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Food stamp spending is at historic highs—it has doubled twice since 2000. Now some on Capitol Hill say the House is trying to make major cuts to the program, but they're really making some much-needed policy reforms that would achieve modest savings.
The House bill proposes a small 5 percent reduction, while the Senate proposes a mere one-half of 1 percent. Even if the House's reforms are accepted, food stamp spending is projected to be nearly double 2008 levels. It is also projected to remain at or near historical highs into the foreseeable future.
The House's savings come from closing loopholes and ending policies that are currently undermining the integrity of the program. These policies have allowed states to artificially boost food stamp levels and expand the program beyond its intended population. While the House takes steps in the right direction to reform food stamps, the Senate does hardly anything.
Food stamps should be reformed to ensure that the program is serving those it is intended to serve. It should also be reformed to promote self-sufficiency through work, thus helping those who are able by encouraging self-sufficiency.
The post Proposed Cuts Would Barely Dent Massive Growth of Food Stamps appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
The House and Senate farm bills would repeal the costly and indefensible direct payment program, which sends taxpayer dollars to people who don't even plant a seed.
But instead of just getting rid of direct payments, Congress has felt the need to add new programs that could be even costlier. Various commodity groups—e.g., corn, cotton, sugar—want their subsidies.
According to Politico, Frank Lucas (R–OK), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, appears to view himself as the parental figure making sure everyone gets their slice of the subsidy pie:
For some folks [commodity special interest groups] to believe they don't have to be part of the family anymore makes it a little difficult.… As chairman, I'm kind of like a parent sitting at the table. I'm trying to make sure everybody gets their fair portion [of subsidies] as the plates go around. I'm trying to make sure the biggest kid doesn't shove all the little kids off the bench.
The groups that aren't represented at this metaphorical table are taxpayers and consumers. If they were, subsidies wouldn't be served.
This entire push for new subsidies is emblematic of the farm bill. There's never any real reform to agriculture policy because in Washington, the concerns of special interests trump those of taxpayers and consumers. Subsidies and central planning are presumed to be proper policy.
Even many who claim to be in favor of limited government and free markets ignore these critical principles when it comes to the farm bill. They take a holiday from sound policy.
Congress isn't bothering to ask whether there should even be new subsidies. Instead, the focus is on how new subsidy programs should work and how many billions of taxpayer dollars should be handed over to special interest groups—the "little kids."
This may be the season of giving, but Congress shouldn't dole out any new subsidies to special interests. They should be developing real agriculture reform.
The post Parenting 101: Doling Out Farm Bill Subsidies to the "Kids"? appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
If government employees can enjoy a stay in a luxury hotel made famous on The Bachelor, then surely Congress could find somewhere to make spending cuts.
In November, a group of federal government employees connected with the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force enjoyed a trip to St. Croix, courtesy of taxpayers. Though no reports of long bar tabs and souvenir receipts have surfaced—as what happened when the General Services Administration held a conference in Las Vegas—a few details have raised eyebrows.
Government employees stayed in the Buccaneer Hotel, a beachfront resort made famous by the television show The Bachelor. At a time of supposedly tight budgets, the task force could have at least proposed a more modest way to hear from regional governors and others about the status of the coral reefs.
Further, the trip itself did nothing directly to improve the environment. Taxpayers can only hope the week of lecturers and public events along with the annual business meeting will eventually produce something in the way of improved environmental quality.
Perhaps no obscenely wasteful spending took place over the week—that much is unclear. But also unclear is why this program exists in the first place. With the task force spread across 11 different federal agencies, it is difficult to understand how much it costs taxpayers and whether it is successful or not. There are many nonprofit organizations, research institutes, universities, clubs, community groups, networking coalitions, and businesses in the Caribbean alone working to improve coral reefs and educate the public. The Coral Reef Alliance lists 10 pages worth of organizations working on coral reef issues in the U.S. With such a clear and committed effort, why are taxpayers footing the bill (the size and effectiveness of which is unclear) for the federal government to join the party?
Even with a national debt of $17 trillion and counting, some in Congress are maneuvering to replace spending cuts from sequestration with even more spending. But stories of wasteful spending cropping up now and then make clear that if the federal government can "afford" such questionable purchases, clearly there is room to cut. The longer Congress waits to budget, the more important cutting wasteful spending and tackling the nation's debt becomes. The budget conference presents a unique opportunity to do just that.
The post No Room for Spending Cuts? How About Government Employee Trips to the Caribbean? appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) squadron may be eliminated if the Obama Administration's draft plan to cut it is implemented.
Neither the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) nor any other treaty would compel the Administration to make this move. And it could be permanent. As Heritage's Michaela Dodge commented, "If you destroy the silos, it would be much harder to rebuild them…and very politically difficult."
Since New START entered into force, the Administration has failed to meet its commitments to the U.S. Senate regarding funding for the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and proceeding with all four phases of the European Phased Adaptive Approach, the Administration's plan for defending the U.S. and its allies.
Meanwhile, Iran and North Korea are reportedly advancing their ICBM capabilities, and Russia has undergone a massive modernization program. The United States is the only nuclear-armed nation that has not modernized its nuclear force. As noted by Dodge and Baker Spring, nuclear arms dismantlement does not constitute modernization.
ICBMs still play a critical role in U.S. security, and any reductions in this force could negatively impact the nuclear triad, possibly leaving the U.S. vulnerable to foreign threats. To lessen this threat and fulfill the constitutional mandate of providing "for the common defence," the U.S. should not plan to cut any quantity from the ICBM force of the nuclear triad. Rather, the U.S. needs to sustain and modernize the entire nuclear triad so it may keep ahead of the quickly changing security environment.
John Collick is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please click here.
The post Administration Plans to Cut ICBMs appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
Congress doesn't have much time to work out a food stamp/farm bill this year. If no farm bill is passed, this wouldn't be the end of the world. Just like it did last year, Congress can pass an extension.
The House and Senate are trying to work out differences between their two farm bills, but both are weak when it comes to real reforms. They do little on agriculture reform and may even make things worse. The Senate does virtually nothing when it comes to food stamps; the House makes some modest food stamp reform. In the House bill, several programs—including the sugar program, which drives up food prices—wouldn't expire after five years like most agriculture programs. This means Congress would be locking in bad policy not just for five years but for an indefinite period of time (referred to as "permanent law").
Both bills would also add new programs that would impose massive liability on taxpayers to protect farmers from virtually all risk. One of these programs would drastically change agriculture policy by trying to protect farmers from even minor losses. The safety net concept would be a thing of the past.
If Senate policies on food stamps are adopted, Congress will have failed to address almost all food stamp reforms. This includes requiring able-bodied food stamp recipients to work or look for work.
When negotiators are working off two bad bills, it's almost certain that the resulting bill will also be bad. This, combined with the time crunch, likely makes an extension the best option.
Even some powerful agriculture groups—the American Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association, and the U.S. Canola Association—sent a letter to Congress supporting an extension if certain subsidy programs contain policies they oppose.
However, an extension is only a procedural step that would let Congress get things right. Working off the same two bad farm bills in the future is simply delaying the same problem that exists now: Both the House and Senate haven't developed necessary reforms in the first place that can serve as the foundation for a good farm bill.
Critical to achieving this reform is for each chamber to create two separate bills—one on food stamps and one on agriculture policy—so that these programs can be considered on their own merits.
Regardless of whether there's an extension or a farm bill, there still needs to be real reform. An extension is better than a bad farm bill. Five years of bad policy is far worse than a temporary delay in order to get things right.
The post Farm Bill Extension Would Be Better Than $1 Trillion Food Stamp/Subsidy Disaster appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
A new Harvard University poll finds a majority of millennials (57 percent) disapprove of Obamacare. The news comes on the second day of President Obama's latest effort to sell the health care law to the public at large and young people in particular.
The results from Harvard's Institute of Politics, which surveyed 2,089 young adults aged 18 to 29, found only 18 percent of millennials who thought Obamacare would improve their care. Less than one-third said they're likely to enroll in the Obamacare insurance exchanges.
Whether pollsters referred to the law as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, most young adults (50 percent and 51 percent, respectively) believed their health care costs would go up because of the President's signature domestic legislation.
Millennials, who played a critical role in the election and re-election of Obama, now rate the President at the lowest level since he took office in 2009, with 41 percent approval, the poll found. Millennials named the economy as their top issue, followed by government spending, jobs, taxes, and health care.
This study comes after Gallup reported earlier this week that young adults are the least knowledgeable age group with details about Obamacare, with 37 percent saying they were not familiar with the health law.
As Gallup and others have pointed out, Obamacare's success depends on young Americans enrolling in the federal and state insurance exchanges. The law needs healthy, young enrollees to subsidize the cost for older and sicker Americans who are not charged exponentially higher rates.
But does familiarity really help Obamacare? Gallup noted that Americans who are familiar with Obamacare are significantly more likely (59 percent) to oppose the law than those who aren't familiar (43 percent).
What's possible is that as they learn more about it, Americans are sick of Obamacare and its disastrous impact on the economy. They could be ready for real alternatives that bolster the doctor-patient relationship, lower health care costs, and offer more choice and freedom.
The post Obama Loses Millennials: 57% of Young Adults Reject Obamacare appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
Yesterday brought news that the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has found gaps in DHS's cybersecurity. Politico reports that, according to the IG:
[T]he agency for months failed to patch its systems regularly against known cybersecurity threats or scan its networks consistently, in real time, to keep out digital malefactors.… Some at DHS even had been using an old, soon-to-be unsupported version of Microsoft Windows, according to the IG, whose conclusions are drawn from earlier studies issued throughout 2013. DHS also lagged in developing a more secure system to ensure the right employees are accessing the right data.
Nobody should take any pleasure in this report. DHS, after all, bears primary responsibility for defending the .gov domain against cyber intrusions. The IG's report follows close on the heels of a report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The council—which has among its memberships luminaries such as Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, and Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—scathingly concluded that the federal government "rarely follows accepted best practices" for cybersecurity and that needs to "lead by example" rather than by direction.
The council also concluded (in words we only wish we had written) that "industry-driven, but third-party-audited, continuous improvement processes are more likely to create an effective cybersecurity culture than are Government-mandated, static lists of security measures." Yet we proceed apace with the development of a static federal cybersecurity framework under the direction of the National Institute for Standards and Technology.
All of which should give us pause—for if the federal government cannot manage its own cybersecurity well, one wonders how well it will manage that of the private sector.
The post Holes in Federal Cybersecurity appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
As much as 90 percent of the currency circulating throughout the United States contains trace amounts of cocaine. No one would expect the police to claim someone's money must be "dirty" based on trace presence of drugs alone. But that is exactly what law enforcement officers in Brown County, Wisconsin, claimed when they seized money from a mother attempting to post bail for her son.
When Joel Greer was arrested by the Brown County Drug Task Force, a judge set his bail at $7,500. As any good mother would, Beverly Greer immediately set to work gathering the funds necessary to free her son. Beverly called the Brown County jail, where Joel was being held, and was explicitly told to bring the bail in cash—even though Wisconsin law allows you to pay for a bond with a cashier's check, credit card, money order, or cash. A series of visits to ATMs secured the $7,500, and Mrs. Greer reported to the jail to bring her son home.
But rather than accept the cash and release her son on bail, Brown County police brought in a drug dog, which alerted to the trace amounts of illegal drugs on the bills. Brown County police then seized the cash and refused to release Joel Greer. The police chose to ignore the ATM receipts proving the money had originated at a bank and claimed it was drug money. In reality, it was the family's hard-earned savings and Mrs. Greer's disability pay.
The Greers didn't get their money back for four months—and only after an attorney got involved on their behalf. Under Wisconsin law, law enforcement authorities may keep half of any seized amount exceeding $2,000, creating a perverse incentive for local law enforcement. In this case, it was obviously tempting enough that the authorities tried to deprive a man of his right to post bail and to essentially rob a family of its money.
And they are not alone. Another victim, Jesus Zamora, was arrested on misdemeanor charges, and when his girlfriend turned up with $5,000 in borrowed money to bail him out, the police seized it after a canine inspection. Zamora remained in custody until an additional $5,000 could be scrounged together—this time turned over straight to a judge in the form of a cashier's check.
If you can't trust the police to apply the laws fairly, whom can you trust? The fault for this bait-and-switch does not lie with the police alone, though. It lies with civil asset forfeiture's perverse incentives and lax standards, which all too often result in enriching abusive law enforcement authorities at the expense of American citizens.
The post Bail Bond Bait and Switch: Police Seize Money from Innocent Mother appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
The salesman in chief is back on the road.
President Obama will be spending the month of December once again explaining Obamacare to the American people. Because if he explains it one more time, maybe people will like it?
We expect these holiday greetings will go over about as well as a three-year-old fruitcake. Obama's been selling the law for about that long, yet public opinion has turned against it.
The President said yesterday that he's "learned not to make wild promises" anymore about the rollout of the health care law. But it's clear he's not going to stop making wild claims about Obamacare—and Obamacare's critics.
Who Wants Repeal?
As we enjoy the holiday season, the President and congressional Democrats intend to warn the country that conservatives want to repeal Obamacare.
But according to a new poll, so do 50 percent of likely U.S. voters.
That's right—there is broad support for repealing Obamacare and starting over with health care reform. So what happens then?
What Happens After Repeal?
President Obama and his allies have made no secret of their plans: They cast Obamacare skeptics as The Ones Who Want to Take You Back to the Health Care Dark Ages.
Unfortunately for Obama's public relations push, conservatives have no such intention. Repealing Obamacare—and saving Americans from the law's woes—is only the beginning of what we would like to see in American health care. It would merely get this monstrosity out of the way so that truly helpful reforms could begin.
Obama said yesterday that critics just want to "go back to the status quo" and that they "haven't presented an alternative."
This is laughable. Obamacare is hardly the only game in town. Heritage experts—and many other policy researchers—have been offering health reform ideas for decades. Heritage has specifically outlined an alternative to Obamacare.
So while the White House spends December selling Americans the same old stale (and failing) ideas, we'll be looking forward (to borrow an Obama buzzword). We'll be highlighting the ways Congress could do health care reform better—and what it would mean to you and your family.
Forward this to someone who would want to hear about real alternatives to Obamacare. They can sign up for the Morning Bell here.
Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.
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The post Sick of Obamacare? We've Got Something Different appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
For months, Heritage scholars have warned that the Obama Administration created incentives for fraud by allowing Obamacare insurance subsidies to basically operate under an "honor system" instead of requiring the IRS to verify incomes of Americans eligible for subsidies.
The Treasury Department's watchdog confirmed those fears by warning that Obamacare subsidies may be vulnerable to fraud.
In a new audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the agency found that the Internal Revenue Service, which is in charge of administering Obamacare subsidies, had not put in place a fraud strategy for its Obamacare system development, testing, initial deployment, or long-term operations.
The IRS's current [Internal Revenue Manuals] do not address management's responsibility for managing, monitoring, and mitigating fraud risk with the development of new information technology systems for [Obamacare]. Further, the ACA Program has not yet completed a fraud mitigation strategy to guide ongoing systems development. It is important for the IRS to thoroughly consider fraud threats and risks that could impact new ACA systems.
What this means is that the IRS doesn't have the necessary systems in place to effectively root out Obamacare subsidy applicants who report an income that is actually lower than their true income so that they can qualify for a higher subsidy. They'll have unfairly high subsidies on the backs of hard-working taxpayers who follow the rules.
As Heritage had noted, Obamacare supporters had claimed that the new allowances for the IRS would not encourage fraud because "applicants who receive [subsidies] for which they are ineligible will have to pay them back when they file their taxes."
But that isn't correct. Individuals face a maximum $2,500 fine for repayment but could reap far more benefits in the process.
This is just another example of how Obamacare puts taxpayers at risk—with its broken promises and trampling of fundamental freedoms. The Treasury audit is another red flag that Americans need less government intervention in their health care and more common-sense reforms.
The post Government Report Warns Obamacare Subsidies Are Ripe for Fraud appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
Federal Judge Steven Rhodes's ruling to allow the City of Detroit to proceed with its bankruptcy filing is a welcome—even momentous—occasion for Detroit. It means the city will be able to restructure its $18 billion in debt, the first step in the challenging process of rebuilding the city and reforming the government.
Key among the judge's specific rulings was his decision to allow cuts to Detroit's public employee pension programs with the proviso that such cuts be "fair and equitable." Just how the judge will decide if the cuts are "fair" is uncertain. The union leaders who negotiated these utterly unaffordable pension and health care benefits have already cried foul and have been steadfastly opposed to any changes in the system. But, changes to the retirement plans are sorely needed.
Over half of the city's $18 billion in debt actually comes from the pension plans and health care benefits. Annual costs (plus debt payments) already claim 43 cents out of every tax dollar coming to the city's coffers and will skyrocket in a few short years. So without changes, fewer and fewer tax dollars will be free to pay for things like street lights, police or other emergency services—the kinds of services that cities are supposed to provide for their citizens.
The best thing for the future of the city is for the unions to sit down and work with Emergency Manager Kevin Orr to restructure existing pension debts—yes, that means benefit cuts—and restructure pensions for current workers going forward to make sure all are affordable to the city's taxpayers. The more proactive unions are, the more "fair and equitable" the changes can be.
The post Green Light for Detroit Bankruptcy: Time for Unions to Come to the Table appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
The San Diego County District Attorney's Office filed felony vandalism charges against 46-year-old Ocean Beach, California, resident Juvencio Adame for "defacement, damage and destruction" of public property in excess of $400. Felony charges can result in significant prison time.
His "crime"? Trimming shrubbery next to his home.
What would possess Adame to do such a thing? Adame told neighbors that the overgrown shrubbery, which is technically on public land, became a haven for homeless people who slept under it and littered the area. Thus, he engaged in self-help—clearly not a malicious act.
To be sure, citizens pay to maintain public property, so it's appropriate to fine those who damage it. But charging someone with a felony under these circumstances?
The criminal law contains the harshest penalties that the state can impose upon citizens. Criminal sanctions should be reserved for those who do things that are morally blameworthy and that a reasonable person would recognize as a criminal act.
Adame's conduct is not morally blameworthy, nor would a reasonable person in Adame's position have realized that such a harmless act of beautification would subject him to criminal sanctions.
Sadly, it's not unusual to see public-spirited citizens being threatened with criminal penalties. We wrote several months ago about Washington, D.C.'s "Phantom Planter," who dared to make one of the city's Metro stops more aesthetically pleasing. He, too, was threatened with fines and jail. Metro officials settled for destroying the flowers he had planted.
One of Adame's neighbors, Glenn Goss, points out that Adame was, in effect, doing the city's job: "Here's somebody who's going out of his way (to trim the trees). It's not his job, it's the city's job. Then they do this ridiculous thing. It's mind-boggling."
Mind-boggling is right. Thankfully, officials eventually came to their senses, and the charges were dropped. But it's important to emphasize that prosecuting people like Adame is not only a waste of taxpayers' money—it's an egregious misuse of the criminal law.
The felony charges never should have been brought in the first place. Let's hope that other jurisdictions act with less haste and use more common sense.
The Heritage Foundation's project USA vs. YOU spotlights the flood of criminal laws threatening our liberties. Explore more stories of overcriminalization and find out what you can do to reverse this trend.
The post Felony Shrub-Trimming: San Diego Man Criminally Charged for Pruning Plants appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos started a maelstrom after a surprise announcement on television Sunday evening that Amazon would "soon" begin to use drones to deliver packages.
On one side, so loud was the outcry that you would have thought Bezos had asked to arm the drones with Hellfire missiles. On the other, there were some cheers, but they were mostly a lot of "Yes, we already told you that." What is the reality here?
First of all, Bezos was clear that none of this would happen until the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) could decide, write, and implement a full set of safety rules for the use of the small vehicles that could deliver a five-pound package inside a 10-mile radius within 30 minutes of ordering it. It is not happening tomorrow. Clearly, there are numerous rules that are needed to ensure safety and appropriate sharing of the low-altitude airspace in and around populated areas.
Adding to concern is that Bezos wants to use GPS-directed autonomous platforms rather than remotely piloted aircraft, which the military presently uses. Amazon would simply input the coordinates for the delivery and send the little drone off with its payload of books or electronics from one of Amazon's supply centers. It would land in front of your house, disconnect the box, and fly home.
Beyond the safety issues, the frenzy of "drone opponents" is a little laughable. Yes, it is a new technology, and yes, it will take a little time to sort out the effective rule sets to govern them, but it is not the end of civilization as we know it.
In a detailed report on the use of drones domestically, Heritage explains the legal issues involved. The bottom line is this: The laws and rules for privacy and lawful searches are well established. They all still apply, even to new technologies. Law enforcement officers will live by those rules (they really want convictions that stick, not just arrests), and if there are gray areas that crop up, the system of judicial review will make the rulings that fill those gaps.
Calls for "hunting licenses" for drones, impassioned wailing and gnashing of teeth, and fears of the "rise of the machines" are all unnecessary, ridiculous, and a true waste of energy. Let the FAA do its job on safety, then let the courts do theirs on the inevitable gray areas, and the Republic will survive. Technology has always moved forward and will continue to do so. Bezos was reluctant to give a time frame for his drone delivery system, but be assured, it is coming.
Today all this is science fiction, but it is clearly not fantasy. Fantasy simply cannot happen. Science fiction is something we cannot do today but may be able to do in the future—and much sooner in the future than we probably think possible today.
Progress is coming. Rather than try to fight it, let's work together to get it right.
The post Holding Back Progress Is a Fool's Errand: Drones Are Coming appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
HealthCare.gov may or may not be working—for some people.
That seems to be the clearest assessment after the Obama Administration has flubbed two deadlines to get the Obamacare website working.
The disaster has spawned countless news stories and updates about the website's progress. But here's the most important story: HealthCare.gov can't fix anything that's wrong with Obamacare.
Even if it worked perfectly from Day 1, that would do Americans little good. A slick, smoothly functioning website couldn't undo all the damage Obamacare has done and is doing.
Here are just six of the things HealthCare.gov couldn't begin to fix.
1. All of Obama's broken promises. "You can keep your plan." "You can keep your doctor." "Premiums will go down by $2,500 per family." All of these ring hollow for so many Americans now.
2. The lack of options for insurers on the Obamacare exchanges. Obamacare has reduced competition and choice nationally. Just check out this map to see its effects.
3. Dumping millions of Americans onto an already broken Medicaid program. Access to care and health outcomes are both worse under Medicaid than private insurance. Expanding the program to "cover" more people isn't giving them quality coverage.
4. Penalties for getting married—and success at work. Obamacare's financial incentives discourage marriage and for some workers, they will even discourage working harder and getting a raise. Why should a health care law be punishing these positive behaviors?
5. Obamacare's trampling on religious liberty. Because of its coercive mandates, Obamacare forces many employers to purchase government-approved health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs—and that runs counter to a lot of Americans' beliefs. Religious beliefs and the freedom to operate a private business based on those beliefs are in danger.
6. The jobs Obamacare has killed. Even though the Administration delayed the employer mandate, that hasn't stopped jobs from being cut, workers' hours from being cut, and employers struggling with the law's new costs.
Fixing the problems facing the U.S. health care system requires an alternative to Obamacare. Learn more about our ideas to take health care out of the government's hands and put it back in yours.
Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.
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The post What Will Happen When (and If) HealthCare.gov Actually Works appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
The brutal dispersal of demonstrators in Ukraine last week led to dozens wounded—and a public protest movement which now surpasses the Orange Revolution of 2004. Demonstrators want Ukraine in Europe—and President Victor Yanukovich out of power. Ariel Cohen, Heritage's Senior Research Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies, gives some perspective on where this is coming from.
What is the crisis in Ukraine all about?
The new generation, which grew up under independence, opposes Yanukovich, who derailed three years of negotiations with the European Union and refused to sign the Association Agreement with the EU at the November Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. When Yanukovich returned from Vilnius empty-handed, tens of thousands of young (and not so young) people filled the Independence Square (the Maydan), to launch EuroMaydan, an ongoing mass demonstration.
Ukraine first gained independence from the Romanov Empire in 1918, only to be occupied by the Russian Red Army in 1919; it regained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ukraine was always torn between Russia and the West.
Why should Americans care?
First, there are 2.5 million Americans and Canadians of Ukrainian descent, many of whom have ties to the "old country." Second, this is the largest country in Europe, much bigger than France, with over 40 million people, outstanding agricultural resources, massive industry (including aerospace, steel, and chemicals), and an educated population striving to live in a Europe-like state—not in a Russian-dominated authoritarian, corrupt state.
We care because Ukraine has suffered, was a captive nation under communism, and lost 5 million people from Stalin-inspired famine—and possibly another five million more in the Holocaust, the Nazi occupation, and World War II fighting.
What is the role of Russia?
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to rebuild a sphere of "exclusive interests" directed by Moscow and based on overlapping organizations: the Customs Union, the Eurasian Economic Space, and the Common Security Treaty Organization. He is willing to sell Ukraine much-needed natural gas and continue low-tariff trade if Ukraine joins these organizations. Russia launched a massive campaign of intimidation and punished Ukraine with higher tariff and non-tariff measures this past summer to prevent it from signing the agreement with the EU.
How did the EU and the U.S. handle this situation?
Not too well. While Poland and Sweden led the way to integrate Ukraine, key states such as Germany, Great Britain, and France were aloof. Some EU officials are afraid to expand the union after years of economic mismanagement, overwhelming bureaucracy, and slow growth, which led to high unemployment. Others are afraid of Russia's reaction. The Obama Administration was passive on the Ukrainian Euro-Atlantic integration issue, anxious not to annoy Putin. It set the plank low: non-membership in either EU or the Customs Union.
What should the U.S. and Europe do?
We should stand shoulder to shoulder with all pro-democracy forces in Ukraine and coordinate our policies with our European allies. Ukraine should not be forced into the Russian sphere of influence against its will.
Ukraine has suffered enough—we should help her to find a home in the Euro-Atlantic space.
The post Q&A on the Crisis in Ukraine appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
North Korea released a video of Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old American citizen, reading a coerced confession for committing "hostile acts" against the regime.
Newman was arrested while about to depart North Korea after a 10-day tourist visit. Newman, who served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, is seen reading a statement declaring, "I killed so many civilians and [North Korean] soldiers and destroyed strategic objects in [North Korea] during the Korean War. I committed indelible offensive acts against the [North Korean] government and Korean people."
North Korea accused him of being a "mastermind of clandestine operations" during the war. Pyongyang also took umbrage at Newman's request to meet with surviving soldiers from his wartime unit or their descendants and to pray for the souls of the dead soldiers. North Korea accused Newman of having infringed upon the "dignity and sovereignty" of the nation.
The Obama Administration responded to the outrage by urging North Korea "to release Mr. Newman so he may return home and reunite with his family. We remain deeply concerned about the welfare of the U.S. citizens held in custody in [North Korea]."
Advocates of engagement with North Korea deride simplistic media reporting depicting the reclusive regime as "strange." They assert that diplomacy can resolve Pyongyang's long-standing quest for nuclear weapons. Increased social interaction (such as tourism, student exchanges, and philharmonic orchestra visits) will, it is argued, enhance mutual understanding and lower distrust.
Sorry, but arresting an elderly tourist as a security threat and forcing him to sign a confession for being a soldier 60 years ago seems nothing else but "strange." Pyongyang has not only set back any inkling of U.S. interest in resuming nuclear negotiations; it has also affirmed every negative impression anyone harbored about the North Korean dictatorship.
North Korea has arrested Americans before—mostly journalists attempting to sneak into the country or missionaries proselytizing against Pyongyang's repression of religious freedom. But arresting someone for being a tourist is a first.
Perhaps the only thing more pitiful than North Korea's outrageous actions is Washington's timid response. One might have hoped that seeing a U.S. citizen—one who served his country in wartime—humiliated and forced to bow to his captors after signing a trumped-up confession would have elicited a more outraged response than "deeply concerned."
Photos of Merrill Newman bowing conjures up similar images of Americans held captive after the USS Pueblo was captured by North Korea in 1968. The Pueblo, an unarmed reconnaissance ship captured in international waters—officially remains a commissioned vessel of the U.S. Navy—the only one held by enemy combatants.
It is not known whether North Korea will release Newman or under what conditions. Another American, Kenneth Bae, was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labor for "hostile acts against the republic." Pyongyang might seek to use Newman's capture to push for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. The regime has called for replacing the current armistice after previous incidents that raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The Obama Administration should condition any resumptions of diplomatic engagement or consideration of aid on the release of Newman and Bae. Any negotiations on a Korean War peace treaty should include a reduction in the North Korean conventional force threat to South Korea, implementation of confidence-building measures, and the return of the USS Pueblo.
The post North Korea Still Holding 85-Year-Old American Veteran appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
Congress will soon vote on raising the federal minimum wage to over $10 per hour. Few realize that, from the perspective of many employers, the government has already done this.
The Obamacare employer penalty will add thousands of dollars to hiring costs in 2015. Coupled with existing minimum wages and employer-side taxes, it will raise the minimum cost of employing a full-time worker to $10.30 per hour.
The Obamacare employer mandate requires businesses that do not provide "qualifying" health coverage to pay a $2,000 penalty in after-tax dollars for each full-time worker they employ (with an exemption for small businesses and for the first 30 workers). This works out to $3,729 in pre-tax dollars. Very few minimum wage employers provide the extensive (and expensive) benefits Obamacare requires, so most will pay the penalty instead of offering Obamacare-approved health plans.
This penalty does not directly benefit workers, but it will add $1.64 per hour to the cost of employing them. This will raise full-time hiring costs to $10.30 per hour in 2015. (For a detailed explanation, click here.)
The employer mandate functions as an extra $1.64-per-hour tax on hiring workers who can produce at least $10.30 per hour—and as a job killer for those who cannot. By 2015, workers producing less than $10.30 per hour will not remain employed full-time for long.
Some Members of Congress now propose adding to these hiring costs by raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour. This would have disastrous consequences for the unskilled workers and families they want to help. It would raise the cost of hiring a full-time worker to at least $12.71 per hour. A worker would have to produce at least that much for a company to break even on that position.
Many inexperienced and entry-level workers do not produce $12.71 per hour in value for their employers. They gain not just their paychecks from working but also valuable experience that leads to higher paying jobs and career advancement. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers earn raises within a year.
Entry-level jobs pay off in the long run for many workers. But if Congress adds a minimum-wage hike to the Obamacare mandate, many employees will never get that chance.
The post Congress Has Already Raised the Minimum Wage Above $10 appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
China launched its first lunar lander today. The Chang'e-3 spacecraft will carry a lunar rover to the moon, marking the first time a Chinese spacecraft has landed on another celestial body.
The Chang'e-3 is part of a three-step robotic lunar exploration effort. Chang'e-1 and Chang'e-2 (launched in 2007 and 2010, respectively) were lunar orbiters that mapped the lunar surface, providing Chinese scientists and mission planners with a picture of the moon to determine where future landers could set down.
Chang'e-3 will display China's ability to soft-land a vehicle on the lunar surface and deploy a rover. It will also provide an opportunity to test China's deep-space tracking and communications capability, as the rover will reportedly be under earth control at various points of its maneuvers on the lunar surface. Such a space observation and tracking system has implications not only for space exploration but for national security, as it can be used to maintain space surveillance, keeping watch over Chinese and other nations' space assets.
The third phase will be a lunar sample retrieval mission in the 2017 time frame. This may set the stage for further robotic missions on the moon or perhaps on other planets (e.g., Mars)—or perhaps for a manned lunar mission in the 2020–2030 time frame.
China's Chang'e-3 program should not be seen as necessarily part of a space race. Neither China nor the United States—nor most of China's spacefaring neighbors (Japan, India, South Korea)—are rushing to space in the manner of the U.S.–Soviet effort of the 1950s and 1960s. Rather, it should be seen as reflecting the persistent, long-term effort, with high-level political support, that has marked China's space program in general.
The post China Goes to the Moon with Chang'e-3 Mission appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
In his new book, Inventing Freedom, Daniel Hannan explains how liberty originated from the Anglosphere and why the English-speaking people of the world have created and fostered liberty throughout the world.
Speaking at a recent Heritage event, Hannan, member of the European Parliament representing South East England, said he believes the Anglosphere is, in fact, liberty's strongest friend.
In 1968, Hannan and almost all of the Anglo-Peruvian community—amid mob attacks, seizures, and confiscations—fled the grasp of the leftist regime of Peruvian General Juan Velasco Alvarado.
"I am someone who has moved from the Hispanosphere to the Anglosphere," Hannan said. "I can't help noticing that the movement has been overwhelmingly one-way. It's worth standing back and asking why that is."
Hannan asked, "What made the Anglosphere miracle possible? That's the question that I set out to answer in Inventing Freedom."
Perhaps the most striking characteristic Hannan noted was "the miracle of common law."
"The law came up from the people, not down from the regime," he said. "It was an ally of freedom, not an instrument of state control. … That beautiful, anomalous system that John Adams recognized as the foundation of all Anglosphere freedoms [is] almost without precedent in the world."
Hannan noted that visitors to North America and Great Britain found these countries to be remarkable. Voltaire, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and others observed the emphasis on individual freedom, religious freedom, the plurality of religions, and free-market enterprise.
Heritage hosted Hannan on November 22. His discussion and the question-and-answer session run about 55 minutes.
The post VIDEO: Daniel Hannan Explains Why the English-Speaking World Is the Most Committed to Individual Liberty appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
Is immigration reform coming back from the dead?
Over Thanksgiving, both President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) have indicated that the issue —which has meant amnesty, by any other name—is alive on Capitol Hill.
Obama said last week that proponents of amnesty should be "thankful" for Boehner's stated support for immigration reform and prompted laughter by comparing the complicated issue to a turkey that could be sliced up.
"It's Thanksgiving. We can carve this bird into multiple pieces," Obama quipped.
But the metaphor doesn't really work.
It must have been the spirit of the season that prompted Boehner to praise Obama earlier in November for his sudden willingness—amid the wreckage of another "comprehensive" solution, Obamacare—to entertain a "piece-by-piece" process for immigration reform.
"The American people are skeptical of big, comprehensive bills, and frankly, they should be," Boehner told reporters. "The only way to make sure immigration reform works this time is to address the complicated issues one step at a time."
While all this talk sounds nice, the bird really wouldn't be carved in the end. The House and Senate eventually would have to come together, and that's where liberals are likely to reassemble the pieces, throw in some more, and try to stuff the whole monstrous turkey—including amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants—down Americans' throats.
But Americans are wary of promises from Washington right now. They have learned the hard way to watch what this President does and not what he says. After all, he has broken promises about Obamacare and acted without Congress to waive or delay parts of the health care law. And he has shown himself more than willing to test the constitutional limits of executive power not only on immigration but many other matters.
The immigration discussions have strayed far from the positive path to immigration and border security reform the country should be on. That path exists, and it does not lead to more broken promises.
Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.
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The post Beware of Happy Talk on Immigration appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
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By Hindustan Times
Skyfall has taken more in its opening weekend at the British box office than any previous James Bond film, say producers.
Starring Daniel Craig as 007 for a third time, Skyfall has made £20.1 million ($32.2 million, 25.0 million euros) in Britain and Ireland since opening in both countries on Friday, according to a statement on its website.
"We are absolutely overwhelmed with the reaction to Skyfall this weekend," said producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
"It is particularly thrilling as the UK is home to James Bond and it being the 50th anniversary year."
Critics have declared the 23rd Bond film, starring Spanish actor Javier Bardem as Bond's lat

subset: commoncrawl


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Rick Derringer
Rick Derringer
Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo: The Best of Rick Derringer
Original Release Date: September 3, 1996
Track Listing
1. Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo
2. I Didn't Ask to Be Born
3. Time Warp
4. Teenage Queen
5. Let Me In
6. Still Alive and Well
7. Let the Music Play
8. Modern Love
9. Everything
10. Sleepless
11. Need a Little Girl (Just Like You)
12. Hang on Sloopy
13. Sittin' by the Pool
14. Don't Ever Say Goodbye
15. Teenage Love Affair
16. Beyond the Universe
Rick Derringer: Guitar (Acoustic), Bass, Guitar, Guitar (Electric), Guitar (Rhythm), Maracas, Tambourine, Vocals, Vocals (Background), Guitar (12 String), Producer, Sitar (Electric)
Dan Hartman: Organ, Bass, Guitar (Rhythm), Vocals (Background)
Todd Rundgren: Vocals (Background), Producer
Joe Walsh: Guitar (Electric)
Jerry Lacroix: Saxophone, Vocals (Background)
Roger Powell: Organ
Kasim Sulton: Vocals (Background)
Kenny Passarelli: Bass
Steven Paul: ?, Organic Director
Tasha Thomas: Vocals (Background)
Kenny Aaronson: Bass, Vocals (Background)
Vinny Appice: Drums, Vocals (Background)
Jack Douglas: Producer
Edgar Winter: Organ, Percussion, Keyboards, Piano (Electric), Saxophone, Vocals (Background)
Mark Feldman: Project Director
Neil Giraldo: Piano
Myron Grombacher: Drums, Vocals
Carl Hall: Vocals (Background)
Paul Harris: Piano
Randy Jo Hobbs: Bass
Danny Johnson: Guitar, Vocals
Benjy King: Keyboards, Vocals (Background)
Donnie Kisselbach: Bass, Vocals
Joe Lala: Conga
Tilly Lawrence: Trumpet
Bobby Ramirez: Drums
Chuck Ruff: Percussion, Drums, Vocals (Background)
John Siegler: Bass
John Siomos: Drums
Jon Smith: Saxophone, Vocals (Background)
Bill Szymczyk: Producer
Jimmy Wilcox: Drums, Vocals
Jud Cost: Liner Notes
Al Quaglieri: Compilation Producer
Mike McLellan: Trumpet
Tony Sellari: Art Direction
Mike Chapman: Producer
Chris Athens: Digital Mastering
Bobby Caldwell: Drums
Allen Nichols: Vocals (Background)
George I. Isaac: Vocals (Background)
Emmanuel Riley: Vocals (Background)


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Adjunct Faculty, Assistant Public Defender
J.D., William Mitchell College of Law
B.A., St. Cloud State College
Mr. Webb is a felony trial attorney in the 10th District Public Defender's office in Anoka, MN. He supervises the certified student attorney program in the Anoka/Sherburne County Public Defender's offices and he teaches at the MN Public Defender's Trial Institute. Mr. Webb co-created and co-teaches the Public Defense clinic for students at St. Thomas University Law school.
Number | Title | Credits | ||
798 | Topics | 0 | ||
Description of course 798 : | ||||
962 | Clinic: Misdemeanor Defense | 4 | ||
Description of course 962 : | Students will attend classes to learn about the practical and official rules of criminal procedure in Minnesota Courtrooms, and will be assigned to a practicing public defender attorney to learn how to represent clients in different types of proceedings (generally assigned based on student interest; for example, students interested in juvenile representation will represent juveniles). No prerequisites or co-requisites for summer session – professional responsibility will be worked into the classes for rising 2Ls. |


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Eastern Cougar Declared Extinct
The eastern cougar has been declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Although the eastern cougar has been on the endangered species list since 1973, its existence has long been questioned, according to a Service news release.
"We recognize that many people have seen cougars in the wild within the historical range of the eastern cougar," said the Service's Northeast Region Chief of Endangered Species Martin Miller. "However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar."
What is now believed to have been the last eastern cougar was trapped in Somerset County in 1938, according to the Portland Press Herald.


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I love both, but the Walking Dead has fairly shallow characters and repetitive themes. The Game of Thrones has an army of diverse characters and multiple narrative threads on each show. And it has the worst villain in history in that punk kid. The governor is a kind of crap villain imo.
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The Walking Dead is far better imo. Better characters, better story and it makes you care about the characters and what they go through
Rick and Daryl <3
I love both shows but if I had to choose one I'd go with The Walking Dead, although it's not as deep as Game of Thrones it seems like it has more action, which I like.
What's with all these tweets anyway?!
I thought this was gamespot and not twitter.
Competitions are never open for my country anyway so meh.


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Hi all,
Follow me and I follow back - just quick and easy.
Just visit my blog, follow via GFC, leave a comment on a post, and I'll follow back. =)
If you'd like to follow via other social media outlets, please just let me know in your comment and I'll be glad to return the favor on the that end as well.
Happy following!
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I tried to follow you and this was the error message that was displaying for me on your blog.
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I followed and left a comment on your recent post
heres my blog
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Explore - Apparel
Q & A: Leanne Marshall
In Season 5 of Bravo's Project Runway, fashion designer Leanne Marshall earned the winning nod from the judges for her architectural, sustainability-minded designs.
written by: Miyoko Ohtake11.12.08 -
Paul Donald
When we peruse the carefully curated products in a great design shop, one of the most intriguing discoveries—more than any one particular object or accessory—is the entrepreneur behind...
written by: Miyoko Ohtake04.27.09 -
Hella Jongerius Crafts Camper
Of the many brilliant designers featured in Gary Hustwit's product design documentary, Objectified (which Dwell was privileged to preview last week), I was particularly excited to get some behind...
written by: Sarah Rich04.30.09 -
Artecnica Fall 2009 Collection
This week, Los Angeles-design firm Artecnica launched its Fall 2009 Collection at the New York International Gift Fair. Reuniting with whimsical Dutch designer Tord Boontje and introducing new...
written by: Miyoko Ohtake08.20.09 -
The Brick Weave House in Chicago
Born as a horse stable, the Brick Weave House in Chicago is all about transportation and transparency. A clever renovation has made it the most compelling architecture on the block and home to a...
written by: Blair Kaminphotos by: Gregg Segal08.31.09 -
3-D Modeling Fashion
As digital fabrication meets high design, we find more and more examples of amazing furniture and household products (and even interior surfaces and architectural facades) that use 3-D modeling and...
written by: Sarah Rich11.11.09 -
Kilo Design + BIG + Skibsted Ideation
Exciting news in the design world: Danish powerhouse designer firms Kilo Design (headed by Lars Holme Larsen), BIG (led by Bjarke Ingels), and Skibsted Ideation (founded by Jens artin Skibsted)...
written by: Miyoko Ohtake11.25.09 -
SFMOMA x Gap: Artists' T-Shirts
As part of their 75th anniversary celebration, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has partnered with local retail giant Gap on eight limited-edition artist t-shirts. The battery of art stars...
written by: Aaron Britt01.25.10 -
Camper Covers by Alfredo Häberli
Though the East Coast has been in the grip of serious winter weather, we here out west have been pummeled by quite a wet 2010. Naturally rubber boots of all stripes have carried the rainy day, as...
written by: Aaron Britt03.05.10 -
Nike's Recycled Jerseys
As you may well have heard (that's what you pay PR people for, no?), Nike previewed the nine World Cup 2010 jerseys they're producing for the South African games this summer. In addition to the...
written by: Aaron Britt03.16.10 -
Crazy Sexy Wool
I was in New York earlier this week, and stopped into the very charming and hip Bond St. bistro The Smile for lunch. In addition to a mean roast beef sandwich and some stellar pickles, they...
written by: Aaron Britt06.04.10 -
Down-to-Earth Design Online
I recently happened upon the website of Pedlars, a family-run design shop based in rural Scotland. Run by the husband-and-wife team of Charlie and Caroline Gladstone, the company started out as a...
written by: Jaime Gillin08.23.10 -
Free City Shop, Los Angeles
Nina Garduno recently opened her shop Free City—a mix between an actual store and a design commune–on Highland Avenue in Hollywood. She started the company in 2002, inspired by her ...
written by: Jaime Gillin11.01.10 -
Rubber Bands, Man
When the architecture industry suffered a massive blow due to the economy, architect Margarita Mileva turned to upcycling office supplies. Her designs have garnered international attention and she...
written by: Diana Budds01.16.11 -
Hero Design Studio
For many setting out to make it on their own, a storefront is a destination. But for husband-wife team Mark Brickey and Beth Manos Brickey of Hero Design Studio, their shop in Buffalo's Allentown...
written by: Miyoko Ohtakephotos by: Miyoko Ohtake03.05.11 -
Shop Visit: Mohawk General Store in Silver Lake
Looking for mid-century furniture? Design tomes? Earrings? An LP? Sunset Junction's Mohawk General Store lives up to its name.
written by: Miyoko Ohtakephotos by: Jessica Haye and Clark Hsiao03.07.11 -
Marimekko at Crate & Barrel
This week, Marimekko launched its fourth and fifth shops at Crate & Barrel in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The two companies have collaborated for four decades so it makes sense that...
written by: Miyoko Ohtakephotos by: Miyoko Ohtake05.27.11 -
Mohawk General Store Picks
As the first of the Dwell edit crew down in Los Angeles for Dwell on Design, I've had a chance to cruise around a bit soaking up all the good Angeleno design vibes. Little wonder that my...
written by: Aaron Britt06.20.11 -
Hecho en Oaxaca
An experimental shop in Oaxaca, Mexico, is resuscitating the region's ancient crafts traditions and bringing indigenous artisans' designs into the 21st century.
written by: Jaime Gillinphotos by: Romina Hierro07.09.11 -
The Seekers
Thanks to the Vintage Bazaar, a pop-up market started by locals Katherine Raz and Libby Alexander, the Windy City is brimming with prime design finds.
written by: Jordan Kushinsphotos by: David Robert Elliot09.13.11


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Details of Winter Graduation & Chapel Services Monday 2 - Friday 6 December are now online. View more details...
The University of Glasgow Chaplaincy:
The Chaplaincy provides spiritual support and facilities for students and staff of all faiths and none.
We host music concerts, art exhibitions and offer a variety of services, including the daily ten minute morning Service at the Memorial Chapel (0845, Monday to Friday during semester time) led by students and staff.


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Originally a hill-top village settlement, Stopsley in North East Luton, Bedfordshire, is now a bustling village with PLENTY OF LOCAL AMENITIES. The centre of Stopsley village contains many shops on either side of the road with a bank, supermarket, post office, newsagent, several takeaways and more More details ›
Olympic Court development by McCarthy & Stone. Telephone: 01582 480306 Local call rate
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On Rightmove you can search over one million UK properties to buy or to rent, and thousands of overseas properties to buy.
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Daily Rates
NLGC Fall Rates begin Monday, September 30th.Come join us for affordable golf and breathtaking fall foliage.
Weekday-with cart-with cart "18-hole Special Rate"
CLICK HERE for Peak Rochester Country Club Rates
Our range is ALWAYS open to the public and we are only closed from 6:00 PM Wednesday to 9:00 AM Thursday, and periodically during instruction. Excellent Staff of Teaching Professionals. Click here for Instructor Bios


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Posts tagged 'new music'
Lisa Mezzacappa and Nightshade
Lisa Mezzacappa & Nightshade — Cosmic Rift (Leo, 2011)
Nightshade is essentially a new-classical quintet, performing compositions that reserve large spaces for improvisation. But while you get frequent episodes of scribbly improv — furious crackles and scrapes on John Finkbeiner's electric guitar, for instance — there's still a concert-hall studiousness to the music. It's not something that would come off well in a bar.
It was a treat, then, to see the group perform at Old First Church in San Francisco last month. The church hosts chamber music concerts regularly, from the very traditional to the new and outbound (like this one, from 2009).
Old First was a natural habitat for Nightshade. Sounds thrive and resonate there; they can be relished and absorbed. The resonance isn't echoey, it's more of a magnifying effect — you can hear everything, from the quietest musical details to the frustratingly loud rustling of your own jacket as you scratch your arm.
Nightshade's sound relies on a lot of vibraphone (Kjell Nordeson), played in sleek and modern lines. There's no true lead voice, though; clarinet (often bass clarinet, from Cory Wright), guitar, bass (Mezzacappa herself), and subtly tinged electronics round out the group. The written themes often follow dreamy, glassy melodies, striking onto a few jazzy moments before opening up into solos or improvising.
The electronics are a surprisingly subtle touch. Tim Perkis isn't just thrown in there to make noise. He's handed a score like any other player and abides by it. Now, his part must have a higher level of improvisation (or at least randomness) than the others, but still — it's a gentle addition, arriving at specified times, blending into the group aesthetic. There's a lot of potential in that approach.
The most aggressive melody on the CD (and in the concert) is/was "Regard de L'etoile," taken from a suite of Olivier Messiaen piano pieces. It comes across stern and jazzy. Mezzacappa also put a Zappa song, "The Eric Dolphy Memorial BBQ," into the band's repertoire. It's got lots of vibes, of course, and some slash-and burn moments for Finkbeiner. I seem to remember both having a spikier, more aggressive sound live than on the CD, which I'd attribute to the usual difference between recording a clean-take CD (it's "classical," after all) and performing live, in the moment.
Most of the album consists of Mezzacappa compositions, and they're terrific. "Delphine," is introduced on the CD by a quiet, bubbling improvisation before moving into the placid, glassy composed lines. It flows at a careful, liquid pace. "Cosmic Rift" likewise starts in improv territory, this time chaotic, aided by generous electronics, and shifts to a crepuscular tick-tock melodies that the band improvises around. It moves like a quirky classical music, with dark improvising flitting about the margins.
Separate, self-absorbed note: As mentioned earlier, this CD hadn't even made it onto Leo Records' web site when I played it on the air, and how cool is that? It's up there now.
Polly Moller at Trinity Chapel
The Dec. 18 concert of Polly Moller's works was terrific fun. Most of the pieces were based on instructions and improvisation, and many took their concepts from nature, pagan mythos, and… for lack of a better word, I'll say "magic."
Pictures taken during the show came out rather fuzzy, since I was sitting in the back. Amar, over at the Catsynth blog, has a better camera and knows how to use it; he might eventually post some pics beyond what I could do.
I'd previously mentioned the show here. And here, now, is a rundown of the program:
The Flip Quartet (2006). The first piece happens to be the hardest to describe. Four improvisers stand at four tables, each representing a compass direction (N,E,S,W) and an element (earth, fire, air, water, not necessarily in that order). Each table is ornamented with various objects for soundmaking — among them: glass, whistles, metal, books to read from, and even a guitar. All four players perform for a set amount of time, then they pause and rotate. (Photo below by Michael Zelner, michaelz1 on Flickr, taken from a 2009 "Flip Quartet" performance.)
I wish I'd taken notes on how the five movements differed (they played a second time at their original positions, making for five movements). The first seemed quietest and more tentative — in fact, the piece is supposed to be amplified so that the performers can focus on quiet sounds. Some of that did come into effect — the fire table had a book of matches, and the act of striking a match and shaking out the flame sounded interesting over the amplifier. In the third movement, the guy at table 3 tried snapping matches in half. He stopped after only two, probably thinking he wasn't being heard — but the second match's snap came through clearly. Nice idea.
Part of the exercise, I think, is to see how different improvisers react to the same sets of materials. It's almost like the piece is challenging them to produce their own sounds out of, say, metal chains and bowls, or innocuous pitchers of water.
Duo No. 1 (2008, premiere). Written for Gino Robair, who played all manner of objects, this duo traces the life cycle of a moth, and the score consists of a diagram of that life cycle, with some dynamic markings (basically showing that the piece is meant to be very, very quiet in the middle). Robair was accompanied by Krystyna Bobrowski on sliding speaker instrument: a tube, the length of which she varied for different sound timbres, altering and accentuating the sounds Robair was feeding into the mic. The piece was quiet but propulsive, and you really could trace events from the breaking of the chrysalis to the final flight into a flame.
Penelope (2010, premiere). Solo piccolo piece for Amy Likar, and possibly the program's only through-composed piece. It combines sparse piccolo flurries, timed foot stomps, and a breathy "yes" frequently blown into the mouthpiece, all representing Penelope's monologue that ends Ulysses. There was no set meter, so the piece was unpredictable and the foot stomps irregular: just one continuing flow, much like stream-of-consciousness writing. Very nice.
Three of Swords (2009). The most difficult of the pieces, for both performer and audience. It's solo performance art, with the performer (Sarah Elena Palmer) alternately emitting improvised vocal sounds, conducting a tarot reading, and tuning up what sounded like a shortwave radio. Long pauses, particularly for the tarot-card turning, made this one hard to pull off, but the audience stayed reverently quiet. I liked the effect but came away feeling like I didn't "get" this one.
Alcyone (2010, premiere). By contrast, this piece told a straightforward story: the Greek legend of Alcyone, who calms the winter seas for seven days while incubating her eggs on the waves. A quartet (two saxes, bass, percussion) played tumultuously as Alcyone (mezzo-soprano Laura Malouf-Renning, darkly costumed and carrying a nest of Xmas ornaments) arrived and, with a touch, quieted each player in succession, the overall sound slowly receding. Alcyone then got a long monologue/aria, stern and dramatic — I'd be curious if it was actually in Greek, or some language, or whether the syntax was improvised. She ended the piece by cueing each player to return to noisy tossing and turning. A nicely theatrical piece, and the liner notes say Moller is planning seven more, based on Neo-Pagan holidays.
Genesis (2006-2010). A piece for 12 improvisers (with Moller, as conductor, included in that count) and a 13th player: Matt Davignon on electronics, representing the new universe. The concept is clever: the 12 players were arranged in a spiral, with Davignon at the center. Moller walked the spiral, cueing each instrument to play, dronelike, according to scored parts that suggested patterns but didn't give specifics. Davignon eventually joined in and took over. The sum was a powerful and almost calm sound, surging and receding. (UPDATE: Polly notifies me I'm off by a number: It really is a piece for 12 improvisers, including the conductor and the New Universe person. And, in fact, they were missing a person for this performance — I hadn't bothered to count them all, I'll admit.)
What's it mean? The latest models in string theory and M theory, at least according to the PBS shows I've seen, say the universe is 11-dimensional and occupies a cosmic membrane, called "brane" for short. A further-out postulate is that multiple branes might exist, with their collisions causing the Big Bangs that create universes like ours. Cool, huh? So, Davignon represented the new universe birthed by the actions of these 11 other dimensions (and the role of the conductor is, I presume, an exercise left to the listener).
Again, it was a visual piece, theatrical. Unlike "Alcyone," the music here tells only a fraction of the story; you have to experience this one live. Davignon's new universe wasn't the obvious, ferocious outpouring of a big bang, but more of an audio primoridal ooze, feeling its way outwards into newfound, unfilled dimensions. That was an interesting choice, one that wouldn't have occurred to me but set the perfect mood.
All told, a wonderful evening of thought-provoking music. Great to see all these musicians in action together, too.
The scores were available for sale, and quite nicely packaged and presented. "Alcyone" comes in black binding; "Duo" is an elegantly rolled-up scroll. The picture below doesn't do them as much justice as I'd hoped.
Playlist: March 5, 2010/Other Minds
Click here for the full playlist for Friday, March 5, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
I started with the intention of playing just a little bit of Other Minds-related music. (See here and here.) I wanted to show off the new ROVA/Nels Cline and something from Carla Kihlstedt, and figured I'd wrap it up with Kidd Jordan.
But upon searching our awesome KZSU music database (zookeeper.stanford.edu, or better yet, try this out), I was able to about double the amount of stuff I had to play. Here's the rundown.
* ROVA & Nels Cline Singers — "Trouble Ticket" — The Celestial Septet (New World, 2010)
… Album comes out March 15, but ROVA had early copies on sale at the show. They'll be there tonight as well, I'd assume. More on this later.
* Minamo [Carla Kihlstedt/Satoko Fujii] — "Kuroi Kawa – Black River" — Kuroi Kawa – Black River (Tzadik, 2009)
… More on this one later, when I've given it a full listen. Chamber-like duets of violin and piano, with occasional bouts of violence.
* Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake, William Parker — "Living Peace" — Palm Of Soul (AUM Fidelity, 2006)
… Ecstatic jazz. Jordan doesn't just blow fast; the opening is a keening, moaning lament; then things heat up over the next 14 minutes.
* Gyan Riley — "Yubalation" — Food for the Bearded (New Albion, 2002)
… Hadn't encountered Riley before. His classical guitar has the density of John Fahey and the beauty of Spanish guitar. I picked a track that teams him up with viola and percussion, but he's fascinating solo as well.
* Tom Johnson — "The 1287 Five-Note Chords [excerpt]" — The Chord Catalogue (XI, 1999)
* Tom Johnson — "The 78 Eleven-Note Chords" — The Chord Catalogue (XI, 1999)
… Couldn't resist. Johnson is big on using combinatorics as a compositional tool. For instance, his "Combinations" for string quartet, one of the pieces being performed tonight, assigns notes so that each member plays one of four notes, and they cycle through all possible combinations. The Chord Catalogue is of similar mind, but quite extreme: It's every possible chord in one octave. Played in order. I recall a review in an avant-garde-friendly magazine, and even they had a hard time dealing with this one! I love the idea — seriously love it, and if someone pitched it to me, I'd be all in favor of it. And to play the piece perfectly requires intense concentration on the player's part. But I don't know if I have the stuff to listen start to finish.
Luckily, Johnson adds pauses (assigned at mathematically chosen spots) but it's still monotonous. And written, when you consider the pauses are pre-planned. What's amusing, when you play the 11-note chords right after the five-noters, is that Johnson had to slow down markedly in order to play them.
* Tom Johnson — "Eighty-Eights" — Music for 88 (XI, 1991)
… A combinatorics piece that's easier to take: Solo piano, where each of the 88 keys is used exactly once. But Johnson divides the keyboard into sections and patterns, so that you get melody, tempo, and mood variations as the piece progresses.
Other Minds: Kafka Songs
So, I really did make it to the first night of the Other Minds festival. Very nice experience.
Rather than describe the show in sequence, I'm just going to cut to the end: Carla Kihlstedt was terrific, and Lisa Bielawa's Kafka Songs is a very interesting and involved piece. It consists of seven segments, each one a violin-and-vocal combination to be performed solo (written with Kilhstedt in mind).
Each song opened with Kihlstedt reciting the short Kafka text. That was good, because it let us catch the mood of the text and mentally encapsulate it, enhancing the mood of the music that followed. It also guaranteed that we knew what the text was; as with most vocal classical works, Kafka Songs stretches syllables into long tones, making it difficult to keep track of sentences or even words.
The piece began life as a single song and gradually expanded into seven movements. That explains why the first two songs seem to be the most athletic. There's a lot of bow trickery, such as having Kihlstedt draw the bow for one note and pluck a left-hand note on another string (something I think I've seen her do in concert, but it's still a good effect).
Not that things calm down after that opening. "Ghosts," the fourth song, consists of ukelele-like strumming, if the ukelele were a harsh, forceful instrument. It was hard on the strings; Kihlstedt had to retune before moving on.
It does not look like an easy piece. I don't know if "counterpoint" is even the right word to describe the diverging vocal and violin paths; they swoop and cross like independent diving birds. And the violin parts show off Kihlstedt's rich mix of techniques well.
As for the rest of the program: Varied, and challenging in a good way.
Eva-Maria Zimmerman played a short 53-year-old piano piece by 87-year-old Chou Wen-chung (pronounced "soo-wen-sung" by Other Minds Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian). Titled "The Willows Are New," it made impressive use of the high register, putting those skinny high notes to menacing use, like poisoned darts alongside the dark, bombastic low-register cannons. The piece comes to a quiet ending where the high notes are their usual, quiet selves, but most of it is dark and spiky. (Test my memory: Listen to the piece on Wen-chung's site.)
A longer Wen-chung piece, Twilight Colors, was performed by a double trio of Left Coast Chamber Ensemble members — three strings and three woodwinds. It was a dynamic piece in three or four movements, full of serene overlapping lines and frequent passages of fun intensity. There were some sublime moments where a gently drawn-out note from one instrument would be handed off to another imperceptibly — bass clarinet into cello, or low flute into low violin.
The concert opened with the 30-minute Streichquartett II by Jürg Frey, performed by Quatuor Bozzini, a Montreal-based string quartet. It's a minimalist piecewith an engaging premise: All four members play unison whole notes, using the edges of their bows so that the tones are a scratchy whisper. Tones change from one note to the next, creating a series of drifting chords that start mostly sublime, but drift toward more dissonant territory. It's a bit of an endurance test. But one thing I appreciate about minimalism is the commitment to a structure that, even for quiet pieces, is sometimes daunting in scope.
In addition to this being my first Other Minds festival, it was my first time at the Jewish Community Center. I didn't know the place was so huge. At least one class was taking place in a remote corner of the first floor. There's also a cafe that includes wine, beer, ice cream, and, if the hour is early enough, food.
Other Minds 15 continues with shows on March 5 and 6 at 8:00 p.m. Check out the program.
Other Minds
Time to get psyched about another Other Minds festival — the 15th, and the first that I'll get to attend. It runs for three nights, starting tonight, in at the Jewish Community Center at 3200 California, in Pacific Heights (northern SF, near the Presidio).
The festival collects musicians and composers from around the world for performances of new music. It seems scaled down from the more elaborate programs that used to be held downtown at Yerba Buena … but then, it occurs to me that because I've never gone, I can't really back up that statement.
In fact, because I've never gone, I can say with equal confidence that this will be the best Other Minds festival ever. Ever!
On the Sequenza21 site, Polly Moller has a good Q&A with Lisa Bielawa, whose "Kafka Songs," for violin/vocal will be performed tonight by Carla Kihlstedt. The piece was written for Kihlstedt and has had the seasoning that comes with multiple performances: "Carla has taken these songs with her through so many twists and turns of life, they really do just keep growing and deepening," Bielawa says.
Bielawa was also featured in an SF Chronicle article yesterday. Nice to see the festival get some big-paper exposure.
There's what appears to be an outright jazz-improv spot on the Friday night bill. Saxophonist Kidd Jordan will appear with William Parker (bass) and Warren Smith (percussion). Jordan has recorded some great ecstatic jazz, including some quartet work with Fred Anderson (sax) by his side — specifically, I'm thinking of the CD Two Days in April (Eremite, 2000).
I became a fan of the Del Sol String Quartet after catching one of their concerts on a whim. (They're based here.) Lively, vibrant interpretations of new classical music. On Friday, they'll be performing String Quartet No. 2 by Paweł Mykietyn.
Kihlstedt returns in spirit to close out the Saturday evening program: Her composition, "Pandæmonium," will be debuted by the ROVA Saxophone Quartet. That just sounds so cool I could burst. (Bonus: According to the ROVA site, the composition is "is a one-of-a-kind piece of tactile art made from individually sewn cloth graphic scores.")
Sadly, it looks like Thursday is my big chance to catch any of Other Minds 15. I'll learn a little about composers Jürg Frey and Chou Wen-Chung, and of course I'll get to experience that Bielawa piece. It should be a really good evening.
SFCCO/Patrick Cress' Telepathy
You could argue it wasn't worth the effort, but with a free evening and two interesting shows to pick from, I decided to try doing both. It meant catching only the tail end of Telepathy, but I'm still glad to have done it.
I'd been meaning to check out the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra for some time. The program last night was titled "Restless Dreams" and featured a wide variety of new music, with lots of bells and whistles: Tom Nunn performing a concerto for the sonoglyph, one of his homemade electroacoustic instruments; Michael Cooke debuting a piece for the Chinese sheng (a fragment of that music is pictured above), a newly acquired instrument; and a finale piece featuring electronics, lasers, a strobelight, and a fog machine.
It wasn't all abstract music, either; some pieces were downright tuneful.
I do prefer the more opaque stuff, but some variety was nice.
The concert had a casual air, with the audience sitting attentively during the pieces but mobbing the stage during intermission and after the show, to congratulate friends in the ensemble, ask questions, or check out the sonoglyph — a board sporting a variety of metal percussion elements — up close. Nunn let people play with the instrument and posed for several pictures with it. Should've brought a camera.
A summary of all the pieces is beneath the fold. (Warning: it's long.)
Patrick Cress' Telepathy (see also here) is a creative jazz quartet that's been around for some time. Their stuff is a mix of Ornette Coleman-like lines, touches of Klezmer, open group "soloing," and the occasional careful/quiet piece.
The band is primarily Cress on saxophones and Aaron Novik on clarinet or bass clarinet. Drummer Tim Bulkley has moved to Brooklyn, although he was in town for this performance. I think the bassist this time around was David Arend, who's appeared on past albums (but isn't in the photo above). I liked his playing a lot, a good mix of strong tones and small clicks and harmonics.
Among the highlights: a sinewy, involved composition by Novik, and "Expressions," dating back to 2002, which started with a driven Bulkley solo that led into a spirited composition. The band got pressed for an encore and did a quick run-though of "Lonely Woman," with Bulkley's jackhammering patter underneath the slow melody, played up brashly.
This is the kind of band that deserves the time and space to be nurtured, to work together night after night in live settings, perfecting the sound. I know, those days are long gone — it's a familiar jazz lament but one that's worth repeating, if only to remind the world of the possibilities it's missing.
The new album, Alive and Teething, is available for download. (Oh, fine — it's at iTunes too.)
I had a good evening overall, aided by the Parking Gods. If I lived in New York or Chicago, this would probably be the way I spent every weekend, and I'd be broke.


text:
Advice on this one would be appreciated.
I'm looking to buy a decent Cannondale hard tail but by the looks of things on the Cannodale website they are moving away from hard tails in a big way.
The majority of riding I do is back country with the odd mountain bike race thrown in.
Thanks in advance
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text:
Aer Arann in talks to avert strike
Action would lead to cancellation of Aer Lingus regional services
Aer Arann and its pilots entered talks last night in a bid to avert the strike that threatens regional air services in Ireland and Britain over four days next week.
The airline's pilots served strike notice on the company earlier this week after independently chaired pay talks failed.
The strike would lead to cancellation of Aer Lingus's regional services, in Ireland and Britain, which Aer Arann operates under a franchise deal.The airline confirmed that talks between its "management and pilot representatives commenced this evening at 5pm".
Resolve differences
Last month, an independent tribunal, chaired by Kevin Foley of the Labour Relations Commission, failed to resolve the differences between the two sides.
The Irish Airline Pilots' Association said the company had unilaterally attempted to impose pre-conditions on the tribunal, including a refusal to review pay until next year.
The union claimed that was in breach of the original agreement to establish the tribunal, which arose out of a dispute in July 2012.
Pay at the airline has been frozen since 2009. The company has said that it will review pay once it returns to profitability, which it does not expect to happened until next year at the earliest.