Travieso
First baseman Neftali Soto had drilled some big power numbers in the lower levels, but he was met with a wall of resistance at Triple-A Louisville. Soto hit .246 with 14 homers in 122 games for Louisville, but the Reds are set at first base and can allow him time to develop.
Under the radar
Devin Lohman always had to play second base when playing alongside Hamilton, but now he'll get to shift back over to shortstop. Lohman, a former third-round draftee, stole 34 bases and batted .257 with 14 home runs and a .353 on-base percentage for Bakersfield last season.
Justin Freeman controlled the strike zone and thrived as a lock-down reliever for Pensacola last season, and he may have a future in the big leagues if he can continue to limit the walks. Freeman struck out 68 batters and walked just 16 last season, notching a 2.91 ERA and 16 saves.
Pitcher of the Year
Cingrani was incredible last season, carving up the Double-A Southern League to the tune of a 2.12 ERA. The left-hander has 252 strikeouts in 197 1/3 innings as a professional, and if he can keep carving up Minor League hitters, it won't be long until he's in the Major Leagues for good.
"There's still some things Tony has to learn, throw his breaking ball for strikes and have some more confidence in it," Buckley said. "He's a very aggressive guy that has a good fastball and a good changeup. He got to the big leagues pretty quickly. We're hoping he's a starter."
Hitter of the Year
How can you pick against Hamilton? Hamilton, pardon the pun, is on the fast track to the Majors and could post stolen-base totals not seen since the heyday of Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman. The only question, for now, is whether Hamilton will be on base enough to steal as often as he'd like.
Spencer Fordin is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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Pocatello Railroad FCU Plans FLEX Core Conversion
The $60 million Pocatello Railroad Federal Credit Union in Pocatello, Idaho, plans to convert to the FLEX core processing system, according to its owner, Computer Marketing Corp. in Sandy, Utah.
PRFCU, which began as Idaho's first credit union in 1935, plans to convert to the FLEX platform later this year, the company and credit union said.
Cost savings, technology and service were cited in the decision.
The 10,600-member PRFCU currently runs on a CUDP platform, according to the Technology Survey from Callahan & Associates.
CMC said FLEX now has systems in place at nearly 300 credit unions across the United States and in the Eastern Caribbean.


text: Sporting goods retailers offer the gear you need for your favorite games and activities. Fans usually know the items they need to play their favorite game, but there are others who struggle to make the choices or find the right products. Many parents shopping for items for their child's youth league struggle to understand the terminology. Here's a quick guide to terms with which people are often unfamiliar.


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Milton city administrator: 'You'd better get in now'
MILTON—In a pitch to local realtors and developers at a development junket Wednesday, Milton City Administrator Jerry Schuetz borrowed a quote from the UW-Madison athletic director.
"To paraphrase Barry Alvarez, he once said, 'If you want season tickets, you'd better get them now,'" Schuetz said. "Well, I'm saying, 'If you want to get into Milton, you'd better get in now.'"
Schuetz was speaking at a breakfast briefing Wednesday morning attended mostly by local stakeholders—Milton-area bankers, realtors and residential developers. But the message was one Schuetz said city officials plan to repeat to companies he says already are sniffing around the 250 acres of land offered for development along the new Highway 26 bypass/Highway 59 corridor.
Schuetz said he's had phone calls from three or four restaurant and retail developers in the last month who said they like the visibility of parcels along the new bypass, which cuts a high, swinging arc past the city's east side.
To the layperson driver who passes undeveloped land along the new bypass, which was completed a little over a month ago, it appears the road goes east around Milton. Schuetz said the city views the new road's curve differently, and Schuetz plans on selling it differently, too.
The city's lens: The bypass runs right through the Crossroads Business Park, a city tax increment financing district that blankets the interchange of Highway 59 and the new Highway 26 bypass.
Hence, Schuetz explained, the city's former backyard is now its front yard.����
"Now it (the bypass) goes through the city," Schuetz said "This (business park) is going to be a gateway to the city."
In the briefing Wednesday, Schuetz unveiled some of the city's plans for developing city and privately held land in the business park. Among the items he showed realtors and developers were maps from a consultant study that showed how the business park is organized in parcels sectioned off and organized.
The plans show separate uses for business, retail and commercial properties on parcels to the west of the bypass and industrial development to the east of it.
Schuetz explained that chunks of land in the business park vary from 60 to 15 acres, and though some are still owned privately, they're all included in a city TIF district. That makes the parcels eligible for city incentives designed to offset land purchase and development costs.
The also city could move forward with another study on how to continue to market parcels in the business park. That study, Schuetz said, hinges on a separate traffic flow study of post-bypass Milton, which the city is now working on.
Schuetz also talked about the city's ongoing efforts to recruit a midsize, 80- to 100-room hotel along the Highway 26/Highway 59 interchange. A potential hotel development, which is supported by a 2012 city study, would cost about $8 million and could need outside equity investment of up to $4 million to become a reality, Schuetz said.
The city does not have overnight lodging, and a hotel could be a lynchpin in development along the bypass corridor, Schuetz said.���
Milton-area Realtor Fred Hookham said he believes the completion of the bypass was well timed, dovetailing with resurgence in the economy.
"With some apparent optimism returning to the business community, we're perfectly positioned now. The Milton bypass is done now just in time to grab the first attention of the people, the developers, that want to make a move early on," Hookham said. "And we've got enough variety of parcels between commercial and manufacturing that it really bodes well."
Meanwhile, city officials are riding high on the announcement Tuesday that the city has earned the Austin Consulting "shovel ready" designation for 115 acres along Highway 59 in the Crossroads Business Park.
The shovel-ready designation, which was aided through a certification program by economic development group Rock County 5.0, greases the wheels of development. It means the land has been reviewed for suitability in ownership, utilities and transportation, and is now certified for ready-made development in as little as 30 days.


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Highlights, reaction to Walker's State of State
MADISON — Gov. Scott Walker made the case for $504 million in property and income tax cuts in his hourlong State of the State speech Wednesday. Highlights from the speech, and reaction, include:
TAX CUTS: Walker is proposing a $406 million property tax cut and a $98.6 million income tax reduction, part of what he calls a "Blueprint for Prosperity." The property tax cut would be made by reducing the technical college levy and would show up on the tax bill mailed in December. The income tax cut would be done by reducing the lowest rate from 4.4 percent to 4 percent. That is applied to the first $10,910 in income for single filers and the first $14,540 for married couples.
INCOME TAX WITHHOLDING: Walker ordered the Department of Revenue to update income tax withholding tables to return about $322 million to taxpayers in their paychecks, instead of it coming back through their tax return. Walker said that equates to about $58 a month for a typical family of four.
OTHER TAX CUTS: Walker's plan doesn't include a sales tax holiday, exempting aviation companies from paying sales taxes on aircraft maintenance parts and labor or other tax cut ideas that have been floating around the Legislature. Lawmakers are sure to feel pressure to work those into whatever package is passed, but for now there's no consensus on what may get added.
DEFICIT: Walker's tax cuts would increase the state's projected deficit heading into the two-year budget that begins in mid-2015 by $100 million. The shortfall already stands at $725 million without any changes. However, that doesn't take into account revenue growth. Some Republican senators have said they want to reduce that shortfall in addition to cutting taxes.
WORKER TRAINING: Walker proposed adding $35 million to the Wisconsin Fast Forward program to be used on eliminating waiting lists for high demand fields at technical colleges, help high school students get trained for high-demand jobs through dual enrollment programs and support programs that help people with disabilities find work.
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: Walker announced a yearlong initiative designed to help people with disabilities find work. Walker said he will spend the year highlighting employers who hire people with disabilities as well as groups that work to help them get trained and find work. "Filling all the positions available in the state, now and in the future, also requires us to think and act in new ways," Walker said.
CHEERS FOR WALKER: The head of the state chamber of commerce praised Walker's tax cut plan.
"As those dollars are kept in the hands of our citizens, we will encourage job creation as people spend that money rather than sending it to state government," said Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce president Kurt Bauer.
Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, also backed Walker's tax cut proposal saying, "Wisconsin residents have been living in a tax hell far too long."
JEERS FOR WALKER: Democrats said Walker's tax cut proposal was misguided and wouldn't help the middle class. Rep. Mandy Wright, D-Wausau, said the money should go toward public schools, health care workers, public transit, worker training initiatives and local governments.
"While property tax relief for families and seniors is a good start, we need a more comprehensive and balanced approach that also invests in our future," said Sen. Jen Shilling, D-La Crosse. "In 2014, we need to focus on supporting middle class families, prioritizing investments in small business development, improving access to affordable health care, and restoring the funding that was cut from our local community schools."


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Edward James Drexler, Whitewater (1938-2013)
February 9, 1938 - October 25, 2013
Edward James Drexler, age 75, of Whitewater, WI, passed away on Friday, Oct. 25, 2013, at The Glen in Whitewater, WI. Edward was born in Cincinnati, OH, on Feb. 9, 1938, the son of Joseph William and Theresa Edna (Synnott) Drexler. He graduated from Elder High School in Cincinnati, OH, received his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Chemistry from Xavier University, and his PhD from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Edward taught chemistry for 38 years at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. On Aug. 31, 1963, Edward married Kathryn Ann Miller in Detroit, MI. Edward received the W.P. Roseman Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1988. He was a member of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Whitewater. Edward had a great sense of humor. He enjoyed gardening, cooking, travel, and loved movies.
Surviving are his wife, Kathryn Drexler of Whitewater, WI; his children: Elizabeth Drexler of Whitewater, Diane (David Spies) Drexler of Madison, WI, David (Ann Edahl) Drexler of Fresno, CA, Gregory (Tracy) Drexler of Madison, and Timothy Drexler of Fitchburg, WI; two grandchildren, Maximillian and Olivia Drexler; and two brothers, Joseph (Marie) Drexler and Charles Drexler, both of Cincinnati, OH. Edward was preceded in death by his parents; and a sister, Mary Drexler.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, at 11 a.m. at ST. PATRICK CATHOLIC CHURCH, 1225 W. Main Street, Whitewater,WI, with Father Stephen Forrest celebrating. Burial will be in the Calvary Cemetery, Whitewater. Friends may call from 6 until 8 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 28, 2013, at the NITARDY FUNERAL HOME, 550 N. Newcomb St, Whitewater, and after 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, at the CHURCH until the time of the Mass. www.nitardyfuneralhome.com
Those planning an expression of sympathy may wish to consider a memorial to the charity of one's choice.


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New young professional women's group started
JANESVILLE--While searching for volunteer opportunities on the Internet, Dominique Boston came across meetup.com.
It's a social networking site that features groups that Boston might be interested in joining. Unfortunately, most were for the Madison and Milwaukee areas.
So the program adviser at Blackhawk Technical College started the Southern WI Young Professional Women's Group.
It began Feb. 8. As of Monday, 36 women with different professional backgrounds from Janesville, Edgerton, Milton, Fort Atkinson and Whitewater had signed up. Some work in mortgage lending, while others work in management. One has a Ph.D. in cancer research, and some don't speak English as their first language.
"The group right now seems like most of us are three, five and 10 years into our profession," she said.
The first meeting was March 10, and participants discussed a lot of ideas.
The women agreed to meet at least once a month. Their gatherings will range from social outings to volunteer activities to hosting speakers, Boston said.
"We want to learn from other professional women how to keep motivated and how to better ourselves in our careers," she said.
Members also hope to tour local businesses and learn about community festivals, summer flea markets and farmers markets, she said.
"The mission is to network with other professional young women and give back to the community," Boston said.
A group for females in their 20s and beyond is needed, she said.
"Although there is a Rock County Young Professionals Group, there is nothing for young women. This is a young women's group and a social networking site," she said.
There is no cost. Participants pay their own ways at activities.
Boston stressed the group is not about getting together for cocktails once a month.
"We're motivated and want to learn about our communities and become more involved."
Last updated: 5:12 am Tuesday, March 18, 2014


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Your Views: Letter writer is wrong about Congressman Ryan's desires
John Macek's letter in Wednesday's Gazette portrays Paul Ryan as a tea-party crazy who wants to protect the wealthy while hurting the poor. To the contrary, Ryan is a conservative who works to improve the lives of every American, especially the less fortunate.
Why does the Left only look at how much money we spend, instead of how many people we help? We spend more than $1 trillion on anti-poverty programs now. But it is not working. Democrats' policies have resulted in more than 46 million Americans living in poverty, the highest in a generation.
Isn't it time to start spending the money wisely? Conservatives such as Ryan want to give local communities the tools they need to deal with poverty at the human level, instead of the Washington level. Ryan wants to put limits on the federal government; to support free enterprise; and improve people's lives so communities can thrive.
The record national debt hurts our economy, restricts opportunity and weighs down our communities. Piling more debt on our grandkids by throwing more money on failed programs doesn't solve the problem. We need to balance the budget, grow our economy, create jobs and strengthen our communities.
Failed Democratic policies have resulted in three times as many people finding part-time work compared to full-time work. The majority of jobs added offer low wages. Democrats are creating a class of permanently unemployed workers.
We are all concerned about the less fortunate, but we need to spend wisely.


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Blanché started on the path towards a career in art/design for games at the Art School of Luminy, Marseille, which provided him with a classical grounding for his CG work.
Early on he freelanced for TILT magazine , one of the early video games magazines. Then, since 1994, he has worked in modeling, concept art, texturing, lighting and animation for various French gaming companies.
As an artist Blanché has had to perform well in a variety of roles in the games development industry, but he still treats illustration and design as an artistic process and continually strives for better illustrations. "I got into the gaming industry early, when companies were small and artists had to be able to multitask. I think it was during that period that I started to think about the big picture. What makes a good illustration? What do I need to take time on? Where should I be spending my energy?
In 2000 I moved to Canada where I first worked on Kæna: The Prophecy as lead animator before joining Ubisoft's ever-growing Montréal studio to work on Myst IV ."
Image Credits :
Gladiator (Top Left)
Recon (Top Right)
ArcanumXIII (Middle Right)
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I am a retired lady in Texas discovering the joy of photographing things that bring out an emotion in me. Maybe it is a calming peacefulness, the sheer wonder of nature itself or maybe just a whimiscal shot of fun things. I find this new undertaking consuming all my time and I am loving every minute of it. I love and appreciate all comments and this community of friends all enjoying the same passion. Our Lord and Savior has blessed us all by the beauty that surrounds us daily.
Sunset in Monument Valley
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Friday March 15, 2013
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Craig Spotlighters gear up for nationals
JANESVILLE — The Craig Spotlighters practiced in the school's auditorium Thursday, many at a loss for words at how well they have done this year.
"In a show choir, you're doing the show," said Hunter Benedict, senior at Craig. "You don't really realize how it looks from the other side in the audience."
But as they danced, sang and performed Thursday preparing for their first-ever national competition, many had no trouble admitting how far they have come.
"It's insane," said Elicyia Torres, Craig senior. "I didn't think we would ever make it (to nationals) because we had a new director. I wasn't sure we would be good at first, but as I watched our show, I realized that we were."
The Spotlighters director, Adam Miller, is in his first year after taking over for former instructor Robert Schrank, who retired after 10 years.
"We started in August, so it's been about eight months," Miller said. "In our first year, I didn't anticipate as successful a season as we've had. I knew it would be a challenge, but it's a good challenge."
After placing in the top three in several competitions in January and February, the group proved itself during a first-place showing at the Main Event Western Dubuque Showchoir event in March, senior Alex Janssen said.
"I wasn't really surprised," Janssen said. "I knew we were among the top groups. I didn't know for certain we would win, but I knew we were pretty good."
In their most recent event, the Spotlighters placed third in a competition in Branson, Mo., qualifying them for the national finals in Chicago on April 26.
"This is the first time we've competed with the ability to go to nationals," Miller said. "I don't think there has been a Wisconsin school represented at the national competition. At least not in several years."
Miller said the team competed against 11 others from Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Missouri, Nebraska, Mississippi and Wisconsin in their most recent event.
"We have people involved in sports and other stuff," Miller said. "We have kids in AP (Advanced Placement) classes. We truly get the cream of the crop."
Because Miller is in his first year, some longtime "Spots" were concerned there would be a learning curve with the group.
"I definitely didn't expect to make it to nationals," said Nathan Schneider, a four-year member of the Spotlighters. "I thought it would be an experimental year, but we were able to excel quickly."
It did take time for the group to get used to Miller's teaching style, but once he found his niche, the group got better and better, Schneider said.
"He has focused more on vocals than we have in years past," Schneider said. "I think that really comes out in our shows."
The FAME Showchoir National Finals will take place at the Arie Crown Theater, 2301 S. Lake Shore Dr., Chicago.
The 2014 Craig Spotlighters are:
- Hunter Benedict
- Louis Berbitsky
- Alex Bessolo
- Zach Boutelle
- Kendall Cawkins
- Meg Conway
- Emma Dedrick
- Daniel Eberdt
- Lauren Fenrick
- Lexi Ganong
- Sarah Gilbertson
- Chase Glissendorf
- Emily Green
- Lake Hallett
- Emily Heilman
- Lexi Johns
- Ashley Johnson
- Tyler Kerbel
- Hannah Laatsch
- Teegan Lentz
- Caleb Lobraico
- Evan MacDougall
- Madeline Membrino
- Jessica Minter
- Megan Monroe
- Keeley O'Dell
- Tevin Pann
- Hailey Peterson
- Dwayne Redler
- Jennifer Riegert
- Emily Saliby
- Leah Sanford
- Grace Schmaling
- Nathan Schneider
- Tony Seibert
- Ross Sroda
- Norah Swenson
- Jake Tollefsrud
- Elicyia Torres
- Annette Triller
- Angelo Villarreal
- Sydney Weber
- Rachel Wente
- Sophie Werner
Show Band:
- Austin Campbell
- Dalton Campbell
- Zach Clowes
- David Dyble
- Alex Janssen
- Connor Jensen
- Jenna Jero
- Austyn Meier
- Andy Redler
- Sam Sheridan
- Robert Suter
- Gabe Waller
Stage Crew:
- Kassie Beaumont
- Kendall Bladorn
- Haley Budrow
- Zach Dabrowski
- Grace Frey
- Hannah Grey
- Maggie Harbrecht
- Thyme Heath-Lovell
- Arica Hessian
- Kimberly Klusmeyer
- Jessie Larson
- Blaine Mullikin
- Bruna Rubini
- Emily Schonhoff


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Watch These People Falling Off Mechanical Bulls — Daily Distraction
[onescreen item="5023366″]
It seems like such a good idea at the time, right? You're at the bar, or the state fair, or some amusement park and hey, what's that? A mechanical bull? "Sure, I could totally ride that," you think.
And when it starts, it's nice and easy and, wow, maybe you were right. This ain't so tough! Then it speeds up. Suddenly you're jerking left and right, rocking back and forth faster and faster and your grip loosens and WHOOSH! Now you're on the ground—the cushioned ground, thankfully—wondering what the heck just happened. Let's do it again!
The Daily Distraction is your Internet break from reality. Whether you're eating lunch at your desk or avoiding high school exes on Facebook, you might just laugh, say "aaahhh" or not believe what you just watched.