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Legal Commentary - Joanna Grossman Archive
Archive |
JOANNA GROSSMANJoanna Grossman is a professor and the John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar at Hofstra Law School in Hempstead, New York. She has also taught at Vanderbilt, UNC-Chapel Hill, Cardozo, and Tulane. She is an expert in sex discrimination and has written extensively about workplace equality, with a focus on issues such as sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. She is the coeditor of Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press 2009), an interdisciplinary collection that explores the gaps between formal commitments to gender equality and the reality of women's lives. Her research also focuses on family law, with particular emphasis on same-sex marriage and the history of divorce. Grossman has a B.A. in economics from Amherst College. She graduated with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she was elected to Order of the Coif and served as the articles development editor of the Stanford Law Review. Prior to becoming a law professor, she served as a law clerk to Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked at the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., as recipient of the Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship. She practiced law from 1996 to 1998 at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly. |
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Justin Bieber's Super Bowl Plane Held at Airport Due to Drug Search
Seems like Justin Bieber can't stay out of trouble. Today (Jan. 31), his private plane (en route to the Super Bowl) was grounded at Teterboro Airport under suspicion of marijuana possession.
Specifically, his plane allegedly reeked of weed, and officials became suspicious.
While federal officials searched Bieber's plane for drugs, multiple sources say Justin was moved to the customs terminal to wait.
After being detained for several hours, Justin was released when drug dogs and police found nothing illegal. Initially, it was thought the the dogs did locate weed in two cases of luggage.
"He came in, the jet smelled like weed, they were doing preliminary security checks that they don't usually do as Teterboro is usually pretty relaxed, but because of the Super Bowl they are doing more security checks," a source for the airport said of the situation.
At the time of this incident, Justin and his posse -- 10 people plus his father -- were returning from Toronto, where Justin was being charged by police for assault on a limo driver.

subset: commoncrawl


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David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 - 10 January 2016), known under his stage name David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, arranger, painter, and actor. Bowie was a figure in popular music for over four decades, and was known as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s.
Quotes edit
- I always had a repulsive sort of need to be something more than human. I felt very very puny as a human. I thought, "Fuck that. I want to be a superman."
- Quoted in this interview in Rolling Stone #206 (12 February 1976); a slightly altered version of the quote has appeared in various sources such as Fas Ferox - A Modern Day Mythology - World Walkthrough (2006), edited by Anna Young and James Curcio: "I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. I felt very puny as a human. I thought, 'Fuck that. I want to be a superhuman.'"
- I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.
- Quoted in the chapter on Bowie in Valentines & Vitriol (1978) by Rex Reed
- I suppose I've been knocking on heaven's door for about 11 years now, with one sort of high or another. The only kinds of drugs I use, though, are ones that keep me working for longer periods of time. I haven't gotten involved in anything heavy since '68. I had a silly flirtation with smack then, but it was only for the mystery and enigma of trying it. I never really enjoyed it at all. I like fast drugs. I've said that many times. I hate falling out, where I can't stand up and stuff. It seems like such a waste of time. I hate downs and slow drugs like grass. I hate sleep. I would much prefer staying up, just working, all the time. It makes me so mad that we can't do anything about sleep or the common cold.
- As quoted in this interview in Playboy magazine (September 1976)
- I get offered so many bad movies. And they're all raging queens or transvestites or Martians.
- 1983 Comment, quoted in Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies 15th Edition (2003) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 60
- I'm terribly intuitive—I always thought I was intellectual about what I do, but I've come to the realisation that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time, that the majority of the stuff that I do is totally intuitive, totally about where I am physically and mentally at any moment in time and I have a far harder time than anybody else explaining it and analysing it. That's the territory of the artist anyway: to be quite at sea with what he does, and working towards not being intuive about it and being far more methodical and academic about it.
- "Sermon From the Savoy", New Musical Express (29 September 1984)
- I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants.
- Interviewed in Q magazine (April 1990)
- Music has given me over 40 years of extraordinary experiences. I can't say that life's pains or more tragic episodes have been diminished because of it. But it's allowed me so many moments of companionship when I've been lonely and a sublime means of communication when I wanted to touch people. It's been both my doorway of perception and the house that I live in.
I only hope that it embraces you with the same lusty life force that it graciously offered me.
- [While filming 'Ashes to Ashes'] So we're on the beach shooting this scene with a giant bulldozer. The camera was on a very long lens. [The camera is along way away, but the artist fills the frame] In this video I'm dressed from head to toe in a clown suit. Why not. I hear playback and the music starts. So off I go, I start singing and walking, but as soon as I do this old geezer with an old dog walk right between me and the camera... Well, knowing this is gonna take a while I walked past the old guy and sat next to camera in my full costume waiting for him to pass. As he is walking by camera the director said, excuse me Mr do you know who this is? The old guy looks at me from bottom to top and looks back to the director and said... "Of course I do!!!! its some cunt in a clown suit." That was a huge moment for me, It put me back in my place and made me realize, yes I'm just a cunt in a clown suit. I think about that old guy all the time.
- Never play to the gallery... Never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society... I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people's expectations.
- Ageing is an extraordinary process... If you are pining for youth I think it produces a stereotypical old man because you only live in memory, you live in a place that doesn't exist … I think ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been.
- quoted by Aaron Hicklin in "David Bowie: An Obituary"
Livewire interview (2002) edit
- It's odd but even when I was a kid, I would write about "old and other times" as though I had a lot of years behind me. Now I do, so there is a difference in the weight of memory. When you're young, you're still "becoming", now at my age I am more concerned with "being". And not too long from now I'll be driven by "surviving", I'm sure. I kind of miss that "becoming" stage, as most times you really don't know what's around the corner. Now, of course, I've kind of knocked on the door and heard a muffled answer. Nevertheless, I still don't know what the voice is saying, or even what language it's in.
- Strangely, some songs you really don't want to write. I didn't like writing "Heathen". There was something so ominous and final about it. It was early in the morning, the sun was rising and through the windows I could see two deer grazing down below in the field. In the distance a car was driving slowly past the reservoir and these words were just streaming out and there were tears running down my face. But I couldn't stop, they just flew out. It's an odd feeling, like something else is guiding you, although forcing your hand is more like it.
- Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods' presence in his life. He is the 21st century man. However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.
- I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I'm not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does. There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.
What is very enlightening for me right now is that I sense that I'm arriving at a place of peace with my writing that I've never experienced before. I think I'm going to be writing some of the most worthwhile things that I've ever written in the coming years. I'm very confident and trusting in my abilities right now. But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him.
Song lyrics edit
- All the young dudes
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes
Carry the news.- All The Young Dudes, performed by Mott the Hoople
- If our love song
Could fly over mountains,
Could laugh at the ocean,
Just like the films,
There's no reason
To feel all the hard times,
To lay down the hard lines.
It's absolutely true.Nothing much could happen
Nothing we can't shake
Oh we're absolute beginners
With nothing much at stake
As long as you're still smiling
There's nothing more I need
I absolutely love you
But we're absolute beginners.
But if my love is your love
We're certain to succeed.- Absolute Beginners (1986)
Space Oddity (1969) edit
- Ground Control to Major Tom.
Ground Control to Major Tom.
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.
- This is Major Tom to Ground Control.
I'm stepping through the door,
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way.
And the stars look very different today.For here
Am I sitting in a tin can,
Far above the world.
Planet Earth is blue,
And there's nothing I can do.- Space Oddity
- I'm the cream
Of the great utopia dream.
And you're in the gleam
In the depths of your banker's spleen.
The Man Who Sold the World (1970) edit
- In the corner of the morning in the past
I would sit and blame the master first and last.
All the roads were straight and narrow
And the prayers were small and yellow.
And the rumour spread that I was aging fast.
Then I ran across a monster who was sleeping
By a tree.
And I looked and frowned and the monster was me.
- Day after day
They send my friends away
To mansions cold and grey.
To the far side of town
Where the thin men stalk the streets
While the sane stay underground.Day after day,
They tell me I can go.
They tell me I can blow
To the far side of town
Where it's pointless to be high,
'Cause it's such a long way down.
- Man is an obstacle, sad as the clown
(Oh by jingo)
So hold on to nothing, and he won't let you down.
- Live to your rebirth and do what you will
(Oh by jingo)
Forget all I've said, please bear me no ill.- After All
- We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when
Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend
Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone, a long long time ago.
- When all the world was very young
And mountain magic heavy hung
The supermen would walk in file
Guardians of a loveless isle.
Hunky Dory (1971) edit
- Still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild.
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet.
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test.
- I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence.
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same.
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations.
They're quite aware of what they're going through.- Changes
- Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the strange.- Changes
- It's a god-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen.
But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause she's lived it ten times or more.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) edit
- Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing
News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in.
News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying.
- There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us,
But he thinks he'd blow our minds.
- Making love with his ego Ziggy sucked up into his mind
Like a leper messiah.
When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band.
- Ziggy played guitar.
- Ziggy Stardust
- (Hey man) oh leave me alone you know
(Hey man) oh Henry, get off the phone, I gotta
(Hey man) I gotta straighten my face
This mellow thighed chick just put my spine out of place.
- Oh don't lean on me man, cause you can't afford the ticket
Back from Suffragette City
Oh don't lean on me man
'Cause you ain't got time to check it
You know my Suffragette City
Is outta sight...she's all right ...Ah wham, bam, thank you ma'am!- Suffragette City
Aladdin Sane (1973) edit
- Who'll love Aladdin Sane?
Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise.- Aladdin Sane
Diamond Dogs (1974) edit
- This ain't rock'n'roll. This is genocide!
- You've got your mother in a whirl
She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl.
Hey babe, your hair's alright.
Hey babe, let's go out tonight.
You like me, and I like it all.
We like dancing and we look divine.
You love bands when they're playing hard.
You want more and you want it fast.
- Rebel Rebel, you've torn your dress.
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess.
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!- Rebel Rebel
Young Americans (1975) edit
- Do you remember, your President Nixon?
Do you remember, the bills you have to pay?
Or even yesterday?
- Fame, (fame) makes a man take things over
Fame, (fame) lets him loose, hard to swallow
Fame, (fame) puts you there where things are hollow
Fame (fame)Fame, it's not your brain, it's just the flame
That burns your change to keep you insane (sane).- Fame, written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon
Station to Station (1976) edit
- Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere, angel
Come get up my baby.
Look at that sky, life's begun
Nights are warm and the days are young
Come get up my baby.
Low (1977) edit
- You're such a wonderful person
But you got problems oh-oh-oh-oh
I'll never touch you.- Breaking Glass, written with Dennis Davis and George Murray
"Heroes" (1977) edit
- I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins
Like dolphins can swimThough nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, forever and ever
Oh, we can be heroes just for one day.
- I, I will be king.
And you, you will be queen.
Though nothing will drive them away.
We can beat them, just for one day.
We can be heroes, just for one day.
Scary Monsters (1980) edit
- It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
More idols than realities, ooh-ooh...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, up the hill backwards
It'll be alright, ooh-ooh- Up the Hill Backwards
- I've never done good things
I've never done bad things
I never did anything out of the blue, whoa whoa
Want an axe to break the ice
Wanna come down right now
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heaven's high
Hitting an all-time low.
My mama said to get things done
You'd better not mess with Major Tom
- Well, I've been breaking these rocks
And cutting this hay
Yes, I've been breaking these rocks
What's my price to pay?
Well, the river's so muddy, but it may come clear
And I know too well what's keeping me here
I'm just a slave of a burning ray
Oh, give me the night, I can't take another sight- Kingdom Come
- Because you're young
You'll meet a stranger some night
Because you're young
What could be nicer for you
And it makes me sad
So I'll dance my life away
A million dreams, a million scars
...Left him nearly out of his mind
They're people I know - people I love
They seem so unhappy - dead or alive- Because You're Young
- Silhouettes and shadows
Watch the revolution
No more free steps to heaven
Just walkie-talkie
Heaven or hearth
Just big heads and drums
Full speed and pagan
And it's no game- It's No Game
Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (1982) edit
- Theme song for the film Cat People (1982)
- See these eyes so green…
I can stare for a thousand years
Colder than the moon
It's been so long…
And I've been putting out fire…
With gasoline!
- See these eyes so red
Red like jungle burning bright
Those who feel me near
Pull the blinds and change their minds.
- Still this pulsing night
A plague I call a heartbeat
Just be still with me
Ya wouldn't believe what I've been thru.
Let's Dance (1983) edit
- Never gonna fall for
Modern love — walks beside me.
Modern love — walks on by.
Modern love — gets me to the church on time.
Church on time — terrifies me.
Church on time — makes me party.
Church on time — puts my trust in God and man.
God and man — no confessions.
God and man — no religion.
God and man — don't believe in modern love.
- My little China Girl
You shouldn't mess with me.
I'll ruin everything you are.
I'll give you television.
I'll give you eyes of blue.
I'll give you a man who wants to rule the world.- China Girl, written with Iggy Pop —Video at YouTube
- Let's dance — put on your red shoes and dance the blues.
Let's dance — to the song they're playin' on the radio.
Let's sway — while colour lights up your face.
Let's swa —, sway through the crowd to an empty space.
- And if you say run, I'll run with you
And if you say hide, we'll hide.
Because my love for you
Would break my heart in two.
If you should fall
Into my arms
And tremble like a flower.- Let's Dance
- Let's dance for fear your grace should fall
Let's dance for fear tonight is all- Let's Dance
Earthling (1997) edit
- God is an American.
I'm afraid of Americans.
I'm afraid of the world.
I'm afraid I can't help it.
I'm afraid I can't
Heathen (2002) edit
- Steel on the skyline
Sky made of glass
Made for a real world
All things must pass
Waiting for something
Looking for someone
Is there no reason?
Reality (2003) edit
- And there's never gonna be enough money
And there's never gonna be enough drugs
And I'm never ever gonna get old
There's never gonna be enough bullets
There's never gonna be enough sex
And I'm never ever gonna get old
So I'm never ever gonna get high
And I'm never ever gonna get low
And I'm never ever gonna get old
- The tragic youth was going down on me
I've been right and I've been wrong
Now I'm back where I started from
Never looked over reality's shoulder- "Reality"
- Soon there'll be nothing left of me
Nothing left to release
The Next Day (2013) edit
- Where are we now?
Where are we now?
The moment you know
You know, you know
As long as there's sun
As long as there's sun
As long as there's rain
As long as there's rain
As long as there's fire
As long as there's fire
As long as there's me
As long as there's you- "Where Are We Now?" (2013)
- First they give you everything that you want
Then they take back everything that you have
They live upon their feet and they die upon their knees
They can work with satan while they dress like the saints
They know god exists for the devil told them so
They scream my name aloud down into the well below- The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016) edit
- In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen
Stands a solitary candle, ah-ah, ah-ah
In the centre of it all, in the centre of it all
Your eyes
- Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar)How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie instead of talking tall?
He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd
(I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar, I'm not a gangster)- "Blackstar"
- Look up here, I'm in heaven
I've got scars that can't be seen
I've got drama, can't be stolen
Everybody knows me nowLook up here, man, I'm in danger
I've got nothing left to lose
I'm so high it makes my brain whirl
Dropped my cell phone down belowAin't that just like me
- "Lazarus" · Video at YouTube
- This way or no way
You know, I'll be free
Just like that bluebird
Now ain't that just like me- "Lazarus"
- Saying more and feeling less
Saying no but meaning yes
This is all I ever meant
That's the message that I sent- "I Can't Give Everything Away"
Quotes about Bowie edit
- I met him only once, it was 1973 or 1974. I was the producer of a record of a folk-rock band Steeleye Span. They wanted David Bowie to play a sax solo on one of the songs. I managed to get his phone number, I called him and said 'You don't know me, but some people which album I'm producing ask you if you'd like to play sax for them'. And Bowie asked - 'Okay, where and when?'. I replied - 'Whenever you can'. And he said - '3 o'clock this afternoon?'. I was frightened and thought he'd want 2000£ for that. He came at 3, smiling. He played just like we wanted, never asking about money, then shook everyone's hand and left. It was the only time we met. David taught me one beautiful thing. If you can and want to help somebody, do it for free. That's why I never asked anyone for money. By lending a hand in that way you give just a bit of what you do in your life.
- Ian Anderson, interviewed by Piotr Kaczkowski in 1997 (Przy mikrofonie, Prószyński i S-ka, Warsaw, ISBN 83-7052-806-6)
- There is a glimmer of hope in the choice to quote an old song about new beginnings, and it isn't the only moment on the album that suggests a cycle of death and rebirth. Buried in the bleakness of "Blackstar" is an airy, suspiciously earnest passage that imagines the transmigration of souls: "Something happened on the day he died / Spirit rose a meter and stepped aside / Somebody else took his place and bravely cried / 'I'm a black star.'" Bowie nearly became a Buddhist monk when he was 19, and he specified in his will that his ashes should be scattered "in accordance with the Buddhist rituals." It's quite possible that he believed in reincarnation
- Judy Berman, in The 2016 Canon: David Bowie's Blackstar Was Not Just a Final Album—It Was an Omen, Esquire magazine Dec 12, 2016
- David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him.
- While a majority of posthumous music is released by an artist's estate, David Bowie organized new music to be released after his death himself. Bowie believed in reincarnation, and through the evolution of his many different personas and music styles, he became the king of reinvention. First he was a folk singer, then a glam rocker, next he was a new romantic; He was constantly changing and evolving in both his sound and his look.
- Julia Kai, David Bowie: The King of Reinvention and Reincarnation, Intersect magazine, 9 Feb 2021
External links edit
- The official David Bowie web site
- Bowie Wonderworld
- IMDb entry on Bowie
- Teenage Wildlife
- Pushing Ahead of the Dame - David Bowie, Song by Song
- The Ziggy Stardust Companion
- The Laughing Gnostic - David Bowie and the Occult
- David Bowie - Outside, Aleister Crowley and the Holy Grail
- The Fall to Earth: David Bowie, Cocaine and the Occult
- List of David Bowie related websites
- Manofmusic
- David Bowie portraits at the National Portrait Gallery London


text:
By: Mohammed Shafeeq
For 56 years they have lived in the same state and spoken the same language. But this linguistic affinity may not keep them together for long.
As the movement for a Telangana state enters a decisive phase, the divide between the economically backward Telangana region and Seemandhra (as the rest of Andhra Pradesh is known) appears deep and complete.
Despite many commonalities, the people of Telangana and Seemandhra came from different historical, geographical and socio-economic background.
There are vast differences in linguistic accent, culture, customs, food habits, festivals and even the deities they worship.
Andhra Pradesh is India's fifth most populous state with 84.6 million people. Telangana accounts for 35.28 million. Andhra region and Rayalseema are home to 34.19 million and 15.13 million people respectively.
For Telanganities, the movement is a fight for "self respect" and against "exploitation" by others in the state. Andhra leaders deny this.
The proponents of a separate state cite the Telugu film industry as a classic example of the divide.
All the top actors and producers are from Andhra and the films make fun of the language spoken in Telangana with Deccani accent. It is usually the villain or the comedian in the film who speaks this accent.
Rayalaseema comprises four districts while the Andhra region is made up of nine coastal districts. Most are prosperous because of fertile land and industrial development.
While Telangana, comprising 10 districts including Hyderabad, was part of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, Andhra state was carved out of Madras Presidency in 1953 for Telugu-speaking people with Kurnool as its capital.
Telangana remained as Hyderabad State from 1948 to 1956 when it was merged with Andhra to form Andhra Pradesh, with Hyderabad as the capital.
Ignoring the reservations over the merger of Telangana with Andhra, then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave his nod for a new Andhra Pradesh.
He did comment that "an innocent girl called Telangana is being married to a naughty boy called Andhra. It is their choice to continue or to get separated".
Those fighting for Telangana insist the time has come for separation, alleging that the constitutional guarantees given at the time of merger to protect the region's interests were never honoured.
Though Telangana region witnessed violent protests seeking statehood in 1969-70, the movement fizzled out.
It was revived in 2000. The goal was almost achieved in 2009 when massive protests forced the central government to announce that the process for formation of Telangana state would be initiated.
But the backlash in Seemandhra made the central government backtrack.
Many deadlines were set but the goal remained elusive. Some say that some 1,000 pro-Telangana youths committed suicide in the last three years.
Officials admits that the region is on the boil. Many believe that a separate state will be a reality in the near future.
Some in Seemandhra have no objection to a Telangana state. But the bone of contention is Hyderabad.
While pro-Telangana groups insist the new state should have Hyderabad as its capital, the powerful Andhra lobby is not ready to give away a city in which its businessmen and industrialists made huge investments in the last five decades.
Many believe it is the status of Hyderabad that is delaying a final decision on the issue.
Telangana groups are ready to share the city as capital with Seemandhra for some time but are against the idea of making it a union territory or a separate state by itself.
Political analysts warn that unless a formula acceptable to all is evolved on Hyderabad's future, there are no hopes of an early solution to the Telangana imbroglio. [IANS]


text:
The first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in more than 15 years means most offerings — including the always popular pizza — will come with less sodium, more whole grains and a wider selection of fruits and vegetables on the side.
First lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the new guidelines during a visit Wednesday with elementary students. Mrs. Obama, also joined by celebrity chef Rachael Ray, said youngsters will learn better if they don't have growling stomachs at school.
"As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet," Mrs. Obama said in a prepared statement. "And when we're putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria."
After the announcement, the three went through the line with students and ate turkey tacos with brown rice, black bean and corn salad and fruit — all Ray's recipes — with the children in the Parklawn Elementary lunchroom.
Under the new rules, pizza won't disappear from lunch lines, but will be made with healthier ingredients. Entire meals will have calorie caps for the first time and most trans fats will be banned. Sodium will gradually decrease over a 10 year period. Milk will have to be low in fat and flavored milks will have to be nonfat.
Despite the improvements, the new rules aren't as aggressive as the Obama administration had hoped. Congress last year blocked the Agriculture Department from making some of the desired changes, including limiting french fries and pizzas.
A bill passed in November would require the department to allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. The initial draft of the department's guidelines, released a year ago, would have prevented that. Congress also blocked the department from limiting servings of potatoes to two servings a week. The final rules have incorporated those directions from Congress.
Among those who had sought the changes were potato growers and food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools. Conservatives in Congress called the guidelines an overreach and said the government shouldn't tell children what to eat. School districts also objected to some of the requirements, saying they go too far and would cost too much.
The guidelines apply to lunches subsidized by the federal government. A child nutrition bill signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 will help school districts pay for some of the increased costs. Some of the changes will take place as soon as this September; others will be phased in over time.
While many schools are improving meals already, others still serve children meals high in fat, salt and calories. The guidelines are designed to combat childhood obesity and are based on 2009 recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.
Vilsack said food companies are reformulating many of the foods they sell to schools in anticipation of the changes.
"The food industry is already responding," he said. "This is a movement that has started, it's gaining momentum."
Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association, which represents school lunch workers, said that many schools won't count pizza as a vegetable even though they can. Students qualifying for subsidized meals must have a certain number of vegetables and other nutritious foods on their lunch trays.
"Most schools are serving fruit or vegetables next to their pizza and some schools are even allowing unlimited servings of fruit or vegetables," Pratt-Heavner said.
Celebrity chef Ray said she thinks too much has been made of the availability of pizza and French fries. The new rules will make kids' lunch plates much more nutrient dense, she said.
"The overall picture is really good," she said. "This is a big deal."
The subsidized meals that would fall under the guidelines are served as free and low-cost meals to low-income children and long have been subject to government nutrition standards. The 2010 law will extend, for the first time, nutrition standards to other foods sold in schools that aren't subsidized by the federal government. That includes "a la carte" foods on the lunch line and snacks in vending machines.
Those standards, while expected to be similar, will be written separately and have not yet been proposed by the department.


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Here is an example from the Apache documentation for enforcing canonical hostnames:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R,NE]
What I would like to know is why the /? is needed. I've tried removing it and everything appears to work the same. I was under the impression that the pattern part of the rewrite rule was compared against what comes after the slash.


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China warns Obama on Dalai Lama, invoking Lincoln
BEIJING – Chinese Foreign Ministry briefings are generally pretty dull affairs, the way such events are in many countries: reporters do their best to get the spokesman to say something newsworthy, and the spokesman does his best not to oblige them.
On Thursday, though, Qin Gang inadvertently broke the mold. He said that Barack Obama, being a black president who admired Abraham Lincoln's role in abolishing slavery and preserving the Union, should sympathize with Beijing's opposition to the Dalai Lama.
He seemed to be making two points. The first was that President Obama's skin color should make him especially sensitive to slavery; the Chinese government refers to Tibetan society before Chinese troops took over Lhasa in 1951 as serfdom.
The second was that Obama should learn a lesson from Lincoln's opposition to secession, and support Beijing's opposition to the Dalai Lama, whom the government here accuses of "splittism."
Leave aside the fact that the Dalai Lama has repeated until he is blue in the face that he does not support Tibetan independence – only autonomy. Leave aside the fact that Obama has no slaves in his lineage.
The ministry's spokesman appeared to be trying to make foreign audiences believe that the Communist Party of China (CPC) is the moral equivalent of Abraham Lincoln, and that the Dalai Lama is a supporter of feudal serfdom.
Considering that most people outside this country's borders see the CPC as the ones restricting freedoms, and regard the Dalai Lama as a moral giant, Mr. Qin showed a lot of nerve.
Nerve is a valuable quality in a press spokesman, of course. But Qin's allusions to US history also displayed a complete disregard for – or misunderstanding of – how most of the rest of the world views the Tibetan issue.
Given that the Foreign Ministry is meant to be the agency of the Chinese government that is best informed about the outside world, and given that its spokesman is meant to be one of its diplomats best qualified to win foreign reporters over, that is worrying.


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Testing a flat screen as surface for animation
After the Industry project with Lego and a two-weeks break in Barcelona, Menorca and Melt Festival in Berlin, I took up again with my final project.
Analising pros and cons of the projector setup together my advisor Vinay Venkatraman, we found interesting to explore another option to display the tutorials, using a flat screen.
Pros of the flat screen (comparing to projector): cheaper, less space needed, less problems with environmental light to have a good contrast.
Cons: it doesn't have the magic of the projector, specially to project the movie as in cinema. And… reflections!
In order to have a resistant surface to place the object for the animation, I cut a piece of acrylic. The screen is non-reflective, but with the acrylic, it is, so the camera is reflected and appears on the image.
The surface has to display a sharp image, and it has be: non-reflective, resistant, and nice. It has to be nice because it's the main surface of the product, children will be touching it all the time, and will be the background for all the pictures – I think mat black would be the best. I tried to cover the acrylic with different materials – fabric, tracing paper, translucent plastic and acrylic, … non of them were convincing, either for the quality of the image or the color of the surface.
I found a non-reflective film, quite tricky to stick on the acrylic, that almost worked, but the finish wasn't nice. Apart from the bubbles the color was a heterogeneous grey, instead of the homogeneous black that it should be.
The best result I achieved was by painting (not opaque, just a bit) a piece of acrylic using black spray. Then I stuck the film, and the result was good.
I'm happy with the result, the image is a bit less bright that without the acrylic, but the surface is much nicer than the acrylic without paint.
I should find a way to paint the acrylic more homogeneous though – or a graffiti painter that helps me do it!
Tags: finalproject, projector, screen


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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- More than half of the world's smartphones run Android. That sounds like a pretty comfy perch for Google, but it's a precarious one -- and the historical tides that made Android such a stunning success are starting to swing in the opposite direction.
On Wednesday, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) is slated to unveil the latest version of Android at its developers conference. Expect some victory laps. The four-year-old mobile operating system is the center of a thriving ecosystem, and Google has seamlessly integrated most of its key products into Android, including search, Gmail, Chrome, Maps, Voice.
That gives Google a prime position in the fast-growing mobile realm.
But Android's success is partially accidental. The software only took off when Verizon Wireless released the Motorola Droid in late 2009.
Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) needed a weapon to counter AT&T's then-exclusive deal with Apple. It threw all its weight behind the Droid, which was the first true iPhone competitor on the nation's most popular phone network.
Kickstarted by Verizon, Android went on to become a strong iPhone alternative for virtually all other hardware makers and wireless carriers. Google's mobile OS held a 59% share of the smartphone market as of last quarter, IDC analysts said.
Android's climb is about to end, IDC thinks.
Android's smartphone market share will peak this year at about 62% before slowly declining over the next five years, the research group predicted earlier this month. Though Android is expected to remain dominant, IDC believes that competitors like the iPhone and Microsoft's Windows Phone will chip away at Android's stranglehold.
Analysts' forecasts are often laughably wrong -- four years ago, no one expected Google to be a mobile phone power player -- but this time, Google has cause to be nervous.
Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Google's mobile arch-nemesis, is leading the assault on Android's empire. The iPhone accounted for roughly half of Verizon's smartphone sales last quarter and more than three-quarters of AT&T's.
But Apple is now coming at Android in the fast-growing prepaid market as well, where Google had long been the only smartphone player. Leap Wireless' (LEAP) Cricket and Sprint's (S, Fortune 500) Virgin Mobile both announced this month that they will offer the iPhone on their prepaid services.
Plus, Google's partners -- the same handset makers that catapulted Android into the spotlight -- have new reasons to be wary of their ally. Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility a month ago, putting it into direct competition with its partners.
Google swears it will play nicely, but the saber-rattling has already started. Samsung's new CEO, Kwon Oh-hyun, hinted last week that he would like Samsung to be more in control of its own destiny.
In his inaugural speech to his new staff, Kwon called for a focus on creating new customer experiences and on "strengthening soft capabilities in software, user experience, design, and solutions," according to a Wall Street Journal report.
A spokesman from Google declined to comment for this story.
The uncertainty Google faces in the smartphone space is nothing compared to the giant question mark surrounding its tablet initiative. The iPad will account for 62% of the world's tablets this year, IDC estimates, compared to 36% for Android.
That's a trend heading in the wrong direction. Last year, Android held 38% of the market.
Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) Surface tablet, coming this fall, is a fresh threat.
So, in a way, is the Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) Kindle Fire, which sold well during the holidays and is the only rival tablet to make any headway against the market-leading iPad. It runs a heavily customized version of the open-source Android software, and it steers users toward Amazon's own app store -- not Google's.
Thanks to customers' sluggish Android adoption, software developers haven't exactly embraced Google's tablet initiative. There are 225,000 apps specifically designed for the iPad, but there are so few tablet-specific apps for Android that Google doesn't even make the number available.
That causes a chicken-and-egg problem.
"[Apps] are key to tablet users, which is why we have not seen great hardware from Asus and Samsung sell in big volumes so far," said Carolina Milanesi, analyst at Gartner.
Google has tried to fix some of Android's problems. It developed a much more feature-rich and dynamic version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, that works the same on tablets and smartphones.
But only 7% of Android users are actually using ICS, six months after it was released to the public. Carriers like Verizon and AT&T often wait many months before deploying updates to their customers.
Google is widely expected to unveil a new tablet of its own design this week, a move aimed at catalyzing Android's growth. The Wall Street Journal also reported recently that Google is hatching plans to directly sell "unlocked" Android smartphones on its website, which will will work on any carrier.
Google will unveil Jelly Bean, the next version of Android, this week. It will show off some flashy advancements in the software and attempt to trump Apple and Microsoft's recent improvements to their own mobile operating systems.
None of those moves -- new devices, new sales channels, new software -- will matter if Android's rivals stop its momentum.
"Up to now Android has benefited from the fact that if you wanted an alternative to iPhone there was nothing else," said Gartner's Milanesi. "Things are changing."


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The copy protection technology used by Blu-ray discs has been cracked by the same hacker who broke the DRM technology of rival HD DVD discs last month. The coder known as muslix64 used much the same plain text attack in both cases. By reading a key held in memory by a player playing a HD DVD disc he was able to decrypt the movie been played and render it as an MPEG 2 file.
The latest Blu-ray hack was performed by muslix64 using a media file provided by Janvitos, through the video resource site Doom9, and applied to a Blu-ray copy of the movie Lord of War. In this case, muslix64 didn't even need access to a Blu-ray player to nobble the DRM protection included on the title.
Both HD DVD and Blu-ray use HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) for playback display authentication and similar implementations of AACS (Advanced Access Content System) for content encryption.
The hack sidesteps, rather than defeats, the AACS encryption used as part of the content protection technology used by both next-generation DVD formats. The approach relies on obtaining a particular movie's unique "key" and can't therefore be trivially replicated to rip content across all titles encoded via a particular format, as tools like DVD Decryptor make easy with standard DVD titles.
muslix64 has however posted a 18KB tool that allows other to try their hand at extracting the keys of other Blu-ray Disc movies
BD+, the second type of content protection on Blu-ray, is yet to fall by crackers but this is something of a moot point today as the technology is yet to be widely applied on discs.
Blu-ray and HD DVD both allow for decryption keys to be updated in reaction to attacks, for example by making it impossible to play high-definition movies via playback software known to be weak or flawed. So muslix64 work has effectively sparked off a cat-and-mouse game between hackers and the entertainment industry, where consumers are likely to face compatibility problems while footing the bill for the entertainment industry's insistence on pushing ultimately flawed DRM technology on an unwilling public. ®


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Scientists have found that some individuals in the vegetative and minimally conscious states, despite lacking the means of reporting awareness themselves, can learn and thereby demonstrate at least a partial consciousness. Their findings are reported in today's (20 September) online edition of Nature Neuroscience.
It is the first time that scientists have tested whether patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states can learn. By establishing that they can, it is believed that this simple test will enable practitioners to assess the patient's consciousness without the need of imaging.
This study was done as a collaborative effort between the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), the University of Cambridge (UK) and the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (Argentina). By using classical Pavlonian conditioning, the researchers played a tone immediately prior to blowing air into a patient's eye. After some time training, the patients would start to blink when the tone played but before the air puff to the eye.
This learning requires conscious awareness of the relation between stimuli – the tone precedes and predicts the puff of air to the eye. This type of learning was not seen in the control subjects, volunteers who had been under anaesthesia.
The researchers believe that the fact that these patients can learn associations shows that they can form memories and that they may benefit from rehabilitation.
Lead author Dr Tristan Bekinschtein, from the University of Cambridge's Wolfson Brain Imaging Unit, said: "This test will hopefully become a useful, simple tool to test for consciousness without the need for imaging or instructions. Additionally, this research suggests that if the patient shows learning, then they are likely to recover to some degree."
In 2006, the Cambridge Impaired Consciousness Group at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Unit showed, using functional imaging, showed that patients in vegetative states (as defined by behavioural assessment in the clinic) can in fact be conscious despite being unable to show consistent voluntary movements.
Notes to editors:
1. The paper 'Classical conditioning in the vegetative and minimally conscious state' will be published in the Advanced Online Publication of Nature Neuroscience on 20 September 2009.
2. This study was funded by an Antorchas Foundation grant (T.A.B.), a Marie Curie IIF grant (T.A.B.), a StartUp grant (F.F.M.), the Human Frontiers Science Program (M.S.) and a Medical Research Council Acute Brain Injury Collaborative grant.


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Story highlights
Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored all four goals in Sweden's 4-2 win over England
Netherlands and Germany finish goalless in bore draw
France fights back to defeat Italy 2-1 in Parma
Leo Messi frustrated as Argentina held to 0-0 draw by Saudi Arabia
Zlatan Ibrahimovic produced a memorable performance after his four-goal salvo helped Sweden defeat England in Stockholm.
The 31-year-old, who has scored ten goals in as many games for club side Paris Saint-Germain, was on fire once again as Roy Hodgson's men were swept away.
The Swedish skipper had given his side a 20th minute lead before goals from Manchester United's Danny Welbeck and Tottenham's Steven Caulker gave England a half-time.
Ibrahimovic arrival marks watershed moment for Paris Saint-Germain
But it was Ibrahimovic who stole the show after the interval, with three strikes in the final 12 minutes.
After netting a 78th minute equaliser, Ibrahimovic slammed home a rasping 30-yard free-kick before rounding off his night with a scarcely believable scissors kick.
It ruined the night for England captain Steven Gerrard, who had hoped to celebrate his 100th cap with victory.
Gerrard told ITV 1: "I still stick by Zinedine Zidane, he is the best player in the world as the best player of his generation, but his (Ibrahimovic's) performance was world class and he just scored one of the best goals I seen live.
"It was his night. If someone scores four goals and the way he scored them….it's one of the best I've seen."
Hodgson added: "The fourth goal was extraordinary, but it was the second and third goals which cost us.
"For 70 minutes we were playing very well and we deserved to be in the lead, but we made changes and they took the initiative."
Elsewhere, France recorded an impressive 2-1 victory over Italy after it came from behind in Parma.
Milan star Stephan El Shaarway gave the hosts the lead only for France to hit back through Mathieu Valbuena and Bafetimbi Gomis.
The highly anticipated grudge match between the Netherlands and Germany failed to catch light as it finished goalless in Amsterdam.
Messi passes Pele's goal milestone
Lionel Messi drew a rare blank after Argentina was held to a goalless draw by Saudi Arabia.
Despite boasting the likes of Sergio Aguero and Angel Di Maria in their starting line-up, Argentina were unable to make the breakthrough against a stubborn Saudi defence.
Mikkel Diskerud scored a late equalizer as the U.S. grabbed a 2-2 draw in Russia.
Fyodor Smolov had given the hosts a ninth minute lead before Michael Bradley's fine effort brought the U.S. level.
Roman Shirokov looked to have won the contest with an 84th minute penalty but Diskerud fired home late on to ensure the game finished level.
Elsewhere, Portugal was held to a 2-2 draw in Gabon, Uruguay defeated Poland 3-1 and Greece claimed a 1-0 win over the Republic of Ireland.


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This article is more than 1 year old
Christian group declares jct 9 on M25 cursed
Vigil cleanses area of unholy cassette recordings
A group of Christian evangelicals has declared junction 9 of the M25 "hexed" and is staging regular prayer meetings to cleanse the benighted interchange.
According to the Surrey Advertiser, Gerald Coates of the Pioneer Engage Church in Leatherhead has attributed a rash of accidents and footbridge suicides around the junction to someone "motivated by dark forces".
Coates believes the malefactor has been recording evil messages onto cassette tapes which are then unspooled to enclose and hence curse their target areas.
The abundance of unspooled tapes in the area were proof of the malevolent plan, he told the paper.
The Advertiser reports that a prayer vigil on the Kingston Road bridge organised by Coates had attracted up to 30 people.
"I do believe we will see far fewer incidents, but if the trend is not reversed then we will return for another vigil in mid-December," said Coates.
He concluded that the vigil had the full support of drivers, saying "People were waving and shouting and beeping their horns, the whole atmosphere was great."
He added that he couldn't be completely sure that a hex was the cause of the problems, but he could not think of another reason for the disproportionate number of crashes and suicides between junctions 10 to 8 compared to other areas.
Others remain unconvinced, pointing out that the stretch of motorway in question sits between the turnoffs for Gatwick airport and the A3, with Heathrow airport and main routes to the South West and West just a few more junctions on.
This brings an unholy agglomeration of freight and airport traffic, as well as gardeners visiting the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley, and performance car-driving celebrities and stockbrokers returning to their country mansions. The road also has a tendency to flood - if the roadside warning signs are to be believed.
Lastly, as one commenter on the Surrey Ad's story points out, "Most evil spirits these days use mp3 players anyway. They're far smaller and convenient to carry when crossing between the dark realm to our side and back again. Portable CD players were previously used, but cassette recorders were universally ditched *years* ago!" ®


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Given: Israel cannot live with repeated bouts of missile fire from Gaza aimed at normal people living everyday lives. This is the description of an unbearable problem—but not a reason to believe that the problem can be quickly cured, or that the cure is massive military force.
As of Wednesday morning the latest bout—like ones before it—had ended in a fragile ceasefire, reportedly brokered by Egypt. So why did Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak decide this was the time to assassinate Hamas's military chief, begin a bombing campaign, and prepare a possible ground invasion?
Two partial answers whisper from between the lines of news reports. Both can be true at the same time. The first is that the IDF's generals knew where to find Hamas's Ahmed Jaabari and the organization's missile supplies, and had developed a contigency plan to use that information to weaken Hamas militarily. Now there was a reason to use it. This is an old Israeli story: Generals have a tactical answer and persuade politicians that it is a strategic solution. Afterward comes a desperate diplomatic effort. Reversing Von Clausewitz's adage, policy becomes an extension of war.
The second answer is political: An election is two months away. Ehud Barak's party isn't expected to get enough votes to return him to the Knesset, and Netanyahu sees slippage in the polls. Between naiveté that denies that an Israeli leader could ever let electoral considerations affect his military choices and cynicism that says leaders will use any means to stay in power, there is a realistic, ambiguous middle ground: Politicians may not consciously risk lives on both sides of the conflict for votes. But elections can shade the judgment of elected officials, sometimes badly.
Israeli history is rich with case studies. In early October 1973, campaign ads of the ruling Labor Party declared, "On the banks of the Suez, all is quiet." Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was the living symbol of Labor's claim that it had prevented war. Early on Yom Kippur, the final, definite intelligence report warned that Egypt and Syria were about to attack. But Dayan still wanted to believe war was a lesser risk than panicking the country with a false alarm, and resisted a full call-up of the reserves. Worried about domestic perceptions, he left Israel far weaker when the attack came.
Jump forward eight years. Before the 1981 elections, Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the bombing of Iran's Osirak reactor. Leave aside the debate over whether destroying Osirak slowed or accelerated Iraq's nuclear program, or whether the raid itself was a political ploy. Begin's announcement (pay wall) of Israel's responsibility was certainly aimed at voters. Iraq had yet to acknowledge the attack, and until Begin spoke, Iran was the more likely suspect. The announcement caused Israel absolutely unnecessary diplomatic damage, but helped Begin win a narrow victory over Labor's Shimon Peres. Before feeling too sorry for Peres, remember his own gambit as prime minister in the spring of 1996: the Operation Grapes of Wrath offensive in Lebanon was widely seen at the time as a pre-election bid to boost Peres's security credentials. If anything, it had the opposite effect, contributing to yet another narrow defeat for Peres.
For the past four years, Netanyahu and Barak have pushed the Palestinian issue off the Israeli political agenda—and demonstrated their toughness to voters—through constant threats to attack Iran. The reelection of Barak Obama, rumors of impending U.S.-Iran negotiations, and the report that Netanyahu and Barak came close to ordering an attack in 2010 without cabinet approval all have made it harder for them to make Iran their campaign issue. Meanwhile, a restrained response to missile fire in the south it is harder to explain with elections two months away.
The best-planned wars don't go according to plans, so no one knows how this operation will end. If Egypt manages to arrange another ceasefire, the silver lining will have a cloud: Netanyahu will say that force worked. Forgetting the brief ceasefire that preceded the offensive, many voters will believe him. If the fighting continues, relations with the new regime in Egypt could get far worse. The Israeli right will use that as evidence that peace treaties aren't to be trusted.
The initial response of the Israeli public when the IDF is ordered into a major offensive is to rally around the government, to see the action as essential. Later, after the deaths on both sides, after an ambiguous resolution, neither victory nor defeat, a political hangover often sets in. If regret comes this time, no one knows whether it will take less than two months or more. Meanwhile, the unbearable problem in the south may recede—until the next bout.


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The Peace River's flow is now diverted through twin tunnels for the main riverbed works of B.C. Hydro's Site C dam, opening a dry area of the riverbed for construction of "foundation enhancements" that were identified by geological mapping as a change to the project in late 2019.
The river diversion proceeded on schedule starting Oct. 2, but the additional work and COVID-19 delays mean the completion date and additional costs remain uncertain, NDP leader John Horgan acknowledged in his final campaign event in Vancouver Thursday.
This week B.C. Hydro announced three positive tests for COVID-19 on the site near Fort St. John, and the start of burning wood debris captured from the river to keep diversion tunnels clear.
Newly sworn in as premier in 2017, Horgan called for the B.C. Utilities Commission to make a rapid review of the project, which by then had $4 billion invested in the long-considered third dam on the Peace River. That review was "inconclusive," Horgan said, and the NDP government decided to proceed at a projected cost increased by $1 billion to $10.7 billion.
RELATED: Site C dam set back by COVID-19, foundation changes
RELATED: NDP government bails out B.C. Hydro for $1.1B debt
RELATED: After losing at every level, West Moberly sues again
B.C. Hydro's annual report in July 2020 notified the government and public of the latest problems, including delays due to COVID-19 restrictions on the huge job site as well as the new geological issues. Before calling the election, then-energy minister Bruce Ralston appointed former deputy finance and transportation minister Peter Milburn to assess the project again.
"But now we are three and a half years later, and new evidence that was not presented at that time is being examined by Mr. Milburn," Horgan said Oct. 22. "This is absolutely serious for Hydro ratepayers and for the project. I don't want to diminish it in any way. But I don't know until I hear from the experts what's the magnitude of the problem, and what steps we need to take to protect British Columbians."
In a July progress report to the B.C. Utilities Commission, B.C. Hydro CEO Chris O'Riley said the combined effects of COVID-19 and a series of construction issues have pushed the cost up by an amount not yet known. Those included changes to the main civil works contract, increased costs of reservoir clearing, power line construction and highway realignment, as well as the latest of a series of legal challenges from the West Moberly First Nations.
"Towards the end of December 2019, investigations and analysis of geological mapping and monitoring activities completed during construction identified that some foundation enhancements would be required to increase the stability below the powerhouse, spillway and future dam core areas," O'Riley wrote in a letter to BCUC chair David Morton.
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Remember IBM's Jeopardy-winning Watson computer? It'll soon be your co-doctor, personal shopping assistant and much more.
IBM (IBM) has big plans for Watson, artificial intelligence that can understand questions and gets smarter by the minute.
The company announced Thursday it's investing more than $1 billion to create the Watson Group, a 2,000-employee division that will be housed in IBM's own building in New York City's East Village. That includes $100 million Big Blue will use to fund startups that launch creative uses for Watson.
But there are already major players lined up to use Watson. IBM unveiled a partnership with DBS, one of Asia's largest banks, to have Watson analyze financial research and help deliver personalized investment advice.
Related story: New BlackBerry CEO may have golden touch
The world also got a closer look at how two top hospitals, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Cleveland Clinic, have had physicians teaching Watson to recognize different types of cancer and treatments. The goal is to one day soon -- maybe even in 2014 -- tap Watson's learning power to deliver better, personalized care to patients.
"This will change the face of healthcare," said IBM CEO Virginia Rometty at Thursday's event. "This is a new era of machine-human collaboration."
So what is Watson exactly? It's a computer system that learns by reading books, articles, or whatever you feed it.
"It's learning to reason, to think through things. And even when it reads contradicting information, it has to sort that out, just as we do," said Mike Rhodin, who leads the new Watson Group unit.
Show it a patient's medical records, and Watson can tell you it's 95% certain that one type of chemotherapy is better than all other options.
But it's more than just advice, explained José Baselga, Sloan-Kettering's chief physician. Watson can do what other doctors can't: digest and remember vast amounts of data and keep up to date on the latest research. For example, Watson could analyze patients' health backgrounds well enough to warn against treatments that might have a rare but deadly side effect.
There also isn't just one Watson. There are several dozen versions that IBM can tailor to a specific industry or topic. Most live in IBM's server farms across the country. But they can live anywhere, because IBM scientists have made the Watson system so efficient that it can occupy just a small portion of a computer server.
Related story: WWE launches its own streaming network
Then there's the potential for Watson to help consumers. Unlike other all-knowing computer networks, like Google (GOOG), Watson can answer normally-phrased questions with relevant answers.
Suddenly, everyone can get a personal assistant. Rhodin said that would do away with operators on company call centers. Fluid, a software company, is betting that online shopping will improve if customers can just pose questions as they would with a sales associate.
That's particularly helpful with complicated purchases. Shopping online for the proper camping gear requires serious research and advice from experienced hikers. Fluid is already working with The North Face so customers can ask detailed queries (like "What's the right backpack on a 4-day trek through the Northwestern wilderness?" for example) and get relevant answers.
In similar fashion, Terry Jones, who founded Travelocity and Kayak, says he's working on revolutionizing the travel industry again. This time, he hopes to use Watson to create software that can mimic a travel agent. Imagine a website that accepts statements like, "I need an adventurous, sunny vacation with my spouse and kids," and spit out an answer like, "How about Costa Rica?"
Everyone involved says teaching Watson is the biggest challenge. Right now, it takes several meetings between engineers and business executives to make sure they're teaching Watson correctly. Partners say it can be costly and annoying, but they expect the process to ease up as Watson gets smarter.
"It's not like buying a new copy of Microsoft Office and putting it on people's desktops," Rhodin said.
But IBM considers it a success so far. Watson-related business are growing rapidly enough that IBM revised its 2015 goal of revenue from "business analytics" from $16 billion to $20 billion.


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The day started in Escondido in a motel where Angel Linda and I stayed two nights to celebrate our 41st wedding anniversary. We visited the San Diego Zoo Safari Park near Escondido on Sunday and Monday - I got caught in a hail storm on Monday morning, and then heavy rain for about 20 minutes, so we went visiting our former pastor after that. Had a fun two days. We were home by 10 a.m. since it's less than 40 miles to Escondido up I-15. I was able to keep up with email and blogs while we were gone with the free wifi service at the hotel, although I didn't blog at all.
* Got the system on by 10:30 a.m., read email and blogs, and noted that Tuesday's Tip - use Arphax FREE Surname search engine posted this morning. Answered a bunch of emails. Wrote Exploring WikiTree - Adding Family Tree Widgets to your blog or website. Had lunch.
* Worked for awhile in WikiTree - tried to make my thumbnail photos the same size so they show the same size on the WikiTree trees. Was only partially successful. Had to capture more thumbs from other pictures in my computer files. Wonder if the widgets adjust if an image is added?
* Captured DearMYRTLE's Getting Organized PDFs to refer to in the CVGS Genealogy 101 class. Worked in my sources in the database - almost got through the S's! Found that I had some RI cemetery sources wrong, and some not added, so spent a good hour getting them in the database and right.
* Went in at 5 p.m. to watch news, read the paper, and we had dinner. Back online at 7 p.m. to read, and then posted States My Ancestors Lived In.
* Tried to summarize the Getting Organized ideas for the CVGS Genealogy 101 class. Added some of my own ideas. Now I need to make an example Notebook! Re-organizing all of my paper files, and adding paper from the database, is a long-term goal but I have no inclination to do it for every family, just because it will take months of full-time effort which I don't have time for now! Got some great ideas from DearMYRTLE's articles!
* Added to the Best Of posts, then checked Facebook and wrote this post.
Genealogy today was 8.0 hours - 1.0 hour doing email, 1.0 hour reading blogs, 1.0 hours writing blog posts, 1.0 hour working in WikiTree, 2.0 hours working in the database on sources, and 2.0 hours working on the Genealogy 101 presentation and handout.
Genealogy and family research are an obsession for me. Yea, verily, I am a Geneaholic!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
1 comment:
- DearMYRTLE said...
Thanks for the shout-out, Randy. :)
And they thought we'd become a paperless society, eh?
I don't care how "digital" we become, when it comes to good old-fashioned research, it really helps to lay all those printed docs out on a big table and sift through the mess.
The last few years it has been easier to work with the transcript than the original in the same sheet protector.
Below the transcript I like to put the conclusions I've come to with regards to the document thus far.
Of course, everything is subject to change when new documents come to light.
Oh, isn't it fun!?!!!!
M - March 23, 2011 at 10:21 AM
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text:
Raising Hope
comedyAt 23 years old, Jimmy Chance is going nowhere in life. He skims pools for a living, parties every night and still lives at home with his family, including his parents and his cousin, Mike. Jimmy's life takes a drastic turn when a chance romantic encounter with Lucy goes awry once he discovers she is a wanted felon. Months later, when Jimmy pays a visit to the local prison, he discovers Lucy gave birth to their baby, who he is now charged with raising.
- Network: FOX (US)
- Premiered: 2010
- Runtime: 22
- Episodes: 88
- Status: ended
dramafantasymysterysci-fiRavenswood is a spin-off of Pretty Little Liars. Ravenswood is a town near Rosewood. The town has been suffering from a curse for generations. Five strangers suddenly feel connected by this fatal curse and feel the need to dig in the town's mysterious and horrible history before it's to late for each one of them.
- Network: ABC Family
- Premiered: 2013
- Runtime: 0
- Episodes: 10
- Status: canceled
Ray Donovan
dramaSet in the sprawling mecca of the rich and famous, Ray Donovan does the dirty work for LA's top power players. He is the go-to guy who makes the problems of the city's celebrities, superstar athletes, and business moguls disappear. This powerful drama unfolds when his father is unexpectedly released from prison, setting off a chain of events that shakes the Donovan family to its core.
- Network: Showtime
- Premiered: 2013
- Runtime: 60
- Episodes: 24
- Status: returning series
dramaRectify follows the life of Daniel Holden upon his release from jail after serving nineteen years on Georgia's Death Row before DNA evidence disputed the State's original case. Holden, who was only eighteen years of age when convicted and sentenced to die for the brutal rape and murder of a sixteen year old girl, returns to his family and to his hometown where the murder occurred and where many still believe he is guilty. Daniel spent all of his adult life waiting to die. Now he must learn how to live again or decide if he even wants to while others choose whether or not he will have that chance.
- Network: SundanceTV
- Premiered: 2013
- Runtime: 60
- Episodes: 16
- Status: returning series
Red Band Society
comedydramaRed Band Society is a provocative, inspiring and, at times, comic young ensemble drama told through the eyes of a group of teenagers who meet as patients in the pediatric ward of Ocean Park Hospital in Los Angeles.
- Network: FOX (US)
- Premiered: 2014
- Runtime: 42
- Episodes: 13
- Status: canceled
Red Widow
dramaWhen Marta Walraven's (Radha Mitchell) husband is brutally murdered, her first instinct is to protect her three young children. Her husband's business partners - Irwin Petrova (Wil Traval), Marta's scheming and untrustworthy brother, and Mike Tomlin (Lee Tergesen) -- were involved in an illegal drug business deal with rival gangsters, and Marta's husband paid the ultimate price. She already knows the violent world of organized crime; her father, Andrei Petrova (Rade Sherbedzija), and loyal bodyguard Luther (Luke Goss) are gangsters too. She and her sister Kat (Jaime Ray Newman) had always wished for a safer life without bloodshed and fear. For a while Marta lived happily as a stay at home housewife in San Marta's cooperation, FBI Agent James Ramos (Mido Hamada) now promises justice. Marta discovers a tenacity she never knew she had, and takes on the gangsters and the FBI to unveil the truth about her husband's death. As she digs into this dark underworld, she'll test her own strength, relying on her resourcefulness, determination and family ties like never before. To get out of this mob, she needs to beat the bad guys at their own deadly game.
- Network: ABC (US)
- Premiered: 2013
- Runtime: 60
- Episodes: 8
- Status: returning series
Regular Show
adventureanimationcomedyThe series revolves around the lives of two friends, a blue jay named Mordecai and a raccoon named Rigby—both employed as groundskeepers at a local park. Their regular attempts to slack off usually lead to surreal, extreme, and often supernatural misadventures. During these misadventures, they interact with the show's other main characters: Benson, Pops, Muscle Man, Hi-Five Ghost, Skips, Thomas, Margaret and Eileen.
- Network: Cartoon Network
- Premiered: 2010
- Runtime: 11
- Episodes: 178
- Status: returning series
dramaChronicles the rise to power of Mary Queen of Scots when she arrives in France as a 15-year-old, betrothed to Prince Francis, and with her three best friends as ladies-in-waiting. It details the secret history of survival at French Court amidst fierce foes, dark forces, and a world of sexual intrigue.
- Network: The CW
- Premiered: 2013
- Runtime: 45
- Episodes: 44
- Status: returning series
dramaA unique, high-stakes medical drama that goes beyond the operating room and the ER, to reveal a compelling community of hospital staff who make the healing happen. The series follows Griffin Conners, son of the Chief of Staff, brother to both a surgeon and a nurse, and now – medical school dropout. Having been kicked out in a haze of disgrace, Griffin is forced to return to Broadview Hospital as its newest orderly, where he gets a new perspective on a world he thought he knew through a colorful cast of cleaners, project aides, transport workers and more.
- Network: Global
- Premiered: 2014
- Runtime: 45
- Episodes: 20
- Status: ended
Republic of Doyle
comedydramaRepublic of Doyle, created and starring Newfoundland native Allan Hawco as Jake Doyle, the roguish and irreverent private investigator at the center of a colourful cast of characters who live and work together as an extended family as they try and run a "gumshoe" racket in contemporary St. John's, Newfoundland. The series combines the retro crime vibe of classic detective TV shows with a fresh dramatic/comedic edge that produces a blend of intriguing episodic mysteries and ever-churning relationship turmoil.
- Network: CBC (CA)
- Premiered: 2010
- Runtime: 44
- Episodes: 77
- Status: returning series


text:
Jews Killed in 1941 in Dubossary, Moldova/TransnistriaIntroduction by Yefim Kogan
BackgroundMore than 18,000 Jews were murdered in the autumn of 1941 in
Dubossary, Moldavian SSR.
The victims were from many small and large places in Moldova and Ukraine.
With efforts from the Dubossary Jewish Community and its director
Ozias Ukshteyn, many families were recognized and now listed here.
There is a large "Memorial of Victims of Fascists" erected at the place
of Mass Graves, and the Jewish Community of Dubossary and Moldova/Transnistria
are continuing their efforts to memorize people killed in Dubossary.
Dubossary ("Дубоссары" in Russian), is called דובאָסאַר "Dubasar" in Yiddish. Today it is in eastern Moldova, called Дубэсарь "Dubăsari". It is located on the Dniester River, about 24 miles NE of the Moldovan capital Chişinău (Kishinev). DatabaseThis database includes 757 family records with total of 2,984 Jews killed in Dubossary, Moldova/Transnistria. The fields for this database are as follows:
AcknowledgmentsThe information contained in this database was translated from the files prepared in Russian by the Dubossary Jewish Community, Director Ozias Ukshteyn. Translation into English was done by Janet Furba, Germany. Prepared for JewishGen by Yefim Kogan, JewishGen Bessarabia SIG Coordinator. Nolan Altman Searching the DatabaseThis database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database, the JewishGen Romania Database, and the JewishGen Ukraine Database.
Last Update: 14 Jan 2013
Edmond J. Safra Plaza | 36 Battery Place | 646.494.2972 | firstname.lastname@example.com | |


text: When you travel to a foreign country, everything from greetings to requests to simple transactions can get "lost in translation." Since learning the language is one of the best ways to understand a culture, why not study it while you're there on vacation? "The more we learn about a foreign language, the more we learn about our own language and about ourselves – who you are in that other country with other greetings, foods, ways of interacting," says Brazilian native Ana C. Thomé Williams, a senior lecturer in Portuguese at Northwestern University. Sure, you can study in a traditional classroom, but there are other, wonderfully interactive ways to pick up skills. In some places around the world, you can swap foreign tongues in hip urban bars. In others, learn a new language while sailing, picking up culinary tips in an ethnic kitchen or rock climbing. And you're likely to meet some new local friends along the way. "Psychologically, when you are in another country, you need to be more open to challenges. It will help you be more open to challenges back in your own country," says Williams, who specializes in intercultural communication. "It's a good training for life." Here are five ways – and five cool places – around the world to learn a foreign language: 1. Spanglish Exchange in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Madrid, Spain. Call it language learning-meets-speed dating. Created by Maya May, a Chicago-area native who's lived in Buenos Aires for years, Spanglish Exchange pairs native English and native Spanish speakers for a couple hours. Here's how it works: You rotate every 10 minutes from table to table and partner to partner. Instead of talking about how you love sunsets and walks on the beach, you alternately chat for five minutes about life in both languages, even if neither of you is terribly fluent in the other's mother tongue. These several-days-a-week evening events take place at hip restaurants, bars and clubs in Buenos Aires barrios such as San Telmo and Palermo and in equally cool venues in Madrid. They give you a great excuse to get out and experience city nightlife for just $9 (student discounts are available). "We've been seeing Spanglish-style events popping up in cities all over the world. We're happy to have started a language learning trend," says May. "Face-to-face conversations with native speakers are the best way to gain fluency with the added benefit of meeting people from all over the world." And over a beer or cocktail, no less. 2. Parler Parlor Conversation Group in Paris, France Visiting the City of Light and looking for an easy way to both meet locals and brush up on your French? Parler Parlor offers free-form chats between native English and French speakers three times a week at two spots in central Paris. Launched 14 years ago by "House Hunters International" favorite and American expatriate Adrian Leeds along with French-language expert Marie-Elisabeth Crochard, Parler Parlor has members (who sign up for multiple sessions or pay a one-time fee) from 45 countries. Equally divided groups of between six and eight English and French speakers spend 45 minutes chatting in one language, then the other. Says Leeds: "It's one voice at a time, period. (Visitors) should never feel intimidated because everybody is there for the same reason, regardless of the level." Another benefit: "I think it's really therapeutic. Regardless of what's going on in your life, for an hour and a half you get to talk and think about something else. It can be like a group therapy session." 3. Instituto de Lenguajes Puerto Escondido in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. If world-class surfing and studying is your thing, the Instituto de Lenguajes offers small-group and private instruction Spanish language lessons. Based in a coastal village in the state of Oaxaca and about 200 miles south of Acapulco, the school prides itself on immersion into Mexican culture. Keep yourself challenged by learning to speak while adding surf tours – or perhaps Oaxacan cooking lessons or salsa dancing, all in Spanish – to your daily agenda. Extracurriculars are plentiful, but the Instituto is first and foremost about foreign language. Its teachers are native Spanish speakers who come from across Latin America and Mexico and all know English. You don't have to stroll far to sleep here. Stay on school grounds and rent one of the Instituto's affordable WiFi-enabled bungalows, which start at $30 a night and $650 for four weeks and overlook the popular Playa Zicatela beach. Also available in a bus-accessible nearby neighborhood are studio apartments with full kitchens and ocean views. (And the next-door family is happy to help guests practice their developing language skills.) For those wanting to live with and like the locals, the Instituto arranges home stays with area residents. 4. Kyoto Minsai Japanese Language School in Kyoto, Japan. Whether you're a beginner trying Japanese for the first time or an advanced speaker preparing for language proficiency tests, this Kyoto school is just the ticket. Its morning and afternoon short-term intensive courses range from two to 10 weeks – four weekdays of study and one field trip day. The school prides itself on offering a "living and breathing" language program that introduces students to Japanese culture and the country's way of life. Instruction here is intense. Even the most elementary classes are in Japanese only. Students at Kyoto Minsai can bunk in the school's dormitory while taking in the city's rich history, high-tech vibe (gaming giant Nintendo is based here), cultural arts and intellectual offerings (about 10% of Kyoto's residents are enrolled in universities). The Kyoto surroundings add texture to the language lessons taught here, as do the school's complementary studies on Japanese culture, everyday life, and customs. 5. Vela & Lingua in Elba, Italy. Think you can multitask well enough to learn Italian and sailing at the same time? If you're up for the challenge – and some awesome Tyrrhenian Sea views while you're at it – then check out Italy-based Lingua's language learning program. Usually offered May through September, its sailing season can stretch into the rest of the year if student groups form and weather permits. One Vela & Lingua ("Sailing and Language" in Italian) option lets small student groups study Italian on weekday mornings and then sail on Saturday to the island of Elba (yes, where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled in 1814). Another condenses this study-sail-then-swim-in-a-cove program into a weekend. Yet another lets student groups sail all week long, taking Italian classes with a Lingua instructor and sailing lessons from a skipper of nearby schools Sud Ovest and Gatticorsari. Students will head from Marina di Salivoli or Baratti on the Italian mainland to Elba or one of the other islands of the Tuscan Archipelago. Language lessons take place in the mornings, while afternoons mean stops on the islands' scenic beaches and land excursions to interesting sites. Talk about putting a new spin on "immersion." Maureen Jenkins is a freelance travel, food and lifestyles writer. A Chicago native, she lives outside Paris and blogs about her expatriate life at UrbanTravelGirl.com.


text:
Unless your plan is to only fish for Steelhead in the Pacific northwest or salmon in Alaska, two-handed Spey casting is not something you're likely to get into when you first start out fly fishing.
Spey casting rods can be anywhere from 12 feet to 15 feet (and longer), but single-handed fly rods rarely exceed 10 feet. So, realistically, your decision for fly rod length will likely fall somewhere between 7 feet and 10 feet.
The following is a list of ideal rod lengths (in feet and inches), and weights (wt) for particular fly fishing scenarios:
- Typical sized trout in a typical wadable trout stream- 8'6" to 9', 4 to 6 wt
- Small trout in small overgrown mountain streams- 6' to 7'6", 2 to 3 wt
- Large trout, Steelhead, and salmon in mid-sized to large rivers- 9' to 10', 7 to 9 wt
- Czech nymphing (or similar technique) for trout in a mid-sized to large river- 9'6" to 10'6", 4 to 6 wt
- Bonefish on the flats- 9', 8 wt
- Permit or large Striped Bass from a boat- 9', 10 to 11 wt
- Adult Tarpon from a boat- 9', 12 wt
- Smallmouth Bass in a 40' to 50' wide wadable creek with overhanging branches- 7'6" to 8'6", 6 to 8 wt
- Big Largemouth Bass in a lake, fishing from a bass boat- 9', 7 to 9 wt
- Bluegill (and other panfish) from a boat- 9', 4 to 6 wt
- Largemouth or Smallmouth Bass from a kayak- 7'9" to 8'3", 7 to 9 wt
This list is certainly not all-inclusive, and may be a source of debate for some anglers, but should give you a rough idea of what you might need for your particular brand of fly fishing. If you're still a bit unsure, turn to the experts at your local fly shop.
Just remember, under-weighting your rod so you will have to play fish to exhaustion in order to land them is never good for the fish. Responsible catch and release anglers use appropriately sized rods to land fish efficiently and release them quickly.
Above all, have fun selecting and fishing your first fly rod. There's a good chance it won't be your last.
Learn more about details of the sport at a fishing class.Fly Fishing Examiner Jay Eubanks is a self-taught fly fisher and smallmouth bass fanatic.
Examiner.com is the inside source for everything local. Powered by Examiners, the largest pool of knowledgeable and passionate contributors in the world, we provide unique and original content to enhance life in your local city wherever that may be.
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text:
The Biggest McMansion of Them All
In an on-camera interview, David Siegel crows that he got George W. Bush elected president. When asked how he did that, the Florida resident declines to give particulars, claiming his actions "might not have been legal." His wife, Jackie, brags that she's spent as much as $1 million a year on clothing, including $17,000 on a pair of Gucci crocodile boots.
The two big spenders are at the center of "The Queen of Versailles," a brilliant and infuriating documentary that begins as a film about the American dream and ends as one about the American nightmare. It earned its director, Lauren Greenfield, a best director nod at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
David Siegel, 76, is the billionaire founder of Westgate Resorts, which he claims is "the largest privately owned time-share company in the world." Jackie, 31 years his junior, is David's surgically enhanced wife, and mother to seven of his 13 children. They live in a 26,000-square-foot home in Orlando, Fla., with a household staff of 19. They believe the house is too small.
So, in 2004, the couple set out to build another home, based on the palace of Louis XIV at Versailles and the Paris hotel in Las Vegas; at 90,000 square feet, if completed, it will be the largest in America. The house will have 10 kitchens — though Jackie doesn't cook — 30 bathrooms, a bowling alley and a roller rink. The couple spent $5 million on marble alone. On a filmed tour of the construction site, Greenfield asks Jackie if a large area is her bedroom. Jackie replies, "That's not my room. That's my closet."
All went well until the credit crunch of 2008. The Siegels' problems weren't caused by the house — though it did become a burden. Rather, David's company ran into trouble as lending dried up. Typically, Westgate customers borrowed money from the company to pay for their vacation time-shares. The company, in turn, borrowed from the banks at lower interest rates. When the banks stopped lending, the bottom fell out.
Added to that difficulty was the burden of the PH Towers Westgate, a new 52-story high-rise luxury resort in Las Vegas, which drained Siegel's corporate resources as well as $400 million of his own money. Finally, in November of 2011, Siegel was forced to sell.
"I didn't think people like them would be affected by the economic crisis," Greenfield, 46, told the Forward in a recent telephone interview. "I assumed that people with this kind of wealth would have a lot of money on the side — a cushion, some protection. It wasn't until later that David told me he had signed personally for all the loans."
At the end of the film, Greenfield captures the moment when the lights go out at the top of the building and the PH Towers Westgate becomes just the PH Towers.
"The Queen of Versailles" got its start in happier days, in 2007, when Greenfield was photographing Donatella Versace on assignment for Elle magazine. Jackie was there as one of the designer's best customers. The two women took an immediate liking to one another.
"I was intrigued by her because of her wealth," Greenfield said. "She showed me pictures of her seven kids on the steps of their private jet. She didn't have the veil of privacy a lot of rich people have."
Originally, the project was going to be a look at how the wealthy live and, of course, at the Siegel's house-in-progress. It was very much in line with Greenfield's previous work as a documentarian and photographer.
The daughter of university professors who ultimately divorced, Greenfield was born in Boston and grew up in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles. After high school she majored in visual anthropology at Harvard, and decided to pursue photography after several unsuccessful attempts to get into film school.
Her first major project was a series of photographs of French aristocracy inspired by a stay with an uppercrust family during a high school year abroad. Coming from Los Angeles, where social class is defined by money, she was fascinated by a society where status is determined by heritage. Lauren's "French mother" provided her with an entree into the French aristocratic world, where she photographed their "social rituals, dances and coming out parties." It was the antithesis of the Siegels, who grew up lower-middle class and later became wealthy.
The result was a well received and widely toured photography exhibit called "Survivors of the French Revolution" that established Greenfield's career. It was followed in 2002 by "Girl Culture," a book of photographs that became the basis of her first documentary, "Thin," about women, body image and eating disorders. Two shorter documentaries, photo books and touring exhibits came after, as well as magazine assignments like the one where she met Jackie Siegel.
In "The Queen of Versailles," Jackie comes off sympathetically — an innocent without artifice who says whatever comes to mind. When the Westgate business and the world economy go south, Jackie is forced to lay off 15 of her staff. She says she never would have had all of her children if she knew one day she'd be down to just three nannies. It sounds terrible, but the woman is completely oblivious to the impact of her words — including what her children will think when they hear them.
The film is replete with similar examples. Forced to give up her private jet, Jackie flies on a commercial airline to her hometown of Binghamton, N.Y. When handed the keys to a Hertz rental car, she asks the befuddled clerk for the name of her driver. Simply put, she is a naive visitor to Planet Reality from the solar system Über-Wealthy.
David, on the other hand, appears more arrogant. Why did he build a 90,000-square-foot house? "Because I could," he says. Unlike his wife, he's not oblivious to how that sounds. He is a self-made man who always gets what he wants when he wants it. Because he's wealthy, he feels entitled to it. His ego is as large as the house he wanted to build. And as for the masses? Let them eat cake.
After the film was completed, Siegel didn't like the way Greenfield portrayed the decline of his fortunes, so he sued her. He claims that she edited scenes out of the sequence in which they were shot, and made it seem as though the company was going under and that Versailles was kaput. Siegel refused the Forward's requests for an interview, and calls were referred to Sitrick and Company, a public relations agency. The Sitrick representative said that Westgate has never been more profitable — because it is privately held, that is impossible to confirm — and that construction on Versailles will resume this month. Meanwhile Greenfield claims that Siegel's "allegations are false" and notes that Jackie was recently with her promoting the film.
But why did the Siegels allow her into their lives in the first place? During the course of shooting the film, Greenfield visited (and usually stayed with) the family around a half-dozen times. At some point it should have been obvious that the couple and their lifestyle were not coming off well. The house was carpeted in dog feces because the pets were never trained to go outside. Before the layoffs, there was always a staffer around to pick up after them. (According to a recent article in The New York Times, Siegel claimed that the problem was caused by the fact that one of the dogs had cancer.) Worse, one of the Filipino nannies lived in a child's playhouse in the back yard and hadn't seen her own children in 11 years.
"I think David was proud of building the biggest house in America. But I think it was more Jackie's thing," Greenfield posited to explain the access they gave her. "I think she liked me and liked the attention and liked being in front of the camera. Also, I think she was proud of what she accomplished and where she was in life."
Greenfield treats the couple with surprising sympathy considering their excesses. "I try to be non-judgmental when I'm working," she said. "I'm more interested in 'Why is this happening?' and 'What does it say about us?' I don't want to idealize them, either. What was interesting about them is that in some ways they represented both the virtues and the flaws of the American dream."
Though Greenfield is Jewish — she's in early stages of planning her son's bar mitzvah next year — and so, it seems, are the Siegels, she said that she didn't consider portraying Jews as the vulgar nouveau riche. "I started the story about Jackie and religion wasn't part of the equation," she said. "I never let [being Jewish] influence me in my projects."
"Queen of Versailles" may not have Jewish significance for Greenfield, but she also said its message is applicable not just to the super-rich. "It really is a morality tale about overreaching," she said. "I think their story shows the consequences of going too far; it's a lesson not just for rich people, but for all of us."
Curt Schleier is a freelance writer who teaches business writing to corporate executives.
"The Queen of Versailles" opens July 20 in New York and Los Angeles and across the rest of the country throughout July and August.


text:
While in Mumbai we stopped over at the Woodside Inn in Colaba and tried all the local craft beers they had on tap. Today I'll rate the beer flight we had from Gateway Brewing, located in Dombivli. The flight included the three Gateway beers Woodside has on tap: an English-style IPA and two German wheat styles, a light and a dark.
First up was the White Zen wheat beer. It pours an opalescent pale golden yellow with a bit of creamy white head which forms a nice lacing on the glass. The aroma is light, but there's a noticeable banana character and a hint of clove. The flavor is clean and quite refreshing on a hot day, with a smooth clove character and a bit of sweetness that fades away quickly. The palate is light and active, making for an easy drinking beer, but it asks for just a bit more flavor.
Next we tried the Doppelgänger dunkelweizen, a fairly hazy dark ruddy brown with a little off white head. The aroma is mild, with some caramel and a bit of nuttiness. The flavor, while somewhat flat, is refreshing as well, but otherwise unremarkable. The mouthfeel is creamy and there's a hint of cloying sweetness at the end. When tasting it I didn't even realize it was a dunkelweizen, mistaking the mild flavor for a German-style dark lager.
Finally we had the India Pale Ale, with its distinctively floral English character. Their IPA pours a barely hazy cupric gold color with some bone white head. The light aroma is mostly hops, a light herbal and floral nose. The flavor is likewise mostly floral hops, with hints of biscuity malt character spicing things up. The palate is also light and refreshing, but the carbonation ends up being a bit too harsh.
Gateway White Zen
3.8 (4-7-7-4-16)
Gateway India Pale Ale
3.7 (3-7-8-3-15)
Gateway Doppelgänger
3.0 (4-6-5-3-12)


text:
(CNN) — Just when you thought there were no more air-fare bargains left to be found online … Customers cruising United Airlines' website for tickets on Thursday got a pleasant surprise.
As reported by Forbes, air fares between cities such as Washington, DC and Minneapolis were being sold on the site for $0 to $10.
Ticket prices on other domestic routes were displayed as $0, plus $5 tax. Word quickly spread around the Internet and savvy buyers scooped up untold numbers of the dream tickets before United spotted the error.
The $0 fare and other wildly reduced fares appear to have been available for about 15 minutes, before United shut down its online reservations system, reporting that its site was undergoing maintenance.
"One of our filings today contained an error which resulted in certain fares being displayed as zero. We have corrected this error, " said United in a statement that also blamed human error for the mistake.
The site has since resumed normal operations.
The tickets are sold, now what?
The question now: will United honor the erroneously priced tickets? Sales of airline tickets based on erroneous fares are nothing new.
In 2012, as reported by hackmytrip.com, Singapore Airlines, United Airlines and Travelocity all wrangled with the problem. Some believe companies should stand by their sales and accept the consequences of their own mistakes.
Others say airlines shouldn't be held accountable for honest mistakes. United has yet to issue a statement regarding its plans on whether or not to honor the tickets sold at mistaken fares.
Should United Airlines honor the it sold Thursday for $0, $5 and $10? Leave a comment below on the WTVR CBS6 Facebook page.
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