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The Short and the Long of the U.S. Champs |
By Tom Braunlich | |
May 22, 2008 | |
GM Yury Shulman won the 2008 Frank K. Berry U.S. Championship and IM Anna Zatonskih won the 2008 FKB U.S. Women's Championship — in just about as opposite a fashion as is possible. Yury had it short and sweet, while Anna's road was long and exhausting. Eight moves for Yury today — and about 248 moves for Anna!
The game Friedel –
Shulman was a quick draw since a peaceful result was very agreeable to
both. Yury iced the title and Josh earned his 3rd and final
GM norm with a draw. Apparently Josh gets the title as soon as his
rating surpasses 2500, which everyone believes will happen soon.
Frank Berry U.S. Championship
Final Standings 1. Yury Shulman-7 2. Alexander Onischuk-6.5 3. Sergey Kudrin-6 4-6. Josh Friedel, Eugene Perelshteyn and Varuzhan Akobian-5.5 7-10. Alexander Ivanov, Benjamin Finegold, Boris Gulko and Julio Becerra-5.0 11-14. John Fedorowicz, Dmitry Gurevich, Gregory Kaidanov and Alexander Shabalov-4.5 15-18. Daniel Ludwig, David Pruess, Jesse Kraai and Alexander Yermolinsky-4.0 19-22. Larry Kaufman, Michael Langer, Dean Ippolito and David Vigorito-3.5 22-23. Sam Shankland-2.5 24. Sergey Galant -1.5 While Yury was relaxing and savoring his victory, Anna and Irina Krush were just beginning a long battle. Irina began the round with a ½- point lead but the pressure was on her when Anna defeated Battsetseg. Perhaps trying too hard for a win against Katherine Rohonyan, Irina got into great trouble and lost a piece in an ending. Fortunately she had an advanced pawn that tied down KatRo somewhat and made the win difficult for her. After Rohonyan missed a couple winning continuations Irina was able to steer the game into R+N vs R and earned a draw on move 108.
tied for first, the players now began the playoffs, with dozens of
spectators in the main room and dozens of players (many GMs and IMs) in
the commentary room watching on the projected MonRoi live game
broadcast. The lively atmosphere there with the enthusiastic kibitzers
was in contrast to the tense tournament hall. Two Game/15 games(with 3
sec. increment) ended in a split result. There followed two 5-minute
games which also were split.
Finally an
aptly-named Armageddon playoff determined the result of this grueling
finale. The rules called for one player to name the times (with black
having draw odds) and the other to chose which color she wanted. Irina
had white with 6 minutes, while Anna had 4 ½ minutes and the draw odds.
A tense game ensued and both players entered severe time trouble. At
one point Anna had 2 seconds left compared to 20 for Irina. But Anna's
draw odds were an advantage here — she could blitz out moves without
even thinking (just move the piece nearest to the clock!) while Irina
actually had to do something with her moves since she had to win. In
the end — Irina lost on time with 0:01 left on Anna's clock! You could
hardly script a finale that was more close. You can play through all the playoff games in the CLO report posted last night.
was naturally upset at the narrow defeat, but she returned to the
closing ceremony shortly afterwards smiling and in her usual cheerful
mood. Anna received a spontaneous ovation upon entering the ceremony
room, and of course more applause later when called up to receive her
award. In her speech she thanked the organizers and said she always
plays well in Oklahoma (this is her fifth time here) and that these
events have been important to her recent improvement.
Forgotten Space
the amiable awards ceremony it was clear that the space complaints
earlier in the tournament were long forgotten. Frank Berry admitted
that Alex Onischuk was right to bring up and press the issue. But the
interesting thing is that, after talking with the players, I realized
that it wasn't the size of the room or the number of players in it — it
was the way we had the tables arranged. We initially had them in three
long rows, with two boards per 8-foot table. This psychologically made
them feel "together" and thus a bit crowded. When we rearranged the
tables into individual "islands", they still were two boards per table,
but now the players felt isolated, which is a more pleasant feeling.
There was also a larger aisle between tables. The same number of
players, the same number of tables; but a much different "feel."
Performing this feat of successful rearrangement required only that we
find a 75-foot DSL cable to allow the MonRoi broadcast table to be
relocated into a cubbyhole on the other side of the room. Of
course we wish we had thought of this from the beginning, but such is
chess life. Other than this the tournament went very smoothly.
like to take this opportunity thank everyone on the tournament staff
and also the following commercial supporters of the event:
MonRoi — for their excellent website, videos, and live coverage.
House of Staunton
— for donating the beautiful chess sets used, reproductions of the
Fischer-Spassky set that will be autographed by all the players and
sold after the event with proceeds going to the USCF (see houseofstaunton.com for more info).
CruisingThroughLife.com — for adding a nice perk to the first prize, a deal for the winner to join the 2008 Caribbean Gambit Chess Cruise. (see http://cruisingthroughlife.com/chess2008/ )
Jeff Smith, of South Carolina — who donated $100 per round for the "Best Fighting Game" of the day.
Goddesschess.com and The Susan Polgar Foundation
— for generously donating $500 for the "GoddessChess 'Fighting Chess'
Award". This was awarded by Susan Polgar to Tatev Abrahamyan, who had 6
wins, 3 losses, and zero draws.
Thanks also to: Zeljka Malobabic for her tireless work as the MonRoi internet guru, photographer, and video editor. Betsy Dynako, the photographer for Chess Life, who made everyone look good. IM Alan Stein, for his live commentary and video game analysis online. Jim Berry, for his work as Chief T.D. and as a member of the organizing committee (and the USCF). And of course International Arbiter Frank K. Berry, for
his generous sponsorship and tournament direction. As for me, the Chief
Organizer, I'm just glad it is all over. Working on an event like this
has many rewards and many anxieties. Trying to get a bunch of
grandmasters to do something can often be like trying to herd cats. But
it is well worth it, as getting to know these great players better was
a real pleasure.


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Cruel Intentions
Director/Writer: | Roger Kumble |
Columbia; R; 97 minutes | |
Release: | 5/99 |
Cast: | Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon |
Cruel Intentions succumbs to the pitfalls that plague many remakes: great intentions sunken into underrealized expressions. De Laclos' novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liasons) gets recast into the lives of a few filthy rich private schoolers from Manhattan's Upper East side. The movie does alright when it confines itself to the ravenous nihilism of step-siblings Sebastian and Kathryn (Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Gellar) as they plot to seduce classmates and each other. Cruel Intentions looses its footing-which wasn't terribly secure to begin-when Kathryn bets Sebastian that he can't bed chaste Annette (Reese Witherspoon). If Sebastian wins, he gets to sleep with his sister; if he looses, he must give her his vintage '50s Jaguar. Of course, he starts truly falling for Annette, but his lack of acting ability can't express the internal changes.
The film flounders, unsure of whether to remain a dark, sex-driven comedy or spread on milquetoast morality and faint allusions to its respectable source. Cruel Intentions has compromised itself by stretching great material over characters and situations that are far too thin.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Note: All meeting dates, time, and locations based on the current Who's Who as downloaded from MyLCI.
If any are incorrect update your Club's Data on MyLCI and Email the District IT. email@example.com
An event every month that begins at 6:00 pm on day Third of the month, repeating indefinitely


text:
SANYA, China—To provide guests with an unparalleled experience of undersea immersion, China's new Atlantis Sanya resort deployed an array of cutting-edge HARMAN audio, video, lighting and control systems.
Located in the city of Sanya on China's Hainan island, Atlantis Sanya is the latest Atlantis-themed resort operated by Kerzner International. The resort's 52-story luxury hotel boasts over 1,300 guest rooms, including extravagant underwater suites that look out into the resort's massive Lost Chambers aquarium. The vast Aquaventure waterpark occupies nearly 200,000 square meters and includes waterslides that pass through the aquarium, in addition to snorkeling, scuba diving and live dolphin and sea lion interactions. Other amenities include well-equipped conference rooms and banquet halls for meetings and events, an upscale shopping center and a total of 13 different restaurants and bars. The resort deployed an array of JBL, AKG, Crown, Soundcraft and BSS audio technologies to distribute audio throughout the complex, as well as advanced AMX video systems and Martin lighting fixtures for multimedia integration and striking visuals.
"Atlantis Sanya aims to provide an unforgettable aquatic experience for guests," said Project Leader at CCW, Atlantis Resorts Consultants. "To accomplish this goal, we needed high-fidelity audio and advanced multimedia systems throughout the facility, as well as the latest control systems to operate it seamlessly. HARMAN Professional's world-class, scalable audio-visual systems empower the Resorts to create a unique and immersive experience."
Over 1,500 full-range JBL loudspeakers provide total coverage and clarity for background music and announcements throughout the Atlantis Sanya's restaurants, shops and common spaces. Waterproof, weather-resistant models cover the waterpark and other outdoor areas, delivering the same full-range sound with extra protection from the elements. Many of the hotel's rooms and suites feature surround-sound entertainment systems with recessed JBL loudspeakers in the walls and ceilings for spacious, immersive sound. The entire integrated audio system is powered by 57 Crown DCi amplifiers, which are connected, zoned and controlled by a digital network of over 100 BSS signal processors, control panels and paging stations.
Atlantis Sanya's meeting spaces, conference rooms and banquet halls are fully equipped with the latest HARMAN audio-visual solutions, ready to facilitate anything from international corporate events to elegant wedding receptions. AKG wireless microphones deliver crystal-clear audio for event speakers, while JBL loudspeakers and Crown amplifiers provide plenty of power without sacrificing intelligibility. Soundcraft digital consoles offer a powerful yet streamlined mixing solution, and dozens of AMX video matrix switchers, presentation systems and touchscreens offer seamless multimedia control.
At night, Atlantis Sanya's contemporary fin-shaped main tower is illuminated with dazzling multicolor lighting displays. 20 Martin Exterior Projection 1000 fixtures project beautiful washes of color, texture and sharp graphics onto the outside of the building.
"HARMAN Professional Solutions provided with world-class AV technology backed by unequalled industry experience," said Project Leader at CCW, Atlantis Resorts Consultants. "Their top-notch audio solutions, stunning multimedia technology and advanced control systems integrated seamlessly, and their service and support throughout the installation was invaluable in helping provide an unforgettable experience at Atlantis Sanya."
HARMAN (harman.com) designs and engineers connected products and solutions for automakers, consumers, and enterprises worldwide, including connected car systems, audio and visual products, enterprise automation solutions; and services supporting the Internet of Things. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson® and Revel®, HARMAN is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform around the world. More than 50 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and connected car systems. Our software services power billions of mobile devices and systems that are connected, integrated and secure across all platforms, from work and home to car and mobile. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In March 2017, HARMAN became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
David Glaubke
Director, Public Relations
HARMAN Professional Solutions
© 2018 HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson are trademarks of HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated, registered in the United States and/or other countries. AKG is a trademark of AKG Acoustics GmbH, registered in the United States and/or other countries. Features, specifications and appearance are subject to change without notice.


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Conservatives Give Gay Wedding Guidance
When Gerald Skolnik, the president of a group of 1,600 Conservative rabbis, was asked to officiate at a gay wedding last year, he didn't know where to start. "I was flying by the seat of my pants," he said. Should the wedding look like a heterosexual ceremony, or something else entirely?
Now he has guidelines to turn to. After years of deliberation, the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly has provided guidance to rabbis for performing same-sex marriages.
On May 31, the assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved templates, culminating a six-year-long process that began in 2006 when Conservative leaders first officially sanctioned gay relationships. Created by Rabbis Daniel Nevins, Avram Reisner and Elliot Dorff, the ritual guidelines detail two types of gay weddings, as well as gay divorce. "Both versions are egalitarian," said Nevins. "They differ mostly in style—one hews closely to the traditional wedding ceremony while the other departs from it."
The guidelines passed on a vote of 13 to 0 in the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, with one rabbi abstaining.
Neither template includes kiddushin, a step in the ceremony in which the groom presents his bride with a ring. It is regarded by most traditionally observant Jews as the essence of the ceremony that constitutes it as an act of marriage.
Instead, the templates detail a ring exchange that is based on Jewish partnership law, an established halachic concept, said Nevins.
"We acknowledge that these partnerships are distinct from those discussed in the Talmud as 'according to the laws of Moses and Israel,'" said Nevins, referring to the words used in kiddushin, "but we celebrate them with the same sense of holiness and joy as that expressed in heterosexual marriages."
The committee's templates are meant not as exclusive formulations that the rabbis would be required to use but as guidelines that Conservative rabbis can rely on. The three authors of the templates, who consulted with gay and lesbian rabbis, among others, in preparing their proposals, have stressed that that they understand individual rabbis retain significant autonomy in interpreting law. Rabbis, they said, will continue to explore and improvise in this still new area of Conservative Halacha.
In the traditional Jewish marriage ceremony that has been performed through the ages, the rabbi recites the first blessing over the wine and a second over certain prohibited sexual relationships. Next is the ring ceremony, followed by the reading of the ketubah, or the legal agreement. Finally, the rabbi recites another seven blessings, known in Hebrew as the sheva brachot. Then comes the breaking of a glass underfoot, followed by a hearty "mazel tov!" Conservative rabbis have used this model as a jumping-off point for gay unions.
For gay weddings, the forms are still evolving. With the assembly releasing its own marriage templates, four Conservative rabbis, some new to gay commitment ceremonies and others familiar with them, shared their rituals with the Forward:
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Rabbi Menachem Creditor, who helms congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, Calif., is a traditionalist when it comes to marital rites. "The important thing for me is that same-sex marriage is marriage," he said. "It is not something different."
In the 10 years that he has been conducting gay marriages, Creditor has changed virtually nothing in the conventional marriage ceremony, adjusting only gendered language where appropriate. "I see every traditional form as pregnant with meaning," he said.
Creditor's perspective is not uncommon among Conservative rabbis. For instance, across the country, Rabbi David Lerner of Temple Emunah outside Boston also hews closely to traditional rites. "I tried to keep the elements as similar as possible so if you walked into that ceremony you would say, 'I am at a Jewish wedding,'" he said.
But Creditor goes a step beyond most rabbis, maintaining language that might strike others as inapplicable to gay couples. Creditor keeps most of the text in the last of the seven blessings, which refers to the rejoicing of brides and grooms. He changes only the last line to refer to a groom and a groom — or a bride and a bride. The wording "is not an imposition on a gay couple that they should be straight," he said. "It is an admission that sexual orientation is not a reason to limit joy."
Rabbi Gerald Skolnik
In contrast to Creditor, Skolnik has used a service that hints at the traditional Jewish wedding but ultimately deviates from the ancient rites.
Skolnik, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, roots his ceremony in a foundational Jewish ritual: the blessing over the wine. But for the second blessing dealing with sexual prohibition, he substitutes a prayer from the sheva brachot, which blesses God "who creates man in your image." "It was an acknowledgment that whether gay or straight, you are a sacred human being," said Skolnik.
Skolnik created the ceremony last year for a gay male couple at Forest Hills Jewish Center, where he is a pulpit rabbi. By his own admission, Skolnik was hesitant in applying traditional Jewish marriage rites to a homosexual union. "My effort was to try and craft some kind of ceremony that would be spiritual and Jewish, but not a clone" of traditional marriage, he said.
The ceremony did not take place under a chuppah, nor do the grooms break glasses underfoot. Rather than use the traditional prayer over the ring exchange, Skolnik replaced it with language he found on a liturgical website called Ritualwell. Though a surrogate ketubah was present, the seven blessings were not.
Though Skolnik was reluctant to map traditional wedding rites onto a gay union, he had no qualms about marrying the couple in the eyes of the state. Since gay marriage is legal in New York State, Skolnik signed the couple's marriage license.
Rabbi Ayelet Cohen
"My starting point," said Ayelet Cohen, former rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, Manhattan's LGBTQ synagogue, "is that a contemporary Jewish wedding should be a wedding between two individuals." In other words, the basis for her ceremony is equality between the betrothed, gay or straight.
Cohen, who first drafted a ceremony for her lesbian sister, maintains the broad structure of Conservative rites, but alters the liturgical language to square with contemporary mores. The wedding takes place under a chuppah and includes the first blessing over the wine. For the second blessing, she thanks God for sanctifying human sexuality. "Blessed are You, our God, Source of Life, who frees us from fear and shame and opens us to the holiness of our bodies and their pleasures," she says.
In traditional weddings, a man gives a woman a ring. Like many Conservative rabbis, Cohen makes this portion of the service a reciprocal ring exchange. But she does not change the liturgy. "For people who are familiar with the traditional Jewish wedding, this is one of the pieces that feels most authentic."
Cohen reads the ketubah and then recites the seven blessings, changing the wording about a bride and a groom to refer to same-sex individuals. The fifth blessing, which describes a barren city now filled with children, troubles Cohen in its implication that a couple would be happy only if they procreate. Instead, Cohen changes the language to rejoice in the "uprooting of senseless hatred" from the earth.
"I think it is about the couple repairing the world through a commitment to perpetuating the next generation," she said. "I don't think it has to be about them actually raising their own children."
Rabbi Stuart Kelman
Rabbi Stuart Kelman, now retired from Congregation Netivot Shalom, formulated a ceremony that parallels, but does not replicate, a Jewish heterosexual wedding. "I wanted to develop something that is equal in function to the traditional ceremony," he said. "You can easily change the words so long as the words do the same thing as the original."
At the time he drafted his ceremony, Kelman said, gay marriage was such a new phenomenon that "I felt that it needed a name to distinguish it from a heterosexual union." But he points out that today the practice is commonplace.
Kelman's model is not a wedding but a Brit Reyut, or "covenant of love." His ceremony utilizes a new terminology. Instead of a chuppah, the couple marries beneath a sukkah. The ring ceremony is a chalifin, the Hebrew term for exchange. Kelman utilizes a shtar, or a deed, in place of a ketubah.
The service begins with the blessing over the wine. But in place of the prohibition on sexual activity, Kelman substitutes the shehecheyanu, a prayer for special occasions.
And both partners break glasses.
Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected] or on Twitter @NaomiZeveloff


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Remarks at the Australia-United States Ministerial
Secretary of State
FOREIGN MINISTER RUDD: Thank you very much. First of all, could I say to both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State how terrific it's been to have you here in Melbourne. Back in Washington, I said to both Hillary and Vira, a friend to Bob, we intended to show you a good time in Australia. I hope we've delivered on that. Neither had been to the great city of Melbourne before. They've had a bit of time to get out and about to see this town. And it's been fantastic to be here and the weather gods have smiled on us miraculously for three days.
Also, the Secretary of State has been out and about with Australian students – the great forum yesterday at Melbourne University. Also, we had an opportunity, as four ministers yesterday, to pay our respects to Australians who are dead at the Shrine of Remembrance. And always a telling reminder of the ties that bind, and those ties have often been purchased with the ultimate sacrifice.
Beyond that, of course, our principal purpose in being here is for AUSMIN itself, the 25th occasion in which we have met in this forum. And as we approach our 60th anniversary of our alliance and this year celebrate the 70th anniversary of our diplomatic relationship, we had plenty to talk about – not just a rehearsal of past values and continuing values and common values, but also the application of this alliance to our future challenges and opportunities in the region.
Together, we reaffirmed our commitment to the ongoing international effort in Afghanistan. This is a tough fight, but we are there as continuing and enduring and strong partners of the United States and our other NATO and ISAF allies. We affirmed our support for Pakistan and given the challenges that that country faces, but its critical relevance to what we are seeking to do together in Afghanistan itself. We have expressed our deep concern for Iran's continuing nuclear program and we continue to monitor developments there closely.
Within our region, we've been reminded again today of some of the challenges which continue on the fundamental observance of human rights – the Burmese elections. We are waiting to see what precisely is produced by way of results there. These elections have been far from free and far from fair. A number of democratic parties have participated and we will be watching very closely what emerges from the Burmese political process. The people of Burma deserve much better than the regime they have got.
Of course, within our wider region, we are committed to building a strong, comprehensive, and positive relationship with the People's Republic of China. And I was in China myself recently and I know our American partners have – counterparts have been there in recent times as well. Elsewhere within the region, we reaffirmed the importance and the strength of our continued security cooperation with Japan and the Republic of Korea and others in Southeast Asia. These democracies within our region, these countries who have many common security interests with us – we are pursuing those interests together and in tandem with our alliance with the United States.
Of course, within our wider region, what we have also discussed and affirmed in our communiqué together is how we now deploy the East Asian Summit, which now includes the United States and Russia, to further develop our region's architecture. This is something which has been near and dear to Australia's heart for some time and we welcome the decision by the Government of the United States to join this regional institution. It provides us an opportunity to develop a regional set of rules and norms for security and political and wider behavior within the East Asian region. The architectural question has, in many senses, been delivered. Our challenge now is one of the evolving agenda of this body and how we make it work for the future so that all the countries of our region share a common rules-based order and abide by those rules.
Finally, on the global front, we also discussed our continued challenges in the global economy, our continued cooperation as Australia and the United States through the G-20. The Secretary of State in her remarks the other day spoke about the three Ds of American foreign policy and broader security policy – defense, diplomacy, and development. And against each of those measures, we in Australia are seeking to work as closely as we can with our American allies. The security relationship, the defense relationship speaks for itself. Our significant foreign policy and diplomatic footprints around the world and in the region work together.
But on the development front, as Secretary Clinton reminded us the other day, we are people of good heart and good spirit who seek to make the lot of humankind within our neighborhood somewhat better. And that's what we're doing through our own increase and our own overseas development assistance program, but working increasingly in partnership with USAID. Getting these three things right is about how we actually shape the future together.
So Secretary Gates, Secretary Clinton, Stephen and I have been delighted to be able to host you to this 25th AUSMIN. You are, as you know, always welcome guests here in Australia, and we look forward to this relationship continuing into the future at our next AUSMIN to be held in the United States.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Kevin, and thanks to you and Stephen and your respective teams for all the work and planning that went into this AUSMIN. I think it is fair to say that both Secretary Gates and I deeply appreciate the warm welcome we have received and the continuing consultation and planning that is really at the core of our alliance.
As Kevin said, we covered a very broad agenda, as is the case when we have these annual meetings. A lot of work goes on between them, so we were able to catch each other up on our respective perspectives and experience in the region and globally on the range of issues that Kevin just mentioned. Our efforts to strengthen the regional architecture – the United States joining the East Asia Summit and other connections from ASEAN and the regional forum to APEC – are really, in large measure, a result of the excellent advice that we received from Kevin over the past 20 months.
Talking about individual situations from North Korea to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, talking about the very important relationship that we each have with China and how best to proceed to ensure that it is a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive one – talking too about the importance of the security issues here in the Pacific, especially as the relate to our Pacific Island nation neighbors and friends, this was a broad, far-reaching, and extremely valuable set of consultations.
We also were pleased, finally, to be able to tell our Australian friends that the Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty finally passed in the United States Congress. That was a major accomplishment. And I can't help but say we now wait for it to pass in the Australian parliament and – (laughter) – then we can get about the business of working even more closely together.
So again, thank you. We look forward to hosting you next year.
DEFENSE MINISTER SMITH: Well, thank you very much, Kevin, to Secretary of State Clinton, to Secretary of Defense. I join with Kevin in both welcoming you officially to this year's AUSMIN consultations, but also to say that we've had a most productive conversation in the course of the day, traversing the array of strategic interests and challenges that Australia and the United States face now and include the future. Of course, the Australia-U.S. alliance remains the bedrock of our strategic, security, and defense arrangement.
We, of course, traversed Afghanistan, and I'll simply say that we are very pleased with the way in which Australia and the United States are combining and operating very well on the ground in Uruzgan province. With the departure of the Dutch recently, the reconfigured ISAF arrangement in Uruzgan is now the so-called combined task force Uruzgan, jointly partnered by Australia and the United States, and we're very pleased with that progress.
Kevin referred to the regional architecture and the future accession into the East Asia Summit of the United States and Russia. Bob and I were recently in Hanoi where, at defense ministers level, the same arrangement occurred for the first time, the so-called ASEAN Defense Ministers Plus, which saw the United States and Russia attending that meeting. So both in the economic and prosperity and in the defense base, the regional architecture is now, in Australia's view, set up for the future.
In terms of alliance cooperation and defense matters, we spoke about the United States' force posture review which has not yet been concluded. That is underway. We will continue to be in consultation with the United States in the course of that force posture review, and in due course, see what implications if any arise for Australia. Both the foreign minister and I have made it very clear over the last couple of days that, of course, we welcome very much the ongoing operational arrangement that we have with the United States, whether that is through our joint facilities or whether that is through visits and access to facilities. As for any future enhancement of that, we will make that judgment once the force posture review has itself been delivered, but we will continue to be in very close contact in that respect.
Having said that, we welcome very much – we welcome very much the United States' enhanced engagement in the Asia Pacific region, and we see the force posture review as adding to that enhanced engagement. In the materials that you've been distributed, you also see that we have made progress in two of the challenges of this century, newly emerging challenges both in cooperation in space surveillance and space situational awareness and also in the area of cyber and cyber attacks.
We also, as Secretary of State Clinton has said, welcomed very much the fact that the Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty has passed through the United States Congress. Our timetable is to endeavor to have legislation in the first parliamentary session of next year. We are very keen, urged on by Ambassador Beazley, to put ourselves in a legislative position to ratify the treaty. We are, of course, only the second nation after the United Kingdom in respect of which such a treaty will exist, and we welcome that very much.
Secretary of Defense Gates and I have also formally exchanged letters on the full knowledge and concurrence arrangements so far as to how (inaudible) communication station is concerned. There is no change in substance. These reflect for the future the arrangements that have been in place for some time, but we welcome that which reflects the ongoing nature of the joint facilities in Australia so far as Australia and the United States is concerned. Thank you.
SECRETARY GATES: First, I would like to join Secretary Clinton in thanking Foreign Minister Rudd and Defense Minister Smith for hosting us here today in Melbourne. This is the third opportunity I've had as Secretary of Defense to participate in the Australia-United States ministerial, and my second visit to Australia for AUSMIN. These gatherings, now in their 25th year, reflect the continued strength of our alliance and provide an important forum to advance our many shared interests.
In the defense arena, our ties are longstanding and deep. American and Australian forces have fought side by side in every major conflict over the past century, including the war in Afghanistan, a focus of our discussion today. Australia's efforts in Uruzgan province, including taking full responsibility for training the Afghan force brigade, are making a real difference on the ground and helping put Afghanistan on a path to providing for its own security. The United States Government, and I would say the American people, are keenly aware of the price Australia has paid as the largest non-NATO contributor of combat troops.
Last night, Secretary Clinton and I were honored to participate with Kevin and Stephen in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Shrine of Remembrance here in Melbourne, an enduring emblem of the sacrifices made by Australian troops and their families over the past century. Yet even as we reaffirm our strong shared commitment to Afghanistan, today, we also discussed our cooperation across a range of other issues to ensure that with our combined military capabilities, we'll be ready to address the new security challenges in the years to come.
To this end, we discussed efforts to enhance our presence and posture in the Pacific and how we can work together to do this more effectively as the United States Department of Defense begins discussions with allies on our Global Posture Review. Today, we agreed to create a bilateral force posture working group to begin developing options for enhanced joint defense cooperation on Australian soil.
We're also working hand-in-hand to enhance cooperation between our two nations in emerging domains such as space and cyberspace. The Space Situational Awareness Partnership Statement of Principle signed today, for example, will lead to greater cooperation between our militaries in the areas of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. This alliance has never been more important and the ties between our two nations and our two militaries, bonds of shared culture, interests and values give me great confidence that we stand ready to confront the challenges of this new century, as we have in the past. Thank you.
DEFENSE MINISTER SMITH: All right. (Inaudible) on the first question, can I add one personal note? And that is how delighted we were yesterday to participate at a ceremony here in Government House to have extended the Honorary Order of Australia in the Military Division to Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mike is an extraordinary leader in the U.S. military. He's become an extraordinary friend of Australia. As we said to Mike last night, we don't give these things out every day. We extend them to people whose contribution to our common cause, our common values, and to this nation is a decision which reflects the high regard with which the admiral is held.
Now, questions. I think, Heather, you have a question.
QUESTION: Thank you. Heather Youris, ABC Television, and my question is directed to Secretary of State. In the work that went on here this morning, have you been mapping out an exit strategy for Afghanistan? And what conditions would have to be set for this?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, to the contrary. We are in agreement that the strategies that we are implementing together in Afghanistan is the right strategy, and that we are committed to pursuing that strategy and being very conscious of the challenges that it poses to us. We are, at this point in our analysis, satisfied with how it is proceeding.
We have said from the very beginning that the goal is to be able to transition security to the Afghans themselves, starting next year. But that transition will be conditions-based and will be determined as the analysis of our commanders in the field suggests to the civilian leadership in both of our countries. It is really important to underscore that the progress that we believe is occurring is very challenging, it takes patience, it requires all of us to understand that this is a tough fight that we're in. But we're convinced that starting next year, there will be parts of Afghanistan that will be under the control of the Afghan Government and its security forces. We can't stand here today and tell you when or on what timetable or any of the details because we will be making those assessments based on the conditions as they occur.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much. If I could have a question now from one of our American colleagues here.
QUESTION: Good afternoon. My question is for Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now saying only a credible military threat can deter Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Do you agree with him? How long can the United States expect Israel to wait for sanctions that have so far failed to stop Tehran's nuclear program? And lastly, would you accept Iran's request to hold nuclear talks this month in Turkey? Thank you.
SECRETARY GATES: Well, first of all, the President has said repeatedly that when it comes to Iran, all options are on the table. And we are doing what we need to do to ensure that he has those options. That said, we are convinced that nonmilitary actions, including, most significantly, the most recent UN Security Council resolution and the individual countries' approval of even more rigorous sanctions including, I might say, Australia, is bringing pressure to bear on the Iranian Government that is getting their attention. We know that they are concerned about the impact of the sanctions. The sanctions are biting more deeply than they anticipated. And we are working very hard at this.
So I would say that I disagree that only a credible military threat can get Iran to take the actions that it needs to to end its nuclear weapons program. We are prepared to do what is necessary, but at this point, we are – we continue to believe that the political, economic approach that we are taking is, in fact, having an impact in Iran.
SECRETARY CLINTON: And I agree with Bob's description and I would only add that the so-called P-5+1 has offered to meet with Iran concerning its nuclear program. The Iranians have reached back out and said they would willing to meet, but so far as I know, there is not yet any date or time for that meeting. They know where they should be directing their response. That's to Cathy Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union. But certainly, we've made it clear we would welcome a return to the negotiating table.
MODERATOR: Can I ask for a question, I think, from Sabra Lane, from the ABC.
QUESTION: Brendan Nicholson from The Australian, to Secretary Clinton and Secretary --
MODERATOR: Brendan, I'm sorry. I said I'm badly briefed. Over to you, Mate.
QUESTION: That's good, thanks. To Secretary Clinton or Secretary Gates, China largely escaped the impact of the global financial crisis, and while many countries have been winding back on investment in their defense apparatus, China's been investing heavily in its armed forces. To what extent is the United States' consolidation of relationships in this region and your concerns about cyber security a consequence of these developments with China? And are you concerned about any backlash from China?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, the United States has a long presence in the Asia Pacific. We've been here for a hundred years. I think our fleet came in 1908, as I recall, at the direction of President Teddy Roosevelt --
PARTICIPANT: Had a good time.
SECRETARY CLINTON: -- and had a good time. (Laughter.) And we --
PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah. (Laughter.) And so we've been here, we are here, and we will be here. The United States is both a Pacific and an Atlantic power. And if there were any question or doubt about our intentions, I hope that the last 20 months of the Obama Administration has put those finally to rest. This is my sixth trip to the region. The President is on his second trip as we speak, currently in India. And just as with any alliance or any force posture, we have to be constantly evaluating, are we prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.
And that is the process that we are going through along with our colleagues from Australia and others in the region. But we are determined to strengthen and deepen our already strong alliances with countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand to build relationships bilaterally and multilaterally with other nations, to work through these regional organizations, to solve problems like maintaining the freedom of navigation and maritime security that is essential to trade and commerce throughout the region.
And we have a very robust dialogue with China where we discuss many of the matters that are of importance to both of us bilaterally and our position regionally and globally. And the United States has consistently said that we welcome the economic success of China, the positive effects that it is having on the Chinese people. As China becomes more of a player in regional and global affairs, then we expect that China will be a responsible player and will participate in the international framework of rules that govern the way nations behave and conduct themselves.
So we have – we're not doing anything differently in any significant degree. We are merely taking stock of what we're going to be needing to do in the future so that we are well-prepared and working closely with our friends and allies.
SECRETARY GATES: I haven't got a thing to add to that.
MODERATOR: What's that?
SECRETARY GATES: I haven't got a thing to add to that. (Laughter.)
MODERATOR: I thought that's what you said, but I thought I should check. One further question from our American friends.
QUESTION: This is for Secretary Clinton. Is it your understanding that there is a power-sharing agreement in Iraq where Talibani would stay on as president, Maliki as prime minister, and the al-Iraqiya coalition would offer the post of – be offered the post of speaker? And does this mean that the Iraqis have finally found a way to manage their ethnic rivalries and produce a functioning government?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Lachlan, until a deal on government formation is actually announced by the Iraqis themselves, I am not going to comment or respond. Probably over the course of the last eight months, we've had many indications that they were close to an agreement, they were on the brink of government formation, they had worked out their power-sharing arrangements only not to see that come to fruition.
But it is fair to say that we have been consistently urging the Iraqis to have an inclusive government that reflects the interests and needs of the various segments of the population, that there had to be legitimate power-sharing amongst different groups and individuals. And that is what we hope at the end of this process, and we hope we aren't near the end of it, will be the result of all of their negotiation.
MODERATOR: This is yours. Thank you.
QUESTION: I have a question to you, Secretary Clinton, and also to Secretary Gates. Secretary Clinton, how would you characterize the significance of these talks that you have held today and in regards to the force posture review? You hinted at yesterday that you would like to pre-deploy equipment here in Australia. What kind of equipment are you talking about? How soon might that possibly happen? And does that involve a permanent presence of U.S. troops with that equipment?
And to Secretary Gates, about this space awareness program, obviously the preference, it sounds like, is to place something at (inaudible). How soon would you like to see those radars in place? And specifically, we're not talking just about space junket satellites, but obviously keeping track of missiles and that some actions that might be mistaken as attempts by foes to – for exit at – seen in a good manner.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Let me answer the first part of your question, but the second part and this last question Bob should answer.
The first part is how would I characterize these talks? I would characterize them as extremely productive, constructive, very warm, and practical. We not only spoke about many of the issues we each see in the region as well as globally, but what we're going to do about them, how we're going to work together, what more we need to do in order to come to some recommendations about the way forward. And I have to commend both Kevin and Stephen because they think hard and very, very well about these difficult issues.
And so for Bob and me, this is an ongoing conversation. We just hold a public event like this once a year, but we're in constant contact back and forth all the time about what we see happening and the progress that we're making on the various issues that we're addressing. So I have a very high regard for both ministers, a deep appreciation for Australia's strong, diplomatic defense and development capacity and feel extremely satisfied at the outcome of this particular meeting.
SECRETARY GATES: With respect to force posture, first of all, we have, as a result of this meeting, established this force posture working group that will address the very issues you've asked about, and to look at the array of enhanced joint activities we might be able to undertake.
Beyond that, I would say speculation is way premature because I have not even made decisions within the Department of Defense on what I'm going to recommend to our own National Security Council and the President that we do in Asia, except to say that the one thing I believe we all agree on is we are looking at an enhanced presence in – for the United States in Asia, and not some kind of cutback. We – as Secretary Clinton said, we are a Pacific power. We have reengaged in a major way. And now, we are looking at the next steps in that.
With respect to the radars, we will begin discussions on this. It clearly does cover space debris in low and middle earth orbit space junk as well as satellites and so on, and we will be exploring what's of mutual benefit. And those discussions won't even begin until, I think, January.
FOREIGN MINISTER RUDD: (Inaudible) folks, for those in the broader community who ask questions about what an alliance is, I think from our point of view in Australia, it's pretty simple. An alliance is a relationship between friends who share common values, who stand by each other through thick and thin. That's the history of this alliance and that's the future of this alliance.
To Hillary and to Bob, safe travels. Hillary is going back stateside, Bob to Western Australia with Stephen, I think. Is that right?
SECRETARY GATES: I wish. (Laughter.)
PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) stateside as well.
DEFENSE MINISTER SMITH: Misrepresentation.
FOREIGN MINISTER RUDD: He's heading back as well. Thank you very much.


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If recyclables are in the trash cart they will be collected as trash and delivered to a landfill.
Show All Answers
For single-family homes that are currently on the city's Trash Collection Program
While regular trash pickup happens every week, the blue 95-gallon recycling containers will be emptied only every other week.
Download the app: Waste Connections has a mobile app to stay connected with updates, service schedules, reminders, alerts and recycling information.
Apple (IOS) App Herehttps://bddy.me/393et5H
Google (Android) App Herehttps://bddy.me/33xt4W4
NOTE: Bottle caps and plastic lids may be recycled, but WC asks they be removed from the bottles. If attached, the caps and lids shoot off during the compaction process and can be dangerous to workers.
Recycling conserves natural resources, saves landfill space, creates jobs and conserves energy.
Newspaper, magazines, catalogs, office paper, school paper, paper food boxes, shoe boxes, corrugated cardboard (flatten and fold to not larger than 3 feet X 3 feet square), soft bound books, junk mail, aluminum and steel cans, plastic food, beverage and household product bottles and jugs with #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7, glass bottles and jars. Please: no film plastic, Styrofoam or any glass other than food and beverage containers.
Collection of the recyclables will occur on an every-other-week basis on your normal trash collection day. Each residence will be provided with a collection calendar and the calendar may also be viewed on the City of Taylor's website.
Yes. The extra recycling cart(s) are $2.50 per month each.
Yes, however you will still be billed the $2.50 per month as all other residents.
Yes. In order to keep the cost low for all residents, this is necessary.
For missed pick-ups, please contact the City's Utility Billing Department at 512-352-2066.
Yes. Simply call the City of Taylor Utility Billing Department at 512-352-2066 to request the replacement. Repeated lost/damaged/stolen incidents may require the purchase of the replacement cart.
The $2.50 per month cost will begin with the March 5, 2018 billing cycle, and follow according to the normal billing cycle thereafter.
Contamination causes real problems at the recycling facility. The value of the recyclables is decreased and will eventually increase the cost of recycling. If the driver sees the trash in the recycling cart the cart contents will not be collected.
Call Waste Connections Customer Service Office to report the miss. The representative will have the appropriate instructions for that day and time of day. The Customer Service Number is: 512-282-3508.
Holiday pickup schedule is included in the calendar and on the City of Taylor's website. It is also published in the monthly newsletter, Community Connection, and on the city's social media pages.
Recyclables are manufactured in to new products; some in the United States and some in other countries around the world. Generally, they are manufactured back in to the same or similar products but sometimes they become a different product. For example, plastic soda bottles are often shredded and re-purposed as insulation in winter clothing, automobile interiors or other consumer goods.
Waste Connections can arrange for group tours of the Balcones Recycling Center in Austin. Call 512-282-3508 for information.
Call 512-352-3251 for assistance for water or street emergencies after 5 p.m. weekdays and all day on the weekends. Your call will be answered by Police Dispatch who will contact the Public Works staff on call.
The City no longer has a chipping service. However, the garbage provider, Waste Connections, will pick up bundled brush at the curb each week on your regular garbage pick up day. For piles of unbundled brush, contact Waste Connections for free estimates at 866-282-3508. Brush may also be taken to the Williamson County Landfill in Hutto located at 600 Landfill Road on FM 1660. For information on fees and hours of operation contact the Landfill at 512-759-8881.


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BAE Systems Building Two More PSVs for Jackson Offshore
BAE Systems' shipyard in Florida will build two additional platform supply vessels (PSVs) for Jackson Offshore Operators, LLC under a contract option the two companies signed in December 2012. The new vessels, which will service offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico, reflect BAE Systems' continued growth in U.S. commercial shipbuilding and its support to the oil and gas industry.
Each of the Jackson Offshore Operators vessels will be qualified under the U.S. Jones Act and will measure 252 feet long and 60 feet wide. BAE Systems' Jacksonville shipyard recently commenced construction on the first of two PSVs as part of the original contract. Those two vessels will be completed in 2015.
"It's an exciting time for Jackson Offshore Operators, and the exercising of this option is an example of our confidence in BAE Systems as a quality shipbuilder," said Lee Jackson, president and chief executive officer of Jackson Offshore Operators, LLC. "Like our other previously announced vessels being built by BAE Systems, once delivered, these vessels will be deployed on multiyear contracts in the Gulf of Mexico."
"We are very pleased that Jackson Offshore Operators has the confidence in BAE Systems to move forward with their additional ships," said Richard McCreary, vice president of BAE Systems Southeast Shipyards. "These ships will allow our Jacksonville shipyard to continue to grow its backlog and its employment, which is important in these times of federal budget uncertainty."
The GPA 675J PSV design is provided by Guido Perla & Associates, Inc. of Seattle. The vessels include an integrated Rolls-Royce ship systems package, inclusive of a low-voltage, active front-end diesel electric system and a complete Rolls-Royce propulsion package with Azipull propulsion thrusters.
The Jackson Offshore contract is part of a continued effort by BAE Systems to increase new ship construction projects at its facilities in Jacksonville, Florida and Mobile, Alabama. In Mobile, BAE Systems is currently building two dump scows, a trailing suction hopper dredge, and the first of two PSVs.
1,500 workers
BAE Systems currently employs approximately 400 people in Jacksonville and expects to hire an additional 120 workers there by the middle of this year. The company currently employs approximately 850 people in Mobile and expects to reach a total of 1,500 workers there by the end of this year.
BAE Systems is a leading provider of ship repair, maintenance, conversion, overhaul and new fabrication construction for commercial, private and government customers. The company operates six full-service shipyards in Alabama, Florida, Northern and Southern California, Virginia, and Hawaii, and offers a highly skilled and experienced workforce of more than 5,000 employees, dry docks, and significant pier space and ship support services. The company also has proven commercial shipbuilding, module fabrication and robust industrial fabrication capabilities at the Mobile and Jacksonville shipyards.
BAE Systems' customer base includes industry leaders operating offshore energy support vessels, oil exploration vessels, cargo ships, cruise ships, oil transportation vessels, and international carriers.
Press Release, March 20, 2013


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TUESDAY, Aug. 10, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- COVID-19 spreads like wildfire through crowded U.S. prisons, and researchers are calling for policy changes to protect inmates.
"We may need to have stricter thresholds for where we draw the line on how crowded a facility can be," study senior author Dr. Amir Mohareb said in a news release from Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is an infectious disease specialist.
Previous studies found that COVID infection rates are significantly higher in prisons than in the general population, but it was unclear to what extent crowding was to blame.
To find out, Mohareb's team analyzed weekly reports on positive COVID tests at 14 Massachusetts state prisons, the population of each, and the number of inmates each was designed to house (design capacity).
Crowding at the prisons varied greatly during the study period, ranging from 25% to 155% of design capacity.
The more crowded prisons were, the higher their COVID rates. Every increase by 10 percentage points in population relative to design capacity increased the risk of infection by 14%, the study found.
Mohareb noted that a prison doesn't have to exceed its design capacity to increase the danger for inmates. A prison operating at 80% capacity is riskier than one at 70% capacity, he pointed out.
The researchers also looked at the percentage of inmates housed in single cells. For every 10-percentage-point increase in number of inmates living in single cells, COVID risk dropped 18%.
Like other studies, this research found that inmates have more than six times the risk of COVID infection compared to the general public.
It also showed that infection rates in prisons tended to reflect those of their surrounding communities.
When Massachusetts' COVID numbers were low during the summer of 2020, they also tended to be low in prisons. But as community numbers spiked late last year, they also soared in local prisons.
"Prisons are intricately linked to their surrounding communities," Mohareb said.
Greater attention to infection control (through vaccination and routine testing) among guards, support staff, vendors and others who come and go from these facilities is essential, he said.
COVID shots are optional in Massachusetts state prisons and a large number of prison workers aren't vaccinated, researchers noted.
They said one way to reduce COVID-19 risk in prisons is to release inmates who are at low risk of reoffending.
"It was the almost universal opinion of experts in public health, infectious disease and epidemiology from the start of the pandemic that prisons were going to be places of immense suffering unless inmates were released in a coordinated manner," Mohareb said. "And that really didn't happen."
The findings were published Aug. 9 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19 and prisons.
SOURCE: Massachusetts General Hospital, news release, Aug. 9, 2021
© Tidelands Health.


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DETROIT (Jan. 14, 11 a.m. ET) — Like most of his generation, Mark West, chairman of the transportation department at the College for Creative Studies here, grew up turning wrenches and tinkering with cars alongside his father in the family garage.
But his 10-year-old son would rather play video games than play with tools.
Although enrollment at the nation's top automotive design colleges, such as CCS, remains steady, automakers say they are having a difficult time finding students who love cars and have a passion for design.
That's forcing design schools to find new ways to train students to become the hands-on car designers automakers want.
Ralph Gilles, Chrysler Group's head of design and a CCS grad, returns to the school regularly to recruit that type of student — a type that's becoming harder to find.
"I think in the last 15 years, especially the last 10 years, the automobile has been demonized a little bit," Gilles said during a presentation at the school in December. "These kids grow up with a lot bigger consciousness on green technology and the environment."
Joked Gilles: "Thank God for The Fast and the Furious."
Although some movies and video games featuring cars, such as the 2001 street-racing film The Fast and the Furious, remain popular, they do not provide a hands-on connection.
"The passion you develop from playing a video game is very different from the passion you develop when you're turning wrenches," said West.
Jim Farley, Ford Motor Co.'s global marketing chief, agreed.
"When I was a young person, all I cared about was cars," Farley said at the same December event. "My son's like that, but he's the exception. When I talk to young people who go into design, they didn't know Ford makes an ST. They don't really know much about Ford."
On his visits, Gilles tries to tell students that there are careers in auto design that are high-paying and international in scope, West said.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary of all industrial designers in 2010 was $58,230, while auto designers made an average of $88,630.
To meet the demands of the digital revolution and the rise of the gaming industry, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., created an entertainment design department in 2008.
Despite the new program's popularity, enrollment in transportation design has remained steady, an admissions official at the school said.
Other factors have made young auto designers a rare breed: the changing nature of high school curricula; teens getting their driver's licenses later in life; and the rise of the gaming industry.
A recent University of Michigan study found that only 60 percent of Americans 17 to 19 years old have a driver's license. Thirty years ago that number was 80 percent.
President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law, signed in 2002, required high schools to increase class time spent on math and reading, leading many schools to cut electives such as music, art, design and auto shop.
Since the late 1980s, major automakers have been sponsoring global research projects at CCS, said West. But since the mandated change in high school curricula, automakers have started to reach out to high schools to help generate interest.
In 2005, Detroit's automakers partnered with CCS to sponsor competitions, workshops and summer and weekend programs for local high school students to expose them to hands-on auto design.
In 2010, West also began working with the American Society of Body Engineers to host events around the Detroit area for high school students.
Looking ahead, Farley remains optimistic about the digital generation. But he believes the burden is on the automakers to get students interested.
Said Farley: "I really believe that if we make cars that are fun to be in, interesting, great to look at ... with powertrains that are super-efficient, I think we can still attract a lot of young people."


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From the Hans Christian Andersen biography "The Life of Hans Christian Andersen. Day By Day", written by DPhil Johan de Mylius:
The TelegraphVisit to Silkeborg
Collected Works
1853: The Telegraph
In this year
Release of Contes danois (Danish Tales), in Tours, France.
12 February
Performance of Nøkken. Opera i een Act (The Water Elf. Opera in One Act), with music by F. Glæaser - and not, as HCA had wanted originally, by Gade. The piece is performed 7 times during HCA's life.
23 February
The Water Elf is printed and released.
31 March
Sees a performance by the Price Company at the Court Theatre which includes a prologue by HCA. This is the first occasion on which he sees King Frederik VII (in a theatre box) with Countess Danner.
23 April
Arranges with Reitzel that 4,000 copies of his work Illustrerede Eventyr (Illustrated Fairy-tales) are to be printed, as well as a low-price edition of his Samlede Skrifter (Collected Works), consisting of 2,000 copies. The publisher Reitzel in fact dies shortly after this agreement is made.
31 May
Travels to Sorø, where he stays with the Ingemanns until 7th June. At this time, HCA reads the new novel by Carsten Hauch, Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steam-ship, with great interest.
Up in the large attic room of Ingemann's house, with a view of the lake, HCA sits reading the book and writes to Hauch about his impression of it:
"I have experienced, in my own development, the truth of what you have felt and given" (letter dated 3rd June).
He also writes to Henriette Wulff about the book (on 5th June), adding:
"Each day I have a minor dispute with Ingemann about the significance of inventions, as he values poetry higher than science, which I do not. He admits that ours is the great age of inventions, but only at a mechanical level, a material level; I consider this to be the necessary foundation for the spiritual, providing great branches upon which poetry may blossom. The fact that people draw closer to one another, that countries and towns are connected, through steam and electromagnetism, into one great community hall seems to me so spiritually great and wondrous that the thought of it elevates me to such heights as the song of any poet has ever been able".
To Henriette Wulff and Carsten Hauch he relates how, in Copenhagen, the poet and telegraph-director Peter Faber had recently demonstrated the principle of telegraphing for him. (Faber is the author of the Danish Christmas carol "Højt fra Træets grønne Top" (On the Green Tip of the Tree). The telegraph line Elsinore - Copenhagen - Fredericia - Hamburg was laid out in 1852-1853 and opened 1st February 1854. Use of the telegraph was thus demonstrated to HCA while it was still only the employees who practised on the line.
Peter Faber telegraphed up to the staff in Elsinore and told them that HCA was standing next to him. The staff in Elsinore replied by quoting:
"Every skipper has a wife", or as HCA writes in a letter dated 3rd June to Hauch: "[....] the entire first verse of one of my own oldest poems, written, I believe, during my school-days in Elsinore. I felt strangely overwhelmed by the enormity of the invention; it was as though I stood beneath the beating wings of an infinitely powerful spirit [...] I feel and see God's infinite love also in every new insight which he allows us into the laws and powers of nature, and the elevated power he thereby grants mankind [...] the material substance we gain is, after all, like the framework for building the temple of the spirit; people are drawn closer to each other; ideas may be exchanged more easily, more and more, we become one people, one nation of spirit. During the past few years, I have become so very interested in science. I am convinced that had I been as aware of its magnificence twenty years ago as I am now, I would probably have taken an avenue in life other than the one I now follow, or rather; I would have attained knowledge within such fields that my authorship would have blossomed quite differently than is now the case".
8 June
After a journey via Kalundborg and Århus, arrival in Vilhelmsborg (visiting Baroness Gyldenkrone), where he stays until 26th June.
1853: Visit to Silkeborg
20 June
Fuglen i Pæretræet (The Bird in The Pear Tree), which had first been performed at the Royal Theatre 1842, is now staged at the Casino Theatre. Here it is performed 17 times during HCA's life.
26 June
Learns that cholera has broken out in Copenhagen.
27 June
Arrives in Silkeborg, where he is a guest of Amalie (Malle) and Michael Drewsen until 15th July. During the stay he goes on a outing to the heath, where he sees a mirage and gypsies. Also takes a ride on a barge on the Gudenå (river).
8 July
Receives news that the psalm writer and playwright Pastor C.J. Boye has died of cholera:
"During the past few years he was so very acknowledging and sympathetic towards me that he had become very dear to me" (in Mit Livs Eventyr (The Fairy Tale of My Life).
16 July
Takes the steam-ship from Horsens to Bogense on Funen. Continues to Odense, where Skt. Knuds market is in progress. From here he goes to Glorup Estate, where he stays until 1st August. Here he takes part in the silver anniversary celebration of Count Adam Moltke-Hvidfeldt (large folk celebration).
During the stay at Glorup, Countess Elise Moltke-Hvitfeldt draws a portrait of HCA.
Hears that Oline Thyberg (mother of Edvard Collin's wife, Henriette) and Emilie Hornemann (a niece of Mrs Collin the senior) have died of cholera. HCA feels quite ill and decides to return to Silkeborg rather than go to Copenhagen. Calculates his monthly expenses at this time to 50 rdl.
3 August
Arrival in Silkeborg, where he remains until 6th September. Silkeborg and the area around this developing industrial town gives HCA a characteristic double view, which he mentions to Ingemann in a letter dated 23rd August:
Concerning the blossoming heath he says:
"This peculiar loneliness, which causes ones thoughts both to fly out into space and equally to grasp for strong roots within oneself, could surely create a poet. Few places in Denmark - and with these it is the near-by open sea which makes the difference - appeal to me as does the area around Silkeborg; these mighty knolls of heather lend the whole area a wonderfully moving grandeur"
He then continues the letter - probably inspired by the book Robert Fulton by Hauch, which he had finished reading at Ingemann's:
"As you know, there is a barge-service from here to Randers and back; the other day, the first steam-ship to Silkeborg came from up there, quite small and flat-bottomed, but still powered by steam; it was like a cultural rocket surging through the ancient countryside".
Sitting in the heather on the moor, HCA writes the poem "Dampskibet Gudenaa" (The Steamship Gudenaa). Travels from Silkeborg through Vejle, Middelfart and Odense (overnighting despite rumours of cholera being in the town) and on to Sorø.
1853: Collected Works
8 September
Stays with the Ingemanns for one week.
15 September
Returns to Copenhagen (the almanac: "we then drove into cholera town").
2 October
First mention in the almanac of Clara Heinke, a female German portrait painter (then 28 years of age) from Breslau. On this day, HCA writes that he has received a letter from her from Berlin. Later, a life-long correspondence between the two developed. It seems likely that she had strong feelings for HCA and that he also felt a certain interest.
3 October
Public notification in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende that the cholera epidemic is considered to be over.
22 October
Along with the other students from the year of 1828, HCA celebrates the 25th jubilee for those who became students in that year. The event is held at the Royal Rifle Range and HCA writes a song for the occasion. H.N. Clausen proposes a toast for Paludan-Müller and for HCA, while Madvig annoys HCA by making a toast to his wife!
7 November
The two first volumes of Samlede Skrifter (Collected Works) are published (including Improvisatoren (The Improvisatore)). The edition was to consist of 22 volumes of which 2 were released every other month up until July 1855. Volume 21 and 22 were Mit Livs Eventyr (The Fairy Tale of My Life).After this, new volumes were released with later works, to the edition included, at the time of HCA's death in 1875; a total of 28 volumes. In addition, there are 5 volumes from 1876, a supplementary volume to Mit Livs Eventyr 1877 and a final volume (poems) in 1879. A total of 33 volumes plus the supplementary volume.
The edition consisted of 2,000 copies.
HCA's article about the artists Jens Adolph and Elisabeth (nèe Baumann) Jerichau is printed in the Danish Folk Calendar for 1854. The Calendar also includes HCA's article on Silkeborg.
The poem "Silkeborg" is published in Almanak eller Huuskalender for 1854.
15 December
HCA is godfather for Nanny, the daughter of the artists Jens Adolph and Elisabeth Jerichau.
24 December
Christmas Eve is spent at the home of Jonas Collin.
25 December
Christmas at J.P.E. Hartmanns.


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This is the first box of brand new SA-30 rims seen stateside since the 80s.
For those of you not in the know, Araya was and still is one of the top manufacturers of rims in Japan. They make the rims for Shimano's wheel line and were one of the first manufactures to start exporting alloy mountain bike rims such as the RM-20, the first dedicated mountain bike rim on the market. These high polish aero beauties will look stellar on your classic track or road build, but wouldn't look out of place on a high zoot race bike either. Ask your local bike purveyor to contact Merry Sales about ordering you a pair of these.


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Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Mississippi coach Hugh Freeze spent 13 years coaching high school football in Tennessee so he feels very comfortable in the Volunteer State.
And his Rebels made sure he started and finished this season with victories in Music City.
Bo Wallace ran for two touchdowns and threw for another score, and Ole Miss beat Georgia Tech 25-17 Monday in the Music City Bowl. The Rebels opened the season edging Vanderbilt 39-35 a couple miles away, and they'll be back here in September to play the Commodores again.
"It feels like it's kind of a second home to me also," Freeze said. "Anytime we can be in this area we enjoy it."
Freeze said he also needs to get into Tennessee for some more recruiting. Wallace already is a native of Pulaski, Tenn., and Ole Miss' top rusher this season I'Tavius Mathers is from Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Wallace made up for his three turnovers in the Egg Bowl overtime loss by throwing for 256 yards and running for 86 more, giving him the school record for total yards in a season and most completions in a season, topping Eli Manning for both.
"I knew I needed to have a good game," said Wallace, also chosen the bowl's MVP. "At the same time, I thought all day sometimes I try to make too many plays. I think all day I was thinking, `Don't try to make too many plays. Just make the plays that are there.' That's what I did."
Ole Miss (8-5) now has won six straight bowls and 10 of the last 11 in making up for the lone loss in that stretch in the 2000 Music City Bowl. The Rebels came in tied with Auburn and Florida State, who play Jan. 6 for the BCS national championship, for the longest bowl winning streak.
"I didn't want to screw that up today," Freeze said. "So I'm glad to win two bowl games in our first two years. With what we inherited, I think says we're heading in the right direction for sure. It is a very positive step."
Georgia Tech (7-6) has lost eight of nine bowls. The Yellow Jackets scored 10 points in the fourth quarter as they tried to rally before a safety with 4:22 left ended their last chance.
"We didn't play well enough in any facet to win the game," Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson said. "We were fortunate that we had a chance at the end to come back and win."
Yellow Jackets lineman Adam Gotsis, who also blocked an extra point, knocked down a 32-yard field goal attempt by Andrew Ritter giving Georgia Tech the ball at their own 20 with 4:36 left trailing 23-17.
But Georgia Tech lost 5 yards on the first play, then Vad Lee flipped the ball to Corey Dennis on a reverse with the receiver apparently looking to throw when he fumbled under pressure. Right tackle Ray Beno covered up the ball in the end zone for the safety. Freeze said he thought it might have been a touchdown but was glad to get some points. Johnson wishes his player had just tried to run for what he could get.
"It's disappointing," Johnson said.
Ole Miss finally punted back to Georgia Tech with 37 seconds left. Senquez Golson intercepted Lee on the next play to seal the victory for the Rebels in the bowl, sponsored by Franklin American Mortgage Company.
With a month to prepare, Ole Miss shut down the nation's fourth-best rushing offense. Georgia Tech came in averaging 311.7 yards per game, and the Rebels smothered the Yellow Jackets, holding them to just 151 yards on the ground. Ole Miss held the ball for nearly 33 minutes and had a 477-298 edge in total offense.
"That's why it's so difficult to play them probably in a short amount of time," Freeze said. "You're going to be forced to play some of your base stuff. We were able to get some different stuff in."
Ole Miss had a 23-7 lead when the Yellow Jackets scored 10 straight points.
Harrison Butker capped a 64-yard drive with a 38-yard field goal in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter, then D.J. White intercepted a Wallace pass intended for Donte Moncrief. On the next play, Lee found Darren Waller for a 72-yard catch-and-run for a TD with 13:25 left.
Wallace scored on runs of 17 and 10 yards. He also connected with Moncrief on a 28-yard TD catch where the receiver went down the right sideline and then held the ball out at the pylon for the score in the second quarter.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams really aren't 'craft beer', though. By the legal definition they are, but not by any honest, realistic definition. Of course the 'most popular' are going to be the most widely distributed.The definition of "craft" beer is one of no little controversy, but can we agree that there's no definition that eliminates Sierra Nevada, makers of some of the finest beer on this or any other planet? Everything about Sierra Nevada bespeaks quality, from their processes to ingredients to recipes to quality control.
Okay, I guess there's one way to critique the brewery: size. Ken Grossman does not stand over a three-barrel mash tun with a wooden canoe paddle. His beer is brewed in industrial-sized tanks with the help of lots of technology. Some people feel that you can't craft a hundred-barrel batch of beer (or whatever Sierra Nevada's is); somehow, the volume prohibits it. The Brewers Association made a similar connection when it declared that craft breweries had to be small and independent, until the independent breweries grew--and now you don't have to be small anymore.
The problem with this of course, is that it means that every small brewery is a craft brewery, no matter if they turn out delicious beer or pond water. (And everyone who loves good beer has had the pond-water experience at some little brewery or another.) Brewery size and beer quality are not correlated. Good beer is good beer, no matter which system it's brewed on or who owns it.
I commend you to this hilarious, exquisite post from Alan, wherein he writes, among other things:
On the nose, there are notes of petroleum jelly and brown crayon. In my mouth, it is not the beer of yesteryear but a reasonably moderately soft slightly rummy middle with acrid burnt toast finishing beer. Bitter like a bit of white grapefruit set alight by a bit of damp cocoa pod coaxed into flame by a bit of gasoline. There it is - that tang of the plastic and cat sick on the carpet taste that I recall but, to be fair, it is very neatly tucked into a corner. Hardly notice it at all.You'll have to click through to discover which beer he's writing about.
More beer-and-Obama news.
A titanic rant against Budweiser. (A huge amount of wrongness contained therein, but the misinformation and bias sort of adds to the fun.)


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FileZilla FTP Client configuration through BlueCoat proxy
If you are attached to a corporate or an enterprise network and connect to internet from behind a BlueCoat proxy which proxies FTP connections then FileZilla FTP client needs needs to be configured accordingly to get it work properly. There is an FTP proxy configuration and a Generic Proxy configuration that can be set in FileZilla client. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Read More →


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The Bone Yard Project
Street art revives ancient airplanes.
Street artists are a resourceful bunch. They typically use whatever's at hand to create site-specific artwork. Rarely have they found at hand such monuments of industrial design as the scrapped military airplanes they were invited to transform as the basis for an Arizona art exhibition.
"Round Trip: Art from The Bone Yard Project" at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, features a Lockheed VC-140 Jetstar, a Beechcraft C-45 Expeditor, and a handful of Douglas Super DC-3s, all with fresh makeovers by street artists Nunca, Retna, How & Nosm, Saner, Bast, and Faile. The exhibit opened in January and runs through May 31.
Artist Andrew Schoultz drew inspiration from his Jetstar, a former CIA spyplane, and covered it with graphic paintings of spinning eyes. By working with the old airplane in the Pima bone yard, he says, "I felt like I was doing some type of top-secret project, which felt special."
"Round Trip" is the second installment of the project. It started with "Nose Job," a collection of airplane nose cones painted by dozens of street artists and exhibited last year in East Hampton, New York. Many were transported to Pima to join a few new pieces for display as a tribute to the nose art popularized during World War II.
The Bone Yard Project provides the "canvases" for street artists, who are accustomed to painting walls, buildings, and other huge surfaces outside. "An airplane is just the most massive and insane example of this practice," says Schoultz, who emphasizes a widely shared love of reclaiming discarded objects through art. When one of the bone yard denizens is repainted, "it gets a brand-new life instead of being destroyed, and becomes something to inspire" one more time.
See the gallery above for more airplanes turned into art.
Toothy Grin
Artist Andrew Schoultz paints a toothy grin on his Lockheed VC-140 Jetstar.
Nose Cones
Paying homage to World War II-era nose art, a selection of nose cones were brought to Pima from the first installment of The Bone Yard Project, in New York. More than two dozen artists contributed these "hybrids of sculpture and painting." Left to right: Works by artists Walter Robinson, Tristan Eaton, and J.J. Veronis.
Brooklyn duo Faile stenciled a C-45 Expeditor.
Skull and Eagle
Brazilian artist Nunca used an eagle and skulls to render his thoughts on flying his Super DC-3.
Screen Print
Brooklyn-based Bast works on a C-47 cockpit, displaying his background in screen-printing and collage.
Hanging On
An illustrated man hangs onto the fuselage for a ride on Nunca's Super DC-3.


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Ronald Reagan and Moammar Qadhafi
Twenty-five years ago, President Reagan minced no words when he talked about the Libyan dictator
Between 1969, when Col. Moammar Qadhafi took over Libya in a coup, and 2004, when he terminated his country's nuclear weapons program, U.S.-Libya relations were almost unremittingly hostile. A notable flash point occurred 25 years ago, after a bomb went off on April 5, 1986, in a West Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. service personnel. Two people, including a U.S. serviceman, were killed, and 204 others were injured. The Reagan administration's response, both on the ground and at the podium, suggests the tenor of the relationship:
April 9, 1986: news conference
Q: Mr. President, do you have any solid evidence that Qadhafi is responsible for the recent acts of terrorism? And if you are contemplating major retaliation, won't you be killing a lot of innocent people? I'd like to follow up.
The President: …[W]e have considerable evidence, over quite a long period of time, that Qadhafi has been quite outspoken about his participation in urging on and supporting terrorist acts—a kind of warfare, as he has called it. Right now, however, I can't answer you specifically on this other, because we're continuing with our intelligence work and gathering evidence on these most recent attacks, and we're not ready yet to speak on that...
Q: Mr. President, I know you must have given it a lot of thought, but what do you think is the real reason that Americans are the prime target of terrorism? Could it be our policies?
The President: Well, we know that this mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution, Muslim fundamentalist revolution, which is targeted on many of his own Arab compatriots. And where we figure in that, I don't know. Maybe we're just the enemy because—it's a little like climbing Mount Everest—because we're here. But there's no question but that he has singled us out more and more for attack, and we're aware of that. As I say, we're gathering evidence as fast as we can.
That evidence included intercepted communications implicating the Libyan government in the attack, prompting President Reagan to order air strikes on ground targets there.
April 14, 1986: address to the nation
President Reagan: At 7 o'clock this evening Eastern time air and naval forces of the United States launched a series of strikes against the headquarters, terrorist facilities and military assets that support Muammar Qadhafi''s subversive activities. The attacks were concentrated and carefully targeted to minimize casualties among the Libyan people, with whom we have no quarrel. From initial reports, our forces have succeeded in their mission...
The evidence is now conclusive that the terrorist bombing of La Belle discotheque was planned and executed under the direct orders of the Libyan regime. On March 25, more than a week before the attack, orders were sent from Tripoli to the Libyan People's Bureau in East Berlin to conduct a terrorist attack against Americans to cause maximum and indiscriminate casualties. Libya's agents then planted the bomb. On April 4 the People's Bureau alerted Tripoli that the attack would be carried out the following morning. The next day they reported back to Tripoli on the great success of their mission...
Colonel Qadhafi is not only an enemy of the United States. His record of subversion and aggression against the neighboring states in Africa is well documented and well known. He has ordered the murder of fellow Libyans in countless countries. He has sanctioned acts of terror in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, as well as the Western Hemisphere. Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again. It gives me no pleasure to say that, and I wish it were otherwise. Before Qadhafi seized power in 1969, the people of Libya had been friends of the United States. And I'm sure that today most Libyans are ashamed and disgusted that this man has made their country a synonym for barbarism around the world. The Libyan people are a decent people caught in the grip of a tyrant.
The following October, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post reported that the Reagan administration had "launched a secret and unusual campaign of deception designed to convince Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi that he was about to be attacked again by U.S. bombers and perhaps be ousted in a coup." Under questioning from White House reporters, Reagan challenged the report (the substance of which the White House would confirm the next day) and changed the subject to Qadhafi.
October 2, 1986: news conference
Q: Well, Mr. President, just to follow up on this: The main burden of the story suggests that your White House, specifically your national security adviser, constructed an operation whereby the free press in this country was going to be used to convey a false story to the world, namely, that Qadhafi was planning new terrorist operations and that we were going to hit him again—or we might hit him again—full well knowing that this was not true. Now, if that's the case, then the press is being used, and we will in the future not know—when we're being told information from the White House—whether it's true or it's not.
The President: Well, any time you get any of those leaks, call me. [Laughter] I'll be happy to tell you which ones are honest or not. But no, this was wrong and false. Our position has been one of which—after we took the action we felt we had to take and I still believe was the correct thing to do—our position has been one in which we would just as soon have Mr. Qadhafi go to bed every night wondering what we might do. And I think that's the best position for anyone like that to be in. Certainly, we did not intend any program in which we were going to suggest or encourage him to do more things, or conduct more terrorist attacks. We would hope that the one thing that we have done will have turned him off on that for good.
Qadhafi frustrated the president's hope for decades. Notably, a Libyan intelligence agent was convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 259 people on the plane, including 189 U.S. citizens, and 11 more on the ground. But in 2003, the Libyan government accepted responsibility for the bombing and set aside funds to pay damages to the victims' survivors. The following year—in the months before Reagan died, at age 93, on June 5—Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program and normalized relations with the United States.


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Britney's Mom -- Wanna Buy Some Zit Cream?!
If you've got an acne problem ... Britney Spears' mother may have the CURE ... because TMZ has learned Lynne Spears has taken a job as a skincare salesman -- and she makes HOUSECALLS!
Lynne is now an "Independent Consultant" with a company called Rodan + Fields Dermatologists ... which means she's basically an Avon lady with different products.
In her new job, Lynne will call up everyone she knows and set up appointments in an effort to hock everything from anti-age eyeclothes ... to vitamin D supplements ... and even a $160 anti-sun damage kit.
Lynne will get a commission from every sale she makes ... and if she kicks ass -- she's eligible for bonuses!
A rep for R.F.D. tells us Lynne joined the team earlier this month -- and insists the company is "delighted" to have her.
Lynne told company honchos she joined up because, "My best friend, who is also a consultant brought me on board. I love the team I am working with and am excited about building my new business".