text:
Steve Horn | March 7, 2012
By Steve Horn • Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - 09:59
A new chapter is being added to the ongoing Kochtopus saga. On March 1 the Washington Post, in a story sure to fill the airwaves for the weeks and months to come, revealed the Kochtopus is suing the Cato Institute for control of the recently deceased and former Cato Chairman William Niskanen's ownership share in the think-tank.
The Koch Empire was recently outed by DeSmogBlog as a key seed funder of the climate change denier think-tank, the Heartland Institute. Heartland's internal documents were recently leaked to DeSmogBlog (see "Heartland Exposed").
Billionaire oil baron Charles Koch is now waging war against another entity that was created with Koch seed money decades ago: the Cato Institute.
The Post explained succinctly:
At the heart of the dispute is the fate of the shares owned by Niskanen, who died in October at age 78 of complications from a stroke. The Koch brothers believe that they have the option to buy Niskanen's shares, while Cato officials believe that the shares belong to Niskanen's widow, Kathryn Washburn, according to the complaint.
Cato's Pat Michaels is a key player in the world of climate change denial, "sowing the seeds of doubt" on human-caused climate change.
That said, Cato has also stood up for key libertarian principles in the past that do not fit a partisan framework. Among them: protection of civil liberties, opposition to imperialism, opposition to the war on drugs, opposition to the militarization of domestic law enforcement agencies, and support for gay rights, to name several.
A brief overview of the key movers and shakers behind Cato's ascendancy is important to understand the rise of the Koch Empire and the split between the faux-libertarians and the true libertarians.
Murray Rothbard, the Kochs, the Austrian School and the Rise of Cato
It all began nearly 40 years ago in Wichita, Kansas, corporate headquarters of Koch Industries, now and then the centerpiece of the potent Kochtopus machine. The Cato Institute was founded in 1974 and originally funded by Charles Koch, of Koch Industries fame and fortune.
The name "Cato Institute" came from "Cato's Letters," which Wikipedia explains were "essays condemning tyranny and advancing principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, [and] were a main vehicle for spreading the concepts that had been developed by [political theorist] John Locke."
Often left out of the Cato historical discussion, though, is another key libertarian economist, political theorist, historian and former good friend of Charles Koch: Murray Rothbard.
Rothbard was a key thinker and writer advocating for the Austrian School of Economics, a school of thought current Republican Party Presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul (TX), also embraces.
Rothbard was also one of the co-founders of the Cato Institute, as explained in a 2008 article written by David Gordon of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
The Austrian School's ideology is best represented today by a think-tank that gets little to no play in the mainstream media, the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, currently chaired by former Paul congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, Lew Rockwell, and named after Austrian School economist Ludwig Von Mises, who was Rothbard's professor.
The Von Mises Institute, it turns out, ended up filling the void left behind when Rothbard was strong-armed out of the Cato Institute by Charles Koch in the early 1980's.
Gordon explained Rothbard's departure, writing,
He thought that Cato's primary mission should be scholarship rather than political campaigns and attempts to secure audiences with the high and mighty in Washington. His antagonists emphatically disagreed
…Koch could not tolerate what they deemed blatant disloyalty. Even though Rothbard was the leading theorist of libertarianism and the Cato Institute had been established to promote his views, they expected him to obey the orders sent down from on high.
After Rothbard departed from Cato, he joined forces with the Mises Institute, established in 1982 by Lew Rockwell. The new group was a standing reproach to Koch…since its consistent defense, encouragement, and development of a Rothbardian program were exactly the program that the Cato Institute had betrayed. The Koch forces endeavored to strangle the new group in its cradle.
The main difference between the Rothbardian crowd and the Koch crowd boils down to support for a pure free market vs. what the Rothbardian crowd calls a "corporatist" market.
In a 1983 essay, not long after the Cato falling out, Rothbard penned a short essay titled, "The Business-Government Alliance," in which he wrote,
The push for the new corporate state was generated by an alliance between corporatist big-business groups and technocratic intellectuals, eager to help run and to apologize for the new system, which promised them a far plusher niche than did a freely competitive economy.
Perhaps it is no surprise after writing articles with passages like these that Rothbard and the Austrians were exiled from the Kochtopus network.
The term "Kochtopus" was coined by a Rothbard-inspired libertarian, Samuel Edward Konkin III, author of the New Libertarian Manifesto, published in 1975.
10 Years Later, Charles Koch Departs Cato
Rothbard's early 1980's exile from Cato meant that the Koch Brothers were running the show there, alongside Edward Crane, the current President and CEO.
When 1991 rolled around, though, Charles Koch jumped ship from Cato and started investing his money elsewhere. Journalist Dave Weigel explained,
…[I]n 1991…Charles Koch walked away.
"I have strong ideas," Koch…[said in an interview]. "I want to see things go in a certain direction, and Crane has strong ideas. I concluded, why argue with Ed? Rather than try to modify his strategy, just go do my own thing, and wish him well."
That was what happened. Koch took his money to other foundations. Crane kept building Cato. Contact was severed; in a 2010 interview, Crane told me that he never quite understood why Koch bolted.
Twenty years later, Charles Koch and his brother David are resurfacing in the Cato world, but the conflict rages on.
The Kochtopus Sues Cato in a "Power Grab"
In recent years, the Kochtopus is most famous for its funding of the astroturf Tea Party machine Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a tour de force in the world of climate change denial, union-busting, and in the sphere of electoral politics.
The common theme to its AFP front group efforts: sheer corporatism, with a well-lubed GOP machine through which to push its corporate agenda at both the federal- and state-level.
Having funded and turned AFP into a powerful national political animal, the Kochtopus Cato power grab was a logical progression.
"Mr. Koch's actions in Kansas court yesterday represent an effort by him to transform Cato from an independent, nonpartisan research organization into a political entity that might better support his partisan agenda," said Crane of the lawsuit.
Crane went further this week, telling the New York Times:
"This is an effort by the Kochs to turn the Cato Institute into some sort of auxiliary for the G.O.P.," said Edward H. Crane, who is president of Cato and co-founded it with Charles Koch. "What he is doing now is detrimental to Cato, it's detrimental to Koch Industries, it's detrimental to the libertarian movement."
There is some irony in the fact that Rothbard left Cato because he felt Crane and Koch had abandoned true Austrian School of Economics libertarian principles, and now Koch is taking it to a new extreme, desiring to transform Cato into a mere tentacle of the AFP political machine.
Equally ironic: AFP, a key piece of the Tea Party "movement," skyrocketed in popularity after it skillfully co-opted the original Ron Paul-led grassroots Tea Party movement.
Coming full circle, it could be said that Rothbard has been vindicated after all.
Cato Employees Peeved and Ready to Fight
Cato will not go down without its guns blazing. Many high-ranking employees other than Crane have come out with strong statements against the Koch maneuver. A "Save Cato" Facebook and Twitter account have also been created.
Robert A. Levy, chairman of Cato's board, said in an interview with the New York Times:
"We can't be perceived as a mouthpiece of special interests. The Cato Institute as we know it would be destroyed."
"We already have major contributors who will say we are not contributing another dollar until we are sure that the Kochs are not calling the shots," Mr. Levy said. "It is a fund-raising nightmare."
Gene Healy, a Cato Vice President, stated in an open letter,
"…I can't begin to understand why Charles and David Koch have chosen a course of action that, if successful, would carelessly, pointlessly, and grievously injure the cause I thought they were fighting for."
Jonathan Blanks, a Cato Research Assistant, wrote on his blog,
"…the Kochs' actions here have demonstrated they have no interest in maintaining it. Cato as a name will be irreparably damaged…and they'll have to start poaching Right-wing shops to fill the vacancies left by the resignations of people who refuse to associate themselves with this naked power grab."
Julian Sanchez, a Cato Research Fellow, went so far as to write a "Preresignation Letter" on his website, saying that if the Kochtopus wins the lawsuit, it's "game over" for him at Cato. He stated,
"I hereby tender my pre-resignation from Cato, effective if and when the Kochs take command. I'll be sad to go, if it comes to that, but sadder to see a proud institution lose its autonomy."
Stay tuned as the battle rages on.
IANVS replied on Permalink
The expose of the Koch brothers' rise to economic & political power would make a great FRONTLINE special.
or HBO series – Episode 13: CATO Awakens
lara jorgensen replied on Permalink
I've got a bit of news for you;
99% of Americans have never heard of the Koch Brothers!
They are only used as whipping posts on leftist Green blogs such as this one. Otherwise there would have been a Frontline special years ago.
When Desmog has no one else to hate on, as when Heartland-gate turned into the unwanted "Fakegate" (or Gleickgate), they turn to their old favorites the Koch bros.
IANVS replied on Permalink
Koch Brothers
Perhaps disinformed business-as-usual deniers like yourself have never heard of mega-billionaires Charles G. Koch, Chairman & CEO, & David H. Koch, Exec VP, both principal owners of privately-held Wichita-based mega-billion-dollar petro-chemical-mining international conglomerate Koch Industries & its subsidiary legions, & William I. "Bill" Koch who runs privately-held West Palm Beach-based multi-billion-dollar carbon-intensive holding company Oxbow Group, but rest assured we surely have for some years now.
And thanks to timely exposees & broad coverage by DeSmogBlog, Forbes, Bloomberg, New York Times, Washington Post, LATimes, ABCNews, MSNBC, & many, many more news outlets across this anthropogenically warming planet, you can bet your last teabagger talking point that more & more informed & concerned taxpaying citizens are already learning more & more about how these anti-democratic mega-billionaire oligarchs are screwing with the constitutional rights & liberties of we the people.
btw, were you aware that Papa Fred C. Koch was a founding member of the John Birch Society?
IANVS replied on Permalink
FLASH: Koch on Facebook
And if the adoring masses on Facebook have their way, they could make the Koch Brothers more famous than Jesus Christ or the Beatles.
IANVS replied on Permalink
On Kovert Ops & Tea Parties
And if you'd paid any attention to recent American history, you'd know that David Koch ran against Ronald Reagan in 1980 on a Libertarian platform to abolish the FBI, CIA, SEC, DOE, Social Security, all personal & corporate income taxes & to legalize prostitution, drugs, & suicide; what William F. Buckley, Jr. called Anarcho-Totalitarianism. The Koch brothers spent millions of dollars for 1% of the vote.
Since then, the Kochs have poured over a $100 million into ultra-conservative non-profits, etc., devolving from libertarianism into corporatism, confusing money for freedom, & promoting a radical social engineering philosophy.
"Public tax records show that between 1998 and 2008 the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation spent more than forty-eight million dollars. The Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is controlled by Charles Koch and his wife, along with two company employees and an accountant, spent more than twenty-eight million. The David H. Koch Charitable Foundation spent more than a hundred and twenty million. Meanwhile, since 1998 Koch Industries has spent more than fifty million dollars on lobbying. Separately, the company's political-action committee, KochPAC, has donated some eight million dollars to political campaigns, more than eighty per cent of it to Republicans. So far in 2010, Koch Industries leads all other energy companies in political contributions, as it has since 2006."
With their Americans for Prosperity coming out Tea Party & recent exposés by DeSmogBlog & others, the Koch brothers are now under the public scrutiny of American taxpayers & the IRS, as well they should be. After all, this is not the Soviet Union.
rich2201 replied on Permalink
"The largest company you've never heard of"
That's what the Koch's like to say about their company. Their enterprise is private - not accountable to public shareholders or the SEC. They do their best to keep a low profile, yet have been politically active behind the scenes until AFP.
When the more-recent Tea Party came on the scene (the one started from a Chicago talk radio show, not Ron Paul's former, short-lived movement), it seems that Americans for Prosperity swept in to "support" them. Instead, it took the reins and started driving hard; hard right. AFP is a Koch group that whips people up into supporting policies that are good for Koch Industries and hating anything that would be less than profitable for Koch Industries.
What is interesting with the Cato development is that it shows that there is some daylight between the Koch-AFP-Tea-Party-Patriots-etc. show and the libertarian movement (a la Ron Paul now, Lyndon LaRouche previously). And the Kochs are in the process of showing that they really are just a new generation of aspiring oligarchs and not truly freedom-loving libertarians. This could be the crack that allows some of them to wake up and see that protecting your planet is not a communist plot (that's a J. Birch Society standard retort).
The science is the science. If you add a significant amount of greenhouse gases to the climate system, you will get a more energetic climate. The Earth takes no notice of your political affiliation.
How humanity responds can be libertarian, conservative, progressive, liberal, scientific, or insert your favorite adjective - but it will be whatever solution can gain enough support based on the values it speaks to across the political spectrum.
Being green does not make one a "watermelon."
Phil M replied on Permalink
" 99% of Americans have never
99% of Americans have never heard of the Koch Brothers!
They are only used as whipping posts on leftist Green blogs such as this one."
I imagine that they don't know who Phil Jones is either. But that doesnt stop him being an anathema to the denialosphere and right wing blogs.
Hank_ replied on Permalink
Good point
Good point. But that's why 'we' are around, to inform the uninformed, right? ;)
AnOilMan replied on Permalink
Let me know...
if you find any information.
IANVS replied on Permalink
Flash: Koch on Facebook
(Hi, lara.)
Anthropod replied on Permalink
Neat to see what goes on behind the scenes in these think tanks. It looks like the origional Cato institue was more interested in throwing out ideas rather than to push a corporate Koch Adgenda. It is an unfortunate reality that money and power corrupts so often.
Hank_ replied on Permalink
Message is getting out there..
Writer and journalist James Delingpole has an encouraging story on The Commentator about a recent guest spot he did on LBC radio in London. It wasn't so much what he said but what the callers in had to say;
"Something extraordinary is happening in the great Climate Wars. I had a taste of it just the other day on an LBC talk show. The producer had only booked me in for a ten-minute slot, in case the listeners weren't interested in my boring new book about that tediously hackneyed subject Man Made Global Warming. But the switchboards were jammed and the station ended up keeping me in for a full hour to reply to all the calls.
There was one big problem though: "We can hardly find ANYONE who disagrees with you," whispered the show's host, Julia Hartley-Brewer. This was true. By the end, things had got so desperate that I found myself accidentally picking fights with callers who were on my side. An easy mistake to make for someone on my (sceptical) side of the debate: we card-carrying Satanic "deniers" are so used to being vilified at every turn it really feels kind of weird suddenly to be in tune with the popular mood."
AnOilMan replied on Permalink
Strike another on for...
…hate radio?
Anthropod replied on Permalink
Denialism is rampant these days. The actions of Gleick have only helped to fan the flames. However it should be noted that the other 99% of scientists conduct there affairs hiesntly and ethically.
At some point we will have to take action to address this issue. It will be easier now than later. I don't understand why some simple activities like placing a price on carbon, reducing personal transport and removing the Mcmansions from new construction can't occur.
David B. Benson replied on Permalink
I fear that
anti-enlightenmentism is on the march once again.
IANVS replied on Permalink
Along with
… anti-intellectualism & anti-education.
AnOilMan replied on Permalink
… anti-gay, anti-women.
Republican's have lost a lot of ground with women with their latest spate of anti-abortion, anti birth-control, and lets not forget Rush's 'slut' comment.
The CBC 'voice' had a great response regarding gay marriage…
"Let them get married. Then they'll stop having sex."
IANVS replied on Permalink
Fred C. Koch, who made the initial family fortune building refineries for Stalin's Soviet Union, appears to have been a paranoid racist.
"In 1958, Fred Koch became one of the original members of the John Birch Society, the arch-conservative group known, in part, for a highly skeptical view of governance and for spreading fears of a Communist takeover. Members considered President Dwight D. Eisenhower to be a Communist agent. In a self-published broadside, Koch claimed that "the Communists have infiltrated both the Democrat and Republican Parties." He wrote admiringly of Benito Mussolini's suppression of Communists in Italy, and disparagingly of the American civil-rights movement. "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America," he warned. Welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks to cities, where they would foment "a vicious race war." In a 1963 speech that prefigures the Tea Party's talk of a secret socialist plot, Koch predicted that Communists would "infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the President is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us."
Could Papa Fred Koch's farmboy paranoid racism be the roots of the Koch brothers' covert war to remove a blackman from the White House at all costs?
Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama, Jane Mayer, August 30, 2010
"In the late 1920s there was at least one country in the world where oil was not bought and sold, in the usual sense–the Soviet Union. The Soviets had been trying to take advantage of their immense oil reserves since gaining power in 1917, and under Joseph Stalin the drive to industrial efficiency was pursued with ruthless speed but without the benefit of Western technology. Fred Koch offered to build oil refineries in the Soviet Union that would be more efficient than those in the West. The young engineer's ideas were welcomed, and he was awarded a large contract to coincide with Stalin's first five-year plan, beginning in 1929. The contract called for construction of 15 refineries for an initial fee of $5 million, from which Koch and his partner, L. E. Winkler, are said to have netted a $500,000 profit. Koch's work in the Soviet Union necessitated sojourns in that country, offering the Texas farmboy an intimate look at the Soviet system while providing the cash he would later need in building his U.S. empire."
Funding Universe: Koch Industries, Inc.
AnOilMan replied on Permalink
I support gay marriage...
I support gay marriage… as long as both chicks are hot.
But seriously… I haven't heard anyone on the Right offer to remove marriage benefits from being enshrined in our laws. I mean.. wouldn't that be the Libertarian ideal? Furthermore marriage benefits were the driving factor behind gay marriage.
IANVS replied on Permalink
Koch Brothers = Robber Barons?
The CATO power grab appears still another step by the Koch brothers to consolidate their power & move America towards oligarchic rule, akin to the days of the robber barons.
"The Acemoglu-Robinson view is much more nuanced: states are often captured by powerful elites and very much used as a tool of oppression, but it is also possible for liberal democracies to develop in which the government not only helps people but also behaves in a way that is conducive to widely shared economic prosperity."
"In this context, the Koch brothers are an important topic of discussion — or cause for concern. In the new Bloomberg billionaire index, released this week, the Koch brothers are each worth $33.5 billion. If they choose to act together, as they often seem to, including in the case of Cato, they are the richest pair in the world."
The Koch Brothers, the Cato Institute and Why Nations Fail
IANVS replied on Permalink
Why Do the Kochs Want to Kill Cato Institute?
So why would Charles & David Koch want to take hostile control of CATO?
"In a meeting with Robert Levy, the chairman of Cato's board of directors, they expressed their intention to remake Cato into a party organ that would aid their campaign to unseat President Barack Obama. To do so, however, they need control of the board. They intend to get it by suing the widow of William Niskanen, a recently deceased board member, for control of Niskanen's shares."
IANVS replied on Permalink
Koch Big Government?
Or militaristic big government, neocon style.
"Given that some of the people the Koch brothers want to put on CATO's board are firmly in the neocon camp, one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to see that a Koch-controlled CATO Institute is one big win for unbridled militarism and one big setback for those advocating small government and individual liberty."
AnOilMan replied on Permalink
I just find it funny how Hippocratic it is that domination and control is considered Libertarian. The Koches want less government in our lives yet by the same token move to alter laws around gay marriage.
They want to define and control what we think and how we behave. It doesn't quite sound like they believe what they are selling.
Kourosh Behnam replied on Permalink
Koch and Iran
Doe's Anyone know if there is investigation going on with Koch and Iran? Has there been anything since the bloomberg article?
IANVS replied on Permalink
"A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries – in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East – has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.
"Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban. Koch Industries units have also rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.
"From 1999 through 2003, Koch Industries was assessed more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments. In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn't pay for from federal land by mismeasuring the amount of crude it was extracting. Koch paid a $25 million settlement to the U.S.
"Phil Dubose, a Koch employee who testified against the company said he and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat – using techniques they called the Koch Method."
Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales
Kourosh Behnam replied on Permalink
Great Stuff
Thanks for the response:
I have been trying to dig deeper into the Koch Iran connection. I'm going to try to get in contact with the journalist who wrote the article. This new turn of events could create another avenue to provoke the Koch Brothers. Could we put Koch Industries under federal investigation if they broke U.S. trade bans? Is it even worth pursuing?
IANVS replied on Permalink
Koch trading to Iran
FWIW, according to the Bloomberg article, Koch's director of corporate communications claims that, at the time, U.S. law allowed foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals to trade with sanctioned Iran under certain conditions, &, since then, Koch has stopped all its units from trading with Iran
Phil M replied on Permalink
"Doe's Anyone know if there
"Doe's Anyone know if there is investigation going on with Koch and Iran?"
IMO, there is not enough coverage on oil in regards to Iran. Whether it be the Koch bribes and secret deals with Iran as uncovered in the Bloomberg article or the TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) VS IPI (Iran, Pakistan, India) pipelines. It seems there is very little coverage of this. Even desmog wants to stay away from it.
Yet US Gov is actively lobbying a maneuvering on behalf of Unocal (Chevron) & Exxon to secure the TAPI pipeline:
"Mr Munter said the US assistance in the energy sector did not mean adding megawatts to the grid as reforms were needed badly in the sector. "We are looking for a long-term business and private partnership.""
"We do not favour the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project but consider the Turkmenistan pipeline via Afghanistan as a better project."
Chevron & Exxon vying for contracts:
"Unocal has been very involved in the Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan part of the world. These regions are central to a trans-Afghan pipeline which would grant broad economic and military power throughout the Eurasian landmass. Military decisions in the Balkans by NATO forces mirrored the same concerns of control for these vital areas.
Before Unocal was able to make their first bid in the region, Bridas, an Argentinian oil company headed by an ambitious Carlos Bulgheroni struck a deal with the Rabbani government which gave him a thirty year agreement on an 875 mile pipeline. Bulgheroni looked for partners, among them Unocal, and was turned down. Teaming up with Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil,Russia's Gazprom, and Turkmenistan's state owned Turkmenrozgas, Unocal made their own deals with local leaders in the area.
This led to Turkmenistan blocking exports from some of Bridas' oil fields, which led to three lawsuits filed with the International Chamber of Commerce that Bridas eventually won. They lost the suit against Unocal in Texas, in which they charged them with civil conspiracy and tortuous interference. Unocal was awarded a 918 mile pipeline in October of 1995. The Taliban overthrew the Rabbani government with help from the CIA and Pakistan's ISI. This negated whatever thirty year contract Bulgheroni had with Afghanistan which led him to fight back the only way left. Deal with the Taliban, and their dealings went back and forth until two U.S. embassis were bombed in Africa.
President William J. Clinton initiated a freeze on business deals with the Afghani government as it was, and this put a halt to the pipeline. After 9/11, and the subsequent war there, new roads have miraculously opened up for work on huge $3.2 billion deal signed in December of 2002 between Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. The new president, Hamid Karzai, has been associated with Unocal, but whether he was ever on their payroll has been denied by both sides"
Now hard hard would it have been to stitch up the TAPI pipeline deal for US interests if they had not invaded Afghanistan? Virtually impossible. Meaning the IPI pipeline could be the most dominant and Pakistan & India would be so reliant on Iran for gas, that US sanctions would equate to not only an attack on Iran, but on India & Pakistan also.
India is now caught in the middle with Pakistan now going ahead with the IPI pipeline & is asking India to ignore US pressure not to do so.


text:
I'll list the ten locations right here (taken from the About Us page from www.bullmoose.com):
Bull Moose #1
151 Maine Street
Brunswick, Maine 04011
Ph: 207-725-1289
Hours: 9:00am – 10pm Tues-Sun
9am – midnight Mon
Bull Moose #2
Windham Shopping Center
North Windham, Maine 04062
Ph: 207-893-1303
Hours: 9:30am – 11pm Mon-Thurs
9:30am – midnight Fri-Sat
10am – 10pm Sun
Bull Moose #3
151 Middle Street
Portland, Maine 04101
Ph: 207-780-6424
Hours: 10am – 11pm every day
Bull Moose 4
Lewiston Mall
Lewiston, ME 04240
Ph: 207-784-6463
Hours: 9am – 9pm Mon-Sat
9am – 5pm Sun
Bull Moose #5
82-86 Congress Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801
Ph: 603-422-9525
9:30am – 11pm Tues-Sat
9:30am – midnight Mon
Bull Moose #6
Center For Shopping
Sanford, ME 04073
Ph: 207-324-5786
Hours: 9:30am – 10pm Mon-Sat
9:30am – 8pm Sun
Bull Moose #7
Elm Plaza
Waterville, ME 04901
Ph: 207-861-5884
Hours: 9am – 10p Mon-Sat
9am – 8pm Sun
Bull Moose Music #8
Maine Square Mall
683 Hogan Road
Bangor, ME 04401
Ph: 207-262-0410
Hours: 9am-11pm Tues-Sun
9am – midnight Mon
Bull Moose #9
356-366 So. Broadway
Salem, NH 03079
Ph: 603-898-6254
Hours: 10am – midnight every day
Bull Moose #10
456 Payne Rd.
Scarborough, ME 04074
Ph: 207-885-9553
Hours: 9am – 11pm Tues-Sun
9am – midnight Mon
If people could post deals or any specials that are going on at certain locations. Also post which location you went to so we can figure out if they're YMMV for different stores or if all the store are kind the same prices/trade-in value. Another note of interest is that Bull Moose always has new games that just came out for around $45.xx brand new and might be good for price matching at BB or CC.
When I went to the one in Scarborough, ME a couple days ago I picked up a NEW copy of DDR: Mario Mix for $45.97.
I also traded in:
Future Tactics (GC) for $6 a copy (2 copies for $12 credit)
Twisted Metal III (PS1) for $4 credit
Total credit: $16 (paid $6 for all 3 games; gained $10)
I would've gotten less if I had taken ca$h, but I grabbed Mario Mix so I used it all that day anyways.
Plus, I had an old copy of Q bert 3 for SNES lying around and they would've given me $2 for and Robotech Battlecry (PS2) that they were going to give me $6 for, so I just kept those two games.
That's about it, please post any deals promotions that you find and at which locations. I'd also like to see if we could get a small trade-in list going for these stores.
EDIT(1): Edited the title to make this the "official" Bull Moose thread.
EDIT(2): Edited the title to say when the last time Bull Moose made a post.
EDIT(3): Edited the title to notify everyone of Wii Preorder Bundle.
EDIT(4): Edited the title to notify everyone that Wii Preorders are SOLD OUT!
EDIT(5): Edited the title by taking out the Wii Bundle being sold out.
EDIT(6): Edited the title to notify Bull Moose was back and posting again!
Edited by 3QGojo, 13 July 2009 - 09:16 PM.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
You are booking for:
- Venue
- Glee Club Birmingham
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- Saturday 23rd January 2021
Treat yourself to an evening of award-winning comedy! Four superb stand-up comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday.
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text:
As the United States faces the challenge of creating more employment nationwide, new jobs are coming from an unexpected place — the "positive-impact" sector, says a recent report from HIP Investor Inc., a San Francisco-based wealth management firm that helps advisors create portfolios focused on sustainability.
Three out of 10 jobs in the U.S. economy focus on building a better world, and while the government has traditionally been the primary positive-impact job creator, that role is increasingly being taken over by private industry, according to HIP Investor authors R. Paul Herman, an RIA and CIO, and Tom Bowmer, a corporate financial analyst.
"In 2011, approximately 21 million of the 110 million jobs in the private industry positively affected society," the authors write in "Who Are the Real Job Creators? Not Who You Think," citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data. "This private industry contribution primarily came from the sub-sectors of health care, education and social assistance services, but it also includes positive-impact sectors like utility system construction, environmental waste remediation, and grant-making institutions."
Positive-Impact Jobs Grew by 21% in Last 10 Years
According to HIP Investor's analysis of annual jobs data released by the BLS between 2002 and 2011, jobs in the positive-impact sector of the U.S. economy have grown by 21%, at a rate of about 2% annually, while total private industry jobs subtracting the impact sector have fallen by -3.7%, or -0.4% annually.
But if the U.S. is to keep its recovery on track, it must create jobs at a faster rate, the authors assert.
"After four years, the U.S. economy has barely managed to make a dent in the jobs gap," write Herman and Bowmer. "By contrast, at this point in the economic cycle, every other post-WWII recession had managed to return to its previous jobs peak. A new approach, which recognizes where the jobs are in the 21st century economy and how to design policies to stimulate further job creation, is needed."
If private sector job growth continues at its long-term historical rate of 1.25%, the U.S. economy will not reach full employment until 2020, according to the HIP Investor authors' analysis.
Challenges Ahead
"However, if that growth is accelerated, applying the impact sector's annualized job growth rate (approximately 2%), then the U.S. could reach full employment by 2015," they write.
And they concede that the challenges are considerable.
For example, organizations in the impact sector may come up with compelling solutions to address society's needs, but they often lack scale, the HIP authors concede. So even though impact-sector job growth is impressive, it still employs far fewer people than the business sector as a whole.
Their solution? Partnerships between more established businesses and the impact sector, which would fill the U.S. jobs gap with high-impact ventures.
"Solving human, social and environmental problems is much needed, and also compelling for employees. More than nine of 10 new graduates want to work for a company that 'does good' in their daily operations," write Herman and Bowmer.
Read more about the U.S. economy and sustainability at AdvisorOne.


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LONDON - Defence Secretary Leon Panetta says the U.S. is working with the British and Algerian governments to assess what's happening on the ground at a natural gas complex in the Sahara where Islamic militants are holding hostages from at least 10 countries.
The fate of many of the captives remains uncertain.
Speaking Friday at Kings College in London, Panetta said the U.S. is "working around the clock to ensure the safe return of our citizens."
Panetta says the terrorists should be on notice that they'll find no sanctuary in Algeria or North Africa.
He says anyone who looks to attack the U.S. will have "no place to hide."


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Robert Jeffrey "Bobby" Hill (born August 13, 1985) is the only son of Hank and Peggy Hill. Bobby Hill's age changes gradually throughout the series. Up until Shins of the Father he is 11, then 12, then 13.
Bobby Hill is 4'11", and weighs 135 lbs. His haircut seems to be a close buzzcut (as shown in "Hank's Bad Hair Day"). Bobby does poorly in most sports and other athletic activities. He seemed to be especially not good with his hands. The exception to this is his incredible ability as a marksman, which is displayed in "How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying" and "To Kill a Ladybird" where he shoots his pet raccoon believed to be rabid. These qualities make him a comic foil to his ex-high-school-football-playing, tool-savvy father. They are different in most respects with the few things Bobby is good at, like shooting a gun or dancing, being areas where Hank is weak or mediocre.
Despite differences, Bobby and Hank's relationship is close and Bobby considers his father to be his hero. He is also friends with Joseph Gribble and next-door neighbor Connie Souphanousinphone. Bobby wants more than anything to be a prop comic like his hero "Celery Head", but has also aspired to be a "ladies' man", plus-size model, stand-up comic, proctologist and a salesman of "propane and propane accessories". The London Free Press once stated that he "might be the most complex, fully formed kid in TV history."
In later seasons he served as the mascot for his middle school football team, the Tom Landry Longhorns. His father Hank Hill is occasionally embarrassed by Bobby's ineptitude in other sports, activities, and in his behavior often stating ("That boy ain't right"), but Bobby most of all wants his father to be proud of him. Hank spent years thinking Bobby was gay, or possibly asexual, but this presumption was put to rest when Bobby got with the older teenage girl Marie and he learned from Connie's father that he caught her and Bobby together half-naked, and while Hank was obligated to yell at Bobby for these occasions, he was also subtly pleased by these developments. After being consulted by his neighbor Kahn Souphanousinphone about Bobby's actions, Hank breathes a sigh of relief, obviously realizing that his son is heterosexual. This revelation seems to have eased some tension between Hank and Bobby.
Although Hank wished to have Bobby follow in his athletic past, there have been times Hank realizes this is not the best idea for Bobby. When Bobby joined the track team, his out-of-shape physiology was used by the coach to punish slackers by having Bobby substitute for them. When a player suffers an injury, the coach is made to substitute Bobby for real, making him run a 1500-yard dash. Bobby wins the event when all the other players trip due to a freak accident. Although Bobby won by default, Hank is still proud of his rare win. Another time Bobby actually agreed with Hank that the soccer team was run under a "sissy program" and tried out for the football team. It was actually Hank who ordered Bobby off the football team once he saw it was run by a sadistic coach who did extreme actions such as chase players on the field with a car.
Hank also disapproved of Bobby studying Buddhism, as he dismissed this idea of reincarnation as hooey. Surprisingly, his attempts to get his pastor, Reverend Stroup, involved in this backfired when her liberal ideas indicated all religions are inherently good. Everything worked out for Hank, once Bobby realized Lamas cannot get married and that he cared too much for Connie with this choice being accepted by the lead monk despite it being the mirror that was owned by the previous llama.
Bobby is a very kind, innocent, caring, lovable, gentle and a good hearted character. Although his softy personality disappoints Hank at times, Bobby is at the same time a crack rifle shot, is a professional-level golfer, and is also skilled at Dance Dance Revolution. Further, Bobby can be pushed into spontaneous anger, as when he punched the larger, more muscular Joseph for kissing Connie. Bobby has many of his irritating grandfather's more positive traits, such as joviality, body design and the knack of romancing girls with surprising ease.
Bobby has also shown numerous times throughout the series that he is easily influenced. Characters he has been influenced by and mimicked his behavior after include Cotton Hill, Junie Harper, Cane Skretteburg, Gary Kasner, Booda Sack, Rad Thibodeaux, and Buck Strickland.
Middle name
There is some debate over Bobby's middle name. Some believe it to be Jeffrey, as stated in the episode "Bobby Slam" when a very drunk Peggy said she wanted to name him Jeffrey but Hank would not let her. While some claim his full name is revealed on a trophy shelf built by Hank when Bobby was a baby to be Robert "Butch" Hill in the episode "Torch Song Hillogy". However, Hank merely hoped his son's nickname would be "Butch". In "Pregnant Paws", it is revealed that Bobby doesn't know his middle name and in "Love Hurts and So Does Art", Peggy, while filling out forms for Bobby at the hospital, says, "Bobby, we gave you a dumb middle name."
In the Season 1 DVD of the show, Bobby's character bio is given as Robert "Bobby" Jeffrey Hill, and during a character commentary in one of the episodes, Peggy refers to Bobby as Robert Jeffrey Hill.
His Wikipedia page lists his name as Robert Jeffery Hill
In Season 13, episode 13 ("Nancy Does Dallas"), Peggy refers to Bobby as "Robert Jeffrey Hill".
Late Bloomer
While he is the same age as Connie and Joseph, Bobby is a classic example of a late bloomer. He has not yet experienced puberty and is jealous that Joseph is tall and sometimes mistaken for an adult. It's unknown if the writers ever let Bobby enter puberty or not, since the changes to the character would most likely cause Pamela Adlon to be replaced as the voice for Bobby for a newer, deeper voice (that is what led to the change of the voice actor for Joseph from Brittany Murphy to Breckin Meyer).
In the episode "Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do?" Connie's delinquent cousin, Tid Pao stays with the family due to some drug debts that she is hiding from back home. Bobby falls for her and makes Connie jealous. However, Tid Pao only sees Bobby as a young child and when Bobby drops Connie as his science partner to be Tid Pao's, problems pop-up: unknown to Bobby, Tid Pao manipulates him into making a meth lab for their science project, intending to deal the drugs they manufacture to get back to her old life by paying off her debts and flying back to Los Angeles first-class. Fortunately, Connie manages to pull Bobby out of getting into big mess with the authorities, and after one or both of them expose Tid Pao's scam and crimes to their parents and/or the police, she is (presumably) arrested and, by the end of the episode, is sent to live with another uncle in Wisconsin, under the threat of being sent to Laos to live with her grandmother if she doesn't shape up the coming time around.
Eating habits
Bobby has a penchant for eating unusual things and getting himself in trouble for doing so. Bobby once ate a 72-ounce steak in 37 minutes after a breakup with his vegetarian girlfriend Marie for the sake of spiting her, then later vomits it up while talking to Connie.
In another episode, "Love Hurts and So Does Art", Bobby became ill with gout after repeatedly consuming chicken liver sandwiches at a New York-style deli in the local mall. Although the gout eventually requires him to use a senior citizen-style electric scooter, he still rides it to the mall to eat more chicken livers. However it is suggested he did this because he was nervous about attending the school dance, and was using it as an excuse to get out of it.
Bobby also ate an entire dish of lutefisk, a very smelly fish dish, that was prepared by the town's new female Pastor. His over consumption and subsequent stomach ache resulted in a fire that destroyed the church his family attends (albeit indirectly, as it was the matches he lit to cover the smell of the dish that burnt the church).
In "Peggy's Turtle Song", Bobby eats too much sugar one morning and is mistakenly diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. In "Westie Side Story" Bobby makes reference to eating Bible leather while chewing on a dog's leash. In "Hank's Choice", when the family discovers Bobby is allergic to Ladybird, the family dog, Bobby lives outside the house. He stays there even after he discovers his medication is alleviating his symptoms so he can stay outside and keep ordering pizza for dinner.
Bobby has also displayed talents for cooking and homemaking in general, to the chagrin of his mother Peggy as he surpasses her in all possible aspects. In the episode "Goodbye Normal Jeans", Bobby takes a shine to his new homemaking class where he learns, among other things, to become a culinary whiz. Peggy becomes jealous that Hank now prefers Bobby's cooking to her own and goes out of her way to sabotage Bobby's Thanksgiving turkey. In the event, she failed.
One constant throughout the entire run of the show has been Bobby's affinity for fruit pies. In the episode entitled "Junkie Business", Hank tries to persuade Bobby to come to work with him by listing all the items in the vending machine. Bobby responds tearfully by saying, "You had me at 'fruit pies'." In the episode entitled "To Kill a Ladybird", Bobby befriends a raccoon and shares fruit pies with him on some house trash cans, but not before Peggy chides Bobby to eat them in the kitchen because she is sick of finding crumbs in the bathtub. In the episode, "Little Horrors of Shop", Peggy extracts information from Bobby by bribing him with a fruit pie. In the episode "The Son That Got Away", a fruit pie is used by Ladybird to track Bobby's scent. In the episode "Good Hill Hunting", before leaving on a hunting trip with Hank, Bobby is told by Peggy that she filled his rifle case with fruit pies, and put his rifle in his sleeping bag. In yet another, Luanne replaces the filling in one of Bobby's fruit pies with dirt as part of a feud between the two, where Peggy stated to Luanne "you messed with his fruit pies, after that he had nothing to lose". In the episode "John Vitti Presents: Return to LaGrunta," Bobby becomes infatuated with capers, only to discover that they went well with everything except fruit pies. He also once poured straight syrup on a paper plate and started lapping it up like a cat.
Episode Appearances
See Episode outlines.
- Bobby is one of the few characters to appear in every episode, along with Hank, Peggy, Dale, Boomhauer, and Bill.
- Occasionally seen when scenes show the interior of Bobby's room, there is a Bart Simpson doll sitting on his shelf, a possible reference to the show's co-creator, who worked on The Simpsons before co-creating King of the Hill.
- Bobby is possibly named after Bobby Beavis, someone from Mike Judge's youth who was also the namesake of one of the title characters on Beavis and Butt-Head.
- Despite having such athletic parents, Bobby himself is completely un-athletic and does not enjoy sports at all, although he is gifted in golf but doesn't enjoy playing it that much. He does, however, own a letterman's jacket for Track and Field.
- Though Hank is usually the one to force Bobby into sports, he usually does not want his son actually playing the sport, as seen in several episodes, bringing the question as to why Hank has his son sign up for the sports.
- Bobby has great aim when it comes to target shooting.
- Besides his father Hank and his mother Peggy, Bobby seems to interact with Boomhauer the most out of all of the adults in the show.
- Its possible Bobby is named after Boomhauer, since his presumed middle name (Jeffery) also happens to be Boomhauer's first name. Boomhauer has been friends with Hank for many years and he is the most responsible one out of the alley gang apart from Hank.
- Bobby really enjoys rock music, much to the dismay of his father.
- In a family portrait in Hank and Peggy's bedroom, Bobby has brown hair.
- Bobby lasted three days in the hole at the military academy he was sent to. He did so after seeing his grandfather Cotton went through two days at the same academy.
- The school which Bobby Hill attends, Tom Landry Middle School (named after the Dallas Cowboys football coach), is based on an elementary school that really does exist by the same name. It is located in Irving, Texas in the sub-division of Valley Ranch, just a few blocks down MacArthur Blvd. from the Dallas Cowboys' Office and Training Facility (most of the streets in the neighborhood are also named after Dallas Cowboy greats).
- Bobby can speak the Southern Dialect of the Laotian language.
- Bobby appears to be a gamer and/or a Nintendo fan as he owns a Gameboy and a Nintendo 64.


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Carla TintoréAR
With an impeccable career, she is recognized as a pioneer in argentinian electronic music scene. Soon after starting her professional debut in the year 1991, she becomes an essential name within the local underground movement. It is very important to emphasize her eclectic style that it is shaped by elegant and deep sound and is developed in dj sessions that range from classic house to techno, with strong influences from both tech-house and breakbeats sounds.
At present her work as resident Dj can be appreciated at Cocoliche Club in Buenos Aires, and as music consultant and dj at "BAF Week" (Official Fashion Week in Argentina). She has been the main producer in unforgettable and seminal events such as "Underground Park", one of the first massive electronic parties in Argentina, and "AlternatiBA", co-founding the first multimedia art festival that took place at Centro Cultural San Martin in the city of Buenos Aires.
Every mythical club from her home country has hired her as resident dj: Age of Communication, Nómade Club, Morocco, Ave Porco, El Cielo, Pacha and La Morocha. She has been an active member in the local electronic music scene, spreading her skills and music selections to important venues around South America and cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.


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Three people died when a twin-engine plane crashed in a parking lot in Fort Lauderdale Friday afternoon, authorities said.
The three people who perished had been aboard the small aircraft, Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue spokesman Matt Little said.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the Piper PA31 aircraft left from Runway 08 at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport at about 4:20 p.m. The crash occurred just moments later. Little said firefighters responded at 4:21 p.m.
After the local flight took off, the plane banked to the right before it crashed into parked vehicles near a warehouse at 964 NE 53rd Court, Little said.
"Our guys tell us there are some fatalities here, and it's just a tragedy," Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler said.
VIDEO: Firefighters at Scene of Plane Crash
The three men who died were flying on an avionics check, meaning that they were checking the airplane's instrumentation and communications systems, airport sources told NBC 6.
The plane took off from a runway facing east. Shortly after takeoff there was a double engine failure, and the pilot attempted to return to the field and land on Runway 31, which faces the north and west, the sources said. The plane then made a steep right turn, stalled, spun and crashed into the parking lot, they said.
The National Transportation Safety Board will make the final determination about what happened.
Whitney Ribak, who was standing in the parking lot of BJ's Wholesale Club nearby, said she heard the surreal sound before impact. She likened it to something "in the movies, when you hear a plane coming down out of the sky with just this high-pitched engine."
"And I live in the neighborhood, so I knew something was wrong. I looked up just as the plane banked and crashed behind the Starlight Lounge on Powerline Road," Ribak said. "It exploded, big black smoke billowing up. I kept hearing other explosions. I was shaking. I was trying to call 911."
Before she could get 911 from her phone, she said, ambulances and sirens were coming from every direction.
Ebbey Davis was working nearby when the crash occurred.
"I heard the plane fluctuating, and when I looked back up in the air, I saw when the plane was trying to make a turn and the wings were facing up and down, straight up and down, and it went down slanted into the building," he said.
After he heard a loud boom, Davis and a few other people ran over to see what was happening.
"And by that time everything was in flames over there. Some of the cars started exploding a little bit because of the gas and everything," he said.
Firefighters doused flames on numerous vehicles after the crash, as smoke billowed from the site. Eight vehicles, a boat and a camper were destroyed.
A lone propeller was visible in the wreckage, aerial footage showed.
Little said the plane was believed to be based in Fort Lauderdale.
Four Rescued From Small Plane Crash in Biscayne Bay
No injuries were reported on the ground.
"The only thing that we can really think that would be the fortunate part of it is, like you said, that no one was in the area when this plane crashed and that it did not strike a building or land on top of a building or in the roadway," Fort Lauderdale Police spokeswoman Detective DeAnna Garcia said.
More Local Stories:


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Good morning everyone…
Lots of new news coming out now that Patch 4.1 has made its way to the PTR….
What?… you wonder where I've been? I kind of expected that. Anyway, I've been really busy with some RL changes, most of them keeping me from really getting onto WoW much. But that's changed a bit, and I've gotten a little more time on my hands, and my workload has shifted at work.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Looks like there will be a few changes to the Paladin with this new patch. here's a quick outline.
Word of Glory: We hope Retribution and Protection Paladins occasionally do the right healing to others, but as we know Paladins sometimes feel that Holy Power is only for the healing. We rather like these specs use more Holy Power on damage abilities, and occasionally heal.
- Divine Light now costs 30% of base mana, down from 33%.
- Flash of Light now costs 27% of base mana, down from 30%.
- Walk in the Light (Mastery) now removes the cooldown on your Word of Glory.
- Word of Glory now has a 20 sec cooldown.
- Aura Mastery now improves the effect of Devotion Aura, Resistance Aura, and Retribution Aura instead of all auras.
- Conviction now procs from non-periodic spells.
- Divine Guardian now has a 3 min cooldown, up from 2 min.
- Divine Storm now grants a charge of Holy Power if it hits 4 or more targets.
- Sacred Shield now cannot occur more than once every 60 sec, up from 30 sec.
Well, as the title states, it looks like some of the Light is fading for Protection. What I mean by this is the change in Word of Glory. At the moment, it has become a practice among some Paladin tanks in raid environments to use WoG each time you have 3 Holy Power. This saves a bit of mana for the healers, and provides a nice little buffer. With this new change, Paladins are now forced to use Shield of the Righteous or Inquisition. I have yet to follow the WoG spam method, but I'm also not raiding yet. Time is still a little restrictive. But do see how it could be a boon for healers. I myself have moved towards using the more damaging Holy Power dumps in dungeons, in fact here's how I usually work the rotation, boss tactics especially.
- Avenger's Shield > Divine Plea (3 Holy Power) > Shield of the Righetousness
- This is then followed by: Judgement > CS > Avenger's Shield (if off cooldown) > CS > Holy Wrath > CS > Inquisition > Judgement > etc. etc.
Following this method, I've been able to keep threat, as well as increase my damage after the initial threat build. using Inquisition as my second HP dump, has been a way for me to increase that outgoing damage, gaining a nice little buffer, where I can then move to WoG as the HP dump. But instead of using WoG each time I have 3 HP, I would instead spread it out: WoG > Inq. > ShotR > WoG > Inq. > ShotR
Of course this is situational, as sometimes ther eis a need to burn down the target, and in those cases, i would often use ShotR on each 3HP cooldown. Something I've come to love about the abilities linked with HP.
Some may be asking "What about Holy?" Well, the Walking in the Light mastery has fixed that by removing the 20 sec cooldown, allowing Holy Pallies to continue with their normal usage of WoG, as it is very unlikely that they'll need a DPS increase while healing.
I have also noticed that the healing costs are still being tweaked and twisted. I was a bit set back by the initial nerf to the cost, but do see that Blizz recognizes this too.
I am sad that Aura Mastery does not work for Crusader Aura, but had already gotten used to that. Though I'm unsure why Consentration Aura was removed. I guess it is due to the fact that CA is already being modified by the Aura Mastery spell itself, but time will tell.
Lastly is changes to Conviction. As there aren't that many HoTs, it doesn't really affect us a lot, outside of the fact that Holy Radiance does not proc it. As I've said, I've yet to do any raids yet, so am not totally sure how it is going to affect healing.
The last change is Divine Storm now working almost like Hammer of the Righteous and providing a charge if Holy Power if the attack hits more than 3 targets. This is a nice change, as when I was specc'd as Retribution it almost didn't feel necessary to use Divine Storm at all, with the nice damage of Templar's Verdict. I have yet to experiment with the Sacred Shield change, since I haven't even experienced it before (Have been Holy/Prot since about 81).
Anyway, with all the other changes including the return of Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub as heroic 5 mans and the introduction of the Firelands raid, 4.1 looks to be an interesting patch.
Light be with you.


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Sibelius celebrates 150 – mini concert & reception
December 8, 2015 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius, Lyric Fest will offer a short concert to be celebrated with wine and cheese at AVA at 6 pm on Tuesday, December 8, 2015, the day of his birth.
Song aficionados know that though seldom programmed in the U.S., Sibelius songs are considered to be among the finest in the repertory.
Singers Anne Marie Frohnmayer, Anthony Schneider, and Suzanne DuPlantis join Laura Ward at the piano to present many of his most beautiful works, sung in the original Swedish, Finnish, and German.


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Happycall ULTimate Ih Plasma 3-Pc Set - 3900-0133


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Soulful Jamaican, Even Without the Meat, at The Islands
Dining out meat-free.
I have a thing for hole-in-the-wall places: there's just something special, almost a little magical, about a cook who can turn out rich, satisfying dishes in a tiny space outfitted with few amenities.
When I think hole-in-the-wall—in a good way—I think the Islands, a slender little strip of a restaurant located just down the block from the Brooklyn Museum (previously reviewed by Carey here). Here, a postage stamp-sized "kitchen" (a couple of wall-mounted ovens and two gas burners) produces lovingly spiced, deeply flavored plates of food that, in spite of their enormity, rarely exceed a $12 price tag. And the "dining room" offers a similar off-the-cuff charm, consisting of four small tables up a perilously narrow metal staircase, where aromas of allspice, ginger, and garlic waft up from below. Something else that's great about the Islands? It's BYOB, so be sure to stop by the corner store on your way in.
The menu at the Islands lists a number of vegetarian dishes, but because it's such a small operation, the restaurant actually only serves a rotating cast of daily specials. It's a good idea to call ahead to see what's available, especially if you're eating vegetarian, as the day's meat-free options, though all delicious, aren't always on hand.
My gang and I started with a huge chunk of—get ready for this, people—the best Macaroni and Cheese ($5) I have ever eaten. The prominence of thick, baked slabs of mac and cheese—or, as it's often called, macaroni pie—in the Caribbean diet is something of a mystery, but the Islands has clearly perfected this mutt of a tradition: its deeply cheddar-y, sky-high noodles are threaded through with sweet cooked onions and topped with a crunchy, deeply savory layer of toasted breadcrumbs. "It tastes like something straight out of a church basement," one of my companions commented.
An entrée of Curry Vegetables with Tofu ($10, pictured at top) made a cohesive dish of tons of elements: included in the mix were butter beans, red beans, corn, carrots, peas and cauliflower, sprinkled overall with golden raisins and bound together in a light curried broth. A veritable mountain of rice and peas was on hand for sopping up the stew, and the Islands's other standard sides don't get short shrift, either: the tender, buttery sautéed cabbage accented with peas and carrots is well-seasoned, and a lettuce salad is dressed brightly and showered with thinly-sliced red onion and more sweet golden raisins. I repeat: all of this costs ten dollars.
The dark horse of our bounteous meal was, perhaps, the simply-titled (and simple-looking) Stew Peas ($10), a dark, thick stew of creamy kidney beans, peas and carrots in a coconut-rich, gingery sauce. Tender flour dumplings added extra heft to this filling main dish.
The Islands is the kind of place where the table water arrives in a former vodka handle (true story) and the check is passed up to you through the balcony bars from a server below. The fact that the food here is so outstanding is just part of the reason to pay a visit.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Apollo Hospitals' Launches Post-Covid 'Recover Clinics'
Exhibition & Sale and Bathukamma & Dassara Celebrations at Tourism Plaza
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Piora: Elegant Restaurant Just Needs Service to Match
430 Hudson Street, New York, NY, 10014 (b/n Morton and Leroy; map); 212-960-3801; pioranyc.com
Service: Well-intentioned but overly formal and somewhat unpracticed.
Setting: Welcoming space with quiet back room and livelier front bar space.
Must-Haves: Monkey bread, market vegetables, egg, rigatoni.
Cost: Starters $12-16, mains $23-24. We were encouraged to order more than two dishes per person, but an appetizer and an entree is a sizable meal.
Compare To: Perilla
Recommendation: Fabulous menu, competent cocktails, and service that's not quite yet up to par—stiff and formal rather than professional and personable.
I first became a fan of Chris Cipollone, now the chef at the West Village's Piora, when he was up at Tenpenny at the Gotham Hotel. In an era when some of New York's very best restaurants are stationed within hotels—Locanda Verde and Maialino, The Breslin and The Nomad—Tenpenny was a Hotel Restaurant in the bad way; anonymous-looking, tucked behind a nondescript lobby, easy to ignore. I was blown away by Cipollone's way with vegetables, with his inventive platings, but found myself thinking even as I put back one happy bite after another—would I really come back here?
Now Cipollone, recruited by proprietor Simon Kim, has landed at Piora, a far more hospitable-seeming place on Hudson Street—a snug space with an imposing bar up front and a sleek dining room fronting a wall of windows in back, looking out onto a sort of urban backyard (read: other properties' trees and buildings) in a way that almost suggests a back garden.
This is not your average small downtown restaurant opening. The crowds I've seen have been in their 40s, not their 20s. The music is at a reasonable volume. Cocktails are served on floppy cloth coasters, not paper napkins. There's a coat check. (And if you box up food to go, that's where it'll wait for you). Piora doesn't do the stripped-down, 2013, "Hey I just found this here space and opened a restaurant" thing. It strives for elegance, to be a place you might dress a bit for dinner.
To a large degree, it succeeds. Particularly on the menu, where every dish was polished, focused, delicious; worthy of the price tag, worthy of a special trip, of saying "Let's go back to Piora." The overall experience, however, wasn't quite up to par.
Let's start with the good news, because there's a lot of it, and let's start with the Monkey Bread ($6) because that's what you should do. If you're averse to paying for bread at restaurants, an increasingly more common practice, this is the bread course that might change your mind: a sextet of brioche-like, pull-apart, oven-warm rolls served with whipped lardo and a soft butter infused with dried Korean seaweed. It's rich enough to spoil your dinner, compelling enough that you won't regret it. And this culinary duality, Italian and Korean, nicely encapsulates the influences on the menu.
Keep the extra rolls on your table as you move onto the Market Vegetables ($16), a signature of Cipollone's—about 14 different seasonal vegetables in a carefully arranged tangle, some raw, others poached, pickled, dehydrated. It's an adventure to pick through, a playground of a salad brought together by a "Thousand Island powder," made from dehydrated ingredients of that dressing. The other must-order appetizer is as indulgent as the salad is light: a poached Egg ($12) served atop artichoke barigoule and chicken wings. Those wings are cured, then cooked in duck fat before they're deboned and sent through the deep-fryer, resulting in the most luscious chicken nuggets imaginable, made still richer with a potato purée siphoned on top and the burst egg yolk coating every bite.
Of course, fans of tantalizingly rich poultry could also order the Duck Confit ($14), the confited meat formed into a panko-coated patty, then deep-fried for a beautiful bronze crust, served atop an intriguing Earl Grey-plum-ginger sauce. And the Scallop ($16) is another strong choice, with sweet corn and chanterelles, garnished by crumbled chicken skin, a brilliant addition I also remember from Cipollone's Tenpenny days.
I don't have a bad word to say about Piora's opening courses. But at this point in my first meal, I was thinking about the service at least as much as the food.
Our waiter—well, let's say he averaged a B in Fancy Restaurant Behavior school. All the boxes were checked, all the basic structure was followed, but the seamlessness of a job truly well done just wasn't there. When we asked a question, his response was delivered so slowly I grew impatient before he finished. The speech following "Have you dined with us before?" simply confirmed my resolve to always, always say "yes" to avoid such speeches. I tuned out a bit after "Chef suggests you order...", particularly because the suggestion amounted to "perhaps share a few appetizers, then a pasta or two as a mid-course, before the entrees" for a party of two, who would later find a starter and a main per person more than enough food.
And along with another server, ours hovered so closely that I found my dining companion occasionally trailing off mid-conversation, waiting until they wandered back across the restaurant. (Granted, her stories tend to the somewhat salacious, but any conversation feels uncomfortable when overheard.)
It wasn't just a single server; our interactions all through that night seemed somewhat stiff, somewhat forced. Confusion when we were seated for an early reservation—suggesting a drink at the bar first, after which we said we'd rather head straight to the table, where we weren't led for another five minutes (in a nearly empty restaurant). Overeager bussers who, with unfailing politeness, offered to remove courses more than once before we'd finished.
But my dining companion and I both loved the Rigatoni ($23), perhaps more than any other dish on the menu: handmade pasta with hearty crumbles of duck sausage (also made in-house), spigarello broccoli, and a brilliant garnish of charred fig. I rarely order pasta when approaching a menu with so many other options, but I'd return just for another bowl of rigatoni.
The Rohan Duck ($28)—as I write, I'm realizing how much duck there is on this menu; no complaints—sports beautiful, crackly skin and works beautifully with jujube (Korean date) purée, duck jus with black garlic, and farro with an appealing kick of spice. Chicken ($24), light and dark meat both, rested over a sunflower seed purée, roasted sunchoke, and roasted corn that came together for an earthy, appealing bite; Halibut ($34) became an elegant fall dish with chanterelles, squash, and a brown butter fumet.
In fact, the kitchen's sole misstep was in a dessert, an olive oil Earl Grey cake ($12). Said cake is dehydrated and crumbled, served with roasted white chocolate, a reduced apple cider sauce, pomegranate, shiso, and Earl Grey ice cream. The flavors came together nicely; pops of acidity against the chocolate, the fresh bite of shiso as a smart mint stand-in. But it seemed a bit odd to take an olive oil cake, whose primarily selling point is that it's not dry, and dehydrate it; we didn't find cake croutons nearly as appealing as, say, cake. "It's like cake-zanella," said New York editor Max—"which sounds like cakezilla but far less fun." Elsewhere on the menu, dehydrated or otherwise manipulated ingredients served a particular purpose, in concert with the overall dish. Here, it simply seemed overcomplicated.
On a second visit we sat at the bar, and I found myself preferring that experience—less stiff formality, more order-and-eat, the bartenders professional and personable. And inasmuch as sitting at the bar tends to mean I order more cocktails, that's not a bad thing at Piora, with an Aperol-rye "Wear and Tear" served from a mini-barrel and an elegant Victor Laszlo with a splash of maraschino, a sugar cube, and Angostura in a bubbly glass of Cremant de Bourgogne. (The tequila-grapefruit-creme de cassis "Pairs Well" was the weakest link of the cocktails.)
Piora certainly doesn't resemble the willfully casual downtown restaurants you'll see more often these days. If anything, it reminds me quite a bit of Perilla, Harold Dieterle's first restaurant (and not only because I confuse the names in my head). Sophisticated American, occasionally Asian-inflected fare. Painstakingly crafted, nearly always successful dishes. Small West Village restaurant. But I'd recommend Perilla more easily on one criterium alone: I feel happy and comfortable when I'm there. The service seems polished and professional because it is, not because it's just taking a page from that playbook.
Only a few months old, Piora is still just starting out, and given the crowds I've seen at the restaurant, they have a willing audience while they continue to find their groove. And improve a bit I hope they do. Because with a bit more practice, it'd be a highly recommendable restaurant, a worthy home for a talented chef.
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TV Land's Hit Sitcom Cleared in 47 of the top 50 Markets
LOS ANGELES - January 28, 2013 - CBS Television Distribution has sold HOT IN CLEVELAND to TV stations in 92% of the United States for a September 2014 launch, it was announced today by Joe DiSalvo, President of Sales, CTD.
The hit TV Land sitcom is now cleared in 47 of the top 50 markets. The latest round of clearances includes stations from the Allbritton Communications, Granite Broadcasting, Raycom Media, Post-Newsweek Stations, Gray Television and Grant Communications groups.
CTD acquired the exclusive broadcast domestic distribution rights for HOT IN CLEVELAND from TV Land in September 2011.
Debuting June 2010, HOT IN CLEVELAND's premiere episode was the highest-rated telecast in TV Land's 14-year history. Through its past three full seasons, HOT IN CLEVELAND averaged 3 million total viewers, according to Nielsen. The fourth season of HOT IN CLEVELAND can currently be seen Wednesday nights at 10pm ET/PT on TV Land.
The cast of HOT IN CLEVELAND has been honored with numerous awards since its initial premiere including a People's Choice Award for Favorite Cable TV Comedy, a Gracie Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Individual Episode. The series was also awarded a Creative Arts Emmy(R) Award for Outstanding Art Direction for a Multi-Camera Series (Michael Andrew Hynes and Maralee Zediker). Additionally, Betty White recently received her third Screen Actors Guild Award(R) nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her performance as "Elka Ostrovsky" - an award she has won the past two years for the same role. White was also nominated for an Emmy(R) Award in 2011 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the same role.
HOT IN CLEVELAND revolves around three fabulous best friends from LA - novelist Melanie Moretti (Valerie Bertinelli), eye-brow archer to the stars Joy Scroggs (Jane Leeves) and former soap star Victoria Chase (Wendie Malick) - who find their lives changed forever when their plane, headed for Paris, makes an unexpected landing. When the friends discover that life is better in Cleveland, they decide to stay. Starting over together, they rent a house that happens to come with a very opinionated caretaker, Elka Ostrovsky (White).
Filmed in front of a live audience, HOT IN CLEVELAND is executive produced by Emmy(R) Award-winner Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner of Hazy Mills Productions and is helmed by Emmy(R) Award-winning Suzanne Martin ("Frasier," "Ellen") serving as executive producer, show runner and writer. Lynda Obst also serves as executive producer, and Larry W. Jones and Keith Cox are executive producers for TV Land. "Hot in Cleveland" is currently seen around the world in over 190 countries.
CBS Television Distribution is the preeminent company in television syndication. CTD produces or distributes 13 first-run series and holds the largest distributed television library at 70,000 hours strong. Among CTD's critically-acclaimed programs are the #1 syndicated series Judge Judy; talk leader Dr. Phil; the #1 and #2 rated game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!; the Emmy Award-winning talk shows Rachael Ray and The Doctors; the #1 and #2 newsmagazines Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition, along with omg!INSIDER; the #2 court show Judge Joe Brown; reality dating show Excused; freshman talk show The Jeff Probst Show; the upcoming late-night talk show The Arsenio Hall Show; the upcoming talk show The Test; and popular off-network product, including the CSI and Star Trek franchises, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, NCIS, Criminal Minds, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, Blue Bloods, Hawaii Five-0, Hot in Cleveland and Undercover Boss. In addition, CTD handles the domestic television distribution of CBS News, CBS Films and Showtime. CTD is a unit of CBS Corp.


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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey health officials say 33 cases of fungal meningitis have now been reported in the state.
The cases, two confirmed and 31 considered probable, are linked to a recalled, potentially tainted steroid produced by a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts.
Nationally, officials say 490 cases have been reported in 19 states, including 34 deaths.
State health officials say no one in New Jersey has died from the illness. Twelve patients remain hospitalized, and all of those sickened continue to recover.
Two more cases were recently announced by state health officials. They include a 63-year-old Pennsylvania woman and a 53-year-old Cumberland County woman.
(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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ISD (twitter and Facebook) has informed me that 'Is This Not the Carpenter?' has finally hit the shores of North America and you can get it at a huge discount!
20% off! Consider ordering your copy directly from ISD, follow the instructions in the image, cut out the middle man, save 20%, and get your copy sooner! Sounds like a superb deal to me.
They also asked me a series of questions yesterday and I thought I'd share with you their questions (slightly modified for formatting) and my answers in full below:
- ISD: I was hoping you might be interested in providing a personal statement about compiling the book.
Tom: 'Is This Not the Carpenter?' was a project that started five years ago and was my first step into academia. It was definitely a labor of love for Thomas and I, and I am pleased to say that we both survived the project.
- ISD: What were some of your experiences?
Tom: Besides owing a huge debt to my colleague and co-editor Thomas L. Thompson, I couldn't have asked for a better group of contributors, all of whom are just superb human beings; they were all very patient with me despite my lack of experience. I will say that my first time indexing reminded me of Hell Week when I attended Valley Forge Military Academy–except it lasted for a lot longer than one week and I got less sleep.
- ISD: What you've learned from this project?
Tom: As an undergrad working with some really amazing scholars–Thomas Thompson of course, Roland Boer, Emanuel Pfoh, Niels Peter Lemche, Mogens Muller, James Crossley, everyone who contributed to the volume really–who are all very well established, I took away a lot from this project. Besides developing a greater appreciation for the scholarship of all those involved, the most important lesson I've taken away from this project is the need for patience.
- ISD: Why are your passionate about the subject?
Tom: I can't think of a time in my life where I've never had an interest in history; my love of the ancient past is perhaps just deeper than my love of, say, American history. I think it has a lot to do with the questions that are being asked–every person living today comes from an ancient family line; we are all descendents of some great empire or another that thrived thousands of years ago. Digging into that ancient history, in a lot of ways, brings me closer to those ancestors. . In other words, I don't view history as a random series of dates or names. It is so much more personal than that. History, for me anyway, is the study of the human experience. And I feel that needs to be protected for my children, and their children, and so on. Of course, I'm an idealist and probably far too optimistic for my own good.
Filed under: Belief, Is This Not the Carpenter?, Jesus, Philosophy | Tagged: Discount, Is This Not the Carpenter, ISD | 1 Comment »


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Kirstie Alley's drunken proposition for Patrick Swayze
Actress KIRSTIE ALLEY has detailed the night PATRICK SWAYZE turned down her drunken sexual advances.
The former Cheers star recently revealed she fell for Swayze while they were filming their 1980s TV miniseries North and South, and told how her secret crush went nowhere because they were both married.
Alley never slept with Swayze, but she now insists it wasn't for a lack of trying - she invited him into her bed after a night of drinking.
In her new memoirs, The Art Of Men, she recalls telling the Dirty Dancing hunk, "I want to make love with you. I just don't care anymore, let's just do it," but Swayze remained a gentleman and said, "No. Come on, you're drunk. Kirstie, you don't really want to do it. You're not that kind of girl."
Alley also tells Entertainment Tonight she was stunned when Swayze's widow Lisa Niemi asked her to speak at his funeral after he lost his cancer battle in 2009.
She adds, "His wife asked me to speak. I have no idea if Lisa knows anything about Patrick and I. You know, I was probably the least of Lisa's problems with Patrick. He was wild and crazy!"


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"Selected Works," an exhibit of watercolor paintings and mixed media collage prints by Caryl Morgan, owner of Earth Road Graphics Design Studio in Newkirk, is currently on view at Northern Oklahoma College Tonkawa.
The exhibit is located in the Eleanor Hays Art Gallery of the Kinzer Performing Arts Center. Regular gallery hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and during evening performances in the KPAC. Admission is free. Many of her works are for sale.
Gallery director Audrey Schmitz invites the public to meet the artist Tuesday, Oct. 25 when Morgan will speak at 12:30 p.m. in the gallery. On that date the exhibit will open at 12 noon.
Morgan, a fulltime artist who is currently the vice president of the Watercolor USA Honor Society, describes herself as a contemporary watercolor artist. "I feel that most people think of watercolor painting as quick transparent washes and landscapes… watercolor today is a strong painting genre of its own. Applied to contemporary subjects and styles the media allows the artist to create vivid paintings that are illuminated by the paper beneath the paint."
Currently she is working with vintage signage as subject matter. "There is a haunting allure in seeing a sign that remains in place long after the business has faded," she says. "I like to select angled perspectives with strong shadow and contrast to show the viewer that art can be found in life by looking at different perspectives. My most recent paintings are of travel icon signage found near our nation's interstate system. The common thread in all of these works is color and reflected light."
She is preparing for a solo show in the North Gallery of the Oklahoma State Capitol, opening Dec. 5.
For more information contact Schmitz at 580.628.6670 or email inquiries to email@example.com.


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Pistorius's parents Henke and Sheila considered reconstructive surgery and after consulting several experts around the world, took the decision to have their son's legs amputated at the knee at 11 months old.
His first pair of artificial legs were made when he was 17 months old.
Aged seven, at Constantia Kloof Primary School, he was competing in football matches.
By the age of 13, he was at Pretoria High School for Boys, one of 350 boarders.
He thrived in the school's competitive sporting environment. He was a keen cricketer and played water polo for the Northern States.
He was selected for the state tennis team aged 11, and he excelled at rugby, playing in the school's third XV.
Pistorius recalled an incident from his school days in an interview with me in The Daily Telegraph last year. It was in his school dormitory, where 24 boys slept in steel-framed beds.
Pistorius was often on the receiving end of pranks. He would often wake to find what he calls his 'day legs' missing. Hunting for them around the boarding house became a regular chore.
"One night while I was asleep," he recalled, "the boys hid my legs, then poured lighter fluid on my bed and on my locker and set it on fire.
"They woke me up and told me the building was burning down. I was terrified. Everyone was running out the door and I remember seeing these flames around my sides and thought I was going to burn.
"Then I couldn't find my prosthetic legs and started really panicking. But then the flames started to die down and the guys came back in, laughing. It was a pretty disgusting practical joke, but it was just part of the sense of humour of the place."
When he was 15, his mother died following an allergic reaction to hospital treatment for suspected malaria. He has her birth date tattooed on his arm. Her last letter to him is something he often quotes.
"She said 'train, don't strain", because I used to like going to the gym and running till I was exhausted. She said I should never compare myself to others as there will always be people of greater and lesser ability. She said I should always be content and not push myself."
Pistorius turned to athletics in 2003 following a rugby injury, sprinting as part of his rehabilitation.
Encouraged by his instructors, he entered the South African disabled championships, from which he was immediately selected for the Athens Paralympic Games the following year.
The 17-year-old won gold in the T44 – an event for single and double leg amputees – 200 metres – in a world record time of 21.97 secs – and bronze in the 100 metres.
"I'm not disabled, I just don't have any legs," he has always asserted.
Since then the 26-year-old South African, known as 'Blade Runner', has become one of the most recognisable athletes on the planet.
He races wearing carbon fibre prosthetic blades.
Pistorius became the first double amputee to run in the Olympics and reached the 400 semi-finals at London 2012.
He has become a standard bearer for the Paralympic movement, championing the cause and being outspoken in its defence.
Impairment aside, Pistorius has led a far from charmed life. In 2009, a speedboat he was steering on a river in South Africa hit a submerged pier as he was returning home from a day trip with friends.
Knocked unconscious as he was thrown across the boat, he suffered severe facial damage and head injuries, fracturing his skull, smashing an orbital socket, breaking his nose, jaw and several ribs. He spent a week on an emergency ward, his face requiring reconstructive surgery.
A popular figure in the movement, he had become one of the first Paralympic millionaires, with an agent, manager, and corporate sponsors. He has travelled the globe competing in events.
In recent years, he has spent the athletics season moving from country to country in Europe, competing and taking part in public-speaking and corporate engagements.
In numerous interviews with me over the last nine years, the athlete has always insisted that his driving force has been to run as fast as possible, and inspire as many people as possible.
His feats have brought him to be known as 'the fastest man on no legs'.
He will now forever be remembered as the athlete accused of shooting dead his girlfriend.
Pistorius lives in a house he built two years ago on a private estate on the outskirts of Pretoria. He lives alone, with three dogs – Capone, a Jack Russell terrier, Silo, an American Pitbull, and Enzo, a Bull Terrier.
Three days ago, Pistorius tweeted that it was a month before his first race of the season, and he was ready to go.
He tweeted four days ago: "Finished watching the 8pm movie on @mnetmovies to end the weekend but the house is way to quiet without @MartynRooney! #homealoneblues"
It appears that the British 400m runner had been staying at his home in Pretoria.


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|Institution Type:
|Campus Setting:
|Southeast Rural area, on fringe of an urban area
|Highest Degree Offered:
|Associate's degree
|Level of Institution:
|At least 2 but less than 4 years
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Many trades assist rural colonial Virginians
Artisans played a vital role on the plantations, farms, and in rural communities surrounding Williamsburg. There they concentrated in the trades most useful to agricultural communities. They constructed houses, tobacco barns, smaller outbuildings, and fences, and made utilitarian furniture for rural households. They made the wooden containers in which tobacco, the lifeblood of the Chesapeake economy, was shipped overseas, and the "dry" and "wet" (water tight) casks in which corn and alcohol were stored, and a host of other practical wooden farm and kitchen utensils. They made and repaired the metal hoes, axes, plows, and plow gear required for farming, and built carts and wagons for hauling goods and produce from field to market. Tanners processed hides from locally slaughtered animals, while shoemakers and tailors made footwear and clothing for both free families and for enslaved and indentured servant workers.
Without these trade skills, people in rural communities would be forced to buy often scarce and expensive imported goods, do without, or improvise as best they could on their own. However, within a few years of initial settlement, colonists adapted Old World patterns for supplying goods and services to the realities of the New World environment. They continued to import manufactures which local craftsmen could not produce or which, like mass produced pottery, gloves, and hats, could be bought cheaper from abroad than locally produced wares. But they also employed a large number of local craftsmen to make basic necessities and a few amenities that could more easily be supplied by making use of locally available natural resources.
Life of the rural craftsmen
Craftsmen settled on plantations they owned or rented, scattered among neighbors who supplied many of the raw materials for their trades and who employed them to make utilitarian household and farming implements.
In the 18th century, small planters combined farming with occasional craft work. Large slave holders more often had enslaved workers trained as rough carpenters, coopers, and shoemakers in order to make their plantations more self sufficient. Consequently, in the 18th century, most rural artisans had been born in the colony and often in the neighborhoods where they lived and worked. These rural artisans were linked to their customers by ties of kinship and long acquaintance. In contrast, many of the craftsmen pursuing luxury trades in Chesapeake towns immigrated there from Europe or from urban centers in other colonies. While townspeople were willing to pay a premium for upscale goods made according to the latest metropolitan fashions, most country folk were more interested in obtaining inexpensive, durable goods adapted to local needs.
The small size of rural markets prevented many rural artisans from supporting themselves entirely through craft work. Most rural artisans kept animals, raised corn, vegetables, and fruits for food, and often planted tobacco. However, an artisan who supplemented craft work with food crops and raising livestock considered himself a craftsman and defined himself in public documents by the skill he practiced. In contrast, householders who occasionally did some carpentry or made a few pairs of shoes, but who gained most of their income from raising tobacco, thought of themselves as planters.
Rural trades involved generalized skills
Limited markets also promoted craft generalization rather than specialization. Rural artisans worked consistently using one specific raw material such as wood, metal, or leather. But they worked broadly among the trades using that resource. Tanners, for example, often made shoes; carpenters might also make furniture, casks, wooden tools and eating utensils, and fences as well as barns and dwellings. Because of the limited demand for their services, most rural artisans did not have workshops in which journeymen or indentured servants learned the master's trade. However, many clearly trained their children, and others trained enslaved men and boys at the request of large neighboring planters. The county courts also apprenticed poor orphans to rural craftsmen so that they might learn a trade by which they could later support themselves.
Trades such as carpentry, coopering, shoemaking, and tailoring did not require expensive equipment and were therefore economically more inviting than tanning and blacksmithing. These trades required higher levels of capital investment in tools and raw materials, thus limiting the number of people who entered into this work. In order to complete large projects such as building ships, churches, or bridges, or for supplying large orders for raw materials, rural artisans sometimes worked in partnership.
Specialized artisans lived in towns
Townspeople needed similar goods and services as country artisans provided, but they also supplied a concentrated market for specialized luxury craftsmen such as silversmiths, watchmakers, coach makers, cabinetmakers, wigmakers, and milliners. These specialized artisans seldom lived in rural areas, as they needed concentrated town markets with higher proportions of affluent customers. Butchers, bakers, and brewers were also concentrated primarily in towns because rural households processed foods themselves.
In the countryside, woodworkers accounted for at least half of all self identified craftspeople. Carpenters were most numerous, followed by coopers and sawyers. Next came the cloth workers (primarily tailors), roughly 15 percent of craftspeople, followed by leatherworkers (predominantly shoemakers), about 10 percent of artisans, and blacksmiths, about 5 percent. A few other specialized artisans such as millwrights, ship carpenters, and bricklayers also sometimes found a niche for making a living in rural areas.
Wives and daughters of planters, tenant farmers, and rural artisans made much of the clothing household members wore and they often earned extra money from sewing, knitting, spinning. Only women living in towns advertised their skills in newspapers, or took in orphan apprentices, or identified themselves in public documents by their trades.
The enslaved in rural trades
In the 18th century, enslaved carpenters and coopers were often hired out by their rural owners to work on neighboring plantations, and enslaved shoemakers and blacksmiths, when not making goods for their masters, often did custom work for entire rural neighborhoods. Black craftsmen always worked under the supervision of a white artisan or contractor when employed on large projects such as building barns, houses, or churches.
Colonial Williamsburg's 21st-century craftsmen
Today, visitors to Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area can see craftsmen pursuing many of the trades common to both town and country. Sawyers cut timber and carpenters construct and repair outbuildings and fences using traditional 18th-century methods. Coopers make a variety of practical wooden containers, ranging from huge casks large enough to hold 1,000 pounds of tobacco, to water buckets and small food storage containers. Historic Area shoemakers produce practical and fashionable footwear. It was goods such as these that were essential to the colonial economy in rural areas and towns.
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