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NBC on Yahoo Sports
SportsDash: Ed Reed still looking for first win since Super Bowl
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports17 hrs agoAnwar Richardson (@AnwarRichardson) of Yahoo! Sports joins the SportsDash crew to break down the NFL by the numbers. Most notably, Richardson points out that of the 10 games that Ed Reed has played in this season - between his time with the Texans and the Jets - the safety is completely winless. The last win for the future Hall of Famer? A victory over the 49ers in last season's Super Bowl while playing for the Ravens.
PFT Live: College players should take NFL money whenever they can
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports17 hrs agoIn the wake of Marcus Mariota's somewhat surprising decision to return to Oregon in 2014, Mike Florio addresses the dilemma that certain college players face when deciding whether or not to declare for the draft. In Florio's opinion, collegiate athletes, especially those at the top of their draft classes, should take professional offers when their stock is at its highest.
One thing to know: Penalties might still be on horizon for Steelers
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports17 hrs agoThe NFL has fined Mike Tomlin $100,000 for his on-field blunder on Thanksgiving night and Mike Florio explains that because his interference affected a play, the league also reserves the right to modify or take away draft picks once the 2014 draft order is finalized. Tomlin released a statement saying that he accepts his punishment, but who knows how the coach - and Steelers organization - would react if further penalties are assessed.
SportsDash: King Henrik's reign just beginning in New York
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports17 hrs agoNHL on NBC analyst Eddie Olczyk calls in to SportsDash to discuss the deal that will keep goaltender Henrik Lundqvist in a New York Rangers sweater for another seven years. Olczyk says when you have the best goalie in the league, it's wise to lock him up as long as you can ... even if it means spending nearly $60 million.
SportsDash: How does Duke's Jabari Parker compare to Grant Hill?
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports17 hrs agoFormer NBA and Duke player Grant Hill (@realgranthill33) calls in to SportsDash to talk about Duke freshman phenom Jabari Parker's performance Tuesday night against Michigan, as well as his long-term projection as a pro. Parker's style of play has recently been compared to Hill's, as both are do-everything forwards who possess virtuoso offensive savvy as well as defensive versatility. But despite the similarities, Hill wants "Jabari to be Jabari."
SportsDash: WR prospect Josh Malone chooses Tennessee
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports18 hrs agoAs the Nation's No. 20 overall recruit according to Rivals.com, Josh Malone held a multitude of offers from fine football programs, but ultimately decided on Tennessee to continue his education and begin his college football career. Malone, who currently attends Station Camp High School and is the No. 2 wide receiver in the class according to Rivals, chose to stay in his home state.
SportsDash: Pros and cons of Tennessee for Josh Malone
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports19 hrs agoRivals.com national recruiting director Mike Farrell (@rivalsmike) joins Dave Briggs (@davebriggstv) on SportsDash to discuss the possible destinations for No. 2 wide receiver Josh Malone. The prospect from Station Camp High School in Tennessee, was eyeing Georgia, Clemson and Tennessee before eventually choosing the Vols. Farrell says Malone has an opportunity to turn his home state's program around by choosing to go to Rocky Top.
FaceOff: Flyers must capitalize on Red Wings' injuries
Matt Grassie at NBC on Yahoo Sports19 hrs agoNBCSN hockey analysts Mike Milbury and Keith Jones talk about how critical it is for the Flyers to capitalize on the Detroit Red Wings' injuries and gain some ground in the Eastern Conference. Philadelphia, who have won eight of their last 12 games, still sit 13 points behind division-leading Pittsburgh, while the Red Wings remain firmly in the hunt for conference supremacy.
Warriors stun Raptors with monumental fourth quarter
NBC Sports at NBC on Yahoo Sports22 hrs agoA full hour after it was over, after the most remarkable Warriors comeback since 1962, veteran center Jermaine O'Neal was the last man standing. He was talking. And he had a rapt audience. Much as had been the case at halftime, when O'Neal gathered the Warriors and reminded them of their mission. They were being blown out of their building, the place they vow to protect, by an inferior Toronto team. It was not close, and O'Neal was compelled to deliver a message that said, in short, we're not having this.
"Terrible, terrible," was how he described the first half of what became a stirring 112-103 win over the Raptors on Tuesday night at Oracle Arena. "Unacceptable. Ridiculous. We should have paid our fans (their) money back for that first half of basketball.
"It was very disappointing, considering we're talking about doing something special. If we're going to be a good team, we have to take care of business against teams that, um, are underperforming right now."
Redskins' Mike Shanahan: Time to 'spoil' someone else's season
NBC Sports at NBC on Yahoo Sports22 hrs agoAlthough the Redskins won't be going to the playoffs, Coach Mike Shanahan said this week that his team still has plenty to play for over the final four contests. Every player on the 53-man roster will continue to be evaluated on a daily basis, he said, and the staff won't tolerate a lack of focus or effort, whether it's a walkthrough or a game. Shanahan also said he hopes the locker room embraces its new role: spoiler.
"I've got a lot of confidence in this football team that they'll keep fighting," Shanahan said. "If not, then they won't be with us in a year."
Sunday's loss to the Giants mathematically eliminated the Redskins (3-9) from postseason contention just a year after they claimed the NFC East title. But they can still play a prominent role as the playoff picture comes into focus.
This Sunday's opponent, the Chiefs, are 9-3 and currently occupy the fifth playoff position in the AFC. After playing at 3-9 Atlanta, the Redskins host the Cowboys before closing out the season at the Giants. Dallas and Philadelphia are currently tied atop the NFC East at 7-5, while the 5-7 Giants' postseason hopes are on life support.


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The Great Kanduski: Best Practices in Industrial Networking
Open Source Buses
Open source appears to becoming a factor in the industrial automation arena now as well. As Sound Off editor Walt Boyes posted on November 18, the Ethernet/IP stack has gone open source. Links to full story and associated pages on OpenSourceForge site:
10 Years from now...
As we near the end of the calendar year this is a good time to pull out the crystal ball and solicit your input on what YOU think automation systems in 2020 will be like?
Let's Get Started
Here we go, the most challenging of all steps is the first one so I will start safe (baby steps concept) by sharing with you the topics I hope to cover in this blog:


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Good service clean room and really nice people! 10 euro taxi from Volos, faraway from the noise you ll find a nice room seawiew ... A lot af good and chip restaurant... The real Greek atmosphere only local... Price per night really fair and a good breakfast...go for it! The beach is just on few step in front !
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Alabama coach Nick Saban is speaking at a function for the Athens, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce on June 11th. And apparently a few Vols fans are upset.
Chamber president Rob Preston told the Knoxville News Sentinel that he has gotten a few e-mails from U-T fans, questioning the selection of Saban as their speaker. Some Vols fans believe it's a recruiting ploy for Saban.
According to Preston, the event sold 276 tickets last year with former Vols coach Phil Fulmer as the main speaker. This year, they have already sold over 900 tickets.
Here are the most recent story comments.View All
In need of some help to bolster their injury-plagued roster, the Los Angeles Clippers signed veteran swingman Stephen Jackson on Tuesday.


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Playa del Rey (Calif.) St. Bernard point guard Brandon Randolph is "excited" to visit the first school that offered him. ...More... To continue reading this article you must be a member. Sign Up Now for a FREE Trial
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text: Carla Chapman is wanted for Felony Welfare Fraud. She also goes by the name of Carla Burton. Investigators say Carla offered to sell her food stamp card to an acquaintance. She informed the acquaintance that the card was valued at $113.00 dollars. Carla received $50 for the card and then reported the card as stolen. When the acquaintance attempted to use the card, he was unable because it had been deactivated. When interviewed, she admitted to selling her card on previous occasions to pay for items which are not authorized for purchase using the SNAP card. Carla's prior arrest includes theft, soliciting prostitution, and multiple drug related charges. Carla Chapman is a female white, 37 years old, 5'2" tall, and 250 lbs. She was last known to live in the 2300 block of Losantiville Avenue in Golf Manor. If you see Carla, please call Crimestoppers at (513) 352-3040, or text "CinTip + your message" to 274637.


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Kareena Kapoor as Rosie and Aamir Khan as Inspector Shekhawat in "Talaash: The Answer Lies Within."
Take a look at some new and familiar faces in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings prequel.
A look inside the geography of Middle-earth where Bilbo and the Dwarves will travel.
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Description: Ruger KS-47N, 44 Remington Magnum 7.5" Barrel 6 Rounds, Stainless SteelSpecifications:- Caliber: 44 Remington Magnum- Barrel Length: 7.50"- Capacity: 6 Rounds- Material: Stainless Steel - Finish: Satin Stainless - Front Sight: Ramp - Rear Sight: Adjustable - Overall Length: 13.38" - Weight: 48.00 oz. - Grips: Hardwood - Twist: 1:20" RH - Grooves: 6 - Cylinder: Unfluted - Massachusetts Approved & Certified: YesUPC: 736676008049


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quote:Originally posted by smatofuA new version. Changes:1. ETA field was changing route algorithm (Fast, Short etc) before. It was too easy to change the setting by mistake. Now, the field opens the Route Parameters screen.2. Sometimes, I want to use the GPS while walking. I use Short and Pedestrian route parameters in this case, but then I forget to restore the car parameters. If route parameters are set to Short or a vehicle different than Car, then it will be displayed in red.3. I added Fast/Optimal routing method on the Route Parameters screen. It may not have any practical usage, but it was available.BTW, I have 2 problems with the GPS1. Short battery life: can the battery be replaced? Is it battery or unit/hardware problem?2. Once a while, the GPS in navigation is unresponsive for, maybe, 30 seconds. (Can this be related to Bluetooth? GPS is connected to my phone)My problems seem similar to problems that were supposed to be fixed by 9/5/08 firmware. I tried to install it a few times, and the update procedure was ok, but not much changed.http://rapidshare.com/files/212029268/data.zip.html Stan Matofu
quote:Originally posted by PeregrineStan, Ed,Many thanks for your efforts on the NAV720. My daughter has one of the cheaper NAV700s. However, in looking at the file structure it would appear as though the skins should work with a little adjustment. In the NAV700 in the "Ingram" directory, there is no ui_NAV740 initial file then 480_272 and common subfiles. Rather the 480_272 and common files are part of the basic Ingram directory.The contents/construction of the files in 480_272 and common in the NAV700 are extremely to those in your skin. Thus, I think that if I was able to amend the instructions in your skin that refer to ui_NAV740, I should be able to use the skin with the NAV700.I tried both moving the 480_272 and common up a level in your skin, and also using your skin without modification, but in both instances I got an error message indicating that ui_NAV740 could not be found.Thanking you in advance.


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In Defense of Tactical Voting (Sometimes)
In Defense of Tactical Voting (Sometimes)
I am going to make an argument for voting for the lesser evil, not always, but sometimes, and in particular this time -- in some states. Maybe.
Let me immediately make some stipulations to save pointless posturing. I accept as self-evident that the Democratic Party is a capitalist party and beholden to corporate interests. It is a party of empire. The Democratic Party will not lead us to socialism and only socialism offers a long-term solution to our problems. In short, the Democratic Party is evil -- if it weren't, the question of voting for the lesser evil would not arise.
Now not everyone on the left who thinks the Democrats are evil agrees that they are the lesser evil. One version holds that the two parties are equivalently evil, that their policies are indistinguishable. After all, didn't the Democrats vote for the Patriot Act and the
First, as a matter of simple logic, to show equivalence between the two parties it's not enough to show that on some issues or even on many issues the two parties have the same position. Equivalence means that they are the same on all issues, not just some. For all their similarities, the two parties don't have the same position on abortion, on affirmative action, on same-sex marriage, on the minimum wage, on environmental protection, on overtime pay, on taxation, on resuming nuclear testing, and a host of other issues. Yes, of course the Democrats' position on these issues is not what we would want them to be -- remember the stipulation: they are evil -- but sustaining Roe v. Wade is better than reversing it, even if the Democrats won't push for public funding for all reproductive health care, and indeed for all health care. Opposing a constitutional amendment enshrining heterosexual marriage is better than favoring such an amendment, even if most Democrats won't endorse same-sex marriage. And so on.
One could argue, of course, that even though the Democrats and the Republicans are not identical, the differences are so minor as to be essentially equivalent, if not actually equivalent. That is, the differences don't matter. But think about the implications of this argument. This argument means that we are saying to African Americans "it doesn't matter to us, it is of no consequence, whether or not you have jobs"; we are saying to women "it doesn't matter to us, it is of no consequence, whether or not you have the right to safe and legal abortions"; we are saying to the poor "it doesn't matter to us, it is of no consequence, whether or not you get overtime pay or an increased minimum wage." Yes, one could object that this isn't what is being said -- that's what's actually being said is that compared to what's really needed, these minor reforms are irrelevant. But small reforms can mean an immense reduction of human suffering today, while we're waiting for the promise of more thorough-going change in the future. For people living on the edge -- as so many are under modern capitalism -- the differences between having the right to legal abortion or not, an increased minimum wage or not, less arsenic in drinking water or not -- are not at all irrelevant, and may indeed be matters of life and death.
Moreover, consider the implications for our political work of the claim that the differences between the parties are meaningless. If we truly believed that the parties were the same, then we'd also believe that all those progressives working for abortion rights, or defending affirmative action, or working to increase workers' benefits, or protecting the environment were wasting their time. Not just that as liberals -- without an understanding of the necessity for socialism -- they don't fully appreciate the limits of the reforms they seek. But that their work is literally irrelevant. Certainly this hasn't been the approach of New Politics. Twice a year we publish a 200-page issue and if all we needed to say was that the problem is the lack of socialism and the solution is socialism, we could save ourselves a lot of unnecessary editorial work.
Some argue that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the former are open about their desire to subordinate all to the rule of capital, while the latter have the same goal but cover it better with humanitarian rhetoric. Better to have the up-front reactionary -- goes the argument -- rather than the disguised reactionary. At least you know what you're getting and can better confront it.1 If every difference between Democrats and Republicans were entirely cosmetic, then this argument would have some force. But the differences are not entirely cosmetic. If the way the Democrats try to "sugarcoat" capitalism is by paying a higher minimum wage or making taxes less regressive, then let us have sugarcoating. Of course our job as leftists is to point out the inadequacies of that sugarcoating and to push for more -- but not to tell people to reject the higher minimum wage or more progressive taxes because they're just cosmetic. I assume if we can convince workers that having more money is a cosmetic irrelevance, then we can convince them as well that even as they accept small reforms, they should fight for more.
There is a second flaw in the argument that says Democrats and Republicans are indistinguishable given examples like the
In the case of
In the Senate, a majority of Democrats (including Kerry) voted for the resolution, but a majority of Democrats (again including Kerry) also voted for an amendment that would have made war difficult to wage, limiting the authorization to permit war in case of "imminent threat" to the United States, rather than of "the continuing threat."3 More to the point, it seems extremely unlikely that the war would even have been proposed under a Gore or Kerry presidency (given that it probably wouldn't have been proposed even under a mainstream GOP administration, such as that of Bush senior).
The Patriot Act probably would have passed under any Democratic or Republican president, but the fact that Kerry now wants to amend the legislation in a less repressive direction while Bush wants to extend it in a more repressive direction does not suggest equivalence.
And on the Bush tax bill, where House Republicans were unanimously in favor, Democrats were more than 5-1 against.4
So I don't think we can accept the claim of Howie Hawkins that "the majority of Democrats in Congress today are voting in support of Bush's economic and military initiatives," with only "a left fringe" of "about 25 representatives" who are opposed to the bipartisan consensus.5
I've heard some leftists argue that both the Bush administration and the Democrats want the United States to rule the world, the only difference being that where the Bushies want to use brute military force to achieve this goal, the Democrats want to use the institutions of global capitalism -- the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and so on -- to achieve the same end. But is the difference between these two approaches really of no concern to radicals? Was the multi-million-strong antiwar movement irrelevant because it tried to stop the war rather than demanding an end to corporate globalization? The latter should be our long-term aim, of course, but stopping a war in the meantime is hardly inconsequential.
Some leftists argue that if we're interested in supporting the lesser evil, the lesser evil is Bush, not Kerry. This argument has two variations. One holds that our best hope for fundamental change is for things to get worse; the second holds that Democrats can enact certain awful policies that Republicans can't get away with. Let me consider each of these in turn.
Gabriel Kolko has suggested,6 and Alexander Cockburn seems to have endorsed the idea,7 that the most serious blow against the
First, it overstates the degree of predictability in human affairs and understates the current dangers. Overreaching sometimes gets its comeuppance, but sometimes it leads to disaster -- as discovered by the German Communist Party with its slogan of "after Hitler, us." In a world of nuclear weapons, the militarization of space, and potential environmental catastrophe, we can't afford too many more disasters. Kolko writes "As dangerous as it is, Bush's reelection may be a lesser evil because he is much more likely to continue the destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to American power." Sure, it may turn out to be the lesser evil, but given the danger that Kolko acknowledges, do we really want to take the chance?
The second problem with the Kolko approach is that it requires us either to be extremely dishonest (publicly opposing war and violence while secretly welcoming every unilateral
The second variation of the argument that claims the Democrats are actually the greater evil points to various policies in history that were enacted by the less disposed party because there would have been too much opposition if the more disposed party had tried to do so. Nixon was able to make an opening to
Given the arguments I have raised, why shouldn't we all become Democrats? Why shouldn't we devote our hearts and souls to the Democratic Party? The reason is simple: we are radicals; while we want to achieve whatever small, short-run gains we can for people who are suffering, we know how much suffering will still remain and how only fundamental social change offers any hope of seriously addressing the problems we face. If we put all our efforts into supporting the lesser evil then we have no effort left to eliminate evil. As radicals we inevitably face a trade-off between achieving short-run modest improvements and working for the thorough-going changes we know are necessary. There are several reasons why we need to be building political alternatives to the two-party system of corporate capitalism, why we need to pursue radical change even though we know that today radical change is not immediately attainable.
First, even in bad times, we need to keep radical ideas alive. If future activists have to start from scratch to develop a fundamental critique of existing society and a vision of an alternative, then future change will be that much more difficult. If we falsely encourage people to believe that this Democratic Party band-aid or that liberal program or piece of legislation will solve their problems, then we are misleading them. And we are weakening the case for the long-range fundamental changes that are essential. If we falsely encourage people to believe that John Kerry, for example, has the solution to the problems of war and injustice then we fail in our obligation as leftists to educate people as to the immense limitations of Kerry-style policies.
Second, even in bad times, we need to develop the embryonic institutions and organizations that can later grow and become the vehicles for radical change. Social change doesn't occur in a vacuum; it needs left institutions and organizations to propel it forward. To the extent that our efforts go into building or promoting the institutions and organizations that represent the lesser evil, to that extent we are failing to create the structures for real change. Parties rarely emerge ready to contest state power: it's a long process of building and growing. The process will no doubt involve electoral losses, a painful but necessary step on the path to victory.
Third, it's not just long-run party-building that matters. Most often what determines whether reforms get enacted in the
And fourth, even when our program is currently unattainable, by vigorously promoting it we can often push more mainstream groups further to the left, expanding the boundaries of the possible. Related to this, in conservative times, when the Democrats are invariably moving to the right, pressure from their left may slow or even halt their rightward movement. This benefit, it should be noted, does not depend on any conviction that the Democrats can be induced to become a radical party. The benefit of moving the Democrats modestly leftward is that the result will be marginally less human suffering and marginally more space within which the left can operate.
So what is a leftist to do? There's no automatic formula here. The trade-offs are real, and therefore one has to balance the short-run costs and benefits versus the long-run costs and benefits in each particular situation. If nuclear war or full-fledged fascism were imminent, then it would be mindless moral purism to refuse to address the short-term dangers. If our long-term prospects could be dramatically improved by foregoing short-term benefit, then it would be equally foolish to insist on immediate gratification.
We are faced in the 2004 election with an unusually retrograde Republican administration. It is presiding over one of the largest upward redistributions of wealth in
Does this mean we should endorse Kerry? No. It is sometimes assumed that the question before us in this (or any) election is which candidate are we to endorse, where endorse means vote for, work for, provide funds for, and speak for. To endorse Kerry -- whatever its short-term benefits -- would come at an immense cost: We would be using our limited time to canvas for Kerry rather than on building radical movements; we would be expending our scarce financial resources on the corporate-backed Kerry rather than on cash-starved grassroots projects11; and our message would be the false one of trust in Kerry rather than the radical truth that Kerry and the system are fundamentally flawed. In some extreme circumstances, endorsing a Kerry-type might be warranted. But that is not the issue before us. The question, rather, is what we should do for fifteen seconds on Election Day and what we should urge like-minded individuals to do on election day. That is, we can vote for Kerry without endorsing him. We can pull the lever for him (or punch out the hanging chad for him, or whatever) while still, in every other respect working for and speaking for radical change.
Money or energy that is diverted from left projects to the Democrats will hurt the left. Education that soft-peddles the flaws of the Democrats will hurt the left. But how will a vote that is diverted in 2004 from some left third party candidate to Kerry hurt us?
1. In some situations, a vote for the Democrat could hypothetically prevent a third party candidate from winning the election. That's not relevant in 2004.
2. A vote for a Democrat could hypothetically prevent a third party from obtaining some crucial proportion of the popular vote that entitles the party to political benefits in the future. Nader didn't come close to doing this in 2000, and it seems extremely unlikely that the Greens will come close in the more polarized election of 2004.
3. A vote for a Democrat could reduce the total going to a third party candidate, thus detracting from the message of that candidate. But, I doubt that the credibility of Nader's message in 2000 would have suffered very much had he received ten percent fewer votes (or that the message's credibility would have been much enhanced if he had received ten percent more votes). On the other hand, those extra quarter million votes might have made a big difference to Gore -- not in terms of popular vote, but, if cast in the right states, in terms of winning the election. Put another way, the marginal benefit of a vote for a third party candidate in a winner-take-all system who has no chance of winning is close to zero; while the marginal benefit of that same vote to a major party candidate could be the difference between winning and losing.
Of course,
4. There is a final reason for withholding our vote -- not just our endorsement -- from a Democrat. If we make clear that we will automatically cast our ballots for a Democrat then we play into the Democrats' opportunistic move rightward. In a multiparty proportional representation system, any time a mainstream party moves to the right in an attempt to pick up some middle-of-the-road votes, it is likely to lose a corresponding number of votes to more left-wing parties. But in winner-take-all systems like in the
Now it might be objected that "fortunately" campaign promises don't mean much in the
Some urge us to run vigorous third party campaigns in every state because the left needs a presidential candidacy in order to reach people with its political message. But having a candidate does not mean that you can participate in debates. Nor does having a candidate mean you are eligible for free television time. Organizations like MoveOn.org have raised money to wage educational campaigns, without being connected to a candidate. MoveOn's ads are increasingly partisan, but if we thought the radical agenda was best promoted through ads, we could do that without having a candidate. The Greens in fact have often done best by building from the bottom up, not from riding the coattails of a national campaign.
There are some who argue that the essential political task is breaking with the Democrats if we want real change. But you only need to "break" with those you've joined with. Voting for a Democrat doesn't mean you've joined them. This is the "endorse" versus "vote for" distinction I made earlier. We also need to break with the wage system. Hopefully, when the left is far stronger than it is currently, working people will take over workplaces and establish an alternative to the wage system. But we don't suggest that people today refuse to accept wages. They shouldn't endorse the wage system; they should expose its inequities, and work tirelessly to undermine it. But while waiting for the revolution, people shouldn't be asked to forego their wages. Likewise, let us denounce the Democrats and the limits of their liberal policies (not to mention their conservative policies), but there's no reason to forego in the meantime whatever small reductions in suffering might result from voting for the Democrats.
The Democratic Party, it is argued, is the key ideological lynchpin of capitalism, keeping people -- our potential allies in the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement -- from becoming socialists. But I think this argument confuses cause and effect. When there's a problem people naturally seek the simplest solution, the one that requires the least radical steps, the least disruption to their lives. If there were no Democratic Party people who were dissatisfied with the status quo wouldn't become radicals -- they would invent a new liberal party. People will move beyond liberal solutions only when they see them as inadequate. But it is difficult to expose liberal solutions as inadequate when liberals are not in office to try their solutions.
So I'm glad when people move from being staunch supporters of the status quo to becoming advocates of liberal reform -- in part because of the marginal benefits of liberal policies and in part because it shows that people are moving in a progressive direction. I believe that when these people try liberal reform, they'll find it lacking, and be open to radical ideas. But some radicals seem to welcome people shifting from the Democrats to the Republicans. Some, for example, cheered the defeat of Democrat Grey Davis in
When the left goes into the Democratic Party, there is indeed a great danger of having to subordinate our message and our politics to those of the corporate-dominated party. But voting for is not the same as going into the Democratic Party. Voting for does not limit our freedom of action or our ability to tell the truth.
It is true that historically many radicals and militants have been bought off by the Democratic Party. Jesse Jackson, for example, gave up on building a genuine alternative in return for a place at the Democratic Party table. Any serious progressive movement has got to give this danger considerable thought. But the Democratic Party is hardly the only danger here and no one has provided a good argument as to why voting for a Democrat causes the same dangers as does becoming one of their spokespeople. And while it may be true that paid leaders of various environmental, labor, and reproductive rights organizations have a vested interest in supporting Democrats, I think it is perverse to think that rank and file members of these organizations would have no reason to prefer a Democratic administration to a Republican one but for the propagandizing of their bought-off leaders.
How can we prevent the rightward drift (if not gallop) of the Democrats?
Often, the importance of preventing the Democrats from moving rightward is a necessary and sufficient reason to run a candidate to their left, even one that can't win and even one whose candidacy may occasionally harm the Democrat's chances. (If there's no risk of harming the Democrat's chances, then there's no reason for the Democrat to stop moving right.) But for such a strategy to work, it is necessary that leftists sometimes refrain from running a candidate and sometimes vote for the Democrat -- when the Democrat maintains decent (though of course still deficient) positions. (If leftists will always contest the Democrat and never vote for a Democrat, then there's nothing keeping the Democrat from moving to the right. That is, if the Democrat can never reap leftish votes, then why not try to pick up votes to the right.) So in any particular election, one needs to take account of how horrendous the Democrat is and how horrendous the Republican is.
My own sense is that in the 2004 election, given the unique dangers of the Bush administration, we should be less willing to risk handing a victory to the Republicans. So my advice would be that we should continue making our critique -- of both Democrats and Republicans -- so that radical ideas stay alive, continue our organizing and grassroots work, our building of alternative institutions -- these will be necessary no matter who is president -- but on election day itself we should vote for a third party in a safe state and Kerry in a swing state. But . . .
Even in this election (where I believe Bush is a serious danger), in contested states I would not urge an automatic vote for Kerry. I would recommend a vote for Kerry in contested states -- unless he was so appalling that one simply couldn't bring oneself to do it. For some, Kerry's support for the
This is admittedly not a major brake. And as long as the left is weak, no approach will have much of a braking effect. But consider some other suggested strategies.
Instant run-off voting (IRV) is a voting procedure that allows voters to list their choices in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, then the votes of the candidate with the fewest votes are reallocated to those voters' second choices. And so on until some candidate achieves a majority. The advantage of this procedure is that it allows voters to vote their consciences without throwing away their vote (and helping a Bush to win). This is a reform every democracy ought to institute and we should support it. But notice what happens if we automatically list our first choice first and the lesser evil somewhere lower down on the ballot. Then, because the Democrats don't have to worry about the left hurting their candidates, they can continue to ignore the left and move right. IRV works best if it is combined with the puke test. That is, under IRV voters should list the Democrat -- unless they simply can't stomach it, which may have the effect of discouraging a rightward move by the Democrats.
Bruce Ackerman has suggested that Nader try to get the same slate of Electoral College electors assigned to him as to Kerry.15 This, says Ackerman, will allow voters to vote for whom they want but without hurting the Democrat. But even if such a scheme were deemed legal, it would have a serious drawback. It would commit all Nader supporters to vote for Kerry from early in the campaign, with no option of changing their mind if Kerry later fails the puke test. The same drawback applies to the strategy of the New Party. By endorsing Democrats on their own line, they lose whatever leverage progressive votes might have had in keeping the Democrats from moving right.
If we do vote for a third party candidate in safe states, as I recommend, which candidate should it be? By the time this article appears, the Green Party will have chosen its candidate. I hope this candidate is not Ralph Nader and there are several reasons to be hesitant about voting for Nader as an independent candidate.
First, Nader's presidential run is an individual effort, not an attempt to build a party that can represent left ideas. He may resent The Nation and others for urging him not to run, but to whom is he responsible? Which left constituencies selected him or advised him to run? If we're trying to build a left that prizes above all else its commitment to democracy, is it helpful to support a candidate whose campaign is not connected to the left in any organic way? In 2000, Nader refused to join the Green Party and failed to freely share his contributors' list with the party. This doesn't suggest that the way to build the left is to support Nader, as a Green or not.
A second problem with Nader is that there are signs of some of the same weaknesses that people noted last time around regarding his commitment to various important issues. If one goes to Nader's website and looks under issues,16 one finds no mention of affirmative action. Until the national women's march of April 25 -- more than two months after he announced his candidacy -- there was no mention of women's rights. A strong plank on women's rights has now been included, but there's something odd about how he endorses NOW's program verbatim, but can't seem to use his own words to back reproductive rights. One suspects this is not going to be a significant part of his campaign. If one important reason we support candidates who can't win is for the educational value of their campaigns, then what message does a Nader vote send -- particularly to African Americans and feminists annoyed by our support for Nader in the face of Bush's assault on their rights? Nader writes that "The Democrats need to be shown in the field how to appeal to the millions of voters whom they have turned their back on because many of them are against abortion and gun control." Is his method of appealing to these voters to soft-pedal the abortion issue? Now to be sure, politics is the art of compromise, but if we're voting for Nader for educational reasons, shouldn't we want a clearer message?
Third, Nader's rather dubious claim that his candidacy will draw more votes from Bush than from Kerry -- that's not what polls are showing -- has led him to form ties to some rather unsavory rightwing figures.17 Is this the message we want to send? Is his soft-pedaling on abortion and affirmative action a way to appeal to rightwing voters? Interestingly, though Nader rejects the strategy put forward by many Greens of campaigning strategically -- not contesting Kerry in swing states -- he is not above recommending strategic voting to rightwing voters. Here's what he says in his letter to "conservatives upset with the policies of the Bush administration":
What to do? It depends on your depth of disappointment with the national Republican Party. In the numerous states that are going easily for President Bush, you can vote for the Ralph Nader independent candidacy for the presidency. This will send them a message that you will no longer be taken for granted. If you are beside yourself with a sense of the deep betrayal of conservative philosophy by the national Republican Party in
In mid-May, Nader sought and received the endorsement of the Reform Party. "This endorsement shows that our independent campaign is receiving support from across the political spectrum from people upset with President Bush, and looking to shift the power back to the people so a solution revolution can take hold and solve many of the nagging problems and injustices in our society," declared Nader.19 The Reform Party, which endorsed Pat Buchanan in 2000, has decent planks on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and trade, but wants to temporarily freeze immigration, convert social security into a system of private accounts, enact greater private property rights, establish a health care system based on free enterprise, and privatize the Tennessee Valley Authority; it rejects any treaty that compromises U.S. sovereignty.20
Fourth, Nader's arguments justifying his candidacy strike me as disingenuous and not worthy of a serious left. His campaign, he declares, is going to help bring out Democratic voters for Congressional contests. But it's not clear why he should want to do this unless he supports the notion of lesser evilism. He seems to want things both ways. His candidacy, he says, offers a one-two punch that can help defeat Bush. Come on! Nader continues to reject a campaign strategy that calls for avoiding vigorous campaigning in swing states. My guess is that this is a mistake on every level -- even in terms of maximizing his votes, it may well cost him more votes from those progressives in safe states who might have cast ballots for him, but resent his refusal to acknowledge the dangers his swing-state campaign poses.
The case for backing David Cobb, should he become the Green Party candidate, seems to me much more compelling than for backing Nader. Cobb is really part of the Green Party, which is a real organization, going through a democratic process -- not very efficiently, to be sure, but democratic nonetheless. Look at the Green Party website, www.gp.org/, and see such links as United for Peace and Justice, ZNet, Democracy Now, and Fair Trade Coffee. This is our party. Cobb favors a safe-states strategy for building the left while not giving undo aid to Bush. Like Nader, he opposes the
Winning people to our politics is no easy task. Socialism is a complex idea, breaking through the media's disinformation is difficult. But anyone who can understand our basic ideas can certainly understand as well that you can work for radical change while also sometimes reducing people's suffering by voting for a lesser evil.
1. I leave aside the dubiousness of the claim that the Republicans are more up front about their agenda. Outside their $1,000-a-plate fundraisers they tend not to emphasize their aim of redistributing income to the rich.
Yeas Nays NV
Republican 215 6 2
Democratic 81 126 1
Independent 1
Yeas Nays NV
Republican 211 10
Democratic 28 153 29
Independent 1 1
5. "No Democrat is going to beat Bushism," An interview with Green Party activist Howie Hawkins by Derek Seidman, posted at www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm? SectionID=33&ItemID=5423.
6. Gabriel Kolko, "The Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power," CounterPunch, March 12 / 14, 2004.
7. Alexander Cockburn, "Bush, Kerry, and Empire," CounterPunch, April 16/18, 2004, www.counterpunch.org/cockburn04162004.html.
9. clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll383.xml.
10. Tom Engelhardt's delightful term. See his weblog at www.tomdispatch.com.
11. I'm not saying that those who don't have a radical perspective -- say a liberal labor union -- shouldn't provide funds to Kerry. But for radicals -- who are likely to be the only source of funds for radical projects -- to donate their money (or time) to Kerry is to give up any hope for the left.
12. U.S. House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee, 1998 Green Book: Background Material and Data on Programs Within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means, Committee Print WMCP 105-7, 19 May 1998, 414 (table 7-7), available at aspe.os.dhhs.gov/98gb/intro.htm and (in PDF format) www.utdallas.edu/~jargo/greenbook/contents.htm.
13. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the
14. See, for example, Jim VandeHei, "Despite Rhetoric, Bush, Kerry Agree On Many Issues," Washington Post, May 9, 2004, A1; James Rainey, "Kerry Outlines Centrist Strategy in a 'Contract' With Middle Class," Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2004, A19.
15. Bruce Ackerman, "2-for-1 Voting," New York Times,
16. www.votenader.org/issues/index.php.
17. See Ted Glick, "Eights Questions for Ralph Nader,"
18. www.votenader.org/why_ralph/?cid=14.
19. Nick Anderson, "Reform Party Endorsement of Nader Could Land Him on
20. See www.reformparty.org/PrinciplesIssues/Platform/platform%20planks.htm and issues.reformparty.org/documents/2003platform_amendments.html. The latter page refers to changes in green that are not in fact visible.
21. See www.votecobb.org/, and, on equal rights for all, www.votecobb.org/ej4all.html.
Stephen R. Shalom is a member of the New Politics editorial board.
This article is part of a symposium on the 2004 election in the summer issue of New Politics. Other contributions are by Thomas Harrison and Michael Hirsch.


text:
6, 8 p.m., Thursday June 14
Bibbidi-Bobbidi Boo! Join 150 of Poteet Theatre's finest young performers as they take the stage to tell Disney's version of the timeless tale of Cinderella. All of your favorite characters will be there: Cinderella and Prince Charming, the evil Stepmother and the Stepsisters, and the delightful Fairy Godmother.... and don't forget the trimmings! Watch as a chorus of lively young mice headed by Jaq, Luke, Gus and Perla work together to save the day. This production features eight individual casts of leads so be sure to check the cast list for your favorite performers.
Where: Poteet Theatre
Phone: 609-1023
Address: 222 N.W. 15th
Website: poteettheatre.com


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Naming Images And Google
Posted 20 August 2003 - 07:06 AM
Someone asked this question and I was curious as I didn't know the answer....
When you name an image like thisisanimage.gif, is there a convention one should follow?
Is there a difference between coffee-cup.gif, coffeecup.gif and coffee_cup.gif in terms of the search engines? Is one better than the other, worse?
This question applied to Google but I would be curious to know if it is different for the other major engines.
Posted 20 August 2003 - 07:12 AM
Posted 21 August 2003 - 10:44 AM
Wasn't sure if I should throw this on as a reply or a new topic but it seems to fit here...
About naming images:
When I slice up my web page from Photoshop, if I name everything keyword-1.jpg , samekeyword-2.jpg, is this a bad thing since it looks like I'm overusing a keyword.
Posted 21 August 2003 - 08:55 PM
It is better for keeping track of as well. When FTPing images, it is easy to know what "company-product-logo.gif" is. JMHO course.
Posted 21 August 2003 - 11:42 PM
Now, if Google would update their image index, maybe we could see all of our attention to detail pay off.
Posted 22 August 2003 - 04:32 AM
Posted 22 August 2003 - 05:59 AM
When was the last time Google's image bot went a-crawling? I haven't seen it for months.Now, if Google would update their image index, maybe we could see all of our attention to detail pay off.
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The Count of Montagna
by Gaither Stewart
[ fiction - september 08 ]
As every afternoon Arnolfo and I are sitting on his terrace stretching across the back of his house and looking toward the mountains to the south. Coffee and grappa are on the low table between our deck chairs. The sun has set behind Lake Como and shadows have vanished from the lanes and gardens below us. When clanging of the vesper bells of San Giorgio a stone's throw away finally begins to wind down, Arnolfo grins at me mischievously to tease me about my sensitivity to those deafening tolls.
Then, as if the two matters were linked, he chides me for the umpteenth time for my refusal to speak dialect. "Desmentegà el dialet l'è cume auè desmentegat inghe t'è tetat," He means to say that for him forgetting our lingo would be like forgetting the maternal teat that nourished him.
Though we've been back in our native village for only a year, my boyhood friend acts as if the three decades we were away didn't exist. Stubborn like men of the mountains, he is the paladin of the dialectal Alpine speech we spoke as boys. How he retained the dialect and I didn't remain a mystery.
At this hour the village is alive. Young people are returning from jobs in the valley. Blaring horns tell us that the hourly bus from Sondrio has as usual blocked traffic. Old folks meanwhile are headed for the church or are out for walks up toward the cemetery and the Pisalocca Falls. Card players have already invaded Caffé Paini. The village of Montagna is itself. But Arnolfo and I seem to be sitting among the gods above it all.
"Maybe you've also forgotten that dark streggia of an alley where you once lived," Arnolfo adds sarcastically.
Half the time I don't get his point. Only that he is unforgiving that I won't speak dialect. But no matter how he embellishes it, in my memory our Alpine village was all one dark alley.
"I've forgotten it," I say, sticking to standard Italian. "It's been too long, Arnolfo. I understand it but no words come back to my mouth."
"Bah! Te fè el de ciù!" I'm a snob, he believes. Mine is only an affectation. Under his persistent attempts at tutelage I am embarrassed by the gaps in my memory of the antique language of my mountain home that has survived radio and television.
Abroad, I was an outsider. Now I come back home, and what happens? My speech makes me an outsider here, too. My way of speaking has changed no less than I myself.
"I give up," I say. "I can't return whole to what I was... if I don't speak the same language."
"Illogical! Illogical!" Arnolfo cries, his eyes darting in many directions. He likes to goad me with his 'no man is an island, apart from the main' stuff.
I try to tell him that some people manage to maintain a direct line with their origins as he has. Some lose it as I have. I realize I've forgotten how to be involved in anything. Maybe I never knew.
Still, I like hearing him speak in our ancient language, he the Count of Montagna... il Conte, as people of our village call him with affection.
Actually I've come to think my not speaking dialect is to my advantage. Since villagers are convinced I don't understand either, I play deaf and dumb and exploit my secret position to observe events around me. It's like being invisible.
I've come to feel like a spy in their midst. I'm like the poet's light - no tongue, all eye.
For those who leave our village as I did, speaking this vanishing idiom out in the world is like I imagine a modern Navaho Indian in New York City trying to maintain his ancient Indian tongue. It's a losing battle. There are no more Navaho conversational groups in New York than there are Montagna social clubs in the places I've lived.
Still, semper fidelis Arnolfo maintains that a dialect stays in your blood. It's your childhood, he says. Though such things are buried deep inside you, at one time or another they have to come back. It's like swimming or riding a bicycle or making love. Some things you don't unlearn.
We lift our heads in annoyance when a fleet of motorcycles begins revving gutted motors in front of the café around the corner. Joyous shouts echo down Via Piazza toward the church. The hourly bells then set up another clamor so that again we sit and wait, looking at the valley.
"Your roots survive in it," he says after it's over.
"Still, endurance is no guarantee that you'll still speak it a lifetime later," I comment.
It is true that now and then, at unexpected times, little bits of the old language resurface in my mind and want to jump out and cavort spontaneously in my speech. Isolated words pop before me, flashbacks and visions of boyhood when everything was expressed in our vivid idiom. Yet, it is my experience that in the best of faith, just as I have unlearned how to sing and carry a tune, you can forget how to speak dialect. One problem is finding the right word to express the same thought image as in the mainline language. A word that though similar in Italian for dialect speakers contains endless secret nuances.
Arnolfo goes with me that far. Some things, he admits, cannot be expressed in both languages. That is why young people from here when they go out into the world lean on developed idioms. How else to express anti-war sentiments or the ecological terror of the chemical industries not far away beyond the mountains?
"You can't even say I love you in dialect!" I jibe.
"So what! You just say it in Italian - Io ti amo."
Though I can no longer find the old words, I have become an ardent listener to the magnetic mystery of our idiom. I believe I have come to grasp even more linguistic nuances than do dialect-speaking villagers themselves.
I continually say to myself, 'yes, yes, that's it! That's what I wanted to say.' Like the word Arnolfo utters each time our beauty queen Mayor, dark and sultry with the unlikely name of Celestina, walks past, her perfect ass bound in skin-tight jeans riding higher each day -
"Che bela pelanda!" What a gorgeous bitch!
Most mornings Arnolfo and I sit in front of my bookstore on the high road near the cemetery, alternately arguing about politics and listening to the rush of the Pisalocca waterfall. Or we go for a coffee at Caffé Paini. And inevitably, sometime during the morning, we pass Town Hall just so he can get a look at Mayor Celestina.
Then, late afternoons we lounge here on the balcony of his big house overlooking the valley, he on edge and critical, I, sinking lower and lower to the level of a vigilant spy. In a way however both of us are observers - he, from the inside, I, from without. From our strategic positions we are able to keep our eyes on events and the lives of our fellow Montagnoni.
And the village is what we eventually talk about. There is little place in our conversation for intellectualism or art history or his new faith of theosophy and his attempts at divine contact through contemplation. We largely ignore all that. Gossiping and laughing and joking like two old maids about the foibles of human nature, we agree that people are much the same whether in Montagna or Milan, Paris or New York.
Arnolfo might drop a comment about an old school friend, 'Oh, Pietro had a lot of success, you know. But it went to his head and he became an alcoholic.' I might say, 'What about those super neo-Palladian villas higher up the hill? Where did the money come from? Political graft? Gambling casinos? Drugs? Prostitution?'
Arnolfo might chuckle, pat my shoulder, and shrug. And we resume our detached contemplation until another person or other events enter our horizons. Arnolfo's exuberant optimism seems to shield him from doubts as completely as the Chiesa di San Giorgio has protected the entire village of Montagna for a millennium of invasions and emigration, of plagues and floods.
One morning, standing under the arch of the former carriageway entrance on the steep side of his family mansion, Arnolfo kicks at the clogs of broken cement and stones of what was once his family's private street. Lizards race madly up and down the cracked walls of an adjacent house in ruins.
"People used to care about these things," he says, frustrated that despite his petitions the Town Council has still not repaved it with cobblestones as it was five hundred years ago.
"Arnolfo," I say, "our Mayor is too beautiful to get involved in cobblestones. Maybe what you need is more pull in Milan or Rome."
"Oh, she will, she will," he says, turning on me a sudden mad smile. "She loves me, you know. Haven't you noticed? Now that I'm back for good, she'll come around."
I haven't attached much importance to his exchanges of furtive glances with Celestina. Actually their attraction is understandable. This sexy woman has lived her whole life in this Alpine village and could be fascinated by Arnolfo, the man from another world. And Arnolfo has never in his life been indifferent to female pulchritude.
Arnolfo and I are no less well informed about Mayor Celestina than are the card players at Caffé Paini or the faithful at the Chiesa di San Giorgio. Everyone in the village is aware of her little affairs as if staged to titillate their hidden desires.
In fact, our observation points are better than most - from Arnolfo's high balcony and from my bookstore hanging over the village we're on the qui vive.
We're attuned to shifts of mood and humor. We know of ancient animosities surviving generation after generation. We know who is seeing whom. We know of marriages around the corner, of babies on the way, of new jobs in the valley, of houses in restoration, of church attendance, of drinking bouts in the café, of grape harvests, of unexplained opulence, of vacations on Caribbean islands...and we know of the rare extramarital affairs.
"Lü iol fa quel che iol fa tüc!" Arnolfo comments in his picturesque language on Celestina's current love affair. We are idling on his balcony over coffee and grappa and lazily observing an aged couple below gardening and restoring the ravages of the cold winter. The six o'clock bells have sounded. The streets are quiet.
The corners of his mouth turn down, his eyes narrow, his forehead creases. "They're doing what everyone wants to do... relive their youth. Celestina, I mean."
Like Father Romano the parish priest and the card players in Caffé Paini, we have followed the course of Mayor Celestina's liaison with a lawyer named Saverio. "A strange story," Arnolfo whispers to me, the crazy gleam of vicarious romance in his eyes. "It's a return to the past... or a leap to the future," he adds.
Both in their early thirties, both married today, Saverio with small children and Celestina with a doting husband, they were sweethearts as teenagers. Then, as sometimes happens in peoples' lives, the two inamorate rediscovered each other and are reliving the fire of first love.
"Nothing spicier but nothing more dangerous than a re-found first love," Arnolfo says, a familiar distant look invading his eyes.
"Or fulfilling something unfulfilled in their past," I add in my Italian that seems stiff in comparison to his colorful speech. I'm aware that as far as Arnolfo is concerned there are more overtones to the story than I first imagined.
He ignores his cellular phone playing Imagine in the living room. The Beatles could be summoning him back to Paris. Or it could be one of his clients in Barcelona or a factory hidden in the wilds of north India. It could be his housekeeper in his villa in the medina of Marrakech. Arnolfo telephones but seldom answers ringing phones. He doesn't seem to care.
"Ai le fa lasü. And they do it right up there," he says excitedly, his eyes jumping around, envious of something he can't yet define, his finger jabbing upwards toward the flat rooftop of the house next door, skeleton-like under its sheath of multi-tiered scaffolding. "They both have the key to the downstairs entrance. I get glimpses of them when they arrive...separately...nearly every evening... she first."
"Well, he has to tuck in the babies first," I say, adding a bit of sarcasm to his romantic vision of the love story. I have the idea that for a Mayor, our Celestina is a bit on the frivolous side.
"Hers is a naked heart," Arnolfo says in a sudden poetic vein. "She displays it all."
Uncertain what he means, I tell myself to keep in mind that Celestina too is someone's daughter, though she seems to reject traditional daughterhood. She wants more than the village, just as we did. I've come to believe that Celestina is in transition, a person looking for refuge. And she takes bits of it wherever she can, in marriage, in community work, in politics, and now in her revival of the past. A daughter of Montagna! But in the long run no refuge works for her. Hers, I think, is desperation.
Later, the sun has fallen and conversation stops as Father Romano's maddened vesper bells sweep over us exposed on the balcony. We look at each other during the tumult. What with both our failed marriages in our past, we are puzzled by this tardy Romeo and Juliet story.
Then, when the din subsides: "Celestina and Saverio have turned things around," Arnolfo whispers. "But their lives are out of joint. He will never leave his wife...and Celestina knows that."
From the gleam in his eyes, it occurs to me that Arnolfo shares some of the couple's futile grasping for a second life.
"La vita l'é incsi! " Count Arnolfo says. Such is life!
"You mean it's inevitable?"
"They had nothing else to say to their spouses, Giacomo. They reached the silent plateau of matrimony. What could they do? They try again! One thousand years of life here in our Montagna. The same things happening again and again."
"So what?"
"So, this too will end like everything ends. But such passions will happen again and again... forever and ever."
"Let's hope without tragedy this time," I, the pessimist, add.
"The thing about them is that neither is right and neither is wrong," he says. "They are doing the right thing at the right time...grabbing what they can."
"While they can."
The Count nods.
The days pass. Days of hazardous speculations on the state of the passion of Celestina and Saverio that has assumed the proportions of a romantic novel becoming a Verdi opera. A sensation of foreboding has overcome me. Though Arnolfo in his crazy way seems to remain cool and collected, it seems as if he and the other secret observers also have a presentiment of tragedy. The love story unravels. Word spreads that Saverio will never leave his children. Not even for his old sweetheart. The denouement is here!
Like the jagged current of Alpine summer lightening, two conflicting waves of reactions race through the watchers' camps - fiery romance and its companion, the premonition of tragedy.
Not even the unspoken warnings of Father Romano could prepare people for the abrupt and brutal outcome. On the morning Saverio's body is discovered among building materials scattered below the pinnacle of the couple's love nest, word circulates that the poveretto was practically decapitated when his falling body struck the blade of an upturned shovel.
Now Saverio was of another generation. We hardly knew him. Though he lived his whole life here and practiced law in the valley, he bore out my linguistic point of view - he hardly spoke dialect either.
Thanks to steadfast Father Romano and despite the shadow of mystery and shame surrounding Saverio's death, his is a village funeral in the Chiesa di San Giorgio.
Count Arnolfo steps forward to play out his role of village patron. He insists on adhering to an ancient tradition of bread for the dead. Standing in the doorway, tall, slim, still fresh-faced in a long cotton Indian shirt, and, it seems to me, suppressing a certain contentment, he hands out a loaf of white bread to those who show up at Saverio's house for the recitation of the rosary.
It seems natural that Arnolfo and irrepressible Father Romano end up sharing also the post tragedy situation. Immediately the priest takes Saverio's wife Melinda under the protective wing of the Church, while the Count throws everyone but me off balance when he takes over with the consolation of Mayor Celestina.
Only later would I realize how much was going on at the same time under the surface of village life that I the spy didn't see. Arnolfo must be right. I missed the nuances of dialectal speech.
Arnolfo and Celestina's mutual attraction had seemed no more than a little village flirt. An abstract sort of thing, chiefly in Arnolfo's imagination, I believed.
"He's right of course," Arnolfo tells me happily the day after village people watched Celestina's cuckolded husband load his SUV with suitcases and bags and boxes, skis and a kayak on the roof, and drive off down to the valley.
"What do you mean? He seemed like Dante going into exile."
"He has his reputation to think of!" Arnolfo says. "And he'll never again be taken seriously here. Most certainly he doesn't want to get any more involved than he is today. She's an unfortunate child, his, er, wife, that is Celestina. But she is not exactly a Beatrice, you know. "
When I ask about the official cars from Sondrio each day at our Town Hall and up at the Mayor's house up near the cascades, Arnolfo assumes a grim expression and shrugs significantly.
He mutters that the state attorney's office wants to be assured of the legality of things up here on the hill. After all! The Mayor. And her lover. A leap in the dark.
As the days pass I begin to understand that deep in his dialectal speech, now reaching far back historically into unexplored linguistic territories, he is trying to reveal to me the secret cultural nuances which are inexpressible in mainline language.
"Quanc' che né femma la pert la crapa dre' a n'ume, la sa' cüi quel che la fà, he says enigmatically. The significance of his age-old judgment is that when a woman loses her head for a man she's not responsible for her acts.
Since the funeral, Mayor Celestina has taken to dressing even more provocatively than before. She has become a celebrity. Every day she drives down to Sondrio in her own cabriolet. Word spreads that she has been summoned to the procurator's office.
Meanwhile, the Romeo and Juliet story - the lovers in their 'tower of love', as one Milan journalist headlined the affair - has reached the national media. TV crews from Rome and from Switzerland across the mountains are staked out on the parking spaces behind Town Hall. Then, a squad of the scientific police from Milan spends a day at the scene of the caduta d'amore, that is the tragic love fall, just next door to Arnolfo's house, examining, measuring, and testing on the flat roof where the couple's passion was consumed.
A smart aleck young detective accompanied by a TV cameraman comes to my bookstore and asks me what young Saverio could have been doing on the roof of a house under construction? Was he moonlighting as a mason? When I suggest he might have been studying astronomy, the cop slaps me on the shoulder and laughs and walks away satisfied.
"So, Signore Conte," I say to Arnolfo that same afternoon, "has no one asked you if you saw anything?"
"They wouldn't dare."
"But you're just next door. You spend evenings on your balcony. You know everything that happens in the village. You're the village spokesman. Don't they want your opinion?"
While I fire my ironic broadsides at him, the Count stares fixedly at me as if wondering who I really am. As if wondering if I am to be trusted.
It's in that moment that I become convinced that he knows something no one else knows. He always does. I wonder if he saw what happened up there on the roof.
"Giacomo," he says, switching to standard Italian, an insuppressible tone of happiness in his voice, "we often know things we would prefer not to know. That is my case today. I wish I did not know what I know. I hardly believe what I know myself. And I do not believe you want to know either. Therefore I will not reveal to you what my own eyes have seen. Suffice it to say for now that Celestina wanted him to leave his wife and children for her... but he couldn't do it."
"But in the end he did!"
Another week passes. Arnolfo too makes several jaunts to the Office of the Procurator of the Republic in Sondrio. The Deputy Procurator handling the case, he reminds me, is from Montagna and was our classmate. Hardly a surprise then that shortly afterwards Saverio's death is classified as suicide, police investigations cease, the Sondrio press drops the tragedy of the caduta d'amore on the hill, the TV crews depart, and the neo-single Celestina resumes her official duties as Mayor of Montagna.
Just as I thought. Pull in Milan. Pull in Rome. Sometimes I wonder why Arnolfo and I are friends.
June days are long and dry, nights Alpine cool. During the siesta hours, village streets and Caffé Paini are empty. Even the hells bells of San Giorgio seem satiate and stilled in the warm afternoon hours.
As usual the Count drops into my shop most mornings but he often begs off our afternoon sessions on his balcony. I begin to suspect something rotten in Denmark. So I take to spending more time spying among the regulars at Caffé Paini where dialect is the spoken language. Trying to blend in with village people, I have begun applying myself to using more dialect in my speech though I'm embarrassed when the card players laugh and slap the table at my pronunciation.
"Ah, you're not like il Conte," they say vaguely.
"You'll never get it," they say distantly.
"You have to be born here," they say exclusively.
In early July the Count departs for his annual summer villeggiatura at his villa on the Ligurian seashore - for a period of theosophical contemplation, he says. I miss our morning meetings in the bookstore. My other companion, the more mainline Father Romano, stays holed up in one of his churches, busy with the region's cooling white wines. Mayor Celestina too is away. Caffé Paini is deserted. Except for the faithful bells of San Giorgio and late-night motorcycles village life comes to a standstill.
Days there is little to do except stare down at the narrow Adda River and the cars creeping up the valley toward Alpine passes to the Engadine and Swiss territories.
One day I take the train for the two-hour ride to Milan. I walk around the hot empty streets near the station, and get on the next return train. Then, though I hate driving in Italy in August, I make the painful trip down the valley between the two Alpine ranges to Lake Como to see the villas on the steep mountainsides dropping straight down to the water. But the lake and the boats and the colors only evoke the outside world and I race back to my aerie. Finally, in mid August, I close my store and drive up to San Moritz and up the Inn Valley to Munich for the rest of the month.
In early September the world begins to move again. The rains have finished. Landslide damages are repaired. On the first afternoon of my return, anxious to reestablish our pre-vacation routine, I drop in at Ca' Corradini where to my surprise I find Arnolfo and Celestina sitting with their heads together at a table in his romantically illuminated study-living room.
They are playing chess.
The indirect light plays off the elegant wood-paneled room. Niches here and there have their own little spots highlighting an antique painting here, a set of leather- bound classics there. Oriental carpets decorate polished wood floors.
Arnolfo looks up at me, smiles somewhat roguishly, puts his hand on hers in a tender way as he stands up, and says, "The ways of the Lord are mysterious."
Celestina's face turns red and she fidgets with her black rook. She stands up as if preparing to go, one hand clutching the rook, the fingers of her other nervously touching a breast. The Count puts his hand on her shoulder and has her sit again.
She is wearing a short black skirt and sandals that show off her tanned legs and a revealing T-shirt with an image of a rocky seashore on the front. She looks like a vacation poster. She has never looked sexier. The Count is wearing tan Bermuda shorts and an elegant blue Polo shirt. He is barefoot. Crazily I notice his feet are nearly white... he didn't take off his beach shoes. His scalp under his thinning hair is as tan as her legs. His pale blue eyes reflect a light as bright as the early morning skies over the Valtellina. He looks ten years younger. The devil of a Count is still seducing women.
"He might as well know," he says to her, a who-gives-a-fuck boldness in his manner.
The atmosphere is as highly charged as the bar in a whorehouse. I breathe in the sensuality filling the room. It's her legs and her touching her breasts and strangely his tan and his bare feet. It's the careless, purposeful lift of her knee revealing a naked thigh and denying that she was anyone's daughter. Arnolfo is right as usual.
"He's here every day," Arnolfo says to her, now nonchalantly. "After all we have to start somewhere."
Celestina lowers her eyes.
From his hand on hers, from his words, spoken and unspoken, from the desire in his eyes and the voluptuous trepidation in hers, I begin to understand their situation. He has fallen in a passion!
But in their touch and speech, his tender, hers fearful, I also see the block letters of one big word - COMPLICITY.
In retrospect, I think it was in that moment that I discovered something about Arnolfo that I once knew and had forgotten. Something that he successfully concealed from himself but perhaps not from the people of Montagna - it was his underlying otherness. Emerging from the fire of desire, Arnolfo appeared to me in his true guise - he was the world's loneliest man.
I think the truth of him must have also been mirrored in the hounded but confused look that rose up in the eyes of Celestina looking from him to me as if wondering what she was doing among such people as us - another generation, another breed. Celestina must see in him an incomprehensible mystery. She sees a system of values that long ago vanished from the valley. A system that does not concern her or her municipal administration or her Let's Go Italy generation.
What does her generation care that Montagna dates back to the Etruscans? Who cares that the Guelfs and the Ghibellines fought their battles here and that the plague struck Montagna four and five centuries ago? Who remembers the three centuries of Swiss occupation?
Arnolfo the Count of Montagna cares. For despite his attempts to ignore time, he has his problems with it. Like his having no clocks in his house. And his watches stashed in the bottom of drawers. He once told me he dreamed of a place outside of time when only night and day measured its passage. Though he wants to recapture the past, I suspect he is trying to forget that someday he must die.
But in his dream he goes countercurrent because people here are forward-looking. Here the future is always better. No one here forgets the march of time. There are the bells of San Giorgio to mark it, continuously, constantly, forever and ever. Clocks everywhere. People remember that old times here were not good times. No one wants it back.
Incomprehensible to me also is Arnolfo's attempt to ignore the vulgar present of our country. Up and down the peninsula, from the Alps to the boot, from shore to shore, it's rampant. But he doesn't see it. The Count only cares that the names of Corradini and Venosta and Paini and Credaro have been here forever - his recorded old name and his restored five-hundred year old family home lend him a bit more immortality. He cares that these territories have hosted the Longobards and Napoleon and long bordered with those of the Venetian Republic and that the nobility lived here in Montagna. But he ignores present realities.
The Count knows by name village people and distant cousins and descendants of other branches of the Corradini. He knows the town history back to the Thirteenth century. He salutes everyone on the streets and everyone salutes him, "Buon di, Conte" or "Buon di, Corradini." Yet, despite all the familiarity and his sense of belonging, there is that otherness about him. His fears are like mine. His manias are like mine. It's something that all his dialectal speech and knowledge of the territory cannot alter. It's because of distance and time. For he too once left. He is both here and simultaneously elsewhere. Only part of him has returned.
It occurs to me that if the card players in the café could be completely frank, they might say to him as they do to me, 'You're not like us' or 'we don't speak your perfect dialect anymore' or 'it's as if you weren't even born here.' They would say he is off the map of reality.
They would say, 'you can't come back.'
At heart I think Celestina would agree.
Not that Arnold started out in life different. He became different. He didn't start out as Il Conte. He became the Count because he became worldly. That's not to say that villagers hold this against him. On the contrary, he adds spice and a cosmopolitan air to the village. Yet, he is different. Though he has held tight his images of childhood and village life, he is a man who claims two lives. The real true village is one of his lives. Perhaps he believes Celestina belongs to the other.
"Pleasant or unpleasant," he says one afternoon on his balcony, "our roots are our raw material for living life. You were always looking for the edge and wanted to be a stranger. But I've always wanted connections. I want to belong. My idea has always been permanence. Everywhere out there I always looked back. I felt like a stranger everyplace else."
"Yes," I say, "but you're still a stranger here."
Arnolfo looks at me sadly, purses his lips, and says, "maybe everybody's a stranger to everyone else."
"Hardly," I say. "Not anymore."
I mean to say that like most places in the world Montagna today is accessible, unlike its isolation of the times when we left the valley. Yet it's less accessible than most of Europe. Geographically and culturally, people here are the antipode of vulgar modern Italy. Many of them still recognize vulgarity when they see it. My home of the Valtellina is to Italy what the Himalayas are to Asia. What the Yukon once was to the United States. I think the higher valleys of the Valtellina and its mountains are what most of our country once was and could be again...without the globalization madness, without its record number of cell phones and automobiles per capita and its blind imitation of America, without the bullying inherent in Rome.
The only bullying I've seen here are drivers taking the big curve up the hill toward Caffé Paini too wide and too fast.
One afternoon in Caffé Paini I hear the rumor that Celestina's husband, Giancarlo, has begun divorce action. Everyone agrees he is right. But everyone sides with Celestina in the same way they elected her as their Mayor.
Giancarlo was cuckolded and had to leave her. But the card players conclude that Celestina couldn't help herself. She is not wrong either.
What was she supposed to do? the barman opines. Saverio was away doing his military service and she was ready for marriage.
She married the wrong person, one recalls.
She could have waited, another objects.
She's a passionate woman, says another.
It was their destiny, someone points out.
'Destiny!' echoes around the café.
"La vita l'é incsi!" one card player pronounces.
"Lü iol fa quel che iol fa tüc!" says another.
"Quanc' che né femma la pert la crapa dre' a n'ume, la sa' cüi quel che la fà."
'Che bela pelanda,' I think.
During our matinal tête-à-tête the next day Father Romano hems and haws about the divorce action. His Church rules one way, he wants me to understand, and he formally bows to it. Still, his ideas - and who knows, perhaps also his acts - lead him in other directions.
"Justice would be done," the loveable little wine priest says, standing in the door of my store and gazing absently toward the valley. He speaks in a confusing conditional tense in the curious Italianized brand of the local dialect of his sermons.
When I ask what he means, the village priest, the man who believes in miracles, links his tiny hands with their cracked fingernails behind his back, leans forward intently as if zeroing in some object on the flanks of the Orobic Alps to the south, clears his throat, and casting aside his jovial mask, still partly in Italian, partly in dialect, in a tone as if he were torn between right and wrong, between soul and flesh, between law and passion, pronounces:
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."
"What do you mean to say, Father?"
"La vita l'é incsi!" he says, turning back to me.
With thumbs and forefingers of both hands he adjusts his white collar and gazes in my eyes as if asking himself if I, the outsider, the stranger who doesn't even speak the local language, can be entrusted with village secrets.
"Figliolo" - though we are about the same age he calls me 'son' in a church sort of way - "Figliolo, sometimes we must admit defeat. I am a weak man, a man of the flesh, perhaps a sinful man. I accept destiny as my people here do. And like them I am also a man of passion."
I think he wants to say that Giancarlo was right to move to the valley and to divorce his unfaithful wife. But that Celestina is not to be blamed. Right and wrong is one thing. Good and evil another. She is guiltless. Maybe he's hinting that he knows about Arnolfo and Celestina, too.
In any case Father Romano is not going to thrown any stones, most certainly not at Celestina-Maddalena.
A wave of compassion suddenly comes over me. Goose pimples run down my spine. I would like to embrace the village priest. I want to hug the simple little priest who loves Montagna's white wines, who believes in miracles, and who throws no stones.
"Figliolo," he says softly, "things are never what they seem. Speak more with your friend the Count. Speak with him and you will understand."
In the afternoon I'm back at Arnolfo's. Celestina is not to be seen. The chessboard and the black and white pieces to the sides mark a game still in progress. The Count makes coffee, pours grappa in his favorite crystal jiggers, and we retire to the deck chairs on the balcony.
The sun dropping toward Lake Como is blinding. I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my arm. Automatically my eyes fix on the rooftop next door. It is only one story above us. From here the rooftop is like a stage. I conger Saverio tipping over the low railing and dropping into the abyss toward his appointment with the upturned shovel below. Illogically I wonder if it was before or after the chaos of the midnight bells from San Giorgio.
When I turn to reach for the coffee, I meet Arnolfo's eyes boring into me. For an instant I detect deep in his eyes the same questioning look I saw this morning in Father Romano's eyes when he sighed and called me figliolo and said, "La vita l'é incsi!"
So I say it point blank: "Padre Romano said I should speak with you about events."
"What events do you mean?" he says, the arrogance of conquest and possession in his voice.
"Come on! Village events! Celestina, Saverio, the divorce... and more."
"Giacomo, what is it you want to know exactly?"
"I don't know exactly what I want to know. You said there are things you know that you'd rather not know... unbelievable things you saw."
My gaze returns to the rooftop. With increasing clarity I can see the elevated stage. I imagine the complicated sex that must have gone on up there on the cold concrete under the stars. The bells are ringing. Motorcycle motors are revving. The card players are going home. I see her cool legs hot in the mountain air.
Arnolfo follows my eyes. His long fingers gently tapping the arm of his chair, he purposely lets me see he is watching me. Only later would I understand just how much of the truth was in his look.
"You saw it, didn't you?" I blurt out, losing patience with his cryptic speech, part in dialect, part in Italian.
"Quanc' che né femma la pert la crapa dre' a n'ume, la sa' cüi quel che la fà," he says. Count Arnolfo Corradini repeats the words of the card players and the judgment of Father Romano. Celestina is not guilty. Celestina is innocent. Passion, he says, is the point.
"Yes, I saw it," he finally says. "In the same moment Saverio fell, I saw Celestina next to him. Our eyes met."
"Father Romano knows too," I say.
"Yes, he knows," Arnolfo says, a little smile at the corners of his lips. "He spends a lot more time than people think up in his bell tower... the lovable old spy!"
"But I still don't know what everyone else seems to know!"
I feel the blush of the outsider rising from under my armpits but my brain is working fast. The atmosphere of conspiracy is palpable. But I feel excluded. I want to hear Arnolfo say it.
"It's the village secret," Arnolfo adds, and chuckles ironically when he sees he has gotten a rise out of me.
"Secret! But if everyone knows?"
"You have to be on the inside to know... and also to accept."
"For God's sake, know what?" I, the spy, only thought I was seeing. But I was blind to reality. "Father Romano is right, things are never what they seem."
"That Celestina gave him a little push over the railing," he says. "It was pure instinct!"
"Instinct! you say. Pushing him off the top of the house?"
"Of course. But what I saw is not the point, at all. The point is she is not guilty for what she did."
"Of course?" I stammer. "Of course? But...but why? What do you mean, of course?"
But I do understand. Her unhappy marriage. Her passion. D'accordo! But before the end of her affair Celestina also knew that Count Arnolfo wanted her! Arnolfo didn't speak of that. She knew it all the time. She had wanted Saverio but that was not to be. I know she wanted the Count. For her the Count was more.
The Mayor and the Count! The love story of the century, she must have thought, crazy in her removal from reality. Was that not evil?
But Arnolfo, I know, instead was thinking of the bela pelanda with her black miniskirt and tan legs.
"She knows you saw it!"
"She knows."
In the silence that follows, in the silence of my amazement that this is really happening, Arnolfo continues gazing at me with a puzzled expression in his eyes. He seems to be passing in review centuries of time and history in the Valtellina, the centuries of invasions and plagues, of poor times and rich times, of departures and returns.
His expression is filled also with compassion. Compassion for me the maverick. That I will never understand the fundamental things that everyone in Montagna has always understood. I have thought in terms of complicity. People here think it is human. Just human nature. Neither good nor bad.
Yet, I believe I understand something the others do not, something Celestina couldn't even imagine - Arnolfo might want to return but he is still different from them. The Count is a man of romance, of passion, even of complicity for the sake of justice. Maybe he is not made for conjugal love. Nor can he, the theosophist, the man who wants to stop time, ever really return. But, I know, he will risk anyway. He will try anything, just to remain.
Arnolfo goes inside to the cupboard. I hear him pouring drinks. He returns with two full glasses of grappa.
Dark is beginning to fall. Vespers bells erupt onto the terrace. Living rooms in the houses below us light up like miniature lunaparks. Down in the valley roads look like nighttime landing strips. There is the brilliance and clarity of a dream. We're still sitting up among the gods and watching the ugly realities of life down in the city.
"A little push over the railing," I murmur. "Pure instinct. But she is not guilty. So then if she is not guilty then no one is guilty. Is that what you're saying?"
"La vita l'é incsi!" he sums up. "Such is life."


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A device to help mom digitize old memories
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