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Lawmakers in Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana and North Carolina are debating this spring whether to repeal the state income tax. Ohio's governor wants to cut personal income taxes by 20 percent. The governor of Virginia would like to do away with the state gasoline tax.
What all these proposals have in common — in red, blue and purple states — is this: An increased or expanded sales tax.
"People seem to have concluded that the sales tax is either the least harmful for the economy or the least unpopular," said Eric Thompson, an economist at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
Dayton's budget proposal — which would raise $2.2 billion in new sales tax revenue to help pay for a $627 million budget shortfall, funding for schools and property tax rebates for homeowners — has sparked a vigorous debate that's now playing out at the Legislature.
Fresh off a recession in which state revenue plummeted, a key question in state governments from St. Paul to Topeka to Baton Rouge is how to craft a system that raises the money a state needs while still encouraging economic growth.
Minnesota is one of at least seven states that are considering an expanded or increased sales tax, signaling momentum for a marked shift toward greater reliance on consumption-based taxes.
One element of this, in Minnesota and elsewhere, is a move to broaden the sales tax to include a wider range of services. Proponents argue that this more appropriately reflects the modern, service-driven economy, even as debate swirls around exactly which services to tax.
In other states there is a push to tax more transactions as a path to moving away from income taxes. Some see this as a way to stimulate the economy by promoting savings and investment, though critics argue that such policies tend to favor the more affluent.
Aside from such questions of fairness or economic benefit, tax policy analyst Norton Francis of the Urban Institute pointed out that an increased sales tax is generally more palatable to the public than an increased income tax.
"It's a drip-drip-drip with each transaction, rather than one bill at the end of the year, which makes a huge difference psychologically," he said.
A changed economy
The drive to tax services reflects the fact that state tax codes have not kept up with an economy that's flipped in the past 40 years from primarily goods-producing to primarily service-providing.
Between 1970 and 2010, the share of household spending on services grew from 43 percent to 60 percent, according to research by John Mikesell, a tax policy expert at the University of Indiana. Yet states continued to exempt a variety of services from the tax, and sales taxes as a share of personal income have shrunk in all but the handful of states that aggressively tax services.
States have jumped on this largely untaxed portion of the economy in 2013.
"The economic reality is the same to Ohio and to Louisiana and to Nebraska and Kansas and Minnesota," said Myron Frans, revenue commissioner for Minnesota. "The service economy has to be taxed in some way to generate revenues that reflect that service economy."
The plan that most closely resembles Dayton's is Gov. John Kasich's budget in Ohio. Kasich plans to lower the sales tax rate from 5.5 percent to 5 percent, but broaden the tax to a raft of services such as legal, accounting and real estate.
Ohio's Republican governor wants to use new sales tax revenue — plus increased levies on oil and gas drilling — to pay for a 50 percent income tax cut for businesses and a 20 percent personal income tax cut across all brackets, to be phased in over three years.
"Services will be taxable unless otherwise exempt," said Joseph Testa, Ohio's tax commissioner. "That's the shift we're trying to make, move more toward a consumption base than an income tax base."
In North Carolina, Senate Republicans have proposed replacing the income tax with a far more aggressive sales tax on services from shoe repair to legal work and public relations. The plan closely resembles Dayton's proposal, with two differences: It proposes raising the sales tax rate dramatically, perhaps to as high as 8 percent, and the proceeds would go to phasing out the income tax instead of property tax relief.
Looking to boost jobs
In most states other than Minnesota, the goal is to cut income taxes, which states see as a way to attract businesses and jobs.
"There is a lot of movement into higher sales tax and limiting income taxes, often by Republican governors," said Kim Rueben, an economist at the Tax Policy Center.
Income taxes are seen as punishing earning, saving and investment, she said, while a sales tax is seen as a tax of choice. Though sales taxes are criticized as regressive — falling harder on the poor by taking more of their total income — states see them as more friendly to economic growth.
Studies — notably the conclusions of supply-side economist Arthur Laffer — have asserted that if a state lowers or eliminates its income tax, it will grow faster than states with high income taxes. This point is hotly disputed, but it has found currency among Republican governors, Rueben said.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback all have proposed eliminating their state individual income tax, and paying for it with new sales tax revenue.
In Kansas, Brownback has called for a "glide path to zero" income tax. The state cut income taxes in 2012 to compete with surrounding states for economic activity and population. Texas, which has no income tax, looms large in the region, and Great Plains states are racing to lower income taxes.
Steve Anderson, the Kansas budget director, argues that companies will move to states with lower income taxes to give their employees an effective raise and bolster their companies' bottom line.
"If I can drive profits up $90 million just by moving, and that rolls to my bottom line, while that seems small, that's an annual event," said Anderson, who was appointed by Brownback after he was elected in 2010. "That's a factor. Companies think that way."
Brownback wants to help pay for income tax cuts by keeping in place a 0.6 percent state sales tax increase that was imposed in 2010 and meant to be temporary. The seemingly small increase demonstrates the quietly massive revenue-generating capacity of a consumption tax.
Those six-tenths of a penny on the dollar raise $262 million each year.
The only change Dayton has proposed for individual income taxes is an increase.
He wants to raise taxes for the wealthiest Minnesotans by 17 percent. His revenue commissioner, Frans, is careful to distinguish Dayton's plan from those of his GOP counterparts.
Abolishing the income tax is not in the cards, Frans said, because that would be "too regressive." Dayton instead intends to structure Minnesota's tax system so the three sources of revenue — sales tax, income taxes and property taxes — share the load more evenly. In 2010, only 27 percent of Minnesota state revenue came from sales taxes. Under Dayton's proposal, by 2015 that share would grow to 32 percent, nearly creating an even three-way split.
Dayton's goals are not Bobby Jindal's, but his payment plan is the same: more sales tax. The strategy's been popular lately.
"I think this trend is what's going to happen in the future," Frans said. "We're just seeing it happen pretty quickly in a number of states of different political persuasions."


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The event was held over three days earlier this month at Lake Natoma, where top high-school-age rowers from across the nation raced on a 2,000-meter (1.25-mile) course to cap off the 2013-14 season.
SDRC's time of 7:26.852 made them the country's third-fastest women's youth boat in the "4x" (4 rowers, 8 oars) division.
SDRC junior rowers Marissa Gibson, Jillian Renly, Sarah Hoskin and Mariko Kelly earned their medals after competing against 19 teams in multiple heats.
The SDRC junior women advanced to U.S. Nationals after racing to a gold medal in the same event at the Southwest Junior District Championships in May, beating a field of 30 women's teams in multiple heats.
"It was a tough weekend of racing," said bow-seat rower Mariko Kelly. "Going into nationals, we were seeded fourth, and we knew we'd have to all pull together to be in medal contention. We did it for our coaches and for our dads. It was a fantastic Father's Day gift."
SDRC coach Benton Sparks led the varsity women to bronze at U.S. Nationals.
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Susan Francia coached the women through their winning season, including last month's gold at southwest regional championships.
U.S. Nationals was the final competition as SDRC rowers for two varsity women: Gibson, a graduate of La Jolla High School, will attend the University of Wisconsin on a rowing scholarship this fall, while Hoskin, a graduate of the Academy of Our Lady Peace in San Diego, heads to Fordham University on a rowing scholarship.
Two rowers will return to SDRC in the fall: Kelly, of Del Mar, who will be a senior at La Jolla Country Day School, and Renly, who will begin her junior year at University City High School.
The SDRC Women's Varsity Team rows on Mission Bay out of its boathouse on El Carmel Point. The club has novice and varsity teams for boys and girls. SDRC is offering
2-week "Learn to Row" camps in June, July and August that offer youth (ages 10-18) a chance to enter the sport and be a part of something special.
No rowing experience is required to participate in the camps.
The San Diego Rowing Club is a non-profit organization founded in 1888 and committed to helping develop and expand the sport. The club's Juniors Program offers one of the premiere places to learn to row, developing strong athletes who go on to compete on college crew and national teams each year.
The club trains students from dozens of high schools across San Diego County, who compete in races across California and Arizona.
For more information, visit www.sdrcjrs.com., or email Chris Callaghan, director of rowing, at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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From housekeeper to maintenance, Sunshine French has done just about every job possible before being named general manager of Hampton Inn and Suites.
Armed with a high school diploma, she held small jobs and no hotel experience before moving to Bluffton from Ohio. Sunshine moved to the Lowcountry to be closer to her husband's family who lives in Sun City.
Linda French, Sunshine's mother-in-law, was the Hampton Inn and Suites' manager for years and wanted to help Sunshine start a career in the hospitality industry. Linda recently died after battling cancer, and Sunshine plans to work hard just as her mother-in-law did.
"The first day she came down here to be with our son, Linda put her to work at the hotel," said Bill French, Sunshine's father-in-law. "Linda wanted to train Sunny in every aspect of the hotel so she could take over as the general manager. She was a good worker and ready to go from day one. She's done a great job and I always hear that she's helpful and accommodating."
As a native of Ohio, Sunshine fits in well with the surrounding transplants of Sun City.
"I was used to the city and busy life," Sunshine said. "After a few months, I went running back home to Ohio, but eventually became acquainted with the slower pace of South Carolina. I never thought I'd be managing a hotel, but I really enjoy making guests feel comfortable and providing an enjoyable stay here."
Sunshine said the most challenging part of her job is getting complaints. With 100 rooms and making contact with at least 50 guests a day, French said it's hard to please everyone.
"I love getting notes at the desk or in the mail from guests whether it is good or bad," Sunshine said. "While I much rather have good compliments about the staff, receiving a note makes my day much better because you never expect people to write to the manager after staying in a hotel."
One guest she's built a relationship with is Chip Goodwyn, who visits his parents in Sun City regularly and always books a room at the Hampton Inn and Suites.
"He's just an outstanding guest. He'll let us know if his stay was good or if something was unpleasant. We appreciate his openness and outgoing personality," Sunshine said.
Goodwyn lives in Knoxville, Tenn., and visits his parents frequently, staying at the Okatie hotel about seven to nine times a year. He chose to stay at the hotel because of the proximity, but returned because of the staff.
"Sunshine is a great manager because she's extraordinarily committed to her business. She's not an equity owner in the property, but she behaves like one," Goodwyn said. "Her staff is probably only at 50 percent strength, so when someone calls off sick, Sunshine fills in. I've never known a manager to clean rooms or serve breakfast."
Goodwyn added because of Sunshine's leadership and her presence, the quality of customer care rarely falters.
While Sunshine balances caring for her 50 or more guests a day, she also handles the responsibility of being a mother to three.
She works a minimum of 10 hours a day while her children are at summer camp. Sunshine said if she has to pull a double shift, she picks up the children, gets a few hours of sleep, and returns to the hotel for the night audit.
"It's hard to balance, but it gets done," Sunshine said.
Her goal is to continue the full remodel to transform the hotel then win the Hilton Lighthouse award for the first time since 2004. Every year, based on guest feedback, the company rewards those hotels that have shown exceptional dedication to customer service, overall guest satisfaction and good hospitality.
"It's my goal to win and I think we've got a great opportunity to receive it," Sunshine said.


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Kanye West speaks his mind November 5, 2010.
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Thursday, March 8, 2012
30 Jays in 30 Days - Ribbing Adam Lind
Provenance: Anderson, IN. Drafted in the third round of the 2004 amateur draft by Toronto out of the University of South Alabama.
Contract Status: Signed four-year, $18 million contract extension before the 2010 season. Scheduled to make $5 million this year and next, with options at $7 million, $7.5 million and $8 million in 2014-2016.
Ear Worms Induced by the Player: "Indiana Wants Me", by R. Dean Taylor, although we sing it as "Lind-iana Wants Me". Also, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" by Bob Dylan, because his college years were spent in Alabama's third-largest metropolis.
Career Stats: .267 AVG, .316 OBP, .466 SLG, .782 OPS in 2534 plate appearances. 106 home runs, 132 doubles, 367 runs driven in.
2011 Stats: .251 AVG, .295 OBP, .439 SLG, .734 OPS in 542 plate appearances over 125 games. 26 homers and 87 RBI. 0.5 wins above replacement (as per Fangraphs).
Back of the Class: Among qualified first basemen, Lind posted the third-worst weighted on-base average (.315), ahead of only Juan Rivera and Aubrey Huff.
Looking Back: As we've been thinking back over the past season for this series, there are a lot of images that flash through our mind, like animated GIFs being posted somewhere between our synaptic nodes. And one of those video loops is an amalgam of Adam Lind's painful-looking swings from last season. We certainly don't want to present ourselves as any sort of medical authority, but it takes a certain degree of wilful blindness not to recognize the extent to which Lind's swing suffered because of back injuries last season.
A year ago, the greatest concern seemed to be whether if Lind could handle playing first base on a full time basis, and the Spring Training lore that was spun out dealt with the monstrous number of ground balls he took every day to prepare himself to be up to the task. His less-than-impressive 2010 season (.712 OPS, .341 OPS versus lefties) was looked upon as something of an anomalistic blip, with the memory of his Silver Slugger year not so far in the past.
But the wear and tear of crouching for hours on end to cram for his first baseman's exam clearly physically affected Lind. After a decent start to the season (.857 OPS up until May 7th), Lind was sidelined for a month with back troubles. He returned in June and managed two very productive weeks after his rest (eight homers, 1.460 OPS between June 4th and 17th), the last half of the season was an ugly downward spiral (.247 OBP, .332 SLG from June 18th through the end of the schedule.)
As he ground through the dog days of the season, Lind's swing became more of a wave at the ball. There was no leverage or torque coming from his legs or his core, and he appeared to be tossing his bat through the swing zone out of desperation. The harsh truth is that you can't be a middle-of-the-order bat if your swing is all arms, and it still surprises us that the team's on-field management couldn't recognize how bad Lind's at bats had become.
We also seem to find ourselves in the minority when it comes to Lind's defense, which we thought was less than exemplary last season. Lind's ability to pick balls out of the dirt was certainly welcome, but his ability to range to either side was decidedly weak. Lind made only 12 plays out of his zone in 965.1 innings in the field, and his "range runs" -- the number of runs above or below average, as determined by his ability to get to balls hit in his vicinity, as per Fangraphs' Ultimate Zone Ratings calculations -- was 3.6 runs below average.
Looking Forward: That 2009 season is slipping further into the mists of memory, and the notion that Lind will suddenly find his stroke again is left to those of us who are dreamers and wish makers.
To put Adam Lind in perspective at this point, keep this in mind: Lind's first season at first base was offensively a step down from any of Lyle Overbay's last three seasons with the team. Now take that information, close your eyes, and imagine what the furor might have been if the Jays had insisted on plugging Lyle Overbay into the four-spot in the lineup in any of those seasons.
With a team-friendly deal, the Jays shouldn't feel as though they are handcuffed to Lind as a key to their offense. A smarter approach to managing the lineup would look for ways to minimize the demand on Lind's performance by placing him lower in the order and platooning him with Edwin Encarnacion against some left-handed pitchers. We doubt that the Jays will make such moves until they're absolutely forced to do so, but a "cruel to be kind" approach might be in the best interest of the player and the team.
2012 Expectations: We hate to say a player is on his last chance, because we pride ourselves on not giving into the impatient hyperbole of fandom. But with a team that should be headed towards a Wild Card playdown within the next two seasons, Lind will either need to assert himself or move on.
We don't think that Lind is as bad as either the 2011 or 2010 seasons would seem to indicate, and we can see his upside being a .330 OBP/.500 SLG for 2012. Maybe more? Are we getting too enthusiastic?
On the other hand, anything below an .800 OPS is going to be a problem for the Jays in the middle of their lineup, and something that will need to be resolved in the near term.
6 comments:
- Jonathan Johanson said...
Couple Things.
-For lack of a better analogy, I hated how AA indirectly threw Adam Lind under the bus this winter. Whenever the Prince Fielder debate was brought up, instead of reminding everyone the Jays had a former silver slugger and club friendly 1B player locked up for awhile, AA repeatedly just stated that Prince's contract would be a huge rip-off (which I think all rational Jays fans can agree with). I'm glad AA openly made it clear the Jays weren't and aren't interested in those types of contracts, but I wish he would have reminded everyone:
-Lind 2009
-Lind showing signs he was returning to form first half of 2011
-Lind is still reasonably young
-Good chance 2010 was an aberration and 2011 is a write-off since he was learning a new position in a year the Jays weren't going to intend
-Lind loves Toronto and married a local women (Jays fans suck that up haha).
-Club friendly contract
To be fair, I am probably just trying to defend my purchase of a Lind t-shirt at the home opener in 2010.
Hermain Cain for USA 2012
- March 8, 2012 at 4:47 PM
- Jonathan Johanson said...
contend not intend.
i guess my point is AA probably wasn't helping Lind's confidence this summer and defending Lind a bit may have helped a little bit with the Prince Fielder backlash.
- March 8, 2012 at 4:52 PM
- Tao of Stieb said...
It's funny, because I think I'm trying to be emotionally detached in writing these, and when I re-read them afterwards, it sounds like I'm dumping all over the players.
I didn't really intend for this to sound as negative as it did.
Lind is going to have to step up his game...but I still think he can do it. I'd love to see it.
- March 8, 2012 at 4:57 PM
I would have been fine with Overbay in the 4 spot in his first year as a Jay when I believe he hit damn well with a ton of doubles.
Of course then we'd have to move Thomas/Glaus/Delgado/Hillenbrand(sp?)/ whoever we had batting cleanup back then.
- March 8, 2012 at 5:27 PM
I really hope EE gets a game at 1B about once a week against tough lefties. It will produce better results and it will save Lind's back.
Mind you, if you're subbing a 28 year old guy once a week to save his back, he's probably not the long term answer anyway.
- March 9, 2012 at 8:43 AM
- peteybrigade said...
Also sitting with fingers crossed for Adam Lind - surely there's a happy median he can reach.
BTW, this '30 Jays in 30 Days' is a fantastic series! Great work!
- March 9, 2012 at 8:49 AM


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"An intimate and powerful family story . . . impeccably told." —Chicago Tribune
"Moving and darkly funny. . . . Russo mines grace from his gritty hometown." —The Wall Street Journal
"One of the most honest, moving American memoirs in years. . . . Russo's intellectual and emotional honesty are remarkable." —NPR Books
"Russo conjures the incredible bond between single mother and only child in a way that makes his story particularly powerful." —The Daily Beast
"Redemption is always the prize in a Russo story. Nowhere do we see that more clearly than in Elsewhere, a brave little book in which a writer spins deprivation into advantage, suffering into wisdom, and a broken mother into a muse." —The Washington Post
"Vivid . . . devastating. . . . Russo brings the remarkable compassion he's known for in his fiction to this account." —The Christian Science Monitor
"Russo is the Bruce Springsteen of novelists. . . . In a paragraph or even a phrase, he can summon up a whole world." —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
"Funny and winning. . . . This stirring book belongs to Jean and Rick." —The New York Times Book Review
"Filled with insights, by turn tender and tough, about human fidelity, frailty, forbearance, and fortitude." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A quietly riveting portrait. . . . Elsewhere depicts the tenacious grip that Gloversville exerted on mother and son alike." —The New York Observer
"Exquisite. . . . Elsewhere is a memoir and a bravura essay, a meditation on negotiating flaws." —The Miami Herald
"Richard Russo has mined his childhood with enormous energy, humor and craftsmanship. . . . Readers discovering Russo through this memoir and then returning to his first few titles are embarking on a delightful voyage with a gifted writer about whom they now know a great deal." —The Seattle Times
"Affecting. . . . Russo's parallel themes of people and place come together elegantly." —San Francisco Chronicle
"A real-life mystery about his mother's demons. . . . Russo writes without bitterness, but with the kind of clear-eyed compassion he bestows on his fictional characters." —USA Today
"Rich and layered. . . . Russo's memoir is an honest book about a universal subject: those familial bonds that only get trickier with time." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Outstanding." —Chicago Sun-Times


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President Obama ended his weekend-long media blitz with a bang on Monday, bringing the presidential funny to late-night titan David Letterman's program after two days of serious political campaigning on TV's major news networks. And for his trouble he left with a heart-shaped potato.
Obama, who appeared on the FOX, CNN, MSNBC, Univision and NBC Sunday-morning talk shows, took a very brief break from policy to crack jokes with Letterman and his crowd, riffing off everything from Jimmy Carter's allegations of racism among the GOP to Letterman's Emmy loss.
"It's important to realize that I was actually black before the election," Obama deadpanned when Letterman asked about Carter's claim that many of the attacks against Obama were based in racism.
U.S. & World
"How long have you been a black man?" Letterman riffed.
The "Late Show" host kicked off the show by joking that security was "tighter than Joan Rivers' face" and secret service had even checked under his hairpiece.
Letterman's nightly Top 10 featured a list of reasons why Obama decided to appear on the show. One idea? He did it without thinking -- "like Bush did with Iraq," Letterman joked.
The number six reason Obama showed up -- "we told him Megan Fox would be here."
Number one was that Obama wanted to "congratulate Dave on the big Emmy win." Letterman lost the best talk show Emmy race to Jon Stewart.
The commander in chief got cute with the Letterman crowd during the taping, asking the audience in the notoriously cold studio if they could take the low temperatures. He sweetened the day of one Letterman fan who had brought a heart-shaped potato to the taping, telling the audience member he'd shown up just to get a glimpse of the vegetable.
"The main reason I'm here? I want to see that heart-shaped potato," Obama joked.
The fan later gave the freakish potato to Obama, who called it "remarkable."
But the president didn't stray too far from policy gab -- he spoke with Letterman on the show about Afghanistan, the economy and the ever-present health care issue and also delivered the unfortunate message that unemployment would be a problem for at least another year.
"We're not going to recover overnight," he said. "If we stay the course…I'm confident we'll come back stronger than before."
Americans are "scared of the devil they don't know" when it comes to the new, unfamiliar health care bill, Obama said. He also said all Americans deserve access to some kind of care -- and repeated the idea that the government is responsible for the well-being of its citizens.
Obama also reinforced that he wouldn't make a decision yet about whether or not he'd send more troops to Afghanistan, saying he'd be "asking some very hard questions" to help in aiding his choice.
Letterman also asked about how the Obama daughters spent their summer -- and Obama said they "goofed off" although he couldn't, as president of the United States.
"Others have," Letterman joked.
Obama, who also appeared on Jay Leno's program as the president in 2008, was the first sitting president to appear on Letterman's show. He's been on Letterman a total of five times, four during his presidential campaign.
The show, which saw Letterman's audience give Obama a standing ovation, ended with Letterman telling Obama "how satisfying" it was to watch him work.
"And remember when things get tough," Letterman said, "you sir are in possession of a heart-shaped potato."


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COVER- Person of the Year: Joel Salatin's salad days
It's been quite a year for Joel Salatin. The Shenandoah Valley farmer starred as himself in two popular food documentary films and received a $100,000 award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his creative, eco-friendly practices.
"The big corporate farms can no longer tell us that pollution will always come with farming," said Foundation leader Teresa Heinz. "Mr. Salatin's work shows us that is not true, because on his lands, farming is no longer part of the problem; it is part of the solution to a better environment."
While Salatin's solutions have long been known in Central Virginia, he received a bumper crop of publicity in Michael Pollan's 2006 best seller, The Omnivore's Dilemma. In turn, the producers of the documentaries Food, Inc. and Fresh helped make him America's most famous farmer since George Washington Carver.
"I first experienced him in the 1980s when he premiered his idea of an 'eggmobile' at the first [Virginia Association for Biological Farming] conference," says Tanya Denckla Cobb, associate director of UVA's Institute for Environmental Negotiation. "He was a firebrand and electrified the crowd, receiving a standing ovation. Nobody had ever seen the likes of him. Now the rest of the world is starting to catch up."
46 restaurants and stores
Since Salatin declines to ship his food and discourages everyone else from buying food from sources more than 100 miles from home, his success has become Central Virginia's good fortune.
Of the 46 restaurants and food stores in Virginia where Salatin's salad bar beef, pork, chickens, turkeys, and rabbits are available, half are in the Charlottesville area. Last year, gourmet burrito chain Chipotle, which has 900 locations in the U.S. and Canada, chose its Charlottesville store to begin sourcing local pork because of its proximity to Salatin's Polyface Farms. Today, 100 percent of the Charlottesville Chipotle's pork is supplied by Polyface.
According to the 53-year-old Salatin, it all started with his late father. William Salatin, an accountant, had tried to start a sustainable farm in Venezuela in the 1950s but lost the land amid that nation's turmoil as it transitioned from a dictatorship to a democracy. The family then returned to the United States and started over, buying some dirt-cheap land in Swoope.
His parents were early adapters of grass-feeding, controlled grazing, movable structures, and many other
innovative practices that Salatin gets applause for using. Salatin admits he tried his hand as a newspaper reporter, but in 1982, he agreed to take over his parents' 550-acre farm, along with their innovative philosophies.
While it was rough going in the beginning, his plan to sell directly to consumers started to yield a modest profit. Then journalists began to discover what he was doing.
"Most farmers are a lot more timid than I am," explains Salatin, who unapologetically credits his "dramatic and verbal charisma" for his high profile. "There's a stereotype of farmers as hicks, but a lot of farmers are hicks."
Salatin has become the Sabato of the soil–- a veritable quote machine, although he sometimes veers into Tom Wolfe's terrain. For example, he famously refers to himself as a "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-lunatic farmer," a description that finds its way into nearly every story about him. He's also the author of six books, including his most recent, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front. And many of his views and comments sound rehearsed–- or at least as recycled as the chicken feathers and entrails he so famously repurposes as compost.
"I may not be the richest guy in the world," says Salatin, whose operation, including fees from speaking engagements and book sales, now clears about $150,000 a year, "but man, what an office."
Earlier this year, the Hook caught up with our 2009 Person of the Year for a glimpse of the firebrand, as well as the food that has made him famous.
A journey to Swoope
After navigating a jigsaw puzzle of country roads just southwest of Staunton, a reporter's truck rattles as it crosses a cattle bridge and past a small sign that announces Polyface Farms, "farm of many faces." The truck kicks up dust as it heads down a dirt road toward a ramshackle arrangement of outbuildings and trailers surrounding a modest white farm house. It's 6am, and the rising sun has yet to burn away the morning mist.
In the middle of a field and around a dilapidated tin shack on wheels that looks like a prop from the Beverly Hillbillies, a flock of grey hens have gathered; but there are no other animals in sight. Fencing is makeshift with crooked posts tensioning a single wire running across the top. A boy drives by on a four-wheeler, and we flag him down to ask for the boss.
"He might be down with the hogs," says the kid before driving off.
No signs of hogs. Closer to the main house, greenhouses and equipment sheds look like they haven't seen action in decades. Anyone expecting bright red barns, miles of white wooden fencing, and gleaming tractors would be disappointed. All is dirty.
That is, until a dozen tall, attractive college-aged men and women appear around the corner of building, wearing knee-high rubber boots–- like a master race raised on raw milk and grass-fed beef, or models in a farm-themed fashion shoot for Abercrombie and Fitch.
"We're interns," explains a young woman whose blond hair shines like fresh straw falling out from under her cap as her companions point to a distant hillside where a man in a straw hat is standing among a flock of chickens in front of a film crew.
America has over 450,000 family farms, but Polyface may be the only one led by someone who is as comfortable raising chickens as being interviewed. Or both. When a reporter finally reaches the top of the hill, the man in the "Grass fed" t-shirt is waxing eloquent for another documentary. Farmageddon, say the filmmakers, who've positioned Salatin to face the rising sun, will explore the way over-regulation is allegedly destroying small farms.
"I want to see dancing earthworms, feed the world, and heal people," Salatin tells the camera, surrounded by his chickens, one of whom, like a house cat, rests in his arms. "The more people we get out here to see it, to feel it, the more converts we'll get."
Apparently, there's no shortage of believers. During a recent open house, Salatin mentions later, 1,600 people showed up.
In 2005, before Pollan wrote of Salatin's "dangerous pileup of modifiers," a New York Times Magazine feature introduced the world to some of the "Salatinisms" which, if not quite as famous as Yogi Berra's "Yogisms," have least given foodies something to chuckle about.
While the Times called him the "high priest of the pasture," he's clearly more of a southern preacher. In his trademark straw hat and glasses, he refers to his farm as a "healing ministry" and characterizes his grievances with corporate food production and government bureaucracies as a battle between good and evil.
For example, Salatin refers to local Health Department inspectors as "food Nazis" and suggests that the average American's detached relationship to food production could lead to the dehumanization of society.
"If you told the Germans in 1930 that within a decade or so they would exterminate six million Jews, nobody would have believed you," he says. "I think we are in the same kind of times right now."
In particular, Salatin says he's concerned about several food safety bills moving through Congress. Although they're designed to address national concerns about contamination and the ills of factory farms whose reputation has suffered under growing waste pools, cruel confinement cages, and the recent salmonella outbreak in peanuts from a Georgia plant that claimed at least seven lives, Salatin thinks they will hurt small farmers.
"I think they will destroy local food systems and small farms," he says. "Here is all you have to know: Monsanto is for it. Anything they are for cannot be helpful to anything honest."
So, if that happens, how does he hope to survive?
"Don't know. Maybe in jail," he says. "Many of us around the country are prepared to not comply."
Nelson County farmers Richard Bean and Jean Rinaldi know something about that. In 2007, the couple, both in their 60s, were handcuffed and arrested by state agriculture agents. Ostensibly, their crime was feloniously defrauding their customers with incorrect labels. Supporters contended, however, that they drew official ire for butchering hogs on their small farm. Bean, a butcher by trade, had wanted to avoid the expense of hauling his pigs to a licensed slaughterhouse, which can consume eight hours on the road and cost as much as $300 a pig.
(Despite expressing a willingness to go to jail, Bean eventually began sending his hogs to slaughter in Harrisonburg, pleaded to no-jail, no-fine misdemeanor counts in Charlottesville and Nelson, and proudly notes that he's doing "more business than ever.")
As Salatin points out, most food production laws were designed with industrial farm operations in mind. For instance, Salatin must transport his own hogs to be butchered, and farm regulations require him to spend $10,000 a year in workers compensation insurance to have a "live animal hauler." Regulations also prohibit workers from working with both cows and chickens, a blow to Salatin's trademark rotation-style farming. And don't get him started on raw milk, a valuable food available to all cow-raising farmers, but something that is illegal to buy and sell in Virginia.
"Why is local food so expensive?" he says. "Because we have suffocating regulations."
Germs v. immune systems
But what about food safety? Aren't regulations in place to protect the consumer?
Salatin suggests that a close relationship between farmer and consumer creates safety. For instance, Bean's local pork is popular because people have savored it and come to trust Double H Farm. And unlike a mass recall that requires destruction of meat in multiple states, any problems with Double H pork might be more easily traced.
"I think my food is safe," says Salatin. "But according to the poultry industry, the way I raise chickens is bio-terrorism, because red-winged blackbirds commiserate with my chickens and will carry their diseases to the Tyson chicken factory."
Over a hundred years later, says Salatin, we're still fighting the argument between Louis Pasteur and Antoine Beauchamp. Say what?
"Pasteur advanced the germ theory–- we're just victims of these bad germs out there doing us in," says Salatin. "Beauchamp advanced the terrain theory–- germs only enter when our natural defenses are compromised.
"American food policy in our western reductionist disconnected fragmented systematized culture adheres to the germ theory," he says. "But naturopathy, homeopathy, massage, acupuncture, humane animal activists, etc. all adhere to the terrain theory–- that disease is a product of a compromised immune system."
For example, concentrated animal feeding operations on factory farms, he says, create a perfect terrain for germs to get a foothold, whether it's viruses, parasites, or bacteria.
"Stress, overcrowding, fecal particulate, unsanitary conditions, lack of exercise, lack of salad, and nutrient deficiency all compromise the immune system so bad guys can get in," he says.
So what creates better immunities? "All the opposites of that list, which is exactly what Polyface and other like-minded farmers do," he explains.
"In all their discussions about food safety and pathogens, the USDA never questions the bedrock assumption that the terrible conditions listed above are the best way, or most efficient way, to produce food," says Salatin. "So they develop irradiation, chlorination, parasiticides, fumigants, ammonia baths, antibiotics, and other toxic procedures to kill germs rather than changing the production model to create a better immune program."
"Everything in the food industry is moving toward sterility," says Salatin. "That's where all this is headed."
Ironically, for small local farmers like Bean, Rinaldi, and Salatin, who sell food straight from the source, some of their strongest critics come from the organic food industry. In fact, Salatin says organic food lobbyists came after him for using the tag line "Beyond Organic," eventually forcing him to stop using it.
"Maybe it's just as well for it all to pass to create a local farmer martyr class," he says. "Perhaps that would bring all this to a head, and the country would bring back some sanity and clip the wings of the bureaucrat minions doing Monsanto's bidding. So I'm not pessimistic, just trying to prepare."
Asked if he would be willing to become a martyr for the local food movement should he do something illegal and wind up in jail, he doesn't hesitate.
"Absolutely," he says.
Salatin's no saint
Of course, it's not easy finding Salatin critics, especially in the local food movement, where most articles about him border on idolatry. But they're out there. Casey and Katie Kulla, who own a small produce farm in Oregon called Oakhill Organics, haven't been shy about their beefs with the famous farmer on their blog. However, when asked to comment for this story, the couple declined, saying they didn't want to be divisive.
You wouldn't know it reading their blog.
"Salatin is more and more gaining a reputation among small farmers as being a notorious 'talker,'" wrote the Kullas last year. "His books tend to dangerously oversimplify livestock production, and his claims about his own farm seem over-inflated when you realize that he compromises too. For example, as [Michael] Pollan points out [in The Ominvore's Dilemma], Salatin buys corn sprayed with atrazine, a substance prohibited by organic standards and decried by Pollan elsewhere in Omnivore. In Pollan's comparisons of the two farms, I kept asking: "Where are all the other farmers?'"
They also took issue with Salatin's use of "beyond organic" and the way Pollan embraced the term in his book.
"It's a loaded term within alternative ag right now as certified and non-certified farmers are starting to feel tension and figure out how we all plan to get along even when we make different choices," they write. " Using the phrase casually and without analysis was a bit na¯ve."
Not hungry
Salatin gestures toward his chickens, and toward the entire farm. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that this is the way it should be," he says.
Without missing a beat, Salatin turns his attention to more practical matters, like explaining how his new system for tending his chickens works. He stopped using his famous "eggmobile," the shack on wheels near the farm's entrance, in favor of a system he calls a "Feathernet." It's basically a hen house built on skids and surrounded by a 450-foot circle of electrified netting. To reduce labor, the system also features a separate and mobile self-feeding and watering system, supplying enough of both to the chickens for three weeks.
There are about 1,000 chickens in the mobile compound, perched high on a hill above Salatin's house, offering a beautiful view of his farm and the mountains as the sun climbs. But even the location has a purpose: keeping them close allows Salatin's family to watch for hawks and other birds of prey.
The whole set-up is moved to a fresh circle of pasture every three days, but not before the cattle are allowed to graze and shorten the grass for the chickens. That's all fine, say some critics, but how do you expect to feed 300 million Americans– especially when Polyface chicken can cost more than twice the price of supermarket birds?
"We can feed the world this way," claims Salatin, noting that factory farms don't include the cost of filthy drinking water, ruined streams, air pollution, and inhumanity to God's creatures.
"The industrialists measure only one component when comparing with natural systems, rather than the aggregate production of all the pieces combined. It's the stacking effect that generates greater production per acre. One of the most notable is rice. Indigenous systems produce fish, ducks, eggs, greens, and rice in a paddy. Industrial systems using chemicals produce only rice. While the scientists say, 'See how much more rice we're producing,' the reality is that the total production of an integrated system is much higher than rice alone."
We walk over to an adjacent field, where a flock of big white turkeys are kept in another mobile compound, out of sight of the house but guarded by three geese that Salatin says will attack any hawk that dares touch down.
"If we continue to look at these beautiful turkeys the way we do, just as a protoplasmic mass that can be put into any food product," he says, "it won't be long until we look at people, and especially people from other cultures, the same way."
Walking away from the turkeys, a reporter and the film crew in tow, he says, almost casually, "This is the first time in human history where people can have no real connection, or relationship, with their natural ecology."
It's an observation that hits like a thunderbolt. The reason a trip to a real farm can be so jarring is that it challenges the way we are used to confronting our food, which typically involves walking past rows of brightly packaged jars and boxes–- often featuring faces of cartoon characters–- or hovering over displays of neatly packaged meats, without ever thinking about how they got there.
"It must be sad when it comes time to slaughter them," says Boston-based film producer Paul Dewey, who was clearly moved by Salatin's speech about his beautiful turkeys.
"Nooooo, that's payday," says Salatin. "Are you sad when you get a bonus?"
On the way back to the house, Salatin points out some mulberry trees behind a shed where his baby chicks are raised, and we eat the sweet and sour berries off the branches.
"Most people don't know that mulberry trees bear fruit for at least 100 days," he says. "There's so much you can do with mulberries."
In the house, Salatin's wife, Teresa, has made us breakfast.
"This is gonna be a real farm breakfast," says Salatin. "You won't be hungry all day."
Indeed, we're served a helping of Salatin's eggs, scrambled, three of his sausage links, a potentially illegal glass of raw milk from a nearby farm, and some apple cider from a local orchard.
The Lord, of course, is thanked for the food we're about to receive, but it's his servant in Swoope we have to thank for getting it onto our plates in its purest form.
And he's right about the breakfast. Despite consuming modest portions, the reporter didn't feel hungry all day.
10 comments
Raw milk....make up your own mind:
What the government thinks:
A new book called the Raw Milk Revolution, with a forward by Salatin:
Joel was my debate coach in high school back in the late '80s. He is an incredible guy, and very passionate about his work. I've lost touch with him over the years, but the next time I'm "back home" I'll have to give him a call.
Yes, there are farmers that can supply wholesome meat, poultry, vegetables and dairy in every state. And in every state, laws are threatening to put these small farmers out of business, as Joel says. We are petitioning for exemption from industrial farming practice regulations for small local farms in Maine this week.
So please folk, be informed and support local small farms with your purchases and your petitions.
A great resource for finding food from local farms is www.localharvest.org. There are also lots of sustainable agriculture and organic farming groups around the country so you can find the groups in your state and they will have a list of farmer members many of whom will sell from the farm or at farmers markets. Another way to find local farms is Slow Food. there are many Slow Food chapters accross the country and many have directories of local farms. In addition keep in mind that one of the reasons that local food is usually safer and healthier is that you can go to the farm and see for yourself how your food is raised and decide for yourself if that meets your criteria for health, safety, humane handling, environmental responsibility etc.
Salatin was featured in "Grit" recently. What a re-innovator and what a very interesting and inspiring person Salatin is! Our federal, state and even more so local governments are limiting peoples freedom to go back to the soil with permits, fees, more permits, building and architectural requirements along with water and drainage paperwork that requires engineers heavy soft costs that eat up PROFIT, eat up all start up or first year survival fund. Oops, profit is a bad word to Albemarle socialist. This prevents people from expanding our economy both locally and state wide. When are voters going to revolt and bring in leaders who are going to short cut and support with cost-less permits and fees for small farmers, truck farmers (produce), chicken ranchers who are feeding us all in a healthy manner.
A nice job on in-depth reporting on the Polyface story. I was disappointed that the reporter missed some important aspects of the story, however. The article notes that "Salatin must transport his own hogs to be butchered", but fails to report that he transports them up to a USDA-inspected abbatoir in Harrisonburg of which Joel is part owner - True & Essential Meats (aka T&E Meats). And when Richard Bean sends his hogs to slaughter, that is where he sends them as well, not just to "Harrisonburg", as the article says. All of those Charlottesville restaurants mentioned in the article, including Chipotle, rely on T&E's butchers to provide them with a top quality product. When we talk about rebuilding local food systems, we have to understand and support the whole system, not just the farmer. It's great to have heroes, but the devil is still in the details.
Joe Cloud
Co-Owner/Managing Partner
Salatin & Cloud, LC
(dba True & Essential Meats)
damon, I sure don't want McDonough having anything to do with my local government. Talk about some hubris! Did you see the Fast Company article "Green Guru Gone Wrong: William McDonough?" It's available on line and you ought to read it. It's a nice counterpoint to the hype machine.
Two thumbs up to Joel S. though!! Let's hope success doesn't go to his head.
Re Raw Milk - there is another side to the equation:
Would that Charlottesville's world class city hubris dissolve into the service of combining Joel Salatin and William McDonough into some form of workable, ongoing experimental eco-capitalist-socialist blend that serves to try a new way. A way that seeks self sufficiency, don't tread on me independence in the service of the forms of planning, farming, manufacturing, and building that deserve to survive and provide seed crystals for the rebuilding out of the rubble of the stockjobbing monstrosity that beckons to bring the world to ruin and turn us all into cheerful robots.
While I'm a big supporter of Salatin. Remember to seek out small farmers to purchase meat. Polyface is doing quite well financially. There are other small farmers who can supply a perfectly good chicken and need your support.


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Halton Arp is an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich, Germany. He has been referred to by some of his colleagues as "the most feared astronomer on Earth" (see Kaufmann, 1981). Renowned physicist John Gribbin once wrote that "for 20 years or so" Arp has been "a thorn in the side of establishment astronomy" (1987, p. 65). Depictions such as these generally are not seen in scientific literature. What, pray tell, has Dr. Arp done to deserve such designations?
For more than three decades, Arp has compiled—through extensive observational astronomy using some of the world's finest telescopes—a sizable database of "peculiar" galaxies and redshift "anomalies." These peculiarities and anomalies hardly are insignificant or few in number. Quite the opposite—Dr. Arp has produced an entire "Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies" (currently administered by the California Institute of Technology—see Arp, 1966). The images that he has produced, and the implications stemming from them, have struck at the very heart of current cosmological theory.
By way of summary, Arp has discovered entities (e.g., galaxies) that exhibit one redshift value (designated as "z" in the scientific literature) that are physically associated with other entities (e.g., quasars) with entirely different redshift values. As Gribbin wryly noted: "If a galaxy and a quasar are physically connected, but have different redshifts, something definitely is wrong.... Arp has enough evidence that he ought to be worrying more people than actually acknowledge the significance of his findings" (p. 65, emp. added).
In a personal e-mail to us on April 17, 2003, Dr. Arp referred us to what he called "the latest, very powerful evidence found in the active galaxy NGC 7603 (Arp Atlas No. 92). The high-redshift companion is attached to the arm from the active galaxy which contains two very high redshift, quasar-like objects" (see images below). It was this very enigma that two Spanish astronomers discussed in a 2002 paper in Astronomy and Astrophysics, in which they stated: "As far as we are aware, this is the most impressive case of a system of anomalous redshifts discovered so far" (see López-Corredoira and Gutiérrez, 2002, p. L15). Let us explain.
In figure A below, there are four objects. NGC 7603 is a spiral galaxy with a redshift value of 0.029. Object 1 is a quasar with z = 0.057. Objects 2 and 3 are quasar-like objects with z values of 0.243 and 0.391 respectively. As López-Corredoira and Gutiérrez noted: "Everything points to the four objects being connected among themselves, but how to explain the different redshifts?" (p. L17). How to explain indeed? Gribbin lamented: "That strikes at the foundation stone of received cosmological wisdom" (p. 65). It certainly does! As Dr. Arp himself put it in an e-mail to us on March 27, 2003, this is a case where "we once again are experiencing a situation where data get thrown out if they don't fit the theory." Big Bang cosmology simply cannot explain "Arp's anomalies."
Arp, Halton (1966), "Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies," [On-line], URL: http://nedwww.ipac. caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Arp_contents. html.
Gribbin, John (1987), "Book Review" [of Halton Arp's Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies], New Scientist, p. 65, October.
Kaufmann, William III (1981), "The Most Feared Astronomer on Earth," Science Digest, 89[6]:76-81,117, July.
López-Corredoira, Martin and Carlos M. Gutiérrez (2002), "Two Emission Line Objects with z>0.2 in the Optical Filament Apparently Connecting the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7603 to Its Companion," Astronomy and Astrophysics, 390:L15-L18.


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CHICAGO — Pavel Datsyuk is one of the NHL's most feared scorers, a wizard with the puck who is equally adept at setting up his teammates for easy plays. Jonathan Toews has at least 23 goals in each of his six seasons in the league, and Patrice Bergeron is one of the top offensive threats for one of the league's best teams.
[np_storybar title="Bruce Arthur: Senators' Erik Karlsson only human in return from Achilles injury" link="http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/05/17/senators-erik-karlsson-only-human-in-return-from-achilles-injury/"%5D
If you want to stop a Datsyuk, Toews or Bergeron, it sure helps to have a Datsyuk, Toews or Bergeron.
The three finalists for the Frank J. Selke Trophy for the NHL's best defensive forward are still alive in the playoffs, and it's no coincidence. The league's top teams count on their forwards to come back and pressure the opponent's top scorers, not only for defensive purposes but also to create chances on the other end.
"You need those kind of players to win, to be successful. Because you're going to have times, usually half the time in your shift you're going to be in your own end or you're going to have to be defending," said Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, a former NHL defenceman, "and knowing where you have to go and coming up with loose pucks or forcing these guys to make indirect plays where you get the puck back, there's a skill involved there and there's some work that's involved."
Datsyuk of the Red Wings and Toews of the Blackhawks will be back on the ice when Chicago hosts Detroit in Game 2 of their second-round playoff series on Saturday afternoon. Bergeron will try to help the Bruins to a 2-0 lead against the New York Rangers when their series resumes on Sunday.
The Blackhawks used a dominant final two periods to beat the Red Wings 4-1 on Wednesday night, shutting down Detroit's leading trio of Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen. Datsyuk played more than 21 minutes, but was held without a point and did not attempt a shot after he had two goals and five assists in the first round against Anaheim.
"He's going to be a top player in this series. We know that. They know that," forward Patrick Sharp said after Chicago practiced on Friday. "It's just hopefully we can contain him in some way."
Datsyuk had 15 goals and 34 assists in 47 games this season, helping Detroit reach the playoffs for the 22nd straight season. The three-time Selke winner also tied Toews for the NHL lead with 56 takeaways and won 55 per cent of his faceoffs.
The 34-year-old Russian centre, who was selected in the sixth round of the 1998 draft, is way more than just an offensive wizard.
"He can come out of nowhere and steal the puck from you and make a play, and before you know it, it's in your net," Toews said. "He's as skilled as they come on both sides of the puck and obviously a tough guy. You've got to go out there and try to outwork him every shift, because it's tough to outclass him any other way."
Toews is coming off another solid season, when he tied Patrick Kane for the team lead with 23 goals and also contributed 25 assists in 47 games. The captain also had career-high plus-28 rating as Chicago captured the Presidents' Trophy awarded to the team with the most points in the regular season.
"We play same type of game," Datsyuk said. "We fight every year against each other. It's not easy. When a good player plays against a good player every time they make each other better."
While Datsyuk and Toews are squaring off in the Western Conference semi-finals, Bergeron is trying to get Boston back to the East final for the first since it won the Stanley Cup in 2011. The Bruins lost to Washington in the first round a year ago.
Bergeron, who won the Selke award last season, was successful on an NHL-best 62.1 per cent of his faceoffs this year and also had 10 goals and 22 assists. He then had the tying and winning goals in Boston's dramatic overtime victory against Toronto in Game 7 of the first round of the playoffs.
"You get the same thing out of him night after night," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "What I mean by the same thing is, you'll never, ever question his effort, and never question his commitment. Whether he has a good game, a great game, or an average game, you're always going to be able to rely on him."
While Datsyuk, Toews or Bergeron are among the best in the league, two-way play is a requirement for forwards in today's NHL. Marian Hossa, Toews' teammate, is regarded for his defensive skill, and Mike Richards of defending champion Los Angeles also is a factor in the Kings' end.
It's hard to get this far in the post-season without a group of forwards who willing to pitch in on defence.
"I've had the good fortune to coach all three of them," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said, referring to Datsyuk, Toews and Bergeron. "They're good, good men, and they play without the puck and they help you win at the playoffs."


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2012 News
Foreign Languages Among Top Five Most Popular Majors
Friday, Nov. 2, 2012
According to US News College Rankings, foreign languages is among the top five most popular majors at Augustana College. The five most popular majors, for example, among 2011 graduates are:
The Department offer majors and minors in French, German and Spanish, as well as a major and minor in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), which combines the study of two different world languages. There are currently (Nov. 2, 2012) 108 language majors, 100% of whom are double majors and nearly one-third of whom are triple majors; the vast majority also graduate in four years. Discover how some of our graduates are using their foreign language skills on the job.


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Stand up for facts and support PolitiFact.
Now is your chance to go on the record as supporting trusted, factual information by joining PolitiFact's Truth Squad. Contributions or gifts to PolitiFact, which is part of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Poynter Institute, are tax deductible.
I would like to contribute
From fence opt-out clauses to free phones for immigrants, PolitiFact has tracked the rhetoric of the immigration debate — and heard plenty of falsehoods.
With a bill now heading to the House, we decided to recap PolitiFact's top five falsehoods in the immigration debate.
1986 amnesty assured Obama's re-election? A popular line of attack for the Senate bill is that it'll be 1986 all over again — amnesty for illegal immigrants, without enforcement to prevent a new wave of people crossing the southwestern border. U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, went a step further, claiming President Ronald Reagan shaped the nation's electoral future.
"Reagan's signature on the 1986 amnesty act brought about Barack Obama's election," King said. The Immigration Reform and Control Act resulted in permanent legal status for about 2.7 million immigrants. King argued that resulted in nearly 13 million votes for Obama, more than twice his margin of victory.
But King's math missed the mark. Many of the newly legal residents did not become citizens, and thus never earned the right to vote. Also, King didn't account for low rates of voter participation among Hispanics who do have that right. And most important, his estimate of family members receiving legal status for every case of amnesty under the 1986 law was wildly high. We calculated the law, instead, may have added 300,000 to 600,000 votes for Obama — and rated King's claim False.
Border security "designed never to come into being"? Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, warned that the Senate bill "has immediate legalization ... and the border security is sometime in the future, and just like in 1986, it's designed never to come into being." He was right that immigrants in the country illegally could soon qualify for a provisional legal status — though permanent legal status hinges on a series of triggers, from border security to employment enforcement.
But he overlooked much stronger support for border security in the current legislation, including appropriation of more than $46 billion, available immediately. (The 1986 law merely authorized security spending, but didn't appropriate it.) We rated his claim Mostly False.
An optional border fence? Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called security measures in the bill, such as a requirement for at least 700 miles of pedestrian fencing along the southwestern border, "a mere promise." In fact, he told CBS News, the bill would allow Obama's Homeland Security secretary to just say no.
He explained the bill "has a specific provision that says that Secretary (Janet) Napolitano does not have to build any fence if she chooses not to."
We checked out that "specific provision," and attorneys told us it actually just gives Napolitano discretion about where to build 700 miles of fence along the nearly 2,000-mile border. It doesn't give her a choice not to build at all. We rated Sessions' claim False.
Free cell phones for illegal immigrants? Bloggers claimed the Senate bill would grant immigrants with work visas their own taxpayer-funded cell phones. (Dubbed, of course, "MarcoPhones," after Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, one of the the bill's Republican sponsors.) One quick clue that the rumor was off-base: The section that allegedly authorized the free phones, Section 1107, was part of the bill's Title I, which had to do with border security.
The bill included grants aimed at helping American ranchers and others at risk of remote border violence get satellite phone service so they could be in touch with authorities. And Rubio could point to a well-documented case in which a rancher was killed on his property. We rated the claim False.
Free cars for teenagers? Bloggers (again) promoted the absurd notion that teenagers would get free cars — or motorcycles or scooters or other vehicles — under the immigration law. In reality, the Senate bill included a provision for a youth jobs program with transportation services. Typically, that means bus passes. Given the program's safeguards, the idea that the administration would give away free cars was laughable. We rated this statement Pants on Fire.
Want more? Read all our fact-checks on immigration.
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Gordon Marvil brauchte ein neues Logo Design und hat einen Wettbewerb auf 99designs gestartet.
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Gordon Marvil Business Saver
Business Saver is a re-branding of Gordon Marvil Advantage - a business benefits / saving program that was developed after seeing the number of businesses struggling to survive. It is a membership based program that enables access to savings on merchant services, insurance, telecommunications, IT, Gas & electricity. It was developed after seeing how much small to medium businesses pay / are ripped for these services.
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Home Page Chess Life Online 2012 January The January Check is in the Mail
|The January Check is in the Mail
|By Alex Dunne
|January 8, 2012
Abe Wilson 43.95
Chuck Cullum 43.45
Patrick Ryan 38.35
Shane Schultheis 38.35
R. McLaughlin 35.80
Chris O'Connell 36.75
Steven Smith 34.65
James Ellis 32.90
Gary Adams 32.70
Edward Addis 32.40
Patrick Ryan 31.75
Edward Lupienski 31.65
Steven Smith 31.10
Bruce Reynolds 30.50
Barry Walker 29.65
Peter Radomskyj 29.55
Thomas Connelly 29.40
David Porter 28.40
Wayne Pressnall 27.20
Mark Robledo 26.05
Michael Allard 25.05
Mark Robledo 23.80
Jiri Kovats 21.65
Preston Ladson 20.00
Michael Allard 18.30
William Jempty 17.65
Mark Garner 17.10
A, J. Zeppa 12.20
With the winter winds beginning to blow, Abe Wilson has two achievements the rest of the chess world can envy: he lives in Hawaii and he has won the Golden Knights tournament for the second time.
Abe began his correspondence chess career with the 1987 Golden Knights and progressed up the ranks, finishing fifth in 1995 and fifth again in 1996, becoming a CC Master in 1999, and winning the 2000 Golden Knights. And now he has annexed the title again, becoming one of the nine men who have won the tournament twice over the sixty years of Golden Knight play.
Abe Wilson's game is usually geared to a slower, methodical takeover of his opponent's game. Here he shifts gears into an attacking mode.
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 c6
This escape hatch for the Queen is a usual part of the Center Counter tabiya. If 5...e6 6. Bc4 Nbd7 7. Bd2 Be7? 8. Nd5 Qa4 9. Bb5 wins
6.Bc4 Bf5 7.Bd2 e6
Black can also play more meekly with 7...Qc7, but Center Counter players are not typically meek players.
8.Nd5 Qd8 9.Nxf6+ gxf6
Black can safely recapture 9...Qxf6 though the Queen is not particularly well placed on f6. After 10. Qe2 Black has to avoid 10...Bxc2?! 11. d5! cxd5 12. Bb5+! Nc6 13. Nd4 with complications that favor White. Saner is 9...Qxf6 10. Qe2 Nbd7 11. 000 Nb6 12. Bb3 as in Karpatchev-Kuehn, Oberliga Baden 2001
Now on 10. Qe2!? Black can safely take the c2 Pawn -- 10...Bxc2 11. 00 Be7 12. Bh6 Bg6 13. Rad1 Nd7 with about even play Nispeneau-Stefanova, Krynica 1998
10...Qc7 11.Qe2 Nd7 12.a4
This is a critical situation for the opening -- where is Black's King going to live?
12...Bd6 13.a5 0-0-0
Black had two choices here -- kingside or queenside. After 13...c5 14. 000, Black can try 14...00, though White is better. Now Wilson has a target.
14.a6 b6 15.Nh4
This is a standard idea in this position and quite effective. The Knight will either exchange itself for the Bishop on g6 or reposition itself via g2, and though it doesn't make it in this game, then either f4 or e3 depending on Black's play. There is also the possibility of playing f2-f4-f5.
15...Bg6 16.g3 Kb8 17.0-0 b5?
Black's idea is to drive his knight to d5, but there was a better route with 17...f5!? and Nf6-d5. Now Black is punished for loosening his King's shield.
Of course! With Black's g6 Bishop and h8 Rook out of the picture, White can unleash a lot of firepower against the Black King.
18...bxc4 19.Bxc4 Nb6 20.Rfc1 Qe7
White can mop up after 20...Nxc4 21. Rxc4 Rc8 22. Rac1 Qb6 23. Qf3 Qxa6 24. Rxc6 Rxc6 25. Rxc6 Qa1+ 26. Kg2 Qxb2 27. Nxg6 hxg6 28. Qxf6 Rc8 29. Rxd6 Qxd2 30. Qxf7 Qd3 31. Qxe6+
21.Ba5 Rc8
21...Bc7 isn't much better after 22. Bb3 Rxd4 23. Nxg6 hxg6 24. Rxc6 Qd8 26. Rac1 when Black is all tied up.
22.Bxb6 axb6 23.a7+ Ka8 24.Qf3 1-0
Black has no good defense to Bb5. After 24...e5 the ending is won by 25. Nxg6 hxg6 26. Bd3! f5 27. dxe5 Bxe5 28. Rxc6 Rxc6 29. Qxc6+ Qb7 30. Qxb7+ Kxb7 31. Bd5 Rd8 32.Bd5+!
John Collins
Kenneth Douglas 09C42 5-1
Ron Hall 10C30 4 ½-1 ½
Robert Eisthen 09C44 5 ½-½
Jeffrey Levin 10C31 6-0
Jack Sarhage 10C34 6-0
Lee Kemfort 10C08 6-0
Swift Quad
Beilin Li 10SQ09 5-1
Kairav Joshi 11SQ01 5-1
Walter Muir
John Badger 11W09 4-2
Vladimir Iglesias 11W09 4-2
John Wright 11W30 5 ½-½
David Long 11W27 6-0
Zackary Dressner 11W31 6-0
Inoel Cardenas 11W10 5-1
Joseph Hawkins 11W10 5-1
Michael Burrus 11W21 5 ½-½
Jerome Lewis 10P06 6-0
Trophy Quad
Ken Koepplin 10Q08 5 ½-½
Dennis R. Kohler
Dennis Kohler died November 19, 2011, at the age of 81. Dennis was a prolific CC player, finishing over 500 games in USCF play by post, email, or server. He jointly holds the American record of playing the most games with one opponent, over 143 games with his long time chess friend Hobart Newton.
LEARN CHESS BY MAIL ! Lessons given by mail, telephone, ICC - many different ways. I specialize in players rated 800-2100 who would like to improve their game. Contact me for information. Alex Dunne, 324 West Lockhart St., Sayre, PA 18840 or [email protected]
Chess booklet for sale: 2004 Golden Knights Championship -- booklet of the 57th USCF CC Championship -- $10.00 postage paid. 35 pages, 90+ games
Quote: "Correspondence chess is not a school for technique or an academy for virtuosity, it is a discipline of deep thought, of research, of tenacity. There is no place for the easy and convenient draw by agreement, but there is always the torment of the search for the best". -- Napolitano
The 2012 Absolute championship will be starting soon. The Absolute is our premiere invitational tournament, the best of the best. I am looking for some angels to donate to the prize fund to give these e-warriors a purse to fight for. Please send in your donations clearly marked USCF Absolute prize fund to USCF, PO Box 3967, Crossville, TN 38557, or to me, Alex Dunne, PO Box 367, Sayre, PA 18840.
Let's make the 2012 Absolute a big success!
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he is bringing a server to the USCF. I have received news from a higher power that the USCF will have a server, soon, Stay tune to a USCF near you for further details on this special present.
What will it mean to USCF CC players? For one thing all the new email tournaments will now be available as server play. You will be able to view your up-to-date crosstables on line, no more recording errors, and your CC bookkeeping will be done for you.
The server will also be a boon to OTB players, but I believe it will benefit the CC world just as much if not even more.
If you are rated above 2200 and would like to try your skill against the best of the best, it is not too late to make a bid to play in the 2012 Absolute. Once again it is that time, time to form the USCF Absolute Championship. The thirteen top-rated applicants will be selected to participate. This is a computer-free tournament so it will hopefully be a contest of human vs. human. Send in your bid soon as the tournament will be formed shortly.
Working hard to push his b-Pawn to queen, Black suddenly shifts ground to create a surprise mating net on the kingside.
Is this the end of the Belgrade Gambit (5. Nd5)? A major improvement for White is needed.
After White sacrifices a queenside Pawn on move three, he spends the next thirty moves scrambling to justify its loss. Through sheer will power he succeeds.
Jeffrey Levin's Knights show that a 15-year layoff from postal chess hasn't cooled their hoofs any.
Masters sometime have to make something out of nothing. Patrick Stephens proves that sometimes Class A players can do it, too.
Some sharp center tactics determine whose hyphen is the winner.
Black plays this game like he owns it - Suddenly the White King finds itself on h5.
Tacticians will enjoy this banquet.
For more by Alex Dunne see a pdf index of Check is in the Mail columns.


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Blacks in Gaming at GDC 2018: Event Recap
Team Xbox was proud to once again host the annual Blacks in Gaming Green Room during Game Developers Conference 2018. More than 200 game developers and industry professionals attended for an evening of strengthening connections within the community of black game creators and highlighting & celebrating their successes.
Watch a short video about our late community Member Gerald A. Lawson. and find great shots from our event photobooth.
Held at the beautiful Minna Gallery, the event included fireside chats hosted by Kahlief Adams of the Spawn on Me podcast. Featured speakers included game streamer Simply Undrea ; Jay Bobo and Latesha Williams, creators of the hit game Black Card Revoked; Dr. Kishonna L. Gray, Assistant Professor at University of Illinois - Chicago; and Charles Webb, Senior Writer on Mafia III. All of the fireside chats were video recorded and are available online at the links above.
Continuing the theme of celebrating the accomplishments of black game developers, we at Team Xbox were also excited to introduce our Jerry Lawson Grant for Career Development in honor of Gerald A. "Jerry" Lawson (1940-2011), one of the first African American engineers in the video game industry and inventor of the Channel-F gaming console, the first gaming system to utilize swappable ROM cartridges. The grant provided five indie game developers who identify as black and/or of African descent with GDC Conference + Summits passes and an opportunity to meet with Kareem Choudhry, CVP of Microsoft Gaming Cloud.


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Welcome to the South Madison Community School Corporation website. Thank you for your interest in the school district, where it is our goal to serve you. South Madison's objective is to provide you with meaningful and helpful information regarding the school system through this website. Your questions and feedback are encouraged and welcomed.
South Madison Community Schools are committed to providing a challenging curriculum, skilled instructors, and a learning environment that responds to individual student academic needs. Administrators and teachers set rigorous and challenging expectations for learning and support students to achieve high standards. The district continues to focus on student achievement with the goal of becoming one of Indiana's highest performing school districts.
South Madison's success directly connects to a dedicated, highly qualified staff; active and strong parental involvement; and a supportive and generous community. If you have not yet become involved in the education of your child or the children of this community, I encourage you to do so. Ensuring that children receive the guidance and encouragement they need to be successful are among the most important and rewarding things we will ever do. Together we can and do make a difference in the lives of children each and every day.
I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for South Madison Community School Corporation. By combining our efforts, we can provide the best educational experiences possible for the students of this school district.
Joe Buck


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Zombies are the chocolate. World War I is the peanut butter. In By the Blood of Heroes, Joseph Nassise is the guy who puts them together. How does it taste?
I always swore I'd never write a zombie novel.
I mean, come on, seriously. Rotting corpses with minimal intelligence endlessly wandering around with a taste for human flesh? What's the point? What kind of villain is that?
No, I wasn't going to write a zombie novel. No way, no how. What I wanted to write was a Dirty Dozen kind of story, a near-suicide mission-behind-enemy-lines kind of thing, except I wanted my version to be set World War One instead of World War Two. I could add lots of steampunk gizmos and gadgets to give it a unique flavor as well.
But as I began to write, I realized that something was missing. My villain, the Baron Manfred von Richthofen, just wasn't cutting it. He was too…average…and what I needed was a villain that made the reader sit up and take notice. I dug through my notes, looking for a hook that I could use to make him a bit more sinister in the overall scheme of things.
Noting that, historically speaking, Richthofen had been shot down and killed in April 1918, I asked myself how the war would have changed if that hadn't happened. What if he had lived? What if he had continued to add to his amazing streak of victories, bringing his confirmed kills to well over his historical total of 82 enemy planes? Would that provide the oomph I needed?
I didn't think so. But the pump had been primed and other ideas began to flow as a result. What if he'd been shot down but lived through it? Even better, what if he had died but then rose again to continue fighting?
My pulse kicked up and I knew I was on to something. Richthofen gets shot down but rises again, the undead enemy ace determined to win the war for the Kaiser. That sounded pretty cool; I could work with that.
I just needed to come up with a plausible reason for it.
The idea that Richthofen was a vampire occurred to me but was just as quickly discarded. After all, Kim Newman had already done that, and done it extremely well, in his classic The Bloody Red Baron. Besides, I was almost as tired of vampires as I was of zombies. Making Richthofen a werewolf wouldn't work either; can you imagine him going through a Dog-Soldier-style transformation while in a wood and canvas biplane fourteen thousand feet in the air? Not a pretty sight.
Ghosts. Ghouls. Spectres. Warlocks. All were considered. All were just as quickly cast aside. Still, I knew I was on that right track. I could feel it. There had to be something…
Since I wasn't having any luck, I decided to look at the problem from a different direction. Instead of worrying about what kind of undead creature to make Richthofen, I thought about the mechanism I needed to make him into whatever-it-was he was to become. I pictured him there in the middle of no man's land, his Fokker triplane crumpled around him, his blood leaking into the earth. What was already on that battlefield that I could make use of?
Mud. Corpses. Rats. Barbed wire. Trenches. Gas.
Wait a minute, I thought. Gas.
A quick dig through the various books on my desk told me that the first use of poisoned gas on the Western Front was by the Germans during the Second Battle of Ypres. 5700 canisters containing 168 tons of chlorine gas were released toward the Allied lines at sunrise on April 22 and the yellow-green gas was so effective that it surprised even the German troops sent to follow up on the breakthrough it created.
I knew right then and there that I had my mechanism. What if the gas the Germans had invented had not been chlorine or mustard gas but had been corpse gas instead? What if the gas worked only on inert tissue, bringing the battlefield dead back as – dare I say it? – zombies? (Or, in the parlance of the story, shamblers.)
Everything fell together from that point forward. The gas would resurrect the dead, reinforcing the German army after every battle, promoting the Allies to begin burning the corpses of friend and foe alike in giant bonfires that filled the air with ash and soot. The swelling ranks would give the Germans the extra push they needed to force the Allies back almost all the way to Paris. The world would not just be fighting for freedom from tyranny but the very survival of the human race.
There was only one final detail to set it all in motion. What if one out of every ten thousand resurrected corpses came back with their faculties intact? Not just intact, but improved a hundred-fold? The newly resurrected dead would be smarter, faster, and able to withstand more pain and injury than a normal human being? What if Richthofen had died in that crash, only to rise again as one of these revenants? How would his increased drive and ambition, never mind loyalty to the homeland, impact that war around him?
And that, dear readers, is how I ended up writing not just a zombie book, but an entire series with zombies as a chief element despite my vow.
By The Blood Of Heroes: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Indiebound|Powell's
Read an excerpt. Follow him on Twitter.


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Discover MSC Grandiosa
Discover the Voyages Selection
The Straw Market
Japanese gates and little shops
The Port Lucaya Marketplace
Weather today
An MSC Caribbean cruise to Grand Bahama is a unique way to visit its capital, Freeport, which is easy to navigate on foot for visiting shops and restaurants. Freeport's main commercial district is centred on The Mall, located between Ranfurly Circus and Churchill Square, about ten blocks north.
Tourist activity is focused on the south end of East Mall Drive, around Ranfurly Circus and the International Bazaar, a faded warren of simple shops and cafés marked by red Japanese-style Torii gates. In addition to several restaurants, a straw market and assorted souvenir stands, a holiday to Grand Bahama offers duty-free shops selling jewellery, perfume, Cuban cigars, rum, resort wear and crystal.
An MSC Cruises shore excursion can show you Port Lucaya and the beachfront hotels of Lucaya which comprise a resort area with a more cheerful atmosphere than Freeport's, with carefully tended lawns and shrubbery, and tidy, candy-coloured shops and houses. A seaside suburb first developed in the 1960s, Lucaya is dominated by the massive Westin & Sheridan at Our Lucaya Beach and Golf Resort, fronting Lucayan Beach, with two golf courses. Across the street from this resort is Port Lucaya Marketplace, a busy, colourful tourist market overlooking the boats at Port Lucaya Marina, with shops selling the standard duty-free assortment of goods, open-air stalls displaying straw work and other souvenirs, and several lively restaurants and bars packed with vacationers.
The two main attractions outside Freeport – Lucayan National Park and Paradise Cove – lie on opposites sides of the town. Lucayan National Park encompasses forty acres of mixed forest, limestone caverns and sinkholes, mangrove creeks, a spectacular beach and several nature trails all less than a mile long. A trail from the car park on the north side of the highway leads to a six-mile-long underwater cave system, one of the world's longest.
Lucayan National Park
Port Lucaya
A beach
Fifty-five miles east of Miami, Grand Bahama was developed in the 1950s. It sprang up largely as a big playground for North Americans, effectively built from the ground up on a hundred-mile-long flat slab of bleached limestone bristling with towering, thin pine trees and edged by a ribbon of silky white sand and shifting multihued bands of indigo and jade waters.
For those aboard a cruise to Grand Bahama, the majority of life can be found three miles inland in the town of Freeport and her seaside sister suburb of Lucaya. Nearly all of the 47,000 inhabitants reside in these two towns, where they are joined each year by almost half a million visitors. Every year Grand Bahama receives a flow of guests ready to enjoy the island's new luxury resorts. With golf courses, a casino, shops and restaurants, Grand Bahama has much to attract those looking for an active outdoor adventure, as well as offering a relaxed beach
experience with the mile-long Lucayan strand and the less built-up Taino, Churchill, and Fortune beaches.
To the east of Freeport/Lucaya are the unspoiled and unembellished expanses of Barbary, High Rock and Gold Rock beaches, as well as the Lucayan National Park, which includes mangrove creeks that can be explored by kayak.
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Prof. Dr. Berna Arda
Arda was born in Gaziantep and finished primary and secondary schools there. Between 1981 and 1987 she studied medicine in Ankara University School of Medicine. In 1987 she had the right to enter the Department of Medical Ethics of this faculty by Medical Specialty Examination. She attained the "doctor of science" title by finishing medical specialist degree in 1990 and also PhD program in the same field in 1993. She become associate professor in Ankara University School of Medicine, Department of Medical Ethics in 1993 and was assigned to the full professor position in 1999. She has been conducting the chairpersonship of the department since 2003.
Dr. Arda served as associate editor for Turkish Journal of Medical Ethics (1994-1999) and as a member of Higher Council of Health between 2007 and 2008. She also worked as a member of Turkish High Council of Universities, Ethical Commission between 2003 and 2009 and UNESCO Turkey National Commission, Bioethics Specialization Committee (November 2006 – March 2013). She was elected to Turkish Medical Association High Disciplinary Council for the 2008-2012 period.
In August 2010, she was elected as a vice-president of WAML (World Association for Medical Law) and she is one of the Governors of WAML since 2006.
Dr. Arda has been to University College of London (UCL) as guest professor in the term of January-June 2008.
Apart from the ethics, occupational ethics license lectures she gives as an instructor at Ankara University School of Medicine and in other faculties of the university and "Medical Ethics and History of Ethics" program at her own department, "Science Ethics and History of Science" integrated lecture within the doctorate program of Ankara University Institute of Health Sciences and "Ethics" within the doctorate program of Ankara University Institute of Biotechnology and "Bioethics and Woman" within the Department of Woman Studies masters program of Ankara University Institute of Social Sciences are some of the lectures she has been regularly conducted since the 2003-2004 academic year. She also attended the "educators of ethics" courses as an instructor in different countries ( Manheim 2006, Riyadh 2007 and Baku in 2008).
She is the 2009-2013 period member of the Editorial Board of the "World Journal of Stem Cell". British Medical Journal, Journal of Medical Ethics, Journal of Medicine and Law, Journal of Science and Engineering Ethics, Health Medicine and Philosophy are the main journals for which she serves as reviewer.
Research and publication ethics, medicine and human rights, gen-ethics, bioethics, ethics education, the historical dimension of the disease concept are her main areas of interest. Being twenty-five of them in English language, she has more than one hundred publications.
Dr. Arda is married and has one daughter. (March 2011)


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The 2018 Volkswagen Tiguan truly has a design of its own. A bold character line runs from front to back, conveying chiseled strength, while hood contours deliver a momorable statement up front. The completely re-designed exterior is longer, wider and more dynamic from top to bottom. The interior has also been completely re-designed, providing more legroom and new color choices. Sharp modern styling creates an interior that you'll never want to leave. But, new comfort features doesn't necessarily mean dull. The 2018 Tiguan is smooth and responsive on paved roads and remains commanding and confident even if the road surfaces become more challenging.
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Wishing you a sparkly shimmery New Year!
I had a few other shots I wanted to share, but since Blogger insists on rotating my verticals horizontally, I chose not to include them. I didn't want you to start your new year with a crick in your neck!
Meanwhile, thanks everyone for the camera advice. I haven't made a decision yet, but you've given me a lot to think about. I'll keep you posted on what I eventually select!