text:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity firms TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus LLC are exploring a sale or a public offering of Neiman Marcus Group Inc, according to a Bloomberg News report late on Sunday.
The private equity firms, which bought the Dallas-based retailer in 2005 for $5.1 billion, have interviewed banks and are about to hire Credit Suisse Group AG MLPN.P to run the dual track process, according to the report, which cited two people familiar with the situation.
A Credit Suisse spokesman declined to comment. E-mails to Warburg, Neiman Marcus and TPG were not immediately returned.
TPG and Warburg are in the early stages of exploring their options and if they do not find a buyer or demand is weak for an IPO, they may decide to pursue a dividend recapitalization instead, according to the report.
Reporting By Jessica Toonkel; Editing by Daniel Magnowski


text:
Injustice: Gods Among Us Review
Every once in a while, a fighting game comes along that heralds in a new era of brawlers and redefines the genre, changing everything fight fans knew and shakes them to their frame-counting cores. Unfortunately, Injustice: Gods Among Us is not that game. But regardless, it's still a pretty kickass experience for both lovers of fighting games and fans of DC Comics' pantheon of heroes and villains. And for those who like those things all rolled into one, it's something truly entertaining.
It won't get points for revolutionizing the fighting game genre, but Injustice does a lot of things very well. Whether it's the ridiculous story that's chock-full of fanservice, the fun fight mechanics and over-the-top super moves, or the suites of single-player and multiplayer modes that will keep players occupied for a long time, Injustice has something for everyone.
Let's start off with the bonkers story that's built around a big "what if?" in the DC Universe. We all know that there's a rivalry between those who champion Batman and those who think that Superman is tops, but now fans can actually play out a scenario in which the two collide because of differing ideologies and to battle for the fate of the world.
I don't want to give away anything when it comes to the story, because as hokey and as crazy as its premise is, it's a story that needs to be played through with no set expectations other than that DC fans will be get a kick out of it. All you have to know is that the Joker threatens to blow up Metropolis, the Justice League swoops in to stop him, things go horribly wrong, and is everyone is transported into another version of Earth, complete with different versions of your favorite heroes and a Superman that's gone rogue. Good thing Batman has a contingency plan for this very situation. It's standard, boilerplate comic book stuff, but fighting through it makes it even more fun.
The fighting mechanics are similar to past Mortal Kombat titles, which makes sense, given that NetherRealm Studios is responsible for all of the games in the hallowed fighting series. The difference is that the fighting in Injustice feels a lot faster and more casual-friendly. You don't need to know complex button combinations to pull off awesome moves or count frames in order to chain attacks together, which should make it appealing to newcomers to the genre. Although, if you do consider yourself a hardcore fighting game fan, the move lists for all the characters inform you of each move's frame-count and how well they combo into other moves. Just sayin'. Otherwise, casuals are welcome.
And what facilitates this casual-friendly fighting? Simple button mapping, of course! The face buttons will let you throw light, medium, and heavy hits, with the last button reserved for performing character-specific special moves. For example, pressing the special button will make Green Arrow fire off an arrow, will let the Green Lantern charge his ring for more damage, and allow the Flash to move super fast, slowing down his opponent.
And if that wasn't cool enough for you, the environment can also play a part in making fights dynamic and fun (or frustrating, depending on whether or not you're on the receiving end). Injustice's backgrounds have points of interaction that let you pick up items to throw at your opponent, jump away to escape an attack, or set up traps that will stun your enemy with just a hit of the R1 button. Each character uses each point of interactivity differently, depending on what type of fighter they are. For example, an agile character like the Flash will jump off a globe in the Justice League's Watchtower, while a hulking menace like Solomon Grundy will hurl it at his opponent.
Landing powerful blows on your foe at certain points of a few specific stages will also send them careening into another part of the level, just like in past Mortal Kombat games, but this time with more devastating effects. So if you punch someone into the doors of a ward in Arkham Asylum, your enemy will be knocked around by a few members of Batman's rogues' gallery before being booted into another part of the stage.
Once you run through the game's somewhat lengthy story mode and played through the points-of-view of many of the starring characters, you'll be equipped to tackle the S.T.A.R. Labs mode of the game, in which you can play different mini-games as characters in order to unlock bonuses and gain levels. Each hero or villain gets about 10 missions to play through, with each stage testing a different set of their specific abilities. For example, Superman has to fight the Venom-infused Bane while staying in the straying patches of sunlight in order to regain his strength. These games are a fun distraction for about 10 minutes or so, but then they start to drone on and on. If you're a completionist, you'll most likely wade your way through the S.T.A.R. Lab's many challenges. But if not, you're better off just fighting a friend or hopping online to fight the world.
And that brings us to the biggest double-edged sword in Injustice and the heart of any fighting game: multiplayer. Local multiplayer is simple and only involves you and friend. Or an enemy. Whatever. But the online multiplayer is where some folk might feel a healthy amount of frustration. Now, my own frustration can be attributed to some connectivity issues that made me wait what felt like weeks for a match and the fact that I'd join rooms that were labeled as being near full capacity, only to find that I was the only one in there. It didn't matter whether I looked for a Ranked Match, a Player Match, King of the Hill, or Survivor, I just couldn't get into many matches.
But when I finally got in, Injustice was no longer a fighting game, but became a survival horror game for my controller. Unless you're a frame-counting expert who knows how to chain combos, you will get rocked by players online who take advantage of some characters' ability to stunlock you in corners with the same string of combos. You will lose. And you will rage.
Hopefully some updates that balance the game will come through in the future, since it's looking like a Raven-fest online, complete with almost-instant grabs from across the screen. These connectivity and balancing issues, plus the lackluster extra single-player modes, are the only things that really hold Injustice back from being a truly amazing game. But the fact that it's accessible to casual players while also catering to the truly hardcore is the best thing about it. That, plus the incredibly fun story, make it a must-buy for any fan of fighting games or DC comics. If you're either of those two things, it'd be an injustice for you not to get this game.
This review is based on a retail copy of Injustice: Gods Among Us for the PlayStation 3.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A Staggering $84 Ice Cream Bill Sparks Outrage
A sweet treat left a bitter taste in the mouths of some hungry tourists.
Four British people on vacation in Rome were recently stunned when they were charged a mind-boggling $84 for four ice cream cones. You'll get brain freeze trying to figure out the math so we'll do it for you – that's $21 per cone.
The tourists were so incensed they went public with the story, which made it all the way to the desk of Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno. He responded to the scandal by offering the ripped-off quarter a free trip back to the Italian city, not to mention a complimentary ice cream.
Despite the enticing deal, it's not clear if the tourists plan to return.
And while several people have sided with the customers, there's a camp that feels no pity. One employee at the ice cream shop said, "The prices are clearly on display."


text:
There's a long tradition of manifestos in modern architecture, of calls to arms to rally round some ideology of one sort or another. (There's a great anthology of them, Programs and Manifestos on 20th Century Architecture by Ulrich Conrads.) Le Corbusier's 5 Points made a particularly pithy manifesto. Easy to memorize, each followed from and was dependent on the others, and together and separately they constituted an overturning, a reversal, of traditional architecture/construction with the goal of ushering in the irrefutably Modern Era. In the end, though it seems to have ended up all about style and suburbia...which was so not the point.
I think it's time for a new manifesto, but this time a pragmatic, rather than ideological, overturning of both recent architectural obsessions and rote tradition. We need 5 new points that bring the issues of building into the landscape and city: No building is alone. The future is transdisciplinary. So with apologies to Le Corbusier and all the ranting and raving modernists who came before me, here we go:
5 New Points for Sustainable Urban Architecture:
1 Complete Streets. Just got back from Portland, and this is a shot of one of their wonderful complete streets…H Street will one day look like this. The street is the key to the city.
2 Productive density. It's that perfect mix of 7-up units per acre, mixed use, and physical design that make such liveliness not just possible, but probable.
3 Green Roofs, which are quite like Corbusier's original roof gardens. Their benefits are too numerous to count...improved water quality, habitat, heat island mitigation, insulation, and let's not forget pure biophilian beauty. But why stop at the roof? The new frontier is green walls, which actually leads us to:
4 Responsive Facades. The cladding of a building should telegraph its orientation. in this case of this building, passive and active systems combine such that the element doing the passive shading is happily collecting all that solar energy. Architectural elegance: high performance with a frugality of material.
Under my new 5 points, every design needs to begin with the fundamental question: what can this building do with energy and the environment because of what it is and where it is.
So why is all this so important? Le Corbusier claimed that building was at the root of all social unrest in the 1st quarter of the 20th century. And he was correct then as now. Building is the key to the entire sustainability problematic: where we build, what we build, how we build...and for whom. We've heard this before; we can't say we weren't warned...
"Society is filled with a violent desire for something which it may obtain or may not. Everything lies in that: everything depends on the effort made and the attention paid to these alarming symptoms. Architecture or Revolution. Revolution can be avoided."
Le Corbusier, Towards an Architecture, 1927


text:
SHREVEPORT, La. — Tyler Tettleton threw for 331 yards and two touchdowns, Beau Blankenship scored four touchdowns, and Ohio cruised to a 45-14 victory over Louisiana-Monroe at the Independence Bowl on Friday.
SHREVEPORT, La. — Tyler Tettleton threw for 331 yards and two touchdowns, Beau Blankenship scored four touchdowns, and Ohio cruised to a 45-14 victory over Louisiana-Monroe at the Independence Bowl on Friday.
Chase Cochran caught three passes for 162 yards and a touchdown as the Bobcats (9-4) won their second straight bowl game. Blankenship's four rushing touchdowns set an Independence Bowl record. He added 104 yards rushing.
Tettleton was especially sharp in the first half, completing 9 of 14 passes for 215 yards and two touchdowns as Ohio built a 24-7 lead.
Louisiana-Monroe (8-5) struggled in its first bowl game after 19 seasons in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Kolton Browning completed 21 of 39 passes for 219 yards and two touchdowns, but also threw three first-half interceptions.
Ohio broke several Independence Bowl records, including the 31-point margin of victory and 556 total yards.
Ohio lost four of five games to end the regular season — including the last three — but looked crisp in a complete performance against the Warhawks.
Tettleton's 2012 season had been a slight disappointment considering the huge numbers he put up the year before as a sophomore, but his performance against Louisiana-Monroe was a reminder of how good he can be. He finished 14 of 22 and averaged more than 23 yards per completion.
Blankenship finished with a school record 1,604 yards rushing yards this season and topped the 100-yard mark for the 10th time. All four of his touchdown runs came from 2 yards out or less.
Louisiana-Monroe came into Friday's game with the better storyline and basically a home-field advantage. The Warhawks were playing in their first bowl game after joining college football's highest level in 1994 and secured a bid in Shreveport, which is only about 100 miles from their campus.
But that emotional lift didn't help ULM's defense, which was torched by Tettleton's deep ball accuracy early and Blankenship's hard running late.
Tettleton needed just three passes to lead Ohio to its first touchdown. He hit Tyler Futrell on a 26-yard gain and Chase Cochran on a 51-yard strike before finding Donte Foster for the 3-yard score.
A few minutes later, Tettleton hit Cochran perfectly in stride for a 68-yard touchdown that gave the Bobcats a 14-0 lead.
Louisiana-Monroe briefly showed some life early in the second quarter when Browning's 14-yard touchdown pass to Tavarese Maye cut the margin to 14-7.
But Ohio came right back, using Matt Weller's 38-yard field goal and Blankenship's 2-yard touchdown run to push ahead 24-7 with 4:50 left in the second quarter. Blankenship's touchdown run was set up by Browning's third interception of the first half.
Louisiana-Monroe had a chance to cut into the deficit just before halftime, but coach Todd Berry's gamble to go for a touchdown instead of a short field goal backfired when Browning's final pass of the half sailed harmlessly out the back of the end zone.
Berry's gamble wasn't a surprise — the Warhawks had gained a reputation for unorthodox play-calling during their record-setting season. But nothing seemed to work against the Bobcats, and the large ULM fan contingent had mostly disappeared from the stands by the end of the third quarter.
Follow David Brandt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidbrandtAP


text:
Kids are Invited to Create Musical Masterpieces at Kenny Anderson Park in Sioux Falls
What kind of music can you create by getting creative and crafty using common items from around the house?
Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation invites children ages 4 to 9 to join us for Musical Masterpieces to be held on Thursday, June 27, 2013, at 1 to 1:45 p.m. or 6:30 to 7:15 p.m. at the Kenny Anderson Park picnic shelter. Registration is required by June 27 and costs $5 per participant.
In case of inclement weather, the class will move to the adjacent community center.
For more information regarding Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation programs, refer to the Activities Guide, visit siouxfalls.org/parks, or call 605-367-8222. To receive updates on Parks and Recreation activities, subscribe to our newsletter at my.siouxfalls.org or follow us at facebook.com/siouxfallsparks or twitter.com/siouxfallsparks.


text:
Friday, February 24, 2012
Review: Microsoft Manual of Style, Fourth Edition
Format: Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Microsoft Press; 4 edition (January 27, 2012)
I don't write technical content for Microsoft products very much these days (read: "practically never") but the Microsoft Manual of Style is not only considered required reading for those folks who do, but even for those of us who don't. Let me explain.
In many companies that produce technical documentation, there is a distinct set of rules that govern the voice, style, and other aspects in how the documentation is to be presented. Most people who aren't technical writers assume I just "wing it" whenever I create documentation for a technical product, but this is untrue. The documentation has to speak to a particular audience and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is consistency, documentation for technical products must be presented in an exquisitely specific manner. Any technical style guide is designed to provide the writer with a template around which that presentation is organized.
Microsoft's fourth edition of their style guide is constructed into two broad areas: General Topics and Usage Dictionary. The first part is the narrative that addresses general subjects such as web content, the user interface, and even grammar and punctuation. The second part is the dictionary, but one that offers correct spelling and syntax around technical terms, from beep and bitmask to undo and update. Like any dictionary, you use it when you need to be sure you are using a technical term correctly or if you haven't the faintest idea on it's proper usage (and not all writers know how to spell all words, which is why we have dictionaries).
The first part of the book exists to familiarize the writer with the various aspects of writing style expected when documenting Microsoft products. It stands to reason that Microsoft's internal writing staff all use this book as the Bible; a Bible they themselves have produced. However, plenty of other companies must refer to Microsoft products in their documentation and it makes a great deal of sense to comply with Microsoft's preferred standards when doing so (just as we'd all wish Microsoft would write a version of Internet Explorer that complied with accepted web standards, but I digress).
As the front matter states though, no style guide can contain references to each and every aspect of each and every product, so there will be gaps. Several other references are suggested, both web resources and other guides and dictionaries. Together, this should provide the technical writer with a sufficient set of tools in order to create documentation that is readable by a general audience, internally consistent, and consistent with documents produced by other writers and agencies that comply with Microsoft writing standards.
This isn't a bad way to produce documentation for technical products that have nothing to do with Microsoft, either. Many technical writers work under temporary contract and provide writing services to a variety of companies needing documentation for general customers (such as end users) as well as technical consumers (such as IT staff). Smaller companies especially, won't have their own preferred style guide for their documentation, so it will be up to the writer to consult with the ops or dev team supervisor to agree upon a preferred style. While the Chicago Manual of Style is the accepted standard for professional writing, it is not designed specifically for technical documentation. In lieu of any other technical style, Microsoft's style guide is considered the de facto style by most businesses that need technical documentation.
I took a look at the Punctuation chapter in order to sample this book's wares, and was pleased that Microsoft indicated correct vs. incorrect styling as "Microsoft style" vs. "Not Microsoft style." There's more than one way to be right or wrong, but we're talking about Microsoft technical writing style, not general language usage, so what might be "right" in an email, could still be "Not Microsoft style".
You'll never memorize this book, so don't even try. If you are an aspiring technical writer, you don't want this stuck in your memory, anyway. That's why it's a reference and not undying prose. Plus, styles change over time, so you will need to continually adapt in order to stay current. That's also why you will need the current edition, rather than relying on previously published versions.
If you're worried about this guide stifling creativity, then you're in the wrong business. While there is certainly aspects of technical writing that require creativity, there is also a large amount of standards compliance required (and you thought programmers had all the fun). If you document Microsoft products or any other technical asset, assuming you want to write by some objective standard, a very good place to start is with the Microsoft Manual of Style.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text:
Kilgore bunch
House on 3/4 acre in suburb. Grow flowers outside and in. Vegetables garden in summer. NE OH, zone 5 Some years we start plants from seed.
Back Yard Container Garden Flower Close-ups Front Yard Garden Large (5,000 - 10,000 sq ft.) Lawn Side Yard
2 of 10: Dwee-Doo is nick name. Came from OldHouseGardens.com in 2008. Beautiful dahlia is one of many we bought.
4 of 10: Butterfly Bush. Hard-to-see Butterfly is lower center of pic. Semi-hardy in NE OH. Great for butterfly watching. Treat as annual.
6 of 10: Close-up of pink calla. Purple in background is annual. We do a lot of container gardening.
Comments / Questions
You have a lovely yard. I live in Sunbury ,Ohio and gardening is my passion also.Please post more pics of your flowers,I enjoy seeing others gardens.It's a great way to get new ideas for my gardens....Sandy
Add Comment or Question
Login to add comments.


text:
Rhodes brace downs Orient
Two strikes from Jordan Rhodes and a Jimmy Smith own goal earned Huddersfield a 3-1 win over Leyton Orient at Brisbane Road.
Last Updated: 03/04/12 10:16pm
Two strikes from Jordan Rhodes and a Jimmy Smith own goal earned Huddersfield a 3-1 win over Leyton Orient at Brisbane Road.
Orient took the lead after 14 minutes when midfielder Matt Spring blasted a right-foot volley into the net from 18 yards after the visitors only partially cleared a long throw by George Porter.
But their delight was short-lived as, four minutes later, a corner by Danny Ward caused problems for the home defence and the ball fell to Rhodes whose cheeky back-heel was helped over the line by Smith.
A Peter Clarke effort was then cleared off the line by Spring but a minute into added time in the first half, Huddersfield did go in front when a long throw by Sean Morrison was met by Rhodes, who stabbed the ball home at the near post to record his 36th goal of the season.
Orient threatened with Spring and David Mooney coming close but Rhodes put the issue beyond doubt with a minute remaining when he neatly controlled a long kick from keeper Alex Smithies before toe-poking the ball into the bottom corner of the net.
The victory moved the Terriers to within five points of an automatic promotion place while Orient remain five points above the drop zone.


text:
Anyone available on Sunday in the Berkeley area, preferably in the afternoon?
Views: 92
Replies to This Discussion
Hey Jerome,
I am available after 4 tomorrow. I live on Rose and MLK. We can maybe play at the Rose Garden.
Are you good? I am looking to get back into the game, but will be rusty. I'm warnin' ya. Tennis is the best game in the world, though.
My email address is email@example.com.
I hope to hear form ya!
There are also courts at Hopkins, though I've never been to the Rose Garden. I am getting back into the game and fast. Let's do it! 4 p.m.? Just say the time and place.
© 2019 Created by Mark / The Mayor. Powered by


text:
Find us on:
Browse Sections
The only way to know if you have HIV is to get tested. You could have HIV and still feel healthy.
Everyone ages 15 to 65 needs to get tested for HIV at least once. All pregnant women also need to get tested. How often you need to get tested depends on your risk for HIV infection. Talk to your doctor or nurse about how often you need to get tested.
If you are a man who has sex with men, you may need to get tested more than once a year – like every 3 to 6 months. Talk to your doctor or nurse about what's best for you.
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. This is the virus that causes AIDS. There is no cure yet for HIV/AIDS, but there are treatments that can help people live longer, healthier lives.
HIV is spread through some of the body's fluids, like blood, semen (cum), vaginal fluids, and breast milk. HIV is passed from one person to another by:
Learn more about HIV/AIDS:
The only way to know if you have HIV is to get tested. Many people with HIV don't have any symptoms. In the United States, about 1 in 7 people who have HIV don't know it.
Even if you don't feel sick, getting early treatment for HIV is important.
If you have HIV, early treatment can help you live a longer, healthier life. The sooner you get care for HIV, the better.
If you have HIV, you can take steps to protect your partner from the virus. If you are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant, you can get treatment to prevent passing HIV to your baby.
You can get an HIV test at a doctor's office or clinic – or you can test yourself at home. There are different types of HIV tests. Some use a sample of your blood and some use fluid from your mouth.
It depends on the type of HIV test you get.
If you test positive, you'll need a second HIV test to be sure. Find out more about the different types of HIV tests.
When you get tested at a doctor's office or clinic, your test results are confidential. This means they can only be shared with people allowed to see your medical records.
If you are worried about giving your name, you can get an anonymous HIV test at some clinics. This means that you don't have to give your name. Learn more about confidential and anonymous HIV testing.
Take these steps to protect yourself and others from HIV.
You can get an HIV test at your local health clinic, HIV testing center, hospital, or health department. Your primary care doctor (the doctor you see for regular health care) can also test you for HIV.
To find an HIV testing center near you:
If you want to know more about HIV testing and prevention, take this list of questions to your appointment.
Free HIV testing is available at some testing centers and health clinics.
Under the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law passed in 2010, insurance plans must cover HIV testing. HIV counseling is covered for women who are sexually active. Talk to your insurance company to find out more.
To learn about other services covered by the Affordable Care Act, visit HealthCare.gov.
The best way to protect yourself from HIV is to not have sex until you are in a relationship with only one person and you have both tested negative.
Here are other steps you can take to help prevent HIV:
Check out these condom do's and don'ts.
It's important to make time to talk before having sex. Ask your partner to get tested for HIV and other STDs — you can even offer to get tested together.
These ideas can help you start the conversation:
If you want more information about preventing HIV, ask your local testing center if they offer prevention counseling. You may want counseling if:
Content last updated on:
April 23, 2019
Reviewer Information
Find More Resources
Language Assistance Available


text:
Only hotels in 06013 zip code are listed below. Search for cheap and discount hotel rates in Burlington, CT for your upcoming leisure or conference / group travel. We list the best 06013 hotels and motels so you can review the Burlington hotel list below to find the perfect lodging. Hotels in Hartford county and area code 860 are also listed.
How should we direct your call?


text:
Thanks to Duke University's Mark Anthony Neal for the heads up. Heidi Lewis, Riley Scholar-in-Residence, Feminist and Gender Studies at The Colorado College, delivers a fascinating and engaging micro-lecture on the representations of Black gay men on television from the 1980's to present.
Lewis concentrates her analysis on two characters: The first is "Omar Little", the Black gay homothug and stickup artist on HBO's gritty drama The Wire. The second character is Julien Low, the closeted police detective on The Shield. President Obama once said that Omar Little was the "most fascinating" character on television.
"One thing that interested me were depictions of Black gay men in the new millenium," says Lewis. "Prior to that you have representations of Black gay men as effete, feminine or sissified, if you will. Around 2000 you began to see a shift in those representations. Omar and other characters began to challenge that. Omar is hyper-masculine ... his occupation was robbing drug dealers. That's a problematic occupation but one that is a stark contrast to stereotypical representations."
Lewis' lecture and video is very engaging. It's only about six minutes long. Watch it AFTER THE JUMP ...
Continue reading "VIDEO: Fascinating Discussion of Representations of Black Gay Men" »


text:
Professional High-Performance Dual-Drive Storage SystemG-RAID with Thunderbolt, designed specifically for professional content creation applications, features the most powerful, flexible I/O technology ever. At double the data transfer rates of USB 3.0 and over 12 times faster than Firewire 800, no other PC I/O interface can match the raw speed of Thunderbolt now available in G-Technology's leading RAID solution.
The G-Technology team has built its reputation and business on serving creative professionals and prosumers that demand performance, capacity and quality. To continue its tradition of serving this market, we've worked with Intel and Apple to enable Thunderbolt on its product line. Leveraging the strengths of our Enterprise storage experience, our AV expertise and the capabilities of Thunderbolt, the G-Technology team is delivering the future of rich media now.
Easy to SetupG-RAID is ready right out of the box for use with Mac OS X systems and appears to the system as a single, big and fast disk drive. G-RAID also supports Windows systems with a simple reformat.
The Best Warranty & Support in the BusinessG-RAID is backed by a standard 3-year factory warranty and unlimited free technical support by representatives experienced with the latest content creation applications.
Interface- (2) Thunderbolt
Disk Drives- 4000GB- Type ? 2x SATA II- RPM ? 7200- Cache ? Up to 32MB per drive
Cooling System- Thermo-regulated, quiet smart fan
RAID Controller- Hardware RAID 0
Size (LxWxH)- 9.25" x 5.125" x 3.374"
System Requirements- Up to 2.2TB- Mac OSX 10.6 or higher
Receive Our Latest Deals
Connect With Buydig


text:
PINETOWN � In a heavyweight bout to remain in first place in the Coastal Plains Conference standings Pamlico threw the knockout blow when Naquan Gibbs delivered a 31-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter that sent Northside to the canvass and lifted the Hurricanes to a 21-10 victory.
PINETOWN � In a heavyweight bout to remain in first place in the Coastal Plains Conference standings Pamlico threw the knockout blow when Naquan Gibbs delivered a 31-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter that sent Northside to the canvass and lifted the Hurricanes to a 21-10 victory.
Gibbs finished the day completing only four of his 10 attempts for 75 yards, but two of his passes resulted in touchdowns and the senior QB ran for another to lead the Hurricanes (5-3, 2-0) to victory.
�We played hard and they played hard,� Northside coach Keith Boyd said. �I thought the biggest difference in the game was that they had a pretty darn good player at quarterback. He did some things that you can�t coach and they did a good job of getting the football in his hands. When they needed a big play he came through for them.�
It was an intense affair from the get-go as Northside (4-4, 1-1) and Pamlico took turns delivering bone-jarring hits to one another in a contest that was marked by big defensive plays and plenty of penalties.
The Hurricanes struck first as they pieced together a 73-yard scoring drive on their first possession that ended when Gibbs threw a short pass to Cameron Moore, who scrambled his way 43 yards down field for a 6-0 lead.
Pamlico looked poised to add another score, but the Panthers defense held strong, forcing Hurricanes coach Kevin Yost to try for a 32-yard field goal.
The attempt missed its mark and Northside recaptured the momentum as it retaliated with a 79-yard scoring drive that was fueled by the running of Rockne Butler and Antonio Woods, along with a few Pamlico penalties.
The drive ended with Butler rumbled across the goal line to take a 7-6 advantage right before the end of the first half.
Despite forcing two fourth quarter turnovers, the Panthers would not reach the end zone again as Pamlico outscored them 13-3 in the second half.
�We were undisciplined in the first half with our penalties. It was uncharacteristic for us,� Yost said. �The difference in the second half was that we played our game and focused on us instead of letting other stuff get in our head.�
The Hurricanes reclaimed the lead midway through the third when Gibbs darted for a 27-yard score to go ahead 13-7.
Northside was able to string together a solid drive on its ensuing possession but it stalled at the nine, forcing the Panthers to settle for a 26-yard field goal by Woods.
The Panthers forced and recovered two fumbles in the fourth quarter, but neither resulted in points, and on Pamlico�s third possession of the fourth it put the game out of reach when Gibbs connected with Josiah Simmons for a 31-yard TD pass on third down to expand the lead to 21-10 with 3:53 left in the game.
Pamlico 6 0 7 8 � 21
Northside 0 7 3 0 � 10
First downs 8 10
Rushes-yards 36-165 39-27
Comp-att-int 4-10 2-3-1
Passing yards 75 7
Fumbles-lost 3-2 1-1
Penalties-yards 8-70 5-55
Punts 0 5-23
Scoring Summary
P � Cameron Moore 43 pass from Naquan Gibbs (kick blocked), 8:21, 1st.
N � Rockne Butler 2 run (Antonio Woods kick), :44, 2nd.
P � Gibbs 27 run (kick good), 6:50, 3rd.
N � Antonio Woods 26 field goal, :25, 3rd.
P � Josiah Simmons 31 pass from Gibbs (William Becton two points), 3:53, 4th.


text:
Don't see your question? Visit our help section.
Get access to great in-store deals and local pick-up
Sign up for our email deals newsletter!
With Physics You Can Feel, Madden NFL 13 delivers next generation gameplay today. The all-new Infinity Engine delivers real-time physics, ensuring no two plays will ever LOOK or FEEL the same. Madden NFL 13 revolutionizes the way sports video game career modes are played with Connected Careers - a completely new and fully connected universe defined by deep gameplay, unique storylines and social integration. With cutting-edge Infinity Engine technology, revolutionary Connected Careers and a complete audio and visual overhaul that delivers best in class presentation, Madden NFL 13 is undoubtedly the greatest entry in the franchise's celebrated history.
If you are a fan of the Madden NFL franchise, check out all the Madden NFL 13 games and accessories available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PS Vita.
If you are a fan of the Madden franchise, be sure to check out the latest Madden NFL 25 games and accessories for the Xbox 360, and PS3.
Pro Price


text:
Found 1 resultsAuthor Title Type [ Year]
Filters: First Letter Of Title is J [Clear All Filters]
Japanese variant multiple sclerosis or neuromyelitis optica?" International Journal of MS Care. 2008;10(S1):39."
UW Medicine Multiple Sclerosis Center
Now located at Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, you may visit the clinic's website or call 206-598-3344 to make an appointment.


text:
Women's rights: making progress in Afghanistan
In the run up to International Women's day, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Ambassador Kolinda Grabar held an exchange of views with Afghan women from the National Assembly, the Afghan National Army, and the media.
Speaking via video link on 7 March, the women discussed the important correlation that exists between the consolidation of lasting security in Afghanistan and the promotion of women's rights. Dr Gulalai Noor Safi, Member of Parliament, Ms Farida Nikzad, Vice President of the South Asia Free Media Association and Brigadier General Khatool joined the discussion from Kabul.
Above all, the discussion provided an opportunity to emphasise the centrality of Afghanistan on the agenda of the NATO Summit in Chicago which will take place on 20 and 21 May 2012. "In Chicago, we will map out the next phase of the transition to full Afghan security responsibility between now and the end of 2014. And we will make clear our enduring commitment to Afghanistan beyond 2014," said Ambassador Grabar.
Dr Safi, Ms Nikzad, and Brigadier General Khatool extended their good wishes for the 8 March celebrations to all women serving in ISAF forces. They also expressed their appreciation for the post-2014 commitment to Afghanistan expected to be reaffirmed in Chicago.
The three Afghan women highlighted the significant progress made in the domain of women's rights in Afghanistan over recent years. "With international support, including from NATO, women in Afghanistan have been given a new hope for their future," remarked Ms. Farida. "As a female journalist, I now see what enjoying women's rights means in practice," she added. Brigadier General Khatool referred to the significant developments in the domain of women's rights within the framework of the Afghan National Security Forces. "Women have now access to different ranks in the Afghan Army. And there is a plan to establish a Gender Integration office within the Afghan Army," she said.
These remarks reflected the overall situation, including examples of progress such as:
- in the Upper and Lower Houses of the Afghan Parliament, there are 21 and 69 Afghan women respectively;
- 3 Afghan ministers are women; gender directorates are now functioning in 27 out of the existing 31 ministries;
- out of 1472 judges, 142 are women, including one Provincial Governor;
- there are now more than 1,500 in the Afghan National Security Forces; and
- the number of girls enrolled in primary and secondary schools has gone from 50 000 in 2001 to 3 230 000 in 2011, while the number of girls enrolled in higher education has gone from zero to more than 20 000 in the same period.
During the talks, the three Afghan women also pointed out that despite the progress made, much work remains to be done for the consolidation of women's rights. The continued support of the international community to this effect is therefore essential. Many challenges lie ahead, particularly with respect to the reconciliation process in Afghanistan. "We all want peace in Afghanistan. But there cannot be a trade-off between peace and women's rights," said Ms Nikzad.
In her concluding remarks, Ambassador Grabar confirmed the 2010 Lisbon Summit statement that NATO's support for the consolidation of women's rights - and indeed all human rights - will remain an integral element of the Alliance's long-term commitment to Afghanistan.


text:
Baccarat strategies are like battle weapons; they are these confirmed effective steps which you could do to increase your chances of winning in this kind of gamble. But who says baccarat is just about luck? While winning the game is not at all scientific and methodical, there are nonetheless several methods which could definitely help you be successful.
Experts suggest to avoid these Baccarat strategies such as card counting and the Martingale method. It is really a system of how you place Slot Online: Tips Sebelum Bermain your bids to win. In truth, is Baccarat just an additional game of opportunity? Numerous individuals would argue there are some methods to playing the sport. There are a lot of guidelines for the dealer and the player to follow.
Intertops On line casino & Sportsbook has been set up online since 1995, making it one of the initial of it's type on the Web. The video games are in English & German, they spend in US dollars, and they have an general payout rate of ninety eight.26%twenty five. They have 43 video games accessible.
If you have ever performed or watched baccarat at a casino, you will discover most of the players writing down the outcomes of each hand on special casino scorecards. These individuals are sample spotting "chasing" a particular pattern.
One of the very best baccarat tips to remember is to find an on line casino that does not charge you a lot for taking part in their video games. Consider time to look for casinos which charges their players less curiosity on their winnings. A lot of casinos charge their patrons five%twenty five, so you may want to appear about the area for interest charges, which are lower than the typical. In this way you will be able to consider house a bigger proportion of the money you gained.
Systems have been about for numerous years. Books have been written with the casino participant in mind educating the player how to beat the house. Nevertheless, many of the publications and suggestion playing cards published are carried in the gift retailers of the extremely casinos the participant intends to defeat. Explain that with some degree of intelligence. You'll probably discover you can't. The reason these casinos don't mind to sell the words of knowledge of others is simply because these systems do not work for one purpose or an additional.
CRAPS: If you adhere with the good bets–pass, don't pass, arrive and don't come–you can anticipate about 30 decisions an hour. With a two.1 % home edge on pass and arrive, and two.2 percent on don't pass; a $10 bettor can anticipate average hourly losses of about $4.20 per hour.


text:
Maryland musicians [Pictures]
Maryland gets to claim such music heavyweights as Tori Amos, David Byrne and Frank Zappa. See which other musicians have called Maryland home. Also see: • Maryland celebrities • Marylanders on reality TV Is there a nationally known act that you'd like to see included here? Submit your suggestions in the comment field below.
Copyright © 2019, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad


text:
|Send News. Want a reply? Read this. More in the FAQ. News Forum - All Forums - Mobile - PDA - RSS Headlines Twitter
GOG.com announces that only six days remain to preorder The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Digital Premium Edition from their site. They also announce that as of now preorder customers are able to download about 95% of their DRM-free version of the upcoming RPG sequel. Word is: "Pre-order now to grab the full exclusive bag of goodies with all of the bonus material: a virtual version of the collector's edition artbook, the whole soundtrack with 4 unreleased tracks exclusive to GOG.com, wallpapers, avatars and a photo tour showing the behind the scenes work of your favorite CDProjekt Red team. Last (but not least!) you get one of five epic RPGs for free."
Copyright © 1996-2019 Stephen Heaslip. All rights reserved.
All trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
Privacy Policy. Manage Cookie Settings.
News CGI copyright © 1999-2019 James "furn" Furness &
Blue's News.
All rights reserved.
Chatbear v1.4.0/blue++: Page generated 20 June 2019, 03:14.
Chatbear Announcements.


text:
Shriners� Trout Tournament on tap
The deadline to register for the Pamlico County Shrine Club�s annual speckled trout tournament is Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. A pig picking and check-in will be held at the Pamlico County Shrine Club building on Hwy. 306 at that time. Participants may fish anywhere in Pamlico, Craven, Beaufort or Carteret counties and will compete for cash awards for the heaviest 3 speckled trout brought to the scales. Prizes will depend on the number of entrants and will be awarded to the top five in the Open Division and top three in the Junior Division. The first place creel (based on 100 entrants) will be $1,000. In addition, each fish weighed in will earn the angler tickets for use in a door prize raffle. Entry in the tournament is $50 for adults, $25 for junior anglers and $50 for a tournament-within-a-tournament. Contact Capt. Dave Stewart at 252-249-2084 or 252-249-1786 for more details.
Oct. 25-26 � Participants in the 21st Annual Pollocksville Big Game Hunting Tournament will compete for cash prizes in various divisions ranging up to $1,500 for the biggest buck. The weigh-in site at Jenkins Park on Beaufort Road in Pollocksville will have vendors, camp cooking, exhibits, live music and much more. Justin Banks at 252-671-0492 can provide more details.
Oct. 26 � Goose Creek State Park, off Hwy. 264 east of Washington, will host �S�mores, Gores and Movies� beginning at 8:15. This kick-off to Halloween will feature a bonfire, the makings for s�mores and a family-friendly movie. Visitors should bring chairs and/or blankets along with bottled water or sodas. The site will be Flicker Field across from the Visitor Center. There is no charge. Phone 252-923-2191 for more information.
Nov. 8 & 9 � Final registration for the Robbie Adams Memorial Deer Classic is 7 p.m. on Nov. 7. Hunting will take place on the next two days with weigh-in beginning at 8 a.m. at the Cove City Fire and Rescue building. Cash awards will be presented for the top five bucks and top 4 does in both an Open Division and a Youth Division. In addition daily prizes will be presented for the four heaviest deer of each sex. Information is available online at www.CoveCityFireRescue.com or by phone at 252-229-7271 or 252-675-1486.
Hunting Seasons
Rails, Gallinule and Moorhens: through Nov. 21
Deer (eastern region): through Jan. 1
Coyote & Feral Swine: no closed season
Grouse: through Feb. 28
Raccoon & Opossum: through Feb. 28
Gray Squirrel: through Feb. 28
Fox Squirrel: through Dec. 31 in Greene, Jones, Lenoir, Onslow, Pitt and select other counties; note � no open season in Craven County.


text:
The web address (http://selinschools.answerbase.com/topic/frequently-asked-questions/410266) you have accessed is not pointing to a correct Answerbase site.
Please check for spelling mistakes in the web address (url) or otherwise contact us, if you think this is an error: firstname.lastname@example.com
Answerbase is an extensive Q&A system you can easily integrate into your existing website or blog, or even allows you to create a new standalone question and answer community. Your visitors are able to ask questions, submit answers, and be recognized for their expertise on any subject.
- Home
- Overview
- Why
- Affiliate Program
- Terms & Conditions
- Privacy Policy
- Login
- Help
- Pricing
- Sign Up
- Contact
Copyright © 2010 - 2019 Lumin Creative. All Rights Reserved.


text:
kvsupply.com > Cats > Cat Toys > Catnip Toys > Item # 496038
promotional discount applied.
Cart total will reflect savings.
Sometimes, manufacturers require that products be advertised only at their suggested prices.
When we choose to sell these items for less, we display the sale price only in the cart. To see the price, click Add to Cart.
In Stock.
Usually Ships within 24 hours.
Quantity discount will reflect in cart.
One-time delivery
Save 10% with Auto Ship
Deliver Every:
2 Weeks
3 Weeks
4 Weeks
5 Weeks
6 Weeks
7 Weeks
8 Weeks
1 Month
2 Months
3 Months
6 Months
Product Summary:
Skinneeez Mouse Cat Toy
Bring out your cat's natural hunting instinct. The Skinneeez Mouse Cat Toy is a plush un-stuffed cat toy with an assortment of mouse styles. Entertain your cat or kitten with these stuffing-free, catnip filled, and realistic toys.
· Stuffing Free
· Catnip Filled
Item Specifications:
Set includes:
2 Pack Grey and Brown Mouse
Product Reviews by Customers
This item is not eligible for Canadian shipping.
Some items everyday price is so low we can't discount or we have marked down the item to a final sale price. These select items will not be included in your order total when determining if your order qualifies for a promotional event.


text:
Chava Mazal writes Almost Kosher. Hailing from the west coast, she has experience with a variety of different ethnic foods and cultures. Her passions include learning how to cook Kosher-style in a city which is not very Kosher-friendly, the sous-vide cooking technique, cats, and the fine arts.
All email inquiry should be directed to email@example.com.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
© Chava Mazal and Almost Kosher, 2019.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, including images, without express and written permission from this site's author/owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Almost Kosher with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
Thank you for signing up!
I'm Chava Mazal of Almost Kosher and I will be sharing with you some of my favorite memories, my thoughts, and my recipes. I was born and partly raised in the Bay Area of California where most of my family still resides. There, I learned to appreciate the myriad of ethnic flavors of the human experience. It was also there that the seed of curiosity was planted which has helped me to grow my passion for learning all about the diaspora of Jewish experience.


text:
- Special Offers
- Amazing Daily Deals
- Top-notch Services!
- Latest Industry Standards
Know what to anticipate
With respect to Custom Cabinets in Westley, CA, you have to be knowledgeable to make the most effective judgments. You should not go into it blindly, and you should be aware of what to expect. You will not confront any surprises when you hire Custom Cabinet Crew. Start off by contacting 800-381-4380 to go over your task. We are going to go over your questions and concerns as soon as you call and get you organized with a scheduled visit. We always get there at the scheduled time, all set to work closely with you.
For the very best Custom Cabinets in Westley, Wyoming, choose Custom Cabinet Crew
Whenever you are preparing a task for Custom Cabinets in Westley, CA, there's lots of reasons to prefer Custom Cabinet Crew. We have got the top customer satisfaction ratings, the very best quality materials, and the most sensible and efficient cash saving techniques. We fully understand your requirements and ambitions, and we are ready to help you using our expertise. If you need Custom Cabinets in Westley, choose Custom Cabinet Crew at 800-381-4380, and we're going to be more than pleased to help.


text:
If you are encountering logon problems, most likely your logon is not yet available in the WebStudy system or the administrative task of connecting your logon with your course may not have been completed by your college. In many cases, logons are NOT available until the day the course begins.
Logon information (User Name & Password) supplied to WebStudy by the schools is available below.
If you have questions or require further information about your enrollment, please contact your college's online learning department.
SEMESTER INFORMATIONView semester information


text:
Share the experience of a relaxing oil massage with curvaceous Brazilian model Gabriella, in a film that explores the art of sensual massage.
Every inch of Gabriella's body is massaged and caressed, transporting her into an enhanced state of pleasure and relaxation.
Filmed in a Spa in Tuscany admire the view of gorgeous Gabriella and this beautiful, sensual practice.
Would you like to comment? Join us today, or sign in if you're already a member.


text:
+Ivy League British Scientist with a Perfect Body
A smile is the best makeup a girl could wear…
Your time with me is YOUR TIME. No script. No checklist. No rush. This is your time to enjoy as you like.
My name is Chanel Carvalho. I am an Ivy League educated British scientist that specializes in decadent, bespoke arrangements for the indulgent connoisseur.
Being provocatively feminine, I have an impeccable sense of style and I love dressing up for all occasions. Whether it be a silk gown and stilettos to dinner, a thong bikini on the sands of a deserted beach, or a set of the finest European lingerie, garters and stockings - I delight in being a visual dream for those seeking a woman who exudes a natural aura of exoticism… but I am much more than a classic beauty with a sultry physique, sharp wit, and beguiling smile :)
I am passionate about being the woman of your dreams and my personal focus rises above and beyond mere satisfaction. Romance and meaningful connections are what I crave. I relish discovering my partner and abandoning myself to the feelings of falling in love… even if only for a few fleeting moments!
My ambition is to put you at ease as we savour one another in episodes of delight, genuine affection, and limitless adventure so that when we part ways you feel emotionally fulfilled and profoundly restored.
I am an exceptionally gifted charmer and always approach each new experience with a warm, open-minded approach to your yearnings… In fact, I share your passion… You work hard and deserve to indulge yourself in the company of a beautiful woman who is fanatical about pleasure! You will find in me a genuine friend who is perfectly comfortable relating to you exactly where you are without pretension or arrogance.
If you are looking for a demure, graceful, insightful woman to explore your passions with, you have found her and I would be delighted to be your regular indulgence as you seek a luxurious escape from reality. You will never know where your time with me will take you; all I can promise is you will never want it to end.
In eager anticipation,
- 1hour- 550
- 90 mins - 750
- 2hrs - 850
- 3hrs- 1250
- 4hrs- 1650
*Outcall: +100
*Weekend dates (Fri-Sun): +300
*Couples: +200 per hr
Chanel Carvalho is a 5'9", slender, 28 year old caucasian / black / latina woman with shoulder length black hair and hazel eyes.
She is available for Men, Women, and Couples.
Fencing (Foil)
Doctors Without Borders
Ken Burns EVERYTHING
Languages (Japanese, French, Brazilian Portuguese)
US History, especially antebellum period
"Jazz Age" music and films
*Private consultations can be conducted via email or text
*There is a RSVP form on my website with an up to date calendar displaying my availability, but you are more than welcome to send an email with the proper screening information and anything else that will help me verify your safety.
- your address book (vcard)
- your smartphone (QR code)
Scan the following QR code with your smartphone to view or save Chanel Carvalho's contact information:


text:
Head of Data Analytics - Digital/CRM - Global Agency - c.£150,000 + Bonus + Benefits
- Recruiter
- Mackenzie Search
- Location
- London (Greater)
- Salary
- c.£150,000 base + Bonus + Benefits
- Posted
- 08 Mar 2019
- Closes
- 05 Apr 2019
- Marketing Disciplines
- Analysis, B2B, Business Intelligence, Insight
- Industry Sector
- Agency, Advertising Agency, Creative Design Agency, Digital Agency, Direct Marketing Agency, Experiential Agency, Integrated Marketing Agency, Market Research Agency, Marketing Agency, Media Agency, PR Agency, Research / Insight / Analysis, Sponsorship / Promotion Agency, Automotive, Aviation, Beauty / Cosmetics, Business Services, Consultancy, Consumer Goods, Data Services, Digital / Online, Fashion, Financial Services / Banking, FMCG, Food / Drink, Gaming, Healthcare, Hospitality / Catering, Insurance, Leisure / Entertainment / Sport, Luxury Goods, Manufacturing, Media Owner, Media Publishing, Mobile Marketing, Professional Services, Retail, Social Media, Telecoms, Transport / Logistics, Travel / Tourism, Utilities
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Agency-side or Client-side
- Agency Side
- Job Role
- Head of Insight
Global Head of Data Analytics - Digital - Global Agency - c.£150,000 + Bonus + Benefits
As Global Head of Analytics, your role will be to attract and nurture clients in the art of data decisioning that drives business transformation. You will be developing and leading a team that needs to be able to map/measure digital ecosystems, optimize the performance of omni channel campaigns, including social media, as well as undertake segmentation, modeling and data mining. You will need to be a 'hands on' practitioner with gravitas that gives clients reassurance in the teams' capabilities and expertise. Capable of implementing strategy into execution and delivering data driven insights to maximise business impact through revenue, ROI and content. In addition you will be expected to foster data visualization for the group and its clients – be they media, creative, data-tech or any combination of.
- Take a leadership role over the current data strategy and analytical team. Instilling standards, methods and best practice that enables this team to deliver optimal results consistently.
- Build this team's capabilities to encompass greater digital measurement skills and establishing how they augment the current foundational elements of data stagey & analytics. As well as how they work within the broader strategy team
- Champion Marketing Sciences across the Group internally – so that client business leads know what and how to talk to their clients about the discipline and how it can help them enhance their clients business
- Build strong ties across the group from our creative to our technology offering all with data at its core
- Actively consult with clients to ground Marketing Science as Standard in the work they do with us – guiding them on appropriate methodologies and approaches
- Generate thought leadership pieces to stand apart in the industry with a strong view and expertise on business transformation that helps to generate our new biz pipeline
- Active participation on key pitches , as well as ensuring that your team have a presence on all pitches, client briefs.
SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE - Tick some of the following
- Track record of getting the full potential from Salesforce or Adobe
- Experience in analytical tools such as R and Hadoop, Alteryx
- Expertise in multivariate, A/B testing, customer mapping, segmentation, predictive modeling & data mining
- Experience in web/social media measurement – GA, Webtrends, Netbase, Omniture, Doubleclick, Radian6 etc.
- Experience in data mapping tools – Tableau, Pentaho, Hadoop etc.
- 10+ years Marketing CRM/Loyalty, Analytics/Data Strategy experience within Media or Advertising operations
- Past roles held could include: Data Strategy Director, Insight & CRM, Head of Marketing Analysis and Insight
- Deep expertise in digital, social, offline, media, mobile and omni channel analytics, CRM, strategy and statistics
- BSc in Computer Science, Statistics or other Maths related degree as a minimum
Interested parties please send me an email with your CV and details of your present remuneration package to email@example.com.
Marketing Search & Selection www.MackenzieSearch.com


text:
Fall Convocation Address
Hope College
30 August 2009
by Peter J. Schakel
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." [1]
That's the opening line of C. S. Lewis's story The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader," and one of the best opening lines ever. Lewis is well known today as the author of seven classic children's stories, the Chronicles of Narnia. Two of the books have been turned into successful Hollywood movies, and a third will be released in December 2010. He is known also for writing books about the Christian faith, like Miracles and Mere Christianity. But his day job was college teaching. He was a faculty member at Oxford and CambridgeUniversities for almost forty years, and he did a lot of thinking about the nature and purposes of education. Today I want to talk briefly, particularly to the members of the class of 2013, about Eustace and his Narnian education and you and your Hope education - he got the education he deserved, and you, I suspect, will too.
For those of you who have not read The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader," here's a quick summary. The story starts two years after the four Pevensie children - Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy - entered Narnia through a magic wardrobe and saved it from the wicked white witch, as related in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Two of the children, Edmund and Lucy, return to Narnia, accompanied by their obnoxious cousin Eustace, very much against his will. They get into Narnia this time through a picture frame - they are looking at a painting of a beautiful Narnian ship sailing across a rolling sea, when suddenly the picture comes to life and they fall into cold, salty sea water. They are rescued by the ship, the Dawn Treader, with their friend King Caspian aboard; he is on a quest to find seven lords who had been sent into exile by the previous king, Caspian's evil uncle Miraz. As they accompany Caspian and encounter a series of exciting and dangerous adventures, they come to know themselves and the world a great deal better. Running throughout the story is a theme of education - no one needs it more than Eustace, and no one learns more than he does.
Before he went to Narnia, Eustace Clarence thought that education was about mastering content. "He liked books," the story says, but only "if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools" (chap. 1). He probably was a good test-taker, especially on the kind of standardized exams used now-a-days to measure education. But accumulation of information, Lewis believed, is not the real goal of education; rather, the aim is attainment of understanding and ultimately of wisdom. And these come through the ability to think clearly, critically, and perceptively; the ability to analyze problems and situations acutely; the ability to ask probing, incisive questions; the ability to reflect deeply.
These are characteristics of a liberal arts education, which Lewis specifically indicates Eustace was not interested in before he visited Narnia. As the story says, "Although [Eustace] didn't care much about any subject for its own sake, he cared a great deal about [grades]" (chap. 2). Lewis deliberately included the words "for its own sake" because they are part of an old, traditional definition of liberal education: that is, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, for the love of learning, not for its usefulness.
Eustace probably never thought about the liberal arts, or about its potential values for his own growth - and perhaps you haven't either. Many of you may have chosen HopeCollege because of its record of admissions to med school or graduate school or law school, or because of its reputation as a Christian college, or because it had the right look and feel as you walked around the campus and talked to people here. You may not have noticed or cared whether it's a liberal arts college or not. But you should notice now, and you should care, because an understanding of and commitment to the liberal arts contribute significantly to a Hope education.
So, what is a liberal education? Some people define it by its structure, as a broad-based education in which a student studies a variety of different subjects. Lewis found this inadequate as a definition because structure doesn't get at essence. The structural approach runs the risk of reducing liberal education to a checklist: fulfill a set of General Education requirements, complete the courses for your major, accumulate 126 credits; when all the boxes have been checked, voila! you have a liberal education. Or maybe not.
A better approach is to define a liberal education in terms of its essence or purpose - asking why a liberal education includes studying a variety of subjects. The answer is that a liberal education is an education for life. Such a view of education is an ancient concept. The origin of the word liberal is the Latin word for "free." Thus the Roman orator Cicero says a liberal education is the education of free persons for a life of freedom. Slaves were trained for work; free people were educated so they could carry out the responsibilities of citizenship, such as participation in government and the development of culture and society. That tradition carried over to the early colleges in America - they were liberal arts colleges. Education was preparation for leadership, not preparation for a specific career. A Hope education does aim to equip students for future jobs and careers, but that is not its primary aim: The primary purpose of a Hope education is development of the whole person; it is a preparation for life.
That preparation for life begins with the intellect - with the development of mental habits you will continue to use the rest of your life. The object of every course you take, every hour you spend on homework or in the lab, every late night discussion in your dorm room, should be improving, refining, and reinforcing good mental habits - habits such as curiosity, questioning, analysis, reflection, making connections, considering implications. These stay with you long after you have forgotten the specific content covered by your professors. As you develop these mental skills, you are learning how to learn - that is, how to find and understand information, how to relate information to other information, how to achieve a sense of wholeness and synthesis.
A Hope education takes intellectual development very seriously, but not just so students can compete effectively in the global marketplace. HopeCollege values the life of the mind because, as literary scholar John Acker puts it, the life of the mind "reflects, however imperfectly, God's perfect and perfectly true mind." [2] In the words of James Emery White, former president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary: "to be fully human is to think. . . . We were made in God's image, and one of the most precious and noble dynamics within that image is the ability to think." [3] James Sire, former senior editor at InterVarsity Press,adds, "Thinking is integral to our call to be what God wants us to be. God calls every one of us to think and to do so as well as we can." [4] The fact that you are here today suggests that for the next four years your calling is to pursue a life of learning, to develop your intellect to your fullest capability, to stretch yourself and to become all that God intended you to be. "Hold onto instruction; do not let it go," says the proverb of the wise king Solomon. "Guard it well, for it is your life."
Developing the whole person means nurturing the imagination as well as training the intellect. Eustace Scrubb needed to develop both. Before he went to Narnia, he was not only intellectually lazy, but also unimaginative; as the story puts it, he was "quite incapable of making anything up" (chap. 1). And he didn't like imaginative stories: The books he read "had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons" (chap. 6). His lack of knowledge about dragons turned out to matter a great deal to Eustace.
Nurturing imagination is an important part of a liberal education. Every Hope student takes at least two courses in the arts; but students should look for additional ways to stimulate imaginative growth. Use of imagination is not limited to the arts - the leaders in every field are those who can apply imagination to what they do. Imagination is as important to a scientist or sociologist or someone running a business as to a sculptor or creative writer. As University of Virginia professor Mark Edmundson puts it, "A democracy needs to constantly develop, and to do so it requires the most powerful visionary minds to interpret the present and to propose possible shapes for the future." [5] John Guthmiller, a professor at VirginiaCommonwealthUniversity, adds: "College is where visionary minds go to be challenged, grow, and mature. It is also where people go who aspire to have visionary minds." [6] Imagination isn't just something you have or don't have. It is a habit of mind, something that can be enhanced and expanded, if you deliberately make it a part of your liberal education.
In addition to training the intellect and nurturing the imagination, development of the whole person requires expansion of one's outlook. Lewis says most human beings have a natural desire to do that. He writes in An Experiment in Criticism, "We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. . . . [We want to] go out of the self, to correct its provincialism and heal its loneliness. In love, in virtue, in the pursuit of knowledge, [in travel], and in the reception of the arts, we are doing this." [7]
Eustace started out inhabiting a very small world, without realizing it, of course. He lived a life of wealth and privilege in upper middle class England, an only child, indulged by his parents, going to private schools, getting his own way. His little world revolved around himself. Then he suddenly found himself pitched into another world, a very different sort of world. Gradually, as his Narnian education proceeded, he became able to view our world in a new way by looking back at it from this other world. (Hope students often derive a similar benefit by spending a semester abroad.) Experiences in Narnia also enlarged his outlook: by being captured as a slave, he was forced to see life from a new perspective. By turning into a dragon, he gained fresh insights into his world and himself.
Expanding one's outlook is at the heart of a liberal education. The essence of a liberal education includes a first-hand encounter with "otherness," entering the lives of people from other times, places, cultures, and beliefs through literature, history, philosophy, the social sciences, the sciences, and the arts, so that we understand them from within, not just critique them from without, by our own standards. A liberal education involves a willingness to be open to positions and beliefs different from our own, to listen to them with attention and respect, and to subject them (and our own positions and beliefs as well) to rigorous scrutiny. It involves asking and wrestling with hard questions, and not holding desperately to our own positions as unassailable truth. It involves the willingness to live with some degree of ambiguity, because safe, tidy answers are not always available for the kinds of questions that we inevitably will encounter in life.
Development of the whole person in a Hope education goes beyond growth in intellect, imagination, and outlook. It also includes spiritual growth. Eustace needed that. At the experimental school he attended, we are told, Bibles were not encouraged, [8] and that seems to have been true in his home as well. In Narnia he encounters the great lion Aslan, who changes his life, after which "he [begins] to be a different boy" (VDT, chap. 7). But that beginning is not enough: His knowledge of Aslan needs to grow from a child's encounter to an adult's comprehension. Lewis talks about that in his book Mere Christianity. He is commenting on Christ's words that only those who receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will enter that kingdom. He tells us not to misunderstand this saying. "Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence," he says. "On the contrary. . . . He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to . . . [use] every bit of intelligence we have. . . . [You must not] be content with the same babyish ideas [of God] which you had when you were a five-year-old" (Book 3, chap. 2).
As you pursue a Hope education, it is vital that your knowledge of God keep up with your intellectual, imaginative, and social growth. If you remain content with a junior high or high school conception of God, there will be a gap between your mind and your spirit. Your God will be too small to cope with the challenges you are going to face, too small to deal with dangerous ideas. You'll be tempted to oversimplify complex issues and be content with stock answers to difficult questions.
There it is - Eustace's Narnian education and your Hope education: an education for life. You can have it if you want it, and are willing to work for it. But it doesn't happen automatically, just by enrolling at HopeCollege and taking classes for eight semesters. You will need to work hard to make such an education yours. Some college students study just enough to get by. You can receive a Hope degree that way, but you won't be getting a Hope education - and if all you want is a degree, you can get one a lot cheaper from Degreesforsale.com than at HopeCollege. To gain a true Hope education you need to do more than the minimum, go beyond just what is assigned, because you love to learn and want to stretch yourself as far as you can reach.
I close with a word of caution. A Hope education comes with a warning label on the package: If you choose to commit yourself totally to a Hope education, it will change you. You won't be the same person when you walk across the stage on Commencement Day 2013 that you are now. Your Hope education will change you just as Eustace's Narnian education changed him. Before he went to Narnia, he was the most spoiled, stubborn, opinionated, self-centered child you can imagine. When he returned to our world, the story tells us, "everyone soon started saying how Eustace had improved" (VDT, chap. 16).
The difference is that he has joined the human race, not just by being undragoned, but by his growth in intellectual astuteness, moral outlook, and compassion for others. Arthur Holmes, professor of philosophy at WheatonCollege for over forty years, sums up a liberal education as "an open invitation to join the human race and become more fully human . . . by seeing life whole rather than fragmented, by transcending provincialism, . . . [by finding] meaning for everything [you are] and do." [9] That's what I, and my faculty colleagues, and the administrators and staff members at Hope College wish for each of you in the next four years - that a Hope education will help you grow and mature and change as a human being, and develop to its fullest the great potential that God has placed within you.
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952), 1.
[2] John Acker, "A Mind for God," posted on the InterVarsity website http://www.intervarsity.org/ studentsoul/item/mind-for-god>
[3] James Emery White, A Mind for God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 15.
[4] James W. Sire, Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 9.
[5] Mark Edmundson, "On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students," Harpers Magazine (September 1997), 49.
[6] John Guthmiller, http://www.sonoma.edu/users/n/nolan/n312/values.htm
[7] C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 137-38.
[8] C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1953), chap. 1.
[9] Arthur F. Holmes, The Idea of a Christian College, revised edition (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), 30, 35, 36.
[3] James Emery White, A Mind for God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 15.
[4] James W. Sire, Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 9.
[5] Mark Edmundson, "On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students," Harpers Magazine (September 1997), 49.
[6] John Guthmiller, http://www.sonoma.edu/users/n/nolan/n312/values.htm
[7] C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 137-38.
[8] C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1953), chap. 1.
[9] Arthur F. Holmes, The Idea of a Christian College, revised edition (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), 30, 35, 36.


text:
Dean Starkman has written a lengthy piece in the Columbia Journalism Review, assessing the writings of a group of us he calls the "Future of News" movement. That essay, Confidence Game, focusses principally on Jay Rosen and me, both of NYU's Carter Institute, and Jeff Jarvis of CUNY, though noting some similarity of vision with Emily Bell of Columbia, Dan Gillmor of Arizona, and John Paton, publisher of the Journal-Register Company. (Unmentioned fellow travelers include, mutatis mutandis, Steve Yelvington, Chris Anderson, Amanda Michel, Steve Buttry, Jonathan Stray, and Alan Mutter.)
Starkman doesn't just criticize us (though he does that, at length.) He also puts forward a Burkean defense of institutional tradition as a store of embedded wisdom, arguing for the continued relevance of existing news organizations, especially newspapers, in something very close to their current form.
He jokingly calls his vision the "Neo-Institutional Hub-and-Spoke Model." His description of what's needed, though — "rebuilding or shoring up institutions" — makes it clear he doesn't need the "Neo-" bit. He is talking about somehow saving the familiar institutions, not inventing new ones, a strategy that has long passed for Plan A in the conversation about what the internet changes about the news business.
He's not even wild about the familiar institutions altering themselves too radically to accomodate those changes. Paton, who is trying to save local news reporting, is derided for being a "FON practitioner" (shades of the 5th column), and The Guardian, a storied paper since back in the day, gets ten with the cane for going 'digital first'. When echt newspaper guys like Paton of the Journal-Register and Alan Rusbridger of The Guardian are seen as heretics, you know we're talking about that old-time religion.
Rosen and Jarvis and Bell and I disagree plenty, but one belief we have in common is that the way newspapers used to be organized and funded is a bad fit for the current environment, and getting worse. More than any individual sentiment we may have expressed, our public loss of faith in the institutional logic of Plan A seems to be what has most aroused Starkman's ire.
* * *
Institutions reduce the choices available to their members. (This is Ronald Coase's famous argument about transaction costs.) This reduction allows better focus on the remaining choices they face.
The editors meet every afternoon to discuss the front page. They have to decide whether to put the Mayor's gaffe there or in Metro, whether to run the picture of the accused murderer or the kids running in the fountain, whether to put the Biker Grandma story above or below the fold. Here are some choices they don't have to make at that meeting: Whether to have headlines. Whether to be a tabloid or a broadsheet. Whether to replace the entire front page with a single ad. Whether to drop the whole news-coverage thing and start selling ice cream.
Every such meeting, in other words, involves a thousand choices, but not a billion, because most of the big choices have already been made. These frozen choices are what gives institutions their vitality — they are in fact what make them institutions. Freed of the twin dangers of navel-gazing and random walks, an institution can concentrate its efforts on some persistent, medium-sized, and tractable problem, working at a scale and longevity unavailable to its individual participants.
Institutions also reduce the choices a society has to make. In the second half of the 20th century, "the news" was whatever was in the newspaper on the morning, or network TV at night. Advertisers knew where to reach shoppers. Politicians knew who to they had to talk to to get their message out (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not.) Readers understood an Letters page as the obvious way of getting wider circulation for their views.
That dual reduction of choices masks an essential asymmetry, though. Institutions are designed to reduce they choices for their members, but they only happen to reduce the choices in society. A publisher may want reporters at their desks at 10 am, and to be the main source of breaking news for the paper's readers. The former desire is under the publisher's control; the latter not.
Now this seems easy enough to describe, but people inside institutions tend to confuse the two, to believe their institution is in control of both their daily routine and their destiny. And of course, the longer any given institution maintains a stable role, the less that role seems like an accident and the more it seems like a robust feature of reality.
* * *
Starkman and I could, I think, agree on this story so far, and indeed, most of the time institutional vitality is a safe bet. The ability of institutions to adapt slowly while preserving continuity of mission and process is exactly what lets them last longer than a single leader or lifespan. When change in the outside world outstrips an institution's adaptive capabilities, though, the ability to defend the internal organization from outside pressures can become a liability. Stability can tun into rigidity and even institutional blindness.
Newspapers were stable for a really long time. The 1830s saw the rise of the penny press, when advertisers generated enough subsidy for the cover price to be reduced from six cents to one, with an attendant explosion in readership. Improbably enough, that model survived for most of two centuries with little more than tweaks and updates, right up to the sudden increase in freedoms occasioned by the internet, freedoms enjoyed by both advertisers and readers. The erosion of geographic sinecure made every story available everywhere. Casual aggregation from multiple sources delighted readers but eroded loyalty. Competition turned paywalls into cul-de-sacs instead of toll roads. Upstart web services (Yahoo and iVillage, Slate and Salon) first set then compressed a market price for ads that the newspapers never had a chance to alter. Users forwarding stories to one another increased audience size, but destroyed scarcity.
Despite these challenges to newspapers, Starkman believes that we can and must "…find ways to preserve and transfer their most important attributes to a digital era, even as we push them to adapt to new financial, technological, and cultural realities." I don't believe we must do this, because I don't believe we can do this. That, I think, is the core diference between our views.
There are thousands of papers in the US, all facing simultaneous pressures on their revenues, their organizational form, the loyalty of their readership, the ferocity of the competition, and even their sense of self. If, seeing those challenges, we FONeros still thought it was possible to preserve most papers in something like their current form, we'd adopt Plan A too. You'd only pursue something like Plan B if you'd given up on broad institutional preservation in the first place.
* * *
To my eye, Starkman stacks the deck when comparing Plans A and B. He lists only three examples of successful "FON" journalism (US Attorney firings, "macacca," and "bittergate"), but his recounting of the glories of print go back to Ida Tarbell. Tarbell was indeed a terrific reporter, but her byline has been somewhat scarce of late, given she's been dead 70 years. Comparing a 5 year stretch of recent experiments with the greatest hits of newspapering since the McKinley administration may rally the home team, but it doesn't make for a particularly informative comparison.
Like a Yeats of the newspaper world, Starkman yearns for the restoration of a culture considerably purer than the actual newspaper business has ever been. Reading Confidence Game, you'd never know that most papers are not like the NY Times, that most of what appears in their pages is syndicated, that sports is often better represented on the masthead than hard news. You'd never know that more American papers printed today will include a horoscope than international news. You'd never know that newspapers are institutions where grown men and women are assigned to write stories about dogs catching frisbees.
Saying newspapers will provide a stable home for reporters, just as soon as we figure out how to make newspapers stable, is like saying that if we had some ham, we could have a ham sandwich, if we had some bread. We need to support the people who cover hard news, but when you see a metro daily for a town of 100,000 that employs only six such reporters (just 10% of the masthead, much less total staff), saving the entire edifice just to support that handful looks a lot harder than just finding new ways to support them directly.
This view is, as Starkman says, anti-institutional, starting as it does from the premise that the outside world is changing faster than most newspapers' adaptive capabilities. They have responded to 20 consecutive quarters ad revenue decline with the evisceration of international desks and newsroom staff. More is on the way. No medium has ever survived the indifference of 25 year olds.
* * *
We have long since entered a period of hybridization — William Bastone quitting The Village Voice to found Smoking Gun and Nate Silver selling fivethirtyeight.com to the NY Times, Andy Carvin and Anjali Mullany pioneering new forms of live coverage from inside traditional organizations, Amanda Michel's career implementing citizen journalism at Huffington Post, then at ProPublica, then at The Guardian, these are concrete demonstrations that the old dichotomies of traditional vs. new media, professionals vs. amateurs, incumbents vs. insurgents, have long since stopped being real, hard choices, and have instead become points on an increasingly traversable spectrum.
All of this seems to offer the grandmotherly option between Starkman and the FON crew — "You're both right, dear. We need institutions and we need experiments." Even given this hybridization, though, our views diverge: Plan A assumes that experiments should be spokes to the newspapers' hub, their continued role as the clear center of public interest journalism assured, and on the terms previously negotiated.
Plan B follows Jonathan Stray's observations about the digital public sphere: in a world where Wikipedia is a more popular source of information than any newspaper, maybe we won't have a clear center anymore. Maybe we'll just have lots of overlapping, partial, competitive, cooperative attempts to arm the public to deal with the world we live in.
Some of the experiments going on today, small and tentative as they are, will eventually harden into institutional form, and that development will be as surprising as the penny press subsidizing journalism for seven generations. The old landscape had institutions and so will the new one, but this doesn't imply continuity. We still have companies called Western Union and ATT, but as the communications landscape changed, they have become almost unrecognizably different from their former selves. Likewise, as the presses fall silent over the next ten years, even papers that survive will see their internal organization and their place in the ecosystem altered beyond our ability to predict.
If you believed, as Starkman clearly does, that this view is not just incorrect but odious, that the current form of the newspaper remains a good general fit for public interest journalism, merely going through a rough patch, then you'd be eager to dial down the 'try anything' ethic in favor of the hard, grinding work of rebuilding and shoring up the institutions that have served us so well these last several decades.
But if you believe, as I do, that many of those institutions are so mismatched to the task at hand that most of them face a choice, at best, between radical restructure and outright collapse, well, in that case, you'd probably find the smartest 25 year olds you know, and try to convince them that now would be a pretty good time to start working on Plan B.


text:
Phony loan modification offers are surfacing across Southwest Florida from scammers posing as Wells Fargo Bank officials, part of a scheme to collect thousands of dollars in up-front fees from unsuspecting borrowers.
The modifications sent through the mail include personal borrower information, official government seals and every single form that's typically included in a legitimate loan alteration offer, according to documents obtained by the Herald-Tribune.
Each time a homeowner hoping for better loan terms returns the completed packet, the California group behind the scam collects thousands of dollars, Social Security numbers, bank accounts and other data that could be used in identity theft.
The loan modification scam is the latest in a series of foreclosure fraud schemes that prey on an overwhelming number of recession-battered homeowners in Florida who are fighting to hold on to their properties despite delinquent debt.
But foreclosure attorneys and law enforcement officials say this new Wells Fargo scam is the most sophisticated — and potentially widespread — effort they have ever seen.
"These homeowners are desperate," said David Hicks, a Sarasota foreclosure attorney. "Many have probably tried to work out a loan modification with the bank on their own, and they were stymied. They wanted to believe something would happen — and they thought this was their last chance.
"But if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Experts also warn that, in an age of technological innovation, scams such as the one involving Wells Fargo will become ever easier to pull off because criminals can generate increasingly authentic-looking documents.
The latest bank scam begins with someone trolling through online court records to find homeowners in foreclosure. From there, names, addresses and detailed loan information are collected. The organization then sends a loan modification offer via FedEx.
The package includes a traditional offer letter that outlines the proposed terms, a hardship affidavit, a standard loan application, a letter of credit authorization and a request for tax return transcripts.
There's even an application for participation in the federal government's Making Home Affordable program — with an official logo, a link to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's website and the program's actual 1-888 hotline phone number.
One page details new rules regarding federal Dodd-Frank banking regulations, while another has a replicated — but seemingly authentic — seal of the U.S. Treasury.
The forms request information like Social Security numbers, birthdates, cellphone numbers and other personal information that could open the door to ID theft.
They also ask for thousands of dollars in processing fees — along with three months of trial payments.
"There's everything in here that comes with an initial loan modification," said Joseph Heintz, a foreclosure and bankruptcy attorney in Port Charlotte. "Usually I can tell right away, from just the envelope alone, if it is a scam. But this is first-class stuff here. The documents are nearly flawless."
Wells Fargo confirmed to the Herald-Tribune that the loan modification offers circulating around Southwest Florida are bogus.
A bank spokeswoman said the company has reached out to help those affected, offering one year of free identity protection.
"With the challenges in the housing market over the last few years, vulnerable homeowners have become prime targets for scam artists who attempt to take advantage of people through a wide array of mortgage scams," Wells Fargo spokeswoman Kathy Harrison said in a statement. "Wells Fargo has continued its efforts to educate our customers about these scams."
State and federal regulators said as a result of the Herald-Tribune's reporting, they are now investigating the scam.
In a package sent recentloy to one North Port homeowner who asked not to be identified, the faux documentation proposed reducing the borrower's principal balance from $149,143 to $128,552, under a lower 2.125 percent fixed interest rate.
The deal, had it been authentic, would have reduced the struggling owner's payment by nearly $275 a month.
The offer letter included the official loan number for the original Wells Fargo mortgage, the correct terms of that delinquent note, and the precise amount past due. It even accurately detailed the customer's gross monthly household income, as provided to the bank.
The offer was accompanied by escrow instructions for the borrower to send a $2,169 "reinstatement fee" via FedEx or UPS only to "Account Services" at 4790 Irvine Blvd., Suite 105-422, Irvine, Calif.
That address is for a P.O. box at a UPS store. It is not tied to an official Well Fargo branch or any payment processing center.
The escrow letter spells out directions for how the North Port homeowners should mail their $812.24 payment for the following three months to that same address — again by FedEx or UPS only.
The fraudulent offers directs borrowers to make checks out to "Trust Services." The notice even asks borrowers to put their last name and case number in the memo section of the check.
Heintz said he has had three area clients come to him with the same falsified Wells Fargo offer in the past two weeks.
The veteran foreclosure attorney was almost ready to send one back until his paralegal realized the return address on the forms didn't match what the firm had on file for Wells Fargo. The bank quickly confirmed the offer was not real.
Loan modification scams have grown steadily since the $25 billion National Mortgage Settlement was signed in early 2012, which forced some the largest lenders in the county — including Wells Fargo — to approve more principal reductions.
Other fraud schemes attempting to copycat state and national foreclosure relief efforts have similarly reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars from struggling homeowners.
The scheme has become more rampant as the housing crisis has worsened. In Florida alone, there were more than 253,000 pending foreclosure cases statewide as of Dec. 31, according to the Florida Courts Administrator.
The proliferation of the Internet, with its vast access potential, has compounded the threat, officials say.
"Some scams can be attributed to economics for sure, but scams targeting vulnerable people and their money are always out there," said Lt. Charlie Thorpe, with the Sarasota County Sheriff's Intelligence Unit.
"The Internet has been the biggest boon to the issue. If you're on the Internet, you shouldn't be surprised any longer on how easy it is for people with some research skills and a few dollars to find out things about you."
Law enforcement officials say the goal of these scammers is usually to collect lofty upfront fees, and then disappear.
But most legitimate loan modifications — including all HUD-certified programs — do not involve any up-front costs.
"Because it's not hard to access information, this type of scam can be pretty simple," said J Scanlan, special agent supervisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Sarasota. "You have a computer, a printer, and you can make out the documents."
In wake of the foreclosure crisis, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi introduced new rules that made it illegal for anyone to solicit a homeowner in foreclosure.
These scams also can violate federal conspiracy and mail fraud laws — especially if they cross state lines or involve a federally insured lender.
In this case, HUD could pursue criminal prosecution through the Inspector General's Office for fraudulently using the department's name or logo without authorization, the agency said.
Officials say homeowners should always be wary of unsolicited loan modification offers, especially if up-front processing fees are requested.
They advise borrowers in foreclosure to never give personal information over the phone or via email, research the company that they will be working with and contact their lender immediately before signing any documents.
"We tell people, when they get these things in the mail, they should never pay any upfront fees," said Jerry Brown, a spokesman for HUD. "If there's ever any question, you should always call a local HUD-counselor, who can walk you through it at no cost."
Mortgage modification scam shows growing sophistication
Phony loan modification offers are surfacing across Southwest Florida from scammers posing as Wells Fargo Bank officials, part of a scheme to collect thousands of dollars in up-front fees from unsuspecting borrowers.