text:
August 4, 2011
Transcript for Sidling Up to Difference
Krista Tippett, host: The 1953 marriage of the philosopher Anthony Appiah's African father and British mother helped inspire the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. And stories of his multiracial, multinational family infuse his thinking now on subjects like human identity, ethics in a world of strangers, and how moral revolutions happen. As part of our Civil Conversations Project, I wanted to hear how he might weigh in on moral confusions and stalemates in the contemporary U.S. Now an American citizen, Anthony Appiah believes that we are called to nothing less than "managing the republic" together. And his prescriptions for this are down to earth. Our starting point with others, he says, doesn't have to be dialogue. It can be conversation in the old-fashioned sense of simple association, seeking familiarity around mundane human qualities of who we are.
Mr. Kwame Anthony Appiah: Sometimes people think that, you know, the only way to deal with these big differences between religions or around moral questions is to kind of face up to the difference directly. But I think often, as it were, sidling up to it is better and sidling up to it can be done by not facing Islam, but facing, you know, Leyla and Achmed and Mohammed with whom you don't talk about religion most of the time. You talk about soccer or you talk about rock music or whatever it is you have in common as an interest.
Ms. Tippett: I'm Krista Tippett, and this is On Being.
Ms. Tippett: Kwame Anthony Appiah is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. I spoke with him in 2011.
He's gained renown in and beyond philosophical circles for his readable books, including Cosmopolitanism and The Honor Code. That 2010 book looked at the ingredients of moral change in various societies across time — the end of foot binding in China, slave trading in the British Empire, and of dueling as an honorable way to resolve disputes. Every culture has examples like this — practices that were once part and parcel of respectability, but of which later generations ask, 'How could we possibly have lived that way?'
Both of Anthony Appiah's own parents came from leading families in their respective countries, but many experienced their union as morally unthinkable. He grew up between Great Britain and the country we now know as Ghana. His mother was the daughter of a former British chancellor of the exchequer, and her marriage to a black African was one of two interracial unions that rocked British society and became the stuff of international headlines.
Ms. Tippett: I mean, as a background to your work on how moral change happens, it's fascinating that in some sense you and your family lived a profound shift in cultural perception and mores, something that was the subject of real condemnation that changed within a generation really.
Mr. Appiah: It did. And I think if you live within a change like that, it can often seem less puzzling to you than it does to all the people around you. So I know that when we went, as children, to visit my mother's mother in England, my English grandmother, when we sort of stepped off the plane, the newspapers would always say, "So you're leaving him, are you?"
Ms. Tippett: Really?
Mr. Appiah: And she would say, "No, I've just come to see my mother with her grandchildren." I think there was a kind of assumption that it couldn't possibly work or at least that it would be a better story if it didn't work. So the fact that they lived together until my father died and then my mother stayed in Ghana until she died, I think that perhaps would have surprised some of the people who were against it at the start. But they never seemed to have had any doubt that it was the right thing to do.
I do think that a significant part of that had to do both with the fact that their own families were supportive on both sides and with the fact that they were both devout Christians. I think that the sense that they both had was that you couldn't possibly as a Christian be opposed to interracial marriage and that therefore it couldn't possibly be wrong was very strong…
Ms. Tippett: That's very interesting.
Mr. Appiah: …and very sustaining for them, I think. The sense that — you know, when people criticize something you do and if there's enough of them, you can come to wonder whether they're right. But I don't think they ever had any doubt about the rightness of what they were doing.
Ms. Tippett: And how did you gravitate towards philosophy when you were at Cambridge?
Mr. Appiah: Well, you know, you can tell the story in various ways. At the time, I — so I went to university to be a medical student and I had always thought I was going to be a doctor from very young, I think, because I loved my own doctor when I was a child. But I think I can fairly say that I absolutely hated it. I found it really, really boring, so I scraped through the first year almost being thrown out for being incompetent, and changed to philosophy, which I immediately loved.
I loved the sort of challenge of sitting down with all kinds of questions, whether they were in ethics or metaphysics or epistemology and struggling to think them through by reading what other people had written about them and by focusing on them deep into the night myself. So I sort of came home to philosophy and I think, you know, if you ask why — why this is sort of connected with the religion thing, because the reason I started reading philosophy in the first place was because, as a young Evangelical teenager, I got interested both in theology and philosophy because, you know, if you are a serious young person…
Ms. Tippett: That's what it's about.
Mr. Appiah: …that's what it's about.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you know that this program's been around for seven years and we've just changed the name. This is just an aside, but it was originally called Speaking of Faith, and we've recently changed the name to On Being. It's partly as a recognition that what we're tracing when, you know, we say that we trace meaning, religion, ethics, and ideas, there is this core-animating question of what it means to be human and that in fact is there in the religious enterprise, although it's not restricted to it.
Mr. Appiah: Right. No, I think that was at the heart of most of what I've done in philosophy in the last decade or more really has been a preoccupation with that central question and ethics, which is what is it for a human life to go well? What is it for one to have a life of significance? What is it to have the kind of life that you can look back on at the end and say that was a life worth living, a life well lived?
You know, my kind of Christmas cracker version of my philosophy, the thing that I would put on a piece of paper inside a Christmas cracker if I had to, is everything's very complicated. Everything's more complicated than you thought at first. And it turns out that when you're trying to think about what it is to lead a life of significance, what it is for human life to go well, many, many things are relevant. And in that sense, it's a very complicated project. And so you're not going to run out of subjects.
Ms. Tippett: And a surprise unexpected, yeah.
Mr. Appiah: Yes, I think that's true. I think almost anything that someone says to you, it could be a kind of parlor game. Someone could say to you, "So here's something that can't have anything to do with the meaning of human life," and your task is to explain why it does.
Ms. Tippett: So with this perspective of yours, this interest of yours, and also the work you've done in recent years with the notions of cosmopolitanism and honor, I kind of want to ask a big wide open question here about there's been a lot of divisiveness and rancor in American life. Certainly in our political life, it's waxed and waned over the last ten years. Then in recent months, we have some new divisions. We have some new players, you know, which create new divides. We have the Tea Party on one side, right, and then liberal elites on the other. I mean, these aren't new, but the categories have shifted a bit. I think it feels to many people — I'm not sure this is true, but it feels like the rancor has gotten worse.
Mr. Appiah: Mm-hmm.
Ms. Tippett: So I just wonder how have you, when you look at these kinds of hostilities and tensions in U.S. culture in terms of how we navigate difference or fail to, for example, what do you see in terms of the causes of gridlock, what's gone wrong or also where do you see sources of different possibilities? Start to talk to me about that.
Mr. Appiah: Well, I think — I mean, the first thing I want to do is sort of confess that, you know, like everybody I think who cares about what happens in our society and follows what happens in societies, I get pretty cross myself sometimes. I get mad at people. I try very hard not to, you know, turn that anger into immediately abusing them or sending out an angry e-mail declaring them to the spawn of the devil — because it isn't helpful.
Ms. Tippett: Even if you think that might be true.
Mr. Appiah: Even if it makes you feel terrific for a moment. I think that, you know, I'm these are — I'm sure other people have suggested this to you, but, I mean, one of the things that's changed is that more people can express themselves without any editing than ever before in human history.
Ms. Tippett: Right. Right.
Mr. Appiah: And not just with that — you know, one thing an editor does is actually mean that there's a distance in time between the first thing you say and when it goes out.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah. You know, that's a really simple, but very significant observation, I think.
Mr. Appiah: Well, and it is — it's a large part of the problem. Everybody who talks about, you know, Internet etiquette and flaming and all that says basically the equivalent of what my — actually what my grandmother used to say to me when I was about to send off an angry letter. She'd say, "Why don't you put that under your pillow overnight and see how you feel in the morning?" The trouble is, the send button doesn't come with a 24-hour delay built into it.
Ms. Tippett: So we have all this raw emotion flying around.
Mr. Appiah: Also, we have raw emotion without one of the things that normally constrains its expression, which is the presence of the other person. It's harder to use the kind of language that people routinely use on the Web to someone's face, even a stranger, but especially someone you know. If they're sort of physically present, we get feedback from their face. Once you move from email to email to Skype, you get back the human face. You get back the shocked look in the eyes of the other person.
Ms. Tippett: I'm Krista Tippett and this is On Being. Today, with the philosopher of identity and moral difference, Anthony Appiah. When I spoke with him in 2011, the Green Bay Packers had just beaten the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Superbowl. Anthony Appiah used the game to illustrate the difficulties that we often face — on issues large and small — when we talk across differences.
Mr. Appiah: There's another set of things going on again — none of this is original to me, which is a kind of the consumer choice dimension of the new technologies which we're inclined to celebrate does mean that it's hard to have a public square. What you get is a million private squares. And if you're going to run a republic together of 300 million people, you got to have somewhere where, you know, you're having a kind of general conversation that can be attended to by everybody and where you can try to agree on what the basic parameters are of the things that you agree about. You know, is the planet's average temperature going up or not?
And also the things that you disagree about. You know, is it or is it not OK to terminate pregnancies in the first trimester? But if you have only conversations among the people who think that it isn't OK and then other conversations with people who think it is OK, you're just going to get a permanent blockage. Now, again, I want to begin by confessing that I don't spend an awful lot of my time trying to seek out people…
Ms. Tippett: — who are different from you to have a conversation.
Mr. Appiah: …who are different from me on these topics. I don't really want to hang out with people who are homophobic, for example. But one of the most powerful reasons why America is less homophobic than it was when I came to it nearly 30 years ago is because lots of gay people came out and started talking to people who weren't very comfortable around gay people, and suddenly those people discovered that you could be comfortable around gay people. Then they got angry that other people were not being nice to them. So there is a difficulty, I think, which is how do we create places where people who disagree about these things, which are important disagreements? You have to come together in what I call — I use the metaphor of conversation. And the point about conversation is that it doesn't have a point.
Ms. Tippett: But you're using the word "conversation" as something larger than words that pass between two people. I mean, define conversation, first of all.
Mr. Appiah: Exactly. Well, those sort of — you know, you're sitting down with a friend in a bar and you're chatting and it's about the Super Bowl or it'll be about Egypt. You're not talking to your friend about the Super Bowl because it makes any difference to what happens. The Super Bowl is over. You're not trying to — you know, you're not changing anything. Nor — I came into this studio with a Steelers cap on, as it happens, which I confess before the nation. But I'm not going to have — if I talk to somebody who's a fan of those other guys from Wisconsin, I'm not expecting them at the end of the conversation to say, "You're right, you know, the Steelers are definitely the team I should follow. They're definitely the better team." Obviously, they discuss it, talk about it, not to come to some kind of agreement, not to change each other, just to be together, enjoy one another's company.
If you have that background of relationship between individuals and communities that is in that sense conversational, then when you have to talk about the things that do divide you, you have a better platform. You can begin with the assumption that you like and respect each other even though you don't agree about everything, and you can maybe build on that. And you can know that, at the end of the conversation, it's quite likely that you'll both think something pretty close to what you both thought at the start. But you might at least have a deeper appreciation for the other person's, um, point of view, and that turns out to make it easier to accept the outcome, whether it's the outcome you favor or the outcome the other person favors.
People who've been heard and whose position is understood — this is one of the great virtues of democracy when it's working — tend to be more willing to accept an outcome that they wouldn't have chosen because they feel they've had voice; they've participated in the process. One of the reasons why those who say that we might have done a better job with abortion if we'd settled it through the legislature rather than through the courts is, I think, because if we'd settled through legislatures, we'd have had to have kept, as it were, talking to one another. Whereas, if you declare something to be a constitutional right, that's sort of a conversation stopper.
Ms. Tippett: And then you move on with what has been decided.
Mr. Appiah: Right. And if more of that mess, which is what a conversation is like — conversation is not about principles and coming to complicated agreements, it's just about hearing all the mess. If more of that mess had been represented, we'd have a much messier legislative situation, but we might have more consensus about the rights that we had arrived at in that way.
Ms. Tippett: Right. I mean, you've used language like conversation in its older meanings like habits of coexistence, association, living together, right?
Mr. Appiah: Yes. And I think that, you know, if you think about the background of endless conversation with your friends, that is, the sort of texture of your relationship with them, it's against that background that you can have friends. You know, no group of friends agrees about everything and some of the things you disagree about are serious, right? I have friends who are under the mistaken conviction that it was a good thing that the Packers won the Super Bowl and I have to accept that and this is a serious disagreement.
But more importantly, I have friends who are Catholics and I have friends who are atheists who do Seders once a year and I have friends who are Methodist and I have friends who are Unitarians of the sort that are really not very believing and so on. Those are serious differences. And if we only came together to talk about theology, we wouldn't have much of a relationship. If we only came together to try and settle the things we disagree about, we wouldn't be getting along. It's the background of sort of endless shared conversation, which you agree about this; you disagree about that; some of the things you disagree about are important; some of the things you agree about are important.
Then when you come to a moment of serious disagreement, you can handle the fact and you can, as it were, accept the outcome even if it's not the one you chose — uh, you would have chosen if it had been up to you. So now that's a picture of a kind of successful interpersonal relationship. How you turn that into a social practice, I'm not saying that's easy. But one of the things I think that is required is a willingness to feel that it would be good to be in dialogue with fellow citizens of all sorts.
Ms. Tippett: And I think — and I think — just going back to a few minutes ago, what you said I think the way you talked about how technology, which, you know, is not good or bad in itself; it's a tool, but that in fact the forms we have for even just expressing what we believe in a way are taking that personal dimension away from it or creating, as you said, many, many squares rather than a public square.
Mr. Appiah: Yeah, and they are the kind of communicational equivalent of being permanently fortissimo. People are shouting at each other all the time. Conversation can be quiet and murmuring, and you can lower the temperature in a conversation as well as raising it.
Ms. Tippett: You know, one thing I thought also as you were speaking is that there's a way in which, again, the ways we express these opinions. It's not just that we don't necessarily see other human beings aren't necessarily interacting with other human beings, but also that difference itself becomes more abstract, right, in the absence of those relationships.
Mr. Appiah: Yes. Yes.
Ms. Tippett: I mean, you've written a lot about difference of an issue in the human condition.
Mr. Appiah: Yeah. I think that you're absolutely right, that the key change is when you come from thinking of an issue as being about homosexuals and Muslims and come to think of it as being about, you know, Uncle John and Aunt Mary and Cousin Ahmed. It's not Muslims; it's particular people now and it sort of gives it a kind of concreteness. Sometimes people think that, you know, the only way to deal with these big differences between religions or around moral questions is to kind of face up to the difference directly. But I think often, as it were, sidling up to it is better and sidling up to it can be done by not facing Islam, but facing Leyla and Ahmed and Mohammed with whom you don't talk about religions most of the time. You talk about soccer or you talk about, you know, rock music or whatever it is that you have in common as an interest.
And the thing that binds me across, say, religious boundaries to people on other sides of religious boundaries isn't one thing, right? What binds me to Islam is my Sunni friends and my Shiite friends, my Israeli friends, my cousins who happen to be Muslim, and strangers whom I've come to know and like who are Muslim. What I have in common with these very diverse group of Muslims that I know is different in each case. So that breaks up the sense of them as a kind of monolithic "them."
Ms. Tippett: Right. I think this is a point you make also coming out of your own life, your own childhood, and your parents, that identity — that all of our identities are composed of so many — have so many different aspects to them.
Mr. Appiah: Yes. Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: We are what we are in our professional lives. We are parents; we are children; we are friends; we are lovers. You know, as I think about that, I realize that another thing that happens in a lot of these where we've defined our differences in our public life, we act as though people are truly defined by that position on that issue.
Mr. Appiah: Right. So one category that I would like to remove from the conversation of my liberal friends is Evangelical Christian because the range of views and feelings and experiences that is encompassed by those Americans who think of themselves as born again is incredible. Some of them are, you know, very actively pro gay marriage, some of these people who've been born again. Some of them are very active in struggles against capital punishment out of their religious convictions, so the idea that they're a kind of monolithic block.
And even when you meet someone who, as it were, fits all the stereotypes that liberals often have of Evangelical Christians, you know, she's also going to be someone who turns out to have an interest in a kind of music that you like or to be a devout consumer of the same, you know, trash fiction that you read or whatever it is. And once those links are built, if we could build a society where though these cross links across the identities that are currently dividing us, then, as I say, it will stop being about them and it will start being about, you know, John and Mary and Leyla and Achmed, and that's just psychologically very different.
(Sound bite of music, "Us and Them")
Ms. Tippett: As always, you can listen to this conversation with Anthony Appiah again, download it, or send it to friends through our website, onbeing.org. There you can find out more about our Civil Conversations Project page — an ongoing project to subvert deep divides in American life. We're in planning now for the next season. Send us your thoughts on guests and topics at onbeing.org. You'll find all of our previous civil conversations shows and events at onbeing.org/CCP.
[Sound bite of "Us and Them"]
Ms. Tippett: Coming up, Anthony Appiah tells of a simple human encounter that changed his life, and what his work reveals about the force of feeling honored or, by contrast, humiliated as a stumbling block not merely to civility but to social progress.
I'm Krista Tippett. On Being continues in a moment.
Ms. Tippett: I'm Krista Tippett and this is On Being. Today I'm with the Ghanaian-British-American philosopher Anthony Appiah. He's gained renown for his work on subjects like human identity, ethics in a world of strangers, and how moral revolutions happen. We've been exploring his ideas on untangling moral confusions in the contemporary U.S.
Ms. Tippett: I think that, you know America prides itself on a place of diversity and it surely is. Although I get a feeling that diversity can be many things; it can be racial; it can be ethnic; it can be social, but then when it comes to these moral issues, there's a feeling that really we should all agree, right? But that kind of difference is intolerable and has to be overcome and, you know, to do justice to the sweep of your work, you really do describe human flourishing writ large as having difference at its core and not as something that is overcome, but something that is always there and part of vitality.
Mr. Appiah: Yes. Yes. So I think that part of the sort of small "l" in the old-fashioned sense of the word "liberal," which has somewhat got lost in our recent conversations — but part of the liberal tradition is the thought that — and I like to say this is the part of the liberal tradition that Jesse Helms would have agreed with…
Ms. Tippett: …I'm waiting. I can't wait to hear what this is.
Mr. Appiah: Well, is that — is that part of what it is for your life to go well is for you to be living by standards that you believe in. The reason why Jesse Helms could agree with that is because this is essentially the great thought of the Protestant Reformation. Forcing people to do what you think is the right thing when they don't is a kind of violation, and that means that the way you have to deal with people with whom you disagree about what's right and wrong is to try and persuade them unless they pose a threat. I mean, a threat of harm to somebody when obviously you have to stop people who pose direct threats of harm, but that's also part of the liberal tradition, the thought that the state is entitled to protect people from harm from other people, but it isn't entitled to enforce a view about all these central being questions.
We don't want a state that tells us what the right answer is to the question of what God is like. We want a state that has some, you know, respect for our conscience that thinks that it matters whether people are living by the standards they believe in. That means that agreement is fine, but it matters how you get it. So that thought — that thought that we — that what are we doing together? We're managing the republic together; we're fellow citizens of a great republic, which we're trying to run together; we have to think of each other therefore as entitled to this great responsibility. We have to respect one another, and respecting one another means understanding that people can conscientiously come to a different view. I think, if our conversations were richer, we might actually have more consensus than we do about many questions.
Ms. Tippett: You do?
Mr. Appiah: Yes, I do, but I don't think we're ever going to come to 100 percent consensus about the sorts of things that divide us now and I don't think we need to. What we need to do is to figure out how to live together while disagreeing about these things.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Appiah: You know, if you had told me when I first came to this country in the early '80s that a majority of people under the age of 25 in 2011 would think that — this includes conservative kids under the age of 25 — would think that it's kind of self-evident that gay people who want to ought to be allowed to be married, I would have told you were out of your tree. I would have told you that you were crazy. And yet that's what's happened.
Ms. Tippett: I wonder if there's a tension, or if you could talk about the tension, between you as a philosopher and you as a human being who happens to be gay. So this issue of same-sex union, for example, is no abstraction to you. I mean, a little while ago, you talked about your extended circles of friendship. There are all kinds of differences and presumably in that large extended circle of friendship and family, which for you is global, there may be people who, on a level of principle, don't approve of your sexual orientation or don't believe that that's…
Mr. Appiah: …you don't have to go way out. I have an even Pentecostal sister. I can assure you that she doesn't think that it's OK. I mean, she loves me and she knows that God loves me, so she has to think about it against that background. But it doesn't follow from that that she has to think it's OK.
Ms. Tippett: So how do your — one set of the rubber meets the road then in terms of how you think about this as a philosopher and the ideals you have for our public life. Then how is that informed even more and what have you learned through, then, those kinds of interactions?
Mr. Appiah: Well, I think that growing up as I did between, you know, post-Colonial Ghana and Britain, growing up in a family which on one side had people who slaughtered sheep in order to deal with witchcraft and, on the other side, contained antireligious atheists who would have been very astonished to find that they were related by marriage to people who believed in witchcraft, what you learn is that, you know, you make up your own mind about these things. I know where I stand on all these questions. But you live perfectly happy with people who have different views about them. You know, there's a very beautiful moment in the English original season — I think it's the second season of Skins, this controversial thing about that adolescence.
Ms. Tippett: Yes, my daughter's been watching that. I haven't watched it.
Mr. Appiah: Well, I hadn't seen the American one and I gather some people think it isn't as good. But in the English one, there's a very moving moment when there's a young gay, English kid — white English kid and a young Muslim English kid who's of Pakistani origin and they're best friends. The Pakistani kid who's straight knows that his best friend is gay and he's still his best friend. He's having a birthday party, and the friend says to him, "I'm not coming in because you promised to tell your parents that I was gay and you haven't done it and this is it. This is my ultimatum. I'm not coming in." So he just stands outside.
Finally, the father comes out and says, "What are you doing outside?" He said, "I'm not coming in because — I've forgotten what his name is — but your son won't tell you that I'm gay." The man looks at him and says, "You know, Islam means a lot to me and when I go to mosque on Fridays, it's one of the great moments in my week." He said, "But I don't understand everything. One thing I do understand is that you're my son's best friend, so please come in." People do that all the time, right? He didn't say it's OK; he didn't say Islam is wrong; he didn't say Islam permits this. He said, "You're my son's best friend and you have to come to the party." So I think in a way that's about being — you know, a lot of politicians would say, "Well, that's just a perfect example of arguing for unprincipled behavior."
Ms. Tippett: Right. Relativism, yeah.
Mr. Appiah: Relativism.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah, everything's OK.
Mr. Appiah: Everything's OK. But he's not a relativist. He's saying, you know, my religion teaches that this is wrong and I'm going to have to deal with that somehow, but I'm not going to deal with it by being unkind to my son's best friend. That kind of dealing with the complexity of life and the complexity of the world, given that we have these differences, is something that human beings at their best are very good at.
Ms. Tippett: I'm Krista Tippett. On Being — conversation about meaning, religion, ethics, and ideas. Today, "Sidling up to Difference," with the Ghanaian-British-American philosopher Anthony Appiah. In his 2010 book, The Honor Code, he analyzed the human dynamics that brought about unprecedented moral and social change in various societies across time. He found, somewhat to his own surprise, that the notion of honor played a role every time. Arguments about the wrongness of slavery, for example, didn't win the day alone. Slavery had to cease to be seen as an honorable pursuit. Human morality, as Anthony Appiah sees it, is always fundamentally linked with social identity: it always comes back to whether we are able to respect ourselves and the dignity of others, even those who differ greatly from us.
Ms. Tippett: One place this led me to go in my own thinking was — I've spent a lot of time thinking and talking to other people about fear as a factor in our public life.
Mr. Appiah: Mm-hmm.
Ms. Tippett: Fear as an animator of some of this rancor and the depth of division and caricatures, but, you know, you also to talk about honor, in some place, you talk about how the — you know, the opposite of feeling honored is feeling humiliated. You know, that also strikes me as a dynamic in this culture that is also there in some of this digging into the trenches.
Mr. Appiah: Oh, absolutely. I mean, just to underline the centrality — the moral centrality of humiliation, I think that, if you ask who've been tortured, what stays with them, it's not actually the physical memory of pain so much as the sense of humiliation. It's the sense of what you're doing in torture is humiliating people and that's why it's so terrible because humiliation is a terrible thing to impose upon people. And if we — we live in a society where it's hard to maintain self-respect if you don't have a job. It's hard to maintain self-respect if you can't hold birthday parties for your children.
These are small things, I suppose, but they're part of what goes together to make a life worth living. So humiliation, whether the intentional humiliation of people, which is, I have to say, that is part of what's least attractive to me about the world of sort of the nasty side of cable, these people set out to humiliate other people. What a ghastly thing to be doing. But unfortunately, we couldn't remove the humiliation in the world simply by getting rid of the intentional humiliation because people lose the basis of self-respect when they lose their job and they can't get another one and they feel that the skills they have and their willingness to work is sort of being ignored in the social reality they live in.
We face this, of course, at the moment as a society, but imagine what it's like to be a young Egyptian, an educated young Egyptian, where we think 10 percent unemployment is terrible. We're talking about a population of young people who have ambitions for themselves, who want to make families, live lives, participate in the life of their community, who half of them can't get jobs.
Ms. Tippett: Right, at all, ever.
Mr. Appiah: At all.
Ms. Tippett: So, you know, you have looked at examples in history in different places of profound change that happened: foot binding in China, practices that had been a norm that ended; dueling; slavery in the British Empire. I think another thing that you point out that's very interesting is that — let me see. This is what you wrote: "To end one practice as the anti-foot-binding campaigners in China grasped, you need to start another." So if we — I don't know. Let's say, if you'd written a fifth chapter in that book or, for example, if we looked at the decline of American political discourse as a moral problem, you know, what practices might you propose or how would you think about the starting of new practices? I don't know.
Mr. Appiah: Well, I do think that some years ago, people had the idea of starting sort of neighborhood conversations all around the country in which people came together who were not all of the same political persuasion, and that didn't take off, but it's a good idea. And I think that, if I were in more regular conversation with — I'm relatively liberal — so with more conservative people, then I think I would be better placed to understand what I should say to my congressman who is a Democrat about when he should and when he shouldn't, as it were, fight the other side, when he should work together and when he should just continue to hold his own.
So we need to practice it ourselves, but I think also we need to kind of model it.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Mr. Appiah: This — there was this discussion you remember around the State of the Union about whether the people of different parties should sit intermingled. Now I think that discussion was conducted as if the issue were about symbolism and, of course, it is certainly is about symbolism. But if they were sitting together more often and talking more often when the cameras were off, maybe they…
Ms. Tippett: — just about nothing, right? About the doctor and how their children were doing, mm-hmm.
Mr. Appiah: Yeah, and socializing more, eating together. That would create the thing that some people criticize, which is a kind of a beltway culture, but you need a beltway culture if you're to run a bipartisan society, a society that has two large political parties that are roughly equal in scale. But you need a sense that, look, we have different views, but our job is to work together to make the country work. I shouldn't require my rather liberal congressman to perform a kind of pantomime of hostility to Republicans with whom he and I disagree. I should require him rather to stick for our principles and to negotiate around them and to see what can be done with the business of the republic.
One reason why people do what, you know, Sarah Palin is now doing and, if I were a Republican, I would give you my favorite example of a Democrat who does this, one reason they're doing that is because it works, because people support it. We have to learn that, in supporting that, we're not even helping the cause that they're articulating. But we'll only learn that if we ourselves live lives in which we interact with people that we disagree with and nevertheless get along with them fine.
One of the great lessons of my childhood of which I'm extremely grateful for was that, when my grandmother got older, she moved from the bigger house that she lived in into the cottage next door, and she sold the big house to a man who was a member of the British Parliament and was very right-wing, but extremely nice and very nice to me. You know, I had a subscription to the Soviet News and the Peking Review. I was a young lefty, but he was incredibly nice to me. He was not only nice, but he was willing to talk to me about politics and he was willing to let an 18-year-old — whatever I was — young man talk to him about politics and say things that he obviously thought were, you know, and he told me what he thought. He was frank. I mean, he didn't pretend to believe things that he didn't believe.
I learned a lot. I had to admit that I liked this guy even though I thought he was wrong about everything, and that was luck. It was luck that I had that experience when I was young. But I think that we could try and arrange our world so that more of us had that sort of experience more of the time and especially we could try and arrange Washington so that people could behave in the way that I'm told senators used to behave.
Ms. Tippett: Right. I know. We all hear this now. You know, here's something you wrote that I also found great and kind of inspiring to think about to shift one's imagination. You said, "Often enough, as Faust said, in the beginning is the deed; practices and not principles are what enable us to live together in peace; conversations across boundaries of identity whether national, religious or something else begin with the sort of imaginative engagement you get when you read a novel or watch a movie or attend to a work of art that speaks from someplace other than your own." That's a more exciting image than forming earnest discussion groups in neighborhoods somehow.
Mr. Appiah: Yes. It is, and I think that literal conversation is one thing, but I feel more in touch with, say, the situation in Iraq than I otherwise would because I've seen a few Iraqi movies. Not movies about politics or about war — though I have seen some of those — but just movies about life. As I say, I wish I spent more of my time around people that disagreed with me more about politics, but I do at least try to read and understand and to watch people making arguments that I know I'm not going to like or agree with.
You know, years ago when I was living in Boston — I'm going to forget her name. The woman who reshaped American cooking — Julia Childs. I forget when this was, but say this was about 10 or 15 years ago. She was older at that point and her husband had died. She was worried about the state of sort of race discussions in society. So what did she do, being Julia Childs, she summoned a group of people to come and have dinner and talk about it at her house in Cambridge. So there was kind of a mixed-race group around the table. You know, most of us can't do that. You can't just summon people.
Ms. Tippett: But we might be able to do our version of that.
Mr. Appiah: But we could do more of that. Look, one of the great privileges of a free society is that you don't have to spend all your time thinking about the government. So you can easily have a life in which you do almost nothing except vote to participate in the life of the republic. I understand why that is, but if we were to spend more of our time on the life of the republic not directly, you know, by focusing on having more and more political conversations in town halls and some, but by getting together with people in our communities and talking about these things in a way that brought us to a deeper understanding of each other, that would be well worth it, I think.
And the republic would work better because you would be thinking about Joe and Mary and not about conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats and you would know that you knew some awfully nice people who were, for some bizarre reason, not convinced that you are completely correct about every political question.
Ms. Tippett: Kwame Anthony Appiah is Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. His books include Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers and The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.
Our thought experiment this week is to draw on your own memories of a simple human encounter — unlikely relationships with non-like-minded people — that you may not have pondered before as formative and important. Anthony Appiah's story about his neighbor also got us wondering about how we might encourage or inspire these kinds of encounters in our own lives, or for our children. Send us your thoughts at OnBeing.org.
And, on another note entirely, we have just returned from a life-changing production trip that took us to Jerusalem as well as Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Hebron. We experienced a nearly overwhelming — but also emboldening — complexity at the human level of Israeli-Palestinian and Middle Eastern realities. We'll be turning all this into a series of programs in the weeks and months to come. But we're already posting pictures and links on our home page and blog — as well as pieces by students at USC's Annenberg School of Journalism. They traveled part of the way with us. All that at OnBeing.org.
On Being on air and online is produced by Chris Heagle, Lily Percy, Dave McGuire, and Stefni Bell.
Trent Gilliss is our senior editor. And I'm Krista Tippett.


text:
The Reds Hall of Fame would like to thank the individuals and companies that comprise the Hall of Fame's World Champion-level of membership. This special group has chosen to support the Hall of Fame at its highest membership level and provide critical support to the Hall of Fame's fulfillment of its mission of celebrating greatness, preserving history and providing inspiration. As a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization, the Reds Hall of Fame's exhibits, events and programs would not be possible without the support of Reds fans who value the rich history and tradition of the club and choose to lend tangible support to the Hall of Fame's efforts to preserve, share and celebrate this history.
Purchase your tickets ahead of your visit to the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum.
Wherever you're coming from, we're easy to find with many parking options.
Go behind-the-scenes at Great American Ball Park on a 90-minute guided tour.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
You must be a member or have an approved log in to view this page. If you wish to see this actor's profile page, please contact Bradley J. via email or phone: 508-651-7900.
© 2018 Created by Bradley J. Van Dussen. Powered by
Badges | Report an Issue | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service


text:
After playing their last preseason game Sunday the Predators are counting the hours and minutes until the season opener Saturday night at 7 at the Bridgestone Arena against Anaheim. Team captain Shea Weber decided the players needed some time together off of the ice before the frenzy of the regular season begins.
Tuesday afternoon the Predators played a softball game and then spent a couple of hours taking batting practice with baseballs. "We wanted to do something as a team and we thought this might be a good way to spend some time together," said Predators forward Steve Sullivan. "We had a great time. We appreciate Lipscomb allowing us to play here."
Sullivan and his softball teammates planned to have an even great time later in the evening. Weber and his teammates had to spring for dinner after losing the nine-inning softball game.
The idea for the softball game started last month when Predators' coach Barry Trotz came to campus to talk with the Jim Wood Golden Bison group. After speaking Trotz spent some time touring Lipscomb's athletic facilities.
Lipscomb athletic director Philip Hutcheson offered the use of the facilities to Trotz for a Predators' activity. A week ago Brian Ryman, director of operations, got the call to have the field ready.
"It was an off day for us so they could spend as much time here as they wanted," Lipscomb baseball coach Jeff Forehand said. "They had a big time.
"Some of our players watched. They had a chance to meet with some of the players. It was good for them to talk with professional athletes."
The game was closed to the public. Coaches also were not allowed. The few spectators that were at the field saw a wide range of baseball skills on display. Cody Franson impressed his teammates by blasting a couple of home runs over the left field fence that hit the Bisons hitting facility. Forward J.P. Dumont, who plays in a league in the summer, helped provide equipment for the players.
"Some of them were hitting the ball pretty good," Forehand said. "Hockey players are such good athletes that some of them probably could be good baseball players with some training. But a couple of them were a little bit off."
Caleb Joseph, a former Bisons catcher now playing in the Baltimore Orioles farm system, threw batting practice for the Predators. Joseph and former Bisons pitcher Rex Brothers, playing in the Colorado Rockies minor league system, will be reunited Wednesday when they travel to Scottsdale where they will both play for the Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League.
Forehand had each of the Predators sign a Lipscomb baseball cap. He plans to place it in the trophy case. Ryman was presented with one of forward Wade Belak's sticks which was signed by the team.
"A lot of our players are big Predators fans," Forehand said. "Hopefully, we will get the chance to see them some this season. "They got to enjoy a beautiful day. It was a good outlet for them."
Written by Mark McGee, Senior Publisher/Director of Media Relations.


text:
A large water line break has prompted the city to issue a water system pressure advisory, meaning all residents and businesses in the affected area should boil their drinking water.
A large water line break has prompted the city to issue a water system pressure advisory, meaning all residents and businesses in the affected area should boil their drinking water.
The advisory impacts areas west of Jaycee Street, which is next to Havelock City Park, and includes the Woodhaven and Belltown areas, according to a release from the city. It does not affect Cherry Point.
The advisory will remain in effect until testing samples of the water are returned from the state, which normally takes about 24 hours.
The water line break occurred overnight on Jaycee Street and caused low pressure and water outages throughout the western part of the city. Havelock temporarily switched to Craven County�s system as the line was repaired and flushed, according to the release. The break in the water line caused a lost of about 240,000 gallons of water.
The advisory also affects several schools in the area, including Havelock Elementary, Graham A. Barden Elementary, Gurganus Elementary, Arthur W. Edwards Elementary and Tucker Creek Middle School. Those schools remain open to students and teachers.
Havelock has notified the Craven County Health Department as well as the nutrition coordinator for the school system.
Periods of low water pressure increases the chance of back siphonage, which could introduce bacteria into the system. As such, the state requires water to be tested after a pressure loss, and the recommendation is made to boil water.
Residents in the affected areas should boil water used for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth, making ice and washing hands for at least one minute, or use bottled water for such purposes instead. Pregnant women and those with infants of up to six months should use an alternate source of water, according to the release.
In the meantime, residents are urged to conserve water as much as possible.


text:
It is said that the path to a man's heart goes through his stomach. It is quite true when seeing men's love for food. On the other hand, it remains true for women too. They love to eat food, but most of them enjoy cooking more.
Cooking really is a great thing to do. I myself get so busy in trying different dishes and new recipes. Of all the dishes I have tried, barbecue is my favorite. At all the get together and parties, the first thing which comes to my mind is barbecue. It is because it is really fun to do and even more delicious to eat. But the hard work I have put into finding an efficient gas grill is really great.
It is very difficult to earn money and that is why I respect your concerns when it comes to buying any new product. To relieve you from all the scams and headaches, I am going to share some of the facts about gas grills which I came to know in all my ways.
Natural Gas Grills: A Brief Look
Everyone loves a barbecue. Gas grills reward actually which you with that. Natural gas grills are simply composed of a decent grill system which uses natural gas as a fuel. In these grills, you can cook whatever you like to make of the meat. There are different things which need to be considered while buying gas grills. Let me mention some of that.
One of the most important things to remember is to see the material of the grills in the gas grill system. To see how much heat they can pass should always be remembered. Other things equally important to remember are its cooking area, grease management, portability. Therefore, to get the best of them all, you should look for these basic factors. Following are 5 best gas grills having extraordinary features.
Weber 51010001 Q1200 Liquid Propane Grill, Black
- One stainless steel burner produces 8500 BTU-per-hour to heat 189 square-inch total cooking area
- Porcelain-enameled cast-iron cooking grates and cast aluminum lid and body
- Fully assembled out of box
- Easy-start electronic ignition and infinite control burner valve settings
Weber 54060001 Q2200 Liquid Propane Grill
- One stainless steel burner produces 12,000 BTU-per-hour to heat 280 square-inch total cooking area
- Porcelain-enameled cast-iron cooking grates and cast aluminum lid and body
- Fully assembled out of box
- Easy-start electronic ignition and infinite control burner valve settings
Weber 46110001 Spirit E210 Liquid Propane Gas Grill, Black
- Two stainless steel burners put out 26,500 BTU-per-hour
- Porcelain-enameled, cast-iron cooking grates and porcelain-enameled Flavorizer bars, Electronic Crossover ignition system starts with the push of a button
Weber 47100001 Spirit S210 Natural Gas Grill, Stainless Steel
- This barbecue is a Natural Gas unit and you must have Natural Gas plumbed out to your patio or deck to be able to use this grill; If you do not have Natural Gas plumbed, please look at our selection of Propane barbecues
Weber 61010001 Genesis II E-310 Liquid Propane Grill, Black
- GS4 Grilling System includes three high performance stainless steel burners with porcelain enameled Flavorizer bars
- New Grease Management System reduces risk of dangerous flare-ups and makes grease removal easy
Weber 62020001 Genesis II E-410 Liquid Propane Grill, Copper
- GS4 Grilling System includes four high performance stainless steel burners with porcelain enameled Flavorizer bars
- New Grease Management System reduces risk of dangerous flare-ups and makes grease removal easy
Weber 47510001 Spirit E310 Natural Gas Grill, Black
- This barbecue is a natural gas unit and you must have natural gas plumbed out to your patio or deck to be able to use this grill; If you do not have natural gas plumbed, please look at our selection of propane barbecues
Weber Spirit Gas Grill
Grill is the product that becomes our requirement for juicy and delicious food. You can cook mouth watering food and get a lot of appreciation and praises. You would be very pleased to have it and would definitely recommend it to your friends. Following are the dazzling features of this Weber's Gas Grill:
Size: Spirit gas grill is available in four awesome and easy to use sizes. Whenever we want to buy any gas grill, then size is the first thing that we look because everyone has a different size requirement according to their cooking need. It also has a cooking area of 360 square inches with warmer area equivalent to 90 square inches; it has all that you want for tasty food. Buy it and be ready for a good and roomy grill. The following are available sizes of gas grill
- 2 Burner
- 2 Burner/Side burner
- 3 Burner
- 3 Burner / Side burner
Color: This remarkable Weber's gas grill is available in two good looking colors like black and stainless steel; you may choose it according to suitably match.
Functions: The functionality of any product matters a lot because customers don't want to waste their valuable money on something that will not fulfill their expectations. This Weber's gas grill comes with stupendously fantastic functions as it has 2 burners that will not put you in complications.
Heat Retention: Weber's grill has enamel porcelain cast iron grates for cooking allows you to have great heat retention. It also has an ignition button for quick start.
Foldable: Best and worth mentioning quality of this gas grill is that it is a portable grill unlike most other natural gas grills; you can fold it and place it anywhere you want. You can take it with you on picnics and cook delicious food as this grill gives you quality food with easy cooking.
Above are the short yet fantastically wondrous features of gas grill.
Dyna-Glo Premium Grill
Dyna-Glo presents an amazing grill with super cooking power that everyone wants to have, comparatively this grill is the best product in the market that one can ever imagine. This natural gas grill will never disappoint you and live up to your expectations. Below are the quality features of premium grills that compel you to buy it
Size: Two burners, four burners and five burners are the available burner sizes that you will choose according to your need. Premium grill's also available in two different patterns such as liquid propane gas and natural gas. Every feature of this grill is offering you amazing quality and ease. It is available in two good looking colors like stainless steel and black.
Warranty: This Premium grill is available with 1 year warranty that means if you don't like the cooking criteria or face trouble then you can replace it. Warranty of any product is the best facility provided by the company; if you are looking for something good with warranty then this is the right choice for you.
Functions: This superb premium grill has awesome functionality; it has two 'P' shaped burners made up of stainless steel, two heats enamel steel heat tents, and last but not the least two enamel cast iron grates for cooking. It has a double wall lid made up of stainless steel, end caps for best stability to handle and a temperature gauge. Another well describing function of this premium grill is it wheels for moving. I assure you that you will not able to find such a nice grill with so many features that will add flavor to your food.
User Friendly: Above given features prove that this Dyna-Glo premium grill is a consumer's friendly grill. Apart from that it is a portable grill that means you can fold it and take it with you on picnics.
I suggest you to buy this fabulous grill.
Images Of Best Grills
Weber Genesis Grill
Weber's Grill is the product that becomes our requisite for succulent and ambrosial food. You can cook mouth watering food and get a plethora of appreciation and exalts. You would be very gratified to have it and would definitely recommend it to your friends. Following are the dazzling features of this Weber's Genesis Grill:
Size and Color: The primary cooking area of this grill is 507 square inches and warming area is 130 square inches; the total cooking area is around 637 square inches. This grill provides you best cooking experience. It is available in three pulchritudinous colors like black, copper and green; you can buy it according to your felicitous matching. This grill has two outstanding patterns like liquid propane gas and natural gas. This grill has all must buying qualities with stupendous features.
Functions: This grill has a front based panel with three burners made up of stainless steel. The Weber Genesis Grill has a cook box and a shroud that controls the whole cooking process made up of aluminum; cooling system consists of flower bar system, grease management system, tubes of burner and grates for cooking. All the mentioned features give you irresistible food. It withal has a fuel gauge that will be taking you the fuel level of the grill. For a quick start, this grill has an ignition button. It has two heavy duty wheels for easy and quick moving and an affordable system; that will allow you to take it with you. Customers gave it a 4.8 rating out of 5 that is awesome.
User Friendly: Weber's grill is the best consumer amicable grill because you just have to unpack this grill and you can utilize it according to your ease, another astounding quality is an expeditious heating system.
I recommend you to buy this grill and enjoy cooking and grilling.
Cuisinart Tabletop Grill
This grill is kenned for its portability and marvelous qualities that magnetize you toward it. Cuisine art Tabletop grill provides you relishing food with succulent taste that you would love to have. Below are the finest features of this Tabletop grill:
Size and Color: This wondrous propane gas grill is available in two stunning colors like stainless steel and black that looks incredibly sensational, you can choose it according to suitable matching. This barbecue gives you the best cooking background. This propane gas grill Measures pretty nearly 19-4/5 by 27-4/5 by 12-4/5 inches with 12,000 BTU per hour input.
Functions: Cuisine art Tabletop grill has tremendous functions such as this barbecue has two remarkable styles one is tabletop and other is to stand. This barbecue has all must purchasing qualities with marvelous gimmicks. The Tabletop gas grill has an ignition button for facile start up with twist start, a cast iron cooking grate coated with porcelain enamel and a surface system of modular grill with removable all purport vegetable panel. This propane grill also has a folding side shelves, a temperature gauge, fuel gauge and a propane tank. With all these features I must verbally express this outstanding grill as it maintain temperature and minimize heat loss at immensely colossal extent. Cuisine art Tabletop barbecue has all must purchasing qualities with such a variety of gigantic capacities.
Durable: Whenever we want to buy any product, we first check out the reliability of that product, but in case of Tabletop gas grill you should not worry about all this; as it is the most durable gas grill with astounding characteristics. If you are looking for an imperishable natural gas grill, then your wait is over as Cuisine art launched the perdurable grill for your ease.
I suggest you to buy this Tabletop grill if you solemnly want to have a quality product.
Weber Genesis S-330 Grill
Weber's s 330 grill is the most astonishing grill; one can call it the best product in the market for cooking tasty and irresistible food. The Weber Genesis grill has earned many outstanding positive remarks by customers that compel you to buy this fantastic grill. Following are the worth mentioning features of this grill:
Size and Color: The primary cooking area of this grill is 507 square inches and warming area is 130 square inches; the total cooking area is around 637 square inches. This grill provides you best cooking experience. It is available in pulchritudinous colors like stainless steel that looks fantastically awe-inspiring. It has a lid that is 30 inches in depth by 64.5 inches height with per hour input of 38000 BTU. This grill has two outstanding patterns like liquid propane gas and natural gas. This grill has all must buying qualities with stupendous features.
Functions: The Functionality of any product becomes the center of attraction for customers as they want to buy the best product with a best and reasonable price. S330 is available with enameled porcelain flavorizer bars; heat deflectors and six implements hooks; two heftily ponderous-obligation front locking and back swivel casters which include cooking grates made up of stainless steel, shroud with thermometer with handles of stainless steel and nice doors with amazing grip. This grill also has three burners made up of stainless steel and an ignition button for quick start. It also features grease management system and a fuel gauge.
Performance: We can call it an amicable product for users as it has an innovative design and facile to utilize procedure. Above is the worth buying feature.
Amazon Customer Reviews
Buyer's guide for Best Gas Grills
Picking out the perfect natural gas grill requires experience and practice with foods made over a grill. Everything depends on the cook and his/her preferences on getting the ideal grill, especially for quality assurance in terms of food as well as the unit itself. The following pointers will help you pick out the best gas grill for your ideal cooking style.
Prices: Price is one of the most important factors to consider when you go out to get a gas grill. Ideally, most gas grills cost around $150 to $350 however; there are some brands which have exceptionally high prices like $10,000 even. Thus, it all depends on the buyer and how much he/she is willing to pay for a gas grill. Another important thing to consider is the price of the installation tubes and knob; whether it is included or not since it can otherwise add another $200 to your budget
Size: The area where you plan to keep your grill determines the size of your gas grill. Some grills come with table tops and others are stand-alone units. However, keep in mind that your gas grill should be kept in a place which is not too crowded for the cook to easily move around without bumping into other surrounding things.
Manufacturing material: Nowadays, you may come across different gas grills made of cast iron, aluminum, metal or stainless steel. However, don't let the manufacturers fool you since there are hardly any grills that are made of any of the above mentioned alloys. Chances are there is a mixture of different metals being used to manufacture your grill, thus even if you try the magnet trick, it will not determine the make to be a 100% stainless steel. Another point to keep an eye out for is the installation. Some grills tend to be installed permanently while others can be packed and stored away or carried around.
More features: Additional features help make the grilling easier and food taste better. However, different grills come with different features. For example, Broilmaster gas grills come with a rotisserie and ceramic tools. Yet, don't forget that more features mean higher prices therefore only go for the features that you would need.
Fuel: Even though natural gas may cost you lesser than propane tanks in terms of buying power as well as maintenance. However, understanding the gas pressure in your area and the gas outlet is an important factor since gas cans are dangerous to store otherwise. There are also some grills that come with a dual option of working on gas as well as propane. Although, if you are out to purchase such a grill, then keep in mind the cost of a conversion kit which may vary between $60 and $120.
Heat: BTU rating the amount of heat your grill is able to produce. It is not necessarily important that a higher BTU rating will mean that a higher amount of heat will be created. Therefore, get a grill which can hold and distribute the heat evenly for higher quality food rather than getting a grill which may be bigger in size and shape but is not capable of getting higher temperatures.
It's Time to Buy
Since there are many kinds of grills available in the market, hopefully, this user's guide will be able to properly educate you about the things to keep in mind if you go out to get a Natural Gas Grill. There may be many other things to consider as well when buying a natural gas grill, however, the above pointers cover all the main areas of consideration.


text:
I decided we needed to kick off this very momentous Pre-K school year right. We put a VERY high value on education in this home and I think it's important for us as parents to set the tone. I want Ella to view school in a positive light and to be excited to go, make friends, and learn. I got my inspiration from nieniedialogues. (And, no, I'm not mormon, but just because someone believes something different than me, it doesnt mean they can't have some rockin' ideas!) But our back to school celebration was... and ALWAYS will be 1/1000th of what she pulls off.
Let me start off by saying that I don't do stuff like this because I feel like I "have to", because I'm trying to keep up with the Jones's or because I think I need to live up to some ideal on Pinterest. I do stuff like this because I LOVE to! It's my thing. And if it's not your thing, please don't think for solitary second that I judge you. Because I don't! I'll be me. You be you. It'll be awesome!
I realized as I was posting these pictures that it looks kind of elaborate. With the heart of not putting on pretenses and keeping things real, let me assure it, it was not elaborate.
I had the plastic table cloth, wrapping paper, paper plates and napkins left over from previous BBQ's and parties.
I went back to school shopping and packer the backpack that she's had for years with her pencil box, a lunch box, and a few do-dads I found on clearance that I knew would make her year!
The sunflowers were grown by Ella herself, right from seed and it only seemed fitting to decorate with them.
I stayed up a little later than normal the night before making the cake (funfetti box mix in a 9x13 pan), writing out the Bible verse on construction paper and constructing a special Pre-K crown with cardstock and good old crayola!
The balloons, I had J grab on the way home from work. Sent Jason outside with the kids for a half hour before dinner so I could set up and... Voila! Instant back to school Par-tay!
Here she is just before we left for school. Look at the last year and this year side by side! She's grown so much!!! (Why won't her hair do the same!?!?)
And here she is. backpack hung, lunch box on the shelf, pencil box in her her cubby and all settled in at her desk for pre-K! She didn't shed one tear. As I walked away and stood in the doorway, expecting her eyes to follow me, and give her one last wave good-bye... she wasn't even looking. She was already talking to her new friend that sits right beside her. So proud of her! She's come a long, long way!!!


text:
Near-Record Crowd at 2007 IFT Expo
A near-record crowd sampled ingredients healthy and exotic.
With 23,296 attendees, this year's IFT Annual Meeting and Food Expo was the second largest IFT show in its 67 years, surpassed only by the 1999 show (also held in Chicago) by a mere 1,000 registrants. There were 986 exhibiting companies, who outdid themselves providing delicious solutions for attendees.
Best-selling author Jason Jennings kicked off the meeting this year with an energetic keynote address on the four secrets of leadership. In a nutshell, the world's best-performing leaders:
- Have a cause that has nothing to do with money;
- Have mastered the art of letting go, which makes them better able to deal with change;
- Get everyone in their organization to think and act like an owner;
- Are stewards of workers, customers, capital and resources.
Health and wellness was the theme of the show, in fact some 40 technical sessions addressed that issue. Hot ingredients this year included omega-3 oils, fiber, vitamins, trans fat-free oils, salt substitutes and probiotics. Exotic fruits acai, goji and pomegranate were in abundance, along with a new player, lucuma, showcased by Van Drunen Farms (www.vandrunenfarms.com), Momence, Ill. Native to South America, lucuma has a pumpkin-like pulp and color with a maple-like flavor and is rich in beta carotene and niacin.
Also on the flavor front, if you never heard of buchu, baobab or bissap, those are new flavors to watch in the next few years, according to the Innova Database Taste the Trend report. Meanwhile, a scan of yogurt and dairy drinks launched between January 2005 and December 2006 found traditional flavors still dominate new product activity: fruit flavors (5,552) and dairy flavors (1,670).
Food safety was a hot topic in many technical sessions and products. To recognize the critical role suppliers play in ensuring food quality and safety, Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) sponsored a visiting grower delegation to the show. Growers from Illinois, Minnesota and North Dakota listened to a food industry overview and learned more about products developed by ADM using their food crops.
"Food safety is of greater concern today than perhaps ever before, and suppliers play a critical role in keeping our food safe," says Mark Metivier, director of sales at ADM Specialty Food Ingredients. "ADM knows our suppliers and values our relationship with them. Because of our strong, vertically integrated position, we're able to unite suppliers with food manufacturers to provide consumers with consistently safe and high-quality food ingredients."
Walking the floor
It wasn't football on display at the NFL booth. Instead, attendees were treated to a belly dancer by the innovation and new product development company National Food Laboratory. The entertainment highlighted Chef Teresa Landros' Casbah-By-the-Bay spice, containing turmeric, coriander (courtesy of McCormick) and sea salts. For bone health, the Moroccan Mobiliti-Tea was green tea with vitamin D, calcium, boron, organic agave and organic honey.
"Texture changes everything" is the apparent theme this year for National Starch Food Innovation. "We believe it's the most undervalued attribute of a food," said Anthony DeLio, vice president and general manager. Marshall Fong, National's director of marketing, cited market research that indicates the use of texture descriptors -- such as thick, creamy, smooth -- is on the rise, now being called out on 12 percent of products, up from 8 percent in 2003.
To address those concerns, National Starch announced a worldwide alliance with Avebe Group. The Dutch company's potato starches will fill a gap in the National Starch portfolio. Plus, National will begin building a Texture Center of Excellence in its Bridgewater, N.J., headquarters to devote more effort and research to the subject.
Kraft Food Ingredients unveiled several flavors at the show. Pasteurized Premium Cured Cheddar Blend is a high-performance cheese blend that yields an authentic, balanced, aged cheddar profile. It blends well with sauces, soups, side dishes and entrees. Fire Roasted Flavor imparts the taste of "old-world, wood-fired oven cooking." And an Organic Grill Flavor delivers an authentic-tasting charbroiled flavor -- in an organic form.
The cranberry already ranks high in antioxidant and antiadhesion benefits, says Ocean Spray Ingredient Technology Group. New research suggests cranberry components offer benefits in the prevention of dental and gum diseases. With demand for this sweetened, dried fruit increasing, the company now offers a lower-sugar/high-fiber cranberry and diced and double-diced pieces.
GTC Nutrition wants to assist processors in "building a bone-healthy brand." Its NutraFlora prebiotic fiber -- recently added to the National Organic Standards Board's list of organic ingredients -- is the subject of a "get hip to hone health" marketing campaign, targeting both returning school children and adults.
Edlong Dairy Flavors unveiled three new items. CremeLong is a heavy cream replacer meant to help processors offset rising dairy costs; it has less half the fat content of heavy cream. Ed-Vantage is a line of non-diacetyl dairy flavors; they give the mouthfeel, aroma and buttery flavor that are characteristic of diacetyl-containing dairy flavors but without added diacetyl, which is coming under increasing scrutiny. Natural Savory Salt Potentiator is what the name implies: a water- and oil-dispersible, Kosher-certified flavor that boosts the perception of saltiness in low- and no-sodium products.
Join the discussion
We welcome your thoughtful comments.
All comments will display your user name.
Want to participate in the discussion?Register for free
Log in for complete access.
No one has commented on this page yet.
RSS feed for comments on this page | RSS feed for all comments


text:
Finally planted
At last, we've had a stretch of sunny days. The farmers have been planting corn and making hay as fast as they can. I've also been busy in my little garden and have nearly finished planting it. Thank goodness -- I was starting to wonder if I would have a garden this year.
So far, I have planted:
9 Better Boy tomato plants
3 Bell Boy pepper plants
3 King Arthur bell pepper plants
1 Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant
3 hills of Armenian Yard-long Cucumbers
2 hills of NK Dark Green zucchinis
9 marigolds
I have two jalapeño pepper plants and six more marigolds to set out, I still want to get one more cherry tomato plant, and I plan to plant some clumps of dill. I like the way it smells. It reminds me of my grandma's garden.
The marigolds are for Keely, who would think my garden incomplete without them. She likes their spicy fragrance. This year, the marigolds are all yellow because I got a good deal on a flat of them at the Mennonite greenhouse in Fairview.
A small garden
I used to grow a much larger garden, but I don't have that much time and energy now, and it's unnecessary anyway. This little garden will produce much more than Dennis, Isaac, and I can eat. We'll be begging people to take a few zucchinis home with them and hauling bags of tomatoes to town to foist off on Keely.
When I had a bigger garden, I did a lot of canning. I have packed up most of my fruit jars and stored them in the shed, now. However, I am thinking about making and preserving some salsa this summer -- thus, the jalapeños.
We like corn, watermelon, canteloupe, squash, and all the other fresh veggies too, but if I grew all of them, I'd have a big garden, not a small one! We'll buy them from the several Mennonite produce stands that operate in our area.
And this year, since it will be July before the zucchini and cukes begin to produce and sometime in August before we have tomatoes and peppers, we'll be buying them at the produce stands for a while, too.
Gardens from other summers:Tomatoes Someday
Dill Flower
Fields and Gardens Are Being Planted
My Vegetable Garden
Living off the Fat of the Land
Zucchini, Anyone?
Flats of Flowers


text:
These Rensselaer Central Middle School students wrote assignments for teacher Natalie Waling in May, 2010 about the Civil War using historical records. Read some of their essays to discover what other students have learned about this time period.
(Essays used with permission. These files are available in Adobe PDF format. If you have not already done so, you will need to download and install Adobe Acrobat [1] to read these files.)


text:
posted by Thom Holwerda on Sun 5th Nov 2006 17:40 UTC, submitted by bmeurer
The Xfce development team is pleased to announce that the second and hopefully last release candidate of the upcoming Xfce 4.4 desktop is available for download now. The release focuses primarily on bug fixes and optimizations; see the release notes for a complete list of changes. The source tarballs and the graphical installer are available from the download page.


text:
Death on the Beach, He was Murdered January 16 2013
Pictures by Me I found this wonderful example of giant marine life lying dead on our beach at the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand. I was walking the dogs, Cooper and Poppy early in the morning, when we saw this amazing animal half buried by the retreating tide. The dogs were really not interested, but I was, how could such a magnificent creature suddenly appear dead on the shoreline. An expert from the Te Papa Museum from Wellington confirmed that is was an adult male Sperm Whale, but had no idea why or how the creature became washed up here. I took some more pictures with my phone camera, and at the same time touched the sad remains, I knew I probably would never again in my lifetime get the chance to touch a marine leviathan. He was still warm, something I did not expect, so he surely had not been dead for long. On further examination I found a puncture wound half way down his back, he had been murdered, probably harpooned. What possesses a human being to kill such a magnificent creature. There are cultures in the World who desire to eat these wonderful creatures, Japan being the top of the list in this area. Surely the decent Governments of the World can do something to protect the giant marine life of the world, they were here long before us, and will still be here long after we are gone, they deserve some respect. If you look closely you can see the deadly puncture wound,left, and opposite the sadly closed eye. He beached himself and died in agony. Shame on you, the whale hunters, killers of innocent victims.


text:
The Schilling test is used to determine whether the body absorbs
Alternative Names
Vitamin B12 absorption test
How the Test is Performed
This test may be done in four different stages to find the cause of a low vitamin B12 level.
Stage I: You get two doses of vitamin B12 (cobalamin). You take a small, first dose (a radioactive form of B12) by mouth. You get a second, larger dose by a shot 1 hour later. You then
Stage II: You are given radioactive B12 along with intrinsic factor.
Stage II of the test can tell whether a low vitamin B12 level is caused by problems in the stomach, preventing it from producing intrinsic factor.
If Stage II is abnormal, a Stage III test is done.
Stage III: This test is done after you have taken antibiotics for 2 weeks. It can tell whether abnormal bacterial growth has caused the low vitamin B12 levels.
Stage IV: This test determines whether low vitamin B12 levels are caused by problems with the pancreas. With this test, you take pancreatic enzymes for 3 days. You then take a radioactive dose of vitamin B12.
How to Prepare for the Test
- Do not eat for 8 hours before starting the test, then eat normally for the next 24 hours. You can drink water.
- The health care provider may ask you to stop taking medicines that can affect the test.
- You cannot have intramuscular injection B12 within 3 days before the test.
How the Test will Feel
The injection of vitamin B12 may sting.
Why the Test is Performed
The Schilling test checks vitamin B12 absorption and evaluates you for
Other conditions for which the test may be performed:
Anemia of B12 deficiency
- Condition in which digested food slows or stops moving through part of the intestines (
blind loop syndrome)
- Megaloblastic anemia
Normal Results
Urinating 8% to 40% of the radioactive vitamin B12 within 24 hours is normal.
Normal value ranges may vary slightly among different laboratories. Some labs use different measurements or test different samples. Talk to your doctor about the meaning of your specific test results.
What Abnormal Results Mean
Low vitamin B12 levels can cause megoblastic anemia.
If there is a problem with the stomachs ability to make intrinsic factor, Stage I of the test will be abnormal and Stage II will be normal.
Stages I and II will be abnormal in people who have problems absorbing vitamin B12 and intrinsic factor in the small intestine.
Abnormal results may be due:
Celiac disease (sprue)
- Crohn disease
Liveror bile system disease
- Pancreatic disease
- Local reaction to vitamin injection
- Nausea
- Feeling light-headed
Antony AC. Megaloblastic anemias. In: Hoffman R, Benz EJ Jr, Silberstein LE, et al., eds. Hematology: Basic Principles and Practice. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Saunders; 2012:chap 37.
Elghetany MT, Banki K. Erythrocytic disorders. In: McPherson RA, Pincus MR, eds. Henrys Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods. 22nd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Saunders; 2011:chap 32.
Hogenauer C, Hammer HF. Maldigestion and malabsorption. In: Feldman M, Friedman LS, Brandt LJ, eds. Sleisenger and Fordtrans Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease Pathophysiology/Diagnosis/Management. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Saunders; 2010:chap 101.
Review Date:
Reviewed By:
Todd Gersten, MD, Hematology/Oncology, Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, Wellington, FL. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.


text:
Roundup: Garden Shed Offices
There are many advantages to working at home – life/work balance, no carbon-spewing commute – but what if you don't have room in the house for a dedicated office? If you're lucky enough to have a back yard, consider renovating your shed or adding a new one, and check out these small and impressive offices for ideas. From cozy DIY to sleek prefab, there's a style for everyone.
• 1 Backyard Home Office – A Pulitzer Prize winning writer's potting shed-turned-home office (Sunset)
• 2 BillyOh Pathfinder Woodman Log Cabin – At once traditional and modern, but unfortunately only available in the UK
• 3 Backyard Tool Shed Office – Brian DeHamer turned this Tuff Shed into a comfortable work space
• 4 Chuck & Jessica's 196 Square Foot Green Shed – Sustainably designed and winner of the 2009 International Shed of the Year award!
• 5 Outdoor Office – A charming mix of fun and function (House to Home)
• 6 Shed Turned Office – A warm and rustic space built from recycled wood (Sunset)
• 7 Modern-Shed – One of Modern-Shed's clean, simple, and colorful designs
• 8 OfficePod – For those who prefer something more sleek than the typical shed
Related: Maximizing Your Minimal Footprint


text:
Comfort Inns Waterloo hotels are provided below. Search for cheap and discount Comfort Inns hotel rooms in Waterloo, NY for your group or personal travels. We list the best Comfort Inns Waterloo hotels/properties so you can review the Waterloo Comfort Inns hotel list below to find the perfect place.
Our website will also provide discounted Waterloo, NY hotels/motels that have similar star rating to Comfort Inns.Need 5+ Rooms? Lock in a group rate for Waterloo NY
How should we direct your call?


text:
BOSTON (AP) – Nearly 150,000 homes and businesses remain without electricity following the massive snowstorm that swept across the Northeast, with most outages in hard-hit Massachusetts.
Utilities in Massachusetts are reporting more than 126,000 of their power customers still in the dark early Monday, down from more than 400,000.
The storm started Friday night and dumped up to 3 feet of snow and knocked out power to more than 650,000 homes and businesses in eight states, from Maine to Pennsylvania
Nearly 21,000 customers in Rhode Island and 1,225 in Connecticut still were without power early Monday.
Most power has been restored in New York, down from nearly 12,000 outages. On snow-blanketed Long Island, 193 customers are still in the dark.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


text:
Dr. Matthew Roberson, M.D., attended Texas A&M University where he earned his undergraduate degree in Chemistry. He went on to medical school at the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHSC) in San Antonio where he also completed his residency in Family Medicine. While there, he acted as chief resident.
He has been in private practice for 13 years, starting with his first practice where he focused on geriatrics and end-of-life care. Subsequently, Dr. Roberson moved to Flower Mound, TX, (and eventually nearby Coppell) where he began to focus on patient-centered care and preventive medicine. Dr. Roberson is a Diplomate of the Family Medicine Board.
He believes that the best outcomes are always available to each of us through healthy living and exercise. By taking a more holistic approach, Dr. Roberson empowers patients to truly engage in their health and medical well-being.
Dr. Roberson is a member of the Texas Academy of Family Practice, and he has been voted as one of "Dallas' Best Doctors" in D magazine in 2014 and 2015.
Dr. Roberson is a co-owner of the Griffins Rugby Club, the fastest growing professional rugby club in Texas and the United States, and The DEN, a unique and dynamic sports performance and fitness training facility, where he works with high-level athletes from around the globe.


text:
Walter Matthau, whose performances as cantankerous but endearing characters made him a distinctive leading man in movies, theater and television, died yesterday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 79.
The cause was a heart attack, said Lindi Funston, a spokeswoman for St. John's Health Center, where he died.
Mr. Matthau's breakthrough role was as Oscar Madison, the slovenly sportswriter in Neil Simon's 1965 Broadway comedy and 1968 film ''The Odd Couple.'' But that was only one of an extraordinarily diverse galaxy of characters. In his long career he played lawyers, editors, detectives, spies and sheriffs, and each one of them looked and acted like Walter Matthau.
In 1994, he played a comic version of Albert Einstein in the movie ''I.Q.,'' and Einstein began to resemble the shaggy, shambling actor. Although Mr. Matthau was an experienced stage actor, in common with great film stars of the past like Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, he created character through the magnetism of his own personality.
Mr. Simon credited Mr. Matthau's rumpled persona and ironic wit as being the inspiration for Oscar, the nemesis of his fussy apartment-mate and fellow dropout from marriage, Felix Unger (Art Carney on stage, Jack Lemmon in the film). In his memoirs, the playwright said the actor at first wanted to play Felix, in retrospect a mind-boggling idea, but one that Mr. Matthau undoubtedly could have accomplished. He was, Mr. Simon said, ''the greatest instinctive actor I've ever seen.''Continue reading the main story
Mr. Matthau was a tall man with a perpetual slouch and a perpetual frown. No matter how elegant his character was supposed to be, in common with Oscar he usually looked as if he had been sleeping in his clothes. But through a kind of reverse chic Mr. Matthau could make himself seem stylish. Without airs or affectations, he became a widely respected international star.
Though he often played dramatic roles, comedy was his principal metier. With his hangdog face and growling voice, he added humor to his line readings. Dialogue that would not be so funny in print became hilarious when delivered by Mr. Matthau. With perfect timing, he was an expert at the slow burn, the double take, the explosion into exasperation. ''Walter doesn't need funny lines,'' George Burns, who starred with him in the movie of Mr. Simon's play ''The Sunshine Boys,'' once said. ''He's fearless -- no inhibitions. If you want him to play soprano, or be a toe dancer, he'd do it.''
A Comedy Duo Through the Years
It was with Jack Lemmon that he became half of one of America's favorite, if floating, comedy teams. In addition to ''The Odd Couple,'' they were in three Billy Wilder comedies, ''The Fortune Cookie,'' ''The Front Page'' and ''Buddy Buddy.'' The two aged together before the camera until they were playing the twinned title roles in ''Grumpy Old Men.'' In the sequel, they became ''Grumpier Old Men,'' and probably would have been on their way to ''Grumpiest.''
In a statement yesterday from Los Angeles, Mr. Lemmon said: ''I have lost someone I loved as a brother, as a closest friend and a remarkable human being. We have also lost one of the best damn actors we'll ever see.''
Last year in the book ''Conversations With Wilder,'' Mr. Wilder said that Mr. Matthau was ''one of the handful of great actors.''
Mr. Matthau worked his way up from poverty on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to varied roles in stock, more than 20 Broadway plays (mostly flops) and scores of live television shows. He became, successively, an adept movie villain and comedian and later, improbably, a romantic leading man.
He was tireless in improvising fresh comic business to sharpen and enhance plays and films, and in spinning perceptive observations from commonplace events. With sly self-mockery, he described his Hollywood image as a ''Ukrainian Cary Grant.''
Film portraits shaped by Mr. Matthau included a tricky lawyer in ''The Fortune Cookie'' (a performance that earned him a 1966 Academy Award as best supporting actor), an inept rake in ''A Guide for the Married Man'' (1967), sly philanderers in ''The Secret Life of an American Wife'' (1968) and ''Cactus Flower'' (1969), and three tour de force roles in Mr. Simon's ''Plaza Suite'' (1971), as a callous husband, a vulgar filmmaker and a put-upon father.
He enlivened thrillers like Don Siegel's ''Charley Varrick'' (1973) and ''The Taking of Pelham One Two Three'' (1974), and he played W. C. Fields-like child-detesters in ''The Bad News Bears'' (1976) and the 1980 remake of ''Little Miss Marker.'' Other characters were a lugubrious editor in ''The Front Page'' (1974), a henpecked assassin in ''Buddy Buddy'' (1981) and a crusty Supreme Court justice in ''First Monday in October'' (1981). In 1993 he was the beleaguered Mr. Wilson in ''Dennis the Menace.''
Mr. Matthau's personality also gleamed in bouts with other potent personalities: Barbra Streisand in ''Hello, Dolly!'' (1969), Elaine May in ''A New Leaf'' (1971), Carol Burnett in ''Pete 'n' Tillie'' (1972), Mr. Burns in ''The Sunshine Boys'' (1975), and Glenda Jackson in ''House Calls'' (1978) and ''Hopscotch'' (1980).
Comedy, he said in 1981, should be shaped very seriously and have an emotional foundation, evoke genuine laughter and then provide some insight. Asked to compare stage and film acting, he said: ''Theater is pure, while movies are bits and pieces. Right now, I like acting in movies better because it's much easier, more fun, though not as satisfying. Doing a play is like having a seven-course meal, but a movie is like eating a lot of hors d'oeuvres. You get filled up, but you're never quite satisfied.
''There are very few good stage actors,'' he continued, ''but there are many good movie actors,'' partly because of efforts by the director, the cameraman, the editor. ''On the stage, there are no tricks, it's you.''
Walter Matthau was born in New York City on Oct. 1, 1920, to Milton Matuschanskayasky and the former Rose Berolsky, impoverished Jewish immigrants. His father, from Russia, was an electrician turned process server who abandoned the family when Walter was 3 years old and who died 12 years later. Walter's mother, who was from Lithuania, kept him and his elder brother, Henry, in a day nursery while she worked as a sweatshop seamstress. The family moved often because she could not pay the rent for their cold-water flats.
Acting Offers a Refuge For a Boy in Poverty
Young Walter took refuge in acting, appearing in theatricals in schools and settlement houses and reading Shakespeare nearly every day. At 11, he started selling ice cream and soft drinks in the Yiddish theaters on Second Avenue and, for an extra 50 cents a show, did bit parts while studying the great Yiddish actors. At Seward Park High School, he lettered in six sports and was also in demand as a campaign manager for student office-seekers, he once said, because schoolmates were invariably won over by ''the way I stood or looked or sounded.''
Jobs after graduation included forestry in Montana in the Civilian Conservation Corps and coaching boxing and basketball in New York City. In World War II, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He served as a radio operator and cryptographer in Europe, rose to staff sergeant and earned six battle stars.
Back in Manhattan, he used his G.I. benefits to study at the New School's Dramatic Workshop under the director, Erwin Piscator. He later recounted the following exchange with Mr. Piscator:
'' 'Matthau, you say here every line wrong.' Another actor might have been destroyed. I was destroyed for about 20 seconds. Then I said, 'Teach me how to say every line right.' One way and another, I began to learn how to talk, how to look, how to walk -- how to act.''
In a summer stock production of ''Three Men on a Horse'' in 1946, he received what he considered to be the finest compliment. A theatergoer told him he was the only one in the play he did not like. ''The others looked like actors,'' he said. ''You just looked like a poolroom bum.''
The irrepressible Mr. Matthau was reflective and personable in interviews, but he sometimes enlivened them with outrageous lies, saying that his father had been a renegade, defrocked Orthodox priest, and falsifying his training credentials, saying he had studied at Oxford University, the Abbey Theater in Dublin and the Moscow Art Theater.
On Broadway, he advanced from a candelabra carrier in ''Anne of the Thousand Days'' (in 1948) to a bookish lover in ''The Ladies of the Corridor,'' an urbane playwright in ''Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?'' and an exuberant impresario in ''Once More With Feeling.'' In 1962 he won a Tony award for his performance as a Parisian aristocrat in ''A Shot in the Dark,'' and three years later won another Tony for ''The Odd Couple.''
In acting, he used his intuition and his native intelligence about people, especially those with eccentricities. ''You study the character by living with him,'' he said. ''Even when you're sleeping, you're developing the character. An actor shouldn't think on the stage. He must only do.''
A Reformed Man After a Heart Scare
In 1966 Mr. Matthau suffered a severe heart attack brought on, his doctor said, by heavy smoking, compulsive gambling and insufficient exercise. The crisis created a reformed man: a nonsmoker, a more moderate gambler (or so it was said) and a dedicated walker.
His obsession with gambling reached a low point early in his career when he bet and lost $183,000 in only two weeks on spring-training baseball games and scrimped for six years to pay off the debt to an underworld loan shark. But his tendency to take risks paid off later, when he reaped a fortune after opting to receive percentages of film profits rather than salaries. He later still placed bets, but relatively small ones, on racehorses that he owned with friends.
Mr. Matthau disliked jogging but became an avid walker, averaging 15 miles a week and varying his pace along ocean beaches near his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif. ''It makes you ease up, if you have any sense,'' he said of the heart attack. ''It makes you think about what's important. I feel as though I've been given a second life, one better than the old one.'' In 1976, Mr. Matthau underwent heart bypass surgery. Last year, he was hospitalized for two months with pneumonia.
He was a lifelong enthusiast of sports and classical music, habitually playing records at home and tapes in his cars. In contrast to the crotchety characters he generally played on screen, he was known to friends and colleagues as one of the best natured of men. In later years, he made about one film a year, and when an interviewer suggested in 1990 that he might be approaching retirement, Mr. Matthau replied sharply: ''That word is alien to my vocabulary. Retire to what? I'm doing the work I like.''
He also said he would not direct another film. His first and last was a 1960 low-budget melodrama, ''Gangster Story.'' ''It was one of the worst films ever made,'' he said with characteristic candor, and then added, ''Let me put it another way: it was the worst I ever made.''
His son Charles eventually became a movie director. In 1996 he made a film of ''The Grass Harp,'' in which Walter Matthau played gentlemanly Judge Cool and Jack Lemmon was a salesman.
Mr. Matthau, who teamed up with Mr. Lemmon in ''The Odd Couple II'' in 1998, most recently appeared in ''Hanging Up,'' released in February and starring Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow.
Charles Matthau said that his father approved his choice of career although he suggested that it would have been wiser for his son to have a newsstand and ''find a husky woman who, at the end of a day's work, can carry me home.''
In addition to Charles, Mr. Matthau is survived by his wife, Carol, and two children from a previous marriage, another son, David, and a daughter, Jenny.
Also in 1996, Mr. Matthau starred opposite Ossie Davis in the film version of Herb Gardner's play ''I'm Not Rappaport.'' The role had been created on Broadway by Judd Hirsch and had been played in London by Paul Scofield, but, as was often the case, once Mr. Matthau played a character, he made it definitively his own. Not only did the role seem written specifically for the actor, it also seemed as if he might have been the real-life model: a stubborn old codger who refused to surrender his independence, an irascible (but lovable) survivor of all wars, political and domestic.
Matthau on Film
These are among Walter Matthau's most important films:
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
The Fortune Cookie (1966)
A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
The Odd Couple (1968)
Hello, Dolly! (1969)
Plaza Suite (1971)
A New Leaf (1971)
The Sunshine Boys (1975)
The Bad News Bears (1976)
Casey's Shadow (1978)
Hopscotch (1980)
Grumpy Old Men (1993)
I'm Not Rappaport (1996)Continue reading the main story


text:
Validation of your TV Licence was successful
Brand SONY
Item no. 00756577
Model CDX-G1201U
In stock - available to buy online
Check stock in your local store:
We offer standard delivery in 3 – 5 working days and deliver anywhere in South Africa. Due to an expected increase in sales volumes, we are aiming to deliver Black Friday orders within 7-10 working days (depending on your region).
From 9 November 2018, for a limited time only, delivery will cost R50. Anything, anywhere for just R50*.
*An additional R50 delivery fee will be applied per additional large item purchased.
If you have any questions about purchasing online, contact us at email@example.com or call us on 0861 426 333.