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ARCADIA – California Chrome had his share of skeptics before Saturday's $300,000 Grade II San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita Park, but guess who's laughing now?
The 3-year-old Lucky Pulpit colt has been viewed by some as a dubious Kentucky Derby contender because he was bred in California. A Cal-bred has not won the Derby since Decidedly in 1962. Listen to the folks in Kentucky and they'll tell you Cal-breds aren't supposed to win the Derby.
"He's only a Cal-bred so he can't win these kind of races," co-owner Perry Martin said, tongue planted firmly in cheek. "We don't have very high hopes at all, but we're going to walk through the motions."
Martin was wearing a Kentucky Derby cap as he spoke with reporters.
"I got it on Kentucky Derby.com," he said.
California Chrome, the 7-5 favorite, may make his skeptics eat crow after winning the San Felipe by 7 1/4 lengths while negotiating the 1 1/16 miles in 1:40.59 – the second fastest running of the race behind only Consolidator's 1:40.11 in 2005.
Of course, the folks in Louisville will tell you the victory came over a speed-favoring Santa Anita main track. Wait until he runs at Churchill Downs, they'll say. But one thing's for certain – California Chrome has now won five of his nine starts, including his past three by a combined 19 lengths.
Yes, he beat only Cal-breds in his first four victories, but Saturday's came against the likes of Kentucky-breds Midnight Hawk, Kristo and Schoolofhardrocks. He picked up 50 Derby qualifying points with the victory, meaning he's virtually assured of a spot in the race if he stays sound.
"Now I think I deserve to go to the Derby (May 3)," trainer Art Sherman said. "I don't think the distance will make any difference, a mile and a quarter. "I think he'll run all day long."
Sherman was with one of the greatest Cal-breds of all time, Swaps, when he upset Nashua in the 1955 Kentucky Derby. Sherman was employed by Swaps' owner, Rex Ellsworth.
Sherman was asked if California Chrome's victory will silence the critics.
"It's still not in Kentucky," he said. "I have to go back there and try the big boys. By hey, they said that about Swaps when he went back for Nashua. They said you're not going to beat him either."
Midnight Hawk, the 2-1 second choice, finished second, holding off Kristo by 6 1/4 lengths. Schoolofhardrocks finished fourth, a distant 15 lengths behind the winner in his first race since Aug. 31.
More stakes winners
In two other graded stakes on the card, Winning Prize went gate to wire to win the $350,000 Grade I Frank E. Kilroe Mile by a half length over Lochte and Sahara Sky closed from far back to win the $250,000 Grade II San Carlos Stakes by a half length over Big Macher.
It was Winning Prize's second consecutive victory and third Grade I win of the 5-year-old's career. He won the Grade II Arcadia Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 1 and the victory in the Kilroe Mile was his eighth in 13 starts. He's 8 of 10 on the grass after running the mile Saturday in 1:32.44 as the 7-2 third choice. It was the second fastest Kilroe Mile, surpassed only by Atticus' 1:31.89 in 1997.
"I know this horse didn't have to be on the lead," jockey Corey Nakatani said. "But today it was coming easy to him and I wasn't going to take it away."
Sahara Sky, who won the Grade I Met Mile last May at Belmont Park after winning the 2013 running of the San Carlos, closed from ninth in the 10-horse field and scored his eighth victory in 18 starts. He ran the seven furlongs in 1:20.84 under Joel Rosario.
"He was in a little bit of trouble turning for home,' Rosario said. "I had to try and find some room and as soon as someone gave him enough room I tried to find my way through. When I asked him he was good."
Follow Art Wilson on Twitter at @Sham73


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Panasonic's SZ7 is the first camera released in a brand new compact camera line. So what can be expected?
The SZ-series stands for "stylish zoom", which, while we wouldn't dis3agree with the SZ7's style, we do struggle to see a key design factor that separates the model from the rest of the Lumix compact range.
The SZ7's 10x optical zoom lens starts at a wideangle 25mm and stretches up to a considerable 250mm. Considering that the camera body is a mere 21mm wide that's an impressive feat. It's this small size that'll really help to shift the camera and, in line with its "style" motto, the body is far more slender than some other 10x zoom compacts.
When we went to see Panasonic to see the SZ7, much attention was focused on the camera's new 14-megapixel MOS sensor. This chip isn't the usual CCD sensor that you'll find in compacts of old, which brings advantages to not only stills quality but better movie capture thanks to the sensor type. The claim is also that, despite its 14-megapixel resolution, the SZ7 will have image quality at least 50 per cent better than previous 14-megapixel CCD sensors. As the sample model we got to play with wasn't a finished one it wasn't possible to take any sample shots away with us for closer analysis, though the shots on the camera's rear screen looked good to us.
Where the Panasonic Lumix SZ7 is a cut above many competitors' compact cameras is in the autofocus department. Panasonic also engineers its G-series compact system cameras and has had breakthroughs in super-fast contrast-detection autofocus. Lucky for all of us, some of that technology has trickled down into the Lumix SZ7 as this compact zips to work and focuses very quickly without hunting for the subject. With most compact cameras the focus speed is decent, but the SZ7 sets itself apart - it feels noticeably faster than similar priced models.
The speed continues into the continuous shooting mode. Fix the focus point and the camera can snap away at 10 frames per second, or 5fps while continuous autofocus is activated. The continuous focus isn't always perfect when it comes to maintaining focus on faster moving subjects, as tested with a hand in front of the lens (admittedly not in the very best lighting conditions), but it's more than can be said for many compact cameras that fail to offer any continuous AF during burst shooting whatsoever.
As mentioned the SZ7's movie clips should be top quality too. Panasonic has enabled full 1080p capture at 25p using AVCHD or immediate MP4 files. As per stills we've been unable to check the quality on a large screen. What we can say is the one-touch movie button on top of the camera is well placed for straightforward activation.
All in all the SZ7 has plenty on offer. A substantial lens, that should be decent image and movie quality, plus speedy autofocus all wrapped up in a thin, well-designed - if not very similar to other Lumix ranges - body. It's due out in the shops come March time, but there has been no word on pricing and even online retailers aren't yet listing the model.

subset: commoncrawl


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The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act closed a very long chapter in Americas' history; a chapter which chronicled the burden of slavery and institutionalized discrimination, of segregated schools and public accommodations on the very soul of African-American life. A chapter in which the foundation of America -- freedom and equality -- was rocked by water hoses, police dogs and racism.
But, those who struggled with the burden of changing America's heart also knew passage would open a new chapter for America. A chapter we are still writing today; a chapter steeped in empowerment, opportunity and equality.
Every day we challenge the narrative about what it means to be black in America. That's why the idea of the American dream is so important in helping us write that narrative. Its very nature invokes different images of not only what it means to be an American, but what success is in America.
This generation of black talent -- politically, economically, socially -- are leaders among dreamers. They are risk takers among managers and owners. What they decide together, what they say in unison, what they demand of our political representatives, what their successes and failures demonstrate, by word and example, tells the watching world what it is to be black in America; how we embrace the American Dream.
Our story, our history, is more than an image on the nightly news or sounds from the latest hip-hop anthem or even the signing of another big sports contract. It is the story of generations of men and women who risked it all -- for a dream.
Like so many generations before us, we all stand in the shadow of those who fought and sacrificed, suffered and ultimately triumphed, so that we would be free to pursue that dream. They are what made our generation possible. So it becomes important that we no longer allow the dumbing-down of our history to a sound bite or to 28 days in February.
We've journeyed far -- from slavery to emancipation; from Jim Crow to the White House -- and most of us have freely chosen our path. But not all. This journey, despite its success and historic accomplishments, also belies an accomplished agenda.
I recently read a description of the state of black America. In it the author noted:
... the [black] baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is 7 years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much.
The American dream for many African-Americans begins to look a little nightmarish, especially when you consider that this assessment was given by President John F. Kennedy in the summer of 1963.
And here we sit 48 years later and there remain radical disparities in each of these indicators. For example, the rate of unemployment for blacks today (16.2 percent) is still almost twice the national average (9.2). 48 years later, studies show that 45 percent of black males ages 15-24 will more than likely end up unemployed, incarcerated or dead. In fact, there are more black males in prison or on parole than were enslaved before the Civil War began. 48 years later, the rise of incarceration and unwed pregnancies among black girls and women are having a devastating impact on the Black community as a whole.
And yet, 48 years later we also celebrate the election of an African-American president; and the emergence of a Black middle class -- truly free to pursue the American dream. So why are so many African Americans failing to prosper in this freedom? The cruel truth is that for many African-Americans the American dream -- or any dream for that matter -- remains elusive.
We are no longer enslaved by the shackles or chains that bound our hands and feet 150 years ago, but rather by the shackles of poor education, the chains of joblessness, the whip of drug addiction, the choke-hold of poverty and the vestiges of separate-but-equal -- not just in the classroom but in the boardroom as well. And more often than not, today we find ourselves enslaved not by the hands of others but by our own hands.
Our 21st century reality is simply this: it's time to stand for something different.
The debate we're having (if we're even having one) is no longer productive. It's time for solutions that come from us, from within our house, our family and ultimately our community as a whole.
During the Jim Crow days, did we wait for someone to drive us to the polls? No, we demanded unfettered access to the road. Did we ask others to take the spelling test for our children in the white schools? No, we fought to clear the path to the schoolhouse door so our children could access the classroom like everyone else.
Generations before us struggled and died to protect our right to possess freedom. Our parents and grandparents marched on Washington to demand our right to take ownership of the liberties that other Americans took for granted.
But now, ours is the generation that must cement into the foundation of this nation our unalienable right to pursue happiness. It's time to place our faith in each other and focus on the upward mobility that is anchored by the legacy wealth that is first created and then passed on to the next generation. Whether it's the purchase of a new home or starting a new business, legacy wealth creation is the one path we can all take together.
We are the post-civil rights generation of Americans who have moved from taking a seat at the lunch counter to taking ownership of the diner. This generation of black men and women represent our best chance to ensure ownership for the emerging African-American middle class, and the creation of legacy wealth.
That's the legacy we all want. That's what freedom promises. That's the American Dream.


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TRAFFIC ADVISORY: Expect Closures on Normandy Park Drive SW Wednesday
The City of Normandy Park issued the following Traffic Advisory for this Wednesday, Jan. 16, from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. on Normandy Park Drive SW:
On Wednesday, January 16th from 9 a.m. to approximately 3 p.m., there will be work crews in the 19000 block of Normandy Park Dr SW (map below). Normandy Park Public Works will be facilitating the removal of a tree from the City Right of Way. The Police Department will be in the area directing traffic. Traffic impacts are as follows;
Eastbound traffic on Normandy Park Dr SW will be diverted northbound onto 4th Ave SW. Alternate route to 1st Ave S would be SW 186th or SW Normandy Rd.
Westbound traffic on Normandy Park Dr SW, from 1st Ave S will be allowed to proceed, but please slow down and obey the Police Officer who will be directing traffic around the work crews.
Please advise your friends and neighbors who may be impacted by this. Also, encourage them to follow this Facebook page so you won't have to do that in the future.


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Kiwi Birds PRO
- App Store Info
DescriptionOnce you drop, you can't stop !
Look at these cute birds, they have no wings - even no tiny wings.They are the only birds without wings exist in the world. And their name is "Kiwi Birds".
And now I've added mysterious numbers on each bird. What's these numbers for ? By player the game you will get the answer with surprise !
This is a game beyond all the puzzle game !!
This is a game you'll be addicted!
This is a easy game but takes a long time to master!
New iPad Retina supported!!!
How to play:
1.Touch the screen and move the Bird left or right, and release you finger to drop the bird.
2.Use the "Bird7" to change any birds to Bird 7
3.Make sure the rows of Birds are not greater than 7, if there are any birds are out of the grid, game is over! And also, if the grids are all full, Game is over .
4.Try to make chains as long as you can, scores are exponential growth.


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Maxx really liked this.
More posts
- Australiano 13.5% alcohol pinot noir. Lindan's Raspberry precio: 229 pesos
- Had at Chris and Julie's.
- Lindemans from South Eastern Australia produce top quality wines at an affordable price. I've tried their Cabernet, Merlot, and Pinot Noir and all were a delight. This Shiraz is hefty with spicy tannins, and a black cherry finish. $6
- Great pinot noir nice and light
- All I can say is I was very surprised! Try it!


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Neighborhood Resources
Our online Neighborhood Resources is a collection of our favorite how-to guides, grant opportunities, workshops, city services and more. New York City is home to a wealth of resources—gather the tools to better your community here!
Know of other resources that are worth sharing?
Andre at
or 212-822-9595
Explore the Citizens Committee Resource Library
2018 Community Service Society (CSS) Housing Insecurity Report
This report uses Community Service Society's (CSS) annual Unheard Third survey of low-income households in New York City to examine the multiple types of housing insecurity experienced by renters today.
Type: General Resources
2018 ANHD Affordable Housing Risk Chart
ANHD collects a variety of indicators of key threats to affordable housing in the city that illustrate issues and patterns that are specific to each community district, as well as the city as a whole.
Type: General Resources
NYC.Community.Lawyer works to get affordable legal help into the hands of the people who need it, regardless of income. They can help individuals and groups with legal issues around organizing, incorporation, and other legal needs.
Type: General Resources
Bridge Street Development Corporation Workshops
Bridge Street offers ongoing free workshops to the community covering a range of programs including housing education, foreclosure prevention, community organizing, neighborhood beautification, financial literacy, senior services, and more.
Type: Trainings
Housing Services for Asian Americans
Asian Americans for Equality is is committed to preserving affordable housing through housing rights consultations, seminars and assistance.
Type: Trainings
Housing Services for Homeless or Formerly Homeless Individuals
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House provides support to more than 500 men and women each year who are homeless, formerly homeless, or threatened with eviction and life on the streets through the Homeless and Housing Services Department.
Type: General Resources


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Find Your Perfect Home.
South Haven Real Estate
South Haven is located in Michigan. South Haven, Michigan has a population of 4,359. South Haven is less family-centric than the surrounding county with 21.87% of the households containing married families with children. The county average for households married with children is 29.81%.
The median household income in South Haven, Michigan is $40,368. The median household income for the surrounding county is $46,536 compared to the national median of $53,482. The median age of people living in South Haven is 48.9 years.
South Haven Weather
The average high temperature in July is 79.6 degrees, with an average low temperature in January of 21.6 degrees. The average rainfall is approximately 38.4 inches per year, with inches of snow per year.
View Homes for Sale in South Haven
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Conan O'Brien likes being a rock star almost as much as doing comedy, but he recently joked that a bikini-clad fan may be carrying his illegitimate baby.
After playing guitar at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee Saturday, O'Brien told Rolling Stone what was awesome about being a rocker.
"Performing for women in bikinis — it's just mindblowing," O'Brien said, adding that he waded into a crowd of fans. "The women are in string bikinis. We're all hugging. I may have conceived a baby in that crowd. We'll find out because it got crazy in there. So nine months from now, there may be a Conan baby from Bonnaroo that I know nothing about. It was completely accidental — just because the moshpit got a little out of hand."
Another aspect he likes isplaying with pal Jack White, the guitar genius and frontman for the White Stripes and The Raconteurs.
"My job one is to be funny," he said. "That's always the most important thing. But every now and then I get to play a rockabilly tune with Brian Setzer or get to play with Jack White — it's fantasy camp. This whole tour, sometimes I feel like it's Make a Wish. Nobody's told me that I'm dying. They're letting me have this tour and then afterward they're going to tell me."


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Today is a national day of service. Sunday, there was a call for action. At the Lenoir County Courthouse, observers and speakers gathered for the annual Martin Luther King Celebration by the Kinston-Lenoir County NAACP.
Today is a national day of service. Sunday, there was a call for action.
At the Lenoir County Courthouse, observers and speakers gathered for the annual Martin Luther King Celebration by the Kinston-Lenoir County NAACP. Before the speeches, Lenoir County Commissioner Jackie Brown said that more could be done to honor King�s legacy.
�We�ve progressed some. But, the way I see it, there�s still a ways to go,� Brown said. �As far as equality is concerned, education is concerned, and things of that nature, we still have a long ways to go. Dr. King called for equal rights for everybody, not just for the African-American community.
�He fought for equal rights for everybody. As a product of the �60s, I was a student at A&T State University when the sit-ins and the demonstrations started, and then they spread like wildfire throughout the South. Just having a march signifies some of what he stood for, but it shouldn�t be just one day.�
Rodney Aytch, a Kinston High School sophomore and winner of the Nu Iota Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha�s Mr. Beautillion 2012, gave the keynote speech. Under a bright sun and wearing the crown and sash that comes with being named �Young Man of the Year,� he exhorted the attendees to make the change they need.
�Now comes the time for us as a people to wake up and take action,� Aytch said. �What good can we do if we acknowledge the dream and do nothing to make the dream reality? The time for thinking is over. We must take action. We can no longer sit around and wait for things to just miraculously happen. This is our community, and our city, as well. We must remember what�s at stake.�
Linda Lanier, vice president of the Kinston-Lenoir County NAACP, also asked the crowd to act on shared struggles.
�(King) took on the challenges that faced him at his time, and we cannot neglect to take on the challenges that face us at this time,� Lanier said. �This march is really emblematic in the fact that we just want to remember Dr. King, but he wants us to remember that we have to take on the challenges that face us.�
Following the ceremony, the crowd moved down East King Street, aided by the beats from the KHS marching band drum line, to a service on the life and legacy of King at the United American Free Will Baptist Tabernacle.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter at WolfeReports.


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Fleet Air Arm History
Fairey Swordfish
Of all the aircraft operated by the Royal Navy since 1912 when the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was formed, the Swordfish aircraft is historically the most important. Swordfish aircraft have the distinction of being one of a very small number of aircraft which were in operational front line service at the outbreak of the second world war, and still in front line service after the declaration of peace in Europe. In so doing, the Swordfish has the added distinction of being the last bi-plane to see operational front line service in any of the three Services of the British Armed Forces. The Swordfish's distinguished war record include the 1940 Norwegian Campaign, the wonderfully successful attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto on 11 November 1940, the major part played by the Swordfish aircraft in the destruction of the pride of the German Fleet the battleship Bismarck in May 1941, in addition to operations in the Mediterranean, North Africa Desert Regions and the English Channel area.
Fairey Firefly
Designed as a powerful two seat carrier-borne naval fighter reconnaissance aircraft, the prototype Firefly first flew on 22 December 1941. The Fairey AS7 was the last variant to be built other than a few pilotless drones. Provision was made for a crew of 3, with 2 radar operators behind the pilot. Fairey Fireflies Mk1 Both 1770 and 1771 Squadrons took part in operations in Norway in 1944 flying from HMS Indefatigable and HMS Implacable respectively, including attacks on the battleship Tirpitz. In 1945, 1770, 1771 and 1772 Firefly Squadrons were in the thick of operations with the British Pacific Fleet. Korean War 1950 - 1953. Several Firefly squadrons saw active service in the Korean War.
Hawker Sea Fury
The Sea Fury was the Fleet Air Arm's last piston engined fighter to serve in front line squadrons. The prototype Sea Fury first flew on 21 February 1945 and carried out deck landing trials in HMS Ocean in October of that year. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the Sea Fury was the Fleet Air Arm's leading single seat fighter, and it fought with great distinction in that war. The aircraft were mainly used in the ground attack role armed with bombs and rockets, but they also were engaged in air-to-air combat against the much faster MiG 15.
Hawker Sea Hawk
Designed by Hawker's Sir Sydney Cam, the Sea Hawk F1 first entered front line service in 806 Squadron in 1953. Five Naval Air Squadrons equipped with Sea Hawk aircraft flying from the aircraft carriers HMS Albion, HMS Bulwark, and HMS Eagle, were called to give support to the Anglo-French excursion at Suez in November 1956. In the absence of Royal Air Force close support, (the Hunter Mk5 aircraft in Cyprus possessed neither the low level range nor clearance to deliver any weaponry other than gunfire), the Royal Navy provided all the British ground attack effort, and the Sea Hawks (with Sea Venoms providing fighter escort) pressed home many attacks against Egyptian shore targets, often in the face of heavy ground fire.
Access the link below for a more comprehensive guide to historical Fleet Air Arm aircraft.


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WASHINGTON—The economy we've got today is more or less the economy we've got for the rest of the year.
That's the message from the Federal Reserve, which has sharply reduced its forecast for U.S. growth. It sees unemployment barely budging in the rest of 2012.
The Fed also says the economy is under threat from Europe's debt crisis and from the prospect of sharp spending cuts and tax increases that will kick in at year's end unless Congress acts.
None of which is comforting for companies, job seekers or President Barack Obama, whose re-election hinges in part on whether the economy improves between now and November.
Until recently, many economists were hopeful that the economy would strengthen in the second half of the year. But optimism is fading as hiring and growth have slowed for a third straight spring.
To prod businesses and consumers to borrow and spend more, the Fed said at the end of a two-day policy meeting Wednesday that it would extend a program designed to drive down long-term interest rates. It also reiterated plans to keep short-term rates at record lows until at least late 2014. And it said it's ready to do more to jolt the economy if necessary.
"If we're not seeing a sustained improvement in the labor market, that would require additional action," Bernanke said in his quarterly news conference.
Here's how a weak economy for the rest of the year could affect some categories of Americans:
— Job seekers
People looking for work aren't expected to enjoy much better opportunities in the rest of 2012. The Fed thinks the unemployment rate will fall no lower than 8 percent by year's end. It's now 8.2 percent.
American employers have become wary of hiring. They added just 69,000 jobs in May. Since averaging a healthy 252,000 a month from December through February, job growth has slowed to a lackluster 96,000 a month. And Fed officials and other economists don't think hiring will accelerate in coming months.
— Retirees and savers
The Fed's continued plan to keep short-term rates super-low through 2014 isn't happy news for people who depend on investment income. When the Fed keeps the rates it controls at record lows, rates throughout the economy generally stay low, too. That's why money market funds are paying rates barely above zero—well below inflation.
Anyone willing to lend money to the U.S. government over the next 10 years stands to receive about 1.6 percent interest. That's just about what the consumer inflation rate has been for the past 12 months. In exchange for buying long-term U.S. Treasurys, these investors will manage merely to run in place.
— President Barack Obama
Obama's re-election bid is getting no help from the economy—the core issue in the presidential campaign. The president's political team has been hoping the unemployment rate would drop by Election Day well below the roughly 8 percent level where the Fed thinks it will be at year's end. With job growth slumping, the president must make the tough case that it would improve in a second Obama term.
Still, unemployment might not be quite the threat to Obama that it appears. Unemployment rates in seven of the 10 battleground states that will likely determine the election are lower than the national average. That trend could blunt Republican candidate Mitt Romney's effort to capitalize on weak job growth to defeat Obama.
— Borrowers
The one group of Americans who are big winners in the Fed's low-interest-rate campaign are borrowers. They are, that is, if they meet tightened credit standards for consumer and business loans.
The average national rate nationally on a fixed-rate 30-year mortgage is just 3.71 percent. That's scarcely above the 3.67 percent average earlier this month—the lowest since long-term U.S. mortgages were introduced in the 1950s.
Mortgage rates have been sinking because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Anxiety about Europe's debt crisis has led many investors to buy U.S. Treasurys, which are considered ultra-safe despite their puny yields. When demand rises for Treasurys, their yields fall.
On Wednesday, the Fed said it thinks the economy will grow between 1.9 percent and 2.4 percent this year, sharply less than in its previous estimate in April. And it's roughly the annual pace at which most economists think the economy is growing now.
"All economists have shaved down their forecasts for this year," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University.
Sohn said his own forecast was in line with the Fed's. He said he was surprised the Fed didn't downgrade its unemployment outlook even more based on its forecast for economic growth.
Even so, "If the Fed's forecast unfolds, that would be bad news for incumbent politicians," Sohn said. "If I were President Obama, I would be worried."
Some political strategists expect the picture the Fed sketched of the economy to play into Romney's hands.
"If I'm Mitt Romney, I immediately use Bernanke's comments to make the case that what I've been saying is right: Barack Obama isn't working, the stimulus has failed and the only way to take us out of this is to make a change in the White House," said Joe Brettell, a Republican strategist.
He said Romney's message is simple: "I'm the guy who can fix the problem."
Most people think the biggest problem is unemployment. Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Gordon College in Massachusetts, said he thinks the unemployment rate will end the year at 8.1 percent or 8.2 percent.
Bethune thinks the Fed might decide by early fall that the economy needs some aggressive new step, such as another bond buying program. The Fed has completed two such programs. It bought more than $2 trillion in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities.
If such a program were launched and helped boost the economy, it could end up benefiting job seekers and perhaps Obama's re-election chances.
"If we are still seeing these terrible employment numbers," Bethune said, "then the Fed is going to have to consider another move. The economy can't just flop along at this level."
Bethune said the problem for incumbents like Obama is that perceptions about the economy tend to freeze about six months before an election—even if the economy improves after that.
Even so, economists note that continued declines in oil and gas prices could spur growth by giving consumers more spending power.
On Wednesday, the Fed said it will continue a program called Operation Twist through year's end. Under the program, the Fed has been selling $400 billion in short-term Treasurys since September and buying longer-term Treasurys. The Fed said it will extend Operation Twist using $267 billion in securities.
But it might not provide much benefit. Businesses and consumers who aren't borrowing now at historically low rates aren't likely to do so just because rates dipped a little more.
David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors, estimates that extending Operation Twist will lower long-term rates by only about one-tenth of a percentage point.
Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman, Christopher S. Rugaber and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.


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Thanks to a caring community with vision to establish a hospital east of Mineola, ELIH became Suffolk County's first voluntary hospital.
Throughout its long history as a rural hospital in a farming community, neighbors have cared for neighbors. Collecting food and cash for patient services was customary.
Dubbed "Annual Donation Day" local farmers went house to house on trucks to pick up donations from their neighbors. Donations included everything from fresh fruits and vegetables to household necessities and canned goods.
Your gift is a time honored tradition that keeps access to lifesaving medical care local.
Eastern Long Island Hospital | 201 Manor Place | Greenport, NY 11944


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Interview with Dana Hanna - The Crow CD-i game
>> Sunday, December 20, 2009
There were a few requests to find the interview about The Crow CD-i, which was published on The Black Moon Project but due to the server transfer has been lost somewhere. Read it below until Devin has found back the lost treasures we have on cancelled CD-i games.
It's common place for game related projects to be cancelled without explanation as has been witnessed on occassion in the past including high profile titles like DiscWorld. Another trend which continues to this day in the video game industry is the film license. Philips Media was no exception negotiating the rights from Pressman to use The Crow license in a video game for CD-i. It was obviously quite a catch for Philips and would give increasing street credibility to the system as described in CDi magazine, David McElhatten President of Philips Media Games comments "I can think of no better property than The Crow to use as a basis for a game. It's a hit at the box office and a huge success in video rental stores. It is a perfect match between the interactive entertainment and film industries." Besides this press release and an earlier article in a video trade magazine from Novemeber 1994 with the article "With 'Crow' Game, Philips Flies Beyond CD-i" little else is known about the title. Fortunately Dana Hanna producer/designer of The Crow game was prepared to answer some questions about the project, yet it will still remain a mystery as to why Philips never fully developed such a highly marketable video game.
Black Moon Project: First of all, could you please tell us a bit more about yourself, your career at philips, any projects you've been involved with before and after "The Crow"?
Dana Hanna: I started my career in games at Philips. I didn't really think of it as something you could do for a living. But I had always loved games and been the weird little girl beating all the boys in the arcade growing up. I like a lot of folks who got into the industry a while back, kind of fell into the gig. I was working my way through grad school in film production / animation at UCLA, and I needed cash badly. I took a job as a temporary secretary and got sent to Philips. They liked me, and I just sort of...stayed.
I went from temping to doing cleanup animation on a children's title, to being the first hire in QA, to getting sent to front line QA a title in the UK, to somehow producing that title and living in the UK for a year. I still think QA is a great starting point for folks who want to be game devs. But now, universities offer entire programs for game development. I feel really old :)
BMP: The first press release on "The Crow" was in December 1994, and I believe the project was cancelled in 1996, is that correct?
Dana Hanna: Not sure when the press releases were, but that sounds about right.
BMP: Was "The Crow" being produced in house at Philips or externally?
Dana Hanna: Well, now, that's complicated. Here's where I have to haul out the history book.
Philips bought the license to do a game based on the motion picture "The Crow". They paid a pretty good chunk of money (for the time) for the rights. The execs originally envisioned it as a "mocap fighter" - a genre that never really went much further than Sony's Johnny Mnemonic game. The gig went to Philips POV, the folks who made the best-selling CD-i game "Voyeur". They were an external team, but obviously had very close ties to Philips.
POV was also doing Voyeur 2 at the time, and were stretched pretty thin. They did a prototype app for the mocap fighter, which worked well and demonstrated the basic game mechanic. It was quite an accomplishment, especially considering the workload they had at the time. I believe Philips decided to go a different direction with the game, though, and elected to start from square one. They let various external production groups bid on it, since POV was swamped with other projects.
At the time, I was running a small internal production team at Philips. We'd just finished localizing every flavor of Burn:Cycle you could imagine. We decided throw our hat into the ring on The Crow, and crunched out a pitch doc.
I knew we had an advantage over other bidders, because two of us on the team were bigtime comic book readers. Rantz Hoseley, our art director, was an experienced and published comic book artist. I'd been a reader since college, and knew a lot of folks in the trade through friends and animation work. We both loved The Crow. Our pitch really showed our appreciation and understanding of the material.
The execs reviewed our pitch and liked it. They tossed it over to Pressman Films (the owners of The Crow movie license) to get their feelings. Rantz and I met with the Pressman folks (as I remember, it was a meeting during the San Diego Comicon) to see if it was a good match. It was. We were two very happy campers. We were doing a game we really cared about.
BMP: How would you describe your role in the project?
Dana Hanna: I was the producer and designer on it. Pulled the team and the design together, and handled a lot of the client relations part.
BMP: What kind of game did you envision 'The Crow' to be, and how far from that was the project when it was aborted?
Dana Hanna: We were in the age of the "cinematic action adventure". Burn:Cycle had done that really well. The genre was more or less still viable. We were using the basic system that Burn:Cycle used, with some nice enhancements. Lots of full motion video (with hopefully nicer compression than had been done before), CG environments. The gameplay was an action / puzzle mix, with a heavier emphasis on action than Burn:Cycle had.
These games dried up in the market pretty quickly in the mid-nineties. I think it was a good choice at that time for The Crow, especially considering the target audience. But the novelty of this genre wore thin. Nothing really changes - the Next Big Gimmick always comes and goes in games, but really, it's about whether the game is fun to play. Most of these cinema games honestly just weren't much fun. Great cut sequences don't make up for poor gameplay.
Of course, I think The Crow would have been a great game, too :)
BMP: How far in development did "The Crow" come, and why was it actually cancelled?
Dana Hanna: Oh my, we'd been crunching for about 6 months on it when it got killed. I believe POV had been going at least that long on it, too, and probably longer.
Saddest part is that we had *just* managed to assemble God's own dev team. We found a truly wonderful solution for getting top-notch 3D talent at a price we could afford by using the uber-talented Mr Daniele Colajacomo as a contractor. (Shameless plug: visit Dani's 3D artist resource site at www.3dsite.com). Dani put together a team of artists that could work from home, managed by him, saving us a ton of overhead. And we had also *just* decided on a director - the incomparable Mr Gustavo Garzon. Gustavo and I were students at UCLA Film at the same time. His visual style was exactly the right choice for The Crow. He's gone on to direct music videos for everyone from Ricky Martin to Shakira to Gloria Estefan to... Johnny Cash. Really.
As for why it was canceled, well, I can only speculate. We'd recently had a management change. The person who killed the project had never actually talked to me about it - or anything else. I'm not sure if he knew much, if anything, about the game. I really didn't know him. Perhaps he thought it was the wrong time to do this kind of game. Can't really say, since I never got a chance to ask him.
It was the first project for which I'd ever had full responsibility. Rantz and I both loved the material, so it wasn't really just another job for us. We were both really disappointed on a personal level when we got the news. But it definitely taught me that if you want to survive in the games industry, you have to be able to live with seeing some of your babies strangled. First and foremost, it's a business.
BMP: "The Crow" was primarily developed for CD-i with CD-ROM and MAC ports planned as well. Did the PC/MAC versions ever see the light of day, and is "The Crow: Complete Interactive Collection" in anyway connected to all this?
Dana Hanna: Nope, no PC or Mac versions of our game, at least. No versions at all as a matter of fact! As far as I know, we had no connection to the other piece you mention. I left Philips a few months after The Crow was killed, so I'm not really sure what happened to Philips' rights to the license after that.
BMP: Was conversion to PC/MAC going to happen using Philips Media's famous XP platform?
Dana Hanna: I believe so, yes. (Memory foggy... too many years of crunch...)
BMP: How do you look back at working for Philips Media, any nice memories you wish to share?
Dana Hanna: Wow. What a question. :)
I wouldn't trade anything for my years at Philips. We used to call it Philips University, and for a good reason - many, many of the folks who started there are now making great games all over the world. You worked for Philips, you learned, and often, you moved on. And most of us didn't come in thinking of game dev as a real job. I still count lots of the Philips crew as close friends.
Many of the nice memories are not repeatable in polite company. I don't know which one to pick. But here's a random one I've always enjoyed...
When I worked in QA, we had one tester (who shall remain nameless... let's just call him Bob for the purposes of the story) who was a bit... gullible. We would test the games in desks that looked a bit like library carels - long rows of desks separated by little partitions. As you probably remember, Philips remotes were wireless gadgets with a little thumbstick in the middle.
One day "Bob" was testing a product, and someone decided to rib him by standing silently behind him and moving the cursor around the screen with their remote. Bob lifted his glasses to adjust them, and his cursor went up. Hmmm. He lifted them again. And the cursor moved the same way. Heavens! Stop the presses! A new bug!
The QA lead was called over. A group gathered around the machine. Somehow, everyone managed to keep from laughing and kept the Serious Face on. Wow! That's amazing! Do it again Bob! Move the cursor with your glasses!
It would have been only marginally funny, if someone had not then convinced him that he could do the same thing by sticking out his tongue and moving it. After a few minutes of this, someone lost it and cracked up. End of joke.


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One of the very most important elements of our worship together is hearing God speak and He speaks through His word and I invite you to open His word, your Bible, and turn to Matthew Chapter 22. And this morning we're going to be looking at verses 34 through 40, Matthew 22:34-40. This is the time when we listen to the Lord's word. He confronts us with His truth and it's my prayer that truly we might respond in a way that would be pleasing to Him.
Someone has said, and I'm not sure who, that love may not make the world go around, but it sure makes the trip worthwhile. And thereby sort of gathered up general human sentiment the best of all experiences and the sweetest of all emotions is love. Whatever era, whatever age, whatever group of people you may be talking about it seems to be the rather universal thought that love is the greatest, that love is sunon bomen, that love is par excellence. The song, the poems, and the book, and the stories, and the films and whatever else that men have authored and participated in that are about love would fill volumes and volumes and volumes. And so I would say the world kind of comes together in a consensus that love is really that which is the greatest experience and at that point God would agree. However, it is quite a different kind of love that God affirms than that the world understands. And we're going to see that in our text. For our text is about love, not normal human love, but a divine kind of love, which only God can produce.
But let's remember the setting before we get into the text. And by now it ought to be very familiar to you. It's Wednesday of Passion Week as it's been called, Wednesday of the Passover, the Wednesday before the Friday when Jesus is to be crucified. And Jesus is in the temple. He has entered the city and been hailed as the Messiah, the Deliverer of the nation from Roman bondage, the one who would come to set Israel in freedom and liberty, the one who would come and make all things right. They hoped; they wishfully believed that He indeed would be that Messiah.
And so they triumphantly hailed Him on Monday. On Tuesday He went to the temple. Rather than attacking the Romans, as they thought He might, he attacked them at the very heart of their nation He attacked their false religious system, and cleansed the temple, threw out the money changers and the buyers and sellers who had desecrated God's holy house. That was Tuesday. Now it's Wednesday.
And after spending the night in Bethany at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead, He with His disciples came back into the city, went back to the temple and is spending the day teaching there and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.
Well alongside of these events in the life of our Lord has been the mounting rising animosity hatred and venom of the religious leaders. They already resented Jesus Christ deeply. They already wanted Him dead. The Scriptures says they already were plotting His murder. You see they resented Him for several reasons. Reason number one: He taught contrary to their teaching and that irritated them. Perhaps reason number two: He was more popular than they were, had a bigger following than they did and it was hard for them to take because their egos really needed to be supreme. And thirdly: He demonstrated powers and abilities that they couldn't even conceive of. So here was a man who contradicted their teaching, who gained a greater hearing than they had, and who could do things they couldn't even imagine doing, and they wanted Him dead. He was a threat to their position, He was a threat to their popularity, He was a threat to their doctrine, and when He came into the city of Jerusalem and was hailed as Messiah that just heightened their desire to have Him eliminated because now the people were flocking after Him. But it wasn't an easy thing to eliminate Him because how do you eliminate a man when you for one thing don't want to alienate yourself from the entire populace that have gone after Him. And as long as Jesus had the ear of the people they were in a very difficult position and also the Roman government has restricted their right to take lives, to execute their own criminals, and so they really were in a difficult place.
So they attempt the only thing they can attempt and that is to publicly discredit Jesus. They attempt to make Him look bad with Rome and look bad with His own people Israel. Now that attempt takes place here in Chapter 22, as they confront Him with a series of questions. And the questions are designed to discredit Him. They believe He will be forced to answer them in such a way that He'll put Himself in a difficult position with Rome and with the Jews.
The first mounting animosity came just because He taught different than they did. It was escalated because of the tremendous power that He demonstrated and the popularity that He gained. It reached a fiery flame because He cleansed their temple. I mean who was He and what right did He have to do that? And He cleaned out the place at the most lucrative time of the year, Passover, when they made the most money. And so by now they're almost at a fever level wanting to eliminate Him.
And as if the cleansing of the temple wasn't bad enough, He spent Chapter 21 and the first part of Chapter 22 giving them three parables that spoke of their own exclusion from the kingdom of God. He said to those leaders in effect, you're like sons that say you'll obey and don't; you're like tenant farmers who lease out a farm and then you kill the servants and the son of the one who leased it to you before you'll pay the debt; and you're like guests invited to a wedding who refuse to come and therefore, are shut out. In Chapter 21:45 says, "They knew He spoke about them."
So the escalation of all of these things climaxing when He cleansed the temple and then pronounced in three parables doom on these leaders has made them angry with Him to a point that is beyond anything they've experienced heretofore. They gather some sense of control and they try to confront Him in a way that will allow them ultimately to see His death.
Now remember that the first question came in verse 15. And it was the Pharisees along with the Herodians and they approached Jesus and they wanted to ask Him a question the answer to which would bring Him into trouble with the Romans. And so they asked Him whether or not they should pay their taxes to Caesar. And they had already conceived in their minds that He would probably say no because He was a man of God, He claimed, and He represented the law of God, and He represented the word of God, He said, and there's no way He's going to acquiesce to the Roman government. And they figure too that He didn't want to become unpopular with the people, who were for the most part anti-Rome, and so they thought He would say, "No, don't pay tribute to Caesar," and they would send the Herodians to report Him as a insurrectionist leader, as a rebel leader, and the Romans fearing His popularity would eliminate His life. So that was the plot. We'll get Him to say a statement that's insurrectionist, that's rebellious, and the Romans will eliminate Him before they let Him start a revolution. But His answer confounded them all and that failed.
So the Sadducees came with the second question in verse 23, and they want to know His view on resurrection. Now what they're trying to do if they can't discredit Him politically they're going to try to discredit Him as a teacher before the people of Israel, and at least that's a step in His elimination. And so they talk about the resurrection and they make up an absolutely bazaar situation and they assume that if He says there is a resurrection He's going to be stuck with this bazaar situation and the people are going to see what an utterly inept and inadequate teacher He is. And they're trying to discredit Him if not politically, their trying to discredit Him theologically, theologically. But again His answer confounds and astonishes and amazes and that test failed. And that brings us to the third.
One more time they come to test Him. In fact it says that, that was their purpose. In verse 35, asking Him a question, testing Him. And their desire is that He would fail the test. They tried to test Him politically, they tried to test Him theologically with a major doctrinal issue and now they're really probing in the spiritual dimension again, and they have one more shot that they want to give to try to discredit Him with the people. This is their last attempt. In fact Mark 12:34, paralleling this passage says, "When this was over no man dared ask Him any more questions." This is it.
Now let's see what happens as we introduce the scene in verse 34. "When the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence they were gathered together." He had silenced them already and the Herodians, and then He had silenced the Sadducees and they heard about it and they gathered together to discuss the situation. A couple of interesting things in this verse, it says He put the Sadducees to silence; the verb to put to silence is literally gagged. He gagged them. It wasn't that they wanted to be silent; they had no choice. He gagged them. It is a very used, for example, in Mark 1:25, of silencing a demon. It is used also in Mark 4:39, of silencing a storm, when the Lord did that. It is used in I Corinthians 9:9 of muzzling an ox. In other words it's an unwilling gagging. They had more to say, they just had nothing to say in a sense. They couldn't say it. There was nothing that they could speak. He silenced them. He brought their argument to an utter end where they were absolutely without another sound, without another thought, without another idea, without another retort. He made them look stupid rather than them making Him look that way.
And when the Pharisees saw this they had a meeting. Now they must have had mixed emotions. On the one hand they would have been glad to see their enemies, the Sadducees, gagged. They would have been very happy to see that terribly disturbing question that the Sadducees had do doubt had asked them for years and they had never answered right. They no doubt were glad to see that that had been answered right and in their favor and in their behalf. They were glad that Jesus had said He believed in resurrection and therefore took the side of the Pharisees. So on the on hand there must have been a certain amount of gloating over the Sadducees ineptness, but that was far outweighed by the fact that they would rather have seen Jesus discredited than the Sadducees discredited because Jesus posed a far greater threat to them than the Sadducees ever did, and seeing their foes unsuccessful in destroying a greater enemy, namely Jesus, must have left them dissatisfied.
And so it says in verse 34, "They gathered together." And in this gathering together I think we sense a real fulfillment of prophecy here. In Psalm 2, which is a messianic prophecy, in which the Psalmist looks ahead to the Messiah, it says in verse 2, "The kings of the earth set themselves," and then this, "the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed." And that seems to be drawn right into this particular verse when it says they were gathered together. It's the same idea that was predicted, that the rulers would come together and take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, the Messiah. In fact, in Acts 4, that verse out of Psalm 2 is referred to. It says, "The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ." That's Acts 4:26. So Psalm 2 looked to the cross and said they would gather together against Him, Acts 4;26 looks back to that time that they would gather against Him. We're in that time right here. This is that, which is seen in Psalm 2:2, which is alluded to in Acts 4:26. And what's interesting about that is this plotting fits into the plan of God as He foresaw it in Scripture.
Now out of that little conclave comes the final question to test him. And let's begin with what we'll call the approach of the Pharisees, the approach of the Pharisees. We have to know what they have in mind. And this has not been clearly delineated by the way, I don't think in the church's understand of this passage. It's important that we understand what they had in mind. So often we refer to this passage, we talk about the passage, we isolate it from its context, and we major on the great 37th verse and we don't understand what they were really after, but it makes it really come alive if we understand what they're approach intended to accomplish.
Verse 35: "One of them, that is a Pharisee, who was a lawyer" now the word lawyer means a law expert, really the same as a scribe. A scribe was one who copied the law, who was an authority on the law, who knew the law, who interpreted the law, who taught the law, and so forth. And normally Matthew uses the word scribe. It's unlike Matthew to use the word lawyer. In fact some commentators think it shouldn't be there because it's so uncommon to Matthew. Well that's ridiculous. He can use a word he's never used before, that isn't any problem. But I believe the reason it's here is because it's a word that may suggest that this guy was a cut above the average scribe. He was a law expert. And all scribes were to some extent lawyers, half attorney, half theologian because their understanding of law was that it was biblical law and traditional law, not just secular law, and so they were sort of theologian attorneys and advocates and teachers. And so this may have been one who stood out from the many scribes as a real expert. And he is sent to ask question on behalf of the rest of the Pharisees.
Now it's interesting that this particular man is a mission-minded man. He's an emissary, he is going on a direct task sent by the Pharisees, and they're filled with venom and they're filled with hatred, and all they want to do is see Jesus eliminated, but it seems to me that he's not quite committed to that. He's a little more objective than the rest of them, and we know that because if we compare the Mark passage where Mark describes the same scene. The lawyer starts out thinking that Jesus answered those other questions very well, so he's attracted to the wisdom of Jesus. When Jesus answers this question the lawyer responds by saying, "You have said the truth." That's exactly right. And Jesus in turn said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom." So while he is acting as an emissary for the Pharisees, on his own terms he seems to have more integrity than they do. And while they are without any objectivity at all seeking only to eliminate Jesus, he at least has enough to come with a somewhat open mind to hear an answer that he may receive.
So, he's not quite as venomous as the rest and maybe that's why he was willing to go. He could sort of kill two birds with one stone. He could play out his role as a Pharisee and he could also get a direct contact and a direct answer for himself that might help in his own thinking.
But, we don't want to forget that it says in verse 35, "He asked Him a question to test Him." So he's not totally honest. It's not a heart-sincere question. He's not pleading for his own case. He's somewhat objective, but not totally. He puts Him to the test. And the idea, as I said before, they want Him to fail the test. They want Him to be discredited. They want Him to lose His popularity.
Now it's essential that we understand what this question is all about and what the approach is all about. Let me see if I can give you the background. The number one hero in Judaism historically, do you know who it is? Moses! Without question Moses is the number one hero of Judaism. Still is! Moses, who spoke to God face to face as a man speaks to his friend. That sets him apart from everybody else. Moses, whom when God searched the world for a man to whom He could give His law, was chosen, the recipient of the Decalogue, the divine law of God. Moses, the priority writer, who penned the first five books of the Old Testament; Moses was their great hero. Rabbi Joseph Ben Jalaffta, in the second century said this: "God calls Moses faithful in all his house, and thereby ranks him higher than the ministering angels themselves." Many of the Jews believe that Moses was in a category above the angelic hosts. He was it. He was the greatest one. In fact, in Chapter 23:2 it says the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat because that was the seat of ultimate authority. That was the seat of absolute power. Moses had given the law of God. He was their greatest hero.
Now the Jews believed, and this is the important point, that the teaching of Jesus attacked Moses' teaching. They believed that. That is why in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said I want you to know this: I have not come to destroy, what, the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them and not one jot and one tittle shall in any case be removed from this law. In other words Jesus is very sensitive to the fact that He would be accused of attacking Moses, of setting Himself up as a new authority and diminishing the role of Moses, was sensitive enough to that to say, "I have not come to obviate the law of Moses, I have not come to remove one jot or one tittle," not one little marking from it. But they believed that Jesus is a diminisher of Moses. They believe that Jesus comes to postulate something beyond Moses, something above Moses, something greater than Moses, and they want Him to say that. They want Jesus to affirm that He has a word that supersedes Moses so that they can accuse Him of being a heretic and an apostate, who has apostatized, that is departed from the faith delivered through the greatest of all, the greatest authority, Moses himself. If they can just get Jesus to say that He supercedes Mosaic authority He will become a blasphemer, He will discredit Himself, He will become unpopular with the people who revere Moses as the greatest of all. So they want to put Jesus in a situation to attack Mosaic law by superceding it. And they believe that He will do that because they saw His teaching as something beyond.
That wasn't true, by the way. He reiterated to them that God's law had not been altered. They had merely changed things with their traditions, but their goal is to make Him look like an apostate. So we see the approach of the Pharisees. Discredit Him with the people by setting Him against Moses, and pushing Him to a point where he articulates some law that's above Moses and therefore the people will turn against Him. That's the approach.
From the approach of the Pharisees we come to the question of the lawyer in verse 36. And here is the question that is set to bring Jesus His own demise. "Master," and again that flattery they always seem to attach, "Master," the word means teacher, "Which is the great commandment in the law." And it would be very fair with the Greek text here to make this word great a comparative in this usage, which is the greatest commandment in the law.
Now they had a lot of discussion about this kind of stuff among themselves. I don't know if you remember your history of Jewish law, but they claim there are 613 separate laws, because there were 613 separate letters in the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments. I don't know what connection that has, but that's the way they did things. Some of the strange rabbinic letterism as it used to be called. But they had one law for every letter in the Decalogue, Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments. And they divided that into two parts. They said there are 248 affirmative laws, one for every part of the human body, I don't understand why they did that either, and there are 365 negative laws, one for every day of the week, or every day of the year rather. So they said one for every day of the year, one for every member of the human body adds up to 613, and then they divided the 613 laws into the light laws and the heavy laws. And the light laws were semi-optional and the heavy ones were binding. I mean you can't keep 613, you've got to have a break somewhere so they lightened up on some and got heavy on some others.
And in verse 4 of Chapter 23, we're reminded that they "bind heavy burdens grievous to be born on men's shoulders." So they were into the heavy and the light, and there was a lot of debate about what was light and what was heavy, what was really important, what wasn't so important, and so forth and so forth and so forth.
But their approach is this: if Jesus is who we think He is, and that is a man with a huge ego trying to establish Himself as the Messiah, if He is as false as we think He is, He's going to say something that supercedes Moses. He's going to set Himself as the authority. He's going to give some law that comes out of His mouth and thus we'll know He's apostate and He's a heretic. So what is the great law? Just give us one the greatest law, and they figure if He's got something new to say it can't be something old, right? If He's come with some new message it can't be an old law.
Now the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch so they really held Moses as the authority. They Pharisees accepted the Pentateuch and everything else but Moses was still supreme, so the issue is Moses. If Jesus will just speak some unorthodox law and so they ask, "Give us the number one commandment." What is it?
And so we go from the approach and the question to the response of the Lord. Look at this response in verse 37. There's absolutely no hesitation. Jesus said to him: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all they heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." What an answer. What an answer. You know where He got that? He quoted Moses, Deuteronomy 6:5. He quoted Moses. I mean he did exactly the opposite of what they wanted Him to do. They want Him to supercede Moses. He quoted Moses. Not only did He quote Moses, but He quoted the most familiar thing that Moses ever wrote, the Shama. Deuteronomy 6:4-5, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. And thy shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." That was the most familiar Scripture to all of those Jews.
Have you ever gone to a Jewish house and seen a Mezuzah on the door, a little box that they put by the front door. Look when you go to a Jewish house. You'll see a little box, usually has the Star of David on it. Inside there is Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Have you ever seen an orthodox Jew strapping to his forehead the phylactery, the little box strapping to his arm, the little box? Inside the box on his arm and the box on his head is Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Every orthodox Jew, every Jew at the time of Jesus who was faithful to his religion twice a day had to stop and recite this statement: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might," out of Deuteronomy 6:5. I mean He hit them right at the very core of their own religion. He is saying, "I'm no apostate. I'm no heretic. I'm not coming up with something you didn't know about." He affirms the solidarity with Moses. He speaks to them of a verse that is most familiar to all of them. By the way verse 37, the authorized has the word Jesus there, but most of the Greek texts say He said unto them. It refers to Jesus, that's just a note for your understanding.
But He quotes something with which they were all familiar. I'm not here to tell you anything different than what Moses told you, same thing, same thing. The word in Deuteronomy 6:5, thou shalt love aheb in Hebrew, the verb, refers primarily to the love of will, the love of the mind, the love of action rather than the love of feeling, the love of emotion. It is that highest kind of love. Not the love that you just feel, but the love of dedication, the love of commitment, the love that says this is right and this is noble no matter what I feel. And that's the word, agapeo. Agapeo is the love of intelligence, it's the love of purpose, it's the love of will as opposed to phileo, which is the love of emotion or affection and eros, which is the love of the physical animal senses. This is the highest kind of love, the love of purpose, the love of will, the noblest, purist, highest, self-sacrificing love of that which is right and that which is worthy.
And so he says to them what they already knew, that the number one thing is to love God with your whole being, your heart, your soul, and your mind. And they're all called to participate. And Mark, in Mark's recording of the passage indicates that the Lord also said strength, your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. Now I think the point here is He that He just collects all the parts of being. He just covers all the words and there's definitely some overlap in those words. Those words are used different ways in different times in Scripture. And He's simply calling together all that a person is with your whole being is what He's saying; you're to love God. And I don't think the intent is to sort out every individual sense of every word, but I think there is something to be learned just by looking a little more closely at the words.
The word heart basically in the Hebrew understanding is the core of a person's identity. You remember Proverbs 4:23, "Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life." Everything comes out of the heart. I see the heart in the Hebrew understanding is the intellect, which produces the thoughts, produces the words, produces the actions. It's as a man thinks in his heart that he is. And so it's the intellectual part that's most often stressed, although, as I say, the words sometimes used of other aspects of human nature.
And then the word soul, it seems to me that when it's isolated can refer best to emotion. For example in Matthew 26:38 it says, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful." And maybe the emphasis could be on the emotional part. And mind, let me talk about that for a moment because mind here replaces might in Deuteronomy 6. And I don't think the Lord is out of line, I don't think He's misquoting. I think mind is another way to say might. Might is a very broad word but it seems as though might has to do with intention and will. It has to do with moving ahead with energy and I see that with mind. I see mind in the same sense, mind having to do with purpose or with intention or with will. For example, we say he had a mind to do this or he had a mind to do that. And then as I said Mark adds the word strength, which is all of our physical capacities.
And so you can see here that in an overlapping sense there are four channels for love to be perfectly balanced. It's an intelligent love, it's a feeling love, it's a willing love, and it's a serving love. It carried itself right out to how we act in our physical strength. So our intellectual part, our emotional part, our volitional part, our physical part all comes together to love God, to love God with a total being, all that we are.
And would you notice that these things are not pushed together. It doesn't say love the Lord they God with all thy heart, soul, and mind. It doesn't say that. It's not that they're pushed together, it's that they're spread apart. It says literally that you are to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind. It's as if He wants to push them to as wide a possible level as He can. To really love God, that's the great commandment. You see God is not looking for people who go through religious ritual. God is not just looking for people who on the outside can go through the motions. God wants people with the whole being love Him. I mean when God loved us He really loved us, didn't he? When He loved us with His whole being He must have, He gave us everything He was and is and will be. He gave us Himself in death for our sin. And He who gave us His wholehearted love does not want our half-hearted love in return. And as He loved us enough to give His Son, we're to love Him enough to give ourselves as He said, "Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down His life for His friends." We're to lay down our life for Him. As He demonstrated that here in His love, not that we love God but He loved us and gave us His Son, as He showed that love can sometimes happen even where there's not initial reciprocation, so we are to love God not for what we gain but because it's right, because it's right.
And so we are to love God in comprehensive way as He has loved us in a comprehensive way, with every part of our being loving Him. See that's what God is calling for from humanity. That's what He's calling for from humanity.
Now let me say something that you might misunderstand, but listen carefully. God wants more than our believing. You understand that? He wants more than our believing. James 2:19, says the devils believe and tremble. And why then aren't they redeemed, because though they believe God they do not love God. And that is the distinguishing mark of the redeemed. They love God. And God demands that we love Him with a perfect love, with a love that is as wide as all of our capabilities and capacities. And no one is ever right with God no matter what kind of religious activity they're engaged in. No one is ever right with God no matter how much church they attend or how many good things they do, or how many sacrifices they offer, or how many rules they try to keep. No one is ever right with God until his heart and soul and mind and strength manifests love for God. That's why we've said this so many times through the years that a person does not become a Christian just because they may believe. A person becomes a Christian when they demonstrate a consuming love for God. Paul had that in Romans 7, even though he sinned, he said the things that I do that are sin I don't want to do, but I find that in me is my flesh and it does these things, but that's not what I choose to do and the essence of what he is saying is I love God and I love what's right and I love what honors God and even though I don't always do it I love it. And even though sometimes I sin, I hate it.
It wasn't so with the Jews. This is an indictment of them. Boy when He said this to them they were unmasked. What God wants out of you is your heart of love. You have never given that to God, He's saying to these leaders. And in Chapter 23, I mean He spells it out in no uncertain terms. Look at verse 13 Chapter 23, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 14, "woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 15, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 23, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 25, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." 27, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." 29, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites."
And what is a hypocrite? It's somebody who has something on the outside and nothing on the inside. They didn't love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. They were going through the religious motions for what they could gain out of it, self-satisfaction, pride, and ego, and an appearance of righteousness. You say well maybe this was new to them. No, it wasn't new to them. When He said thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, soul, mind, and strength, that wasn't new to them. That's right out of Moses and that way of describing the redeemed was the mosaic say of describing them in Exodus 20 where you have the giving of the Ten Commandments. I don't know if you remember this is what it says in verse 6, that God is a God who shows mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep my commandments.
Yes He wanted them to keep His commandments. That's the outside. The inside was, what, love Me and keep My commandments. And again that is repeated in Deuteronomy in the 7th chapter, that same basic injunction when God gives His commands again in verse 9, He says, "Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy with them who love Him and keep His commandments."
It isn't anything new. It was repeated again in Nehemiah's time, Chapter 1:5, "The Lord God of heaven, the great and awe inspiring God who keeps covenant and mercy for them who love Him and observe His commandments." There was never a time in the Old Testament or a place where God taught externalism. Never a time when He said I just want you to crank these rules out and I'll accept you. It was always at first you love Me and as a result of that love there is a desire and a commitment to obedience.
So when Jesus says gathered in the Upper Room with His disciples, "If you love Me, keep My," what, "commandments." That isn't anything new. That's what God's been saying all along, nothing new about it. If you love me you'll keep My commandments. You see we are people who love God if we're redeemed. I John 4:19 says, "We love Him because He, what, first loved us." Turn it around, He first loved us; therefore, we, what, we love Him. We are those who love God. In fact we are defined that way in one of the most beautiful definitions Christians could ever have in Ephesians 6:24. The last verse in Ephesians says, "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." Grace to those who love the Lord honestly, who really love Him, and the opposite of that I Corinthians 16:22, it says there, "Cursed are those who love not the Lord Jesus Christ."
You see God calls people to love Him. Ask yourself the question is He worthy of that? Is He? Of course He is. How could you resist loving one who is perfect? How could you resist loving one who is gracious and who loved you with a supreme love. I mean not loving God is an absolute affront and yet that's characteristic of the world. They don't love God. Exodus 20:5, describes men as those who hate Me. Deuteronomy 5:9, describes men as those who hate Me. Deuteronomy 32:41, describes them as them who hate Me. You see it's basic to man to resent God and hate God and not want God because God comes down with these demands on our life. God says we're to love Him and if you don't love Him you hate Him. Jesus put it this way: "He that is not with Me is, what, against Me."
And so what God desires from men is that we love Him, that we love Him, that we love Him. And what kind of love is this? Well if we just look at Scripture it is a love that meditates on God's glory. We see that in Psalm 18. It is a love that trusts in God's great power. We see that in Psalm 31:23. It is a love that seeks fellowship with God. Psalm 63:1-8 talks about that. It is a love that secures the peace of the soul Psalm 119:165. It is a love that is sensitive to how God feels Psalm 69:9. It is a love that loves what God loves Psalm 119:72, 97, 103, several places. It is a love that loves whom God loves I John 5:1. It is a love that hates what God hates Psalm 97:10. It is a love that grieves over sin Matthew 26:75. It is a love that rejects the world I John 2:15. It is a love that longs to be with Christ II Timothy 4:8. But more than all of that this love is a love that obeys, that obeys, that obeys.
That's the desire, that's the desire and even though the obedience is imperfect the love is there. I love God. I don't love Him like I ought to love Him, and that's why Paul in Philippians 1:9 says, "I pray that your love may more and more abound in all knowledge." In other words I love God but I could love Him more perfectly and so there ought to be in life a reality of love toward God that my whole being loves Him, and yet there's a continuing development of that reality.
So we can say it this way: Yes if you're a Christian you'll love God. Yes you'll love God with everything you are. Yes you could love God even more. You could love Him even more. And though it is a love that meditates on His glory and a love that trusts in His power, and a love that seeks His fellowship, and a love that secures peace with Him, and a love that is sensitive to His feelings, and loves what He loves, and loves whom He loves, and hates what He hates, and grieves over sin, and rejects the world, and loves the Savior, most of all it is a love that obeys God's word.
And so we are those that love Him and keep His commandments, that love Him and keep His commandments, and that's the mark of a believer. A true believer is a lover of God and that is made manifest because He keeps His commandments. You show me someone who doesn't have any interest in keeping His commandments I'll show you someone who doesn't love Him and I'll show you someone who doesn't know him, who doesn't know Him.
You say, but can men just chose to love God that way? Can I just decide one day I'm going to stop hating Him and start loving and that's something that I can generate on my own? No. No, that's not the case at all. In fact, that command itself indicts the whole world. For all of us have lived without loving God, all of us have lived hating God, and first of all we need to be forgiven for that, don't we? And we need a Savior who can pay the penalty for the sin of not loving God. And Jesus came into the world to die in our place and to pay the penalty for our sin the core of which was we hated God. In other words the reason we didn't obey Him and the reason we gave Him no thought, and the reason we were indifferent to Him was because we never loved Him. And we need to be forgiven for that. We must be forgiven for that and God wants to forgive us for that and that's why Christ died on the cross. He bore on the cross the sin that we should have born. And what sin was it? Dominantly it was the sin of hating God, of rejecting God. If love is demonstrated in obedience, then it's opposite is demonstrated in what, disobedience. And our disobedience demonstrated that we hated God and we needed to have that paid for and so Christ comes as a Savior to pay the price for our lack of love for God.
But there's a second thought. He not only forgives us for a past lack of love, but He infuses us with an ability in the present and future to love God. And that's what it means in Romans 5, it says, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit." The Spirit of God when given to us in salvation enables us to love God, enables us to love God. This is basic. We can't love the way we're supposed to love, and because we have not loved that way we need forgiveness, and because we can't love that way we need enablement so Jesus comes, pays the penalty, forgives the unloving sins of the past, and enables us to love God in the future.
And yes a believer loves God with everything, and yes he could love God, and yes he sins, but that's not what he wants to do. He hates the things that he sees as sin because he's controlled by his love for God. That's basic and that has never changed, beloved. That's always been God's standard. God wanted people to love Him and keep His commandments. And the people of old should have awakened to the fact that they didn't love God that way and they should have seen it by their inability to keep His commandments, and by their self-centered attitudes, and their resistance to His absolute glory.
You see until you know you don't love God the way you should you're not going to ask for forgiveness for that. And until you know you don't love God the way you should you're not going to ask for enablement to do that. But when you realize that you don't love God with everything you are, and the supreme goal of your life is not to demonstrate love to Him, until you realize that you don't know you need a Savior. When you do you'll know, and it's then that Christ comes into your life, the past is forgiven, the future enablement is granted. He doesn't stop there.
Just briefly verse 39, the second is the same. The second commandment follows the same track. It's of the same nature and of the same character. "Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself." That ties right in with it. That ties right in with it. This flows from love for God, when you love God right you love people right. That's the idea and the Pharisees didn't do that. They bound heavy burdens on people. They used people. They abused people. They were cruel to people. Witness their treatment of the prophets, and their treatment of Christ, and we'll get into that in Chapter 23 where it talks about the terrible things that they did. They were not lovers of men. They were haters of men, users of men, abusers of men. They traded on them, they stole their money, they overcharged them, they made merchandise of them, and you can go back in the history of God's people Israel and see how they abused the poor, how they were not just, they took bribes, all kinds of things. See people are not basically lovers of other's as they ought to be. They are self-lovers.
So you're to love your neighbor as yourself. What does that mean? It means that love is again the love of purpose, the love of intention, the love of will, the love of action. In other words I take care of somebody else the same way I take care of me. Let's face it, we're very concerned with our own comfort, we're very concerned with meeting our own needs, we're very concerned with our own goals being met. Are we as concerned about somebody else's? I mean when I'm hungry I take care of me. When I see somebody else hungry do I take care of them with the same alactery, with the same speed, the same concern? When I have a need I want that need met. Do I have the same feeling toward someone else who had a need? When I'm uncomfortable I want to find comfort. Do I have the same feeling for someone else whose in discomfort?
The point is we are to care about others the same way we care about ourselves. We're to turn it around so that we get lost in other's needs. That's basic. Love God and love men. Love God and love men.
Christianity isn't that complicated. Neither is Judaism. It just says love God, love men. If you love God you'll do what He says. If you love men you'll do what they need, that's all. That's life for us. That's the whole thing, because verse 40 sums it up. "On these two commandments," like two nails, two pegs, "hang all the law and the prophets." Everything else God said in the Old Testament hangs on those two things. If you just love God with all your being and love everybody as you love yourself, you don't need any more rules. That's right. You don't need any more rules. Everything else is just a definition of that. Everything else is just an explanation of that.
I mean the fact that there are laws in the Scripture against murder indicates that people don't love each other, right? The fact that there are laws in the Bible against idolatry means we don't love God the way we ought to love God. If I love God perfectly I'll have no other idols, right? If I love God perfectly I won't take His name in vain, right? If I love men as I ought to love men I won't kill them, steal from them, covet what they have, be unkind to them, gossip about them, slander them, or hurt them in any way. You see the point? Everything is summed up in that.
Paul made this very clear, didn't he in the 13th Chapter of Romans? He says, "He that loveth another has fulfilled the law. Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet and if there's any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love works no ill to its neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." In other words do we need any laws if we love everybody? Of course not! If I'm lost is meeting your need and making sure everything is right with you and all of the things you need are met, then I don't need any laws to protect you from me. And if I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, then I don't need any rules about that either. Everything reduces to these two issues.
I don't even need a law that says don't make idols if I love God supremely. I don't need a law that says don't take His name in vain if I love Him supremely. Those are just pinpoint descriptions of what these two things contain. But this is the whole thing right here. What is God calling for? Love Me, keep My commandments. Love your neighbor as yourself. That is love others in a way that causes you to meet their needs, as readily, as eagerly, as anxiously, as completely as you meet your own needs. I'm telling you folks these are very very clear words. This is what God wants these kind of people. And you have to come to the point in your life where you say I don't love God as perfectly as I should, and I don't love my neighbor as perfectly as I should and because you haven't done that you've violated God and you need two things: one, you need a Savior to forgive the past, and you need an enabler to help you in the future, right? And if you are a Christian you will love God and you will love your neighbor, but you will be recognizing right away that even though that's what you desire to do, and that's what you long to do, and that what you want to do there's a certain debilitating that comes upon you because of your flesh, right? And you'll want to grow and grow, that your love may abound more and more.
So the message comes to non-Christians that says you have not loved God. You need forgiveness for that and enablement to do that or you'll be accursed from His presence forever. And the message comes to Christians who are believers and it says, look, you do love God. Look in your heart. Don't you sense that? It's there and you love others as well in the name of Jesus Christ, but not as perfectly do you do either as you should do. And so you need victory over the flesh.
A young man who asked Him the question, the lawyer, the law expert, I assume he may have been young, he may not have been, but the lawyer who asked Him the question said, "You're right," and he repeated what Jesus said. And Jesus said to him, "You're not far from the kingdom." You see if you believe this you're not far, but believing is one step short of what, of loving Him. If you believe this is all what God wants, that's good, but God wants you to take the step of loving Him, of opening your heart and saying, "I want you to come in the name of Jesus Christ. I want you to forgive my unloving and I want you to enable me to love as I ought to love You and me." The answer was so right and so straight and so unmasking of these hypocrites that in Mark 12:34 as Mark closes his description of this account he says, "No one dared ask Him any more questions." No more questions.
Ripley's Believe it or Not says that the longest love letter ever written was written in 1875 and it was written from a Parisian painter by the name of Marcel de Leclure, addressed to Magdalena de Villeray and he was so in love with her that he wanted to write, I guess it's gevouame in French a thousand times for every year, so it was 1875, so he wrote gevouame one million eight hundred and seventy five thousand times. And not being a fool he hired a secretary to do it. But, he did not want to diminish his expression of his love, so he did not tell her to write it one million eight hundred and seventy five thousand times, but he rather dictated each one to her separately. So he said it one million eight hundred and seventy thousand times and she wrote it one million eight hundred and seventy five thousand times. And Ripley says, "Never was love made manifest by as great an expenditure of time and effort." It's a nice thought, but that's not true. Never was love manifested by such a great expenditure of time and effort. Listen, in the first place God loved us in a way that couldn't be measured when He gave Christ, right? And secondly when we love God back with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength we love God more than that guy loved that lady and we express it not by writing something over a million times, but by a life of obedience.
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Republicans stopped an effort to force a vote on H.R. 3370, which would delay pending flood insurance premium hikes under the National Flood Insurance Program.
Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday lead a third attempt to force a vote on a bill, employing a procedural motion called the "previous question" to bring up the flood bill.
Last week, House Republicans twice blocked a similar effort on the House floor. The bill Democrats wanted would impose a four-year delay on federal flood insurance premium hikes.
A version of this legislation on Thursday passed the U.S. Senate 67-32. Supporters want to stall provisions of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012.
Biggert Waters, which was passed to ensure the National Flood Insurance Program moves closer to solvency and sound underwriting, tried to incorporate a more risk-based approach when setting premiums for insurance offered through NFIP.
A few months after it was passed, homeowners battling higher premiums were already pressuring lawmakers to carve back new premium hikes, creating just one more battle over flood insurance.
The NFIP is already $24 billion in debt as it operates now.
Critics say that continuing to subsidize flood insurance through the NFIP is not the answer, especially in the face of growing flood risks from sea level rise, and that ffordability concerns are valid but there are better ways to help homeowners, particularly low-income and fixed-income property owners.
From the standpoint of reform hawks, reforms to the NFIP are needed to ensure policyholders pay actuarially sound premiums, allowing for a gradual transition away from situations where the Treasury is having to bail out the program.
But many of the changes, which took effect in recent months, led to substantial backlash, prompting politicians in both parties to push for delays as homeowners reacted to sudden flood insurance rate hikes.


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By SFGate.com
Funny man Steve Martin has become a first-time father at the age of 67, according to a new report.
"The Father of the Bride" star and his wife, Anne Stringfield, welcomed the baby in December, but they managed to keep their happy news under wraps until now.
A source tells the New York Post gossip column Page Six, "They've had a baby, and how they kept it a secret nobody knows. Steve's very private. They are thrilled. They worked hard to have the baby."
Martin married his second wife Stringfield in 2007 at a surprise ceremony where celebrity guests including Tom Hanks and Diane Keaton arrived expecting a party.


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|Birth Date:
|Manhasset, N.Y.
|High School:
2011: Appeared in 36 games with 34 starts … Batted .312 (35 hits, 112 ABs) with a .446 slugging percentage and .410 on-base percentage … Second on the team in slugging and on-base percentage, third in batting average and doubles (10) … Hit one home run, one triple, 10 doubles, and 19 RBIs … One of three Yale players to earn 2011 Capital One Academic All-District Honors, selected to the First Team. … Elected Team Captain for 2012. … Had 11 multi-hit games, including a 3-for-4 outing with two runs scored in a 15-14 win over Hartford on March 27. … Belted a three-run home run in a 5-1 win over Dartmouth on April 17. … Went 2-for-3 with a double, three runs scored and two walks in an 18-8 win over Brown on April 30.
2010: Saw action in 43 games, making 41 starts... Hit .293 with five home runs, 29 RBI, and 30 runs scored... Went 3-for-4 with three home runs, three RBI, and three runs scored in a March 28 win against NYIT.
2009: Made 22 appearances, including 20 starts...Started 18 games behind the plate, batting .211 with one home run and 12 RBI...Was hit by a pitch 10 times to lead the team...Went 2-for-5 with two doubles, an RBI and two runs scored on March 9 at Maryland-Baltimore County...Hit a two-run home run, the first of his career, in the March 17 win at Towson...Was a perfect 3-for-3 with two doubles and an RBI at Cornell on March 31...Went 3-for-4, scoring two runs, in game two of an April 19 doubleheader against Dartmouth...Drove in two runs with a double on April 26 at Brown.