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The City leased a 12-acre tract of land near Albina and Portland Boulevard for a new auto campground. The Parks Bureau built an administration building on the site with an assembly room and comfort stations. The new campground hosted 6,686 cars that year. The earwig infestation had not abated; in fact it had spread, so the Bureau worked with State Board of Horticulture to test an effective poisoned bait. In August, the Bureau distributed a pamphlet with a recipe containing bran, molasses, water, glycerin, and sodium fluoride - the only drawback to which was that it was also poisonous to birds and small animals. The earwigs, like the elm leaf beetles, continued to be a problem, spreading finally to 12-square-mile area.
The Community House program began in earnest this year, offering recreation and gym classes, dance classes, social dances, and handicraft work classes, as well as Boy Scout and Campfire Girl programs. Also available was the Children's Free Employment Bureau that brought together people who needed chores or babysitting performed with children interested in such work.
The public showed great interest in the zoo, yet it was in chronic disrepair; the Bureau required money from a general tax not only to extend it, but simply to maintain it. The Bureau still had limited control over street trees, and Superintendent Keyser suggested the city create the position of City Forester to oversee the trees. Eastmoreland Golf Links finally flourished this year with greens fees offsetting expenses.
The Parks Bureau acquired 12 more acres for their auto campground, adding kitchenettes, laundry facilities, drinking fountains, electric lights, garbage receptacles, and more comfort stations. This new site was considered ideal since it was right across the street from Peninsula Park, making all the features of that park readily available to campers as well. The charge was 50 cents per day limited to a ten-day stay. People in 11,149 autos stayed at the campground that year.
In the spring, a group named Portland Community Services provided an Industrial Recreation program, a Community Club program, a Junior Work program, and various recreational programs throughout the city. They sponsored basketball, baseball, tennis, music, drama, and social events. The group began a merger with the Bureau in 1924, but dissolved quickly due to a lack of space and funds, and because Superintendent Keyser stated that the City should not organize industrial and community club activities.
Dr. Henry Waldo Coe donated a bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt on horseback, dressed as a Rough Rider. Sculpted by Alexander Phimister Proctor, the statue is 18-feet-tall and cost $40,000. Vice President Calvin Coolidge broke ground in the South Park Blocks for the memorial.
Title to Eastmoreland Golf Links was finally transferred to the Parks Bureau. The City acquired Rose City Race Track, formerly for dog racing, and Aaron Gould and some neighbors mowed the lawns and laid out a nine-hole golf course with tee sand and tin-can holes. Five new comfort stations were built downtown, with a total attendance of 3,585,367! A Community House was built at Duniway Park and attendance was high. The majority of people using such facilities throughout the city were women.
Superintendent Keyser complained about the condition of the zoo, and suggested in his annual report that the Bureau should acquire a sector between Washington Park and Canyon Road to develop a park for the zoo. Although the Bureau had been continually purchasing and developing small neighborhood parks, Keyser was worried that the three large tracts of land recommended by Olmsted Brothers still had not been purchased. He believed the diminished interest in large city parks was due to an increase in the number of automobiles owned, resulting in people driving out of the city for large park excursions; in the city, people wanted small neighborhood parks.
The Parks Bureau began development of a nine-hole golf course at the old County Poor Farm, eventually to be named West Hills Golf Course. Funds were finally set aside for work on the zoo. In honor of the American Doughboy, soldiers closely allied with the French in World War I, Dr. Henry Waldo Coe donated the statue of Jeanne D'Arc (Joan of Arc) who sits atop her horse at the intersection of NE 39 and Glisan (now called Coe Circle). It appeared the elm leaf beetle was finally defeated.
Nine more holes were added to the Rose City Golf Links. The Parks Bureau acquired 12 more acres of land for the auto camp, but an ordinance was passed prohibiting auto camps within city limits by the end of 1926, so the camp was closed the following year. The new menagerie building at the zoo was completed, and the zoo was officially moved to its new site (the present location of the Japanese Garden). Admiral Dewey's flagship, Battleship Oregon, was donated to the City. This year Edna Kennedy, later known as the Storyteller Lady, teamed up with the Bureau to begin providing storytelling to children in the parks during the summer months. She would become one of the most well-known and well-loved people working for Portland Parks & Recreation.
Dr. Henry Waldo Coe donated another statue this year: a ten-foot, bronze Abraham Lincoln situated in the South Park Blocks between SW Main and Madison. Also in the South Park Blocks, but between SW Salmon and Main, a fountain of Oregon sandstone featuring a bronze female figure entitled Rebecca at the Well was donated by Joseph Shemanski. Despite earlier efforts, plans for an arboretum did not officially get underway until this year. It would take two more years before the City Council adopted the Parks Bureau's resolutions to create an arboretum for Portland. The Bureau purchased land to extend Rose City Golf Links using a $10,000 surplus loaned from Eastmoreland Golf Links until the new bond issue passed. Unfortunately, the electorate rejected the new $600,000 bond measure for more land acquisition.
Because of the defeat of the 1926 bond measure, the year's work was mostly relegated to maintenance. Superintendent Keyser, in his annual report, again noted that parks increase property value and recommended the submission of a $1 million bond issue accompanied by a consistent campaign to get it passed. Showing a great reverence for past Presidents, Dr. Henry Waldo Coe donated a bronze statue of George Washington, sculpted by Pompeii Coppini, that was placed at the intersection of NE 57 and Sandy.
Funded by donations from the public at large through promotion by the Portland Telegram newspaper to honor Fire Chief David Campbell who lost his life in the line of duty, the Campbell Memorial Fountain was placed in the triangle at West 19 and Burnside. (It has since been dedicated as a memorial to all Portland firefighters killed in the line of duty.) The bronze plaque features a portrait of Campbell and was created by American artist Avard Fairbanks.
When the Parks Bureau inherited 600 feet of waterfront at the foot of Miles Street this year, Superintendent Keyser suggested the acquisition of yet more waterfront property to develop municipally controlled yacht harbors and pleasure piers. More tennis courts and baseball diamonds were added bringing the respective totals of such sites to 55 and 13. The Portland Nursery Club prepared a bill to give the Bureau control over shade trees.
Keyser began efforts to expand Macleay Park up and down Balch Creek. The Portland Garden Club wanted a wildflower garden, so the City Council's Delinquent Tax Committee inexpensively transferred to the Parks Bureau a piece of land from the north boundary to connect under Thurman Bridge to Upshur for this purpose. The Audubon Society was working to establish a bird sanctuary on 40 acres west of Macleay Park across Cornell Road that had remained unused for 40 years. During National Forestry Week, the Forestry Committee of the Chamber of Commerce convinced the City Council to establish an arboretum in Washington Park to preserve evergreens for educational and recreational purposes. It was named Hoyt Arboretum in honor of Ralph Warren Hoyt, the county commissioner who championed the formation of the arboretum. Multnomah County gave the Bureau perpetual use of approximately 145 acres of land north of Washington Park. In addition to these changes, Keyser was intent on acquiring even more land in what is now the Forest Park area noting, "Portland could easily attain one of the largest and I daresay one of the most notable parks in the country containing a world famous rose garden, a well-situated zoo, a bird sanctuary, a distinctive Arboretum, a wildflower preserve, a forest primeval, trails, viewpoints and glens, not miles away but within our urban borders."
The shade tree bill failed, one more defeat in the decades-long battle by the Parks Bureau to gain control over the planting, trimming, and removal of street trees. Work on the Arboretum consisted mainly of extensive clearing, but the main trail was built and several Oregon specimens of gymnosperm were planted. A long-needed brick bathhouse was built in Sellwood. A Shakespeare Garden was planted on the island in Eastmoreland Park. At this time, the Bureau controlled the area at Multnomah Falls (part of the gift from Simon Benson), and they extended the lodge and constructed concession and comfort stations when the outhouse burned.
Commissioner Stanhope S. Pier outlined several improvements planned, including a pool in Albina, the expansion of both Mt. Scott and Lents Parks, and the development of Pier Park in the style of Laurelhurst, then considered perhaps the most beautiful park in the city. Portland's Parks Bureau and its parks were commended in the October 1930 issue of American Landscape Architect, "the only officially recognized trade magazine of that profession." The story included thirteen large photographs and noted how the City, despite having many rich surrounding recreational areas, provided so many wonderful playgrounds and parks of beauty within city limits. Especially praised were Laurelhurst, Washington, Mt. Tabor, and Sellwood Parks.
In 1931, the Parks Bureau boasted the following list of properties: Alberta Park, Buckman Field, Creston Park, Columbia Park, Belmont Park (now Col. Summers Park), Duniway Park, Dawson Park, Eastmoreland Golf Links, Forestry Building, Fulton Park (undeveloped), Governor's Park (undeveloped), Gammans Park, Holladay Park, Hoyt Arboretum (under development), Irving Park, Lair Hill Park, Johnson Creek Park, Kenilworth Park, Ladd's Circle & Squares, Laurelhurst Park, Laurelwood Park, Lents Park, Linnton Park, Macleay Park, Madrona Park (undeveloped), Montavilla Park, Mt. Scott Park, Mt. Tabor Park, North Park Blocks, Overlook Park (under development), Pier Park, Patton Square Park, Peninsula Park and Community Building, Powell Park, Plaza Blocks, Rose City Golf Links, South Park Blocks, Sellwood Park, Sellwood Community Building, Terwilliger Park, Grant Park, Wallace Park, Washington Park, West Hills Golf Links, Woodstock Park, and Benson Park near Multnomah Falls.
The Parks Bureau began chlorinating its pools and providing health inspections of the bath houses at approximately $7,000 over regular budget, yet the hygienic benefits were thought to outweigh the costs. High unemployment during the Depression seriously affected the Bureau in several ways. Attendance in free activities increased dramatically while golf attendance dropped by half. Superintendent Keyser suggested reducing the golf fees so people could play again, stating, "Golf is a good antidote for unrest." In addition, Civic Emergency Relief Forces, which provided the unemployed with work, brought much manpower to park projects. Hundreds of relief workers hard-surfaced drives in Washington and Mt. Tabor Parks, cleared land and planted specimens in Hoyt Arboretum, drained the swampy area of Westmoreland Park, and cleaned up the "jungle" between the highway and the river in Benson Park.
The Scott family donated a statue of Harvey W. Scott, former editor of The Oregonian, sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, and accompanied by $1,000 - the interest on which was to be used for repairs and maintenance of the statue. It was placed at the summit of Mt. Tabor Park.
The Playground and Parks Fund was overdrawn and the bond issue money was used up, so for the first time since the $1,000,000 bond issue of 1907, the Parks Bureau had no money. Eastmoreland Golf Links hosted the National Public Links Championship Tournament, marking the first time the tournament was played west of the Mississippi. Golf attendance continued to drop dramatically nonetheless. The greens fees at the golf links were lowered from 30 cents to 25 cents, but the result was a mere decrease in revenue rather than an increase in attendance. Playground attendance decreased as well although it seemed partly due to a decrease in supervision necessitated by the low budget. Community center and swimming activities were maintained at their usual rate despite the budget, and attendance increased. Superintendent Keyser attended two conferences that focused on the state of parks departments across the country, and he deemed Portland in better shape than most cities.
Budgetary restrictions increased. FDR's New Deal projects - the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Civil Conservation Corps (CCC) - were not allowed to be used for maintenance, but provided much of the manpower to improve Portland's parks. The CWA augmented golf courses, planted in the Arboretum, and provided much needed drainage in Mt. Tabor Park. One CWA project called for the Parks Bureau and the School Board to provide 12 weeks of recreation activities in five grade schools employing 33 workers and five musicians; this project was "especially significant as it demonstrated an extension of our recreation facilities by use of school houses," a cooperative agreement that still exists today. The CCC unit constructed trails, bridges, and drives, picnic areas, stone buildings, and picnic fireplaces in Benson, Oneonta, and McLoughlin Parks. The State Emergency Relief Administration project allowed a much-needed 348-person increase in playground and community center staff. The Portland Softball Association was formally organized this year.
J.E. Bennett from the Commission for Public Affairs, as part of a plan to reduce Parks Bureau debt, sold 100 life certificates at $100 each and granted to those who held them free access to the golf courses. Continued assistance from federal relief programs allowed improvements to Benson Park, the Arboretum, golf courses, and Duniway Park playground. The Annual Convention of the American Institute of Park Executives was held in Portland at the Multnomah Hotel, and Keyser was elected to a two-year term as president of the Institute. By this year, the average age of Bureau employees was 52, and Superintendent Keyser acknowledged that a retirement plan was in order.
The City Council asked the Planning Commission to produce an action report on open spaces. The investigation discovered 10,000 parcels of vacant property that was largely city-owned due to delinquency. In their report, the Commission recommended that every district in the city should have a 40-acre park within walking distance with space for athletics, flowers, trees, and grass. The schools should have playgrounds and buildings for common use. Portland needed more public facilities for water sports. Street trees and parking strips should be under municipal control. Finally, either the city should have one acre of park space per every hundred people, or 10% of city space should be devoted to parks.
The City Planning Commission followed up their report with a Plan for a System of Public Recreation Areas. While similar to the Olmsted Plan, it expanded and updated the list of projects as follows: 1) protected play areas for small children; 2) supervised playgrounds; 3) playfields; 4) neighborhood parks and community centers; and 5) large parks and pleasureways (a pleasure drive system including Fairmont and Skyline Boulevards). Under the proposed plan, the total acreage of parks would increase from 2,784 to 7,485 acres. Financing would be provided by general obligation bonds, local improvement district bonds, and special tax levies. Gertrude Russell, daughter of Governor Pennoyer, donated 1.5 acres as an addition to Governor's Park.
The Parks Bureau still relied heavily on federal relief programs. The WPA cleared and graded Council Crest Park and rebuilt the road. The first nine holes at Rose City Golf Course were redesigned, and improvements were made at the other golf courses as well. Auxiliary groups also provided aid; for example, the Mantle Club graded the ballfield in Overlook Park with their own funds. Dr. Dorothea Lensch was appointed Playground Supervisor in June and began handling the Recreation Division of the Bureau. She immediately began to work at building a coalition between the Bureau and Portland Public Schools. She started a program by which neighborhoods without community centers could still be served by a local school opening its gym and four to five classrooms for public use one night a week. Buckman was the first, and within a year, three more schools were added to the program. The average age of park employees was now 57, and Superintendent Keyser reiterated the need for a retirement plan.
Dr. Dorothea Lensch officially became the Recreation Director, supervising 11 community center directors, 48 playground directors, 14 swim directors, as well as 59 relief workers. Her philosophy was that recreation would impart discipline, enthusiasm, and satisfaction. Many activities were free and she increased the number of classes and activities offered for adults. During the Depression, adults had much leisure time, but not much money. Exercise classes, contract bridge classes, ping pong, sports, dances, and dance lessons all helped keep the community engaged in positive pastimes. Headed by Edna Kennedy (the Storyteller Lady), dance and drama programs offered courses for children and adults and produced well-attended performances. A remarkable array of arts & crafts courses were offered, from photography to cork novelties to block printing. Summer camps began this year, offering hiking, first aid, and rope tying for boys, and crafts, dance, and nature lore for girls. Archery, badminton, and field hockey were new additions to the 1937-38 season. The junior basketball tournament known as Goldenball began this year with 400 players, 42 games, and 1,200 spectators. Adult sports in community, industrial, and club/church divisions included basketball, softball, and baseball. Softball was the most popular with 100 teams. Voters approved a .4-mill tax levy referendum sponsored and promoted by Federated Community Clubs.
The City Planning Commission produced a Recommended Ten-Year Park Program, essentially an update of the 1936-37 plan, which proposed to spend $1 million over a ten-year period. Funds would be provided by the .4-mill tax levy. The money would pay for 50 playgrounds, seven playfields, and 14 neighborhood parks. Ironically, this year the City faced severe budget cuts, and the City Council stripped the Parks Bureau of 18% of its budget. Nevertheless, the Recreation Division added more arts activities, scientific experimentation hobbies groups, speech courses, and current events courses. Funding was maintained for filtering systems for two parks, softball field lights, improvements at Pier Park, and a community house at Columbia Park. Because theft and loss of items at the swimming tanks had become a huge problem, $2,800 was allotted for checkers to check in items at the tanks. WPA workers completed a 375-foot tunnel at the south entrance of Rocky Butte.
A struggle ensued throughout the year between the Bureau and the citizens of the Moreland area over the unfinished state of Westmoreland Park. Citizens complained that the park resembled a "buffalo wallow" and had become basically a "slime pool." After many complaints, the WPA allocated $27,000 to complete the project. By November, with the addition of $7,000 in Bureau funds, Westmoreland Park became an enjoyable park, with a casting pool and model yacht basin featuring a concrete bottom, and two sub-drained playfields. Further funding was made available for comfort stations, lights, and playground equipment.
The Recreation Division began the New Little Theater program that featured productions of Our Town, as well as assorted Shakespeare plays and Greek tragedies. This was the first year the Portland Softball Association allowed women and juniors to play in its leagues, boosting the total number of teams to 188. The Portland Basketball Association and the Portland Women's Basketball League offered adult basketball, and Goldenball continued to be popular among youth. Soccer, boxing, and wrestling were now made available by community groups in conjunction with community centers. The Parks Bureau began sponsoring zoo tours that took visitors to restricted areas and educated them about zoo procedures, animals, and animal care. Improving upon relations with Portland Public Schools, the Bureau used fifteen school buildings for courses and activities while granting schools the use of sports fields and tennis courts, and offering archery and dance instruction to PPS students. Dorothea Lensch worked tirelessly to advocate the cause of parks and recreation. In 1940, she gave 95 talks about parks and recreation development and its importance in the community; she also sponsored 15 radio lectures and eight guest programs on the subject. Superintendent Keyser did his part to publicize the cause as well; for example, he gave an 11-page speech on recreation to the Convention of the Oregon State Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation.


text:
Apologies for shouting, but I'm tearing my hair out with this HELP!
Apologies for shouting, but I'm tearing my hair out with this one. I'm maintaining
an app. developed under VB6 and which uses a number of User Controls which
themselves have been used to build other composite controls. All controls
exist within the project and are not externally compiled OCXs.
The app. works fine on my NT4 w/station development machine but when I try
to run it on a reasonably 'clean' Win 95 machine I get the following error
'Failed to load control 'FixedCombo' from . Your version of may be outdated.
Make sure you are using the version of the control that was provided with
your application.' (Note the spaces in the message).
I am familiar with this message in relation to third party and other externally
complied OCXs but not with intrinsic user controls. Can anyone offer some
advice on this one?

subset: commoncrawl


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To add a Gay Welcome listing, please register below.
The first step in adding your property to the Gay Welcome website is to become a member of GETA, the Gay European Tourism Association. Membership is and always will be completely free. Just fill in the form below.
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Click here for a preview of the Gay Welcome website >
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Gay Welcome has been developed by GETA, the Gay European Tourism Association, to help businesses like yours tap in to the European gay travel market, estimated at €50billion per year. Gay people have greater disposable income and travel more than their straight friends. So many smart businesses now see the gay travel market as a great new source of revenue and profits.GETA's mission is twofold:
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text:
Editor fired over racial slur against Rihanna
AMSTERDAM (AP) — The editor of a Dutch fashion magazine has been fired after using a racial slur referring to Barbados-born Rihanna that set off a social media furor and prompted an outraged response from the singer.
Eva Hoeke, editor of "Jackie," and the magazine's publisher said in a joint statement on Facebook that Hoeke's use of a racial slur — "although without malicious intentions" — was cause for her departure after eight years on the job.
Hoeke said she was unaware the word was so loaded because "you hear it all the time on radio and TV." It was used in an article on how to dress your daughter like a pop star.
By Wednesday, the Facebook apology had attracted hundreds of comments, many condemning Hoeke but some saying the reaction was overblown.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.


text:
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Capable of full high-definition (1920 x 1080 pixels) video processing and audio processing necessary for full segment broadcasting.


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Police fended off a machete attack by a woman who is the "common-law wife" of one suspected arsonist, and the mother of another.
The story of two suspected serial arsonists took a dramatic turn when a woman who is the common-law wife of one and mother of the other waved a metal skull and swung a machete at police when detectives went to their home to serve a search warrant, police said.
"I do voodoo. I am from Haiti," Myrna I. Antoine, 41, told the officers, they said, as she waved a red scarf and chanted in a ritualistic fashion.
Police fended off the attack, and arrested Antoine, of 352 Wareham St., where she lives with arson suspects Mark W. Sargent, 45, and Jeanmarie D. Louis, 23.
Sargent and Louis were arrested Wednesday night on arson charges in connection with a West Bridgewater fire. Authorities said they are linked to 24 arson fires in southeastern Massachusetts since September.
Myrna Antoine was described in court as the "common-law wife" of Sargent, and the mother of Louis. She and Sargent also have two children of their own.
The alleged machete incident happened at 1:30 a.m. Thursday, just a few hours after police arrested Sargent and Louis.
Early Thursday morning, police said, they went to the family's rented home to protect evidence, and said they found Antoine clad only in a robe. There were two boys in the home: a sleeping 13-year-old and a 2-year-old who was awake.
Detective Simonne M. Ryder said Antoine was intoxicated, and when she suggested Antoine put on some clothes, the woman began to slip off her robe in front of police and donned a wig.
Ryder said Antoine waved a red scarf, sipped from a bottle and spit the liquid around the room as she chanted.
Ryder removed the 2-year-old from the room, leaving Antoine with Detective Kristopher Dees and when she returned, Antoine was holding an ornamental skull and still chanting, Ryder said.
Then Antoine threw the skull, grabbed a machete from a corner of the room and started swinging, Ryder said.
The toddler had come back into the room, but Ryder blocked him, as she and Dees drew their weapons on Antoine.
"She put the machete down and we cuffed her," Ryder said.
Antoine was charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a machete, and held in protective custody. The machete was at least a foot long.
Her two sons were taken into custody by the state Department of Children and Families.
Ryder noted Antoine's home was neat and clean and there was food in the cupboards. Antoine was released after she was arraigned at Wareham District Court and her case continued to March 22.
Ryder said Antoine, when booked, was worried she'd be late for a certified nursing assistant job in Plymouth. Anne Roach, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health, said Friday her agency does not have any records on Antoine.
"We do not have a listing for a certified nursing assistant for that name," Roache said in an email.
Ross Feinstein, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to release Antoine's legal status, and whether she is a citizen or a legal immigrant.
"All I am going to say at this time is that we are aware of these cases, and are monitoring," he said in an email.
Sargent and Louis were held without bail after their arraignments on Thursday, and are due back in Brockton District Court on Feb. 6 for a dangerousness hearing.
The arson fires occurred in Easton, Hanover, Taunton, Middleboro, Raynham and other locations in the Brockton area and South Shore.


text: LIVE: Stampede confirms 101st edition will go aheadCalgary Herald 01.08.2014Jan Fichtner, a residence of Britannia cleans up through the flood damaged items at her home.Tijana Martin / Calgary HeraldShareAdjustCommentPrint Related Mayor announces mandatory restrictions on outdoor water usage Updates: Three confirmed dead in flood; residents along Elbow River may soon return home City emergency update: "Extremely unlikely" downtown will reopen Monday Join Herald reporters and photographers as they report on the recovery efforts from record floods in Calgary, High River, Canmore, Medicine Hat and other places in southern Alberta. Comments We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information. xShareLIVE: Stampede confirms 101st edition will go ahead Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google Linkedin


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Small potatoes? Dowdell could be looking at life
Don Corleone, aka the Godfather, famously said, "A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns."
He's no lawyer, and briefcases aren't allowed in jail, but federal prosecutors say that 56-year-old Terrence Lee Dowdell has stolen about a hundred million dollars. And he did it using one of the oldest financial swindles: a Ponzi scheme.
Dowdell's lawyers, meanwhile, claim that the incarcerated Albemarlean really thought he could find a way to pay back those millions– and provide hefty returns. More on that later.
It's the second floor of the Federal Courthouse on Vinegar Hill, and Terry Dowdell looks nothing like the financial hotshot of yore. Once a chief financial officer with the Templeton Fund, Dowdell is spending this recent hearing freed from handcuffs– but still dressed in the black and white horizontal stripes provided by the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Federal prosecutors say Dowdell is a con man who raised up to $120 million from unwitting investors around the world. The feds say he funded a Pantops mountain car repair shop to launder some of that money and provide jobs for family members. They say he pumped plenty of his ill-gotten gains into a lavish Albemarle County lifestyle.
This day, however, the only regal things about Dowdell are his royal blue tennis shoes. Besides the laceless jail-issue footwear, the heavy-set Dowdell sports a salt-and-pepper goatee and receding gray hair cinched with a rubber band into a tiny ponytail. He won't comment on his situation, but a relative, Tim Pierce of Palm Harbor, Florida, speaks up.
"My brother-in-law is not this person the courts have made him out to be," says Pierce, whose sister is married to Dowdell. "There's no doubt in my mind of his innocence, despite statements he's made, and I'll take that to the grave."
Dowdell's most recent statements have included pleading guilty to 20 federal felony charges, including securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
Like Don Corleone, Dowdell didn't soil his hands with money or deal directly with his victims. Authorities say he used intermediaries to lure investors into his "Vavasseur Program." Named for his Bahamas-based company, the scheme would supposedly buy discounted overseas financial instruments and deliver no-risk returns of four percent per week for forty weeks– or an unheard-of 160 percent in less than a year.
Like all Ponzi schemes, early investors got paid with money from new investors. Dowdell, authorities allege, was telling his brokers to inform their wide-eyed prey that they were buying "medium term debenture instruments... issued by one or more of the major money center banks of either North America or Western Europe."
In his plea agreement, however, Dowdell admitted that there were no such magical financial instruments. Instead, he lavished money on himself, his associates, and his family.
Earlier this month, Dowdell's daughter and wife were slapped with civil orders that repossessed the family houses, jewelry, and more.
Daughter Rebecca Dowdell must repay about a million dollars in loans that originated from her father's victims. In a separate June 5 civil order, Dowdell's wife, Mary, was ordered to turn over her interest in five properties, give up jewels and home furnishings– and pay back $4.8 million. Rebecca, who recently gave birth to her second child, was also ordered to relinquish $145,000 in cash and her $300,000 home at 1464 Birchcrest Lane in Forest Lakes South. Neither woman was ever charged with a crime or with knowingly receiving stolen money.
"The bottom line," says their lawyer, R. Lee Livingston, "is that they are victims second only to the investors."
Stolen money had a bizarre habit, however, of finding its way into the family coffers.
In January 2002, a car repair shop– Authorized Auto Inc.– opened on Pantops. Shareholders in the company: Terry Dowdell, Adam Dowdell, Rebecca Dowdell, Wendetta Dowdell, Mary Dowdell, and Wayne Hensley. All well and good– except that the government says that Terry Dowdell set up the operation with a million dollars in Vavasseur investor funds after his assets had been ordered frozen. It didn't stop there.
In November 2002– two months after the receiver had taken over Authorized Auto– a plan was formulated to allow Dowdell's relatives to buy the shop for a quarter of a million dollars. However, the $25,000 down payment to the court-appointed receiver turned out to be more "tainted money" from Vavasseur investors. Again, Dowdell had moved funds from a secret stash. In this case, the money moved from Brussels to an associate in California and then to the receiver.
The receiver now believes that a total of about $1.25 million of investor cash was funneled into Authorized Auto, which was such a money-loser that he shut it down in January of this year.
Authorized's assets were slated for the auction block on Wednesday, June 25, the day this issue of the Hook is printed.
The money Dowdell and his associates took from investors– typically a minimum of $100,000 each– may never receive a full accounting. Can early investors expect to keep their amazing early returns? Can Dowdell's wife realistically be expected to cough up over $5 million?
An Australian investor who cut a $5 million check for Dowdell's scheme probably hopes so. Ditto for the Briton who invested $4 million. But they haven't come forward publicly.
"They're embarrassed," says Roy M. Terry Jr., the Richmond lawyer who is serving as the government's receiver. "They feel like they've done the stupidest thing in their lives."
While only $70 million of the $120 million raised from investors has been accounted for, and only $25 million of that is safely under his control, Terry describes overseas money as the "wild card" and notes, for example, that he soon plans to initiate litigation in Ireland to flush out more foreign accounts.
"There's a lot of money out there still that we're going to go after," says Terry. In the past week, he's communicated with individuals in England, Sweden, and Australia. Soon, he'll place ads in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times to locate more duped investors. Doling it out, however, presents another conundrum: Whose money is it?
Then there's the $50 million that's still missing.
One person who might know something is Birgit G. "Gita" Mechlenburg. A Danish citizen who lived in America until recently, Mechlenburg was banned in 1996 from selling securities because of her participation in a Massachusetts "investment club" with similarities to Dowdell's scheme. With $20,000 of her own, and her mother the next in line, Mechlenburg became Dowdell's first investor, according to court papers.
Her due diligence, they say, was non-existent, and she soon became one of Dowdell's top brokers, with a client list that invested as much as $13 million. Authorities allege that in July 2002, after months of stymieing their investigation by professing the legitimacy of the Vavasseur Program, Mechlenburg suddenly loaded the contents of her Lenox, Massachusetts, home into a "large shipping container" and fled the country. She's been hit with $120,000 in civil penalties and ordered to pay back the $1.6 million in commissions she took from investors. But she hasn't paid, and she remains at large.
The Dowdell investigation first made headlines in November 2001 when a civil complaint was filed in the federal courthouse in downtown Charlottesville. Authorities thought Dowdell was cooperating. This is when they froze his accounts and believing his assurances that his financial shenanigans had stopped– granted him a monthly $4,000 living allowance. Count them among the duped.
In the spring of 2002, Dowdell allegedly recruited two friends– brothers Gregory and Mark Smyth of Laguna Niguel, California– to retrieve $850,000 in supposedly frozen overseas funds.
The latter Smyth is a lawyer who the California State Bar Association says had been suspended from the Bar in 1995 and resigned the following year with disciplinary charges pending. Calls to his office went unreturned.
Authorities were agog over the $850,000 audacity.
Terry Dowdell is an "unrepentant liar and manipulator," according to a January declaration filed by government attorney Steven J. Levine. "Just as this man was having his attorneys seek additional funds each month from his frozen assets," Levine wrote, "he was having his minions write checks to his pool maintenance company, so that Dowdell could continue to enjoy his daily swim in the pool that he purchased with stolen money."
That waterfall-enhanced gunnite-and-tile pool, along with four late-model vehicles, a few signed Thomas Kinkade prints, a 45-diamond tennis bracelet, and hundreds of other alleged spoils of scamming were auctioned off May 10.
A release from Motley's Auctions says the former Dowdell mansion, the auction's biggest booty, was purchased by "a doctor from Harvard." According to court records, that residence at 3313 Rosewood Lane near Ivy, was purchased by James A. and Susan S. Burns for $1.045 million, including 10 percent for the auctioneer. Dowdell's nearby empty lot in the same cushy Rosemont Estates subdivision went to Stuart L. Guskind for $203,500.
But Dowdell's days of wine in Rosemont had already ended. Ironically, for a man facing the prospect of life in prison for his felonies, it was a civil charge that imprisoned him. In March, he was jailed for contempt– for moving that $850,000 through the Smyth brothers.
"Dowdell has continuously played marbles on the coattails of this court," fumed federal judge J. Harry Michael in his March 5 incarceration order.
"He's pissed," says one financial expert, who is closely watching the criminal case, over which Judge Michael also presides. "This is a senior judge who can pick and choose his cases, and he picked this one."
At the recent hearing downtown, the elderly judge seemed unimpressed when a criminal defense lawyer from powerhouse D.C. law firm Patton Boggs tried to downplay Dowdell's deeds by putting them in the context of corporate mega-scandals such as Enron and Worldcom.
"What is your view," demanded Michael, "of what it would take to make this extraordinary? Would it be $500 million– or a billion? What would it take?"
The lawyer, Robert Luskin, took the bait.
"I'm sorry to say," answered Luskin, "but based on what I've read in the papers, fifty million dollars is small potatoes."
After the hearing, fellow defense counsel Fred Heblich said Dowdell, like many investment managers, was so obsessed with finding the "holy grail" of investments that he convinced himself the gigantic returns he was promising were possible.
"His intention wasn't to run a Ponzi scheme," says Heblich. "He'd tell you he could find [high-yield investments]. But before he found one," says Heblich, "he got prosecuted."
Such schemes are dubbed "Prime Bank Frauds" by the SEC. "The sellers frequently tell potential investors that they have special access to programs that otherwise would be reserved for top financiers on Wall Street, or in London, Geneva, or other world financial centers," according to the website the SEC maintains to warn away investors.
The Dowdell affair has grabbed some national attention– particularly a June 9 story in Forbes entitled "Thieves Don't Quit."
The massive civil suit from the Securities and Exchange Commission resulted, on June 5, in a court order that Dowdell pay a $1 million fine and return about $130 million in funds (including interest) from swindled investors.
Meanwhile, back at the criminal case, the issue now is whether Dowdell should spend about eight years in prison– or life.
Heblich says that in entering the guilty plea, the defense team figured that eight years was the appropriate sentence. But as it turned out, the feds made a crucial mistake while drafting the plea agreement. They used outdated sentencing guidelines which are much more lenient than the 2001 sentencing guidelines that should have applied– and would have put Dowdell away for the rest of his life.
"It's pretty political," claims Heblich of the 2001 guidelines. "What they've done is ratchet up the white-collar penalties because everyone's screaming."
Judge Michael must now decide whether to throw out the whole plea agreement, try to apply the new guidelines, or– as lawyer Luskin requested– devise a "hybrid" sentence, which would keep his client in jail for about ten years, still a "horrible prospect" for the middle-aged Dowdell, according to Luskin.
"The rule-makers have presented us with a dog's breakfast," said Luskin. "It's rarely the case that those who serve it eat it, your honor."
Judge Michael seemed to agree. At the close of the hearing, the judge stepped down from the bench and shook hands with Dowdell before the accused was handcuffed and led away to wonder about his sentence.
The ruling is expected any day now.


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It seems that typography based invitations are currently quite popular in the wedding world. Nearly half of my current custom design clients are asking for invitations with very minimal embellishments and we are focusing on either traditional text only designs or modern "type as a graphic" looks. I LOVE this! One of my favorite things is to let the fonts on an invitation lead the design and I'm really enjoying working through the process with so many different couples. Of course I'll be sure to share the end results as a few of the designs are ultimately going to be part of my Signature Collection.
I thought it would be fun to share a few of my favorite fonts – both traditional & modern – some old & some new!
Many of these can be seen in use on the typography based designs currently in the Fuzzynk Signature Collection invitations. Here are a couple of my favorite examples!


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James Rudes, PhD
Associate Professor
PhD, Family Therapy, Nova University
MSW, Social Work, New York University
BA, Psychology, Hunter College
Jim Rudes joined the Counseling Program in the Adrian Dominican School of Education as Assistant Professor in 2003. Dr. Rudes holds a B.A. in psychology from Hunter College, an MSW in social work from New York University, and a PhD in family therapy from Nova University. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. He is an AAMFT (American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy) Approved Supervisor. An ongoing project is researching the light at the end of the tunnel. He has presented professional workshops at national and international conferences. His professional interests include postmodern theory, social constructionism, narrative practices, reflecting teams, and supervision. As of late, he is exploring Bowen Theory and experimenting with applying it to Postmodern practices. He recently completed a three year training program in Bowen family Systems, and is on the Board of the Florida family Research Network, a nonprofit organization to advance the natural systems theory developed by Murray Bowen, MD. The author of numerous publications, Dr. Rudes is best known for his contributions to narrative and postmodern applications to counseling and therapy.
Selected Publications
- Guterman, J. T., Martin, C.V., & Rudes, J.(2011). A solution-focused approach to frotteurism. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 30, 59-72.
- Butler, S., Guterman, J.T., & Rudes, J. (2009). Using puppets with children in narrative therapy to externalize the problem. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 31, 225-233.
- Guterman, J.T., & Rudes, J. (2008). Social constructionism and ethics: Implications for counseling. Counseling and Values, 52, 136-144.
- Da Costa, D., Nelson, T.M., Rudes, J., & Guterman, J.T. (2007). A narrative approach to body dysmorphic disorder. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 29, 67-80.
- Rudes, J., & Guterman, J.T. (2007). The value of social constructionism for the counseling profession: A reply to Hansen. Journal of Counseling & Development, 85, 387-392.
- Guterman, J.T., & Rudes, J. (2005). A solution-focused approach to rational-emotive behavior therapy: Toward a theoretical integration. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 23(3), 223-244.
- Guterman, J.T., & Rudes, J. (2005). A narrative approach to strategic eclecticism. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 27, 1-12.
- Rudes, J., & Guterman, J.T. (2005). Doing counseling: Bridging the modern and postmodern paradigms. In G.R. Waltz & R. Yep (Eds.), VISTAS: Compelling Perspectives in Counseling 2005 (pp. 7-10). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.
Selected Presentations
- Rudes, J. & Shatz, K. (2012).The twin territories of Story development. Workshop presented at therapeutic Conversations X, Vancouver, Canada.
- Rudes, J. (2006, May 27). Four questions family therapy asks: A postmodern reflection. Workshop presented at the Florida Association for Marriage and Family Therapy 's 2006 annual convention, Palm Beach Gardens, FL.
- Guterman, J.T., & Rudes, J. (2005, April 9). Doing counseling: Bridging the modern and postmodern paradigms. Workshop presented at the American Counseling Association's 2005 annual convention, Atlanta, GA.
- Gallant, P., & Rudes, J. (2004, May 7). Listening for the extraordinary in the everyday descriptions of people's lives. Workshop presented at the Therapeutic Conversations annual conference, Vancouver, BC.


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Amazon to Run SAP Applications in the Cloud
It's been only a few weeks since Amazon conducted its lengthy post mortem of the cloud services outage that brought it and so many of its customers to a screeching halt. Those troubles behind it, Amazon Web Services is now getting back to normal activities, like adding suites of applications to its cloud.
Today Amazon announced that it is working with SAP, the business software company, to not only run several of its key applications in the cloud, but that the Amazon Web Services environment has been certified by SAP. The applications include SAP Rapid Deployment, and SAP Business Objects. These applications account for about half of SAP's business.
Typically, SAP applications are deployed on the customer's own in-house infrastructure, and though it's not uncommon for AWS customers to run SAP, it's usually for test and development purposes, though some do so in a full production environment, Adam Selipsky, vice president of Product Management for Amazon Web Services told me yesterday. SAP customers, whether new or existing, can use their SAP software licenses and move their applications to AWS and cut down on their operating costs. Selipsky said that SAP has done a lot of work testing and optimizing its software to run in the AWS environment, and that the benchmarking shows that it runs as well on AWS as it does on traditional infrastructure.
One application that isn't certified–at least not yet–is SAP's Enterprise Resource Planning software. Selipsky says Amazon and SAP are working to certify that application now. "There's so much demand for this from our customers we didn't want to hold anything up," he said. He expects ERP certification to "happen shortly."
Since it was the first time I've spoken to Selipsky since he was the subject of a Seven Questions interview in March, and since memories of the AWS outage are still fresh, I asked if he had anything new to say about the outage and its implications, especially in the context of adding a new service like SAP, which companies actually use to run their businesses.
"I think we were as thorough as we knew how to be in our 10-page post mortem. We tried to say everything we knew," he said. "All I can say is we've got many large corporations around the world who are eager to run SAP on AWS. So our business continues to go strong and grow quickly." I asked him if AWS has lost any customers because of the outage. He said "none that I'm aware of." At least one survey showing Amazon cloud customers were more or less unfazed by the outage suggests he's right.
Meanwhile Amazon shares are up by more than 12 percent since the end of April. As a percentage of Amazon's business, AWS is still pretty small, but as everyone knows it punches above its weight in terms of influence, given the number of small and medium Web companies that rely upon it. Much of that surge in Amazon's value has come on speculation that it is about to get into the tablet business.