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I prefer to post about all the restaurants I enjoy, but I'm feeling so bothered by my brunch experience today, that I'm going public with my complaints.
My sweetie and I are semi-regular customers of both Sophia's and Ezra's Place on North Fourth, two of the three restaurants owned by the same family. We've had many a great meal at both places, with excellent food and service, and we've taken friends and guests there, as well as recommending both spots to many others. In reality, we'd be regular customers except for the distance we have to travel to enjoy these restaurants.
This morning, we decided to head up to Ezra's, where we haven't been in about 5 months, for some brunch. They have a delicious menu, which includes some really tasty specials. Nowhere on that menu does it say "no substitutions allowed." So I ordered the same thing I usually get, which is a plate of eggs, potatoes, toast and meat. On the menu it appears as apple chicken sausage with eggs and the rest. I've always asked for bacon (I really dislike sausage, but especially the stuff made out of chicken) and have never had any problem with the switch. It's just one breakfast meat for another, throw it on the grill and then onto my plate. I also asked for a tortilla instead of toast, something I've done at Ezra's before with no problem. Again, just put a tortilla on the plate and I've saved you the effort of toasting and buttering some bread.
Well, this morning our waitress returned to our booth to tell me that the cook wouldn't serve me bacon. I actually stared at her for a few seconds because I was shocked. What? Why not? Seriously, what is the reason not to substitute bacon for sausage? It's not as though I was requesting any extra work on his part, it's just meat sitting on the plate and not part of a more complicated dish. And I'd have to wonder what kind of fancy pig his bacon was coming from if there was a significant price difference between that and apple chicken sausage (which is pricier than plain ole pork sausage). Furthermore, roughly a third of the tables were full, so it wasn't as though I was making requests of an overwhelmed kitchen. The waitress offered me a side of bacon and I told her I didn't want to pay extra when I was already going to be paying for meat I wouldn't eat. So we moved on and waited for our breakfast to arrive.
When my plate did come, I had sausage, a piece of toast and some eggs that were cooked way beyond the over-easy I had ordered. I know there are places that refuse to serve eggs over-easy, but usually they say "we can do them over-medium" and I'm fine with that--these were just really overcooked. But the part that pushed me from annoyed to pissed off was the toast. Is it really that hard to substitute a tortilla for toast? Really? Really?! This just seemed like a cook having a bad day and taking it out on customers in petty ways. I debated pushing for a tortilla and just decided it wasn't worth the argument. So I ate my breakfast. And it was disappointing and I decided that I wanted to speak with the manager before we left.
Well, it turns out the cook in the kitchen today is the manager. Turns out he's actually an owner of the place. So the owner of a restaurant that charges $9 for a plate of eggs, meat and potatoes refused two very simple customer requests that had been filled by his kitchen in the past and would have been fulfilled without an eye blink at Milton's or the Frontier (to say nothing of Slate Street or the Grove). If it said anywhere on his menu or if it was posted by the door that there were no substitutions allowed, I would have spent more time finding something else on the menu to eat. Then it's a policy that we're all aware of, rather than the whim of a guy having a bad day. I could even see him balking at the requests if they made his job even minimally more difficult. But bacon for sausage and tortilla for toast just don't add to his effort.
And I'm ticked off that a pleasant brunch with my husband was marred by the petty tyranny of a guy who makes his money from the customers who come through his door. Which we will no longer be doing. There are enough other places in Abq. that serve great food in a good atmosphere and don't mind fulfilling a request for a small change to a meal.
Yes, this is a pretty small thing to get upset about, but it cast a pall over the Sunday morning my family was enjoying and the interactions throughout really bothered me, so I'm exorcising my bad feelings about it by posting here. (I also want to mention that we tipped our waitress a full 20%, because the cook/owner's behavior wasn't her fault at all.)
So farewell Ezra's....and Sophia's for that matter. We haven't checked out Joe's, so we'll never know what we may have missed. Anyone have a good brunch place we should add to our circuit?
Views: 235
I'm guessing the manager wasn't accustomed to working the kitchen, and was a little overwhelmed at the prospect. But still, it's unfortunate that his unwillingness to fulfill simple orders threw your whole day off kilter.
Anyhow, I do believe that in proper DCF fashion, your post should be titled "SHAME!!!! on Ezra's Place!"
My son and I popped into Ezra's for the first time a few weeks ago and were extremely disappointed. It was clearly after a brunch rush, the place was mostly empty, the hostess didn't even make eye contact with us. After several minutes sitting at a table waiting to be acknowledged, we left. Bad mojo.
So we went down the street to Sophia's. Again, a first time for us. It was close to closing, A son and a mother behind the counter (owners?) were openly arguing and cursing. Food was okay, but the customer service was terrible. I won't go back to either place.
Since we live in Nob Hill, both Sophia's and Erza's take a bit of effort to get to. For the distance and time, we can probably find cafes closer to home to make us feel unwelcome. Thanks for the heads up! Grove is always a good bet and the staff is always pleasant, Daily Grind doesn't have great seating in sweltering weather, but great pastries and coffee and if you don't have to have great coffee Mes Amis Tea House on Silver SE. is nice.
we love the grove for breakfast! and you're the 3rd or 4th person to mention daily grind to me, meaning I've got to get my butt over there soon. thanks for the recommendations!
Daily Grind has the best scones in the city. Definitely go!! Also, their breakfast burritos are great!
Daily Grind pies...yumyumyum!!!
Daily Grind rocks! They use Allegro coffee (delicious & fair trade) and have wonderful food. Plus, the folks are just so nice. Check out the little patio seating area round the back if you go!
Hettie, if you talked to a manager that was an owner, that was most likely Dennis - THE owner. Ezra does work in the restaurant(s) occasionally but he is a bit young to be a manager yet, if I recall. (Ezra is Dennis' son, and still in his teens)
So.... what did they say when confronted, and what did you say?
Next time, order a chicken salad sandwich - okay, in this case, make that a BLT... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wtfNE4z6a8
(But honestly, I've eaten at Ezra's and Sophies lots of times, and have had really terrific meals - but I think Jo's Place is a stretch for his business. I miss the handicapped couple who ran that place - although the service was awfully slow, to say the least. It's a great space, but it needs a good efficient short order cook to run the kitchen (Jo's Place, that is...) )
(PS - the green chile stew / sandwich was pretty awful at McAllister's Deli in Uptown - maybe i should rant about that....)


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Lunch bags by Tracy, Jumilla Bugs
We're starting a new feature on the SMS blog. Each week we'll highlight a project in the Sew, Mama, Sew Flickr Pool. Our first project by Tracy of Jumilla Bugs utilized SMS oilcloth and she didn't just create these beautiful bags. Tracy explained, step-by-step, how you can make your very own oilcloth lunch bag (or two or ten)!
Tracy keeps busy; her Jumilla Bugs blog is a beautiful collection of craft and glimpses into her family life. She makes some amazing things and has just joined a new collaborative blog Sew Green where she recently wrote about starting anew in her yard with native plants. Tracy takes beautiful photos and shares them here. Wherever you find Tracy you're sure to be impressed and inspired.
Tracy wrote about her lunch bags on her blog here, and shared her pattern with you here. For your oilcloth you should, of course, stop by here!
Be sure to share your own creations in the Sew, Mama, Sew Flickr Pool. Each month we have a drawing from the pool entries for a $25 SMS gift certificate (you could get a little oilcloth!).
» Sewing Inspiration » Flickr Group Feature
Related Posts
4 Responses to Flickr Group Feature
is there a pattern/tutorial for these bags? i NEED one! what a clever idea to take food to work in. i'm smitten.
Thank you for this! I was going to just wing it and make a few bags with my newly aquired SMS olicloth, now I don't have to hurt my brain by thinking 🙂
LOVE this new idea! I can't wait to see all the fun things 🙂
This is such a great feature, I'm looking forward to seeing all the projects in the future.
« Readers' Favorite Sewing Tutorials Part 1 Free BOOK Friday »

subset: commoncrawl


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Zoe Saldana, Fiance Split After 11 Years Together
For the first time in over a decade, Zoe Saldana is single.
The Avatar star, 33, and fiance Keith Britton, 35, "have amicably separated after 11 years," the actress' rep tells Us Weekly.
"[They] remain committed business partners as co-founders of fashion resource MyFDB.com," Saldana's rep added. "Respect of their privacy is appreciated during this time."
PHOTOS: Hollywood's broken engagements
Saldana and her entrepreneur ex confirmed their engagement in June 2010. A source told Us at the time the actress was "thrilled," adding, "They've been together forever. They're a great couple."
NEWS: Zoe talks about her workout routine
Another insider at the time told Us: "[Zoe] doesn't even introduce him as her fiance. She will just say, 'This is Keith.' She likes to keep her personal life to herself and wants people to focus on her as an actress."
We Recommend
- Sep. 20, 2017 See all the stars at London Fashion Week!


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Posted byon
I usually like to keep it clean on the blog, but this is going to be one of the few exceptions. This video is too funny not to post. So for those of you who may be offended by strong language you might not want to play this video. However, if you're in the mood to laugh your ass off watch away…
To watch on YouTube click here.
…"deformed walrus face" has to be the line of the century. To watch the real press conference, which was after Gabby/Carcillo game, click here.
Remember to follow me on Twitter & Facebook or e-mail me at email@example.com.


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EEA Executive Director Hans Bruyninckx said: "Europe's efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy have resulted in concrete gains. Our report shows that the EU is on track towards its 2020 climate targets. The report also shows that to achieve our longer-term goals for 2030 and 2050, a fundamental change is needed in the way we produce and use energy in Europe."
The EEA report reveals that according to approximated ('proxy') estimates for 2014 greenhouse gas, emissions fell by 4% in 2014 compared to 2013. This was partly due to an unusually warm year, which lowered energy demand. This means the EU's domestic greenhouse gas emissions were 23% below 1990 levels in 2014.
Latest projections by Member States[1] show the EU is heading for a 24% reduction by 2020 with current measures in place, and a 25% reduction with additional measures already being planned in Member States. The EU is therefore also on track towards its Kyoto Protocol target for the second commitment period from 2013 to 2020.
Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are projected to continue beyond 2020 but at a slower pace. According to projections submitted by Member States, planned reductions are estimated to bring emissions between 27% (with current measures) and 30% (with additional measures already being planned by Member States) below 1990 levels by 2030. New policies will therefore need to be put in place to meet the 40% reduction target by 2030. As President Juncker stated in his State of the European Union -speech, European Commission has already taken the first legislative step towards implementing the EU's 2030 targets with its proposal to revise the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS).
|Progress to targets
GHG emissions
Emissions compared to 1990 levels
|2020 targets
|– 20%
|2013 levels
|– 19.8%
|2014 levels (approximate)
|– 23%
|Member States' 2020 projections
|– 24% to – 25%
|Number of Member States 'on track'
|Member States' 2030 projections
|– 27% to – 30%
|Anna-Kaisa Itkonen
|Gülçin Karadeniz
European Commission
|European Environment Agency
|Tel: +32 (0)2 29 56186
Mobile: +32 (0)460 764 328
|Tel: +45 33 36 71 72
Mobile: +45 23 68 36 53
|Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
|Email: email@example.com
This EEA annual report provides an updated assessment of the progress of the European Union and European countries towards their climate mitigation and energy targets.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) is an agency of the European Union. It aims to support sustainable development and to help achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe's environment by providing timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policymaking agents and the public. It is supported in its work by the European environment information and observation network (Eionet), a network of 39 European countries.
[1] Projections were made before 2014 estimates were available]]>
The data is published by the European Environment Agency (EEA), which started monitoring the emissions of light commercial vehicles last year.
Emissions levels are very different across Europe – they were lowest among new vans sold in Malta, Portugal and France, while new vehicles in Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic had emissions approximately a third higher.
The EEA has also observed a similar trend of increasing efficiency in new passenger cars sold, which also improved by 4 % between 2012 and 2013, meeting their 2015 target two years early.
Member States report CO2 emission levels from the certification test procedure. These levels are measured under laboratory conditions using the new European Driving Cycle specified in EU type approval legislation. This should make the measurements comparable, but not necessarily representative of real-world conditions.
There are several uncertainties in the data. The vans data is more complex than that of passenger cars, due to the relatively high number of vehicles type-approved in multiple stages - for example camper vans, where different parts are built by different manufacturers. In the case of multi-stage vans, the base vehicle manufacturer is responsible for the CO2 emissions of the final vehicle under EU law.
Moreover, as the database is relatively new, the current monitoring system cannot adequately capture these vehicles, which means that the data is not yet fully representative of the new vans targeted by the legislation. From next year onwards, a new data collection method will apply which is expected to improve data quality. The EEA will publish final data on new vans' CO2 emissions in the autumn.]]>
Hans Bruyninckx, EEA Executive Director, said: "This report shows that while we have been successful in agreeing a wide range of policies to protect the environment, implementing these policies remains a challenge. We are making some progress towards the EU aim of creating a green economy, but we need to keep the pressure on up to 2020 and beyond."
The report identifies 63 legally binding targets and 68 non-binding objectives set out in EU policy covering the period 2010–2050. Of the 63 legally-binding targets, 62 have their deadlines in 2020 or before. Most of the current targets and objectives can be seen as interim steps towards a transition to a green economy, because in most cases eradicating the problems will require longer-term efforts beyond 2020.
The 'green economy' is an economic model which aims to increase prosperity by using resources efficiently as well as maintaining the resilience of the natural systems that sustain societies. With its 'Environmental indicator report 2012', the EEA undertook its first analysis of Europe's progress in the transition towards a green economy, using indicators to assess resource efficiency and to address ecosystem resilience. The findings show a mixed performance, although they suggest that Europe has made more progress in improving resource efficiency than preserving ecosystem resilience.
The new overview is useful as a comprehensive basis for reviewing progress in the past, and for considering the prospects for meeting future environmental policy objectives and targets.
Progress towards environmental targets in Europe
One way that the EU has achieved this improvement is by setting legally binding and non-binding limits for the whole Union for certain pollutants dispersed in the air. The EU has set standards for particulate matter (PM) of certain sizes, ozone, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, lead, and other pollutants that may have a detrimental effect on human health or ecosystems. Key pieces of legislation that set pollutant limits across Europe include the 2008 Directive on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe (2008/50/EC), and the 1996 Framework Directive on ambient air quality assessment and management (96/62/EC).
Another approach to legislating for improvements to air quality is through the setting of national annual emission limits for specific pollutants. In these cases, countries are responsible for introducing the measures needed to ensure that their emission levels are below the ceiling set for the relevant pollutant.
The Gothenburg Protocol to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP), and the EU National Emission Ceilings Directive (2001/81/EC) both set annual emissions limits for European countries on air pollutants, including those pollutants responsible for acidification, eutrophication, and ground-level ozone pollution. The Gothenburg Protocol was revised in 2012. And the National Emissions Ceilings Directive is up for review and revision in 2013.
In addition to setting air quality standards for specific pollutants and annual country-level ceilings, European legislation is also designed to target particular sectors that act as sources of air pollution.
Emissions of air pollutants from the industrial sector are regulated, by among others, the 2010 Industrial Emissions Directive (2010/75/EU) and the 2001 Directive on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from Large Combustion Plants (2001/80/EC).
Vehicle emissions have been regulated through a series of performance and fuel standards, including the 1998 Directive relating to the quality of petrol and diesel fuels (98/70/EC) and vehicle emission standards, known as the Euro standards.
The Euro 5 and 6 standards cover emissions from light vehicles including passenger cars, vans, and commercial vehicles. The Euro 5 standard came into force on 1 January 2011, and requires all new cars covered by the legislation to emit less particulates and nitrogen oxides than the limits set. Euro 6, which will enter into force in 2015, will impose stricter limits on nitrogen oxides emitted by diesel engines.
There are also international agreements concerning the emissions of air pollutants in other areas of transportation, such as the International Maritime Organization's 1973 Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), with its additional protocols, which regulate sulphur dioxide emissions from shipping.
(c) Javier Arcenillas, ImaginAIR/EEA
"Although fortunately there are still places in Romania almost wild and spectacular, where nature is unstained by the hand of man, in more urbanized areas there is an obvious ecological problem."
Javier Arcenillas, Spain
A pollutant is usually regulated by more than one piece of legislation. Particulate matter, for example, is directly addressed by three European legal measures (Directives on ambient air quality and emissions of air pollutants, and the Euro limits on road vehicle emissions) and two international conventions (LRTAP and MARPOL). Some of the PM precursors are tackled by other legal measures.
The implementation of these laws are also spread over a period of time and achieved in stages. For fine particles, the air quality directive sets 25 μg/m3 as a 'target value' to be met by 1 January 2010. The same threshold is set to become a 'limit value' by 2015, entailing additional obligations.
For some sectors, air policies might first cover certain pollutants in limited parts of Europe. In September 2012, the European Parliament adopted the revisions that brought the EU's standards on sulphur emissions by ships in line with the International Maritime Organization's standards from 2008. By 2020, the sulphur limit will be 0.5 % in all the seas around the EU.
For the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel in so-called 'Sulphur Emission Control Areas', the European Parliament set an even stricter sulphur limit of 0.1 % by 2015. Considering that standard marine fuel contains 2 700 times more sulphur than conventional diesel for cars, it is clear that this legislation gives strong reasons to the shipping sector to develop and use cleaner fuels.
Current European air-quality legislation is based on the principle that EU Member States divide their territories into a number of management zones in which countries are required to assess air quality using measurement or modelling approaches. Most big cities are declared to be such zones. If air‑quality standards are exceeded in a zone, the Member State has to report to the European Commission and explain the reasons.
The countries are then required to develop local or regional plans describing how they intend to improve the air quality. They could for example establish so-called low-emission zones that restrict access for more polluting vehicles. Cities can also encourage a shift in transport to less polluting modes including walking, cycling, and public transport. They can also ensure that industrial and commercial combustion sources are fitted with emission‑control equipment, according to the latest, best-available technology.
Research is also critical. Not only does research offer us new technologies, it also improves our knowledge of air pollutants and their negative effects on our health and ecosystems. Integrating the latest knowledge into our laws and actions will help us to continue to improve Europe's air.
(c) Gülçin Karadeniz


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By Rachel Koning Beals
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) – Is it possible to smoothly downshift this 30-year bond bull run?
Most bond investing experts claim yes, with a proviso: the easy ride hinges on buyers coming to terms with lower returns and rethinking what it means to take risk.
Bond king's trade pays off
Pimco's Bill Gross wins with a bet on mortagage debt and rebounds from a rough 2011, Kirsten Grind reports on Markets Hub. Photo: Reuters/Robert Galbraith.
"You can no longer think of Treasurys as an investment, but only a safe-haven," said Paul Nolte, managing director of investment manager Dearborn Partners. "We'll probably know a lot more in four to six weeks but if the economy continues to look pretty good, you just have to venture into corporate bonds [or] emerging markets for any hope at investment returns."
If the first quarter is any indicator, bond market behavior may finally reflect the "new normal" that Pimco's Bill Gross and others first started talking about a few years back. In the first three months of 2012, long-dated government debt funds fell 6.3%, according to preliminary data from investment researcher Morningstar Inc. Shorter-term government funds were essentially flat.
So far this year, economic data has perked up and stocks posted solid gains. Bonds assumed an expected role, reflecting the "risk-on" approach. Emerging-market bond funds led all fixed-income fund categories, with a 7% gain in the quarter, according to Morningstar. High-yield bond funds were up 5.4% in the period, while higher-rated multi-sector corporate debt funds were up 4.1%. World bond funds rose 2.3%. In the tax-exempt space, national long-dated muni bond funds rose 2.8%, while high-yield muni funds gained 4.7%.
But the bond market has been fooled before. Each of the past two years started with outperformance of corporates and other higher-yielding areas, including stocks, only to see "investors run for the hills" and the relative safety of Treasurys in the middle of the year before a late-year scamper back to risk, Nolte said. On more than one occasion, lower-risk bond fund returns looked ready to crack and yet each quarter, they defied even expert expectations.
Stay in the lane
Back to 1987
for stocks?
Our Trading Deck has been home to a spirited debate over whether we're in for a crash.
• L.A. Little: Don't worry | Michael Gayed: Worry
• The warning signs of a 1987-style crash
• Hulbert: Stocks as overvalued as at 2007 high
Is it different this time? Fund managers steered through the 2008 credit crisis and the still-lingering European debt malaise. Now, a slowing Chinese economy, spotty-if-improving U.S. growth and a volatile oil-price scenario raise concerns for the viability of riskier fixed-income categories. That includes lower-rated company debt and international bonds.
The Fed has pegged short-term rates at ultra-low levels and it's buying longer-term paper to push down mortgage rates, but that program will run out in coming months.
In its attempt to stay a step ahead of the Fed, the bond market sold off in the early year. Treasury prices fell perhaps a little too fast. Falling prices push up yields as the market was pricing in higher future interest rates.
As the "new normal" camp made its case in recent years and again to start 2012, fund managers got a boost of confidence in their view from none other than Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke. He stepped in with an ABC evening news appearance and delivered a renewed pledge for low rates until late 2014. The market correction paused.
While Bernanke took to the airwaves, Rick Rieder, BlackRock's chief investment officer of fixed income, fundamental portfolios, penned a column for The Financial Times to boost the bond bulls' case:
"We have all heard the bears' case for bonds: with governments and consumers in the developed world drowning in debt and negative real interest rates on many sovereign bonds, yields can only rise — quickly," he wrote. "Not so fast: The confluence of profound supply and demand factors, with a dash of monetary policy distortion thrown in, will ensure bonds remain well-bid — and interest rates capped — for years to come."


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Silver Icing Stars Cake Decoration - 27 Details
Silver Icing Stars Cake Decorations
Pack of 27 shiny silver stars, made from icing they are a beautiful decoration for adding a touch of glamour or a feeling of winter to your cupcakes, muffins, cookies and cakes.
Made from a firm icing. Each star measures approximately 2cm.
Additional Information
|Glucose syrup, added water, Non -Hydrogenated palm oil (contains emulsifiers: E322); Stabilisers: E413, E415 Glazing agent: E904, Anti caking agent: E555 E172, E171
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Liberal Democratic Party Senator David Leyonhjelm has called for the minimum wage to be scrapped as means to improve the country's rising jobless rate and productivity.
Speaking on Channel Nine's Financial Review Sunday program, Senator Leyonhjelm said labour market reform was needed to encourage businesses to hire more people and to help older workers find jobs.
"I would abolish the minimum wage; I don't think we need it, I think the market will look after that sort of thing quite ok," he said, admitting the point was likely to spark controversy within political circles.
"If people are frightened of a total abolition, what I'm suggesting is a six month exemption. If you're going to say to people you can't be paid any unemployment benefits for six months but you have to look for a job and or study then the least you can do is lower the barrier so you can get a job during that period."
Mr Leyonhjelm's comments come just days after a report revealed Australia's jobless rate had climbed to a 12-year high of 6.4 per cent, worse than that in the lagging economic recovery of the United States.
Deutsche Bank's chief economist, Adam Boyton, also told Financial Review Sunday that while the unemployment rate was high, it was not as high as the numbers suggested, pointing out that the total number of jobs had not fallen in line with the data.
"The economy, although it's soft, it's sluggish, it's not in a recession," he said.
A need to move
Mr Boyton added the government needed to consider ways to kickstart the labour market.
"If we want to create jobs for young people we have to put in the employers mind the view that the productivity matches the wage, that's the same for anyone else across the economy.
"If we can match productivity with wages, we can actually create sustainably a lot more jobs for everyone," he said.
Mr Leyonhjelm said two of the barriers preventing businesses from employing more people were unfair dismissal laws and the gap between the government's Newstart allowance, which is about $280 a week and the minimum wage which is about $640 a week, excluding penalty rates.
"There are lots of young people who would love to work at somewhere between those two prices but they're not allowed to, they can't get a job, employers are not allowed to hire them because of the minimum wage laws.
"There are plenty of countries, developed countries, that have no minimum wage and that doesn't cause a problem, it doesn't bring down wages, it doesn't cause poverty or anything like that which is what everybody predicts," he said.
The Australian Financial Review


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As my small group of high school guys entered into their junior year of high school I remember feeling a little anxiety. Â Typically this is the year that small groups are tested because of the amount of distractions and obstacles the students face. Â Teens are beginning to think about college, and classes are more intense. Â For many of them they are making the varsity team which means a different commitment. Â Some of them are looking to get their driver's license, which means they have a little more freedom and a little less accountability to show up from their parents. Â As the teens get older, their commitment to the group is tested.
But, there are those groups that last. Â There are those groups that not only stay strong; but, withstand the transitions of seasons. Â Why is that? Â Is it the leader? The teens? Â While those are huge factors there are a few steps every leader should take to ensure their small groups last through the years. Â Those steps are:
Communicating Consistently – Your group needs to hear your voice more than just at the weekly gatherings. Â Check-in with them during the week. Â Talk with their parents. Â Make your relationship with them consistent. Â Communicating consistently helps you become a regular voice in their life. Â Whether it's an invitation to join group each week or a shout out on Twitter, letting them know you're invested will go far.
Meeting Outside The Usual – On top of your weekly gatherings try to get together for a mission project or fellowship gathering. Â It's easy to forget how hard it is for these teens to find healthy social opportunities. Â By getting them together outside of the small group you turn it from a "church" thing into a life group.
Connecting One On One – It might be a challenge, but when you can meet one on one with your teens you begin to understand the dynamics of the group. Â This helps you lead discussions in your group in a way that promotes depth. Â The teens will feel like you know them personally because of your private conversations. Â It will encourage them to open up in ways they couldn't have before.
Setting Goals And Vision – Every church needs goals and vision. Â Doesn't matter if it's thousands of people or half a dozen, without vision the people will perish. Â Your small group needs goals and vision to grow and go deeper. Â It allows the group to go from a social hour into something lasting.
Leading a small group is an investment. Â It will be tested; however, by getting to know each individual and challenging them with different opportunities, the group will strengthen.
How do you strengthen your small groups?
Chris Wesley (@chrisrwesley)


text:
The story received breathless play in the media: Pakistan's NSA tipped off his Indian counterpart about 10 terrorists who had infiltrated into India. Manhunt launched. TV channels quote top officials to say three of the terrorists killed. Manhunt continues for the other seven. And so on. Turns out they were ATM thieves.
Tag Archives: Pakistan
Falling out of love
Gleanings from a weekend spent reading corruption-related content on various newsmagazines and sites:
A beleaguered people seethed at the betrayal, at the battering of their hope, at their realisation that cricket, as every sport, can at best only be a metaphor for the nation playing it. Pakistan, today, is cricket's graveyard, its players the hangmen of the game. But they have acquired such disrepute, such infamy, only because so many of Pakistan's cherished values lie crushed, because its politics has become pathological.
People understood this instinctively and, for a change, reacted spontaneously, refusing to spin conspiracy theories. In Lahore, an angry mob pelted rotten tomatoes on donkeys named Asif, Aamer, Kamran (Akmal) and Salman. One of them said, "We are already facing so many problems…they took away our one source of joy." One Wajahat commented on Facebook, "In 1999 you (the Pakistani cricket team) broke my heart. But I was 16, and I learnt to love you again. I fear I am too old to love you again." A sarcastic SMS doing the rounds reads, "We, the flood-stricken people of Pakistan, salute the worthy members of our national cricket team for their daring move to collect huge donations for the flood victims, even through match-fixing." Newspapers howled, TV channels bristled and commentators said cricket's hangmen must be made to pay.
Outlook's story underlines the essential tragedy of the latest developments: that the greed of the few irreparably harms the many. 'I fear I am too old to love you again' ranks, on the poignance scale, with 'Say it ain't so, Joe!'
The magazine also features Dawn correspondent Kamran Shafi on the need to root out the present administration and reformat the running of Pakistan cricket; what he says serves as a cautionary tale for an IPL, and an administration, obsessed with la dolce vita [And while on cautionary tales, here's Rohit Mahajan, also in Outlook, on why India is not inoculated against this evil]:
There is only one way for Pakistan cricket to go, and that is to dismiss the whole shoot: PCB, team and all. Our players should be banned from playing any international cricket for five years during which time cricket academies should be set up at the district level which should train players and form two teams each. These teams should then play each other with the winners playing the winning teams from other districts. At the national level, matches could be held between provincial teams and from this pool of talent, a national side chosen.
The PCB's secretariat (yes, they have a plush secretariat too, including executive dining and living facilities and accommodations that would shame a seven-star hotel) ought to be cut down to half its huge size and proper accounting procedures instituted. The royal style—fat salaries, first-class travel, five-star hotels, daily allowances that would put even a prince's privy purse to shame—that the PCB bosses arrogate to themselves should be controlled and the money, thus wasted, spent on the cricket academies.
Within the fraternity of journalists covering cricket, a talking point for quite some time is the increasing power and pervasive influence of the agent, who in recent times has been known to go outside of the stated brief of managing the player-client's finances, and intervene in cricketing aspects up to and including selection of players. Mahajan's piece elaborates on that theme:
Insiders say that agents chasing players, and trying to build relationships with officials, is a serious problem. "This is rampant in domestic cricket," says a source. "In Delhi, for instance, some officials are long-time betters and have links with bookies. In some states, selectors receive a cut from agents for selecting their players." The source says that at the national level, agents have become less important due to a BCCI decision—paid selectors. "Earlier, agents used to be seen taking selectors to dinner etc, and it was believed they influenced selection," he says. "Now at least in public they don't hang out together."
Agents and the access they have to the players, or the access they facilitate for others, could also cause problems. The ICC suggests no or limited access to players during matches, but agents and their friends are always with players. During the Asia Cup earlier this year, the Sri Lankan chief of security wrote to the acu that a woman had gained access to an Indian player's room. "The situation was managed, but it's a potentially hazardous, in which a woman could be used to lure a player towards wrongdoing," says a source.
A senior BCCI official says it's time there was some regulation of the agents: "There are some good ones, but one or two are known to be of dubious integrity, misleading players about deals, attempting to influence selection. It might be a good idea to register agents, like in football and nba, so that there could be a thorough check of their antecedents."
And in his piece, Mike Marqusee tangentially underlines the reason behind the growing power of the agent:
One of the sad but striking parts of the News of the World recording shows the way the agent-cum-fixer Mazhar Majeed treats the young cricketers—as inferior social beings dependent on his largesse. And they seem to accept him as such. After all, he has the money and the connections, just like all the others they have been told to obey and admire.
India Today has a story that hits the right spots with its toxic mix of corrupt cricketers, the fix, and the underworld — but speaking for myself, I am not entirely convinced by this one. For something on this scale to have happened — and remember, the Rs 50 crore cited here is not the sum total of the bets, merely the extent of losses suffered — I have to believe that such astronomical sums were wagered on the possibility of only two no-balls being bowled in course of an innings. Stretches credulity, that — fix or no, there is no bowling side in the world that can guarantee to bowl only a specific number of no balls in course of an innings; the no-ball [the non-fixed ones, that is] is an involuntary, heat of the moment act, mostly caused by a temporary blip in the bowler's circuitry. You can as a bowler/bowling team guarantee to bowl one on demand; the converse, that you can guarantee not to bowl one, is a bridge too far for me to contemplate crossing.
To understand a crime, you have to understand context — and when it comes to Pakistan cricket, there are few that can explain context better than Osman Samiuddin. Two pieces of his that I read over the weekend provided context and backstory — from The Guardian and The Times of India.
Along with context, there is this: the past is always prologue, in cricket as in life. Gideon Haigh delves into the past, to provide a lesson for the present:
To cricket's antique traditions, we must turn for a parallel crisis. Because, for much of its early history, from its rise in the Restoration to deep into the Regency, cricket and gambling were inseparable associates. The nobility and gentry who fostered the game understood about the game what the match- and spot-fixers do now – that in a gaming sense it is a target-rich environment, full of possibilities for wagers.
The oldest surviving version of cricket's laws features extensive provision for the settling of bets.
Cricket also grew rich in potential for malpractice – to the point of almost causing its own downfall.
As one repentant player explained: "Matches were bought and matches were sold, and gentlemen who meant honestly lost large sums of money, till the rogues beat themselves at last. They over-did it; they spoilt their own trade …"
What ended up saving cricket was that it became so obviously corrupt as to endanger its increasingly lucrative trade as a spectator sport, which was enough to scare its practitioners and impresarios straight.
That's the view from the world at large; me, I am content — no, not content, more like resigned — to allow this drama to play itself out under the aegis of the ICC; to wait for a determination of guilt and innocence and all shades in-between. As Haigh said in his piece:
Cricket has in its hands the instruments of its own deliverance. The question is whether it has the courage to use them.
PS: I'm off, starting tomorrow, for an off-site that will take up the rest of the week. Expect blogging to be desultory to non-existent, for the duration.
The wellspring of corruption
Writing in Cricinfo this morning, Harsha Bhogle makes a point that plugs straight into something a cricketer and a friend told me last night.
Why do I play this game?
If the answer is that you want to excel at the one thing that you are good at, that you want to find the limits of your ability, that you relish the challenge of a competition, that you get goose pimples putting on your country's colours and walking out to the expectations of your countrymen, you will pursue those goals and take whatever reward you get. Invariably it will be handsome.
If the answer is that you want to earn a good living as quickly as you can, that you want to bask in the comforts of the material pleasures that your talent delivers to you, you will take whatever financial inducement comes your way. Inevitably it will be tainted, inevitably the dessert will be laced.
It is our choices that tell us who we are.
But these choices can be influenced; sometimes, and I hope never, young players can be coerced into walking down a specific path. And so it comes down to the air they breathe when their minds are still fragile. It could be the air of excellence that drives a young man to newer heights of achievement. Or it could be the putrid air of greed that could infect him and snuff a career out before it has had time to blossom.
The point is well taken — like any other seed, corruption needs fertile ground in which to spout, to flourish. [While on that, read Tariq Ali] And the saddest part of the ongoing corruption saga is that all conversation is about rooting out the individual plant, never about clearing up the soil itself.
That is the point my cricketer friend made last night, while we were discussing the recent developments. I was arguing for 'zero tolerance' in practice, not merely in words. I'll paraphrase his reply, from my notes:
Great! "Zero tolerance" — sounds wonderful. So let's look at how you've applied this principle in real life, in recent times. The 'commissioner' of the most cash-rich cricket tournament in the world has been accused of corruption to the tune of dozens, hundreds of millions. And — nothing. Yesterday he was holidaying in the Bahamas, today he is enjoying life in London, tomorrow he will fly in a private jet bought with money earned from the sweat of cricketers to some other playground of the super rich. The second in command of the BCCI has been publicly accused of deeds ranging from manipulating his own acquiring of a franchise, to fixing auctions, to fixing umpires to favor the interests of his side. And — nothing. He denies it, throws mud at his accuser, remains in his post. The then president of the BCCI has been accused of, even proven to have, undisclosed interests in various franchises; he has been accused of actively working to manipulate the results of franchise auctions. And? He is now the head of the ICC.
This, the cricketer said, is the atmosphere in which the game is played in India today; this is the example we set the young and the upcoming: that corruption comes with benefits, but it does not carry a price tag.
He has a point. In any corporate environment, if there is an accusation of corruption, the first official act is to suspend the concerned person from his post. That is not a proclamation of guilt, but merely a routine part of the investigative process. If I am accused of finagling the books and siphoning money off from the editorial budget, say, and you leave me at my post while my guilt is being probed, I can use that time to hide all traces of my malfeasance. That is why the company's first act will be to suspend me pending investigation. [Read Kamran Abbasi on why the suspension of Butt, Asif and Amir is right, why that does not conflict with the presumption of innocence that is the right of every human being; this is also why the ridiculous posturing of the likes of Wajid Shamsul Hasan will do more harm than good.]
Yet, in recent times, every single top official in the administration has been accused of corruption to varying degrees — and every single one of them remains in his post [with the exception of the 'commissioner/suspended' — and that suspension was not so much the result of a genuine desire to probe the charges, as it was a manifestation of the internal power politics within the board].
This [my friend said] is the example you are setting for the young, impressionable players. They see a bunch of officials who have never sweated it out on the field of play, never put their skills on the line, making untold millions from the sport and getting away with it. And yet you think that they, themselves, will have the moral fibre to resist all opportunities to make a fast buck. That sounds realistic to you?
That is the "putrid air of greed" Harsha is talking about. It is the "putrid air" that Indian [and Pakistani] cricket has breathed from the early nineties on, through successive administrations, each of which has proved to be more corrupt than the last. So I agree with my friend — the real surprise is not that a few are corrupt, but that so many others are not.
There is another way of looking at this issue. Money, not talent, dictates whether we get admission to a school or college of our choice; money, not ability, dictates whether we get a job as a policeman, a jurist, a doctor, an engineer, whatever. So, if I have to bribe my way into a cop's uniform, why is it surprising if I use that uniform to cloak my own corruption? Surely I didn't spend all that money to get that post simply so I could uphold law and order? That bribe was an investment; now that I've gotten what I wanted, I need to make that investment pay dividends. [Society accepts, or at least does not actively question, this practice — what the hell, a judge, no less, who was accused of large scale corruption was 'punished' by being made chief justice of a state high court. This bloke is going to uphold the law?!]
From that point of view, consider this: corruption in cricket begins not at the international, but at the regional, level. It is no secret that state-level selectors take money to pick players for the representative side — so if I, as a player, make that investment, what do you suppose I'm going to do once I make the cut? [A tangential point — it is these same state selectors who in time become members of the national selection committee — which, as far as they are concerned, widens their window of opportunity].
I'm not merely theorizing, here, that corruption exists at that level and that corruption, defying the laws of physics, then trickles up: have we forgotten this already? Some of the most senior players of the national team accused the selection committee of their home state of widespread corruption. What was the outcome? A politician who is also head of the state selection committee flat out said there was no such thing. The long-time head of that state association, arguably the most mismanaged in Indian cricket, "assured" that the "complaints would be considered" [ironically, this gent, who has been in his post for aeons, is one of three members of the disciplinary committee that will hear charges of corruption against Lalit Modi].
Accusations surface, noise is made, nothing further is ever done — and in time, we forget. Change venue, rinse, repeat, and there you have the story of India's dysfunctional cricket administration. Seriously — what fools are we, that we expect honesty and integrity to flourish in this soil?
Out, damned spot
Our TV channels yesterday dreamt up an interesting storyline to harp on: The PCB, so went the narrative, was back-pedalling on its initial 'tough action' stance, and was now paving the way for the inevitable whitewash by mooting a 'conspiracy' to 'defame' Pakistan cricket. [Did you know that it was RAW that held a gun to the heads of innocent cricketers and forced them into fixing? No, seriously].
'Evil' cannot exist without a corresponding 'Good', as any kid who knows his Ramayan will tell you — so in furtherance of this narrative, the talking heads set up the ICC president as the good guy, the one who was talking tough, asserting the body's 'zero tolerance' policy, facing down the Pak board.
Compelling — and so incredibly funny.
The ICC president, now blazing away in the service of all that is good, was the same guy who wrested control from the Jagmohan Dalmiya group promising much: complete transparency; a website on which the BCCI would periodically inform the public about its doings and publicize its statements of accounts; professionalism… ah heck, you know the list.
During his tenure and that of his handpicked successor, none of these promises materialized. He did, however, deliver on some line items he had not made part of his election manifesto — among them, the complete rehabilitation of a player who was deemed guilty of match fixing by the very same board, and banned for life.
Said ICC president and his personally chosen successor are so invested in a 'zero tolerance' policy that they agreed to allow the ICC's anti-corruption unit to monitor the 2009 edition of the IPL. Remember how that came about?
The ICC offered the services of its unit; the BCCI sat on the request for months, taking no action whatsoever. When the news hit the media, the BCCI pushed back, saying the ICC was charging an inordinate sum for its services. It turned out that the ICC's bill for having its inspectors present at all venues, rigorously covering the games and off-field activities, was $1.2 million — a paltry sum when contrasted with what the BCCI was earning from the IPL. When its 'exorbitant charge' excuse began to look threadbare, the BCCI promised to 'study the issue' and 'arrive at a solution'. It finally did — on April 17, 2009, it told the ICC that the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit was welcome to monitor the IPL.
The catch? The BCCI had green-lighted the ACSU late afternoon of the day before the IPL actually kicked off. In other words, by sitting on the proposal for months, the BCCI had effectively ensured that the ACSU would not have the time to deploy its personnel to provide adequate safeguards [typically, the ACSU works on a series or tournament two to three months before the start deadline].
It is commonly accepted that the betting syndicate really came into its own with the proliferation of unstructured tournaments in Sharjah, Toronto and elsewhere [again, think of who authorised and pushed through those tournaments]. Such meaningless cricket encounters made it easy for players, who had little or nothing invested in the results, to succumb to succulent lures.
A similar situation has been emerging thanks to the laissez faire nature of the IPL, with its relaxed dug out rules, its after hours parties fueled by much wine, unsupervised mingling, and nubile women trucked in by those who deal in that commodity to warm cricketers' beds. And that makes you wonder — why is the Indian board so resistant to supervision of the IPL?
It was always known that Pawar's benevolent hand over Lalit Modi's head was what enabled the 'IPL Commissioner [Suspended]' to do what he pleased. In recent times, it has turned out that Sharad Pawar, his daughter and sundry relatives have their hands in the IPL till. Equally, it is common knowledge that Shashank Manohar has played the role of willing water-boy for Pawar [You do know that Manohar's daddy is counsel in residence for the NCP, yes? Just one in a spiderweb of interconnections — the two only fell out when Manohar sided with Shashi Tharoor over the franchise auctions, and Pawar for his own reasons wanted the franchises to go elsewhere.], Srinivasan and others in the power elite, using the fig leaf of his authority as BCCI president to help deflect questions about their involvement.
Seriously – how do you write 'zero tolerance' and 'Sharad Pawar/BCCI' in the same sentence without busting a gut laughing?
The larger point is that current reactions to the spot-fixing controversy has mirrored what has gone before. Every single time cricket comes in the crosshairs, the official reaction has been to appease the fans' anger by handing down 'salutary' punishment to a couple of players, move on, and hope that once the fans have forgotten, the same players can be brought back in, in various capacities, through the backdoor. Or, better yet, climb on the moral high horse and pretend that nothing untoward happened at all.
[Just as an example of the latter, consider this: Why was Salim Malik banned? Because Justice Qayyum, during his hearings into organized corruption, decreed that "he was 100 per cent guilty" of various offenses, including bribing Mark Waugh and Shane Warne to adversely impact on the result of the Karachi Test of the 1994-'95 series. However, the ACB has routinely maintained that Waugh and Warne never took the money. One of the two sides is clearly lying — I mean, if the two Aussie players never took the money, how in hell can Malik be "100 per cent" guilty of giving it? What, the bundle of cash fell somewhere in between the two?]
At no point in the tangled history of cricket corruption has any official, either individually or collectively as a board, ever been questioned regarding his actions. We could look at examples from recent Pakistan cricket history, of players publicly suspected, axed, and promptly rehabilitated. On each occasion, the focus has remained on the player; never do we ask who brought him back, and what that official's stake was in the rehabilitation.
This tendency is hardly new. Remember Mohammad Azharuddin? The man Sunny Gavaskar once said, after watching his performance in a Sharjah tournament, that he was "running as if there was no tomorrow, and if he keeps running like this there won't be"? Then Board secretary JY Lele endorsed that view, and on record said Azhar should not be picked for national duty again, remember? And then this happened. We — present company included — questioned why the selectors had done what they did [Followers of fashion might have, at the time, noticed spiffy new Patek Phillippe watches on some selectorial wrists]; we never however questioned who the shadowy figure behind the scenes was, who over-ruled even his own number two and brought Azhar back.
Then, once the Outlook story broke, Dalmiya strenuously, repeatedly, insisted that there was no corruption in cricket. When the shit storm got too hot to handle, he got hold of a fire-extinguisher by the name of Chandrachud, a former jurist known to be inordinately fond of a flutter, and who told us, with soap opera sincerity, about his earnest desire to 'do something for cricket'. Boy, did he, just! In case you have forgotten just how much whitewash was then applied, here's links to two stories I wrote at the time: one, the day before the verdict was to be announced; the other, reviewing the verdict.
Thing though is, Chandrachud was acting on instructions. We blew a raspberry at his report, but we never once questioned why the then BCCI boss was bending over backwards to try and brush all allegations under the carpet [later, when the government got involved and ordered a CBI inquiry, Dalmiya pushed back, refusing to accept the CBI's involvement in what he said was an internal affair of a private body]; why he was repeatedly involving the authority of office to bring Azhar back into the side. What did Dalmiya have to gain? Did we ask? No — just as we don't ask questions of Pawar and gang, or of the PCB, today.
The hidden story of corruption in cricket is the story of sundry officials [and, please, let's not talk of this as a purely 'sub-continental' phenomenon — boards across the cricketing world have been complicit, at various times, in various ways, in covering things up] who have, through their acts of omission and commission, created an atmosphere that, if not outright facilitating corruption on the part of players, at least condones it in nudge-wink fashion. And unless the official role in corruption becomes part of the conversation, we are never going to resolve this issue for good. At best, we will kill off the careers of a couple of cricketers, the circus will go underground for a while, and resurface once the dust has settled [Qayyum, if you recall, had issued strictures against the two Ws of Pakistan cricket, back in the day; today, their successors, the two brilliant Ms, are being accused of pretty much the same sort of offense. What is common? A board in denial.]
Spot fixing is not new, despite the media's breathless seizing on that phrase with all the eagerness of a kid with a new toy [Hey, what did Herschelle Gibbs say he took money from Hansie Cronje for? To score under 20 [It's a different matter that he then had amnesia and went on to score 74]. Williams? To give more than 50 runs in his 10 overs. And so on, so there you go.]
It is also among the most difficult 'crimes' to spot, and take action against. While on that, read Osman Samiuddin's prescient piece from earlier this year.
Now we know it doesn't matter what Tendulkar does, for the reality, as the ACSU's first comprehensive report revealed in 2001, was far more complex. They called it occurrence-fixing, but soon Rashid Latif would give it a far more evocative name: fancy-fixing, which opens up cricket's vast statistical landscape. With fancy – or spot – fixing, each ball of a match is effectively an event, an opportunity to bet and thus an opportunity to fix. It emerged that bets were being taken on the outcome of the toss, the number of wides or no-balls in a specific over, the timing and specifics of declarations, individual batsmen getting themselves out under a specific score, even field settings.
A visit last year in Karachi to an individual familiar with the world of bookies was mind-altering: bets were placed on what the first-innings total in a county match would be by lunch on the first day, or how many overs a bowler would bowl in the first hour of a session or a day, or on how much difference there would be in first-innings totals, or on how many runs a specified group of players would make. It didn't stop.
Paul Condon, among others, also explained why spot fixing is difficult to control, in his exit interview from anti-corruption duties:
It is a wonderful game, but if you were designing a game to fix, you would design cricket, because it is a whole series of discreet events, and every ball you can bet on. You can't guarantee a throw-in or a free kick in soccer, but if you're a corrupt player, you can guarantee to do certain things at key moments [in cricket], and if you can bet on that you can make a lot of money. Corruption in any walk of life, whether it's politics or business or sport, is about human frailty and weakness, and opportunity. Most cricketers are totally sound in their integrity, but one or two still mix with the wrong people.
Condon is also worth reading on how easy it is to get sucked into the circle of corruption — and that brings up another point that has baffled me these last few days.
While some talk of 'zero tolerance', there seems to be a section of opinion-makers hell bent on parsing corruption. This lot says, okay, spot-fixing is bad — but hey, it is a lesser evil than match-fixing; spot fixing does not affect the outcome of the game, so the punishment should be less severe.
Really? Firstly, the argument that spot fixing cannot affect the outcome of the game is wooly-headed at best. Consider this: I am a bookie/fixer; I fix certain individual outcomes. For instance, a batsman then in prime form, will not score too many runs. Another batsman will get run out. A bowler for the same team will, while defending a score, give away way too many runs at the top. [That's a real live example — think Cronje] In each case, I've "spot-fixed" certain outcomes. Now tell me that cumulatively, those individually bad performances do not adversely affect the team's result?
The asinine part of this debate on degree of culpability is that it focuses on the offense the News of the World brought to light — to wit, the bowling of no balls. The apologists therefore go, oh hey, kid bowled a no ball and made a shitload of money, big fricking deal, we should be so lucky. What is ignored, though, is that the bowling of no-balls on cue was merely a demonstration, by a fixer to what he thought was a potential client syndicate, of just how well he could control on-field performance. If this wasn't NOTW carrying out a sting, but a real betting syndicate 'inspecting the goods', as it were, then the demonstration would have convinced them the fixer could do what they wanted him to.
And then the real fix would have begun – a bad over here, a dropped catch or two there, an underperforming bowler, a maladroit batsman…
Still think it is all innocent, and merits no more than a slap on the wrist? Here's the corollary: once you start down the route of taking money for performance, there is no stopping; in the words of the famous song, 'you can check in any time you like…'
So this time a Mohammad Amir takes money to bowl a no-ball. Next time, the team is about to bowl under conditions where someone with talent can literally make the ball talk — and that is when the fixer comes to him and orders him to bowl badly. You think he can say no? Not a chance — once you are caught in the toils of the betting syndicate, you are their's for life — and that is another reason why you cannot treat 'spot fixing' as a lesser crime, deserving of a lesser punishment. [Read Amit Varma on the subject of this crime, and appropriate punishment, here].
There's a heap of angles to this latest controversy; above, I was merely riffing off points that stood out for me. Here's one last in that list — a Delhi High Court, no less, has argued that betting should be made legal.
That should gladden the heart of, among others, my libertarian friend Amit Varma, who argued this case way back in 2005. Money quote:
In some ways it is perverse that "betting" and "match-fixing" are treated almost as synonymous terms in India. It is like frowning upon sex because rape is a bad thing. Match-fixing is unambiguously wrong because the player who participates in it is betraying an implicit contract with the fans of the sport, and perhaps an explicit one with his cricket board. Why is betting wrong, though? What justifies it being banned in India?
Speaking from a different perspective, R Mohan once made an identical point to me in course of an interview:
The problem is that we, all of us, tend to forget that these are two different issues. Does betting exist? Of course it does. And perhaps 99 per cent of India's 950 million population are guilty of it. Have you staked a bottle of beer or a pack of cigarettes on the outcome of a match? If you have, you are gambling — the same as the guy who stakes a million on the same game. There is no law that says a little gambling is legal, but a lot of it is not. Gambling exists, period — andeverybody does it. You gamble when you buy stocks, you gamble when you put your money in a fixed deposit because how do you know if the bank will still be there, and in a position to pay you back, five years later?
The laws in this regard make no sense. I mean, I can walk into any racecourse in the land and bet a million on a particular race, and it is all entered in black and white and perfectly legal. But if I bet a rupee on a cricket match, I am guilty of a crime. Where is the sense in that? And again, if I go to Ladbrookes of London and bet on whether Sachin Tendulkar will score a century in the coming game, say, that is perfectly legal too. So, we have a situation where betting on one sport is legal, the other is not. Where betting on the same sport in one place is illegal, in the other, not. Where is the sense in all this?
If the government had any sense at all, they would legalise booking — I mean, it is not going to go away, is it? And give licenses to bookies. And through these means, add maybe Rs 500 million, Rs 100 million to its treasury.
Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the home minister's angst
So while I was away in Dubai, ooh-ing and aah-ing about outsize piles of steel and glass, Sri Lanka came up with a novel idea to fill a gap in its social calendar: another series against India, and how incredibly novel is that? Cricinfo has some detail:
The teams began 2008 by playing four ODIs against each other in a tri-series in Australia and faced off in two more matches during the Asia Cup in Pakistan in July. India then toured Sri Lanka for three Tests and five ODIs in July-August. After a gap of a few months, India visited Sri Lanka again in January-February 2009 for five more ODIs and a Twenty20. They won four of the one-dayers and the Twenty20 as well. Not yet satisfied, India returned in September, this time for a tri-series involving New Zealand and the hosts. They played Sri Lanka twice and lost once. Now it was Sri Lanka's turn to visit and they toured India in December for three Tests, five ODIs and two Twenty20s.
So over the last two years, India and Sri Lanka have played a whopping 32 matches against each other across three formats – six Tests, 23 ODIs and three Twenty20s. That's 52 days in all. And they want more.
Keep this up, and wives of Indian players are going to be filing for divorce in droves — and citing Sri Lankan players as the cause, for alienating the affections of their husbands. Seriously though, do either of the boards even know the meaning of 'enough'?
Elsewhere, television stations across India breathed a collective woosh of relief when it turned out the franchises had ignored Pakistan players for the upcoming IPL season — the auction provided the talking heads a promising issue [here's Cricinfo's full coverage] to flog at considerable length, and when I flipped through the channels this morning, many of them were still at it.
Judging by reactions, the franchises have in one stroke hurt Indo-Pak relations, embarrassed the country, dealt a mortal blow to Pakistan cricket and devalued the equity of the IPL, to name only the more prominent sins that have our television anchors excited.
Sundry celebrities have helped the good work along with their comments — Shah Rukh for instance with an none more so than Home Minister P Chidambaram, who with a pretty pout was seen talking of how disappointed he was that Pakistan players wouldn't feature this season.
Chidambaram and his ministry have, in recent days, warned that (a) parts of the permanent fence at the Line of Control have been cut, signaling the possibility of a concerted push by militants from across the border to infiltrate into India; (b) that the ceasefire has in recent days been broken by Pakistan troops firing into Indian territory; (c) that there is the very real apprehension of LeT-sponsored terrorist attacks across the country, including with para-gliders; and (d) that there is significant intelligence that hijack attempts will be carried out.
So, a question for the home minister: If these threats are real, and if one or more of them fructifies in the immediate future, what do you suppose the reaction within India will be to Pakistan players appearing in the IPL? Even assuming the mango person is okay with it, how do you suppose the likes of the Shiv Sena will react? And while on that outfit, the Sena has already said it will 'not stand idly by' if Australian players play in the IPL — so does the home ministry have any thoughts on that? Does the home ministry have the will to stand up against attempts by extra-constitutional authorities to impose their writ on the rest of us?
No? Then PC should just shut the hell up, no?
The problem for the franchises is very clear: If they pick Pakistan players, and if something untoward happens, their investment goes down the drain. Given the current climate, given the drumbeat of warnings emanating from India's own home ministry, why should any franchise take the chance? Amit Varma among others makes that point.
That leaves the other one — the "damage done to Pakistan cricket", the "snub to Pakistan players", etc. What damage? A few players will not be able to add big bucks to their bank balance, true — but the 'damage', if any exists, is to individual fortunes, not the collective good.
More to the point, if participation in the IPL is so integral to the well-being of Pakistan cricket, where was this angst when the government last season banned its players from being part of the IPL? It wasn't the franchises who "snubbed" Pakistan players in 2009 — it was the Pakistan government that actively blocked its players from coming to India. The dog did not bark then, no one made the case that bilateral relations had been irreparably harmed, and PC was absolutely okay following an IPL sans Pakistan stars. But now that franchises have taken what is a purely economic decision, there is a deafening uproar?
You could argue, with considerable justice, that the whole thing could have been handled better; the Pakistan stars could have been warned and given the opportunity to withdraw from the auction rather than see no public takers — but to take that button and to sew on it the vest of fractured international relations is a bit much, no?
Oh, and out of the corner of my eye I notice that Bangladesh, after raising some hopes of tweaking India's nose a bit, is hurtling towards demise. Nice — frees me up to catch up at work after a week-long absence. Back to regular updates on blog once I settle back down here. Meanwhile, quick poll: is this whole Pak/IPL thing media-manufactured, or is there some justice to the criticism the franchises are attracting? Appreciate your thoughts.
Protecting Pakistan's nukes
I follow this timeline fairly obsessively, and the more you read the more worried you get [maybe the trick is to not follow the darn site?].
Last week, one of the stories I was editing for India Abroad related to a Brookings Institute conference on the Obama administration's policy options in Pakistan — and it is perhaps a function of the times that the bulk of the panelists' time appears to have been taken up by the question of Pakistan.
Representative Jane Harman, the California Democrat who heads the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Assessment, trotted out the tired line that the key to Afghanistan and Pakistan lies in Kashmir — a theme Obama previewed during his presidential campaign and got considerable flak for.
That argument runs roughly thus: Pakistan sees India as its primary threat. Hence it focuses the bulk of its military/security infrastructure on its border with India. This leaves Islamabad lacking resources to adequately push its existential war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Ergo, solve the Kashmir problem and Pakistan will no longer perceive India as its main threat; hence it will be in a position to deploy its military/security apparatus to best advantage.
The naivete implicit in this line of thought is astonishing. For starters, Pakistan's perception of India as the threat is a matter of political and military convenience, not a point of fact. As long as Islamabad can keep the India bogey front and center before its people, it can distract attention from domestic ills: a Balkanized country and a failed economy, with the over-arching threat of a fundamentalist takeover, being merely the most important of these. Similarly, as long as the military harps on India it can justify its enormous expenditure on hardware and, in fact, provide its own raison d'etre. And 'harp' is the mot juste: the state sponsors and actively promotes a steady drumbeat of programming aimed at convincing the ordinary Pakistani that but for the grace of the military and whichever political power broker is in office at the time, India would have swallowed Pakistan whole by now [more on that later].
Bottom line, the government and military need the India threat — which is why 'solving Kashmir' resolves nothing; Islamabad merely has to discover/invent another reason for feeling 'threatened'. And it will. Too often, the military is accused of having created the India bogey for its own ends, but the fact is that successive prime ministers from Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on down have equally held up the India threat to rally its people behind the political process.
Incidentally, just how does Harman and her ilk propose to go about 'solving' Kashmir? The most commonly propounded solution is to make the Line of Control the new international border. Assume that is acceptable to us — does Pakistan have a government in place that has sufficient popular support to proselytize that solution and gain widespread acceptance for it? Does it, hell — the reaction to that will be that Pakistan cannot accept formalizing the LoC because to do so means 'ceding' Kashmir to India, and negating a decade-plus of 'jihad'.
Harman is not the first US lawmaker to propose the 'resolve Kashmir, solve Afghanistan-Pakistan' solution — but none, including her, have as yet been able to indicate just how the US, or anyone else, proposes to solve the problem in the face of Pakistan's continued intransigence.
Bruce Riedel, the former CIA analyst who co-authored Obama's review of the Afghanistan-Pakistan situation and thus paved the way for the formulation of the administration's Af-Pak strategy, had a different view [Riedel's writings on the region here].
He believes among other things that Pakistan's India-centric threat perception is dictated by self-interest and not because of India's actions [So one would hope — what act of India's can Islamabad point to, to justify this 'threat'? Hell, we didn't even go to war when Pakistani nationals trained, funded and armed in that country waged war in Bombay a year ago] but because of its own self-interest. And, further, that while it is mandatory for the US to support Pakistan in its current struggle, the US should also begin showing some 'tough love' [his words] by calling them out publicly when they go down the wrong road — such as doing deals with the Quetta Shura or other extremist elements, for instance, or using the 'India threat' to justify deploying less than the required resources to its battle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Riedel's is, in administration circles, the unpopular line to take; for some weird reason, successive US administrations seem to prefer accepting — or at least, appearing to accept — Pakistan's 'concern' about the 'India threat' as genuine, and even to feed that paranoia.
Maybe it is this paranoia — real, or a convenient creation — that Harman and her fellow travelers might want to try and 'solve'. And fast. The October attack on the military complex in Kamra, which experts say is one of the storage points for Pakistan's nuclear components, should have been warning enough [the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies had a think paper out on the theme]. More recently, Seymour Hersh has produced for the New Yorker a typically comprehensive effort on the safety — or lack thereof — of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal that is required reading [the only reaction out of Pakistan, incidentally, is the suggestion that its nukes are safe, thank you very much so shut up already].
Harking back to the question of the 'India threat', Venkatesh Varadarajan in email pointed at the sort of official media manipulation that breathes life into this perception. The relevant excerpt from his email:
On another note, was watching a Pakistani music channel the other day – decent music actually. But I was a bit surprised at the anti-India obsession on it. They had this junta interview segment where they interviewed the 'man on the street' plus some musicians. Constant underlying theme: we are waay better than those guys across the border; they suck, they force you to compromise on your principles, yada yada yada.
I mean, come on!! Grow up! I'm guessing it probably was a state sponsored channel. But still … The only way they're going to get over it is if they get something else to do with their time other than listening to the mullahs.
When smoke gets in your eyes
Pakistan has an interesting way of dealing with terrorists.
First, it "means business", but points out that action will "take time". Then, it "arrests" him – or at least, "verbally" tells the culprit to stay put at his residence, No: 116E, Mohalla Johar in Lahore City in this instance. Verbally, too, the detainee is told there is no problem if he wants to lighten the tedium of such harsh incarceration by attending the occasional party.
During this time, various apologists make considerable noise about how the arrest du jour shows that Pakistan is taking severe action against terrorists.
And then, in a Hitchcockian twist, the detainee is released. [Déjà vu all over again – this is the second time Hafiz Saeed has been arrested and released after 26/11].
It is only following the release that we learn he wasn't charged with terrorism-related offences after all [though during the 'trial', news reports presented a totally different picture – so now you know why these hearings are always held in-camera].
Saeed was merely charged with making speeches that could possibly incite violence [you know, like a Pakistani version of Varun Gandhi] and with trying to raise funds for what Islamabad says is a perfectly legitimate organization.
The word "legitimate" is used loosely here. Check this out, from the story of Saeed's release:
He was also accused of appealing for funds for a banned group. Mr. Saeed currently leads Jamat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity widely viewed as a front for Lashkar-e-Tayeba.
His lawyer, A. K. Dogar, said he had argued that the government had not banned Jamat-ud-Dawa and therefore it was legal to solicit donations for it. "The court accepted my contention," he was quoted by news media as saying outside the court.
An absolutely valid argument, and one with considerable legal force. The question it begs is: why did Pakistan not ban the Jamat?
Islamabad wanted to – or at least, it said so. It said, too, that it could not take action until the UN told it to [Why Islamabad required the United Nations to green light action against a terrorist outfit on its own soil is a question best left unasked].
"After the designation by the Indian government of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa under 1267, the (Pakistani) government upon receiving this instruction shall proscribe the JuD and take under (sic!) consequential action as required including the freezing of assets," he [Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations Abdullah Hussain Haroon] said.
That was on December 10.
A day later, on December 11, the United Nations Security Council put it official seal on the contention of India and the United States that the Jamat-ud-Dawa is merely the Lashkar-e-Tayeba by another name [a deft bait and switch operation carried out in 2002 under the nose of then President Pervez Musharraf, when the UNSC named Lashkar-e-Tayeba a terrorist organization].
Even China, which had on three previous occasions blocked India's bid to have the J-u-D proscribed, finally stopped objecting in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks and voted in favor of putting J-u-D on the proscribed list. Pakistan certainly cannot claim it didn't know about this, as the fact of the ban was no secret – in fact, within hours of the ban, a J-u-D leader reacted with a press statement that can be summed up in two terse words: F**k off.
So that's the story: The J-u-D was proscribed in December. Pakistan said it would ban the J-u-D in December. Immediately after the UNSC resolution, Pakistan acted [Note that the word 'act' has more than one meaning]:
It placed Hafiz Saeed under house arrest, as the New York Times describes; it froze the J-u-D's assets in true horse, stable door style, as the WSJ reported; and if the outfit remained open for business, well…
Pakistan has made no secret of why it took these 'stern' actions.
Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar on Friday said the government acted against Jamaat-ud-Dawah in accordance with the United Nations Security Council resolution in order to prevent the country from being declared a terrorist state. "We are part of the international community and cannot afford confrontation with the whole world."
Now, 10 months later and with the danger of being labeled a terrorist state averted, the courts say there is no problem with Hafiz Saeed proselytizing for the J-u-D because hey, the organization is not banned after all.
So what then were those proclamations of 'action' all about?
From the story of Saeed's release:
India has given Pakistan evidence, based on its intelligence and the testimony of the sole surviving gunman, that it says showed that Mr. Saeed provided detailed instructions to the militants who carried out the attack. But Pakistan says there is not enough evidence to charge him.
Check out the highlighted bit. Without going into details, Home Minister P Chidambaram in an interview with Barkha Dutt discussed the nature of evidence India had built against Saeed.
Firstly we know when Kasab first met Hafiz and where. We know what Hafiz Saeed told the trainees. We know at least a couple of places where the training took place. And that Hafeez Saeed visited these camps. We know that it was Hafiz Saeed who gave names to buddy pairs. The final farewell call was made by Hafiz and Hafiz Saeed even tested Kasab and others on their training achievements. A terrorist actively, and demonstrably, involved in 26/11 testified that Hafiz Saeed played a role in prepping him and his mates for the attack. The testimony, and other details, has been passed on to Pakistan.
Further, the sole surviving terrorist involved in 26/11 testified to the meetings he and his team had with Saeed.
The dossier quotes from Kasab's confessional statement before the Mumbai's additional chief metropolitan magistrate in which he claims to have first met Hafiz Saeed in December 2007 at a 21-day training camp.
According to Kasab's statement, he subsequently met Hafiz Saeed at other training sessions in Chelabandi, Sevai Nallah and a place called 'Baitul Mujahideen' where he 'selected trainees and supervised their training'.
According to Kasab's testimony, after the completion of training Hafiz Saeed formed five pairs of 10 fighters for carrying out attacks in Mumbai and gave the attackers operational instructions, including the hijacking of a boat and the timing of the attack.
He is said to have specified targets on a large screen in a 'media control room at the training camp'.
Fahim Ansari, who was originally arrested on Feb 9 last year in connection with the Rampur camp attack case, also claimed in his statement that Hafiz Saeed had visited the training camp and exhorted the trainees to launch a 'Jihad against India'.
It would be understandable – on a relative scale – if the courts had deemed that the evidence presented was not enough to convict Saeed. What is inexplicable is that the evidence is not even deemed enough to charge the man.
It's a strange place, Pakistan. A land where you can get 14 years in jail if you make jokes about Mr Ten Percent President Asif Ali Zardari, but where you can walk free if you plot the killing of hundreds in a foreign land. [While on jokes, it is good to see that the sense of humor of the average Pakistani is not dead yet – check out this absolutely Onion-esque 'news report'].
None of this should come as a surprise – the only truism about Pakistan's "actions" against terrorists is that it is all smoke and mirrors. The state will act only when it has no other option; the action will last only as long as the perceived threat remains [vide Ahmed Mukthar's honest, and disarmingly naïve, explanation cited earlier on why Islamabad acted against the J-u-D]; the moment the coast is clear, the terrorists will be freed either by the courts or by some other mysterious means.
Consider two recent incidents. On March 3, 2009 a suicide attack was launched on the Sri Lankan cricket team as the team bus approached the gates of Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium. And earlier this month, on October 10, armed gunmen stormed the holy of Pakistan's holies – the heavily fortified military headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Pakistan says its military officials have arrested one Aqeel, aka Doctor Usman, who led the raid on the army HQ. Authorities say, further, that they believe Doctor Usman was likely linked to the attack against the Lankan cricket team.
I'm no lawyer, but I'll defend this Doctor Usman for free – and guarantee to get him out. Here's how:
On October 25, 2008, authorities 'arrested' four people in connection with the September 20, 2008 bombing of the Islamabad Marriott. One of them was Doctor Usman.
He could not have been part of the attack on the Lankan national team in March, because even five months later, on August 11, he was still in custody — it was on that date that the Anti-Terrorism Court completed its hearing into the Marriott bombing case.
And on September 22, 2009, the ATC rejected Doctor Usman's plea for acquittal in that case.
Thus, your honor, my client could not have attacked the army GHQ last weekend even though he was actually captured on the premises, because he was demonstrably in ATC custody at the time. Or did someone fudge the books and let him out? If so, why is that person or persons not charged with complicity in the army HQ attack?
The problem with the smoke Islamabad keeps blowing in its farcical 'war on terror' is that it is increasingly getting into its own eyes.


text:
Repair of Infective Wound Associated With Nerve Defect in the Finger Using A Bipedicled Nerve Flap
This study has been completed.
The Second Hospital of Tangshan
Information provided by (Responsible Party):
The Second Hospital of Tangshan
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
First received: October 12, 2012
Last updated: August 18, 2013
Last verified: April 2012
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- Study Results
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
A combination of soft tissue and digital nerve defects in the finger results in sensory loss of the finger pulp. Reconstruction of these combined injuries is difficult. When the neurocutaneous defect is associated with wound infection, reconstructive alternatives are more limited. From July 2008 to May 2010, a retrospective study was conducted with 9 consecutive postinfection patients who had the neurocutaneous defect of the finger following trauma. The purpose of this retrospective study is to report repair of the complicated infected wound in the finger using the bipedicled nerve flap and to evaluate the efficacy of this technique.
|Infection Wound Disruption of Nerve Repair
|Device: Nerve flap
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: Single (Participant)
Primary Purpose: Treatment
Resource links provided by NLM:
MedlinePlus related topics: Wounds and InjuriesU.S. FDA Resources
Further study details as provided by The Second Hospital of Tangshan:
Primary Outcome Measures:
- 2-point Discrimination Test [ Time Frame: 17-25 months ]The 2-point Discrimination Test determines the minimal distance at which a subject can sense the presence of two needles. The modified American Society for Surgery of the Hand guidelines were used to stratify Discriminator measurements (excellent <6 mm; good 6-10 mm; fair 11-15 mm; poor >15 mm. The test points were at the center of the radial or ulnar portion of the pulp. Each area was tested 3 times with a Discriminator (Ali Med, Dedham, MA). Two out of 3 correct answers were considered proof of perception before proceeding to another lower value. We stopped at 4 mm as a limit of 2PD and considered this normal. The assessments were performed at a single time point at the final follow up.
Secondary Outcome Measures:
- Semmes-Weinstein (SW) Monofilament Test [ Time Frame: 17-25 months ]The test points were at the center of the radial or ulnar portion of the pulp. The donor site, i.e. radial- or ulnar-dorsal aspect of the middle phalanx of the donor digit, was also evaluated.
Other Outcome Measures:
- Pain [ Time Frame: 17-25 months ]Pain was given subjectively by the patient using the visual analogue scale (VAS). The VAS consists of a 10 cm line that was grouped into mild (1-3 cm), moderate (4-6 cm) and severe (7-10 cm).
|Study Start Date:
|July 2008
|Study Completion Date:
|February 2012
|Primary Completion Date:
|May 2010 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
nerve graft
Simultaneous repair of the infected wound and digital nerve defect in the finger using a bipedicled nerve flap including nerve graft from the dorsal branch of the digital nerve.
Device: Nerve flap
Based on the Teoh et al.'s technique, we combined the nerve graft into the bipedicled heterodigital arterialized island flap and used this composite flap tissue for reconstructing complicated infected wound in the finger.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|16 Years to 55 Years (Child, Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- an infective wound with exposed bone or tendon in the finger;
- soft tissue defect involving proximal half of the middle phalanx, the proximal phalanx, or both;
- associated digital nerve defect 1 to 4 cm in length;
- single or double nerve defects; and
- simultaneous repair of nerve and soft tissue defects.
Exclusion Criteria:
- injury to the course of the pedicle or the donor site;
- nerve defect less than 1 cm or larger than 4 cm in length;
- occurrence of the defect in a region the flap is unable to reach, such as distal interphalangeal joint region, distal portion of the middle phalanx of the middle finger and the thumb;
- no involvement of the digital nerve.
Contacts and Locations
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below. For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01707654
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01707654
|China, Hebei
|The Second Hospital of Tangshan
|Tangshan, Hebei, China, 063000
Sponsors and Collaborators
The Second Hospital of Tangshan
More Information
Publications automatically indexed to this study by ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier (NCT Number):
Keywords provided by The Second Hospital of Tangshan:
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 20, 2017
Publications automatically indexed to this study by ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier (NCT Number):
|Responsible Party:
|The Second Hospital of Tangshan
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01707654 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
HEBEI-J06451 ( Other Identifier: Hebei Ethics Committee )
|Study First Received:
|October 12, 2012
|Results First Received:
|June 3, 2013
|Last Updated:
|August 18, 2013
Keywords provided by The Second Hospital of Tangshan:
dorsal branch of the proper digital nerve;
proper digital nerve;
finger sensory reconstruction.
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 20, 2017


text:
Dutch Musical Awards Ceremony to Return November 25th
The John Kraaijkamp Musical Awards Gala, the Dutch equivalent to Broadway's Tony Awards, will return November 25th, the organization of the awards announced today. Last year the awards were not handed out after years of controversy regarding the awards and the ceremony culminated. The upcoming ceremony will feature changes with respect to previous years, details of which have not yet been made public.
The Dutch Musical Awards are named after comedy actor John Kraaijkamp. International theatre producer Joop Van Den Ende created the awards in 2000. For all these years, the ceremony has been broadcast on national television. However, it was tossed back and forth between public television and the commercial network RTL, and changes were continuously made to the process by which the nominations and wins were determined as well as to the categories and setup of the gala itself.
In 2011, the ceremony was integrated into a popular talkshow and was perceived by many as chaotic. Some awards were handed out on the red carpet, others during commercial breaks. The daughter of the late John Kraaijkamp, after whom the awards were named, expressed strong criticism about this ceremony.
All this caused several producers to withdraw from the 2012 ceremony. In the Netherlands, where about 5 producers are responsible for all musicals touring the country, these withdrawels meant the 2012 ceremony had to be cancelled altogether.
The 2013 ceremony will now be held in the TheaterHangaar, home of the long-running SOLDAAT VAN ORANJE. The nominations are yet to be published.
Related Articles
From This Author Dutch Reporter


text:
Well, I've uploaded the first version of Pipeline to CPAN. Its underdocumented, but working and passing tests.
We've been throwing around concepts for metaphors of pipeline development, and we''ve had all sorts of things - ducks, bunnies, pillows, turds, and foxes. However, I think finally there's something that makes sense:
a Meal machine. Into the meal machine you place ingredients, and then various bits of the machine shape and form your ingredients into whatever you want (for example, a burger needs a pattee maker, but a meat loaf needs a loaf maker, from the same general ingredients).
In a slightly related theme, there was an interesting article in CACM the other day about reoccuring business themes, which is a fancy way of saying that not every kitchen has a refrigerator but they all have storage space. It was interesting in as much as its claim was that while you may need to redevelop your business logic from time to time, your reoccuring business themes should be consisten not only from software version 1 and 2, but also from company a to company b.
Cute. Its probably an area where Open Source software could really capitalize.