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MARRAKECH ART FAIR, a second edition that confirms the potential of the Moroccan art market
Jaume Plensa, Marrakech's soul, 2011, stainless steel,
MARRAKECH ART FAIR, a bridge between East and West
Between September 30th and October 3rd, Marrakech Art Fair has welcomed 48 galleries coming from 11 different countries and 14 000 lovers of modern and contemporary art
Sylvia Beder
+33 1 42 18 09 42
+33 9 71 52 15 47
Art Holding Morocco
18 rue Ahmed Mokri – Quartier Racine
20 000 Casablanca
Nearly 4,500 visitors have rushed to the Es Saadi Palace on Friday, September 30 for the preview of the Marrakech Art Fair.
Among the personalities who were present that evening and during the fair: Mr. Bensalem Himmich, Minister of Culture in Morocco, Mr. Jack Lang, former Minister of Culture in France, as well as Mr. Bruno Joubert, Ambassador of France in Morocco. There were also numerous representatives of international cultural institutions including Richard Lagrange, Anne-Marie Charbonneaux and Pascale Cassagnau from the CNAP, as well as Ms. Catherine Grenier, co-director of the Centre Pompidou, Ms. Rosa Sandretto, a member of the PS1 MOMA board, Mr Jérôme Sans, director of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Mr Daniel Bosser, President of the Association of Friends of the Palais de Tokyo, Mr Jean-Conrad Lemaître, President of the Association of Friends of the 'Jeu de Paume', Ms Catherine David, a curator, Ms. Jennifer Flay, director of the FIAC, Mr. Carlos Urroz , director of the ARCO, Mr. Philippe Piguet, artistic director at Drawing Now and Mr Paul Ardenne, artistic director of the 'Printemps de Toulouse 2012', have also crossed the corridors of Marrakech Art Fair. Several directors of auction houses were also there, such as Mr Francis Briest from Artcurial, Ms Pascale Pavageau from Sotheby's, and Mr. Etienne Hellman from Christie's.
Overall, 14,000 visitors have crossed the doorway of the Es Saadi Palace, welcomed by the sculpture by Jaume Plensa ('The Soul of Marrakech') which was installed by Lelong gallery in the pool of the palace especially for the fair. Among these art lovers: many Moroccans, as well as foreigners residing in Morocco, but also collectors coming from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, Turkey...
Within spaces designed by Philip Délis, every visitor of MAF # 2 was able to measure the impact and reach of this annual event which remains true to its mission of celebrating 'art in sharing.'
Offering a broad vision of contemporary art and of its current challenges, MAF # 2 has developed again a high quality cultural circuit, with a program of round tables and an exhibition confirming the reign of the image and digital culture in the service of changing societies. Hicham Daoudi has entrusted its design to Brahim Alaoui, bringing together the works by fifteen major Arab artists on the theme: 'Images Affranchies' (Liberated images).
The program of videos made by international artists and the projection of feature films by Nabil Ayouch was very appreciated by visitors, bringing imagination to power, beyond the artistic dictates and taboos.
48 galleries from 11 countries, a platform for effervescent art scenes
Overall, 48 galleries from 11 countries have participated in Marrakech Art Fair 2, distributed between the indoor and outdoor spaces of the Es Saadi Palace. Among the countries represented: Egypt, France, Italy, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America.
'Marrakech Art Fair is the first fair in Africa to make it possible for very similar cultures with no opportunity to exhibit together, to connect', Hicham Daoudi, the founder of Marrakech Art Fair, is happy to explain.
The presence of five Tunisian galleries that showed the various facets of creation by addressing society issues translated the dynamism of the Tunisian art scene. Thus, galleries Ammar Farhat, El Marsa and Kanvas Art Gallery as well as Le Violon Bleu and VB Contemporain gallery presented established artists, alongside other artists to be discovered.
Supporting major figures of Tunisian and North African creation worldwide, El Marsa gallery exhibited photographs by young artist Thameur Mejri which were purchased between 5 and 10 000 Euros by a prestigious Moroccan collection, while collectors were also attracted by the work of Khaled Ben Slimane alongside photographs by Lamia Naji.
Very involved in the renewal of artistic practices in Tunisia, Ammar Farhat Gallery revealed the talent and humor of Aicha Filali, as well as peregrinations between moving and still images by Nicene Kossentini. They also exhibited four works by Meriem Bouderbala, 3 of which were sold at 6000 Euros, while the same artist was also enthusiastically received in the stand of the recent VB Contemporain gallery. The latter has also chosen to present the work by an Afghan artist: Gazelle Samizay. A New York collector bought several of her pictures, while a Turkish collector bought one of her videos. Kanvas gallery drew the attention with the works by young artist Mohamed Ben Slama, alongside those by Mohamed Ben Soltane. With their second participation in Marrakech Art Fair, Le Violon Bleu gallery has successfully exhibited the Moroccan artist Farid Belkahia.
The presence of Turkey has been very noticed, with the participation of seven galleries from Istanbul - CAM Gallery, CDA Projects, The Empire Project, Galerist, Merkur and PG Art Gallery, who were pleased with the interest generated by the Turkish contemporary scene.
Collectors have enjoyed the paintings by Mehmed Güleryüz, represented by The Empire Project, as well as the works by the Dutch artist Jasper de Beijer who sold several photos of his characters and his interactive game has been sold at 7500 Euros to a Moroccan collector.
The ceramics by Burçak Bingöl proposed by CDA Projects were purchased by two collectors, the carpets by :mentalKLINIK that adorned the stand of Galerist have largely seduced, and the newspaper installations by Irfan Onurmen had pride of place at PI Artworks. These were purchased by two Moroccan and French collectors. Merkur gallery sold two paintings by Ercan Akin, CAM Gallery sold several works by Murat Germen and Kezban Arca Batibeki, and more than 6 photos by Kerem Ozan Bayraktar found a buyer in the stand of PG art gallery whose works were primarily sold to Moroccan customers.
The Moroccan scene was represented in all its diversity, with the participation of 13 galleries : the Galerie 38, the Galerie 127, l'Arthotèque gallery, l'Atelier 21, David Bloch Gallery, FJ Gallery, Integral Gallery Art & Design, Loft Art Gallery, Matisse Art Gallery, Shart gallery, Sous Sol Art Gallery, GVCC and Voice Gallery, inaugurated in Marrakech during the fair week. Collectors have met for the second time at Marrakech Art Fair the Matisse gallery with many of their works sold, including several photos of Amina Benbouchta and a large drawing by Mohamed Lekleti. A newcomer to the fair, Fatma Jellal from FJ gallery sold an installation by Mustapha Akrim, representing the article 13 of the Moroccan Constitution, a very significant installation by Younès Rahmoun and the sound installation, 'Call for Prayer - Morse' by their young artist Younes Baba Ali is being discussed. The Galerie 38 found buyers for works by Fatiha Zemmouri and photos by Fouad Maazouz. While the stand of the Shart gallery opened on the painting by Najia Mehadji, Sous-Sol Art Gallery sold a painting by Younes Khourassani. L'Atelier 21 represented the artist Mohamed El Baz with a very original piece 'Save Mohamed' being negotiated, and sold drawings by Chourouk Hriech, works by Zakaria Ramhani and Safa Erruas, and the 'Naked Feast' by El Baz, exhibited in the room where round tables were held, was also very appreciated by collectors.
Some galleries settled in Morocco have chosen to pay tribute to the country's opening to the world, by presenting a selection of works by Western artists. This is true for l'Artothèque that found buyers for several pieces by Russian artist Roland Shalamberidze and Spanish Josep Bofill, but also for David Bloch who sold a painting by Mist, a French representative of graffiti art, and Nathalie Locatelli from galerie 127 with photographers such as Sarah Moon, Marco Barbon, Flora, Denis Dailleux, among others…
Hicham Daoudi noted that 'Marrakech Art Fair offers an additional and complementary exchange platform in this part of the world located halfway between East and West '; this was showed by some galleries that have created bridges with Morocco, such as Edwynn Houk Gallery, coming from New York with a successful exhibition of photos by Lalla Essaydi. While the Parisian Marie Vitoux Gallery sold works by Mahi Binebine, the Jean Fournier gallery negotiated the sale of three paintings by Saad Hassani. Marcel Strouk proposed the painting by Mehdi Qotbi whose retrospective will take place in his Rive Gauche Gallery this autumn, and the JGM gallery attracted in turn collectors with the drawings by Chourouk Hriech, the photos by Mohamed El Baz and the sculptures by Jean-François Fourtou, a French artist living in Morocco. Earlier this year, the gallery owner Jean Brolly had invited David Scher, an American artist, to spend a few weeks in Marrakech while making a series of works on paper which the visitors discovered on the occasion of the fair. The artistic dialogue from one country to another had also pride of place in the stand of Dominique Fiat gallery, which presented Moroccan artists Safâa Erruas and Abderrahim Yamou, the French and Danish Eva Nielsen and the Indian artist Anita Dube, whose installation was sold.
Focusing on contemporary African artists, André Magnin proposed a fine collection of recent works (paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings) recalling the fair anchoring on the African continent, through works by artists who have in common the fact of living and working in Africa: Pierre Bodo, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Calixte Dakpogan, Emmanuel Ekefrey, John Goba, Romuald Hazoumè, Kiripi Katembo, Seydou Keïta, George Lilanga, Gonçalo Mabunda, Moke, J.D.'Okhai Ojeikere, Chéri Samba, Kura Shomali, Monsengo Shula, Malick Sidibé, Billie Zangewa.
More generally, the artists from the Arab world in its diversity have found at Marrakech Art Fair a great platform for expression, beyond the usual ideological barriers allowing them to enhance their visibility.
Art Space gallery in Dubai sold, among other works, 'The Dog' for 28,000 euros, a sculpture edited 5 copies by Egyptian sculptor Adam Henein.
Based in San Gimignano, Italy and in Beijing, China, the Galleria Continua drew the attention of collectors with the works of the Egyptian Moataz Nasr and the Algerian Kader Attia. The works by these artists have found buyers on the first night. Other works by Pascale Marthine Tayou and Mona Hatoum were purchased by international collectors. A world map on a traditional carpet was sold shortly before the arrival of the gallery to a Moroccan amateur. The installation by Daniel Buren is on track to be purchased by a prestigious Moroccan collector living in Paris.
Coming from Saudi Arabia, Athr Gallery sold to major Moroccan collectors works by artists from their country Noha Al Sharif and Jowhara Al Saud. Holding a solo show at Aline Vidal gallery, the Iranian artist Elika Hedayat has met with such critical success that all her works presented in the stand are about to be sold.
With an exhibition scheduled in Palm Beach, Ward Culture & Art Center gallery from Cairo have generated special interest especially with the work by Armen Agop, Adel El Swi and Essam Marouf.
Daniela Da Prato gallery was warmly received, with a presentation based on a mapping of artists from all countries of the Middle East and a new work, breaking with his usual style, by the Egyptian Khaled Hafez and a tribute to freedom by Lebanese artist Zena El Khalil were bought by Moroccan collectors. In the stand of IVDE gallery (Dubai), the solo-show of the French and Algerian artist Zoulikha Bouabdellah with her work on ceramics have convinced many collectors.
The Western contemporary art was also appreciated in the heart of this confrontation, thus, Metro Pictures New York gallery sold works by Olaf Breuning and Robert Longo to a great Moroccan collector. All eyes converged on a painting by Vasarely at Di Meo gallery, and on the carpets by Aladdin Garunov presented by the Russian Aidan Gallery. The Parisian Albert Benamou sold several photos by Xavier Zimbardo, the Dix9 gallery sold a photo by Tia Calli Borlase and two works by Mehdi George Lahlou. The Besseiche Lartigue gallery has completed the sale of two photos by Serge Mendjisky while Piramidon Centre of art Contemporani (Barcelona) sold a painting by Pere de Ribot.
Significant sale results
A significant development in Morocco, 60% of purchases were devoted to photography in an average between 3,000 and 20,000 Euros. Indeed, this 2nd edition of Marrakech Art Fair has highlighted the collectors' taste for photography and video. The cultural program and the fair itself have enabled to establish these two medium into the Moroccan artistic landscape, alongside the more traditional painting. Sculptures have also been very appreciated by collectors, as well drawing, having pride of place through the Es saadi prize for contemporary art.
Among the major sales: with a huge charcoal drawing by Robert Longo sold right before the fair, Metro Pictures has also sold a photo by Olaf Breuning at about 15 000 Euros; the gallery Lelong has negotiated the sale of a sculpture by Jaume Plensa for 150 000 Euros, Le Violon Bleu gallery sold pieces by Farid Belkahia up to 40 000 Euros; FJ gallery sold a work by Younes Rahmoun at 38,000 Euros; El Marsa Gallery sold a bronze sculpture by Khaled Ben Slimane at 16 000 euros; the sculptures by Noha Al Sharif were sold at 15 800 Euros each by Arthr Gallery; pictures by Xavier Zimbardo were sold at the stand of the Benamou gallery at 8500 Euros each, and two pictures by Lalla Essaydi where sold at 7500 Euros each in the stand of Edwynn Houk Gallery which is about to sell a larger one at 18 000 Euros; Merkur gallery from Istanbul sold two paintings by Ercan Akin at 6000 Euros each, Matisse gallery sold photos by Amina Benbouchta at 5000 Euros each, JGM Gallery sold three drawings by Chourouk Hriech, between 1000 and 3000 Euros, the gallery 127 sold more than twenty photos, at about 1500 Euros each.
The First Es Saadi prize awarded to Chourouk Hriech
This 2011 edition is marked by the launch of the Es Saadi Prize for contemporary art, created by Elisabeth Bauchet-Bouhlal and Jamil Bouhlal, who preside over the destiny of the Es Saadi Gardens & Resort where the fair has been held since its inception. This first prize was delivered to Chourouk Hriech, a 34 year old artist who lives and works in Marseille and whose drawings are presented both by l'Atelier 21 (Casablanca) and JGM Gallery (Paris). Through this prize, the artist will make an original project thanks to the 15,000 Euros production grant.
The fair organizers, Hicham and Zineb Daoudi, invite the collectors and artists across the world for the launch of Marrakech Art Fair#3 in October 2012, with a special focus on contemporary Africa.
For more information: www.marrakechartfair.com


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subset: commoncrawl


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The Nike SB Stefan Janoski Hyperfeel Men's Skateboarding Shoe delivers incredible boardfeel thanks to the Nike Hyperfeel system: a combination of locked-in fit, sensitive cushioning and outsole flexibility that allows the shoe to act as a natural extension of your foot.
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Thrusting forward: Caplins offer UVA a new theater
Last month, UVA held a ceremonial ground-breaking at the future site of the Ruth Caplin Theatre, a three hundred-seat, 20,500 square-foot "thrust stage" theater that will rise beside the Culbreth Theater on Culbreth Road–- courtesy of Ruth Caplin, 89, and husband, Mortimer Caplin, 94, who donated $4 million for the $13.5 million addition to the Drama Building and whose lives have been as drama-filled as the plays and films they hope to nurture.
UVA alum and former law school prof Mortimer Caplin is a legend in legal circles, a still-practicing tax lawyer who served as IRS Commissioner during the Kennedy Administration and briefly into the Johnson White House, during which time he made the cover of Time magazine. As a law prof at UVA, he taught future U.S. Senators Ted and Robert Kennedy. And he's a lover of the arts, it seems.
Indeed, back in his UVA student days in the 1930s Caplin was president of the Virginia Players, and appeared in a number of UVA productions, including the title role in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
"The theater will clearly advance artistic values cherished by UVA's founder, Thomas Jefferson–- music, dance, architecture, painting," said Caplin in remarks prepared for the October 21 event, which he attended with his wife. "It's our hope that it will enrich the studies of all University students, making the arts not only a part of their course work, but a part of their lives."
So what's a thrust theater? It has a stage that opens and extends into the audience, which allows theater-goers to watch the performance from three sides, allowing for more intimacy. In addition to theater productions, the facility will be used for dance performances, musical concerts, and film screenings.
UVA's Arts Grounds Complex has seen a spate of building over the past few years including a new studio art building, an arts commons, a still-rising 18,000 square-foot band rehearsal hall. There's even an expanded Drama Building lobby as part of the new theater construction, and an elaborate roof terrace made possible by a separate $1.6 million gift.
A tiered, amphitheater-like landscape in front of the Drama Building will also provide a unique setting for performances and special events. Design of the Ruth Caplin Theatre comes courtesy of Boston-based William Rawn Associates, with landscape design by the Olin studio out of Philadelphia.
Ruth Caplin, too, has a unique passion for the arts, which began when she worked as a fashion designer in New York City. However, in 2005, at the age of 85, she launched a new artistic career: screenwriter. In the 1970s, while grieving the loss of her daughter–- Mary Ellen Caplin, who died of pancreatic cancer–- Ruth Caplin immersed herself in a screen adaptation of British novelist Elizabeth Taylor's book Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, which was eventually made into a 2005 film of the same name, starring Joan Plowright and Rupert Friend, and produced in part by the Caplins' son, Lee.
"I'm thrilled by the concept and design of the new thrust-stage theater available for dance, drama as well as film showings; and by its flexible sprung-floor stage so terribly important to dancers' feet and performance," said Ruth Caplin in her prepared remarks. "It will also answer the cry for more performance space for the University's exploding dance program."
"The new theater and the programs that will grow within it are the culminating events of a great love story," said former UVA president emeritus John Casteen, in his own prepared remarks. Casteen and his wife Betsy are the eponyms of the Arts Grounds.
Construction of the theatre is scheduled to begin in January.
2 comments
As a drama major who spent many hours in the shop and behind the scenes at Minor Hall, then later in a theater that shared the same 10-foot ceilings as the Va Players old home, I can only say that the greater the variety of experience that a progarm can offer, the better-prepared its graduates will be. Not every venue will be a proscenium stage with 60-foo fly space and electric winches. This new stage will present challenges to actors, directors, designers and epecially lighting designers that will prepare them for the real world. Thanks to the Caplins.
Teaching theater majors to take orders clockwise around the table starting at the top would probably be better preparation for the real world. Theory and practice of cash register operation might be handy too.


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Chicago Cops: Man Shoots CEO Before Killing Self
Chicago police say a demoted worker shot and critically injured his company's CEO before fatally shooting himself at their office in a downtown high-rise office building.
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says a worker at a technological company entered the 17th-floor office Thursday and met with his CEO before pulling a gun.
McCarthy says there was a struggle for the gun, and the CEO was shot twice before the gunman fatally shot himself. Police say the 54-year-old victim was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
The office is in the Bank of America building in Chicago's bustling financial district. The building is two blocks from the Willis Tower, the country's second tallest skyscraper, and a block from the Chicago Board of Trade and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.


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TenPoint's Titan Xtreme Wins Game & Fish Sportsman Reader's Choice Award
OutdoorHub 06.28.13
TenPoint Crossbow Technologies, an industry leader in crossbow innovation and technology, received the Reader's Choice Award from Game & Fish Sportsman magazine. Readers chose the TenPoint Titan Xtreme as their crossbow of choice.
Appearing in the July/August 2013 issue of Game & Fish/Sportsman magazines, the Reader's Choice Awards highlighted TenPoint Crossbow Technologies as the winner in the crossbow category. Publisher Peter Gross states, "Our readers are hard core hunters, that's why we are extremely interested in their opinions about what works in the field." This survey was sent to their monthly subscribers, which includes 400,000 households and was also featured on their website, gameandfish.com. The Game & Fish Sportsman Reader's Choice Award winners will receive their awards at the 2014 SHOT Show in Las Vegas.
Rick Bednar, Owner of TenPoint Crossbows comments, "Being an avid hunter myself and bringing up my family as hunters, it is important to me to produce the finest quality equipment on the market. When we develop products, we think about the features and benefits that are most important to us. Our main focus is reliability and accuracy. We are humbled and pleased that readers chose the TenPoint Titan Xtreme as their bow of choice. We are committed to building the best crossbows on the market, made in the USA."
The affordably priced Titan Xtreme is equipped with a new, fully machined aluminum riser with more acutely angled limb pockets and 13-inch HL Limbs. These revisions produce a narrower and more powerful, 21.625-inch bow assembly with a 180-pound draw weight. This configuration, fitted with D-75 string and cables with tunable yokes powered by new XR wheels, mounts on a 7/8" longer barrel. Its new string serving is also infused with wax and burnished to provide unmatched serving life. Together, these features elevate the Titan's speed to 333 fps when paired with TenPoint's new Pro Lite carbon arrow.
To reduce weight and improve handling, the Titan Xtreme is equipped with TenPoint's Fusion Lite stock, which weighs five ounces less than the original fusion stock. The weight reduction is achieved by an aesthetic cutout above the trigger guard, a cored-out fore-grip to stabilize the stock dimensions by evenly distributing the composite material during molding, and ventilation holes in the butt stock to help the camo pattern adhere better to the stock.


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Devil Rays (off-day)
It just seems like we are in Carlos Pena-bashing mode. Trust us. We love this guy. We have been looking for a replacement for our Rocco Baldelli jersey and El Gato may be the choice. But…
There has been a lot of chatter recently about Carlos Pena for Comeback Player of the Year in the AL. When we think of the CPOY award we think of a player that was once great and fell off the face of the earth for a couple of seasons for any of a number of reasons. In order to "Comeback", shouldn't a player have "been there" before?
Pena's top statistical season prior to this year was 2004 in which he posted a line of .241-27-82. That is a good year, but far from memorable. His second highest HR total prior to this season was 18 (two times).
On the other hand we guess that one could consider Pena as having "comeback" from being a top prospect. Is that criteria enough for winning the CPOY? If that is the case could Josh Hamilton be considered for the NL CPOY as a rookie? We honestly have no idea who else in the AL would be worthy of this award, so Pena may be the best choice by default.
- The White Sox and Orioles lost yesterday and the Rays are now just one game back for the worst record in baseball and 2.5 games behind the O's in the AL East.
- Roger Mooney wonders if the off-day came a terrible time. [Bradenton Herald]
- Having been quoted in the same article as Marc Topkin, we feel a sudden and special kinship with the St. Pete Times blogger. But we have to wonder if the off-day left Mr. Topkin desperate for a storyline. Apparently breaking the Tampa Bay Devil Rays record for RBI and walks would be making "history". It is not like Carlos Pena is about to break a 80 year old record set by Lou Gehrig. [tampabay.com]
- Carlos Pena is having a hell of a season. It is hard not to imagine that he would at least be considered for MVP if the Rays were in contention. [Yahoo! Sports]
- The talents of Tampa Bay Devil Rays is not lost on American League managers. When asked to name the player with the best individual "tools" (Best outfield arm, best fastball, best power hitter, etc.), Devil Rays made the top 3 in 6 different categories. Carl Crawford was named twice (Fast baserunner, 3rd most exciting player) and joined by Scott Kazmir (2nd best slider), James Shields (2nd best changeup), Carlos Pena (2nd best defensive first baseman) and Delmon Young (3rd best outfield arm). [Baseball America]
- If Carlos Pena hits three more home runs, the Kansas City Royals will become the only team to never have a player hit 40 home runs. [One More Dying Quail]
- The Sporting Orange is all over a story in which a whiny Yankees fan living in Port Richey. Apparently Fred Slaven had his personalized Yankees license plate stolen and his Yankees flag burned. Now he is blaming local residents and selling his house in order to move back to New York. We have two thoughts on this… [The Sporting Orange]
- There are Devil Rays fans that hate the Yankees (ahem), but we ask. What is more likely. A Rays fan did this or a transplanted Red Sox fan. Or better yet…A newbie Red Sox Bandwagoner?
- We have spent most of the last several years in New York City. We certainly understand that the chances of vandalism in New York are far less.


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By Kathleen. We made is to December. FINALLY. In the spirit of the holidays, we're releasing "Orange Juice in Bishop's Garden" character-themed holiday wish lists. Perhaps they'll serve as merely inspiration while you go & gather your gifts — or … Continue reading
December 1, 2014
by The OJBG Team
0 comments


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In continutation of the Gross Leonard Cohen Earworm (apparently "Hallelujah" is the meme that will not quit this week) of the last few days, inauroillium just posted an an interesting link about the evolution and major versions of the song in a comment thread on cvillette's journal.
It is here, at clapclap.org.
I read it with interest. It's really fascinating.
In full disclosure, I should mention that I have... 14 versions of "Hallelujah," by 11 different artists, including three Cohen versions. (I would like the k.d. lang live versions and the Imogen Heap, but haven't tracked them down yet. Really though, I think the jewel of the collection is the Willie Nelson. He also does a bangup job with "Bird on a Wire.")
And I'm also going to talk in sweeping generalities here, and please be aware that I am talking about observed trends rather than categorical truths here, and that I'm aware that sweeping generalities are bull puckey.
But I think I really disagree with the reviewer's conclusion. I suspect that what's going on here is actually the opposite process, in which a bunch of forty/thirty/twenty-something musicians who grew up as part of far more ironical generations have found this amazing song seemingly neglected by their elders, and are covering the hell out of it.
And being limited by not being what Cohen is--which is to say, a mad freaking genius of irony and layering and evocation, the musical prodigies in my peer group are just not managing to get into it what he does. But in simplifying it they are making it more accessible to a wider range of people.
I have no idea how old the critic is, but the important data point he's missing is that a statistically significant chunk of my generation (I'm 36) and that of my immediately younger peers (in their twenties) love Leonard Cohen. Adore him. And, well, listen to his albums. Or songs, because we're often not so much an album-listening bunch.
I am going off anecdote here, and we all know what that's worth, but it seems to me that it's often baby boomers I hear calling the Buckley version "the definitive" one. (There are of course exception to this.) I think Cohen was just too ironical and fucked up for my parent's generation, who seem as a group (again, there are exceptions) to tend to prefer music that is more sincere. Cohen is not sincere. Cohen is yanking your chain, and that's a trick more commonly employed by people my age. (And the musicians of our parents' generations (because our parents span two generations) we've held on to--David Bowie, Johnny Cash, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop. I had a great discussion with some friends at the climbing gym a couple of weeks ago regarding what the cutoff line for really, really, really liking Bruce Springsteen was. Determination: it's somewhere between me and the 39-year-old, and he may in fact be the line.)
So I would gess that that is a contributing factor in why metric tons of musicians (and music fans) in Gen X and Gen Y are obsessed with "Hallelujah," while our older compatriots prefer "Suzanne." Which is a perfectly nice song, don't get me wrong, but by contrast, you should hear my twenty-something friends talk about "Famous Blue Raincoat" and how they are trying to write stories around it. (Also a heavily covered song, these days. It used to be "Bird on a Wire" that got all the love.)
I'm not going to make any case that bitter ironicism is somehow more genuine than sincerity (because actually, I suspect it's a generational defense mechanism and the opposite is true). But we like "Hallelujah" because it's layered in irony and self-contradition and comes at the same thing from twenty angles. (Also, as a generation, we love weird-ass covers. Love them. When I heard Patti Smith was doing a covers album, I danced in the streets.)
Interestingly, because I don't watch enough TV to stay at all hip to current pop cultural trends, the first time I heard a cover of "Hallelujah" used in a TV show was at the end of an S1 episode of Criminal Minds. Where it is used over a brutally ironic montage of man-on-the-street interviews responding to an officer-involved shooting. Which is a good (legal) shoot, but may or may not have been engineered by the shooter--with or without his partner's knowledge. Oh, and they never tell you, either. You're left to construct the narrative on your own.)
I told the truth.
I didn't come to fool you.
I'm going to be out for most of the day, so feel free to amuse yourself arguing or agreeing in the comment threads. ;-)


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Small Business Morale Heals, But Labor Market View Downbeat
Small business sentiment clawed back from a 2-1/2 year-low in December, but owners' assessment of the labor market remained downbeat, a survey showed on Tuesday.
The National Federation of Independent Business said its optimism index edged up half a percentage point to 88 last month, the second lowest reading since March 2010. The index hit a 2-1/2 year-low of 87.5 in November.
The December survey does not capture the 11th hour deal reached in the U.S. Congress to prevent a raft of sharp cuts in government spending and higher taxes, or the fiscal cliff, that could have drained about $600 billion from the economy at the start of the year.
"Having some certainty about tax rates and some 'tax extenders' will provide some relief to owners, but doesn't guarantee a more positive forecast for the economy," the NFIB said in a statement.
"The January survey will sort this out - will higher taxes and spending cuts be viewed as a 'positive'?"
Labor market gauges worsened last month, with only a net 1 percent of small business owners saying they planned to create new jobs. There was a slight drop in the share of owners reporting that job vacancies were hard to fill.
"More owners expect their real sales volumes to be lower in the first quarter than predict higher sales and more owners plan to reduce inventories than plan to add to them," said the NFIB.
It said capital spending remained in 'maintenance' mode, while plans to make capital outlays remained at recession levels.


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Can we resist & eliminate toxic abuse from corporations selling products that do Not have strong scientific evidence showing our lands & waters will be kept pure & safe for the children?…Continue
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The morning after another combative Republican primary debate, Newt Gingrich emphasized his pro-business, anti-regulation platform -– and his connections to Ronald Reagan as a young congressman -– in a speech before a Hispanic business group in downtown Miami on Friday. Unmentioned in Gingrich's 30-minute speech: Republican rival Mitt Romney.
Speaking at a candidate forum organized by the influential Latin Builders Association, Gingrich emphasized his years as Speaker of the House of Representatives, years when Congress passed welfare reform legislation and balanced the federal budget. And he also cast himself as an early champion of Reagan's supply-side economics in the early 1980s.
Gingrich promised to go back to the supply-side "playbook" again if elected president, lowering taxes on corporations and gutting the federal bureaucracy. Among his proposals: Erasing the Environmental Protection Agency -– what he called a "dictatorial job-killing agency" -- and recasting it as the "Environmental Solutions Agency."
Gingrich said his top priority as president will be to reduce unemployment. "In the long run, the answer to the housing crisis is getting people to work," Gingrich told the association, which includes many large homebuilders.
Gingrich opened his address by endorsing a new bill proposed by Miami congressman David Rivera that would provide citizenship to young immigrants who serve in the U.S. military.
Gingrich's campaign also announced the creation of a Hispanic "steering committee" to generate support among Hispanic voters. The committee includes Rivera, Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez, Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, and Otto Reich, a former ambassador and State Department official.
Romney, Gingrich's chief rival in the polls, was not scheduled to appear before the builders association, though he was invited to the forum. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is scheduled to speak to the builders group later Friday.
Posted by Adam C. Smith at 11:34:49 am on January 27, 2012


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AJACCIO, Corsica
Jan Bakelants pulled away close to the finish line to win Sunday's second stage of the Tour de France and take the race leader's yellow jersey for the first time in his injury-plagued career.
The 27-year-old Belgian made his move with a few hundred meters remaining and did enough to withstand a late charge from Slovak sprinter Peter Sagan for the biggest achievement of a frustrating career in which he turned professional at age 23.
"It's difficult to believe what happened (Sunday); it's fantastic," said Bakelants, who had a knee operation earlier this year. "(Sunday) it may be the first and last time I ever wear the yellow jersey."
He won in 3 hours, 43 minutes, 11 seconds, with Sagan and third-place finisher Michal Kwiatkowski one second behind him.
The 97-mile trek started from Bastia and, after four moderate climbs, finished in Ajaccio where Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769.
With the finish in sight, Bakelants found himself with five other riders, and instinct told him that he may never get a better chance to make a name for himself.
"I felt the others weren't going at 100 percent, so I stayed back, but then I saw the peloton were closing in on me," the RadioShack rider said. "With 500 meters to go, I had a look, and I saw that I was still 100 meters clear of the peloton. I gave everything I had, and I made it by one second. But that doesn't matter; I have the yellow jersey."
It has been a difficult career for Bakelants so far.
"I had a lot of bad luck. I've had two operations. I fell at the Tour of Lombardy in 2010, I fractured my right knee and left elbow. You know, things like that take time to heal," he said. "This year I had bad luck as well, an operation on my right leg. I worked very hard to come back."
Before Sunday, his proudest achievement was off the bike – namely a bachelor's degree in bioscience engineering from the university of Leuven in Belgium.
"I think there's more in life than just cycling, But at the moment, cycling's in first place." he said. "I think it's going to be a short night (Sunday); I don't think I'll sleep much.
"My goal was to win a stage, but I didn't think it would happen so fast."
German sprinter Marcel Kittel started the day in the lead after winning Saturday's crash-marred first stage, but the rolling hills took their toll, and he finished nearly 18 minutes behind in 169th.
"It's a difficult stage, and I'm a sprinter; that's why I suffer," said Kettel, who retained the sprinter's green jersey. "I had goosebumps when I went up the hill. So many people were screaming my name. But we were expecting to lose it (the yellow jersey)."
The day's last climb up Cote du Salario was much shorter than the other ones but far steeper.
Spaniard Juan Antonio Flecha and Cyrille Gautier attacked up the final ascent, and Tour favorite Chris Froome then launched a surprise attack to go after Gautier when the Frenchman pulled away. But Froome's attack fizzled out, and the main pack swallowed him up.
The day after more than a dozen riders crashed, a small white dog ran onto the road about 2½ miles from the line, and a potentially dangerous situation narrowly was avoided by a matter of seconds.
A bystander started to chase the dog and then changed his mind, and the dog just managed to reach the other side of the road before the marauding pack passed through.
Cavendish was in trouble all day, struggling to keep up as his teammates tried to drag him up the second climb up Col de la Serra.
However, French veteran Thomas Voeckler had a lot in reserve and chased the four early frontrunners.
Lars Boom and Ruben Perez Moreno soon were caught up, leaving just David Veilleux and Blel Kadri at the front.
Voeckler's attack reeled in Veilleux but then fizzled out quickly, leaving Kadri alone in the lead.
French rider Pierre Rolland attacked on the third climb – the day's most difficult, a sinewy category 2 ascent up the Col de Vizzavona – as he chased his third Tour stage win. But the pack accelerated and chased him down.
Tony Martin of the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team recovered from several injuries to take the start. Martin was one of more than a dozen riders to fall Saturday with the German taken to the hospital after losing consciousness and sustaining bruising to his left lung, cuts to his hip, chest, left knee and shoulder, and his back.
He finished 192nd.
Fort Lewis College alumnus Tom Danielson finished 92nd.
Monday's third stage is the last of the Corsican trio and is again hilly, with four moderate climbs dotted along the 145.5-kilometer (90-mile) route from Ajaccio to Calvi.
The Durango Herald contributed to this report.


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Not all suicide bombers are created equal, and terrorist leaders know it. According to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the most spectacular (and technically difficult) suicide attacks are frequently assigned to older and more educated bombers, who are more likely to succeed. Using data collected by the Israeli Security Agency, researchers reviewed all Palestinian suicide attacks against targets in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip between September 2000 and August 2005—a total of 151 incidents that killed 515 people and injured almost 3,500 more. Ranking the suicide bombers by the perceived value of their targets (large cities and civilian targets were considered more valuable than smaller cities and military targets) and the number of people they killed and wounded, the researchers found that the five deadliest bombers were almost five years older on average than the typical bomber, that three of them either had or were pursuing advanced degrees (compared with just 17 percent of the sample as a whole), and that all five blew themselves up in major Israeli cities—the most prestigious and challenging of targets. These top five bombers killed an average of 22.8 people per attack and wounded an average of 88, versus 3 and 25.2 respectively for the bombers in the rest of the sample. Overall, younger and less-educated bombers were more likely to detonate too early, get caught by the authorities, or succumb to second thoughts. Human capital, the authors speculate, is the best yardstick for measuring competence at a task in which "on-the-job" training and "learning by doing" don't figure into the equation.
—"Attack Assignments in Terror Organizations and the Productivity of Suicide Bombers," Efraim Benmelech (Harvard University) and Claude Berrebi (RAND Corporation), National Bureau of Economic Research
After the last two presidential elections, the predictive power of exit polls has fallen into disrepute. But what about early polls? For Republican primaries, they're worth watching, a recent analysis by the Pew Research Center suggests; for Democratic primaries and the general election, though, election watchers should be wary of their findings. The authors looked back at nearly half a century of preprimary polling and found that early Republican front-runners are usually safe bets: In seven open GOP contests, the early leaders (the candidates who drew the strongest support in national polls taken more than a year before the general election) won the nomination six times. The same wasn't true, however, for leading Democrats, who got their party's nod only 50 percent of the time. In the run-up to the general election, early polling has an even less-impressive predictive record: A review of polls spanning the same period "found many of them forecasting the wrong winner," and even when they predicted correctly, they were often way off as to the margin of victory. Moreover, the authors note, past precedents are likely to be less relevant to the 2008 election: Front-loaded primaries, early fund-raising events, and multiple potential front-runners make this season's guessing game harder—and possibly more pointless—than ever.
—"How Reliable Are the Early Presidential Polls?" Nilanthi Samaranayake and Scott Keeter, Pew Research Center
You're a well-meaning dwarf battling an evil troll on the forbidding island of Freeport. If you're to survive the fight, you'll need thicker armor and maybe a magic potion or two. What to do? Press the "pause" button and visit Station Exchange, an online auction house flush with armor, weapons, and magic for players of the popular role-playing game EverQuest II. Sony Online Entertainment, which created EverQuest II and Station Exchange, recently completed a year-long study of the virtual auction house. The results show a thriving community whose members inhabit a virtual world, fight virtual battles, and buy and sell virtual goods—all for real money. Between June 2005 and June 2006, 9,042 role players spent $1.87 million on virtual goods, with an average of $91.55 per player spent on characters alone. The auctions included items ranging from swords costing a few dollars to complete characters with special powers for up to $2,000 each. While auction participants were overwhelmingly males under 40 (surprise!), a further demographic breakdown showed a sharp division: The most active sellers were 18- to 22-year-olds, while older players did most of the buying. The study suggests younger players may have more time to devote to scouring the game for marketable products, while older players have less time but more disposable income. Most sellers made between $200 and $500 a month, but the top two appear to have made Station Exchange into a virtual career: In one year, each sold more than $37,000 worth of virtual goods.
—"Station Exchange: Year One," Noah Robischon, Sony Online Entertainment
Those who live by swallowing swords seldom die by them, according to a report jointly authored by a radiologist and a noted sword swallower. Surveying 33 sword swallowers, the authors find that many suffered occupational maladies, from soreness ("sword throat") to chest pain and perforations of the esophagus. (Especially harmful is a flourish called "The Drop," in which the performer places the sword in his mouth, releases it, and lets it plummet into his stomach.) Nearly half reported removing a blade to find it smudged with blood, or vomiting blood after a show. Sword swallowers rip their innards most when swallowing curved blades, when taking in multiple blades at once, or when distracted by audience members (or, in one case, by an unruly macaw). Yet they have an amazingly low rate of mortal injury: The medical literature lists not a single fatality. More curious still, sword-swallowing wounds tend to heal better than similar perforations inflicted accidentally by doctors who insert scopes down their patients' throats.
—"Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects," Brian Witcombe and Dan Meyer, British Medical Journal
Savvy tourists don't need a regression analysis to know that they should ease off the gas when they come to a Podunk town, but two George Mason University professors now have the proof. By examining 29,752 speeding citations issued in April and May 2001 in Massachusetts, they found that who and where you are matters as much as how fast you're going. An out-of-town driver stopped by a police officer in any given area has a 51 percent chance of getting slapped with a fine, versus 30 percent for a local, and the average fine for an out-of-towner is $5 higher. Local police are 10 percent more likely to fine out-of-town drivers and 20 percent more likely to fine out-of-staters, while state troopers ticket out-of-state drivers at a rate 28 percent higher than in-staters. The poorer the town (in terms of property-tax receipts), the more likely its cops are to target drivers passing through; fines also increase the farther away drivers live, since distance makes them less likely to contest the ticket. The study also found that women are more likely to get off with a warning, though the gender advantage disappears around age 75.
—"Political Economy at Any Speed: What Determines Traffic Citations?" Michael Makowsky and Thomas Stratmann, George Mason University
The knock on free trade has always been that it makes the poor poorer: Small-scale farmers have a hard time selling their goods at home when cheap agricultural goods from abroad flood their markets. This argument has been employed by foes of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which aims to eliminate trade tariffs between the United States and five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic; the agreement, critics say, will expose the poor countries to competition from the United States but offer them little in return, since 80 percent of the region's exports to the U.S. market already arrive duty-free. But the pro-CAFTA case gets a boost from a recent study in which three economists predict that in most cases, the trade agreement will actually improve the welfare of the rural poor in developing countries. The study finds that although rural incomes will likely decline as protective tariffs are phased out over the next 20 years or so, food prices in those countries will drop enough in almost every scenario to make up the difference—often with extra cash to spare. The typical rural household in CAFTA countries devotes a substantial chunk of its earnings to buying basic food items, and import tariffs (some as high as 154 percent) inflate their cost. As a result, the authors find, "lower food prices would mitigate and, in most cases, reverse the negative effect that lower incomes would have on rural welfare."
—"Does Agricultural Liberalization Reduce Rural Welfare in Less Developed Countries? The Case of CAFTA," J. E. Taylor, A. Y. Naude, and N. Jesurun-Clements, University of California, Davis
Even as newspapers around the country send reporters packing at the behest of the papers' investors, a new study finds that the fastest way to profits may be spending more, not less, on the newsroom. Two marketing professors crunched four years' worth of economic data from 1,400 daily papers in the United States, and they came up with a formula to determine the most profitable mix of spending—whether in the newsroom, to improve news quality; in the circulation department, to hook more readers; or in the ad sales department. They found that investing in the newsroom has the biggest impact on a paper's bottom line: Improving news quality not only increases circulation; it's actually as effective in luring advertisers as putting money into ad sales teams. (The authors also found that having more ads in a paper increases circulation as well, because Americans love to flick through them.) The researchers then ran the newspapers in their sample through their formula and found that most papers (60 percent of papers with small staffs and 80 percent with large staffs) are near the right spending balance; however, many (22 percent of small papers and 15 percent of bigger ones) could raise profits by putting more money into the newsroom. On the other hand, cutting newsroom spending, because it exerts a negative influence on other forms of revenue, inevitably forces further cuts and sends a newspaper into a "suicide spiral."
—"Uphill or Downhill? Locating Your Firm on a Profit Function," Murali K. Mantrala et al., Journal of Marketing
"A single death is a tragedy," Joseph Stalin said. "A million deaths is a statistic." Now a psychology professor at the University of Oregon has tried to figure out why, with a paper suggesting that an evolved behavioral response may mean that we don't feel that genocide is real unless we can focus on a particular individual. People understand reality in two ways, he argues: one is intuitive and experiential, the other is analytical and rational. Making decisions based on intuition is usually easier and more efficient than forming a judgment after analysis, and although our rational processes are supposed to monitor our intuitive impressions, they're often "rather lax." A case in point: When participants in a study were asked to donate money either to a starving girl in Mali or to a larger group of famine victims represented only by a number, they gave significantly greater amounts to the wide-eyed girl. Moreover, contributions to the starving girl actually dropped when statistical information about the number of people suffering from severe hunger accompanied the girl's name and picture.
—"'If I Look at the Mass I Will Never Act': Psychic Numbing and Genocide," Paul Slovic, University of Oregon
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Bringing Blended Models Home No Easy Task
When leaders of VOISE Academy High School couldn't find a reliable way to bring technology to students in their homes, they came up with a workaround—they brought students to the technology.
Many students at the high school, located in a poor neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, lack reliable Internet in their residences, and sending devices home with them was not a realistic option. So officials at the school opened the facility to students on Saturdays, giving them access to a safe, Web-connected hub where they could work on lessons that required technology.
Blended learning is generally defined as the effort to integrate technology-based lessons alongside traditional, person-to-person instruction. But some schools and districts face daunting obstacles in trying to ensure that blended learning takes place at home, not just in the classroom. Those barriers include concerns that the devices will be lost or stolen, and worries that impoverished students do not have access to the Web at home, creating inequities.
The Chicago school's strategy is just one example of the creative and unconventional efforts being tried around the country meant to extend the amount of time that students can spend on blended learning.
Giving individual devices to students has been "a huge safety concern," explained Todd Yarch, VOISE Academy's principal. So is unreliable Web access: "If they take the laptop home and there's no Internet, what good is it?"
Today, districts' efforts to bring blended learning home include not only giving students access to Internet-connected schools after hours, but also providing them with Wi-Fi connections on school buses and in other out-of-school locations, and asking educators to encourage students to engage in tech-based study away from school.
The Fairfield-Suisun Unified school system, a socioeconomically diverse district of about 22,000 students halfway between Sacramento and San Francisco, also weighed security concerns as it prepared to launch a 1-to-1 computing program last fall.
District officials pilot-tested the idea of distributing iPads in one of the school system's most impoverished communities. Initially fearing that the iPads would be stolen, the district required that the devices be kept on school grounds.
But later, they decided to let students take them home—after concluding that worries about security were overblown.
The focus of districts should be making sure that blended learning can happen "all the time," explained Tim Goree, the district's director of technology support services.
"Every school in our district has its own unique needs," he noted. "And even if you have a device and Internet for every student, it doesn't necessarily mean that the blended part of home learning will happen."
Limited research exists on the extent to which tech-based blended learning plays out in home environments to the same degree it does on school grounds.
But preliminary findings from a study underway by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a Seattle-based policy-research group run out of the University of Washington's Bothell campus, suggests that many schools are struggling to solidify the home piece of the puzzle.
Lawrence J. Miller, a senior research fellow at the center, is working on the study, which will examine the effectiveness of blended learning programs. Though final results are not due to be released until this spring, among 17 schools using blended learning that were reviewed, 13 didn't require students to devote any time to online, off-campus work.
Among the four other schools, the numbers varied widely—with students completing an average of 30 to 80 minutes of online study per night.
On the whole, Mr. Miller found that the majority of the 17 schools studied did not require students to complete technology-based lessons, and that on average, the students enrolled in those schools spent only 13 minutes on online homework a night, or a little more than an hour each week.
Racial, Income Gaps
While school officials' worries about devices being damaged or stolen can undermine blended learning, Mr. Miller said, educators' hesitancy is also shaped by their awareness that many students lack Internet access at home.
"Teachers are very concerned about equity of performance within the classroom among highfliers and lowfliers," Mr. Miller explained. "They're worried that kids who are already doing great will go home and knock it out of the park, while the kids who are not doing well will just fall farther and farther behind."
Home Web access has increased steadily over time, and more than 80 percent of households are connected to the Internet today, according to research compiled by Child Trends, a nonprofit research center based in Bethesda, Md. But minority students are less likely to have connectivity at home than are their white peers, as are impoverished students.
Over the past few years, a number of private companies and nonprofit organizations have worked together to try to expand Internet access in poor communities, in some cases in partnership with the federal government.
In addition, many organizations are urging federal officials to overhaul the E-rate program, which was designed to improve technology access in schools and libraries in impoverished communities.
In some communities, the challenges involved in connecting students to the Internet are daunting.
VOISE Academy High School, which stands for Virtual Opportunities Inside a School Environment, is in its sixth year of implementing a 1-to-1 computing program. Ninety-five percent of its 330 students are black, and nearly all qualify for either a free or reduced-price lunch.
The academy, part of the 404,000-student Chicago school system, has sought to extend blended learning time—with some trial and error.
First, school leaders began refurbishing desktop computers and installing them in the homes of students that lacked computers. But because so many students lacked reliable Internet access, those devices were quickly rendered useless.
"As Internet prices come down, the problem will eventually solve itself, but in neighborhoods like ours, it's not going to solve itself in the next couple of years," said Mr. Yarch, the principal.
On-Site Strategies
As a solution, shortly after the school's founding in 2008, VOISE Academy started experimenting with opening its doors on Saturdays. Initially, those weekend sessions had been designed as a punishment for students facing disciplinary infractions. But Mr. Yarch allowed students who showed up to use their school-issued laptops to complete missed assignments—only to find that many of them asked to be allowed to come back.
VOISE Academy is now a frequent hub of weekend learning, used by students trying to boost their grades, Advanced Placement students working on group projects, and others completing assignments that require Web connectivity. In addition, some students elect to stay during after-school hours to log in more learning time.
Even with that policy, assigning homework presents a formidable challenge for the school's teachers, who find that they can't require digital lessons without putting some students at an overwhelming disadvantage.
Most teachers either convert online assignments into paper-based ones or ask that students plug in data and responses before class begins.
"It's an imperfect system," conceded Mr. Yarch, who added that he is continually searching for better ways to bridge the digital divide.
Around the country, some districts have instituted a patchwork approach to ensure that students' use of technology doesn't end when the school day ends.
Mary E. Fluharty is the coordinator of online learning for the Alexandria public schools, a Virginia district of around 13,000 students that first went 1-to-1 a decade ago. Each night, 3,000 of its high school students take their devices home. For about a quarter of Alexandria's students, the district-owned laptops represent the only computer in their household, and many of them lack Internet connectivity.
To help increase access, the district used grant money to install a number of hot spots throughout the city, where students can log in to the district's filtered network. And with more teachers utilizing flipped-classrooms—typically those in which children watch video lessons at home, and receive more one-on-one instruction in school—many are also relying on cloud-based computing, or Google docs, so students can move from machine to machine and still access their assignments.
"This is not a school problem but a community problem," said Maribeth Luftglass, the chief technology officer in the nearby Fairfax County district. "It's in all of our best interests to make sure that our kids and our families have access."
Citing an annual survey, Ms. Luftglass said that 93 percent of the Fairfax district's 184,000 students have Web access once at home. To help increase home-based digital learning, the district, which is one of the nation's most affluent, has established partnerships with local government, businesses, and churches to allow students to use their Wi-Fi networks.
In addition, the Fairfax school system promotes an program, run by Comcast, the Internet, cable, and phone provider, to provide local families whose children receive free or reduced-price meals with discounted Web service, at a cost of $9.95 per month.
The district adopted a "bring your own device" program three years ago, allowing students to use smartphones, laptops, or tablets at school. It lends devices to students in need of them—for short periods such as a weekend, or in some cases for up to the whole school year.
"Our approach is definitely a multifaceted one," said Ms. Luftglass. "It's not 100 percent there, but we're working on it."
Mike Evans, the director of information and instructional support systems for the Forsyth County district, in Georgia, said that the ability to encourage blended learning at home depends not only on the availability of technology but also the willingness of educators to encourage digital-based study in the classroom.
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There's some evidence that many teachers in the 41,000-student district are already doing that: Evening is the district's peak time for Internet use, typically two or three times higher than the norm, he noted.
"The home piece really starts with teachers," said Mr. Evans. "If teachers aren't using the learning platform, the students have no reason to get into the system."
The Huntsville, Ala., district is one of the school systems using a cloud-based learning management system, which allows students to connect from school or home and complete academic assignments whenever they log in, as long as they have a Web connection.
The 23,000-student district, which adopted a 1-to-1 program last year, gives all students in grades 3-12 their own laptops. Each day, 16,000 computing devices accompany students home.
What's more, the 250-square-mile district has tried to ensure reliable connectivity by putting Wi-Fi hotspots on about a quarter of its 126 school buses so that students can complete assignments on what are often lengthy rides.
"If we were waiting for everyone to have 100 percent access at home before deciding to go digital, we would never do it," said Casey Wardynski, Huntsville's superintendent. "Demand builds supply."
Mr. Wardynski says too many districts are fixated on security, rather than on figuring out creative ways to bring technology-based learning to students wherever they need it.
"The home piece is the payoff," he said. "Folks are too worried about the device and not enough about the kids. You lose 75 percent of the benefit if [the devices] don't go home."
Vol. 33, Issue 19, Pages s4, s6, s8, s9, s10Published in Print: January 29, 2014, as Home Disconnect Inequities Hurt Blended Models
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Everybody knows that the timing of the Board of Supervisors vote on ousting the sheriff for official misconduct is bad for Ross Mirkarimi. We're talking about a huge, high-profile decision just weeks before some of the key board members are up for re-election, two of them in hotly contested races. For Sups. Eric Mar and Christina Olague, it's going to particularly difficult: Mar's in a moderate district, and he'll be attacked from the more conservative David Lee if he supports Mirkarimi. Olague's in a progressive district where Mirkarimi was a popular supervisor, so no matter what she does, she'll take heat.
But I was a little surprised by Randy Shaw's analysis, which suggests that Olague will be motivated entirely by political spite:
D5 Supervisor Christina Olague once faced a tough decision on Ross, but since Mirkarimi allies have attacked her on a number of issues it would be very unlikely for her to support him.
That's pretty insulting. Shaw, who has supported her in the past, is saying that Olague won't make up her own mind based on the actual issue and case in front of her. She was pretty clear when I called her: "I will vote on the merits of this issue," she said. "If I was motivated to vote based on who had pissed me off I'd have a hard time voting on anything."
I've disagreed with Olague quite a few times, and one could easily argue that she'll be under immense pressure from the mayor. ("The mayor doesn't want a lot from Christina, but he does want this," one insider told me.) But is it impossible for Shaw to imagine that, in one of the toughest matters she will ever have to handle, the supervisor might actually listen to the testimony, consider the merits of the case, and vote to do what she thinks is right?
Meanwhile, Joe Eskenazi at the Weekly has already announced the Guardian's endorsement in D5 — which is interesting, since we're barely started interviewing the candidates. Eskenazi calls Julian Davis "the Guardian's fair-haired boy" (which, speaking of insults, is not a terribly appropriate way to refer to an African American man), indicating that he's already our candidate.
For the record: We have not made an endorsement in District Five. We plan to endorse a slate of three candidates for the ranked-choice ballot, and we'll publish that endorsement the last week in September or the first week in October.


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| 14.9°C Belfast
David Cameron has promised a "truly national commemoration" to mark the centenary of the First World War.
The Prime Minister said there would be events to mark 100 years since the outbreak of war in 2014, Armistice Day in 2018, and the dates of major battles in between.
There will also be a £5 million educational programme for school pupils, including trips to the battlefields, and support for an overhaul of the Imperial War Museum.
Speaking at the museum in south London, Mr Cameron said an advisory board of former defence secretaries, chiefs of staff and military specialists would bring together ideas for the commemorations.
"Our ambition is a truly national commemoration worthy of this historic centenary," he said. "A commemoration that captures our national spirit in every corner of the country, from our schools and workplaces, to our town halls and local communities.
"A commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year, says something about who are as a people. Remembrance must be the hallmark of our commemorations."
The Heritage Lottery Fund is also supporting work by young people to "conserve, explore and share local heritage of the First World War". Some £50 million was being spent on the commemorations in total, Mr Cameron said.
The commemorations will include the centenary of the first day of conflict on August 4, 2014, the start of the Battle of the Somme on July 1 2016, and further events to mark Jutland, Gallipoli, Passchendaele and Armistice Day in 2018.
Mr Cameron said: "The centenary will also provide the foundations upon which to build an enduring cultural and educational legacy to put young people front and centre in our commemoration and to ensure that the sacrifice and service of 100 years ago is still remembered in 100 years time."
The Heritage Lottery Fund was inviting more applications for support to mark First World War events, he said.


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|アルマジ子 Arumajiko
|Volume #54, Naruto Chapter #513
|Naruto Shippūden Episode #254
|Appears in
|Anime, Manga
Armadiko (アルマジ子, Arumajiko) is a giant armadillo living on the Island Turtle.
He is rather shy and reserved individual that speaks in a very soft, and mild manner which leads others to easily thinking that he is actually a female.
Armadiko resembles most any armadillo with the exception of his size. He also has on what appears to be lipstick around his mouth giving him the appearance of a female. His leathery, armour shell is the kanji for "male" (男, otoko).
Part II
Fourth Shinobi World War: Countdown
A fight breaks between Don, Chūji and Hippo Boss over Armadiko's affections. King breaks up the fight and commands that the female animal they are fighting over to be brought over to settle who she'll pick. When Armadiko arrives, King is in shock and angered to see who it is, revealing that he as well has affections for Armadiko. Shocking everyone, and much to Condor's amusement, Armadiko chooses Naruto Uzumaki over all of them — much to the young man's dismay as the animals prepare to beat him to death. Naruto flees and Armadiko chases after him. Armadiko is later seen snuggling up to a distressed Naruto as the other animals march into the temple.
Inside the temple, as Naruto begins the ecological survey Armadiko attempts to leave. Naruto has great difficulty in deciphering whether or not Armadiko is male or female because of his mannerisms conflicting with the kanji on his armour. After being asked by B Armadiko still refuses to show them its genitalia. Shortly after this several tremors are felt on the island from Deidara's explosion and the animals are flipped upside down by Manda II's attack. Though most emerge unharmed due to Yamato's quick thinking, Armadiko is sent crashing to the ground and falls unconscious. Here it is revealed that Armadiko is actually male much to the others' disappointment.
- This character's name derives from the anime though he appeared in the manga as well.
- In the manga, Armadiko's genitals are visible when his gender is uncovered.[1] In the TV-broadcast of the anime, however, this is censored and the genitalia is removed. It is visible in the uncensored version of the episode.[2]


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How to Cook Fresh Chickpeas
Adventures in Ingredients: Fresh Chickpeas
Black-eyed peas, soybeans, and favas are just a few fresh legumes that are easy to come by when the season's right, but the appearance of fresh chickpeas at my local Whole Foods both delighted and surprised me. At only a dollar a pound, I swiftly scooped up several handfuls of the hairy pods.
Unlike fava beans, which can be difficult to shuck, chickpea pods are thin and easy to snap in half, revealing the familiar chickpea, green instead of cream colored and ready for consumption. But beware: I found a pod with a caterpillar feasting inside. Yikes! Crack the pods on the table so you don't run the risk of contaminating your bowl of chickpeas.
Keep reading for a few simple fresh chickpea ideas.
I saved a few unshelled chickpeas and steamed them for about two minutes, edamame style. With the Mediterranean in mind, I drizzled olive oil over the steamed chickpeas and finished with a sprinkle of fleur de sel. The chickpeas have the same pleasant flavor and texture as Japanese-style edamame, and the bowl disappeared within minutes.
I shelled a few chickpeas, too, boiling them for about three minutes like English green peas, until they turned bright green and became slightly more tender. I finished them with a pat of salted butter. It made a pleasing side dish for dinner.
I loved both preparations of the fresh chickpeas, as they're more vegetal and crunchy than the dried or canned varieties. For Summer season, it's a lighter, fresher option, and I'd like to experiment with them in a salad, whipped into hummus, or tossed into pasta or rice. Have you ever had fresh chickpeas before? What is your favorite method of preparation?


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Enroll Directly with Ambetter Starting November 1!
What is Ambetter? | Marketplace Insurance In Tennessee
What is Ambetter?
Your Health. Our Priority.
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You deserve to get the most out of your health insurance plan. And since we believe that nothing is more important than your health, our Ambetter insurance plans are designed to fit your health needs and your budget.
But our focus doesn't stop there. In fact, our commitment to your well-being extends far beyond the doctor's office and into your everyday life. Ambetter is active in your local community—and we're dedicated to helping you live well.
Our plans also offer a wide variety of valuable programs, educational tools and support. So, with Ambetter, it's easy to stay in charge of your health. And to lead a healthy, fulfilling life.
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Every worker's dream is to enjoy a secure retirement. Social Security is here to secure today and tomorrow. Part of that commitment is ensuring you have the most up-to-date information when you make your retirement decisions.
As the bells ring in the New Year, they also bring changes for new Social Security retirement beneficiaries. Full retirement age is 66 and two months for people born 01/02/1955 through 01/01/1956. They are eligible to receive permanently reduced retirement benefits when they turn 62 in 2017.
Full retirement age is the age at which a person first becomes entitled to full (unreduced) retirement benefits. It had been 65 for many years. However, beginning with people born in 1938 that age has been gradually increasing until it reaches 67 for people born in 1960 and later.
As the full retirement age continues to increase, there are greater reductions in benefits if you claim them before you reach full retirement age. For example, if you apply for benefits in 2017 at age 62, your monthly benefit amount will be reduced nearly 26 percent.
You can find your full retirement age, along with other important information, on our website.
Some things you must remember when you're thinking about retirement:
- You may start receiving Social Security benefits as early as age 62 or as late as age 70. The longer you wait, the higher your monthly benefit will be.
- Your monthly benefits are reduced permanently if you start them any time before full retirement age.
- If you die, your retirement date can affect the payment to your surviving widow or widower. If you started receiving retirement benefits before full retirement age, we cannot pay your surviving spouse their full retirement age benefit amount. We base their benefit on the amount of your reduced benefits.
- If you elect to receive benefits before you reach full retirement age, you should understand how continuing to work affects your benefits.
You can learn more by reading our publication, When to Start Receiving Benefits or visiting our Retirement Planner.


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NEW YORK — Sprint and Samsung are going to start selling a $50 "eco-conscious" phone with a casing of biodegradable plastic.
Several manufacturers have made "green" phones, but they have generally been barebones devices, like the Motorola Renew carried by T-Mobile USA.
The new Samsung Reclaim has a slide-out standard-layout keyboard, e-mail and Web access, a camera and GPS navigation. The phone goes on sale Aug. 16.
The plastic of the casing is 40 percent corn-based. The phone's charger lights up when the phone is fully charged, to remind the owner to unplug it to save electricity.
David Owens, Sprint Nextel Corp.'s director of product marketing, said the company is paying more than the usual amount of subsidies to Samsung to bring the price down to $49.99 for customers signing two-year contracts.
"We took a big step to put it under the $50 price because that's where we know there's a lot of volume," he said.
The price applies after a $50 mail-in rebate.
© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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The annual survey of what investment bankers think of our leading banks is out.
The Vault Banking 50 ranks the banks using a weighted formula that reflects the issues bankers care most about, combining quality of life rankings (such as culture, satisfaction, hours, and compensation) with overall prestige. It also includes things such as "green initiatives" and "LGBT Diversity."
The biggest gainer this year was Morgan Stanley , which rocketed up from the 22nd spot last year to be the No. 3 ranked bank.
The biggest loser was Blackstone, which dropped from No. 2 to No. 25. Could this be because Blackstone's stock has been a laggard recently?
In any case, here are the top seven banks ranked by the people who work for them. View Slideshow_
Questions? Comments? Email us at
Follow John on Twitter @ twitter.com/Carney
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Advocate for Better Bicycling
Interested in advocating for bicycle improvements but don't know where to begin? Want to get involved and do something, but not sure what? Below you will find some basic tips on how to become a more effective advocate and get more involved in making your community and Wisconsin better places to bike. The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin has many resources to help, but individuals like YOU are the most important advocates in the state.
Read through the general guidelines and a few in-depth resources below to find answers about your issue. If you still have questions, search the more than 600 archived articles on our blog. We have written about everything from federal transportation funding to building local mountain bike trails. If you can't find what you're looking for, contact us via email or call one of our offices in Madison or Milwaukee.
Repeat After Me: "BICYCLE"
We cannot stress enough how important it is for you to contact your elected representatives and tell them how bicycling matters to you. Politicians tell us all the time that they just don't hear from their constituents who are interested in bicycling. You can call or email, but they need to hear from you whether you have a complaint, request or even just to say thanks after you have a nice ride on a local trail or bike lane. If you don't know your elected officials are, Common Cause has a free, online search that uses your ZIP code or address.
All BICYCLING Is Local
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, coined the often-used phrase "All politics are local," but the same can be said about bicycle advocacy. Whether you are concerned about a personal, local, state or national issue, the most effective way to advocate for change is by organizing at the local level. This may mean joining a local bike club, forming a bicycle task force in your community, working with neighbors or area businesses, but local groups are generally more effective than individuals or even state organizations. To find existing local bike clubs, teams or advocacy groups in your area, visit our Ride On webpage here.
Get Smart
Bikes don't pay for the road! Bikes belong on the sidewalk! Bicycles should be licensed! People on bikes are a bunch of scofflaws! Bicycling is dangerous!
Do you know how to respond to these common misconceptions about bicycling? If not, educate yourself so you can quickly and intelligently respond when someone you are talking to makes any of these or similar false statements. The easiest way to educate yourself on any of these issues is to do a simple search of the more than 600 archived articles on our blog. You can also look by selecting one of the categories, such as "bicycle funding."
Tune In
By subscribing to the Bike Fed's blog, you will get a single daily email with the headlines and a short synopsis of posts we publish each day. The Bike Fed's blog is the daily online newspaper for all things cycling in Wisconsin. You can also stay in touch by liking our Facebook page and following us on Twitter. Emails are very time intensive and only benefit the limited group of recipients. By asking your questions and letting us know what is going on in your community through the comments section of our blog and our Facebook page, others benefit from the discussion.
For those who don't want to get a daily email, on Sunday of every week, all members of the Bike Fed will get a brief email synopsis of the blog headlines from the previous week. The weekly update will include links to each story to make it easy to go back and read issues that interest them.
On occasion, the Bike Fed will send email blasts to all of our contacts alerting them to some important upcoming legislative vote or discussion in Madison or Washington, D.C., and explaining the Bike Fed's position on the issue. We try to limit these action alerts to only the most important feel about the issue, even if you disagree with the Bike Fed's position.
Show Up
John Burke, the president of Trek, is fond of making the point that "the world is run by those who show up." If you want your voice heard, or at least the right to complain, it is vitally important that you show up at local meetings about trail and other bikeway projects in your community. Too often the only people who show up at these meetings are the ones who complain about how much it will cost to make the roads safe for bikes. It is very important that you stay involved in the planning at your local level. Do that by signing up for notices on your municipal calendar.
Our democracy is a tremendously effective institution, but it only works if we take part. Local meetings are part of that, but we must also stay involved at the state and national level if we are to have fair representation in our government. While dipping your toe into state and national politics may be about as appealing as going for a swim in the La Brea Tar Pits, the annual State and National Bike Summits offer average citizens an easy way to make their voices heard above all the rancor typically heard in higher government.
At the annual State Bike Summit, the staff at the Bike Fed make it easy for you to join with more than 400 other citizen advocates to meet with their state representatives and senators and tell the great story that is Wisconsin Bicycling. Bike Fed staff organize issue sessions on everything from funding to mountain bike trail building. We also supply you with everything you need to have an effective meeting with your elected leaders in Madison. We even schedule the meetings.
The National Bike Summit offers a similar opportunity to take part in our democratic process. Last year more than 800 advocates, citizens and bicycle industry leaders had positive, impactful visits with their elected representatives in Washington, D.C. We have found that our national leaders are almost always happy to meet with their constituents from back in their districts.
The nice thing about going to the state and national bike summits is the Bike Fed and the League of American Bicyclists do all the organizing for you – all you have to do is show up.


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We are the nation's leading resource and advocacy organization for crime victims and those who serve them. Please join us as we forge a national commitment to help victims of crime rebuild their lives.
Visit our Help for Crime Victims page to find local assistance and other helpful resources.
Individual donations go a long way in ensuring services provided to victims and those who work with victims continue uninterrupted.
Join the nation's leading resource and advocacy organization for crime victims and those who serve them.
The National Center for Victims of Crime is a nonprofit organization that advocates for victims' rights, trains professionals who work with victims, and serves as a trusted source of information on victims' issues. After more than 25 years, we remain the most comprehensive national resource committed to advancing victims' rights and helping victims of crime rebuild their lives.
The National Center is, at its core, an advocacy organization committed to -- and working on behalf of -- crime victims and their families. Rather than focus the entire organization's work on one type of crime or victim, the National Center addresses all types of crime.
2011© National Center for Victims of Crime. All Rights Reserved.
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p.202-467-8700 | f.202-467-8701 | [email protected]
Return to the National Center


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If the sea of iPhones, Zunes and earbuds haven't tipped you off, Seattle is a city of technology. It's also a city of ideas. Talk of the giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google is at least as loud as the intrepid twenty- and thirtysomethings who debate their thoughts on work, life and the next big thing over tall Americanos in Ballard or Green Lake or Queen Anne.
Some of that buzz is coming to the Capitol Hill Arts Center tonight at Ignite Seattle 5, a hyped-up geek event that loads Seattle's ideas into frantic five-minute PowerPoint presentations and shoots them off into a dark room stuffed with the kind of people who get a kick out of this stuff.
Highlights include "A pseudoscience guide to geek dating," by Ryan McMinn; "Hacking elections: Getting your favorite politicians elected (legally)," by Heather Ralph; and a talk by Ellen Kowalczyk on "Living with (and not killing) the entrepreneur in your life" that I know from personal experience could come in handy for a lot of you. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the talks start at 8 p.m. Here's a list of all18 presentations.
After going to two of these events, I'll be giving my own talk tonight. "How to be an awesome news story commenter" was inspired by all those among you who take the time to leave the kind of thoughtful, revealing comments on seattlepi.com that make us reporters open our minds, rethink our strategies and do our jobs better.


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A Matching adapter for the TNT Downhill Handle Bar, the adapter is mounted on the original steering column. Now choose the downhill handle bar in the colour of your choice, add flyscreen, install instruments.....presto chango ...a Streetracer in a class of it's own.
SIP TIP: If anything is unclear to mount the bar on another scoot, you can find at the following images the exact measurements.


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Do you remember that jaw-dropping video that showed beer being poured through the bottom of the glass? It all works because of this simple magnet attached to the bottom of the cup. The magnet raises up, to open, when being filled with the BottomsUP tap and keeps closed when you're drinking the brewski. Smart.
The only problem is if something moves the magnet, like this. Otherwise, still an ingenious solution. [@nickmonroe via @darrenrovell]


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As Black History Month comes to a close, Gayle Anderson was live with AIDS Project Los Angeles to remind everyone February 7th was National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD), a national HIV/AIDS testing and treatment community mobilization effort designed to encourage Blacks across the United States and the diaspora to get educated, get tested, get treated, and get involved in raising awareness about HIV/AIDS in the Black community. Gayle talked with Gabriel McGowan from APLA Los Angeles and with Nolan Butler, a patient of Dr. Steven Vitero, about his positive experience with dental care.
AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), one of the largest non-profit AIDS service organizations in the United States, provides bilingual direct services, prevention education and leadership on HIV/AIDS-related policy and legislation. With more than 30 years of service, APLA is a community-based, volunteer-supported organization with local, national and global reach. For more information, locations, or information on donating visit the APLA website here.
To learn more about "Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day" you can visit their website.
If you have questions, please feel free to call Gayle Anderson at 323-460-5732 or e-mail Gayle at firstname.lastname@example.com


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This is the Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parcel it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?
1st Gear: I Really Hate The Detroit Auto Show Prom
There's a reason they call the Detroit Auto Show charity preview the Auto Show Prom — it's annoying, filled with pretentious people you never want to see again, and it's really hard to find alcohol. Also you have to wear a tuxedo and It's like $250 a ticket. I am SO glad I never have to go to it ever again. But, if you do want to go it's tonight and I'm sure there's still tickets available. Plus hey, unlike prom, the money does go to charity.
2nd Gear: Joel Ewanick Runs Deep Into The Marketing Muck At GM
According to the Detroit Free Press, in a few weeks, General Motors' marketing department will likely be in for more change. GM is wrapping up a global review of agencies that handle media buying and Chevrolet advertising, with decisions expected in a couple of weeks. We're waiting for the new slogan — GM Runs Deeply Efficient.
3rd Gear: The Toyota Prius GT300 Race Car Is Anything But Beige
Racing a Prius? What is that, a joke? Actually, the Toyota Prius GT300 racer unveiled last night at the Tokyo Auto Salon in Japan is designed to compete in Japan's Super GT racing series starting this year. Since regulations in the series are loose, there's little left of the original Prius here, although the egg-like shape in the photo from AutoGuide is still obvious. Also of note is that the car appears to retain a hybrid drivetrain with the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive logo on the back and sponsorship comes by way of Panasonic, which supplies the batteries for the road car. Lastly, we'd like to point out that there's not an ounce of beige paint here. See more over at AutoGuide.
4th Gear: The Dodge Avenger Is Dead, Long Live The 200. Ugh.
You know the biggest reason why I'm happy Dodge is killing the Avenger? Because now Chrysler will be able to devote more marketing and development resources to the Chrysler 200. Because if there's one car that's "one very competitive entry" in the mid-size segment — the 200 is certainly it.
5th Gear: This Headline Is Not From The Onion
I, and others (Hat tip to Ed!), seriously thought the headline of "Area man works at North American International Auto Show" in the Port Huron Times Herald was straight out of The Onion. Apparently not. I now weep for the Metro Detroit area for getting this excited about having a videographer seen by Australians. I'm also now expecting to see the Detroit News write up a similar story about me: "Man annoys area at North American International Auto Show."
6th Gear: "Matty" Moroun Goes To Jail
Bloomberg reports that Manuel "Matty" Moroun, the billionaire owner of Detroit's Ambassador Bridge, will remain locked up at least overnight after a judge today ordered him and his top aide jailed for missing deadlines on a construction project. A more fitting punishment? Make him wait in line to take that damned bridge for an entire night.
⏎ The Queen Bee Of The Car Show Models. [Forbes]
⏎ Robert Kubica injures leg in fall. [Top Gear]
⏎ Chrysler Chief Confirms New Dakota, Possible Diesel and Unibody. [Edmunds Inside Line]
⏎ Honda wins appeal throwing out class-action case. [Automotive News]
⏎ Autonomous Driving Traffic Jam Assistant Coming To Audi A8. [Motor Authority]
⏎ China auto sales slow in 2011, up 2.5 pct to 18.5 mln, lagging US growth. [AP via Washington Post]
⏎ BMW will expand U.S. plant to build new X4. [Automotive News]
⏎ BMW, Daimler To Ramp Up Vehicle Production In US. [Wall Street Journal]
Today in Automotive History:
On this day in 1962, Ernie Kovacs, a comedian who hosted his own television shows during the 1950s and is said to have influenced such TV hosts as Johnny Carson and David Letterman, dies at the age of 42 after crashing his Chevrolet Corvair into a telephone pole in Los Angeles, California, while driving in a rainstorm. Kovacs, who often appeared on camera with his trademark cigar, was found by police with an unlit cigar, leading to speculation that he had been reaching for the cigar and lost control of his vehicle. The Corvair was later made infamous by Ralph Nader's groundbreaking 1965 book "Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile," about unsafe practices in the auto industry. [History]
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Today I'm sharing a new tutorial over at Make and Takes. This tutorial is for a quick little bag made from one fat quarter and some ribbon. Perfect little summer project.
Make and Takes is an awesome blog full of activities to do with your kids, craft projects, and quick recipes. Marie is amazing and is continually coming up with great ideas. It is one of the first blogs I ever started following consistantly and I'm SO excited to be hanging out there today!