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The question; "Should (your) children play with toy guns?" will be facilitating the likes of myself; representing this Organisation: GOSA, Andrew Lomax; representing the Paintball-shooting fraternity, up against Pam Crowsley; Gauteng Chairperson of Gun Free South Africa accompanied by a child psychologist -being invited to the Urban Brew Studios on Tueday 30th Sept 2008 at 17:30. Throughout the show you can call us on 086 22 33 303 or Sms us on: 083 601 9932. Studio SWB 011 - 285 - 6000.
This insert is actually being placed here by yours truly (M_tu) before the programme airs 'Live' (so best I watch my P's and Q's, LOL!) but actually serves to illustrate the main thrust of my argument (hopefully) on the programme. That being not about the never-ending difference of opinion between ourselves -legal civilian gunowners- and the others, (sometimes referred to by many people as 'the sheep') AKA those who choose defencelessness.
Update 18/11/2008: Full show now available in Mpeg4 Format in four parts, 160 Meg in total, anyone becoming violently ill from my (seld-admitted) piss-poor performance on the show can discontinue watching at their convenience and immediately inform the webmaster of this drivel to get the series erased from this site, (LOL!).
No, this page is to illustrate from where I'll probably draw most of my material for comment on the show, a discussion based on the question above. I therefore present you with 'Bang bang - You're dead' extracted from www.mothering.com Of the half-dozen or so articles I've read to prepare for the show, this was by far the best, It also refers to two other articles I've studied; Penny Hollands 'we dont play with guns here' and Phil Zimbardo's 'What makes people go wrong' (Phil's riveting video presentation can be viewed on the TEDtalks site <www.ted.com>).
Bang! Bang! You're Dead! By Jenny Knuth. Issue 139, November/December 2006 (My BOLD highlights)
My husband, Greg, vividly remembers the "no weapons" policy at his preschool. It was 1970; the height of the Vietnam War, and his Montessori school was part of the counterculture. Another boy was playing next to him with a wholesome bowl of toy fruit as Greg pieced together a wooden map of the world, when "Bang!" Greg looked up to see that he'd been shot by the short end of a banana. Stunned, Greg grabbed the continent of North America.
Holding Florida in one hand and Mexico in the other, he aimed Maine at the banana-wielder and shot back. Just at that moment, the teacher looked up and immediately sent Greg to sit in the corner. To the teacher, it looked like another act of American aggression, something to be nipped in the bud. To Greg, it was an innocent act of self-defense. More than 30 years later, we laugh, but at the time, he felt confused and misunderstood. . There is a gap between how adults see weapons play and how children experience it. As one psychiatrist put it, "We are so afraid of aggression in this society that we haven't been able to talk intelligently about it."1
While adults disapprove, children are often doing the child's work of play: experimenting with power and excitement, action and reaction, in a safe, make-believe world. I remember a similar disconnect when my first-grade teacher asked us not to carry our dolls by their hair. "That hurts!" she would exclaim. Didn't she understand that it was just pretend? I was genuinely sorry to upset her, but what was the big deal?
We flinch to see a doll carried by its hair because we don't want our daughters doing that to their children. We don't enjoy seeing our sons shooting each other, either. Toy guns are bad enough; real ones are unthinkable. Jessie, a children's dance teacher and mother of two, sums up the tension many parents feel: "I question the need for violent play.
I used to be totally against it because of my pacifist notions, but I do see that some kids—boys, especially—are attracted to weapons. I think it may actually be healthy for them to play it out. I worry that suppressing it would make it worse."2 Parents are in a bind: It feels wrong to allow weapons play, and it feels wrong to forbid it.
As the mother of two boys, I struggle with this issue. For years I tried to avoid it, but when the "I'm a lover, not a fighter" line fell flat for the umpteenth time, I knew I needed a fresh approach. I read books and talked with parents and child-development experts. What I found surprised me: a healthy response to weapons play has little to do with restricting or forbidding and everything to do with engaging my children's imaginations and connecting to their inner worlds.
A Natural Attraction.
For the first two years of his life, my son was carefully shielded from weapons and images of violence. A visit to his great-grandmother's house changed all that. In the small box of toys she'd set aside for young visitors, he found a tiny squirt gun. For days, he carried around this novel treasure. If he misplaced it, he'd ask, "Where's my pointy thing?" He didn't know its name, but he knew he wanted it.
Why do some children seem especially drawn to weapons? According to James Garbarino, author of Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them, children are instinctively drawn to power, and in our culture, weapons are one salient image of power.3 If not weapons, children might latch on to construction machines, dinosaurs, athletes, pop stars, or high-heeled shoes. And girls are no longer immune. Garbarino's latest book, See Jane Hit: Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It, demonstrates that we need to pay attention to socializing girls' aggressive tendencies as well.4
Because fashioning and playing with toy weapons seems a natural, nearly instinctive activity for some children—like the child of a pacifist who surprised his parents by biting his peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the shape of a gun—completely banning it can lead to resentment and harmful power struggles. How can we teach nonviolence and respect for weapons while still allowing war play?
Engage With Your Child
The first suggestion in Nancy Carlsson-Paige's and Diane E. Levin's latest book, The War Play Dilemma: What Every Parent and Teacher Needs to Know, is: "Don't panic!"5 A sudden, harsh response to weapons play can cause confusion, fear, or anger. Alternatively, a sharp response might trigger the lure of the forbidden. The best response is a gentle one: engage your children in their play, and work with, not against, their interests.
If you are disturbed by your child's weapons play, it can help to see the play from the child's perspective. Can't imagine what they're thinking? Ask them. Their answers to your open-ended questions can be quite revealing: What are you playing? How does it feel? What have you heard about that? Another step is to put the play in context and see what else is going on in the child's life. Was he exposed to violence in the media? Is there some change or upheaval in her life? While it is important to protect children and not burden them with exposure to violence, it is also healthy for a child to process these natural issues through play.
Comic-book author and popular-culture historian Gerard Jones knows how to see through a kid's eyes. His book Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence can serve as an interpreter for adults.6 With real-life examples, Jones demonstrates how almost any make-believe violence that children are drawn to can be beneficial in the context of constructive adult attention. The harm comes, he argues, when children are left alone with their violent feelings, ignored, or shunned because of them. Wouldn't it be nice if children felt able to work through their fantasies—even violent ones—in the context of the family, with healthy adult input?
Encourage Imaginative Weapons Play
Carlsson-Paige and Levin discuss a continuum of play, from the imaginative to the imitative. In imaginative play, children's needs are being met: the play is initiated from within, they are in control, and they bring to their play the issues they need to work on. Imaginative play is essential to a child's healthy growth and development.7
The problem is that media influence can undermine healthy, imaginative war play and move a child's play toward the imitative end of the spectrum. Children are bombarded with brand-name characters with built-in personalities, plots, and product lines.8 As Garbarino points out, "GI Joe does not do gentle."9 This scripted, "captured," imitative play is like junk food: appealing, prepackaged, and heavily marketed. In imitative play, children are not in control and are not being nourished. While a few empty calories won't hurt, children need to spend the bulk of their time engaged in healthy, imaginative play.
Nourish Imagination
My second son was born in England, where knights and castles are part of the history and landscape. The boys loved exploring ruins and learning about shields, swords, catapults, and battering rams. I quickly realized that I couldn't explain the history of England without discussing battles, and this exploration of conflict naturally flowed into imaginative storytelling—they created dramas of battles with beginnings, middles, and endings. While I wasn't thrilled with the violent content of their games, it was creative, and they seemed nourished by it. Sometimes, in the heat of a mock battle, I would stop them, horrified, and ask, "Are you having fun?" "Yes!" would come the breathless reply.
Swords and knights are the first step. Most parents I spoke with agreed that sword fighting is one of the least offensive forms of weapons play. But it is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? What about guns? Pokemon? Power Rangers? Whether or not media influence is harmful is a hotly debated topic. Jones, for one, sees less negative impact from the media than do Carlsson-Paige and Levin, but he agrees with them that children need to be in control of their fantasies. Despite their differences, Jones, Carlsson-Paige, and Levin agree that, with encouragement, children can script their own fantasies, even in the face of "brand-name" characters and prepackaged plots.
Jones, comfortable with media content, happily acts out a Power Rangers plot with his kindergartner as they morph into Teletubbies characters and evolve into a favourite creation they dub "Tubbie Rangers."10 Carlsson-Paige, in contrast, resists media dominance and prefers to redirect the play.
When her grandsons come over and want to play Power Rangers, she says, "Great! Okay! Here is a box. Let's paint Power Rangers colors on it." And they'll craft a game of their own that is not part of any script. She strives to communicate to the children the message "Any kind of play is okay with me," then engages them with the goal of keeping the play imaginative.11 "If I see [children] inventing new ideas and transforming what they've seen in the media in their play, I do all I can to support that."12 Though the full impact of media influence is not clear, the consensus remains: whatever the content of the play, don't dictate, but work through. Strive to move beyond imitation to imagination.
Develop Moral Understanding
According to well-known teacher and author Vivian Gussin Paley, imaginative play is the foundation of early-childhood learning and moral development. Children are naturally fascinated with "good guys" and "bad guys," and they reenact dramas on moral themes. Such imaginative play is soothing and highly educational. It helps children order their world, feel safe, and construct meanings that they carry into their adult lives.13 As children tell their stories and enact their battles, watch how often the good guys win. And if they don't win this time, well, usually some compromise is worked out, and there's always next time. Robyn, a mother who has come to accept the interest her son, Max, has in weapons, reasons that "playing at being a Knight who Protects the Weak, Helps the Helpless, and Fights for Justice is a great way to practice some honorable real-world traits."
But she takes it beyond the simple black and white. "I believe it is one of my jobs as a parent to coach children . . . to [help them] look at their assumptions about morality. How do you know that person is a 'bad guy'? What is the difference between being bad and being ugly? Can you be handsome and 'bad'? Can you talk nice but do bad things? What if doing something 'bad' can help someone? Does everyone think the same person is 'bad'? And so on."14 Weapons play is one means to exercise moral understanding.
Enhance Security
When he was an adolescent, my husband collected model tanks. You wouldn't know it now. I am surprised to learn how much knowledge and information he absorbed about this topic, and I am not alone. Lisa, a mother of two, relates how her husband, "quite the pacifist now, used to be into army, cowboy, and police stuff. Every boyhood Christmas photo features him brandishing yet another weapon at the camera. Who knew?"15 Many gentle husbands and fathers were once imaginary barbarians conquering the world. For young children, who often feel small and powerless, playing with pretend weapons can make them feel strong and in control. At a rest stop on the freeway, after hours cooped up in the car, my own boys invented an ingenious game. My older son would stand on a stone wall or a pillar, and my younger son would point his finger at his brother and shout "Peow! Peow!"
His older brother, taking the cue, would comically and dramatically fall off the pillar, to his brother's ecstatic giggles. The older had a captive audience, the younger had power. Again and again they replayed the drama: older brother the centre of attention, younger brother in complete control, using only the tip of his finger. I was happy they were having so much fun and using so much energy, but I wasn't thrilled with the game's violent content. When a couple walked by and took more than a passing interest, I noticed the US Marine Corps logo on their hats and shirts. To them, fighting was more than a game. I shuddered to think of my boys participating in the dangers of real combat. Still, it was a perfect pretend activity for that much-needed rest stop. They were getting exercise and fresh air, building agility and strength, and they were in control. It seems wrong somehow to deny our children, especially our sons, this sense of power and security they crave.
Teaching Self-limiting Behaviour
In the heat of battle, children get immediate feedback: there is an action and a reaction. As Max's mother, Robyn, points out, "Using swords for hand-to-hand combat may not be a pacifist practice, but it allows [a child] to look [an] opponent (or playmate) in the eye and have some real conversations, too."16 Children who regularly wrestle or mock sword fight tend to know their limits and learn how to hold back. And play wrestling can be a great leveller, emboldening the timid and teaching the more aggressive to control their impulses. "Mock wrestling is a very effective socialization technique," agrees Garbarino.17 If you watch puppies or kittens play fighting, they might appear vicious, but there are limits. Like young animals, our children can learn valuable lessons from wrestling and mock battles. I find it hard, however, to watch kids or kittens play fighting, so I was interested to learn of evidence that some adult women have trouble distinguishing play fighting from real fighting.18 If, like me, you often wonder if fighting is play or real, by all means, stop the game and ask.
Open Doors to Your Child's Fantasy World
Allowing play with toy weapons keeps you in the loop of your child's relationship to violence. As Levin admits, "Talking with children about violence is rarely easy, but it is one of our most powerful tools."19 By understanding a child's feelings of security and insecurity and allowing safe, pretend ways to work with these feelings, you can watch your child develop. If this kind of play is repressed or hidden or done only at friends' houses, you won't know where you stand. If your child shows imagination, empathy, and limit-setting behaviours in mock battles, great. If not, then you know what to work on. In short, if you let children express themselves naturally, you will know them better.
Jessie, the pacifist mother conflicted about the need for violent play, remembers stories of grown men raised in households that prohibited weapons play. "The men stated they felt judged when their parents did not allow them to play with war toys. They felt ashamed of this side of themselves even though they thought the play was pretty innocent. The playing was better than real fighting. This had a huge impact on me. I don't want my son to feel ashamed of his instincts or think that we love him less because he likes to play with weapons."20 Jones agrees that much of the problem with weapons play is caused not by the play itself but by grown-ups' responses to it. Responding with anger, anxiety, or apathy models emotions we don't want our children to emulate. Worry is not as helpful as trying to understand the play from the child's point of view. To children, it might look as if the adults are confusing fantasy and reality.
According to Jones, the best response is an appropriately playful one: "Much has been written about the most effective responses to children's desire to play at violence. Most of them involve discussions of the reality of violence and making children aware of other kinds of play. Those aren't bad ideas. But the most essential response of all is the one kids are looking for: grab your chest and fall down dead."21 Hopefully, by keeping weapons play fun, safe, and well- expressed, your children can experience it as children. It will not be mysterious, forbidden fruit for them to explore when they are older or away from home. Fulfilling their desire when they are young, and sharing their play with them, will allow them to move beyond violence later.
Unhealthy Weapons Play
Despite these benefits, war play has a potential downside. The argument against toy weapons is usually that it encourages aggression and reduces the reality of violence to a fun game. However logical this seems, little evidence supports the notion that play with toy weapons alone encourages later violence. Teacher and scholar Penny Holland, author of We Don't Play With Guns Here, believes that the zero-tolerance approach to toy weapons came out of the feminist and pacifist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Girls tend to have less interest in war play, and most preschool teachers are women, who tend not to understand the psychology and importance of war play to boys. In her studies, Holland found that allowing war play, within limits, actually made a more peaceful preschool environment. Those boys drawn to war play were not told how "bad" their desires were, were more engaged, and because they were allowed expression of their interest, weren't given the self-fulfilling label of "bad boy."22
Garbarino, on the other hand, feels that violence is epidemic in this country and its damaging effects analogous to those of smoking. Not everyone who smokes suffers health consequences, but over the entire population, the detrimental effects are clear. His evidence? "It is rare for children who are not exposed to violence to become aggressive." While he wouldn't encourage or initiate war play, if he noticed a child's interest in it, he would pay attention to it, work with it, and try to redirect it.23 Robyn, parent of two, voices another fear of many parents when she says, "I dread that my son's attraction to guns will tempt him to play with real guns at some time without supervision in a friend's or neighbour's house." This risk causes some parents to ask before a play date if there are any weapons in the house. Robyn prefers to give Max the skills he needs to avoid an accident. "We occasionally talk about what to do if he finds a gun at a friend's house: even if he thinks it is a toy gun, he shouldn't play with it without an adult's permission."24 Another helpful rule, hard to enforce but easy for kids to remember, is never to aim a gun of any kind at people.
The straightforward logic is that it is much easier for a child who is used to firing a toy weapon to fire a real weapon. Jones argues against such a simplistic line of cause and effect. "Despite the decades-long efforts of many researchers, no causal correlation has been found between actual gun use and early-childhood fondness for toy guns, finger-shooting, or gun-filled TV shows."25
Research shows that it's not the kids who are interested in toy weapons who become violent. Rather, it's the children who are bullied, who grow up in households where guns are used, who live in areas where guns are part of the youth culture, and who feel estranged and alone who are more likely to go on to use real guns.26 According to Jones, the antidote to the epidemic of violence is interested, involved adults who affirm a child's fantasies, model nonaggressive behavior, and mentor a child's skills and interests.27
Is it disturbing to adults when children play with toy weapons? Yes. Is the play often boisterous and disruptive? Yes. Should we forbid it outright? Only if we want to create more battles. We can try an all-out ban, but Deanne's experience with her sons is typical: "I started out not allowing them to play with guns. The more I tried to limit toy guns, the more they became an object of desire for my children. Once I let the issue go, they stopped begging for them and cut down how much they played with them."28 Or, as Lisa puts it, "It's just impossible to play tug-of-war when you let go of your end of the rope."29 As Jones sums up, "children deserve an adult world of nonviolence and well-modulated aggression, and a childhood world of fantasy unburdened by adult fears."30
You Decide
While it is up to you to decide whether to discourage, tolerate, or encourage play with toy weapons, it is helpful to understand why your children are doing this and how, if encouraged in healthy ways, it can help them grow. Whether you allow or forbid toy weapons is less important than engaging your children's imaginations and giving them the tools they need to moderate their own feelings of aggression. For many children, pretend weapons play is one way they can process their fears, feel safe, and experiment with self-defense. By keeping it light, keeping it in the realm of pretend, setting clear limits, and watching for the warning signs, you need not fear or repress this natural phase.
No matter how hard you try to avoid it, children will make weapons, whether from a banana or a wooden puzzle piece. Instead of an outright ban in your home and the resultant battles over weapons, relax, incorporate some of the above ideas, and find your path to peace.
Jenny Knuth is a writer and full-time mother. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband, Greg, and their two sons, Rees (8) and Kadin (5). Exuberant games of "Attack Daddy!" and the like continue to teach her about a warrior's path to peace. More of Jenny's observations about life and parenting can be found at http://jeninco.blogspot.com.


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Some people believe that it requires some leap of faith to disbelieve god's existence. This is absolutely idiotic. Atheism is a lack of a belief in god. If you are religious, ask yourself: "Why do I believe in god?" Whether or not you claim to have evidence for your faith, the correct answer is because someone taught you about god. You did not know what god was until someone told you. Either you were taught, or you invented your own version of god, deluded yourself, and poisoned other minds with your falsehoods.
One cannot make the argument that atheism requires a leap of faith. Nonbelief is not an active conscious process. One would not continue throughout their day repeating "I don't believe. I don't believe. I don't believe." Justification of disbelief is a different process entirely. Rejecting belief is an active conscious process but maintaining disbelief is not because there is nothing to maintain. Belief is always an active conscious process. Belief requires constant reaffirmation e.g. "I believe because of this, that, and the other." Disbelief does not require this. Faith can only exist in the presence of a conscious appeal to the mind. If the conscious appeal is gone (or never existed in the first place) then one cannot believe. Arguing for the case of the opposite simply does not make sense. There is no conscious appeal to disbelief. The truth is, god is a concept invented by man.
Views: 1159
Tom Sarbeck: Logically, and by definition, Non existence is not negative. It is simply nothing. A negative can be proven through the existence of a complement, which cancels it out.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle , is the idea that, in quantum physics, the energy used to observe the quantum state of a particle changes the quantum state of the particle. So you can't be certain what the particle is currently doing, only what it was doing. when last observed.
But the question is: Does atheism require a leap of faith?
Years ago, Dr Isaac Asimov used the term "judo argument" for the flawed mental exercises of Christians that attempt to leverage science to support the presumed existence of god. Judo is a field of oriental fighting skill that uses an opponent's strength against him.
Thr judo argument in question claims it requires a leap of faith to be an atheist. I disagree. A "Leap of faith" is an action based on a belief, where no evidence supports the belief. It is a real example of pretzel logic. They are basically claiming atheism is a religion
Gary, are you remarking on someone else's words?
I spoke of a leap from Catholicism with no knowledge of where my leap would take me.
Because atheists at the university claimed knowledge, I leaped to agnosticism.
The knowledge they claimed is still lacking.
Also, Gary, your "So you can't be certain what the particle is currently doing, only what it was doing. when last observed." lacks precision. The instruments now being used also lack precision.
The moment the particle being measured was "last observed" follows by a short time the moment the measuring particle struck the particle being measured. The uncertainty is greater than you say.
And for fun, bouncing a particle off a moving bowling ball changes the bowling ball's momentun by an amount smaller than current instruments can measure.
Here's why I am an "atheist" vs. "agnostic" (and why it is relevant to this topic).
The stance of an agnostic is that one doesn't/can't know. ("agnostic" means "no knowledge")
This is the default state. This is the truly neutral position. It is neither On nor Off. The switch is stuck in the middle. And it is obviously the most rational and logical state (well, at least in terms of things that really are unknowable)
So when it comes to the existence of God (any of them; my default focus of non-belief, and discussions thereof, is the Christian God, but I hold all of the others in the same boat), it is a thing that ultimately can't be known (while we're alive, anyway). Sure, most non-believers find the idea to be so ridiculously preposterous that it feels like it can be known to be false, but it truly can't. Even with no tangible evidence, it still cannot be said with absolute certainty that God does not exist.
I can entertain that thought. I can entertain the thought that God may actually exist. I can entertain that I may be wrong in my non-belief.
But only intellectually. My mind can accept those things through logic. But when my mind is being honest with itself, I flip the switch fully Off. I can entertain those thought, but I can never accept them.
I KNOW that God does not exist, even though it is impossible to know that.
That is the "leap of faith" of which they speak.
Tl;DR version:
To make a decision on a subject that is ultimately unknowable (no matter how the evidence lies) is to make a leap of faith. If it is possible to be wrong, yet you still hold onto the belief (or non-belief), then you are taking a leap of faith.
And, since being wrong on this particular subject could bring a horrible punishment with it, choosing the side of non-belief really is taking a leap. It's a gamble, however much the odds are in our favor.
I guess it depends on which definition of "faith" you are using. There are many words in the English language that are used in specific contexts so often that the context qualifiers are eventually dropped.
A good example of this is the word "free". The root meaning of "free" is simply "an absence", as in "free of additives". However, in the US with its consumer-centric culture, "free" connote, "free gratis" or "a lack of cost", while in political references, the word connotes "an absence of domination".
The word "faith" is synonymous with "trust" but in discussions of religion and philosophy, it often implies "trust in religious convictions". It doesn't take any religious convictions to trust in that which is observed,
Tom: I can understand where it may take a leap of faith for someone who has been indoctrinated heavily into a religious mindset, to turn to atheism, but to remain an atheist requires no such convictions. It may takes some work to unlearn the religious worldview you were raise in.
"...This is absolutely idiotic."
Until idiotic has an agreed-upon definition, it might be idiotic to claim that anything is absolutely idiotic.
Let's refrain from trolling mkay, Tom?
Let's agree that "idiotic" is as idiot does.
Doug, your point is moot. Faith is the answer people give for when they believe something for no good reason. Atheism isn't a belief system. Atheism is a lack of a belief in God.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bird Dream Forewarning Blizzards (1959)
Cape Dorset First Edition
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Judith Varney Burch lectures at
Yunnan Ethnology Museum, China
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News orgs seek Colo. shooting documents in court
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) -- News media organizations were set Thursday to ask the judge in the Colorado theater shooting case to unseal court documents and scale back a gag order that bars a university from releasing details about a former student who is the alleged gunman.
The Associated Press and 20 other news organizations want Chief District Judge William Sylvester to unseal documents that could provide the public with details about James Holmes and the massacre in Aurora on July 20.
The shooting during a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie left 12 people dead and injured 58 others. Holmes, a 24-year-old former Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado, is charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Court officials said Holmes was expected to attend the hearing.
Arapahoe County prosecutors argue releasing documents could jeopardize their investigation. Holmes' attorneys want to ensure he receives a fair trial.
Sylvester's order sealing documents includes the case file, which makes it impossible for observers to understand prosecution and defense arguments on motions that are referenced by number only.
Sylvester on July 23 also issued a gag order that bars officials at the University of Colorado from responding to public records requests concerning Holmes.
The judge said doing so would jeopardize the county's investigation. Aurora officials have cited the order in declining to speak about the city's response to the shootings.
"It is performing our watchdog role to look at the process and try to assess for the public how the police have handled the case and assembled the evidence and assure for the defendant and the public that things are being conducted open and fairly," said Gregory Moore, editor of The Denver Post. "It goes way beyond what's necessary to protect the defendant's right to a fair trial."
Sylvester could make a decision Thursday or at a later time.
Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers, through a spokeswoman, declined comment ahead of the hearing, citing the gag order.
Holmes' public defender, Daniel King, did not return a message left with the Colorado State Public Defender's office.
Court documents, which include search warrants, inventories of evidence collected by police, and police interviews with witnesses, can be an important source of information for the public.
Little is known about how police say Holmes prepared for the shooting at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises," or how they say he rigged his nearby apartment with explosives. Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates has said the explosives were designed to kill anybody who entered Holmes' apartment, including first-responders.
Steven D. Zansberg, an attorney representing the news media consortium, said the judge should at least explain which documents have been sealed and why.
In Colorado, this type of legal battle has been seen before.
In 2007, an Arapahoe County judge sealed an indictment in the case of a missing 6-year-old girl whom authorities determined had been dead for at least two years before her father, Aaron Thompson, reported her missing. The state Supreme Court ordered the indictment unsealed in 2008, allowing the public to learn the charges against Thompson. Thompson was convicted of fatal child abuse in 2009.
When Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant faced sexual assault charges in Vail in 2003, it took a media challenge to unseal an affidavit in which police laid out their case for an arrest. Bryant maintained his innocence, and prosecutors dropped the case in 2005.
A news media challenge led to last year's release of an arrest affidavit in a sexual assault case involving former Denver Broncos cornerback Perrish Cox, who faced charges filed by Chambers' office. Cox was acquitted in March.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors routinely ask judges to keep some documents sealed, often because the documents contain information a jury won't hear at trial, said Denver criminal defense attorney Daniel Recht, who also argues First Amendment cases.
But Moore noted that some Colorado judges have sealed entire court dockets under the argument that the mere fact of media coverage will damage a case.
In his ruling to unseal documents in the Cox case, Douglas County District Judge Paul A. King rejected that notion.
"There can be no presumption that everyone in the jury panel will read, follow and find important the media accounts in this case," King wrote.


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Small world: Taylor limits his terrain
The last time Steve Taylor exhibited at the McGuffey Art Center, he filled the main gallery with oversized oil-on-canvas landscapes. He reserved one wall, though, for a collection of small studies on paper. Taylor's large paintings were competently executed, but these smaller works, created quickly and with less concern for control, sang with a vital lyricism.
So I smiled when I learned the title of Taylor's current show in McGuffey's downstairs hall gallery: "The Small Stuff." For this body of work, Taylor combines oil, acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on paper to create landscapes from memory. All of the semi-abstract works, save two, are limited in scale and express Taylor's affection for the Blue Ridge Mountain vistas of his present and a poignant nostalgia for English landscapes from his youth.
Many of the pieces offer Taylor's evocative recollections of Huntcliff, a striking sheer-sided promontory that juts into the sea in northeast England. The artist provides two large photographs of the landmark for reference, but his lovely and widely varied impressions don't rely on viewers' familiarity with Huntcliff for their success. Taylor's gestural strokes and deft layering of colors give viewers all the information necessary to emotionally respond to the work.
For instance, in "Huntcliff Rain," Taylor offers an almost monochromatic painting that compels with its subtle color variations. A peach-grey sky hangs above the blue-grey cliff, quietly enlivened by green along its ridge, while a stretch of green-grey beach arcs in the foreground. The overall effect is melancholy and atmospheric.
Particularly interesting is the way Taylor uses the page itself as a frame for his images. The borders of his landscapes remain diffuse and raw, often revealing the intricate layering of his palette. Although the edges of the tiny "Corn Field," suggest a series of horizontal sweeps across the page, the center of the image thrills with scratch-like furrows of green and reddish-pink running through a yellow field beneath a late-evening mountain skyline.
"The Small Stuff" also includes several monoprints, which are a new endeavor for Taylor. What is noteworthy is how each print is barely there and yet succeeds in evoking a landscape. For instance, "Essex" reads as a plowed field despite being essentially a faint, multi-colored blot on the page.
When it comes to Taylor's work, contradictions rule: the less literal, the more evocative, and the smaller, the greater the impact. Less is beautifully more.
Steve Taylor's exhibition, "The Small Stuff," is on view through November 22 at the McGuffey Art Center. 201 Second St. NW. 295-7973.


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Reader Chris DePrisco had the incredibly irresponsible yet somewhat awesome idea of programming this automated laser to sing the GLaDOS summoning song, using what I am assuming is different levels of intensity to match the tones of the song. The markers are labelled with the lyrics of the tune, with the whole song resulting in the Aperture Science logo etched on a stainless steel plate.
It took quite a while to get it this far. Laser markers weren't really meant for making music and there are a few parts out of time but I'm sure GLaDOS would approve.
I've a feeling she would approve. She'd say so, just before reprogramming the laser to burn a stunning rendition of Portal 2's "Want You Gone" on Chris' torso in the shape of a massive torso-sized hole.
She's so loveable.


text: Vibrant computing on an 11.6" Windows 8 notebook More responsive and accurate touchscreen than industry standards Portable design in several vibrant colors True 2-second instant on and up to Intel® Core™ i3 processor Enjoy high quality audio courtesy of ASUS SonicMaster technology Shop Modal header Incredible Beauty Vibrant portability The new ASUS VivoBook F200CA laptop is available in four vibrant colors. Its slim, compact dimensions tip the scales at just 1.2kg, ensuring you have a laptop that is both stylish and portable. Available in four expressive colors The ASUS VivoBook F200CA laptop is available in four colors. For the traditionalist, a textured finish is available in Elegant White or Gentle Black. For those who prefer a more vibrant approach, a Hot Pink or Ocean Blue IMR-finished ASUS VivoBook F200CA will help you make a grand entrance. 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text:
Brown, Hallie Q.
To My Readers--Greeting:
This book is presented as an evidence of appreciation and as a token of regard to the history-making women of our race.
One chief object of these introductory sentences is to secure for this book the interest of our youth, that they may have instructive light on the struggles endured and the obstacles overcome by our pioneer women.
It has been prepared with the hope that they will read it and derive fresh strength and courage from its records to stimulate and cause them to cleave more tenaciously to the truth and to battle more heroically for the right.
The characters and facts herein set forth are veritable history.
In presenting this volume to the public, it is proper to remark that it has been prepared from a settled conviction that something of the kind is needed.
It is our anxious desire to preserve for future reference an account of these women, their life and character and what they accomplished under the most trying and adverse circumstances,--some of whom passed scatheless through fires of tribulation, only to emerge the purer and stronger,--some who received their commission even at the furnace door, the one moment thinking their all was lost forever, the next in secure consciousness of the Everlasting Arms.
We lack a complete record of these self-sacrificing heroines, but such as we have been permitted to gather we present through this medium to the public, hoping that it may find as much pleasure in its perusal as the writer had in its making.
--Hallie Q. Brown .
Homewood Cottage ,
Wilberforce, Ohio .
1926 .


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|Previous Page | Table of Contents | Index | Next Page
Choosing an Accounting Method(p5)
Certain small business taxpayers can use the cash method of accounting and can also account for inventoriable items as materials and supplies that are not incidental. For more information, see Publication 538.
More than one business.(p5)
Changing your method of accounting.(p5)
|Previous Page | Table of Contents | Top of Page | Index | Next Page


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The Royal We | GEOG31 | Released: 05/11/07
From her Los Angeles home, future Royal We singer, Jihae Simmons had an idealised image of Glasgow, mostly drawn from Orange Juice and Belle & Sebastian lyrics. She was looking forward to moving to a place which would be like an 'amazing tweeland' where everyone had a lot of respect for nature and buildings which they'd want to explain in cafes like in a Godard movie far from the scuzz of the LA music scene. Meanwhile, Patrick Doyle was on his way to university and had stopped off in Glasgow. 'It seemed more promising than where I was supposed to be going. Sunderland.' Roxanne Clifford had come to the city from Manchester to study art... and because the music scene was strong. Other Royal We personnel, Graeme Ronald, Joan Sweeney and Colin Kearney were already here, on the fringes of things, with Colin already a member of Eska, and various other groups.
Slowly, by the beginning of 2006 the group started identifying each other on the streets and at parties as possible collaborators, eventually rolling up as part of a 20-person super-session in Jihae's front room. Even for a conceptual group this was too much, and in the end there was a hardcore of six and they became the The Royal We. Jihae wanted it to sound glam and to be quite extreme. Other members had different ideas but all remember it as an exciting and fast-moving time, with songs coming together really quickly. The night they wrote All The Rage, they took over a party, plugging in a laptop and playing it over and over until they realised everyone else had left.
In a city like Glasgow, there's always an 'it' group - in recent times it was Franz Ferdinand and before that the Optimo club and before that Belle & Sebastian and so on. By summer 2006 The Royal We had become the 'it' group - everyone was talking about them and members were turning up on Belle & Sebastian and Franz Ferdinand covers and even the NME was into them. If that all sounds a little too hype, then ok, but The Royal We were the most fun in town; their shows had it down and they had great songs and a great sound. There's no doubt there's something pop about The Royal We but it's an older, odder kind of pop - the experimental pop of Orange Juice or ESG or even The Raincoats. In a way this is partly designed, the lyrics reference pop language, but mostly it's just exuberant brilliance which has carried The Royal We through.
This, their debut album features mostly songs written in their first six months of existence, their polaroid moment. It starts out slow and ends up in Chris Isaac's Wicked Game. In between are all the reasons The Royal We were and are completely special. They won't be making a second album, Jihae is moving back to LA in for one thing, other members of the group want to move on too. Meanwhile they're going to play some
GEOG31CD | Geographic | Out nowOut of Stock
- 01. Back And Forth Forever
- 02. All The Rage
- 03. That Ain't My Sweet Love
- 04. Three Is A Crowd
- 05. I Hate Rock N Roll
- 06. Willy
- 07. French Legality
- 08. Wicked Game
GEOG31LP | Geographic | Out nowOut of Stock
- Side A01. Back And Forth Forever
- 02. All The Rage
- 03. That Ain't My Sweet Love
- 04. Three Is A Crowd
- Side B01. I Hate Rock N Roll
- 02. Willy
- 03. French Legality
- 04. Wicked Game


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text:
A European Science Foundation report found that mass infertility among European men is caused by a decreased sperm count, which is linked to obesity. At least this time, it's not our fault?
The report mentions that because overweight and obese men tend to produce less testosterone, their sperm is less potent and therefore less likely to successfully impregnate their female partners. The men involved in the study were between 18 and 25 years old, and 40% had sperm counts so low that their best hope for ever successfully reproducing is through in vitro fertilization.
The silver lining here, for those of us who aren't all that keen on the idea of having babies, is to date a fat European man. I'd even go so far as to advise those men with low sperm counts to use that fact to their advantage, as this finding, coupled with the study that concluded that fat men actually have more sexual stamina than their thin counterparts, makes a pretty good case for ignoring social conventions of attractiveness and letting go of any resistance you may have to dating a fat man. After all, he can probably get you off and probably can't get you pregnant.
"Fat Chance At Fatherhood" [<a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/fat_chance_at_fatherhood_Dc9cbrT6njcvz4mppeu3dN]
[EDIT: NYP Link isn't working; here's the story at The Daily Mail]
Image via Shutterstock


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I don't even drink beer, but what I wouldn't give for one of these 3D-printed beer cases that were gifted to Heineken's stakeholders. With the bottle's label printed in UV-sensitive ink, it only figures that the case (3D-printed by Freedom of Creation) should have a UV light installed inside, activated once the case's magnetic lock opens.
Make a vodka bottle case just like this, and I'm sold. [Iris and Freedom of Creation]


text:
Steven Spielberg's cross-hitting family classic E.T. needs no introduction. Do I need to summarize the plot? – How a lonely boy discovers an abandoned wide-eyed friendly alien and their resulting burgeoning friendship. It's the rare film that exceeds the barriers of twenty-four frames per second. I can say Reese's Pieces or bike or phone home without any sort of context and millions will know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a juggernaut – and it's been so for over thirty years. It's a picture that wears its heart on its sleeve – and it remains the most true and personal of Steven Spielberg's ridiculously compelling oeuvre.
So it's crazy to think E.T. hasn't yet been released on Blu-ray. That slight will be corrected Tuesday October 9th, as the picture finally gets the Blu-ray treatment. And in honor of such an occasion and to celebrate E.T., Producer Kathleen Kennedy and Star Henry Thomas (Elliott) spoke with select press for over ninety minutes about the affect E.T. had on their career, the shooting process, working with Spielberg and dealing with the phenomena the film became. In addition, Kathleen Kennedy discussed her new role as chairman of Lucasfilm, Jurassic Park 4, an upcoming adaptation of Roald Dahl's B.F.G. and Spielberg's next Lincoln. For the full interview, hit the jump.
What did you think of the behind-the-scenes feature on the Blu-ray?
HENRY THOMAS: I haven't seen it – but I'm excited for the John Toll footage.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY: We never released it and it was all shot on 35mm. I don't think much of that has ever been seen.
THOMAS: I worked with John years later on Legends of The Fall and he showed me some of the footage. Just bits and pieces. It's exciting to see. I don't really remember everything day to day because it was thirty years ago but when I see things like that it sparks memories. I'll say 'Oh yeah – that was the day…"
When it came out on DVD, there was the special edition version that had some notable changes (walkie-talkies in the government agents hands instead of guns, sanctifying certain dialogue exchanges) but the Blu-ray reverts back to the original version. What brought about that decision?
KENNEDY: To be perfectly honest, I think Steven always regretted having made the decision to do anything to the film. I think he was feeling a certain amount of pressure to be politically correct. And then he realized that it maybe wasn't the correct [decision]. I think most fans and most people who like classic movies that have stood the test of time, don't want them to be tinkered with.
How difficult would it be to get E.T. made now?
KENNEDY: You know I think about that sometimes. I think E.T. came about at a time when it was meant to be. I think a movie like E.T. today wouldn't have resulted in necessarily the same phenomenon. It's hard to take apart thirty years to try understand what might contribute to that but I think that there's an innocence to the storytelling and filmmaking. It was at a time when family films in general were really designated primarily for children and only for children – so the idea that movies crossed over and included the broad spectrum of family entertainment was a relatively new phenomena. E.T. was the beginning of that. Because I remember at the time actually sitting in a marketing meeting and we were having a lot of trouble booking enough theaters. Steven sent me in to basically go say to the studio "I'd like it to be in a 1100 theaters." That's not a lot of theaters — and they said "No". We ended up eventually getting there when the movie started to preview and it was clear we were reaching a wide audience. But initially it was seven or eight hundred theaters. That was the compromise.
What are your earliest memories of E.T.?
KENNEDY: We started out talking about a movie that was quite different. Steven and I had just started working together – we were actually working on Raiders of the Lost Ark. And he said to me "You know when I was doing all the research, there were reports of UFOs [that] were unexplained. There was this case in Kentucky – The Hopkins Case – go find out about that because it could make an interesting movie." So I [made some calls] and sure enough there was this really interesting case, which involved a family who claimed they had been visited by creatures from outer space. They were all put under hypnosis individually and they all described exactly the same thing. So it was one of those stories. Enough to suggest something happened that we can't explain. I was gathering all the information on this… I had gone to see this movie called The Return of The Secaucus Seven that John Sayles had done.
I came back to Steven and I said, "I think this is the guy that should write this." Now I had no idea why in the world I thought John Sayles but [Steven] actually agreed with me. We brought John Sayles in and he wrote a script called Watch The Skies. It was about this alien invasion essentially. It was still a small movie. Not alien invasion in the way we think of movies today. It was still a fairly small-contained movie. We were visiting Gary Kurtz who had oddly enough just produced Star Wars and we were making our way back, having had dinner at his home in England and we both were reading this script. It had just come in. We're in the car reading the script and the very last image of the script is a little alien left alone looking at the sky watching his space ship leave. And Steven said, "I don't want to make this movie. That's [the alien watching his space ship desert him] the movie I want to make." And that was the genesis of E.T. Because he had identified something he had done in Close Encounters, which is that he had explored this benign relationship to whether or not UFOs or creatures from outer space might come to earth. He saw it as a benign experience not a confrontational one – so that was a much more attractive way of looking at the story. He said "Well, we have to find a writer now". Harrison Ford was dating Melissa Mathison at the time. And Melissa was visiting the set of Raiders of the Lost Arc so that's what led to Steven and I sitting down and talking to her about this idea. She had written Black Stallion and we both loved Black Stallion and thought that was exactly the tone of what E.T. might be. All of those pieces came together in an odd way.
When I was growing up E.T. was very real to me and I'm curious being on set with the puppet and effects, how real it was to you?
THOMAS: I was aware of the reality of the wires and the twelve guys on the other side of the studio operating him – but there was definitely on the set, an air of magic where you could easily put yourself in a situation where the cameras were gone. Part of that was being ten years old but I think for Drew Barrymore who was seven when we were working together, he was very real. She worried about him when we went to lunch – 'What's he going to eat? Why doesn't he eat with us?' It was an easy world for me as a kid to fall into and ignore the man-behind-the-curtain so to speak.
What is your relationship with the movie now? Has it developed over the years?
THOMAS: I don't watch it but the relationship that I've had with the film over these years has been evolving. I think when I was a teenager I was like "Oh god. They're going to call me Elliot again and here we go…" But I have kids now… Also everybody that you meet especially people close to my age — they all have stories, very meaningful stories about seeing the film for the first time. In a small way, I feel proud of my own contribution to that. The film is so well regarded by so many people that you feel an obligation to represent it in a good way.
What was it like working with Steven Spielberg?
THOMAS: Steven – what I remember about working with him is that he's just very enthusiastic about films. And you get the sense from him that if he could do it all himself, he would prefer it. But he is very good at telling you exactly what he wants out of a scene or your role in a scene. And he was great at talking to us. All of the sudden we weren't kids any more but technicians on a film set. "Okay we're going to do this. And I want you to say it this way and walk this way…" Steven was talking to me so much that the first time I saw the film I said, "It's great but are you going to be able to take your voice out because I heard you talking the whole way through." And he said "Oh no, no – you were imagining that. My voice isn't on the film." But it was so ingrained in me from working everyday on set that for me the experience of watching the film was almost like reliving those workdays. It shows me now how intrinsic he was to my performance because I was literally hearing his voice the whole time I was watching the film.
And I probably still would have heard it had he not told me that his voice wasn't on the actual sound. It was only my second film too. I still technically didn't have a really good idea what I was doing other than hit the mark and say the line. I was a little kid and the cool thing about the way Steven worked – as a child he made you feel like you were a part of everything. Not just your character. He would take us to the art department and show us the sets that were being built. Sketches or different ideas for the creature and what he was going to look like and what he might have looked like before. Things like this so I remember as a kid feeling I was a part of the filmmaking process. And I usually don't feel like that anymore when I do a job.
KENNEDY: A lot of what we were shooting was on sets so these kids had a great opportunity to wander around and see what was behind the scenes. That was dictated by the fact that we were trying to control this creature with cables so we always had to have an environment that could accommodate E.T.…
On set how impressed were you by the young actors performances?
KENNEDY: This is the first movie I ever produced. I was throwing up every weekend. I was so nervous. I had no idea what I was doing. So I have to confess I wasn't thinking other than day to day and making sure everyone was happy. I was as nervous as the [kids] were.
Given E.T. being your first solo producer credit and its unbelievable success, was there ever a pressure about topping yourself?
KENNEDY: I only thought about it much later. In retrospect when I look back, its interesting – and I don't know if you have this feeling Henry – I think once you've peered at the top, you can go on with your life and your career. I never felt it was something I was necessarily striving for. It wasn't something I thought I needed. I had a glimpse of what that was all about and then I realized the work that I was doing was much more personal. It wasn't about trying to get awards. So I look at it as – I had the wonderful good fortune to be involved in something that successful and that connected completely to audiences at the time. And I cherish little bits of that throughout my entire career.
What was your first memory that E.T. was going to be a phenomena?
THOMAS: For me it happened about two weeks into the release. At the time, I had auditioned for E.T., I was living in Texas and I had gone to LA and I tried to get an agent. I had gone to just about every place I could in town and everybody said the same thing – "If you move out here, we'll represent you but we're not representing anyone out of town. You have to be here and try to work." So about two weeks after E.T. had been in theaters and was doing well, my phone started ringing and it was all the people I had gone to see wanting to represent me. I thought – "Oh — the film must be a big hit."
What was Steven Spielberg's response to the film's success?
KENNEDY: I think we were all very surprised. [Even] getting this movie made, we had to get a completion bond because nobody wanted to make it. It only cost ten million dollars, which even then was considered relatively small. I always say that was the only reason [Steven] asked me to produce it. So consequently it was a surprise to all of us. Because [Steven] thought he was doing something relatively personal and small and intimate. Almost everybody on the movie, it was their first major move career wise – whether it was our AD, our production designer, our costume designer… A lot of people were really young and just starting out in the business. So the whole thing was an explosive experience. And I think Steven shared that. Yes – he was coming off the blockbuster success of Jaws, but Jaws wasn't a movie operating on a deeply personal level and this was. So that was a surprise to Steven. I think that's an interesting and valuable thing for any artist, any filmmaker – certainly of Steven's status – to recognize you can still have commercial success inside something that's very personal. I think even today that gets forgotten sometimes. People want to make a distinction between what's commercial and what's art. I think Steven more than many understands you can combine the two. And E.T. inspired a lot of that.
What is your relationship with Steven Spielberg and other filmmakers as you're producing?
KENNEDY: It's different with every movie but we have a really nice collaborative working relationship. I think there's a clear distinction between what I do and what Steven does. I see my role as… I spend a great deal of time trying to understand what it is he sees, what his vision is, what he's trying to do. Then my challenge is to try to put the people and the pieces around him so he can hopefully execute at the level he sees in his head. I'm often trying to communicate what that vision is. So often movies today there are so many people around. They're huge. I think back to E.T. – it was such a great experience with this small, intimate crew. And now these movies are like small armies. There's no way a director can communicate with every single person on the set and yet they need to motivate and instill an ambition to want to do their best work. So I think the role of a producer and certainly my role with Steven was to help facilitate that.
Does Spielberg ever talk about going backward and doing something small scale again?
KENNEDY: Oh yeah – sometimes he describes things he wants to do and I'm like "You can't do that. You're Steven Spielberg." And it's a sad thing because sometimes I think you can't ever really go back when you've had this degree of success. Now [having said] that – if you want to spend your own money and do that… Francis Coppola is doing that. He's spending his own money. He makes wine. And all the money he gets from his wine, he goes and he makes his little independent personal movies and he doesn't really care if anyone goes to see them. But that's an anomaly. I was just having this great conversation with this young director who did Beasts of The Southern Wild, which I thought was so great. He's one of those young directors who you sit and talk with and think 'Oh god – I wish I was in that place right now." He's so enthusiastic and idealistic. He aspires to so much and he's terrified of having anything take away from what exists right now. He just wants to stay in the place he's in right now and make movies the way he is right now and do these pictures in New Orleans and tell stories there. And I was just listening to him thinking 'He doesn't realize – it's going to be almost impossible to maintain that. Maybe to a certain extent but if he continues to have the kind of success that even Beasts has and is going to continue to have, it's difficult to hold onto.'
Have you shown E.T. to your kids?
THOMAS: No I haven't yet. My oldest turned eight this year and I'm going to show her when I get the Blu-ray.
How do you explain your role in the film to your kids?
THOMAS: They already know. They've known since they were tiny because one of their DVDs has a trailer for E.T. at the head of it from years ago. And I was watching it one day and I came on the screen as Elliott – and I said "Do you know who that guy is?" and they said – "Oh yeah — that's you, dad."
Was it hard leaving the world of E.T. when shooting wrapped as a kid?
THOMAS: It was really hard as a kid. And I still have a hard time on films sometimes because you know it's going to end. You probably aren't going to see most of these people again. But as a kid, time is extended. Three months feels like forever. I was in tears and I was upset for weeks after. But the funny thing is, for this film, I still feel like we are a family – because every so often we have one of these functions and you do get to see everybody. But that's unique. There are a lot of people I've worked with just less than a year ago that I said I was going to call and I still haven't. But that's the nature of the industry. As a kid it was hard for me to pick up and go and come onto something new. Especially on a film like this where you have a lot of other kids involved. But I made a lot of friends and I still talk to Robert MacNaughton, the actor who played Michael, sometimes. And of course I see Drew sometimes…
Did you keep a memento from your time on the E.T. set?
THOMAS: Yeah – we had badges to get on the set through security and I still have the badge. It has a different, phony title on the guest badge. ET and Me.
[How did all the E.T. merchandising come about?]
KENNEDY: No one was really [merchandising] anything at the time. [Even] Star Wars when it came out – they didn't have enough toys so you had to pick up gift certificates and then you had to wait until you could get the toy. We hadn't done any [merchandising because we hadn't] anticipated any of this success. One day I'm at my desk and I get this call from the FBI and they said "Look — we got two 747s at Newark full of pirated E.T. dolls. What do you want to do with them?" So from that point on, I looked at a call sheet that had two hundred and fifty phone calls from companies wanting to put together some kind of merchandising campaign. The reason we ended up doing any merchandising was to try to put trademarks in place so we could stop piracy.
Has there ever been talk of an E.T. sequel?
KENNEDY: That's gone on for years. And it isn't just the studio. I've had filmmakers. I even had Bono come to talk to me about a sequel to E.T. with an environmental message. The great thing about Bono is that everything he does is in service to a greater cause and even back then his mind is always on about how to put things together to create awareness – so I couldn't blame him for that…
How did the look/design of E.T. come about?
KENNEDY: The first thing Steven said to me was that he didn't want a person inside the suit. And this is pre-CG technology – so that wasn't an option. We were doing the design with Carlo Rambaldi. Steven knew the eyes were going to be really important. I remember we had pictures of Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandburg… Soulful faces and then Carlo came up with the idea of a cat – they have that sort of round fluffy face. And we used that in combination with these wonderful soulful eyes. It was just a lot of different combinations like that until we found something. You can't really quite describe it. It just speaks to you. You connect to it in someway. And then I remember Steven's law firm there were two major [attorneys] who worked for him. [One of them] Harold Brown's daughter was four years old and I said to Harold one day "I'm really frustrated because I just don't see how we can do what Steven wants to do without putting someone in the suit. Do you think you can bring Rachel over and we can put her in the suit just to see?" And he goes – "OK." So he brings his four-year-old daughter over and we literally bribe her with McDonalds to get into the suit. When we put her into the suit, she goes insane. You have to remember at the time I don't have kids yet. And I'm incredibly fixated on whether this suit's going to work and we're rolling video and she's having an absolute temper tantrum. So it's E.T. screaming with her dad in the background going "Just one more minute and we'll go get a McDonalds." [But] we did take that video to Steven and that convinced him we needed someone in the suit.
What's the story behind E.T.'s voice?
KENNEDY: That is the brilliance of Ben Burtt. Ben Burtt is a sound designer and he was using a wide variety of sound samples over a long period of time. He had stopped into a drug store near where he was working to pick up an Aspirin or something. There was this woman standing up at the counter ordering and she [Pat Welsh] had this incredible voice. [Burtt] started to talk to her and he said I'm recording something down the street. Would you mind coming into the studio? She agreed. And what it was is that she had smoked Cool cigarettes her entire life and she had this amazing raspy voice that became the essence of E.T.'s.
What was the most nerve-racking scene to shoot?
THOMAS: I was super nervous [that] I had to kiss a girl in front of everybody. She was taller and older than me so I was pretty much just thinking about that. Steven said let's have a rehearsal and we'll try it just to practice. And I over-amped and we came together and our front teeth clashed. I remember her face going 'Oooh'. And I thought this is not going to go well.
What was Spielberg's kissing advice?
THOMAS: It was Steven Spielberg's kissing advice wrapped up into the guise of imitating John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man. So I had to catch her and wheel her in – but I was too short so Steven said it'd be really funny if you stood on this guy's back. So it was really like a dance move.
What was it like shooting that final goodbye scene with E.T.?
THOMAS: We shot pretty much as chronologically as we could because Steven was concerned about the young performers and trying to make the arc as real as it could be. It was fairly towards the end of the shooting process and that was a hard scene to do because you knew the thing was winding down and it would be over soon. The thing that made the emotional investment payoff for me was that Steven had hired a mime that did all of the hand acting for E.T. She was always laying underneath the frame in between E.T. and myself so her hands could work. But it was really nice to have a human connection there. That was really a masterstroke of the direction. It really helped out the performances.
What sort of themes do you see in E.T. and Spielberg's work in general?
KENNEDY: Many great stories are father issues, mother issues or death. I think many of the stories Steven tells are father-son issues. I think that's something he often finds compelling: the dynamic of those relationships. And I think anytime, you find a way to explore those types of relevant relationships in any story whatever the size of the backdrop it's a more successful movie-going experience. Storytelling has always been at the forefront of what he's trying to do. Even looking at the Jurassic movies, I have to remind people there are about eighty dinosaur shots in the first Jurassic Park. Now it seems to be some sort of contest and unless you have two thousand effects shots, you don't have a tent pole movie. But I think that's completely wrong. Audiences still crave storytelling.
What is the status of the fourth Jurassic Park film?
KENNEDY: Writing, writing, writing. It's really hard to keep these things going when there's an expectation and a desire by the public and the audience to keep certain franchises going. As filmmakers, we often sit there constantly saying, 'Okay. We have to answer the question, 'Why do another one?" If you can't answer that question, you shouldn't be doing it. It's tough. We're trying to come up with a story that makes sense and isn't going to disappoint people and is, hopefully, going to get people excited and reinvigorate the franchise. We've got to start with a script and the story.
What is the conversation with the studio like?
KENNEDY: They're just like, "When?" They don't care about the agony we're going through.
How does Lincoln fit into Spielberg's filmography?
KENNEDY: It's entirely a human story. We've worked on this over a decade now, trying to finesse the script and get to a place where we felt we were ready to shoot. It's always fascinated Steven. I think you can see now, by his body of work, that [while] he's associated with something like an 'E.T.' or a 'Close Encounters' and popular entertainment, he's also driven by historical stories that are rooted in real people and real events. This is, obviously, one of those. But it's also interesting this is one of those movies where, unless the right elements came together in the right way [it wouldn't work]. Daniel Day-Lewis being the perfect example. It's like he was born to play this role. I'm not sure what we would have done if Daniel had not said 'Yes'. He's absolutely extraordinary. I've rarely been involved with a movie where, when I saw it for the first time, I thought, 'What a strange feeling. It's like we literally got this opportunity to go back in time and have this glimpse of actually seeing President Lincoln and how he might have operated. In this case, it's a very specific moment in his legacy of an event he's trying to deal with very close to the end of his life. You feel extraordinarily privileged to have this moment in time with him. That's just how real he is in his performance. It's amazing to watch him work.
How will you approach your new role at Lucas Film? How will you juggle the big studio demands? (Note: Kennedy was named co-chairman of Lucasfilm LTD. and will assume George Lucas's role when he retires)
KENNEDY: Part of the reason that I wanted to go do that is because I do think the movie industry is changing. When you're relegated to go from movie to movie, so much of what you're doing is out of your control beyond creating the product. I just thought I've been doing this a long time, I love it but I really what to know where this is all going. Where the creative process is going. Some of the things that are going on with distribution online and available across many different platforms and in a wide variety of formats, I actually see as a good thing, I think it's very exciting. That's what's intriguing to me. Hopefully being at the forefront of figuring out what that might be.
How did Michael Jackson get involved in the E.T. soundtrack?
KENNEDY: It was right around the time we were doing the Storybook album. And interestingly enough that Storybook album never saw the light of day. It's a beautiful box set where Michael Jackson narrates and Quincy Jones does all the music. Michael was doing Thriller at the time. So we would constantly be on the recording stage with him while he was doing Thriller and he would come visit us and we would all collaborate on this Storybook album. When we were getting ready to distribute it, an injunction was put against the album because the producer or publisher at the time felt that the Storybook album would be competition to Michael's album Thriller – which is insane when you think about it. And they refused to let us distribute the album… [Michael] loved E.T. There was a time where he was renting out a movie theater near where we were all working and he would see it everyday. I don't know how many times he saw the movie. He absolutely loved it… We talked about releasing [the storybook album] now – but because there was such a limited number made, we've never really [gone through with it]. I have a box of them [at my house].
How did E.T. change your life?
KENNEDY: …I look at it this way Steven and I worked together thirty-five years as a result of E.T. Frank and I got married as a result of Raiders and E.T. Melissa Mathison and I are still very close friends. We're working on an adaptation of the B.F.G. (Roald Dahl's Big Friendly Giant).
Will B.F.G be live action, animated?
KENNEDY: Live-action. We're pretty far along.
Can you talk about the John Williams score?
KENNEDY: That was my first real introduction to working with John. I had been around obviously for Raiders of the Lost Arc. But I was intimately involved on [E.T.]. I was on the scoring stage all the time, the dubbing stage all the time. To this day, it's my favorite thing to do. How great is it to go sit in a room and basically have your own concert for two weeks? There's nothing better. It's fantastic. He's the most generous, wonderful sweet, accessible man. Ironically, Frank and I have spent a lot of time with John because Frank's family goes way back in the music business. Everybody in his family is and was in music and his father was a composer and a jazz guitar player. Frank's father, John Williams and Alan Bergman were all in the army band together. So that was this wild connection early in this process.
What professional lessons did you learn from working on E.T.?
THOMAS: I still feel the same way when I go to work. Except I feel more confident. I'm less confused than I was most of the time.
How has your process changed from being a child actor to adulthood?
THOMAS: A lot – because there's a process now. The one thing I've always done is to try not to overcomplicate anything. I didn't do that when I was a kid. I just tried to take everything head on and through the least amount of filters as I could to serve the performance. And I think I still do that. I probably complicate things unnecessarily now just to give the illusion of professionalism.
Has having such a high-profile role helped or hindered your career?
THOMAS: It's only helped really. The only obstacle that I see from it is that sometimes people say "Oh you're the guy from E.T. Now I have you classified, I'm going to move onto this guy". But some people are wired that way. They're not going to get around that. And you always get that as an actor. Many times you walk into a room and people have already made up their minds. But it's always good to have something great associated with you.
KENNEDY: I can still vividly remember the scene Henry was in that made us say 'He's Elliott". I bring that up because he was such a good actor. You were in Raggedy Man and you're yelling at Sissy Spacek and you say, "You're not a mother, you're a telephone operator." I remember Steven and I watching that scene and going "Wow." And we immediately brought you in and you were so good.
Where is the actual physical manifestation of E.T. now?
KENNEDY: Well – he's gone… there's no way to keep him. All that disintegrates. So what we do is we keep the molds, the original molds. Even the touching of that material with your hands, the oil on your hands contributes to the gradual [decay]. ILM has actually taken stuff out of the molds and treated it in a way that can maintain [the material]. They've got the bike. Some matte paintings. There's one matte painting I told George I'd really like to steal. It sounds so simple – it looks like a piece of modern art. It's this huge painting and it's the city lights when E.T.'s up on the hill and he looks down… It's fantastic. So simple… Just great.
E.T. hits Blu-ray for the first time October 9th.


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Omaha bar liquor license canceled
Halo Ultra Lounge unenforced bar special
An Omaha bar may close after its liquor license was canceled Monday.
Halo Ultra Lounge near 175th Street and West Center Road had its liquor license canceled because of an unenforced drink special the bar was promoting.
The bar was offering penny beers to patrons who brought an $8 wrist band, but Nebraska State Patrol undercover investigator Nic Jaworkski testified Monday, saying he paid $8 for a wrist band that gave him all the beer he wanted.
Jaworski also said the bartender did not hesitate to over-serve customers.
"This is the reason why we have a multiple drink rule in Nebraska -- that is to stop over-service at a cheap price," said Bob Batt with the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission.
The bar does have time to appeal before it closes its doors, but if the appeal is not accepted, the bar will close in 30 days.
Owner Chris Jones said he got the idea of penny beers from area bars.
"It's somewhat of a staple in Omaha bars on holidays and things like that, and we decided to run it on Wednesdays," Jones said.
The bar had additional problems -- complaints made to the city of Omaha for serving a minor and an assault. There was also a shooting outside the bar in September that resulted in the death of Delayno Wright.
Halo has been on probation since these incidents, but the owner said he tried everything he could to make sure his employees were properly trained.
Halo's attorney said they will explore all of their legal options.


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Round 5 President Damon Lau has announced the release of three new Hall of Fame Edition figures as part of the Ultimate Collector Series 11 lineup.
The Hall of Fame release includes former UFC light heavyweight champion and the UFC's first mainstream cross-over star, Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell; five-time champion, Randy "The Natural" Couture; and the first ever UFC tournament champion, Royce Gracie.
All three Hall of Fame figures are individually numbered, with a limited run of 500 units per character. As a bonus for collectors, the Hall of Fame figures are constructed out of a clear plastic, something completely new for Round 5.
Each Hall of Fame Edition figure in Ultimate Collector Series 11 arrives on shelves in collectible and protective UFC-themed packaging that includes a short bio detailing the individual fighter, as well as the date of their Hall of Fame Induction.
The Hall of Fame Edition figures will be available only at specialty boutiques and select online retailers around the world. For more information, go to round5.com.


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I-Team: Complaint filed against Plaq. sheriff after affair with employee
The new sheriff of Plaquemines Parish swept into office on the heels of a scandal that sent his predecessor to prison, but now he is facing his own tempest -- a harassment complaint filled with federal watchdogs and the threat of a lawsuit.
It's stemming from the fallout of an affair that has one woman hurling accusations and defending herself against allegations of criminal behavior.
In the past few days, a state and federal complaint was filed against Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Lonnie Greco and some of his top staffers.
The former employee said she was mistreated and forced to resign after the relationship she had with the sheriff.
The former employee, Carol Ruggles, is taking steps through the Louisiana Commission on Human Rights and the federal system, making hefty allegations with documentation, she claims, that can back up what she is saying.
Greco was elected in 2011, after former Sheriff Jiff Hingle resigned from office. Hingle pleaded guilty to bribery charges, and Greco vowed to clean up the office's reputation.
Many of the former Sheriff's Office top staffers were fired or chose to resign, and new people were ushered in -- one of whom was Ruggles. She was hired by Greco.
Ruggles, a widow, was hired as the grant director after she served on Greco's campaign.
Ruggles said Greco was her husband's best friend, and after a few months, she entered a different sort of relationship with him.
According to Ruggles, she and Greco took trips together and spent a lot of time with one another. Greco is married.
"We were always together, and everybody knew it," she said.
In September, Greco went public with the affair; admitted to the weekly Plaquemines Parish Gazette that he had made a "personal indiscretion."
There was no indication that the affair involved Ruggles.
Greco simply said at the time, "It's humiliating, but it happened and it's a private matter."
But that's not the case any longer.
Last week, Ruggles filed a complaint against Greco and the Sheriff's Office with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- a federal agency that investigates claims of unfair and hostile work environments based on race, sex and disability, among other things.
In the detailed filing, Ruggles said she was discriminated against because of her sex and suffered retaliation stemming from her relationship with Greco.
She claims she was "forced to resign and harassed."
In her filing, she also included a mountain of text messages as evidence.
"Some of them are very graphic," she said. "He sent me a picture of his penis. He sent me a video of himself masturbating."
There are dozens of explicit messages -- all submitted as evidence in the filing with the EEOC.
While Ruggles confirmed the relationship was consensual, the complaint said the messages were exchanged while she was an employee working for Greco.
Legal analyst Robert Jenkins said that the situation is potentially problematic.
"Normally, you just have the complaint and you don't have much more. But she has more than just the complaint. She has what she says is evidence to back up the allegations," Jenkins said.
Ruggles said when she tried to end the relationship, the backlash kicked in and she was forced to resign the day after she broke off the affair.
And that's when her description of the situation takes an even more unusual turn.
About two months after she claims she was forced to step down, Ruggles was arrested on suspicion of "doctor shopping" -- basically trying to improperly obtain too many prescription pills.
State police made the arrest, saying they were given the case only after it was launched by the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office.
It appears the sheriff knew civil or federal action may be coming.
Last month, as the I-Team was investigating the allegations, WDSU asked Greco about the matter, and his office sent a statement citing pending criminal charges against Ruggles and possible civil litigation. He mentioned the likelihood of a lawsuit. Even though at that time, neither a suit nor an EEOC complaint had been filed.
Ruggles said she plans to file a harassment lawsuit before the year's end.
"Generally, you file the complaint with EEOC and they look at it, and she will go forward from there," Jenkins said.
The I-Team asked Greco for comment once more after reviewing the EEOC complaint. Under the advice of legal counsel, he said he would not be commenting.
Ruggles said the people of Plaquemines Parish, who have gone through one corrupt administration, have a right to know what's going on inside the building.
"I want people to know what happened," Ruggles said. "I fear for my safety and my kids' safety, and I want people to know what happened."
Ruggles has retained well-known criminal defense attorney Eric Hessler to represent her on the drug charge. He is asking a judge to dismiss the case based on a lack of evidence and alleged improper investigation.
Currently, the district attorney hasn't accepted the charges.
A second attorney, Jennifer Rodriguez, is handling the EEOC complaint and the anticipated lawsuit.
The WDSU I-Team also spoke with an expert in labor and employment law.
About a decade ago, Lisa Brener successfully sued the District Attorney's Office in Orleans Parish and won a seven-figure claim after a judge determined her clients were discriminated against based on race.
She reviewed Ruggles' complaint for WDSU and said, "She has an uphill battle' and in her defense, it's easy in this state to confuse sexual harassment with what happened to her. People don't understand that we are an at-will employment state, and what that means you can be terminated for any reason, even if it's not a good reason."
Brener believes that Ruggles' legal fight may be better fought in state court and not federal court.
Brener also consults various employers on harassment in the workplace.
She adds, "He's admitted it. She's admitted it. And that's what makes all the sizzle, but it's what also makes it fall flat. But the reality of it is, it's never in the best interest of the employer to enter into a sexual relationship, because if it ends, someone is not going to be happy."
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