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We Chat With Anthony Ricco of Spice Market
"When you have to cook 200 to 300 fried rice plates a night, there's nothing you can do for those hours but cook. Personal issues, home problems— nothing else matters. I'm free."
More than any chef I've ever met, Executive Sous Chef Anthony Ricco of Spice Market lives to feed people. After my recorder was clicked off and we'd already snacked away on the three dishes show here (he guilted me into eating while interviewing like any good Italian knows how to do), he brought out five more plates and then ribbed us for not being able to finish off every one. By the time we were gathering our things to leave, he'd invited us to the family meal on Thanksgiving, where he sets up a veritable highway of dishes for his staff.
Mid-interview a tall, very thin chef walked by, and Ricco calls out, "What did I make you for your birthday today?" An iPhone is whipped out and Chef Beani is glowing over snapshots: "It was ridiculous. This is a lobster claw that's been stuffed with braised pork belly, wrapped in the pork belly skin, tempura battered and deep-fried. Then this feast of gluttony is the body of the lobster with another slab of pork belly, a sweet chili sauce on one side of the bun and then iceberg, pickle, relish, mayonnaise and black truffle paste on the other side."
As he walks away, Ricco sums up his place in the kitchen perfectly: "To see the expression on this guy's face—this guy who's equally as good of a cook as I am and eats delicious things all the time—if I can make him happy, if I can make his day... that's why I love cooking."
What excites you most about what you do right now? I get to play with food all day. My day is making sure that a thousand people a day get fed very well. We're blessed to work in an open kitchen so I can see people eat the food and see real expressions from their meal. It's not bad.
A thousand people is a lot. Does it ever overwhelm you? Yeah, halfway through the week I'm pretty much fried.
So why do it? Before cooking, nothing was long-term for me—cooking kinda put me on the straight and narrow. When you're young and you're doing whatever you want to do—hanging out on the streets every day in or out—you either become a professional or veer off into the dark side of things.
The dark side of Brooklyn? Yeah, the dark side of Brooklyn.
Was cooking always your thing? Yeah, I'd cut school and stay home and cook. I realized that cooking impressed people. I'd have sleepovers with my cousins and be in the kitchen smoking a cigarette and flipping omelets at eight years old.
At eight years old?! At eight years old. That was the way I grew up. It was in my blood. We're all big people and we love to eat. If you notice, people are most happy when they get together with a big meal in front of them.
Who was the main cook in your huge family? My grandmother. Unfortunately I was about 13 when she passed away. I wish I had her skills to make everything look easy—to cook minimal ingredients into something tremendous and delicious. That's something the old timers have that I think us young kids have a hard time with.
How did Asian food become the thing? I used to watch Yan Can Cook; this dude would smash ginger buds with a cleaver and ten seconds later have perfect julienne. That guy had an amazing skill set and I thought, "I want to be fast like that. I want to be able to produce things like that."
When did you start experiencing it for yourself? My father switched my whole thinking when he made turkey wonton soup instead of the traditional roasted turkey for Thanksgiving. My whole family thought he was crazy, but I was intrigued by what he was doing, and it was like nothing I ever had before. There was something comforting about it.
Fast forward: You went from a French place in Long Island City to Jean-Georges. What was that transition like? I was crazy nervous because I was coming from a place that was the opposite of where I was going. So I'm peeling baby carrots, a case of them, real fast. Things are flying and shreds of carrot are falling on the floor it was like, "stop, pick it up. Stop, pick it up. Stop, pick it up." And the fifteenth time it happened I said, "that's it, I'm done. I'm not picking it up anymore." And that's the first time I met Jean-Georges and why I like him so much to this day: he was walking by and a carrot peel fell on the floor by my feet. He stopped, picked it up, and kept walking. Didn't say anything. And I thought, "If I can condition myself to be like this guy then my life could be better." The level of commitment he has to himself and his restaurant to stop at my feet and pick up a peel of baby carrot that I was doing... I had one moment of "f' it, I'm not picking this thing up." And this guy stopped at my feet to pick up a carrot shard. It really impressed me and made me who I am today, actually. That one moment changed my life.
How have you made the kitchen at Spice Market yours? I couldn't do the little touches until I traveled and saw first hand. Take the pork belly: this is a dish I had in Hong Kong, but it was pork knuckle. We busted into the kitchen at the Peninsula at 4 a.m. We had to know what was in the dish and the chef was cool about it—he didn't have much of a choice with two big, crazy white dudes at four in the morning. But he showed us this pork knuckle marinating in lemongrass and then air-drying real slow. When I got back I took what I gathered from the guy and put my own spin on it—pork belly and added aromatics to the broth. Now we sell 50 to 60 of them a night.
Now when you're having a rough day and need to escape from the world, where do you go? I'll bury myself in the wok. When you have to cook 200 to 300 fried rice plates a night, there's nothing you can do for those hours but cook. Personal issues, home problems—nothing else matters. All the other chef shit you have to deal with on a daily basis just shuts up. I'm free.


text:
Zangief loves his vodka almost as much as he enjoys punishing those who can't handle it. Witness him take his frustrations out on the internet's most amusing drunks.
It's a bit of a stereotype, sure, but what else could be keeping the man warm while he's doing battle in the freezing cold wearing nothing but booties and booty shorts? It's vodka, with a side order of cruelty.
Whatever. He's a bad guy. Unlike Chun-Li, he doesn't have to explain his motivations to you.

subset: commoncrawl


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The NCAA has just announced its baseball championship bracket, to approximately one billionth of the fanfare that its annual orgy of uneducated guesswork, the basketball championships, engenders. But take a moment to appreciate the symmetry, and the humble nature of the appropriately named Regionals, that constitute this bracket. No play-in games here - nay, just 16 blocks of four who will round-robin their way down to eight blocks of four. The winner of each of those Super Regionals will meet in the College World Series, where they will, with any luck, hail from all corners of the map (or its lower half, anyway). For example, one of these eight teams will come out of the Super Regional:
1. Florida
2. Georgia Tech
3. Charleston
4. Bethune-Cookman
1. NC State
2. Vanderbilt
3. UNC Wilmington
4. Sacred Heart
Barring a deep run by Sacred Heart, it's safe to say that some Confederate debutante depot will represent this Super Regional in Omaha in less than three weeks. Nice to have that box checked. A scoch west there's another gaggle of sibling schools competing for a CWS bid:
1. Rice
2. Arkansas
3. Sam Houston St.
4. Prairie View
1. Baylor
2. Dallas Baptist
3. Texas-Arlington
4. Oral Roberts
I count here one school from Arkansas, one from Oklahoma and six from Texas. This Super Regional isn't just the Bible Belt - it's the entire Dillard's menswear section. Yet it is a just and right seeding that pits perhaps the three most religious schools in the tournament against each other in a single Regional, so at last we can determine whether the Baptists or the Pentecostals are better at calling in miracle late-inning sac flies. Frankly any method of eliminating five or six Texas schools at a swoop bespeaks divine inspiration.
The rest of the Super Regionals follow this pattern. One is setting up a Pennsyltucky representative. Another is pure Virginny Cackalacky. Another is Cheerleader U Plus Dayton and Creighton. One's all Cali v. Redneck Riviera. Braketologically speaking, we could wind up with SEC schools in seven of eight CWS slots. Here's hoping that we instead see the aluminum-bat Hunger Games the NCAA is so clearly orchestrating.


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Only three days until NGS starts. I'm already in Kentucky, just 100+ miles south. I've been traveling and haven't had daily access to the internet (BooHoo), and I don't have a printer with me, so I am not organized in the same way as before other conferences. We'll see how it goes. BUT, I'm looking forward to seeing friends, making new ones, getting ideas to help get through those "brick walls" AND, naturally, improve my documentation, etc. etc.
See you in 3 days.


text:
Reynolds homers twice, Brewers top Reds 5-1
Milwaukee finishes off series sweep
Mark Reynolds homered twice to help the Milwaukee Brewers swept the three-game series from the Cincinnati Reds with a 5-1 win on Wednesday.
Kyle Lohse pitched 6 2-3 strong innings to hand the Reds their sixth straight loss since the All-Star break.
Lohse (11-4) walked two, struck out three and allowed four hits, the last to pinch-hitter Donald Lutz who doubled. Reliever Zach Duke retired Billy Hamilton on a chopper back to the mound to end the seventh.
Reynolds connected on a 1-1 pitch from Reds starter Mike Leake (7-9) for his 15th home run of the season. Rickie Weeks was on with a double to start the sixth.
Reynolds' second home run came off reliever Jumbo Diaz in the eighth.
The Reds trailed the NL Central-leading Brewers by 1 1/2 games before the All-Star break, but the loss dropped them 5 1-2 games behind.
Lohse and Leake were locked in a scoreless until the fifth inning. The Reds pushed across a run on Hamilton' sacrifice fly, but the Brewers tied it with a run scoring triple from Carlos Gomez and then took the lead when Gomez scored on Ryan Braun's infield single.
Second baseman Skip Schumaker ranged far to his left and snared Braun's grounder deep in the hole at second. Braun beat the throw in a close play as Gomez raced home.
Right fielder Jay Bruce made a diving lunge for Gomez' sinking liner and missed. Lohse, on with a single, barely beat the relay throw home.
Leake allowed 11 hits in six innings as the Reds lost a season-high nine road games.
Brewers reliever Jeremy Jeffress, whose contract was selected from Triple-A Nashville, made his debut for Milwaukee with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
NOTES: Brewers 3B Aramis Ramirez played his 2,000th major league game in the city where it all started. On May 26, 1998, he debuted with the Pittsburgh Pirates at Milwaukee County Stadium. . Reds SS Zack Cozart missed the game. He left Tuesday's game after he was hit by a pitch on the first two fingers on his right hand. Manager Bryan Price said he could pinch hit. . Brewers 2B Scooter Gennett left Thursday's game in the fifth inning due to tightness in his right quad. He is day-to-day. . Alfredo Simon (12-4) starts Friday when the Reds take on the Washington Nationals in Cincinnati. Thursday, the Brewers Matt Garza (6-7) faces the New York Mets Dillon Gee (4-2). Garza looks to bounce back from his shortest start of the season when he exited with one out in the first inning of an 8-3 road loss to the Nationals.


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At a time when we have more personal finance advice than ever before, why are so many Americans in bad financial shape, and why do we say money is our number one worry in surveys?
Helaine Olen, who has written about personal finance for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other publications, wanted answers. So she investigated the world of financial advisors, TV personalities, academics, brokers, and regulators.
What she found was faddish advice, rampant conflicts of interest, and a Horatio Alger narrative that holds individuals completely responsible for their own failings and lets crooks conveniently off the hook.
It's all recounted in Olen's entertaining book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry.
She spoke to MintLife's Matthew Amster-Burton about bad investments, free steak, and the limits of preaching personal responsibility.
MintLife: You used to write the Money Makeover series for the Los Angeles Times. I love reading the financial makeover in my local newspaper, but I've always wondered what would happen if you went back and visited these people 10 years later.
What did you find when you did that?
Olen: I found generally that people who were in decent shape remained in decent shape. The people who weren't mostly were not.
That being said, there were a couple of caveats. One, is what happened to California real estate. Some of my subjects had bought property, you know, in very high end areas. Keep in mind that this is a Los Angeles based feature.
So, my subjects who had bought property in places like West LA before the run-up, and held on and didn't take second mortgages and the like, ultimately did okay.
Some of my people really did suffer serious setbacks. One in particular I'm thinking of was on track to retire a multi-millionaire. Part of this was because he was a pilot for one of the airlines.
MintLife: Right.
Olen: We all know what happened to the airlines after 9/11, and his was one that had gone into bankruptcy. So his salary was cut by 40% and his pension was cut by more than half, and he started investing in real estate to make up the losses.
His original house, i.e., the one in the nice area of Los Angeles that he owned, has continued to do well for him. The stuff he invested in, not so well.
MintLife: Nearly everything written about personal finance—I'm certainly guilty of this myself—is about how if you make the right decisions, you're going to turn out okay.
It's as if the last five years didn't happen, because you still hear exactly the same things over and over.
Olen: I would say almost the last 30 years. It's not a problem that started in 2007.
MintLife: True.
Olen: This is a problem that really begins in the 1970s and early 1980s when two very powerful currents meet each other. One is the start of income stagnation and income inequality, which of course leads to wealth inequality.
And the second is the do-it-yourself system, what academics like to call responsibilization or financialization.
We went from a world where a lot of people had pensions to where almost no one had pensions. And you were supposed to be in charge of this at a time where increasing numbers of factors were going against you.
We just started doing this cheerleading, right? It makes sense for a number of years because of the Great Bull Market of the 20th century, from 1982 to roughly 2000.
So we all think we're geniuses, right?
We're putting money into the stock market and it's going up. And we start to believe this contradiction that our stock gains are both inevitable and they're a result of our own genius.
MintLife: I run into this all the time. I talk to people who say, "I bought Amazon at just the right time. I can do this, why can't everyone?"
In most cases it's because they're not talking about their losses.
Olen: Right. That's what I would say. Tell me about eToys in 1999.
MintLife: A lot of the book talks about the need for, I guess I would call it, common sense regulation.
And every time I write about something like the dangers of equity indexed annuities, or leveraged ETF's, or even student loan reform, I often hear, "Look, in the right hands these are useful tools, just like a sharp knife is a useful tool. If we regulate them, we're going to damage innovation, damage the economy."
Olen: The first thing you have to understand is we're dealing with thirty years of a powerful ideology that regulation is bad in a free market. Lack of regulation in this area is a disgrace.
Are these useful tools for some people? Absolutely.
Can people get into real trouble with them? Absolutely.
This stuff is sold to people as a way of protecting themselves, when in fact it does no such thing.
It's like giving somebody a sharp knife to butter bread. It's not going to work out well for an awful lot of people. Equity indexed annuities are, for most people, not a great idea.
If they were such a great idea, then why are the commissions so high on selling them?
MintLife: So let's talk about these steakhouse dinners, because I've been to one myself. Tell me what you found when you went to one of these free dinners for seniors.
Olen: These things have a very definite formula. First, they appeal on a hot-button issue, retirement, social security, or estate planning if you're in a wealthy area.
Second, they scare the living daylights out of people. So, "Seniors, afraid of outliving your retirement?" "Seniors, Social Security: will it be there for you?" "Seniors, don't let the government get their mitts on your children's inheritance."
Third, is presenting your problem as the solution. And I have never been to one of these where the product was not presented as the solution.
MintLife: Right. So when I read that part, I patted myself on the back and said, you know, I've written about this, I've warned people about these kind of dangerous investments and said, look, just invest steadily every month in stock and bond index funds, and you'll probably be fine.
But in the book you explain why that's problematic advice too. Why?
Olen: Well, it's the best advice out there, by the way, so let me stress that.
MintLife: Thank you.
Olen: The problem is, it's still not a guarantee. And by the way, that's where these people move in on this stuff. Because hey, they know it's not a guarantee, and they hold out the siren's song of, "You can get better returns with me."
You know, "Index funds go down with the market. But I can protect you." But the fact is, you know, we don't know how this works, really, over hugely long-term periods.
You know, 80 years, it sounds like a lot, right? But it really isn't, on one level. There's a lot of survivor bias in there.
If you could go to Europe in 1913, you could look at the previous 99 years and say, "You know, we've not had a continent-wide war in 99 years. That's a record for Europe. What are the odds, right?"
That being said, it's still probably the best advice anybody can give you, because what we do know for sure is that roughly one percent of us have the ability to beat the markets year in and year out.
The chances are the advisor who can do that is not coming to you, because unless your last name is Gates or Buffett, why on earth would they, right?
MintLife: So let's put me on the couch one last time. Something that really hit home for me in the book is you said something like, "Personal finance writers believe that if people would just listen carefully to our advice, everything would be fine."
Olen: Right.
MintLife: I'm certainly guilty of feeling that way. I was just reading this new survey on Americans and their assets, and in my state, one-third of people have almost no savings.
And my gut feeling was to say, "Hey, I need to write more columns. I need to tell people about Roth IRA day and America Saves Week, and these other things that I get press releases for, and if people would just listen to my advice, they would figure it out."
What's wrong with this impulse, and what could I be doing better?
Olen: I have a completely different take. I see a survey that says forty-plus percent of people are living paycheck to paycheck to paycheck, right? I don't say, "God, what a load of f-ups." I think, "God, we really can't get by, can we?"
You've got to turn it on its head here. The national savings rate was 10% in 1980. We didn't suddenly go on a bender. You have to ask what happened to us.
And what happened to us was that our salaries stagnated and fell while the cost of the things we couldn't do without went up at rates well beyond that of inflation for decades as the social safety was being pulled out from underneath us.
Second, you have to understand that, that being said, yes, none of us are perfect. No one is going to live a financially perfect life, including you and me.
MintLife: Certainly.
Olen: Humans are by nature not perfect. People are not sitting around reading financial advice, usually, until it's way too late. We keep thinking, "Oh, I'll write Money Makeover and people will read it, and they're going to listen to it, right?"
Well, in fact, basically, they like reading about other people's financial lives and feeling, okay, this is a comforting thing, this is going to work out.
MintLife: Right, or saying, "I've got problems but they're not as bad as this person's problems."
Olen: Yeah, the train wreck phenomenon. That's not to say you shouldn't write it. Hey, I'm sure it reaches some people. But to expect that we're going to come up with this magic formula and make it all work defies everything we've ever known about human nature. It's just not possible.
That's not to say people shouldn't save their money. Of course people should save their money. Of course people should live within their means.
But most people are really trying to do their best. And I find this assumption by the personal finance establishment that most people are deliberately not trying to do their best to be kind of offensive.
MintLife: What impact do you think the CFPB will have on the problems you identified in the book, if any?
Olen: It's definitely having some impact, but it can't have enough, because we need the help of the SEC and other regulatory authorities. The CFPB is not going after retirement accounts and that sort of thing at all. That's the Department of Labor.
Are they having an impact? Absolutely.
They're trying to clean up the mortgage debacle, and clarifying what people are getting themselves into and not allowing stuff to be marketed is huge. If you don't think it's huge, ask yourself why the financial services industry is fighting back so hard.
But the CFPB can't do it alone. They can make changes in credit cards, and they can make changes in mortgages, and I'm thrilled and happy and want them to keep going.
But we have to know—and I think this is where people get lost—that they simply aren't in it alone. They don't regulate investments and there's other authorities here that need to be tended to.
Everybody sees the CFPB as this massive panacea, and I think in the ideal world it would be.
MintLife: Well, we had the SEC and we had the CFTC and we had regulations A, B, and C, and none of it worked. We had the worst financial crisis of our lifetime. Now we say, "Hey, we've got this new agency that was not stained by that. Now we can really fix everything."
And that ignores the fact that its mandate is limited, and it exists in the real world with all of these other agencies, and all of these powerful opponents.
Olen: And as we know, it has hugely powerful opponents.


text:
You know the routine. Right after the pie is served and Thanksgiving officially begins to shift from feasting to forced family fraternizing, you begin the Black Friday mental checklist. Food and water? Cellphone charged? A map with a prioritized game plan? Health insurance and car insurance cards handy, just in case things get rough?
You're not backpacking the Appalachian Trail or driving across the desert, you assure your family as you strap up and head for the door. You're going shopping, and it's what the pilgrims would have wanted.
Black Friday is now a post-turkey ritual, as hordes of Americans do their annual patriotic duty for the U.S. economy earlier and on a bigger scale than ever before. The National Retail Federation found a record 226 million shoppers spent an estimated $52.4 billion over Thanksgiving weekend in 2011.
Needless to say, this kind of shopping is serious business, so thinking about insurance is not such a crazy idea. Though it's not likely you'll be pepper-sprayed in a store aisle, as one woman did to fellow shoppers at a Los Angeles Wal-Mart last year, there are a number of risks when bargain hunting in the wilds of Black Friday. You'll need insurance to provide protection from the biggest threats.
(Parking) lots of risk
Sometime during the eighth frustrating lap around the mall parking lot looking for a spot, many of us might begin to wonder how perceptive family members would be if we just regifted to them a few dust-catchers from the living room this year. It's no wonder that much of the risk from Black Friday shopping results from the chaos in the parking lot.
"We're all familiar with people hovering around looking for parking spots, so it certainly makes sense that eventually some of those people are going to run into one another," says Dick Luedke, a spokesman for State Farm.
He says the liability portion of auto insurance policies almost always will cover any injuries or vehicular damage you might cause in a retail parking lot, same as on a roadway.
Perhaps a more likely parking lot concern is theft, particularly if you're a bonehead and leave your shopping haul in plain view in your car. Homeowners insurance policies generally cover items stolen out of your vehicle, provided they're not always in the car (as would be the case with sunglasses or CDs) and your out-of-pocket deductible isn't too high.
"If you choose a deductible of $500, you are basically saying that losing $500 is not going to create financial hardship for you," Luedke says.
Cleanup on every aisle
"People think about walking as a very simple, easy procedure," says Brett Burlison, an injury attorney in San Francisco. "It actually isn't. When you walk into a store, they're spending millions of dollars figuring out the best way to keep your attention, and it isn't on the ground."
A distracted, hapless shopper just looking for up to 80 percent off "one day only" can be seriously injured by a slippery store floor, falling merchandise or a raging stampede of bargain hunters.
Though the particulars vary state by state, in general if a retailer is found to have been neglectful of a foreseeable risk that resulted in a shopper's injury, that consumer may be entitled to financial compensation. Though one's health insurance will cover the treatment, one cannot simply begin fantasizing about how many marked-down Blu-ray players the settlement will buy, because it's not necessarily a windfall, Burlison explains.
"If you do collect from the premises owner and you have insurance, you're going to have to reimburse that health insurance company," he says. "Many people don't understand that, but we work very hard to negotiate … to make sure there's plenty of money to go around."
Identity theft: Your own worst enemy
You mean you didn't intend to purchase half of what's in this month's SkyMall catalog?
More than 11.6 million consumers were defrauded through identity theft last year as cases rose 13 percent over 2010, according to a study by Javelin Strategy & Research. Perhaps what's more disturbing is that security site ID Watchdog says even if retailers recognize that customer credit card numbers and other data are vulnerable on Black Friday and the online-shopping "Cyber Monday" that follows, only 21 percent of merchants are prepared to notify victims if identities are stolen.
So unless you have a sixth sense for unauthorized charges, what are you to do?
"Nearly half of identity theft cases are the result of a lost or stolen physical item, such as a wallet or credit card," says Lynne McChristian, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group. "That just proves that whether you shop at the mall or online, you need to be mindful."
That means safeguarding your wallet, checking your financial statements frequently during the holiday season and, for online shopping, making sure your anti-virus and anti-spyware software is updated. McChristian adds that some homeowners and renters insurance policies include identity theft coverage, though often only for losses of up to $200 in cash and $50 on credit cards.
And, attention Black Friday shoppers: Identity theft stand-alone insurance policies are available and can run about $25 to $50 annually. But instead of covering losses, they typically reimburse only the expenses you might rack up trying to restore your good name. Those costs might include phone charges, lost wages, notary services, certified-mailing expenses and, sometimes, attorney fees.


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06 november, friday
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25 october


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Black Friday
discounts up to
Alice Childress, (born Oct. 12, 1916, Charleston, S.C., U.S.--died Aug. 14, 1994, New York, N.Y.), American playwright, novelist, and actress, known for realistic stories that posited the enduring optimism of black Americans.
Childress grew up in Harlem, New York City, where she acted with the American Negro Theatre in the 1940s. There she wrote, directed, and starred in her first play, Florence (produced 1949), about a black woman who, after meeting an insensitive white actress in a railway station, comes to respect her daughter's attempts to pursue an acting career. Trouble in Mind (produced 1955; revised and published 1971), Wedding Band (produced 1966), String (produced 1969), and Wine in the Wilderness (produced 1969) all examine racial and social issues. Among Childress' plays that feature music are Just a Little Simple (produced 1950; based on Langston Hughes's Simple Speaks His Mind), Gold Through the Trees (produced 1952), The African Garden (produced 1971), Gullah (produced 1984; based on her 1977 play Sea Island Song), and Moms (produced 1987; about the life of comedienne Jackie "Moms" Mabley).
Childress was also a successful writer of children's literature. A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich (1973; film 1978) is a novel for adolescents about a teenage drug addict. Similarly, the novel Rainbow Jordan (1981) concerns the struggles of poor black urban youth. Also written for juveniles were the plays When the Rattlesnake Sounds (1975) and Let's Hear It for the Queen (1976). Her other novels include A Short Walk (1979), Many Closets (1987), and Those Other People (1989).


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Snowstorm hits Southeast, 1 death linked to storm
- Winter storm warnings in effect in Alabama%2C Georgia%2C North Carolina%2C Virginia and Tennessee
- Light snow possible in Atlanta area
- Some parts of Virginia and North Carolina could see up to 9 inches
ATLANTA (AP) — A winter storm made its way across the Southeast on Thursday, dumping snow in states recovering from days of rain, playing a role in at least one fatality, and leaving thousands without power.
Weather warnings and advisories were in effect for sections of Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Parts of Mississippi saw 2 to 4 inches of snow on the ground. In Lowndes County, Highway Patrol spokesman Cpl. Criss Turnipseed said Johnnie A. Matthews, 64, of West Point died when his car collided with a downed tree about 5 a.m. on Mississippi Highway 50.
Turnipseed says the large pine tree in the roadway appeared to have been uprooted by wind and ground saturation due to excessive rainfall. The winter blitz follows days of heavy rain across much of the Southeast.
No other fatalities have been reported.
In Roanoke, Va., heavy snow was falling as residents prepared for the first significant storm of the season. Thousands of customers in the southwestern part of the state were without power. Appalachian Power said the heavy, wet snow contributed to outages to at least 45,000 customers.
The National Weather Service said a foot of snow was possible in the highest elevations of southeastern Virginia. At the other end of the spectrum, parts of Hampton Roads could see just a dusting.
In Bland County, Virginia, heavy snow, downed trees, disabled vehicles and numerous crashes partially closed I-77, said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller. Traffic was moving slowly Thursday night and Geller said officials would work through the night to reopen all lanes.
In Alabama on Thursday, northern and central parts of the state were blanketed with as much as 4 inches of snow, forcing businesses and schools to close early and snarling traffic on Interstate 65, where some motorists were stuck for seven or more hours after a series of crashes that caused a miles-long traffic jam. The county emergency management agency opened a shelter at the Cullman Civic Center for stranded motorists, but it wasn't clear how many drivers could even get there.
Traffic crawled across a slickened Tennessee River bridge over a waterway swollen out of its banks. Some areas of the state had received as much as 6 inches of rain since Sunday, prompting flood warnings and watches across a wide area.
Scores of schools, businesses and government offices as far south as metro Birmingham pushed back their opening times for Friday because of the threat of icy roads after freezing temperatures overnight.
Officials closed NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville because of the threat of slippery roads. Engineers postponed an outdoor rocket test to give workers time to get home.
In northern Georgia, the heaviest snow was expected to fall in the mountains, with lighter amounts possible in parts of the Atlanta area. Schools in at least five counties in the northwest part of the state dismissed early Thursday. Winter weather advisories were in effect across at least 25 counties, set to expire between midnight and 7 a.m.
Snow also was possible across much of North Carolina, with as much as 9 inches in the northwestern mountains. Snow was expected as far east as Elizabeth City.
A winter weather advisory also was issued in South Carolina, with up to 3 inches of snow expected in the northern part of the state.
The National Weather Service said Thursday evening that most of the Washington area would avoid snow, although some southern Maryland counties might see an accumulation of 2 to 4 inches.
The weather service said temperatures were expected to stay above freezing in Washington and that if rain fell, it would move out of the area before midnight.
However, a winter weather advisory remained in effect south of Washington in St. Mary's, Charles and Calvert counties. Meteorologists predicted 2 to 4 inches of snow there.
The moisture may be welcomed by farmers in the Southeast, notably in those states hardest hit by the nation's worst drought in decades.
An update Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor showed that about 59 percent of the continental U.S. remains gripped by some form of drought. More than 91 percent of Georgia is in drought, as is about a third of Mississippi.
Climatologists and hydrologists have called winter precipitation — and lots of it — crucial in breaking the grip of drought and restoring moisture to soil and pastureland.


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Crown Abacoa 16
4688 Main Street,
1 person favorited this theater
The Crown Abacoa 16 was built in 2001, closed on January 29, 2006, and was demolished in 2010.
Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
What happened? Hurricane?
The theater had a history of operating losses aparently and Crown cut it's losses and bounced out of that location. Before closing they had Crown Movie Madness – adults were $6.00, children/seniors/students and shows before 6PM were $4.00 – everyday. They also had an Odyessy screen (Crown also has one of these LSF theaters in Hartford, CT).
Was this theatre equipped with IMAX?
I am interested in rental or purchase information for this venue. Please contact me with any information. Thanks 734.645.6500. Tim Phillips.
The Crown Theatres in Abacoa Town Center was one of nine multiplexes designed for the Crown Theatres chain by Port Washington, New York, architect James Thomas Martino. There were 16 stadium-seated auditoriums for regular films, and one large format auditorium, for a total seating capacity of 3,825.
Frank Theatres is opening a new theater along with a bowling alley and restaurant.
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater


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Young starter Salazar to face Tigers on Wednesday
CLEVELAND -- The Indians made a gutsy decision to bring highly-touted rookie Danny Salazar up from Triple-A Columbus to start against the Tigers on Wednesday.
Prior to Monday's series opener with Detroit, Indians manager Terry Francona was asked if the move to call up Salazar was a sign that there is a sense of urgency surrounding the four-game set against the American League-leading Tigers.
"Maybe a little bit," Francona said. "He has been pitching very well, so competitively it should help us."
On Sunday in Miami, the Indians announced the move, which will require a subsequent transaction on either Tuesday or Wednesday to add Salazar to the active roster. Salazar will slide into the rotation slot formerly held by Ubaldo Jimenez, who is now scheduled to start on Friday against the Angels. Jimenez has posted a 6.92 ERA against Detroit this season.
Salazar, 23, made a spot start for the Indians on July 11 and held the Blue Jays to one run on two hits, ending with seven strikeouts and one walk. On Friday, Salazar logged five no-hit innings against Triple-A Buffalo, but he was pulled from the game after 52 pitches.
Salazar has gone 6-5 with a 2.71 ERA this season, holding batters to a .211 average over 93 innings between Columbus and Double-A Akron. He has piled up 129 strikeouts, turning in a rate of 12.5 strikeouts per nine innings.
Along the way, the Indians have closely monitored Salazar's innings, considering he underwent Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in 2010.
"We thought it was a good time," Francona said. "We're trying to balance Danny's innings, competitiveness, things like that, and we wanted to get to a point where we didn't have to bring Danny [up] and mess his innings up. Our player development staff has done such a good job, where now we can bring him up, he doesn't have to pitch three or four innings and we don't have to go to the bullpen."


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You are here
Award Data
The Award database is continually updated throughout the year. As a result, data for FY20 is not expected to be complete until September, 2021.
Multifunction-MultimodalSBC: SYSTEMS & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LLC Topic: N182120
Systems & Technology Research (STR) proposes the development of a novel multifunction/multimodal airborne radar architecture leveraging STRs extensive experience in the development of software, hardware, and advanced algorithms for a wide variety of airborne radar applications. On this program, we will focus on the development of a fundamentally new airborne radar architecture that optimizes airbo ...SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Effect of Surface Finish and Post-Processing on the Fatigue Life of Additively Manufacturing PartsSBC: Triton Systems, Inc. Topic: N182126
Triton will develop a surface finishing process that can efficiently post-process additively manufactured metallic components to a consistent finish while enhancing material properties and part performance. Naval materials of interest include titanium, aluminum, nickel, aluminum, bronze, and stainless steel alloys.SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Fooling Computer Vision Classifiers with Adversarial ExamplesSBC: Triton Systems, Inc. Topic: N182127
Triton Systems Inc. propose to create adversarial image techniques that will both fool U.S. classifiers and can applied in operationally relevant physical modification kits to military objects. We will develop a rapid process to generate adversarial images, translate them into physical modification kits and demonstrate a reliable system to camouflage the target object independent of classifier loc ...SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Submarine Sensor Environmental InferenceSBC: Triton Systems, Inc. Topic: N182135
Triton Systems proposes to develop environmental inference capabilities to provide in situ characterizations of the speed and attenuation of sound in the seabed and water column to enhance the tactical decisions and warfighting posture of submarines so informed.SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Compact Low Noise Acoustic Sensors for SonobuoysSBC: MSI Transducers Corp. Topic: N182136
Through this effort, the team of MSI Transducers and QorTek will develop a compact, low-cost, low-noise acoustic sensor for sonobuoys. The MSI concept fully utilizes its expertise in the design, development, and fabrication of transducers, combined with QorTeks expertise in power electronics, underwater amplifiers and next generation piezoelectric materials, to develop a compact low-noise system.SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Quantum Cascade Laser Thermal Impedance ImprovementSBC: Pendar Technologies, LLC Topic: N182113
Since the demonstration of the first quantum cascade laser (QCL) in 1994, there has been a steady improvement of the demonstrated power level and wall-plug efficiency. As expected for most maturing technologies, this rate of progress has slowed down as the parameter space of novel ideas has been more fully explored. R&D efforts however have not yet focused specifically on the thermal impedance of ...SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Cognitive RadarSBC: SYSTEMS & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LLC Topic: N182117
Systems & Technology Research (STR) is pleased to provide this Phase 1 proposal to develop neural network-based hierarchical cognitive radar architectures inspired by research in cortical memory and neuroplasticity. The U.S. Navy airborne radars operate in challenging environments against ever improving adversary systems and capabilities. While adaptive architectures that employ feedback between t ...SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Low-Cost Approach for Improved Performance of the DIFAR UpperSBC: Triton Systems, Inc. Topic: N182097
Triton will develop a low-cost approach for improving the performance of the Directional Frequency Analysis and Recording (DIFAR) sonobuoy upper section. Triton at a minimum will adhere to the following requirements: upper section stack height limited to 15 inches or less, integration of the miniature NATO transceiver, miniaturization of upper electronics, sonobuoy settings programmable over UHF a ...SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Real-time Avoidance of Weather Hazards In Dynamic Environments (RAWHIDE)SBC: Charles River Analytics, Inc. Topic: N182099
Unmanned systems play a critical military role, and require the ability to fly through areas of operations on a near-all-weather 24/7 basis so potential weather-related incidents can be avoided (OSD, 2013). To increase UAS flight safety and avoid weather phenomena (e.g., clouds, haze, ash), we propose a system for Real-time Avoidance of Weather Hazards In Dynamic Environments (RAWHIDE) to dynamica ...SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy
Technology Development of Fiber Optic Moorings for Surface Communication BuoysSBC: EOM OFFSHORE, LLC Topic: N183141
EOM Offshore, LLC will design and conduct proof-of-concept studies for a mechanically compliant mooring cable, to include embedded optical fiber, called LEO (lightweight electro-optical) stretch hose. Based on EOMs existing neutrally-buoyant electro-mechanical stretch hose, and having previous optical fiber study, EOM will perform two LEO studies in parallel to retire highest risks early. First, p ...SBIR Phase I 2019 Department of DefenseNavy


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Leg Sleeves – Heavy WeightLKLEG
Fabric Details
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Machine wash warm or cold with like colors, no bleach. Tumble dry low heat or air dry. As with any knitwear, do not wash or dry with velcro products.
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These products should not be worn over open wounds. If you have diabetes or poor circulation, consult your physician before using this product. If discomfort occurs, discontinue use.


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Some people are fans of the Tennessee Titans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Tennessee Titans. This 2012 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read the other Why Your Team Sucks 2012 previews here.
1. Chris Johnson, you are fat and shitty. Every running back who has ever lived should find an airtight rubber box, take a shit into it, and ship that box to either Chris Johnson or Marshawn Lynch. Between those two idiots, no rational GM will ever hand a starting running back $30 million guaranteed again. Cop Speed scored one-third as many touchdowns in 2011 as he did in 2010. His YPC dropped to 4.0 (after a high of 5.6 during his amazing 2009 season). Not once did he do that thing where he takes a little swing pass and then hits the NITRO button and then houses that shit from 70 yards out. Now he's fat and slow and horrible. YOU HEAR ME, CJ2K?! You're the fattest man alive. No woman who makes love to your slovenly body will ever be able to look her pussy in the eye again. There are lost Hot Pockets tucked away in your massive ass folds. The magnetic pull of your hefty gut is the only thing keeping the rising seas from encroaching on the Eastern Seaboard. YOU DISGUST ME.
2. Jake Locker is the white Donovan McNabb. Assuming Locker beats out disabled 56-year-old amputee Matt Hasselbeck for the starting job, I think you Titans fans can look forward to a full year of Locker barely completing half his throws, pulling a game or two out of his ass, and listening to Herm Edwards tell you, "This kid is just a winner." That's what you say about a quarterback who leads his team to a 7-9 record with a deceptively decent passer rating. Whatever passes Locker DOES happen to deliver within catching range (he recently completed just 35.4 percent of his passes over two days of practice) will be summarily dropped by Nate Washington and Jared Cook anyway.
3. Kenny Britt likes destroying your fantasy team. I assume that Kenny Britt will miss at least six games this season due to various injuries and vehicular assaults. But in those 10 games he will play, it's a virtual certainty that one of them will be a 240-yard, 3-touchdown masterpiece that just happens to come against YOU. That's the kind of player Kenny Britt is. You spend your Sunday watching your fantasy team do well, you see your starting running back run for over 100 yards, you see your starting QB throw for two touchdowns, and you think, "Boy, I have a reasonable chance of winning this week!" Then you go to check the scoreboard and it turns out that the other guy has The Kenny Britt Show, and that Britt outscored your team by 40 points on his own. Then, the second you trade for him, he gets DUI'ed. Fucking Kenny Britt.
Drew Magary writes for Deadspin and Gawker. He's also a correspondent for GQ. Follow him on Twitter @drewmagary and email him at email@example.com.
4. This is a pathologically uninteresting team. You have to work extra hard to be the most colorless team in the AFC South, but here we are. The fact that Mike Munchak nearly ditched this team to coach a disgraced Penn State program tells you something about how lively the Titans are. But at least Munchak forces his players to wear blazers, and Peter King thinks that's a winning strategy. Oh, and Kamerion Wimbley was on American Ninja Warrior once, which is an awesome show to watch with a six-year-old. It's like MXC, only deadly serious.
Apart from that, the team added the corpse of Steve Hutchinson to protect Locker (he will not succeed), lost scrappy Irishman Cortland Finnegan to free agency, and will spend the 2012 season starting out 0-4 (first four opponents are NE, SD, DET, and HOU) and then trying desperately to right themselves for the next three months. And the worst part is that Gus Johnson isn't around anymore to artificially make Titans games seem more interesting than they really are. This team desperately needs Bud Adams to go ahead and die so that they can begin to carve out an identity for themselves.
5. Hear it from Titans fans!
The owner, Bud Adams, has now become the old, crotchety grandfather you never want to go visit because he will either cuss you out or soil himself. He has had several people interested in buying the team, but he keeps holding on to it like his last breath. For fuck sakes, one of the richest families in Tennessee got tired of waiting on him to sell so they went and bought the fucking Browns! They wanted to buy an NFL team so bad, they bought that dumpster fire. No telling what Adams could have got for the team, but no, we are left with more years of garbage. If it weren't for Blaine Gabbert in the division, they wouldn't win a game this year.
Peyton Manning turned down more money and the chance to retire a god in Tennessee (and a job for life) because he didn't want to play for Bud. Who would want to play for this guy, who's famous for ditching Houston (no crime there) and flipping off opposing teams? And the senile old man made the team draft Vince Young when Jay Cutler was playing in town at Vandy and all the fans wanted him.
Our best wide receiver just got a DUI for driving to Fort Campbell. Again, he got a DUI on a military base. We don't know if he was trying to enlist at 3:30 a.m. or didn't know where he was. It was one of many police incidents that is scaring a fan base still scarred by Pacman.
Our best RB got paid and promptly sucked. And no one ever talks about the elephant in the room—his constant head jerking. I heard it may be Tourette's, which is great for him for overcoming, but is it really such a good idea to invest so much money into him? Also, his Twitter posts are incoherent.
We have no pass rush, nada, nil.
We franchised and paid big money to a safety who was terrible the last two years because we were afraid he'd leave or play uninspired. That's the definition of an abusive relationship.
We plucked our offensive coordinator from the Hartford Colonials. Who are the Hartford Colonials, you might ask? They're the defunct chowder franchise of the UFL, a team that went 3-5 under the leadership of Chris Palmer, the Titans' current offensive coordinator. You may not know a lot about Chris Palmer, so let me briefly summarize his qualifications/deficiencies/whatever. He hasn't been a successful offensive coordinator since 1997. As head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1999-2000, he led the Browns to a 5-27 record. He was the offensive coordinator of the Texans' gloriously awful offense from 2002-2005. More recently (like last year), he threw away Mike Heimdinger's playbook and refused to run counter plays that were so successful for Chris Johnson over the previous three years. He's partly to blame for our ridiculously shitty run offense in 2011. RIP Mike H.
Us sane Titans fans have given up on the immediate future. The quicker you start Jake Locker, the quicker you'll draft a new quarterback and build our future. It's time to start Jake Locker.
Have you seen our receivers? How many options at the 3-slot does one team need?
Having been a fan of this team since they moved to Tennessee this is how their 2012 season will play out. Hasselbeck will win the starting job before getting killed in the murderers stretch of the first part of the schedule. Fans will demand Locker as he gets the starting job and then they will go on a tear. CJ2k will look like the 2,000 yard back he was, Britt will start putting up video game numbers in spite of the Ginger Hammer and having glass knees, and they will look like a playoff team. They will control their own destiny and then lose in agonizing fashion (like last year's loss to the winless Colts which knocked them out of contention). The only question is do they do it in week 15 as Tebow leads a come from behind win on Monday Night Football while throwing 3 passes? Or does Gabbert throw a pass with his eyes closed for a game winning touchdown in week 17? Either way I'm already setting myself up for it.
Wanna be part of the Deadspin NFL previews? It's simple. Just email me and give me ample evidence of why your team sucks. I'll throw any good material into the post and give you proper credit. Next team up: THE FALCONS.


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HealthCare.gov will meet deadline for fixes, White House officials say
WASHINGTON >> Administration officials are preparing to announce Sunday that they have met their Saturday deadline for improving HealthCare.gov, according to government officials, in part by expanding the site's ability to handle 50,000 users at once. But they have yet to meet all their internal goals for repairing the federal health-care site, and it will not become clear how many consumers it can accommodate until more people try to use it.
As of Friday night, federal officials and contractors had achieved two goals, according to government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss ongoing operations. They had increased the system's capacity and reduced errors. On the other hand, the site's pages do not load as fast as they want, officials said, and they are working to ensure large numbers of consumers can enter the site.
An official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency overseeing the federal health insurance exchange, said the site's true capacity is somewhat murky because they need to see how it performs under "weekday traffic volumes" when demand is at its peak.
Federal employees and IT contractors were expected to work through the night Friday to try to reach one of the remaining targets: how many people per hour should be able to register and log onto the site. An earlier attempt to make the fix failed several days ago.
Nov. 30 was not originally intended to be a key date for the online enrollment system, but it took on outsized political and public importance when administration officials announced five weeks ago that the "vast majority of users" would be able to sign up for insurance through the site by that day. A combination of federal employees, outside contractors and a handful of technical and management experts have worked at breakneck speed for five weeks to improve the website's performance as the White House has come under withering criticism from its political opponents and some consumers.
In an interview with Barbara Walters that aired on ABC on Friday night, President Barack Obama said he was confident that, in time, Americans would come to embrace his controversial health-care law.
"I continue to believe, and 1/8I am3/8 absolutely convinced, that at the end of the day, people are going to look back at the work we've done to make sure that in this country you don't go bankrupt when you get sick, that families have that security," Obama said. "That is going be a legacy I am extraordinarily proud of."
Administration officials have said for several weeks they define success as having "the vast majority of users" be able to navigate the site and sign up for insurance. While they initially did not define what that meant, White House press secretary Jay Carney said earlier this month that the administration's aim was to have 80 percent of users enroll through the site. Those working on the project have set speed and error rates as a way of measuring that goal.
A significant upgrade in the website's capacity was carried out early this week, according to the government officials, which allowed HealthCare.gov to accommodate more people at once without causing the site to malfunction. For instance, many more consumers can simultaneously be on a section of the site designed to let people compare available health plans.
Even so, how much load the site can withstand depends on how much consumers are asking it to do. For example, simply looking around on the "learn" part of the site - where people can get basic information and a rough sense of prices - puts less strain on the system than the areas where people actually apply for coverage.
The upgrade that workers were planning to attempt at midnight Friday is intended to allow more people to use the initial stages of seeking insurance on the site. But the upgrade also meant that the site would be unavailable overnight from 9 p.m. Eastern time on Friday until 8 a.m. Saturday.
Administration officials have established a capacity goal of 80,000 consumers per hour being able to register and 320,000 people per hour who already have accounts being able to log in, according to federal officials familiar with this aspect of the project who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal details.
The team has not yet attained its target of cutting the average load time across the site to no more than half a second, officials said, though it is running faster than before.
The blitz to rehabilitate the site has entailed an unusual public and private partnership over the past five weeks. The White House rejected the idea of turning over the work of fixing the site mainly to Silicon Valley allies, some of whom served as the president's campaign operatives, deciding instead to selectively tap a handful of them to help steer the project.
Michael "Mikey" Dickerson, a Google employee who is on leave and volunteered on both of Obama's campaigns, has led the twice daily calls in which the entire team has discussed ongoing problems and how to solve them. Civis Analytics chief technology officer Gabriel Burt, who served as lead analytics engineer and product manager for Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, has also been deeply involved.
Jeffrey Zients, the former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget who was designated by the White House in late October to oversee the project, told reporters during a briefing this week the administration "brought in a fresh set of eyes" the week of Oct. 21 to examine the system. He said that survey concluded within a few days that the website could be fixed and that it did not need to be thrown out and a new one installed — but that the fix would require "additional talent and expertise" and a different way of approaching the site's defects.
The work on HealthCare.gov took place primarily in two places: in a command center dubbed the "Exchange Operation Center," or XOC, in Columbia, Md., and in the Tysons Corner area of Fairfax County, Va. QSSI President Bikram Bakshi — whose company developed the system's data hub and became the project's general contractor on Oct. 25 — said in the briefing "other business analysts, system analysts, developers and testers 1/8were3/8 scattered across the D.C. metro area."
Since starting work, the team has "knocked through well over 300 bugs," Zients said, and each evening the group has either put in hardware upgrades or fixed a glitch during the four- to five-hour maintenance window it has to work on the site.
The 25 people working in the command center, who represent all the major contractors that helped build the site, could evaluate HealthCare.gov's real-time performance through 15 screens capturing its overall response time, error rate, volume of traffic and visitor makeup and which functions users are performing at a given time. When they see a disparity in the readings, Bakshi said, "then the team springs into action" to try to fix it.
John Engates, chief technology officer for the cloud computing company Rackspace, toured the project's command center Monday with a handful of other private tech experts and said he was encouraged that they have streamlined the decision-making. "There isn't a lot of 'Let's run it up the flagpole.' That's what's helping things run more smoothly," he said.
Before touring the command center, Engates, along with representatives from Salesforce.com, IBM and other firms, met in the Situation Room with senior White House officials, including Zients, chief of staff Denis McDonough, chief technology officer Todd Park and chief information officer Steven VanRoekel.
Salesforce.com President Marc Benioff, who hosted a fundraiser with Obama at his home Monday in San Francisco, said in a phone interview he has dispatched two employees to the White House to provide what he described as "coaching and mentoring."
"A friend in need is a friend indeed. Silicon Valley is a friend of President Obama's, and we're going to help the government get through this," Benioff said, noting his employees were taking no compensation for their efforts.
But there are also limits to this support. Benioff said he had "offered to rebuild the entire HealthCare.gov site for free and run it for five years at no charge" in direct talks with the White House, but the administration declined the offer.
A White House official said the administration could not have accepted the offer, because it ran afoul of federal contracting rules.


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N.C. Poet Laureate Cronyism Enrages Baristas With MFAs Everywhere
Last week, Valerie Macon became the poet laureate of North Carolina. Valerie Macon is a disability claims processor with no major publications who was picked singlehandedly by the governor. And you still can't get the slush-pile intern at Copper Canyon Press to answer your goddamn emails.
(Update: A sample poem of Macon's, "Vegetarian Meat Lover," has been added at the bottom of the post. Do enjoy.)
Macon, a lyrical dabbler whose appointment embarrassed Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and outraged published poets everywhere, stepped down from the state-funded post today, but not before she and the governor took shots at those nasty elitist writers and professors with their "literary standards" and financially debilitating lifelong commitments to underfunded arts programs. Via the New York Times:
Ms. Macon, a state disability examiner who has self-published two volumes of poetry, also took aim at members of the literary community for being elitist. "I would like to encourage everyone to read and write poetry," she said. "They do not need prestigious publishing credits or a collection of accolades from impressive organizations — just the joy of words and appreciation of self-expression."
The governor released a statement saying that he understood Ms. Macon's reasons for resigning and accepted her departure reluctantly, but he lashed out at her critics for their "hostility and condescension" toward Ms. Macon.
Both Macon and McCrory neglected to mention how the governor cut the North Carolina Arts Council out of the selection process, of which it had previously been an integral part; that Macon's website, which disappeared from the web over the weekend, had misrepresented her as a Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet, which she was not; and how many starving (and well-fed) qualified artists were overlooked to appoint her.
On a serious tip: Not all MFA grads or instructors are equally brilliant, to be sure. But one of the advantages to formal training, or real publishing experience, is the recognition that poetry, like other writing, is cultural and benefits from cooperation and dialogue with other artists. Not a bad lesson for a state evangelist of the literary arts to have internalized.
But I'm sure Macon's self-published chapbooks were good, too.
One of Macon's eminently qualified predecessors offered perhaps the kindest and simultaneously most biting comment on the affair, which makes sense since, you know, she's a longtime poet:
Kathryn Stripling Byer, who served as poet laureate from 2005 to 2009, took issue with McCrory's attack on the state's poetry community.
"I was surprised Valerie had to resign, but I can't say I blame her," Byer said. "I just wish she'd withdrawn her name before it got so contentious and vitriolic. I'm sorry McCrory put her through this. I hope people place the blame where it belongs, not on the literary community but on a governor who took matters into his own hands and chose a good person who just was not yet ready for this post. It's sad."
In the meantime, recent graduates, send your CVs and links to your published work in Pank to the Office of the Governor, 20301 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-0301. Just in case that 4/4 benefitless adjuncting composition gig at Dixie Applied Technical College doesn't pan out.
Update: A sample of Macon's oeuvre, via commenter toadelevatinguhr:
Vegetarian Meat Lover
Clicking into Vinny's Pizza
in Jimmy Choo platform pumps,
a woman, six feet tall
and straight as a sunflower,
in high-waisted jeggings
and gold cropped tee.
Her boyfriend,
a weed sprout beside her,
ambles in Old Navy flip-flops.
She holds her yellow head high
like a flower tilted towards sun,
scans the chalked daily specials,
tapping Black Truffle acrylics
in the rhythm of a gentle spring rain.
She orders vegetarian pizza.
The boyfriend, arms coiled around her,
orders the meat lover's special.


text:
Firefighter dies battling Philadelphia blaze
A fire burned a fabric shop, upstairs apartments and a neighboring boutique Saturday evening, causing a partial roof collapse that killed a firefighter and injured a colleague who tried in vain to rescue him.
Firefighters saluted as the body of 53-year-old Capt. Michael Goodwin was carried from the remnants of the burned building in the city's Fabric Row section. He was killed in a fall from the third floor roof to the second, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said at a news conference.
The colleague who tried save him, 28-year-old Andrew Godlinski, was burned but is expected to survive, Ayers said.
The fire broke out around 5 p.m. at Jack B. Fabrics and spread to Urban Princess, a store next door. The stores' proprietors said everyone in both buildings at the time of the fire managed to escape.
The fire's cause wasn't immediately known, but fabric store owner Bruce Blumenthal told The Philadelphia Inquirer he believes it started in a wall and may have been electrical in nature.
Blumenthal said he smelled smoke coming from the basement and found a box of collars and cuffs on fire. He tried to put the flames out with an extinguisher, to no avail.
The fire cut power to more than 300 customers. The Red Cross is assisting at least 17 people.
Two city firefighters died a year ago this month when a building collapsed while they were inspecting it after an adjacent blaze.


text:
Asked on Fox News whether he sides with those two senators and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) or opponents of the immigration bill like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Huckabee chose the former.
"I'd say probably the Rubio, Corker, Hoeven [side]," Huckabee said…
He also said he doesn't like the idea of so-called triggers that would allow illegal immigrants a path to citizenship once certain border security requirements are met.
"You don't just wait and do nothing on the pathway process while you're working on the fencing," he said. "And let's be clear: We're never going to have 100 percent border security. There's always somebody who's going to find a way to break into the system."
"I like what I see today, as long as it doesn't change," said Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has signed on as a co-sponsor of the amendment and is considered a swing vote for the bill. Another co-sponsor is Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who's already said she would vote for the overall legislation.
It's not just undecided Republicans who might be more inclined to vote for the immigration bill with the Corker-Hoeven deal.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has repeatedly broken from his party on border measures since floor debate began last week, told POLITICO that Thursday's agreement makes the immigration bill "very much more palatable." Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor has also expressed concerns about border security and has been talking with Corker and Hoeven about their plan…
"We've already had quite a few sign up as co-sponsors," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. "That would give us momentum and a significant number of votes to convince our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol that this is a worthwhile endeavor."
From one perspective, immigration restrictionists are correct. In the current political atmosphere — the atmosphere they helped to create — immigrants who become citizens will be deeply suspicious of Republicans. So are current voters who have ties to or sympathy for immigrant communities. The problem is this: While killing immigration reform may slightly extend the viability of the current Republican political coalition, it may seriously undermine the attempt to adjust it…
This won't be enough. While appealing to Hispanic voters is not like appealing to Manhattanites — it doesn't involve the abandonment of social conservatism — it does require a populist economic agenda. Recent immigrants are naturally concerned about a working social safety net, a working public education system and a working job-training system. Republicans will need to offer serious reform proposals in these areas. And this requires a positive, active, market-oriented role for government that competes with more centralized and bureaucratic Democratic approaches.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Now, again, it's the New York Times, so you have to take that under advisement. But the New York Times says Republicans are deeply involved, but they don't want you to know it. They don't want to admit it because they want to prove the White House is not pulling the strings. But the White House is! This is a "stealth" White House operation. The Hoeven-Corker amendment could well be an Obama administration idea submitted in this war room and then two senators were cherry-picked to put their names on it.
I don't know that that's the case, but this story in the New York Times makes it entirely possible. The New York Times story says that some Republicans, quote, "are so eager to prove that the White House is not pulling the strings that their aides say the administration is not playing any role at all," and they point to a spokesman for Marco Rubio. A spokesman for Rubio has denied that the president's involved in this at all. So, look, I can only tell you what the New York Times is saying.
It's up to you whether you want to believe it or not. The New York Times, essentially, is saying here that Obama and the White House are pulling Rubio's strings.
"I think the Republican House was put on this earth to save us from huge pieces of comprehensive legislation like this that I think are not well designed, would not work well. If we want to solve particular parts of the immigration problem, we can solve them. We can have more high-tech workers, if you want. We could have more guest workers for agriculture, if that's necessary. We could legalize the people who are here. This 1,000-page bill, which is now probably 1,100 page bill–and much more expensive bill–because of this amendment, is not a good idea," said the boss.
While Romney captured the nomination, even then many conservatives never truly trusted him. Rubio could face something similar. Tweets with "Rubio" and "traitor" and "RINO" are already popping up with regularity.
Also, Romney was able to finesse the [RomneyCare] issue by saying he was against big, bad federal mandates, not state ones. It's difficult to see how Rubio could do a Romney on this one. He can't resort to the federal-state differences when it comes to providing a path to citizenship.
Whichever path he takes, Rubio can be certain that he will continue to be hammered by conservatives who actually took his 2010 words at face value when he said he always had and always would oppose what they call "amnesty."
Note that McCain said [at CPAC in 2008] that border security should come first, before "other aspects" of immigration policy were considered, implying that both should not be handled in the same piece of legislation. McCain appeared to understand that the American public did not trust the federal government to secure the border at the same time that it offered legal status to illegal aliens, based on the lessons of past rounds of immigration reform…
Perhaps McCain does not feel bound by promises made in the course of a lost campaign. But his statements to CPAC were not just about the policies he would pursue. They were also about lessons he had learned, about his state of mind regarding the issue. On Thursday, McCain acknowledged that there was "understandable skepticism" about immigration reform. Clearly he is no longer skeptical–if, indeed, he ever truly had been.
Yeah, that's why the patriotic House members position has got to be until the Senate is in Republican hands — preferably Rubio-free, sorry — we're not going to pass a bill that mentions immigration. And you should know that John Boehner secretly wants to pass amnesty because his idiot consultants are telling him, 'Oh, it's going to be a great boon for Republicans, having 30 million voters who will never vote for a Republican.'
But they need fig leafs, like this amendment in the Senate today. It's an utter fig leaf to pretend like this is going to secure the border. What, one border agent every 1,000 yards? All this is, is more government workers, more pensions. It doesn't shore up the border. It's a fig leaf to allow Republicans who want amnesty but don't want their voters to punish them. Punish them, voters.
Skip to 3:40.


text:
Size Matters: Horses, HMAs, Sanctuaries and Reserves
Size matters when it comes to wild horses, HMAs, sanctuaries and reserves.
In Sketches Here and There, Aldo Leopold described his moment of grace. After shooting a wolf from the rim rock in Arizona he recalls, "We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes… there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain."1
Recent revelations about the suffering and loss of equine life at the International Society to Protect Mustangs & Burros have me reflecting again about the hubris of human kind. While being "protected," dozens of formerly wild horses have starved to death, suffering untold disease and neglect. It's a big case, but not an isolated one. Numbers, costs soar in wild-horse controversy, Rapid City Journal, Oct 14, 2016
ISPMB has, at last count, 810 horses on 680 acres near Lantry, SD. The ISPMB herd was and is a failed experiment in self-regulation. Supposedly, the horses would not breed past their food allowance. It was expected that some would starve. They bred, and even now continue top breed and when the money and food ran out it became a horror show.
Wild horse advocate and ecologist Craig Downer has put forth the idea that horses will self regulate if predators are in the environment. That presumes that the reserve (as he diplomatically avoides the word sanctuary2) is in a topographical environment large enough to allow seasonal migration and also contains and can sustain numerous mountain lions or large, experienced wolf packs.
Size Matters
Thousands of tourists flock to Yellowstone Park each year. The park's advertising campaign last year, "Find Your Park" was so successful that a park representative this year suggested their pitch be "Find Another Park."
What's been learned over the past century is that even Yellowstone Park at 3,468 square miles is not large enough to provide a healthy ecosystem for the magnificent fauna that live there. This led to the establishment of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, linking Teton and the interstitial areas, increasing the size a thousand percent to 34,375 square miles. Kruger National Park in South Africa pales at only 7,532 square miles, while the stunning ecosystem of the Okavanga Delta has been transformed into the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area 17,8415 square miles.3
In the case of ISPMB, one has to wonder about the sanity of attempting a self-regulating environment for 810 mega fauna on 680 acres. From Heisenberg to Hegel, it's not a new idea removing an object from its environment changes everything.
Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the US Forest Service, and a founder of the Yale School of Forestry was a close advisor to Teddy Roosevelt, who understood the need for large, unaltered landscapes. Pinchot was instrumental in establishing the national forests and parks we enjoy today, due to his understanding that size matters. In 1905, when Pinchot became chief, federal forests totaled 56 million acres. In 1910, only five years later he left the service with 172 million acres as federal forest land.4
When it comes to mega fauna what is known is: 1. Almost impossibly large tracts of land with varying topography are required for a healthy ecosystem. 2. That we can't divorce a species from its ecosystem and expect it to self-regulate the way it does in that ecosystem. 3. Horses are mega fauna requiring many, many square miles and the ability to migrate.
In my opinion, this is the downfall of the HMA (Horse Management Area) system as created by the Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act of 1971. Interestingly, today we just call it the Wild Horse & Burro Act. The "Free-Roaming" part seems to have gotten lost.
In an interview with author Paula Morin, Tom Marvel of the famed Marvel ranch of Nevada recalls wild horses migrating from Austin, NV all the way to Battle Mountain, with the only fences in Nevada being along the railroad. He said it took about a year for them to make the run up and back, a migration route of about a hundred miles each way.5
Today wild horses are confined to the artificial boundaries of HMAs that are between roughly 25,000 and 500,000 acres. And yes, there is some migration happening between HMAs and USFS land that are adjacent, and yes the horses do wander off the HMAs onto other holdings. Now, not only are the great migrations that allowed horses, like other ungulates, to move with the seasons not allowed, much of the land the HMAs occupy have other uses. Human development, ranching, mining and extraction are all effecting resources and water tables.
Do I have a simple answer? Of course not. However now more than ever, it's vitally important to realize some source infinitely more intelligent than us has created a system so diverse, complex and inter-dependent and we should fall on our knees in beauty and wonder. We should be earnestly learning all we can before it disappears forever. There is almost no place on earth, and certainly no place in North America where the natural landscape has not been negatively impacted, if not irrevocably damaged by man. Now more than ever, there's no place for ego, hubris or profit at all costs.
- A Sand County Almanac, Leopold, Aldo; Estella Leopold. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949
- Oxford definition: 1 [mass noun] Refuge or safety from pursuit, persecution, or other danger. 2 A nature reserve. 2.1 A place where injured or unwanted animals of a specified kind are cared for. 3 A holy place; a temple.)
- Various sources, easily verified.
- http://connecticuthistory.org/gifford-pinchot-bridging-two-eras-of-national-conservation/
- Honest Horses, Paula Morin. University of Nevada Press (February 13, 2006


text:
Office Fitouts Perth
Office Fitouts Perth
Jan 28 2016, 03:34 PM
Post #1
Maximum Perth Enthusiast
Group: Admin
Posts: 874
Joined: 17-May 04
From: Perth
Member No.: 2
Perth Partition Company are industry leading custom designers and installers of prefabricated, cost effective work stations and office partitions for commercial office fit-outs in Perth Western Australia, fabricated and installed on time and on budget, without a lot of disruption to your Perth business.
Phone this local Perth company for free measure and quotes. The Perth Partition Company ship prefabricated cheap office workstations Australia wide.
Photo of one of our office fitouts in Perth WA
Ben, https://seoperth.expert
May 4 2017, 01:05 PM
Post #2
Maximum Perth Enthusiast
Group: Admin
Posts: 874
Joined: 17-May 04
From: Perth
Member No.: 2
Office Fit-outs Perth
The Perth Partition Company is the Perth office fitout company which makes it their business to design, construct and install modern new office partitions, workstations, and decor which sends a message to visiting clients that this business is professional, successful and keeping up with the latest technology. Their interior designer will design office layouts based on your needs and architectural design of your office. Office managers can select from optional designs such as materials, colour and style. Once a new office design is selected, construction of your new modular office interior begins offsite in Perth. This reduces disruption to your business operations. On a quiet day, their skilled tradesmen install your new office interior including running of cables out of sight inside office partitions and workstations. Office partitions can be a combination of materials and fabrics such as glass and low cost MDF. Office partitions can look like new floor to ceiling walls with the added advantage of them being 100% tax deductable.
Once new office fixtures are in place, there is a range of office furniture to choose from such as boardroom tables and office chairs which the Perth Partition Company can put in your office.
The Perth Partition Company also do shop fit-outs in Perth and any other commercial fitouts.
They flat-pack and ship office partitions, workstations, etc Australia wide, with instructions for your tradies to assemble and install.
If you're setting up a new office in Perth and you want a ready turn key office project ready to go for when your staff arrive in Perth, then I recommend the experienced skilled tradies from Perth Partition Company. If you want the best new office interior makeover in Perth, phone Dave of the Perth Partition Company on (08) 6460 7332.
Ben, https://seoperth.expert
|Lo-Fi Version
|Time is now: 28th November 2020 - 07:48 PM


text:
Biology of Spiders
Oxford University Press, USA, May 5, 2011 - Nature - 419 pages
One of the only books to treat the whole spider, from its behavior and physiology to its neurobiology and reproductive characteristics, Biology of Spiders is considered a classic in spider literature. First published in German in 1979, the book is now in its third edition, and has established itself as the supreme authority on these fascinating creatures. Containing five hundred new references, this book incorporates the latest research while dispelling many oft-heard myths and misconceptions that surround spiders. Of special interest are chapters on the structure and function of spider webs and silk, as well as those on spider venom. A new subchapter on tarantulas will appeal especially to tarantula keepers and breeders. The highly accessible text is supplemented by exceptional, high-quality photographs, many of them originals, and detailed diagrams. It will be of interest to arachnologists, entomologists, and zoologists, as well as to academics, students of biology, and the general reader curious about spiders.
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abdomen adult Agelena Amaurobius araneids Araneus diadematus Argiope arrow attached autotomy Barth behavior bite body book lungs Bristowe calamistrum capture thread catching cells chelicerae cheliceral fang claws cocoon copulation courtship coxae crab spiders cribellate cribellum Cupiennius cuticle cuticular dendritic dorsal dragline duct Eberhard egg sac feeding female female's fibers Figure Foelix front legs function ganglia hair shaft hemolymph Homann insects instance Jackson joint jumping spider lateral layer linyphiids main eyes male male's membrane Mesothelae molt muscles mygalomorphs Nephila nerve neuropil opisthosoma orb weavers orb webs organs pair palpal palps pheromones Photo posterior prey capture prosoma radial threads radii retreat Rovner Salticidae secondary eyes segments sensory Seyfarth signals silk threads species sperm spider families spigots spinnerets sticky spiral structure tarantulas tarsal Tegenaria temperature theridiids trichobothria tube typical Uetz uloborid venom glands ventral vibrations visual Vollrath wandering spiders wasps whereas wolf spiders young spiderlings Zygiella