'I really wanted to write a chaper in epic verse, because I thought epic verse and PowerPoint in one novel, come on. Irresistible!'

When Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad was first published in the United States, it got great reviews and sank like a stone. The publishers wondered if the title was a problem; what is a "goon squad"? It might be off-putting to women, they thought. Egan despaired. "It felt like a potentially colossal lost opportunity." A year later, Goon Squad is a bestseller, has been bought by HBO for TV adaptation and a few days after my interview with her, went on to win the Pulitzer prize for fiction. "Are you Jennifer Egan?" asks the waitress in the (very booky) part of Brooklyn where we meet for lunch. There is such a thing, says Egan, as over-exposure. "If I was a person observing it I would be, like, when will she stop?"

In person, Egan is slight, modest, at odds perhaps with the force of her prose, which is lit by a casual brilliance and so compacted as to be almost tangible. As well as the Pulitzer, she has won the National Book Award (beating Jonathan Franzen's Freedom), a Guggenheim fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and yet, she says, "I've never been that confident. I don't tend to think, swaggeringly, I'm going to ace this. It's just not who I am."

Goon Squad is Egan's fourth novel. It breaks with the genre of her previous novel, as did the novel before that and the one before that, as is Egan's habit. Every time she starts a new project, she says, she is itching to relieve the exhaustion of the previous one. After her first novel, The Invisible Circus, a coming of age story, she wrote Look At Me, the satirical story of a model who loses her looks in an accident, and then a gothic novel, The Keep. It probably loses her readers. The Keep was enthusiastically received by people whom she suspects won't identify with Goon Squad – which is loosely set around the music industry, although don't let that put you off. Egan is guided only by what interests her at the time of writing. "I'm kind of looking for thrills, honestly. That's what it's about."

The new novel is broken into 13 interrelated stories, each focusing on a character seen out of the corner of one's eye in the previous chapter. If it sounds irksome, it is saved by pace and sheer readability. Egan is so swift and funny, so light on her feet, that her reputation lingers on the borders of chick-lit, which might explain her omission from the Orange prize shortlist in favour of more earnest titles. It's an absurd oversight, although Egan won't, of course, allow it as such. "The only thing I feel bad about is that it would have made my publishers so happy," she says. She is a great fan of Emma Donaghue's novel, Room, the favourite, which, she says, "is seriously good. It may be partly that I'm the mother of two boys, although I'm not generally interested in books that are about motherhood; I run a mile from that kind of thing. But I just found . . . it walloped me. I was in awe of what she pulled off."

Egan's writing habits are shaped by necessity. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, a theatre director, and their two young sons. Before she picks up the boys from school she strives for five to seven pages a day, by hand. "And that can happen really quickly; I can be done with that in an hour or two. But I sometimes spend a lot of time avoiding doing it, taking four hours to do what I could've done in one. I try not to write more than that, even if I'm tempted to, because if I go too far I'm really drained for the next day. I can't do more than seven or maybe eight without jeopardising the rhythm."

The desire to become a writer struck suddenly and without warning when she was a teenage backpacker in the early 1980s, traipsing across Europe, lonely and depressed, missing her family. This was the era of queuing for the public phone box: "There was a kind of intensity to the isolation of travel at that time that's completely gone now. You had to wait in line at a phone place, and then there weren't even answering machines. That feeling of waiting in line, paying for the phone and then not only having no one answer, but not being able to leave a message so that they would never know you called. It's hard to fathom what that disconnection felt like. But I'm actually very grateful for it. Because it was extreme. And that kind of extreme isolation showed me that I wanted to be a writer."

Why?

"I wish I knew the answer. I don't know. I think there was a kind of clarity to being reduced to myself in this extreme way. I was also really scared. I kept having what I think we would now call panic attacks. This would've been the summer of 1981 and I just thought I was flipping out. Somehow in that extreme state, I wrote constantly; harrowing journal pages where I'm narrating my own panic. 'I don't understand why I can't make it stop' – trying to understand what I was scared of." She smiles. "And I suppose the essentialness of writing for me was revealed in that experience." Egan eventually got hold of her mother on the phone, who told her to come home to California, which she did.

She could, I suggest, have written an early version of Eat Pray Love. Egan makes a face. (Reviewing that book for the New York Times, she wrote: "What's missing are the textures and confusion and unfinished business of real life, as if Gilbert were pushing these out of sight so as not to come off as dull or equivocal or downbeat.") She is a big fan of Gilbert's, she says, although not of that book.

Before leaving for Europe, Egan had had thoughts of being a medic, like her grandfather. "I loved the idea of being a doctor – plunging into the lives of different people – but also the investigative aspect of it. I was a sciency kid; I loved chemistry." Medicine fell by the wayside when she developed a squeamishness about blood in her teens. Then she wanted to be an archaeologist. "It was at that time when the Leakeys were making a lot of discoveries and it felt like archaeology was really in the headlines. My fantasy was 'wow, reconstructing lives from previous times using tiny artifacts'." She laughs to acknowledge the greater truth in this. But, "then I payed to go on a dig in summer, and found it to be kind of hot and dusty and not really what I had in mind. I realised that my fantasy had literally nothing to do with the reality."

She returned to southern California at a difficult time; her mother and stepfather had just split up; the house was sold and a lot of her stuff was gone. "I've always felt really sad about that. I'd saved so many things, for years and years. I know it's silly, but, all of my Barbie dolls with all of their clothes, preserved. It had been a terrible situation and they'd sold their house and my mother was in this apartment, and I didn't even want to be out of the room from her. I would call to her from a different room, that's how upset I was. But I recovered fairly quickly and went to college in the fall."

She used experiences from her trip around Europe for her first novel, The Invisible Circus, about a girl whose sister commits suicide on her gap year, and who retraces her steps to find out why. It's the most conventional of her novels. "It's the kind of book that makes some people cry. It's the kind of book that people say to me, gosh, when will you write another book like that?"

The idea for Goon Squad came to her after her reading group got stuck into Proust. It took them about seven years to plough through In Search of Lost Time, during which she became obsessed with how to represent entire lifespans, non-sequentially and in the way people actually experience them, that is as a constant negotiation between reflection and anticipation. Like the best satire, much of what Egan writes has already turned into reality; one of her characters is a hapless PR, employed by a dictator to rehabilitate his image: after the book came out, it was revealed Gaddafi had done something similar. (Public relations, in Egan's landscape, has come to manipulate human behaviour so egregiously as to be considered a branch of particle physics.) And she is experimental. The most arresting part of the novel is the chapter written in PowerPoint, by a teenage girl in the near-future, writing her online journal.

"I had a few chapters that I couldn't make work," she says. "I really wanted to write a chapter in epic verse, because I thought epic verse and PowerPoint in one novel, come on. Irresistible! But the problem is – I'd been reading Don Juan, which is just so fun and rollicking, very postmodern in that 19th-century way, where Byron is interjecting commentary about local events, making little digs at his enemies, then effortlessly flowing back into Don Juan's adventures. I thought, God, if I could do that it would be amazing. Of course, he was one of the greatest poets ever, that's why he could do it. And I'm not a poet at all. I got a couple of stanzas into that one and thought, this is a disaster."

The PowerPoint chapter manages, somehow, to be very moving and only works, she says, because the medium underlines a structural point she was trying to make about brevity: specifically, the awkward, silence-imbued relationship between a boy and his father. It's not merely a gimmick, although it looks startling on the page and I wonder that her publishers didn't protest. Yes, she says: "I thought they might say, no, this is too expensive, or too far out. And I was perfectly prepared to have that chapter be an url." She filed the first draft of the book without that chapter, and only slipped it into the final edit. "I did it sneakily. They were expecting light revisions. But I thought, all I'm going to do is make everyone frightened by telling them I'm writing in PowerPoint. And I was really possessed by the need to make it work." Inevitably, when she sent it to her agent and editor, neither could open the attachment and she had to print it out and fax it to them. She laughs. "They did not follow my instructions. My agent immediately called for technical support."

Partly as a reaction to this, Egan imagines that her next novel will be much more conventional. She's not fully into a new project yet – is at what she calls that "dangerous point" of fending off starting. Most years, she writes a couple of long magazine stories for the New York Times, and the two forms, the insularity of novel-writing, and the external movement of journalism, cross-fertilise, although she is wary of using the journalism as a displacement activity. "I always feel like I don't want to do it, and that it's getting in the way of what I want to do. I used to be able to do both at once when I didn't have kids, because I worked so much, but now I really can't. It feels like a bigger sacrifice, so I don't do quite as much journalism. But the two interact all the time. Being forced out in to the world is huge for me, it really broadens the possiblities of what I can write about."

Egan can accommodate the various roles in her life with relative ease. The difficulty she says is in the transitional moments. "When I first had a child I really had a hard time trying to figure out how it was all going to fit together. Because I felt like, when I was with him, I wanted to be writing and I should be writing. And when I was writing, I felt like I should be with him, and wanted to be with him. So I was unhappy a lot. But over time that conflict seems reduced. I can't quite explain it. They seem to intermingle more easily. It's often just getting from one to the other which is where the discomfort still lies.

"I'll walk to pick them up at school, it's 15-20 minutes, listening to music as I go, and often as I'm walking I'm uncomfortable. Miserable and depressed. But then when I see them I transfer to the other world. And their concerns are so immediate, which I find wonderful. As a writer, I'm not very interested in domesticity. But as a human, it's fantastic, because I find it so freeing. Accomplishing little domestic tasks can really give me satisfaction. I will be thrilled for having worked out some minor logistical problem with our schedule."

She finds publicity onerous. She used to be very bad at public speaking, she says, to the point where even holding the table at a dinner party would make her anxious – "six or seven people all listening to me; I didn't like that feeling of separation from them." This improved over time and she can address an audience, these days, with only occasional trouble, although in a limited way she finds fear can be useful. Working from a position of light pessimism is the thing that drives her, the thing she gets from starting each novel in a totally new genre. After Goon Squad, she is thinking around the possibility of historical fiction, a more straightforward form of storytelling, because "I'm tired of the fragmented approach, and crave a centrality."

Nonetheless, it will be new to her. "In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do," she says. "So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset." It is one that, this week at least, will be difficult for Egan to maintain, although of course it's her job as a novelist to occupy multiple points of view simultaneously. She smiles. "I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think it will work out, doesn't mean that it actually won't."

The announcement by Sheriff Michael Hennessey that he won't honor federal deportation holds for undocumented prisoners accused of low-level crimes is a great illustration of local control – which is the reason why we elect our sheriff and district attorney – but it is a concept that District Attorney George Gascon doesn't seem to understand.

As the Guardian recently reported in a cover story by Sarah Phelan, Gascon ignored local control, civilian police oversight, and even standing police general orders as police chief by taking a highly deferential stance with the FBI and its domestic spying operations. Then, in a Chronicle op-ed on the death penalty last weekend, Gascon went even further in declaring himself to be merely a minion of higher government authorities.

While stating his opposition to capital punishment, Gascon said he wouldn't rule out seeking the death penalty because he doesn't think his own view or that of the vast majority of San Franciscans should determine his office's actions. “I don't believe district attorneys should be allowed to supplant the views of the state with those of their own,” he wrote.

That is a rather astounding statement that only an inexperienced prosecutor and an individual who has spent almost his entire career in the rigid hierarchies of police departments – rather than actually working as an attorney – would make.

“That's where rookies make mistakes because they don't have the experience to use their prosecutorial discretion,” said Sharmin Bock, a career prosecutor who works in the the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, and who is running against Gascon (who did not return our calls for comment). “The DA has discretion over charging decisions and when you pick a DA it is for their discretion.”

For example, Bock cited the Three Strikes You're Out law, which allows prosecutors to seek a sentence of 25 years to life even for the most minor crimes when they are committed by two-time felons. If all prosecutors used that full authority in every case, California's severely overcrowded prison system would be even worse, which is one reason why prosecutors in places like San Francisco, Alameda County, and Los Angeles use their discretion and only seek Three Strikes sentencing standards for violent felons.

Similarly, in San Francisco, former DA Kamala Harris upheld her campaign pledge to never seek the death penalty, just as her predecessor Terence Hallinan used his prosecutorial discretion in dealing with local medical marijuana dispensaries or refusing to throw the book at those who committed low-level drug crimes.

Otherwise, the DA is nothing more than an administrative position, and San Francisco is forced to endure the same prosecutorial standards and values that are promulgated by intolerant conservatives from rural counties who have loaded up the Penal Code with costly and unjust new crimes and sentencing enhancements.

Hennessey understands that San Franciscans don't want the same harsh treatment of our immigrant neighbors that the intolerant residents of Fresno, Orange, or Placer counties might demand. That why San Francisco's elected officials made this a sanctuary city, and it's why Hennessey told the Examiner, “I'm just doing our best to enforce local law. That's my job.” But if Gascon thinks it's his job to simply be an agent of the state and federal governments, perhaps San Francisco voters should cast their ballots accordingly.

By; John Kinsman and John Peck
This article originally appeared in Family Farm Defenders Winter 2010-11 issue.

Have you heard the slick rhetoric of the latest corporate makeover campaign? "Producing more. Conserving more. Improving farmers’ lives. That’s sustainable agriculture. And that’s what Monsanto is all about." The peddler of such deadly toxins as Agent Orange and PCBs is now working overtime to cleanup its public image. And, with millions in its coffers for its latest PR campaign, Monsanto's greenwashing is reaching far and wide.

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Civil resistance in the face of violence

Civil resistance – popular nonviolent struggle waged by ordinary people against dictatorship, foreign intervention, colonial occupation, corruption, or injustice with the use of diverse methods of nonviolent action - is by no means a new phenomenon. It has been practiced in a strategic manner for at least two centuries, going back as far as the American colonists’ mass boycotts and refusal to comply with the orders of the British crown that won them de-facto independence even before the American Revolution began.[1] As the forthcoming book Why Civil Resistance Works, by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan shows, both the frequency of instances in which civil resistance is waged and the knowledge of how it is effective are now accelerating.
Tunisians celebrate their independence. Demotix/Sghaier Khaled. All rights reserved.

Consequently, civil resistance has a chance to overtake violent resistance as the global default method for grievance and rights-based struggles in the twenty-first century. At the same time, these positive developments are paralleled by the determination of autocrats and their enforcers to use every means at their disposal, not least violence, to crush civil resisters. This violence, far from showing the weakness of civil resistance, is to be expected precisely at a time of high apprehension that the walls of fear around their populations are actually crumbling. Regimes will then reflexively resort to such an action. For civil resisters, this reactive use of violence can create as many opportunities as dangers. It then depends on the skills of nonviolent challengers, such as their unity, planning and nonviolent discipline, whether they are able to counter violence with actions that raise the cost of maintaining autocratic control while, at the same time, minimizing the risks for themselves. 

 

The idea of popular sovereignty

Recent popular Arab revolts have reaffirmed what many other nations that experienced similar mass nonviolent struggles in the past, including South Africa, Poland, Philippines, Chile, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Iran, have already so vividly demonstrated: the legitimacy of regimes and more broadly their perceived sovereignty derive from the people and operationally depend on popular acquiescence to their rule. Kafkasque state structures of nefarious powerholders who claim to represent and defend the people, are the wrong referents for understanding the dynamics of political power inside a country. No longer can political power be seen as a constant, unchanging physical ability and material capability of rulers to exercise top-down control over their people: but rather a much more diffused, immaterial force shaped by the readiness of the great majority to accept that control or to withdraw their consent and start resisting oppressive structures. In that sense, political power derives from a social contract or a transactional relationship between rulers and ruled whereby the latter agrees to be bound by the contract so long as the government exercises just authority, provides security and people feel that the benefits of accepting state legitimacy are proportionate to the loss of rights that, in a non-democratic society, are likely to be entailed. In this bottom-up process of give and take, when the conventional means of influencing politics such as elections, political parties or interest groups are not available, people can exercise intrinsic political power through nonviolent collective action, with the goal of building a just and popular sovereign order through representative government and accountable civil institutions. In that sense, civil resistance is a merely practical illustration of the exercise of the authority of the people. It aims to advertise and lay claim to the source of both legitimacy and power where it has always lain, though not always visibly – with themselves.

In this people-driven change, the nature of the state is shaped and defined by the extent to which its internal sovereignty stays representatively ‘popular’ and the degree to which a resort to resistance methods that aims to expand this ‘popular’ dimension of government remains within the boundaries of nonviolent defiance - e.g. actions that are not physically harmful even though they may compel compliance. The refocusing of the purpose of the state through the practical lenses of popular or people-centric sovereignty, which both legitimizes and is built on the practice of civil resistance, should have tremendous implications for global politics and its underlying international legal framework that has been constructed around states but has evolved in practice to incorporate human-centric principles. Civil resistance and an emerging notion of a “people polity” may represent a decisive force for a final push away from traditional state-driven discourse and practice, represented, by the idea of non-intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, towards people-oriented, popular sovereignty based on the rights and responsibility to uphold them.

 

Civil resistance and the existing international legal framework

International law, although state-centric in essence (i.e. states negotiate treaties according to their interests) has recognized to a certain extent the idea of civil resistance, as we will explain. It arises in at least three different realms of international law: 1) international humanitarian law which regulates the conduct of armed conflicts and protection of unarmed civilians, 2) international human rights law, which is much broader in its application as it regulates situations of peace and war and includes norms directly relevant to one of civil resistance’s cornerstone rights—the right to peaceful assembly, and finally, 3) the law pertaining to the UN charter, where issues of non intervention in the internal affairs of a state or the concept of R2P are addressed. 

1.     International humanitarian law (IHL) does not offer much normative support for the idea of civil resistance. It takes note of the resort to armed violence between organized parties and then sets the legal limit to the use of that force with a view to protecting civilians who are not participating in hostilities. More precisely, the right to peaceful protest is not regulated by IHL. That does not mean however that IHL is irrelevant. Indeed, when and if peaceful protest slides into armed violence, IHL can determine the extent to which a state is allowed to use force against combatants and the degree to which civilians should be protected.  

2.     International human rights law, which comprises the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), different treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as customary international law (binding on all states), deals more precisely with issues relating to civil resistance. Though the right to protest is not covered per se in the mentioned instruments, it can nevertheless be derived from the right to freedom of opinion and expression which “includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (Article 19 UDHR, Article 19 ICCPR) and the right to peaceful assembly (Article 20 UDHR, Article 21 ICCPR). The right to freedom of opinion and of expression as well as the right to peaceful assembly are also protected in regional instruments such as the European Convention on Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. Consequently, the right to peaceful protest, derived from related and relevant legal norms, can be said to be guaranteed by international law and can thus be enforced through a court of law as well as through quasi-judicial bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Committee.   

If infringed, individuals can obtain reparations and compensation from the state that disregarded that right. However, there could be limitations imposed on the right to protest. For example, freedom of expression and of association can be limited if the respect of the rights and reputation of others are at stake, for the protection of national security, public order and for reasons of public health and morals. Furthermore, those rights can be abridged in times of public emergency. This means that a state can opt out from respecting the rights concerned in exceptional circumstances – a stipulation that reflects the inherent state-centric structure of international law. Although special procedures have to be followed in order to lawfully derogate from those rights, one of them being in particular that the state of emergency must be temporary, many undemocratic countries keep states of emergencies in place for many years, as in, for example, Yemen, Algeria, Syria or just recently in Egypt where it remained in force for decades. It is interesting to note that in the recent events in the Arab world, civil protesters did not demand at first a change of regime, but asked for the lifting of emergency measures that kept the people for so long outside the purview of the law and without a reliable zone of treatment under the law. In 2007, Peter Ackerman and Michael Glennon observed that autocrats are actually obliged to explain the legal rationale for suppressing rights and dissidence, even though they so rarely do. Four years later, civil resistance in the Middle East and North Africa has shown the extent to which rulers failed to respect this principle and reaped their people’s wrath as a consequence of that negligence.

3.     Despite the principle of nonintervention in internal affairs of the state enshrined in the UN Charter, contemporary international law confirms that this principle cannot be invoked by states when serious violations of human rights take place. Following international military intervention in Libya, the debate about the idea of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was re-sparked. The concept of R2P that is still more of a political rather than legal notion was born out of a desire of the international community not to remain silent and passive in the face of massive violations of human rights (e.g. genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes). R2P is the last resort to be used by the international community with the approval of the UN Security Council, to intervene militarily to protect people‘s lives. However, as the current international military intervention in Libya and the earlier one in Kosovo demonstrated, R2P  was used when civil resistance was actually abandoned by the opposition in favour of armed struggle that in turn, handed advantages to the side with superior fire power - usually the state and its army - while militarily weaker rebels and civilians faced decimation. Given this practice, paradoxically, R2P may offer little incentive for people to continue mounting nonviolent resistance while a reward in the form of improved prospects for international military intervention might be forthcoming when a weaker side takes arms against more powerful opponent. While referring precisely to this paradox, Vetton Surroi, Kosovo politician and publicist once noted that what military intervention in Kosovo showed was that, “if you want to draw international attention you have to fight [and] use violence to achieve your goals.” Consequently, the current practice of R2P seems to be sending a wrong message to unarmed insurrectionists: ‘when you use nonviolent resistance we will ignore you but when you take up arms we may support you’ and thus, can be counterproductive for civil resistance in general. 

 

Still, the international community has a responsibility to assist civil resistance. A Diplomat’s Handbook for Democracy Development Support with its case studies of diplomats assisting nonviolent movements makes a strong case in favor of the international community’s “right to help” civil resisters and the right of nonviolent activists to receive that help. The handbook offers examples of direct assistance, including, among others, the presence of foreign diplomats during attempted arrests or at trials of activists. Targeted international sanctions not only against a dictator but his closest family members may also play an important psychological role. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the former Polish communist leader, once made a humorous but telling remark that after the west introduced sanctions against his government, he had to take a great deal of heat from his wife and other family members who could no longer go to Paris. Similarly, the international community could now consider targeted sanctions against wives, grown-up sons and daughters and relatives of the Middle East leaders who use violence to suppress nonviolent protests. At the same time, both the handbook as well as the international study on  Nonviolent Civic Action in Support of Human Right and Democracy published by the European Parliament emphasize that international support should not - in contrast to R2P - substitute for or drive resistance, which would only disempower nonviolent action-takers. The emphasis must be placed on the responsibility of the international community to favour civil resistance over armed violence. This could be facilitated by a more dynamic and comprehensive interpretation of the existing international law in the light of a broader understanding of those rights - highlighted below - of which civil resistance is comprised.

 

Human rights dimensions of civil resistance

Instead of being a passive observer of the ascendancy of civil resistance or a reactive suppressant of violence, the international community has a unique opportunity to play an instrumental role in facilitating a radical departure from the sovereignty of states towards the popular sovereignty of people. This kind of leadership would require a recognition that the growing practice of civil resistance and the repression used against it both call for a better understanding of the diversity of human rights being utilized by those using civil resistance. A normative framework of civil resistance would arise logically from the right of individuals to join and participate in nonviolent civic activity despite the risks involved in some societies and the uncertainty of a positive outcome. Thus the questions arise of why people decide to be part of nonviolent movements or become silent supporters or, at least, to distance themselves from the regime and stay neutral as the army did during the Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia, the Carnation Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution or the Egyptian January 25 Revolution. The answer to these questions requires  a broader understanding of the richness of rights involved in civil resistance that include, next to the traditional rights covered by the existing international legal framework, the right to dignity, the right to defend future generations and the right to protect my country, and the right to life.

Cleaning Tahrir Square. Demotix/Alain El Hajj. All rights reserved.

 Right to Dignity

Dignity is rooted in the ancient human desire for personal respect and space, and its corollary, the right to defy being treated with disrespect - of which a state’s denial of rights and justice is the ultimate manifestation. This defiance symbolizes an empowered individual who rejects living a lie (i.e. the fiction that living under censorship, repression, fear is normal), construed from the behaviour of an oppressive regime that strips away a person’s humanity while insulting his intellect. A lack of respect for people’s independent capacity to think and choose has been a powerful force for recent civic rebellions. For example, the rap anthem of the Orange Revolution made people sing: “We are not beasts of burden; we are not goats,” which was a vivid expression of protest against the rigging of elections in so audacious a manner that it quickly turned into a powerful affront to people’s intelligence. A brazen electoral fraud meant more than simple statistical cheating; it was a sign for people that the government wanted to treat them as animals that lacked self-will. Another example of people’s feeling of humiliation that led them to rise up against a dictator was a sign held by one of the Tunisian protesters that read: “Have you seen !? A President who treats his people like idiots!!!” In yet another struggle for one’s own dignity and against constant humiliation, this time in Egypt, one of the protesting vendors explained about the revolution: “This isn’t the January 25th revolution” - while referring to the date when the Egyptian revolution started -  “This is a revolution for dignity.” Similarly, in recent popular demonstrations in Morocco against King Mohammed VI, one of the protesters explained that the demands for rights, end to corruption, dissolution of government and change of constitution meant that, “this [was] the people speaking to get its dignity back.” People’s defiance against humiliation and against a lack of respect for who they are stems from an inviolable right to dignity that constitutes an important part of the rights-based framework of civil resistance.

Right to defend future generations

Civil resistance also represents a right to protect future generations from a predatory ruler. The members of the Solidarity movement that challenged the communist regime in Poland were convinced that they were unlikely to witness Poland’s liberation. Their resilience in persisting in their opposition to the authoritarian regime came from their belief that they were defying injustice to pave the road to freedom if not for themselves then for their children or children of their children. Nonviolent resistance was thus seen as a struggle of generations. In Egypt, a very similar theme of saving future generations was clearly heard among the protesters in Tahrir Square: "I'm doing this for my children. What life is this?“ or "My son will not suffer what I have suffered. This ends here!" Another Egyptian demonstrator explained: “I am the father of a 1-year-old daughter, and since I was growing up I’ve seen Mubarak. I don’t want my daughter to live under the same dictatorship.” Civil resistance is such a powerful force precisely because people, through their genuinely altruistic determination to resist and, if necessary, to suffer even without a positive end in sight, are still willing to rise up in order to defend and save future generations from oppression.

Right to protect my country

A practical illustration of popular sovereignty rooted in the notion of civil resistance is the right to protect one’s own country from an unjust government. Egyptians’ views of their resistance expressed during the demonstrations emphasized the struggle for the soul of their own country on one hand and against a destructive, estranged government on the other. At Tahrir Square, one could hear and read: "We Want To Keep This Country Safe, They Want To Destroy It,” or “I love my country. It is the government I am afraid of.”  In another and ongoing nonviolent struggle that faces government’s violent oppression, a Syrian opposition member was quoted as saying: “They’re armed and we’re unarmed. If they want to kill us, they can kill us. If they want to arrest us, they can arrest us. But no matter how much blood gets spilled and how violent it gets, this is our country and we’re not giving it up.” The protesters were finally expressing openly what many had felt strongly but discussed only in private: that their ruler no longer belonged to their country. This was because, as Thomas Aquinas so eloquently put it almost eight centuries ago: “It is not rebellion to depose [an unjust ruler], for he is himself a rebel…” In other words, an illegitimate ruler turns himself into an occupier or, using the words of one of the Iranian protesters from July 2009, “We are not terrorists; that is what our government has become.” The country has to be protected against such an extremist-occupier in the very same way that the people are allowed to mount a defence of their own country if it faces foreign domination, occupation, invasion or terrorism. This also suggests that those who used to follow the orders of a dictator, e.g. the military and security forces, have not only the right to disobey an unjust government but a duty to do so, to protect the country by joining the rest of population in popular defiance. As such, civil resistance represents a right to defend people, institutions and territory against a system or/and individual that, by virtue of its oppressive acts, has alienated itself from the rest of population, voluntarily abrogated its own rights to be part of the society, and become unwanted strangers in a country they no longer belong to.

Right to life

Civil resistance epitomizes as well the right to life itself. People wage civil resistance to oppose tyranny because it causes and therefore stands for death. One of the Serbian civic resisters against Slobodan Milosevic once noted about the dictator,  “His language smelled like death.” Recently, women protesters in Sanna, Yemen, held a placard that read, “The nation wants freedom. Stop Killing” and rejected the Yemeni president’s accusation that by mixing with men in joint protests women committed haram – an Arabic word for sin. Instead, they said,  the killings perpetrated by the government amounted to haram. While the oppressive government often describes the past, present and future through the language of conflict, wars, violent martyrology, victimhood, vitriolic accusations and death, civil resistance offers a much more positive and healing view of both the struggle and of life. As an Iranian protester put it in July 2009: “Please tell the world how much we love life … We just want to be free.” More recently, one Yemeni woman held up a banner “We went out to ask for life, and they are killing us.” Civil resistance is thus as much about a rejection of death as it is about an utmost manifestation and reaffirmation of the right to life.

The traditional repertoire of rights that constitutes an existing legal framework for civil resistance would benefit from being augmented by rights that are derived from the very practice of people who decide to join nonviolent movements and resist unjust rule, despite repression. This broadening of a rights’ perspective vis-à-vis civil resistance can offer more legal and moral justification for democracies to offer assistance to people that fight nonviolently against state oppression while, at the same time, paving the way for a genuine transformation of political conflict.

 

In conclusion: civil resistance and political conflict

An augmented international legal framework, re-energised to protect and reinforce the practice of civil resistance will help the international community to become an active stakeholder in civil resistance, in the same way that it has developed into an agent for advancing human rights.  The emergent new form of political transformation that is represented by civil resistance is a fact. A pragmatic recognition of this development, as reflected in newly-framed, derivative rights, could save millions of lives in the years ahead.

Ultimately this could lead to galvanizing ordinary people everywhere to becoming far more involved in democratic political action. In perhaps a majority of the world’s societies, politics is often viewed as based on deception, self-interest, and morally questionable practices. In contrast, as Jack DuVall argues, civil resistance has the power genuinely to arouse people because it represents their grievances and beliefs. It also relies on transparent, public deliberation and reason in determining both the goals and actions of a movement. People who join the movement often feel ennobled by their resistance activities, particularly when they realize they are having an impact. In effect, they become their own leaders and stakeholders of political change.

Cleaning Tahrir Square. Demotix/Alain El Hajj. All rights reserved.

Nonviolent uprising can thus be transcendent, crossing ideological, ethnic or religious boundaries. In Egypt, this transcendental and ennobling experience was visible in chants such as: “Muslim, Christian, we are all Egyptian!” or “Sorry for disturbance. We build Egypt”, as well as in the images of people cleaning up the Cairo streets and Tahrir Square after the failed crackdown by police security on the protesters the night before. The transformation of political contestation is also embodied in the way civil resisters see their victory. This is not a vengeful triumph but rather a magnanimous feat distinguished by moderation, reflected in the willingness of the nonviolent actionists to negotiate with and offer a peaceful future to those who were part of the ancien régime – a process that more often than not leads to ‘pacted transitions’ as has happened in Chile, Poland, Czechoslovakia, or in South Africa. In contrast to violent revolutions, a political order that emerges as a result of bottom-up, nonviolent civil insurrection does not see new Bastilles constructed in place of old ones. In fact, the record shows that civil resistance is almost five times more likely to lead to the establishment of durable democracy and open society, than transitions initiated by either top-down, elite-to-elite negotiations or external interventions.

Civil resistance might also transform the nature of political contestation in yet another way. Increasing emphasis on popular sovereignty that forces government to compete with a civic movement for popular representation and people-centric legitimacy, may build an enhanced and comprehensive international legal framework that covers a greater range of legally binding or at least potentially enforceable rights associated with civil resistance, and begin to develop a growing understanding and appreciation of the practical importance of civil resistance tactics as well as the strategic benefits of remaining nonviolent. In turn, all these developments might eventually lead to the emergence of a ‘level playing field’ where both political challengers and their opponents recognize the strategic liability of violence and begin trying to outsmart each other in a new game of nonviolent political competition. This future might seem distant in many societies, given the volume of extreme political violence we see in a number of civil struggles, but to borrow a line from Paul Loeb, “the impossible will take a little while.”

 

---

[1] Walter H. Conser Jr., “Civil Resistance and the Struggle for United States Independence” in Maciej Bartkowski, eds. Rediscovering Nonviolent History of National Struggles, forthcoming.

 

As a Redfin Market Manager, you're responsible for building an excellent customer service organization, resulting in happy employees and happy clients. You'll be responsible for the growth and development of our Orange County and San Diego regions, evaluating processes, following up with and mentoring Team Leads, working directly with our recruiting manager to develop additional teams and hire agents, coordinators and field agents to serve the needs of the market. You'll establish best practices and build an organization that's not just great, but world-class. At Redfin, we're doing something that has never been done before, so we have to hire people willing to take risks, to screw up, to keep learning and to make things happen. This is a real opportunity to show us what you're made of.

As our Real Estate Market Manager, we'd expect you to:

* Be a leader: you're resourceful, decisive and hold yourself and others accountable for the entire customer experience. You don't accept mediocrity, and you're constantly looking for ways to improve your team's service.
*Offer real estate guidance and market expertise: your real estate team will depend on you for leadership; you should be prepared to answer tough questions.
* Forecast and manage the budget for your market: you commit to your market's financial goals, are responsible for headcount, evaluate your market spend and maintain profitability.
* Look for new ways to gain market share: figure out how to crush the competition, we're offering a better option for buying & selling real estate.
*Recruit & train new agents: we're always looking for new talent and need to make sure we're staffed appropriately to satisfy demand.
* Produce results: we're looking for someone that's goal oriented, up for a challenge, driven by delighting clients and profitability.

To succeed we think you'd need to be:

* Entrepreneurial: highly self-motivated and creative, always searching for new ways to succeed and provide value.
*Service motivated: we're a customer service organization, not a sales house.
*Tech adept: you need to be comfortable with today's technology: blogs, email, social networking – we're a technology driven organization, our managers need to be comfortable using a spectrum of online tools.

To be considered you must be:

* Experienced: you're a licensed real estate sales agent and broker in the state of California, with a minimum of 50 transactions under your belt, 10 over the last 12 months.
* Smart: you have a four-year college degree and certainly can communicate clearly and write well
* Ethical: you live by our values already, and do the right thing - always.
* A demonstrated leader: a minimum of two-years successful experience leading teams in a customer service motivated environment.

Click here to apply.

Redfin is an equal opportunity employer.

• Location: Orange County & San Diego
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

The 2011 NFL Draft came and went. Some of the things that happened for Syracuse fans was good. Some of it was less than good. Sometimes you cheered. Sometimes you jeered (you love to jeer). Let's find out when you did one or the other.

CHEERS for Delone Carter, selected by the Indianapolis Colts. DC3 will now be DC...something else as he heads somewhat closer to his home (Akron, OH). You might not think it's a good spot for Delone, given who's already there, but it might end up being a great spot. Addai's days are numbered in Indy and Carter has a great chance to see significant carries over the next 1-3 years. The Colts have had issues in shortdown situations on 3rd and 4th downs. Expect that to be Carter's domain at first.

CHEERS for Doug Hogue, selected by the Detroit Lions. Being picked by the Lions in 2011 means something a lot different than being picked by the Lions in 2007. They're a team on the rise (hopefully) and Hogue has a chance to be a part of that. He's probably only going to make an impact on special teams next season but that's fine. I don't think anyone expected him to jump in and start in the NFL right away. If he's given the right training and develops on schedule, he's got a great chance ahead of him.

JEERS for Every NFL Team for not drafting Ryan Bartholomew, Derrell Smith, Mike Holmes or Rob Long. Sure, we knew that it was an extreme longshot for most of those guys to get drafted. Still, getting one more Orange on the board would have been nice. Barty is the one that stands out. After his big combine numbers, so many folks called him a shoo-in for the draft. Makes you realize that while those combine numbers are important, knowing how to snap in the shotgun formation matters just a little more.

JEERS for the Lockout. Which means that Barty, Smith, Holmes, Long and the rest of the un-drafted SU seniors will have to sit and wait indefinitely to find out their free agent fates. Normally, they'd probably know by now where they were going camping. Now? They're just hoping there is such thing as mini-camp in 2011.

CHEERS to Syracuse, who had multiple players drafted for the third straight year. That hadn't happened since '02-'04.

JEERS to the Seattle Seahawks, who didn't draft a QB, ensuring that my days spent listening to local sports radio will remain unbearable for the indeterminable future.

CHEERS to the Colts, who officially have more Syracuse players on their roster now than any other team. Delone joins Dwight Freeney and Taj Smith.

JEERS to the Giants, Jets & Bills for not drafting any Syracuse players. Way to keep it in the family, you guys.

CHEERS to the Colts for drafting their 11th Syracuse player all-time.

CHEERS also to the Lions for drafting their 3rd Syracuse player all-time, going all the way back to 1953.

Our friend Randy Youngman at the OC Register had another article yesterday stating all the reasons that it makes sense for the Kings to move to Anaheim.  Namely, that by being in Anaheim, the Maloofs would be able to make more money, and thus spend more money, and the team would improve.

Let's take a look at all of Mr. Youngman's points and see if we can come to the same conclusion.  Follow me down the rabbit hole kiddos!

Youngman starts off his article with just how much the Kings suck as a team.  Why yes, the Kings did have the worst Home record and 5th worst Overall record in the NBA. So far, his research is flawless.  He’s also correct about the league low salary (which might have something to do with that league worst Home record and 5th worst record). That’s totally Sacramento’s fault though and not the fact that the owners can’t afford to lose any money whatsoever.

He lists the 2009-10 salary at $72 million, which according to ShamSports (the most reliable online source for NBA salaries) it was not, and if it was not for long. Before the Sam Dalembert trade it was at about $60 million. You might think that "Oh but Kevin Martin was adding his $11 million as well before he got traded and that's where Youngman got his $72 million right?".   Well Larry Hughes $13 million contract more than makes up for that, and that's accounted for in the $63 million number.

Youngman goes on to say

No one will dispute that reducing payroll by carrying fewer quality players on the roster reduces the chances of winning

Again, totally Sacramento’s fault and not the fact the owners can’t afford to spend money, which kind of should be a requirement of owning a NBA team.  

So do the Kings have a chance to become competitive again if they remain in Sacramento? I think we know how the Maloofs would answer that question.

Darn, yeah, we were never competitive in Sacramento, when our owners actually spent money on improving the team.

He continues the article by talking about what a Lockout could mean to the team.  Yes, a Lockout and new CBA could make Kings more competitive… here and in Anaheim, or wherever, simply because people with super deep pockets won’t be able to spend as much if there is a hard cap.

Now we get to some numbers.  Henry Samueli is personally guaranteeing $400 million in forms of improvement, tv contract, minority interest and a loan? My that seems awfully generous of him. Why ever would he do such a thing… unless he eventually wants controlling interest of the team? 

But what we're all forgetting is how much better Anaheim is than Sacramento right?

Sacramento residents won’t like to hear this, but there’s also a better chance of luring a premier free agent to Orange County than to the state capital.

Damn, did I miss something or have the LA Clippers been signing marquee free agents like crazy? I mean, they’re in LOS ANGELES and everything. Oh, and the New York Knicks and the Bulls? Didn’t they just go through a decade or more of suckitude, before the Knicks FINALLY signed a legitimate star, and the Bulls had to wait until they drafted Derrick Rose (and their last period of success started with drafting some guy named Michael Jordan?). Would LeBron have gone to Miami if Dwyane Wade (who Miami originally got via the draft) or Chris Bosh (or both) weren’t there? I think not. Players want to play with other great players, or for winning teams.

In Sacramento though, it all boils down to an arena.  Can we get an arena built?  Youngman is skeptical, as are the Maloofs, and they have a legitimate right to be.  Sacramento has not been successful at resolving this issue over the past 10 years.  But then he goes on to say that even if an arena is being built, the Maloofs might not be able to spend enough during that time to improve the team because of limited revenue streams.  Again, and I can't re-iterate this enough, if you can't afford losses on a NBA team, DON'T OWN A NBA TEAM. 

Then there is the matter of the NBA's Relocation committee, which recommended to the Maloofs last Wednesday that they stay in Sacramento.  Youngman words it thus:

What we don’t know is the real reason the NBA relocation committee told the Maloofs in a conference call this week that it doesn’t like the idea of three NBA teams in Southern California, even though Stern has said publicly it is his sense there would be enough support for another team.

Yeah, Sacramento has done nothing to improve its case (like update the NBA on arena progress, or raise approximately $10 million in NEW corporate sponsorship) and Anaheim had such a great presentation in New York (our friend Sam Amick reported that it was "awful").  No.  Its all because of the Lakers and Jerry Buss.  I don’t doubt the Lakers are involved some way, losing $500 million is a lot of scratch. But to say its solely because of the Lakers is hogwash.  

Yeah, but Phil Jackson has been extremely vocal against a Kings move, Akis!  He's suggesting that the Maloofs would be subject to NBA takeover like the MLB recently did with the Dodgers! Conspiracy!

Again, who cares what Phil Jackson is saying about the Kings move?  What does Phil Jackson’s opinion matter? Simply because he’s a famous coach?  The Lakers coach?  People ask Phil’s opinion about everything and he speaks his mind.

Youngman closes with this:

Another question that the Maloofs presumably are pondering: Is it legally defensible for the NBA to keep the Kings from moving to a market that gives them a better chance for long-term success? In 1984, San Diego Clippers owner Donald Sterling moved to L.A. without the NBA’s permission and lived to gloat about it.

Oh yeah, about Donald Sterling’s move to LA from San Diego. Yes the league lost that court case and the Clippers were allowed to stay in Los Angeles. But you also fail to mention that after that, the NBA went ahead and re-wrote their Constitution so that any future relocations would have to be approved by a majority of the Board of Governors, and this Constitution is something you have to agree to and abide by when you become a NBA owner.

***

So does Anaheim really offer the Kings a better chance to succeed?  You decide.  But I remember this team when it was great, and it was great in SACRAMENTO.

Here We Stay.

  SI     HT: 5-8.5   WT: 222   40 Time: 4.54   Biography: Two-year starter was awarded all-Conference honors as a senior after rushing totals of 231/1233/9 with eight receptions. Junior rushing totals included 236/1021/11.Positives: "Tough, low to the ground runner who has been very productive the past two seasons. Displays terrific running vision and instincts and will pick and choose his way on the inside, patiently waiting for blocks to develop. Deceptively strong, keeps his feet off the initial hit, and occasionally breaks tackles. Works runs, aggressively putting his shoulders into defenders and driving forwards for extra yardage. Displays a burst through the hole and keeps the play in bounds. Solid receiver who extends his hands and looks the pass in. Picks up stunts or twists and squares into blocks, giving effort to keep defenders away."Negatives: Not a power runner who picks up the difficult yardage. More of a one-speed ball carrier who can?t beat defenders into the open field.Analysis: Carter had a productive career at Syracuse and projects as a rotational back/situational runner at the next level. He has the ability to play on third downs in the NFL and would help his cause with good play on special teams.Projection: 4th   2010 Rushing Statistics Rushing Yards Attempts Average Per Rush Touchdowns 1233 231 5.3 9 2010 Receiving Statistics Receptions Receiving Yards Average Per Reception Receiving Touchdowns 8 45 5.6 0   http://bleacherreport.com/tb/b9dXH   http://sportsillustrated....m=referral#ixzz1L2cDZnjA       Grading system     5.00 to 4.00 -- Franchise Prospect --A player who can change the course of a game and a consistent performer. Multiple Pro Bowl possibilities and top ten selection. 3.99 to 3.10 -- Quality Prospect --Someone that consistently gives good performances. Occasional Pro Bowl appearances. 3.09 to 2.75 -- First-Year Contributor --Prospect that has the ability to make plays from the get-go and start early into his rookie season. 2.74 to 2.45 -- Future Starter --A good athlete that must learn to be a football player or someone who is an "overachiever". Quality prospect with long term potential 2.44 to 2.35 -- Fence Player --Prospect on the fence that has the skills and abilities to succeed but needs time and patience to develop those skills to the fullest. 2.34 to 1.99 -- Practice Squad --Late-round draft pick or priority free agent that must develop his talents on the practice squad 1.98 to 1.50 -- Free Agent --Player who will make a 60 or 80 man roster.   As well as grading each player, we give a prediction of where we feel they will be drafted. In a few situations there may be a player with a lower grade predicted to be drafted prior to a player with a higher one.   http://sportsillustrated....aft-2011/grading_system/   ------------------------- Bleacher Report & Video Delone Carter has been a staple of the Syracuse offense since his freshman season in 2006. Coming off a Second Team All-Big East season in 2010, Carter leaves the Orange as the school's fourth career rushing leader with 2,906 yards. At 5'9" and 222 lbs, he's a bruiser with solid 4.54 speed and the agility and quickness to make big plays. He's got the size to be an every down back and has a good pair of hands that should make him a reliable target in the passing game as well. The MVP of the East-West Shrine Game, Carter could turn out to be one of the steals of the draft. The Colts went offensive tackle in rounds one and two and now add a piece to the backfield. With Joseph Addai an impending free agent and Donald Brown injury prone and unproven, Carter could play a pretty big role from day one.   http://bleacherreport.com/articles/681588-delone-carter-to-indianapolis-colts-2011-nfl-draft-scouting-report

Elect Tyler for mayor Muncie Star Press My husband died from exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. I contacted other politicians, but no one would help me until Dennis Tyler got involved. I have found Dennis to be trustworthy, caring and willing to go that extra mile to help ... and more »

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Do you know your bin is full of reusable refuse? Instead of composting fruits and vegetables immediately, there are ways that you can give them a final reuse before tossing them to be turned into great garden soil.

For cooking:

Use citrus or orange peels to make an infused olive oil. Add the rinds to your extra virgin olive oil to give it a new flavor, one that you, so far, cannot even buy.

Don’t throw away vegetables leaves. Cook them up and blend them to make into soup.

You can also use those leaves, plus many other bits of vegetables to make into vegetable stock.

The rind from all kind fruits and vegetables give a special flavor to dishes. For example, stuff a chicken with a mixture of scraps of fruit and veggies and during the cooking a very subtle and different flavor will infuse into the meat. The plus of this is that the baking actually helps the scraps break down faster later in the compost pile.

For skin & beauty:

If your skin is dry, use papaya skins or pulp. Papayas are full of vitamin A and papain (an exfoliant) which helps remove all dead skin cells. Carrots, spinach and melon contain a lot of vitamin A too. You can make use of those things too by rubbing them on the dry parts of the skin.

If you have smelly feet, rub the fruit peels on it.

To make your hair darker, don’t use chemical products but potato peels. Boil it 30 minutes and strain out the peels. After your shampoo rinse your hair with this water. This natural hair dye will gradually and naturally darken your hair.

For home:

To polish metal you can make use of citrus rinds; orange, lemon, lime, etc. As they are full of citric acid they make for a great cleaning and polishing agent. To speed up the process, mix it with a little baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) or a little ketchup.

Ketchup on its own also is great for cleaning silver and copper.

Therefore I always drain the ketchup out of the bottles before throwing them and keep that as a cleaning agent for metals.

If you rub a banana peel against the leaves of the plants it would give them a special shine. Banana peels can also be used as a natural fertilizer. They also can be used to shine shoes.

This is but a small list ands there are many more things that can be used in this way. But I doubt that most people even as much as suspect that those bits of household waste I have mentioned here could be so useful.

Reuse is also most beneficial in other quarters and not just as regards to compostable household waste. Every piece of potential waste should be put under scrutiny as to whether it cannot be reused, reworked or upcycled before every it should go on the trip to the recycling bin and the recycling center; and I mean every piece.

© 2011

By: Andrew_Butter

If you drive out on the highway towards Abu Dhabi past the Jebel Ali Free Zone, look on the right and you will see, partly covered in sand, the remnants of the billboards that used to declare, “Where the Vision of Dubai Get’s Built”.

I met a guy who claimed to have come up with that tag-line. He was a young American, very nice and very-very smart, based in New York working for a big-name branding company, with absolutely no clue of what Dubai is/was about. But he was making really good money, and that’s fundamentally what everything is about, in Dubai.

That particular “vision” was going to be bigger than Hong Kong. My conversation with the nice young American was a big factor in what made me decide to “retire” the part of my business that did real estate consulting.

Up to then I could explain what was happening and if I did a ten-year projection on the revenue stream for a shopping mall or a hotel, I’d have a pretty good chance of being within 20% on Year Ten. Starting 2007 my models broke down. The “crunch” came when I gave my “”opinion of value” to an investor on a “fantastic-once-in-a-lifetime” plot of land that was being offered at a very special price that only someone “really connected” could get, of $200 a square ft of GFA.

I told him that was a stupid price and he should not buy; three months later he called me in a huff to complain that the land had been flipped at $300. I said “OK but you were going to develop (a four-to-five year commitment), not flip; and anyway I don’t do gambling”. That didn’t go down well and we haven’t spoken since; although I did notice his Ferrari in the long-term parking at the airport a while back, covered in dust.

Anyway, the “vision” that I’d been working with until then was the one that Sheikh Rashid told to my mate Eric Tulloch (sadly departed) in 1978.

“I will build the infrastructure and the rest will follow”. At some point in all the excitement, that vision got changed to:
“We will build the rest and the infrastructure will follow”.Back then, I knew nothing about bubbles but I was fascinated with Dubai and how and why the economy had more than doubled in size from 1990 to 2000, and then more than doubled again from 2000 to 2005. In 1990 Dubai was 15% the size of Singapore; in 2005 it was half its size and Singapore is no slouch when it comes to allowing free-market economics to rip, like when you start main-lining Adam Smith mixed with Speed.

Then there was the bubble, then there was the bust, and here we are.

What Next?

This is a chart that I put up in July 2009 which was when I think I finally figured out how bubbles work. I’ve updated it to my estimate of where prices are now (the Orange dot).


That orange dot is about 10% below where I predicted, I think the reason for that is I had not anticipated how much the bust would affect economic activity and also I under-estimated how much pipeline inventory there was. Although in my defence by that time I’d found other jobs for my researchers so I was eyeballing.

What caused the bubble in property in Dubai was pretty simple, (although I admit it took me about a year to “twig” what had been going on).

Up to early 2007 the price of housing (rentals and owned) had tracked the ratio of economic activity divided by the numbers of housing units, just like it does everywhere in the world. Sure interest rates are important but local interest rates hardly changed over that period.

But there was a lot of growth in the economy, on top of that was the start of property that foreigners could own, called “freehold”, which created a bit of a feedback loop as more and more people got involved in property, and they all needed a place to live, so more and more people got involved in property, round and round.

Then people piled in from far-and-wide with money in their pockets so then there was a shortage of new places to live, and so prices got bid up, for anything that was available. That resulted in a huge discrepancy between rents/prices for new units and what tenants in the older units paid in rent (there was no market for sale in that sector since foreigners could only buy freehold), so prices of the new stuff almost doubled. Everyone was looking at the “new” prices, which reflected only a sub-section of the market, rather than the market as a whole.

The red line “Other than Market Value”, is where (in my opinion) prices ought to have gone if the market had been “efficient”, and would probably reflect the whole market of rental (practically everyone rents in Dubai), if the “older” units were included. But there are no statistics on that; in fact there are hardly any statistics on Dubai, and those that there are, are one-year to eighteen months late, which is pretty useless in a place that’s changing that fast.

In my opinion, the lack of meaningful statistics was one reason there was a bubble, which was a classical example of “asymmetry of information”, people would look at the newspapers, they could see that an apartment could rent for say $25,000, and that the nominal yield was say 5%, so it made sense to pay $500,000.

But the “assumption” they made was that the price they could rent-out a new unit for today was a reflection of what the whole of Dubai was paying, on average. And as we all know, “Assumption is the Mother of all Frappuccinos”.

Then, the big-name branded real estate consulting companies who didn’t have any more of a clue of how Dubai worked, than the nice American branding expert; piled into town, and they got paid big bucks “facilitating” the new-boys-in-town bankers like RBS and Deutsche Bank to lend $100 billion to developers based on “sure-fire” RICS valuations; plus a total misunderstanding about how the constitution of the UAE works, as in “sorry sweetheart, Uncle Abu Dhabi is not your fairy godmother”.

But that was good money if you could get it, and if you had the ethics of a sewer-rat and if you didn’t mind your customers leaving their Ferraris at the airport.

Anyway just as the new-kids-in-town declared that 2009 was going to be an “even better year than 2008”, the penny dropped. Or more precisely the demand for the sub-market of hugely over-priced property started to get satisfied by new inventory, and then there was the “pop”.

The pop was helped along by a decision to make it more difficult for people from non OEDC countries to get visas, which was a factor feeding the market. But “visas” were not the cause of the bubble; up to 2006/7 the market had been driven by “fundamentals”, which included people who live behind the barbed-wire fence that separates the rich nations from the threat of influx from poor nations.

There’s nothing wrong with that; Dubai works, first because it has modern infrastructure including reasonably good standards of the rule of law (at least compared to its neighbours, and sure the courts are not Dubai’s strong-point), it is safe, and outside of the “vision” thing, there an absence of petty corruption that is endemic in the “Third World”. Second it’s open; anyone who has money can come to Dubai and set up a business (that often does not do any business in Dubai).

As in the line from Confucius on how to get a city to prosper, “Make the local people happy, and attract foreigners from afar”, which is something China has been very successful at doing.

Dubai was then, and still is, the best place to base a business for 2,000 miles in any direction; and now that property prices have come down from where they were when everyone was having “visions”, it’s even better.

The black dotted line that dips down to 150 was the prediction that I made in July 2009 about where the bottom would be, although you would have had to be pretty quick to catch it, and it was pretty “theoretical” because there were practically no transactions.

The thing about Dubai is that there isn’t a proper law on foreclosure so when you take a loan, you just write a hundred post-dated cheques, and if the cheque bounces, you go to jail, or you run away before your name is posted on the computer at the airport. Foreclosure takes a lot longer, so the market didn’t exactly “clear”, it just stopped.

But I know of some transactions that followed that path; a friend of mine wanted to buy on the Palm in early 2009, and he asked for some free advice. I said “if you want to live there” (I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live on the banks of an algae-filled canal), “then now is the time”. He was offered a “standard” villa for $1.75 million; I said “grab it”.

But my friend is real-smart which he says explains why he has much more money than me. My theory by the way is that’s more to do with my deep vein of human kindness, as in giving free advice to people who can afford to pay, and if they did pay they might be more inclined to take it. Anyway he told me, “I Never Accept the First Offer”.

So he messed around looking for a better deal, and what he did was typical Dubai; instead of trusting the agent he was using, he went to see ten other agents. And every one of them found the same property, and they all told the owner they had a “cash buyer” in their pocket. So he figured that with ten “cash buyers” in the market he was going figure a way around whatever it was that was forcing him to sell at that juncture, and he put the price up, so my mate was gazumped by himself (as in “shoot yourself in the foot”). Nowadays you won’t find a unit like that for less than $2.3 million, which pretty much fits the curve.

Right now (in my opinion) the price of property in Dubai more or less reflects the fundamental of supply and demand.

Prices are down on pre-bubble (say January 2007) because there has been a lot of new inventory (and there is more to come), and also the amount of economic activity has gone down (a bit) in nominal terms since then (my opinion also).

That explains why a temporary 40% over-pricing ended up in a fairly short-lived 60% decline; that subsequently bounced (a bit).

Where Next?

No one with any brains is building new property in Dubai at the moment; unless they managed to get some really cheap land (construction costs are rock-bottom), but most good land is tied up in litigation and has a half finished building on it; all that’s happening now is that some of the half-competed units are slowly getting finished.

One of the things about Dubai was that many developers (not the ones I advised mind), forced contractors to take risk and signed lump-sum contracts rather than taking the risk of price changes in steel, concrete and MEP during construction themselves; now those owners are crying.

What will drive the future now, is the rate of growth of the Dubai economy.

Of course, no one really knows what the size of the Dubai economy is, since there is not really any tax and so there is no direct way of measuring it. And the valiant efforts to estimate the size of the economy (typically done by benchmarking some not particularly reliable proxies), are a year to eighteen months late.

But you can build pretty good models if you know your proxies; here are some that I use:


That data is all “public-domain”, as in you can look it up on the net or in the Dubai Chamber of Commerce Library. Of course if you know your way around and you pay a bit extra, you can get it in “real time”, but then that’s not “Official”, and if something is not official in Dubai then it’s a rumour; although in some cases even if it’s “official”, it’s a rumour too. I hope that’s clear!

Anyway, sticking with the “public” stuff; my comments are as follows:

1.  Net Airport Arrivals: That’s the numbers who came into Dubai Airport less numbers who left and it’s a pretty nifty way to get to population. Although not all of the people passing through the airport live in Dubai, and Abu Dhabi Airport is catching market share, but for the first time in many years, in 2009 more people left Dubai Airport than flew into Dubai Airport.

Notice how it’s gone down quite dramatically, like 17%; the last time that happened was in 1998 when they had a purge on the “illegal” immigrants (people who had over-stayed their visas). Those all came back the next year, but the ones who left Dubai in 2009 and 2010 probably won’t come back, unless they want to subscribe to Dubai’s unique guaranteed sure-fire weight-loss program, as in debtor’s jail.

2.  Occupied housing units are from DEWA; anyone who does not have an electricity connection in Dubai is “not economically active”; so that’s a good benchmark. Interestingly those were still going up in 2009, probably reflecting migration of people with jobs in Dubai from next-door Sharjah.

3.  Light passenger vehicle registrations are a reflection of how much money is being spent (new-car sales). Although there is a complication there because many cars are re-exported from Dubai which affects the ratio of new-buys, and to get to the bottom of that you have to look closely at that which is really tedious; big picture, that flat-lined in 2009; reflecting a drop in economic activity (the amount of money being spent).

4.  City Deluxe Hotel Lodging Revenues used to be one of my favourite proxies (goes to business travellers who relate to the way Dubai’s economy works), but when occupancies go over 90% annually there is price elasticity; plus I suspect the property bubble migrated into that market, people who think they are rich when in reality they are not, spend big on luxuries like first-class hotels.

5.  GDP is a bit of a mystery, up to 2006 that was published promptly (i.e. never more than nine months late) by the highly efficient and very professional, Dubai Municipality. Then that job was transferred to the newly formed Dubai Statistics Centre, which only recently published the outcome of it’s deliberations for 2006, 2007 and 2008, so now it’s running two years late.

What’s interesting is that the numbers put out by Dubai Municipality (before) used to be posted on their website, but now they are not there any more; as if they have been “expunged”. That’s quite a mystery; a possible explanation is that the people putting the new numbers out were at the time, very much into the “new” vision of Dubai that you can see on the road just past Jebel Ali. Plus of course when you are having a conversation with the guys you owe $100 billion to, $90 billion GDP has a better ring to it than $60 billion.

The Future

The ultimate driver of economic activity in Dubai is the price of oil and the price of oil has gone up and is going to go on going up.

Dubai hardly has any oil; revenues are about $2 billion a year out of $91 billion GDP claimed “officially” in 2008; but it services a region that is full of oil; which is why it works.

Now that the “visionaries” have run out of foolish bankers to lend them money so they can create housing bubbles and clog up the roads with their Ferraris, the rest of Dubai can get back to what it did before, with the bonus of a great infrastructure, a pretty decent government (particularly after the re-shuffle), and very cheap property prices relative to anywhere within 2,000 miles (for the same quality).

Insofar as property is concerned, as I said, prices are on the “fundamental” now; they may go down a bit as the last of the developments get finished which will drive the fundamental down (that could take another one or two years, realistically). After that, prices will start to rise, albeit quite slowly.

After so much “vision”, it’s nice to get back to reality.

About the Author - Andrew Butter is Managing Partner of ABMC, an investment advisory firm, based in Dubai that he set up in 1999, and has been involved advising on large scale real estate investments, primarily in Dubai.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of EconMatters.

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• Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe: "All those years, all those playoff series, and we’ve never seen anything like this around here. One playoff game in which the visitor leads late, real late, and loses? Sure. It happens. You know, you can’t win ’em all. But two of these things in the same series, and not only that, but Games 1 and 2, leaving the visitors beyond frustration and the coach of the Celtics almost apologizing for being up, 2-0? We’ve entered virgin series territory. Doc Rivers looked as if he had just run the Marathon -- with a Steinway on his back. It’s been a long time since a winning Celtics coach was so completely and utterly subdued when his team was up, 2-0. 'We won the game,’ he said, in a voice barely above a whisper. 'In the playoffs, the whole key is to win games, and that’s what we did.’ "
• Julian Benbow of The Boston Globe: "The Knicks did more than complain about two non-calls in the final minute of Game 1. They sent tape of the controversial plays to the league office, according to an NBA source. The Knicks had problems with Garnett’s collision with Toney Douglas that preceded Allen’s winning 3-pointer with 11.6 seconds left. And they also pointed out to the NBA that Delonte West ran onto the court after Allen’s trey to chest bump him. The Knicks wanted a technical foul for six players on the court. According to the source, the NBA admitted that Garnett’s trip of Douglas, who was chasing Allen, was a foul."
• Dan Duggan of the Boston Herald: "Von Wafer may not play a minute this postseason. But the fact that he’s been in uniform for the Celtics for their first two playoff games against the Knicks signifies a major personal accomplishment. Wafer had plenty of baggage when he signed a non-guaranteed, one-year contract for the veteran’s minimum last summer. The 25-year-old shooting guard was out of the NBA last season and knew he was running out of chances. Wafer didn’t know what to expect when he signed with the C’s, but he wanted the opportunity to prove he could be a contributor on a winning team. With the Celtics stacked with talent and experience, it didn’t look like Wafer would get much of a chance to make an impression. But through every checkpoint, Wafer remained. He earned one of the last roster spots out of training camp, stuck around after Delonte West was activated from his 10-game, season-opening suspension and survived the January deadline when non-guaranteed contracts become guaranteed for the season. 'I don’t think people thought that I could last here and I stayed,' Wafer said. 'Hopefully I answered a lot of questions. I feel like I did well. I feel like I could have done better, but I think I did good.' "
• Harvey Araton of The New York Times: "On another red-hot playoff night against the Celtics, Carmelo Anthony was partnered with Ronny Turiaf and Bill Walker, Jared Jeffries and Roger Mason Jr., Melo and his merry band of ornery no-names. And no longer was there any debate over who the Knicks’ leading man would have to be for what nearly turned into one of the greatest nonfinals games in the history of the franchise. Anthony was born for such situations, which began with the bad -- Chauncey Billups out with a strained knee -- and turned into the presumably catastrophic when Amar’e Stoudemire went down with back spasms in the second quarter. ... Until an inspirational win devolved into another deflating defeat, Anthony was Walt Frazier taking the baton from Willis Reed in Game 7 of the 1970 finals. He was Bernard King with fingers taped like a mummy, taking it to the Pistons in a decisive first-round game in 1985. To criticize Anthony on a night when he rang up 42 points, grabbed 17 rebounds and had 6 assists would be a flagrant nitpicking foul. But let us just say that the first two games of his Knicks’ playoff career -- or we should say endgames -- were paradoxical to the point where they could make for a compelling episode of 'The Twilight Zone.' "
• Frank Isola of the New York Daily News: "The ball was in his hands at the end. Then Jeffries' hands. Briefly. D'Antoni can talk about Jeffries being open and Jeffries sure did get loose for the layup that was the last New York basket on this night, the one that put the Knicks ahead 93-92 with just under 20 seconds left. You still have to know whom you're throwing the ball to. Jared Jeffries. At the very end, bitter end, he was the game-changer on Carmelo's night. When Anthony was walking with Knick giants, and legends. Until things went wrong in Boston again. Until the ball was out of his hands and into Jared Jeffries, on its way to Kevin Garnett. 'I thought we played great,' Anthony said in a quiet voice that seemed to end up on the floor in front of him the way the game had. The Knicks could not win the last minute on Sunday night, could not win the last minute Tuesday night. They have shown they have it in them, even down two stars, to play with the Celtics in the playoffs. They just can't beat them."
• Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times: "In a hotel ballroom Tuesday, Lamar Odom received his NBA sixth man award amid a hooting standing ovation from his teammates. On his new reality show, Odom is scolded by his wife about being too loyal to his best friend. In an emotional acceptance speech Tuesday, Odom spoke with passion and strength about the selflessness that led to the honor. On his new reality show, Odom is ridiculed by his brother-in-law for not making the All-Star team. Everyone contends that neither the Lakers nor one of their most important players suffered during the making -- and now, showing -- of the cheesy series about the married life of an NBA star and a D-League celebrity. But, still, one shaky game into the postseason, you have to wonder whether the 'Khloe & Lamar' show is working out a lot better for Khloe than Lamar. 'People always want to make something out of nothing,' said Khloe Kardashian, rolling her eyes. 'People want to make this out to be a distraction, but it's not.' ... After watching Odom accept his award Tuesday, Khloe told me emphatically, 'The show has been therapy for Lamar. It's been a real release.' There was once a time when therapy involved only a closed door and a couch, but in today's reality, that's old news. While Odom's sixth man award was a tribute to his ability to escape the bench, he hasn't been so lucky with the Kardashians."
• Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: "The Orlando Magic may have saved their season Tuesday night. And to do it, they relied on a tried-and-true formula: an improved defense, a critical hustle play by Jameer Nelson and a 48-minute dose of Dwight Howard. Riding another Herculean performance by their all-star center, the Magic outlasted the Atlanta Hawks 88-82 in an intense, emotional Game 2 to even their first-round series at one game apiece. 'This one to me came down to one thing for us,' Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. 'We played extremely hard.' No one more than Howard. With his parents and son watching from the Amway Center stands, Howard played the entire game, scored 33 points and collected 19 rebounds. Van Gundy asked him three or four times if he needed to take a take a seat on the bench, and Howard invariably responded, 'Keep playing.' "
• Jeff Schultz of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "They won game one and threw a scare into Orlando in game two. Forget the odds. Forget the mood swings of the regular season. Forget the part of you that says, 'I don’t like this team. I don’t trust this team. They’re going nowhere.' The Hawks didn’t guarantee themselves a playoff series upset with their performances in Orlando. But they certainly sent a message in game two that game one wasn’t a fluke. After winning the series opener Saturday, they led the heavily favored and desperate Magic by as much as 10 points in the second quarter, fizzled, fell behind by 14 in the fourth, looked dead and then showed the fight and resiliency that too often was missing this season to pull to within two at 78-76 with two minutes left. In the end, they ran out of gasps and spasms, losing 88-82 Tuesday night. But Orlando walked off their home court with their hearts nearly jumping out of their chest -- and this time Jameer Nelson didn’t make a stop to make a crack about catching Chicago in the second round."
• Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: "The Mavericks have done what a lot of people didn’t think they could. They have conquered demons. They have played physical and been the better team doing so. They have scored at crunch time without relying on their jump shooting. They even exorcised Danny Crawford. But mostly, they proved to everybody, including themselves, that they can act like a highly seeded playoff team and take charge of a playoff series. They did that with a 101-89 victory Tuesday night against the Portland Trail Blazers to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 first-round series. It’s not over. The Mavericks are only halfway to advancing to the next round, but they held home court at American Airlines Center and head to Portland for Games 3 and 4 with plenty of confidence. The Mavericks played gritty defense, often forcing the Blazers deep into the shot clock before they could get a good look at the rim. In the fourth quarter, the Blazers were 4-of-10 from the field and were outscored by 11."
• Jason Quick of The Oregonian: "Brandon Roy, the face of the franchise, had to fight off tears. The urge to break down came in the first half of the Blazers' 101-89 defeat to the Mavericks. It was in part because of the humiliation of being the Blazers' last substitute, chosen to play after Nicolas Batum, Rudy Fernandez, and even Patty Mills. ... All told, the three-time All-Star played a scoreless 7:59, missed his only shot from the field, missed both of his free throws, and made one turnover. 'There was a point in the first half, and I was thinking 'You better not cry,' ' Roy said. 'I mean, serious. I mean, there was a moment where I felt really sorry for myself. Then I was like, nah, you can't be sorry for yourself. I'm a grown man, but there was a moment there that I felt sorry for myself. Especially when I think I can still help.' Roy was one of the first players to leave the locker room, but when he was stopped in the hallway, the hurt and confusion were still evident. 'I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little hurt, or disappointed,'' Roy said. 'But the biggest thing is to keep moving, to try and keep my spirits up. But it's tough man. I just …. I just always thought I would be treated better. That was a little disappointing for me.' Earlier in the day, Roy said he is frustrated that people think his biggest obstacles are his knees. His knees, which were both operated on in January, feel good, he says. It is his mental game that needs work, Roy says."
• Tom Sorensen of The Charlotte Observer: "As Chris Paul led the New Orleans Hornets to an upset road victory against the Los Angeles Lakers Sunday, you had to consider the obvious: What would it take to coax him to Charlotte? Luck? A maximum contract? Paul likes to bowl. In Matthews, there's AMF Carolina Lanes. Change it to AMF Wake Forest Lanes. Paul is a Deacon. Paul has one more season after this one on his contract. Then he's free. He told Mike Cranston of The Associated Press that returning to N.C. to play for Michael Jordan's Charlotte Bobcats 'would definitely be something to think about.' Via Twitter, Paul backed away from the statement. He, after all, is gainfully employed by New Orleans, and he's not allowed to be disloyal or distracted. If he's not great again tonight when his team plays the Lakers, his team doesn't win. ... The trend is to be one of the many. LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwayne Wade in Miami. Anthony joined Amare Stoudemire in New York. But isn't there also appeal in being one of the few? The Bobcats have no tradition. They wear orange. One time they made the playoffs. One time they had an all-star. Some nights people buy tickets to watch them play. If Paul showed up, he'd be the savior. He'd give Jordan credibility as an NBA owner and Charlotte a reason to care. He'd be saluted locally and nationally for having the guts to go his own way. Instead of being part of a trend, he'd start one."
• Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: "Daryl Morey indicated there will be many changes. Though Rick Adelman, 64, often spoke of a lack of stability in his four seasons, with only Luis Scola and Chuck Hayes remaining from his first Rockets team, Morey spoke of the perils of standing pat. Rather than tweak the roster as Adelman likely favored, he said he would continue to aggressively seek changes. 'The mistakes that are done across the league are teams that stabilize on a foundation that wins you games and maybe preserves jobs, but they're not making the tough choices with either players or in other areas that give you the change you need to get you where you want to be,' Morey said. 'There's going to be change coming -- more change. We believe in the plan. The plan is to try to continue to bring in quality players who are improving versus declining … and continue to work to use trades. 'We're going to be a team that's young and improving, and we're going to be a team that tries to trade our way to improvement. At the end of the day, judge that. If you're ready to judge that we're already not sort of executing on the plan, that's fine. We're going to continue to execute on it until it works. Stability is a factor in teams that win the championship. But if you stabilize on a team that's going to end up short of that, then all you're doing is spinning your wheels in the 45-win range.' Morey would not discuss what he will seek in the next coach, saying the priorities have not been finalized. Though he spoke with Rockets assistants Jack Sikma and Elston Turner, no interviews have been scheduled with any candidates. Turner through his agent, withdrew his name from consideration Tuesday."
• Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune: "Six days have gone by since the Timberwolves' 17-victory season ended and no word yet on the future of Kurt Rambis. Don't hold your breath. This thing probably will stretch on into next week at least. David Kahn left on Thursday for league meetings in New York and now I believe he's back home in Portland for much of this week. I'm not sure if he and Rambis have met yet to discuss the future, other than the exit meetings with players that they held together last week. Much like how the Kevin McHale decision played out over days and weeks the last time, I expect this one to end with word that Rambis and his staff wont be back. But you never know ... At issue still is whether Glen Taylor is willing to pay Rambis $4 million to go away and then pay a new coach quite possibly well more than Rambis was making with a lockout looming. Either way, it's not right to let a guy who has eight NBA title rings back in his drawer at home to twist in the wind like this."
• Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News: "Tayshaun Prince and Ben Wallace are used to being in the thick of things come the postseason. But, minutes after what could be their last game together with the Pistons, Prince wondered aloud about how he, Wallace and Richard Hamilton would be remembered. 'When guys leave on top, it's a different scenario,' said Prince, who is an unrestricted free agent, while Wallace could retire and Hamilton is likely to be traded. 'A scenario like this, where things are on a downturn, I don't know how people will perceive us.' The usually stoic Prince hopes fans won't allow the bad taste of this season, where the internal drama was matched only by losing 52 games, to sully the good memories of the past eight seasons."
• Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic: "Suns forward Grant Hill was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame ... Board of Governors. Hill will be considered for hall election as a player after retirement, and it will not hurt his case that he became the first active player to sit on the Hall of Fame's board. Hill will serve a three-year term on a board chaired by Jerry Colangelo, who remains the chairman of the Suns. 'It is truly an honor to be elected as a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Governors and to represent the living history of basketball,' Hill said in a statement. 'It is important for the current generation of players to get involved with the Hall to help recognize the greatest in the game who have gone before us.' The board governs the Hall of Fame and its election process, raises revenue and aims to increase awareness."
• Doug Smith of the Toronto Star "I believe, and it’s a commonly held opinion among most coaches I’ve talked to, that a rotation of three bigs is optimal with a fourth ready to fill in when the inevitable injuries occur. So, if you’ve got Bargnani and Davis and Johnson and have some thoughts of bringing Reggie back, where’s there room for Mr. X? Does it mean no Reggie? Does it mean Bargnani gets dealt? Or how about Amir being traded? Someone’s got to go if Bryan’s going to do what he says must be done. One thing I wonder, though? Given his basketball instincts, and the fact there’s still room to put some muscle on his growing body, does Ed Davis grow into some defensive presence? Is that possible? We know he’s already a pretty good help side defender and we’ve seen him rebound the ball effectively and, with 15 or so more pounds on his frame, is that something he can do? Guess time will tell; trouble is, they don’t have an abundance of time."
• Frank Zicarelli of the Toronto Sun: "The man known as Smitty [Steve Smith] is right. What he didn’t say, but something many are saying behind closed doors, is that the Tim Donaghy cloud still hovers over the league, whether the NBA wants to admit to it or not. Of course mistakes will be made, shots that should drop hit iron, matchups that should be exploited are not because of poor coaching, there’s a myriad situations that could go either way. The NBA’s current rules do not allow for instant replay to review whether a player committed goaltending. It should and Perkins’ flagrant goaltending must serve as the catalyst for change. The bottom line is the NBA had an opportunity to at least trigger a dialogue that would lead to something tangible. All it did was reveal its insecurity and vulnerability. The play in question began with a missed Russell Westbrook jumper, which followed with Perkins’ hand going through the net and then outside the rim for the tap-in. 'Although a player is permitted to touch the net while the ball is in the cylinder above the rim, Perkins also touched the ball while it was still in the cylinder which is a violation and constitutes goaltending,' the NBA said in its statement. What the statement didn’t say is that the league is still troubled by the Donaghy fall-out."
• Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee: "I was off for a few days, but it's impossible to stay away from this Kings situation, especially with relocation chairman Clay Bennett and NBA legal consultant Harvey Benjaming coming to Sacramento Thursday and Friday. While there has been considerable angst about Stern's selection of Bennett to head the committee - this is owner who moved the Sonics from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008 after all -- I would just say this: Stern is too smart to be so obvious. He is also an attorney. If he wanted to simply rubber stamp the Kings' relocation to Anaheim or elsewhere, he would have put someone other than Bennett to lead the study. And he never would have agreed to extending the deadline to May 2. Just my opinion. Just too logical."
• Bob Finnan of The News-Herald: "The good news is the Cavaliers' 3.93 average television rating was the seventh-best in the NBA. The bad news? The Sports Business Journal reported the Cavs experienced a 54-percent drop on Fox Sports Ohio, the biggest yearly ratings decrease in at least seven years. The Cavs were the local ratings leader in 2009-10 in the NBA. The Cavs' huge drop can be traced to their 19-63 record and the loss of two-time MVP LeBron James in free agency. A Cavs spokesman looked at the positive aspect of the story. 'We feel great that our ratings are clearly in the top tier of the league,' he said. ... Even though the Cavs' TV ratings are down, they are quick to point out there is still considerable interest in the team. They are ranked in the top 10 in the league in website traffic for cavs.com, and they are in the top five in social media elements."

Newport Beach real estate agent John McMonigle, who drew national attention selling some of Orange County's most expensive mansions, announced Sunday that he has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.Federal bankruptcy court records show that McMonigle filed bankruptcy as an individual on...

Newport Beach real estate agent John McMonigle, who drew national attention selling some of Orange County's most expensive mansions, announced Sunday that he has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In a brief statement distributed at 6 p.m. Sunday,...

(this is the 4th installment of the PRO DRAFT REPORT)

2011 Running Back Rankings-By Mark Kern

1. Mark Ingram- The comparisons to Emmitt Smith are definitely warranted. You know what you are going to get with Ingram. He is going to come to play every single day and give it his all. He had a very successful career at Alabama, which included a National Title and a Heisman Trophy. A knock on Ingram is that he does not have the breakaway speed that the scouts look for. He makes up for that with his ability to hit the hole and the “never go down” attitude that he plays with. Overall, Ingram may not be the most explosive running back in this draft, but he is definitely the most polished running back and will be able to contribute from day one. Look for Ingram to go anywhere from 15-25 in the first round.

2

Daniel Thomas- Thomas was an absolute beast for Kansas State the past two years. Thomas, last year, had 298 carries for 1585 yards and 19 touchdowns. The fact that he was able to have those numbers is impressive because the Wildcats had a very limited passing attack allowing the defense to load up in the box and try to stop the run. Thomas has great size for a running back at 6’2 230 pounds. He has dealt with injuries during the pre-draft workouts, which have hindered him, and he also has a tendency to run a little too straight up. Overall, Thomas has only been a running back for two seasons as he was a quarterback in junior college. He has made great strides and will give whichever team that drafts him a nice weapon in the backfield. Thomas should be off the board early in the second round. Look for teams like New England, Indianapolis, and Detroit to give him a serious look.

3. Ryan Williams- Williams broke onto the scene two seasons ago as a red-shirt freshman rushed for 1655 yards and 21 touchdowns for the Hokies of Virginia Tech. He dealt with injuries last year and it caused him to miss some games and not put up the numbers he expected. However, when healthy, Williams has the talent to be a big time running back. Williams plays with great intensity and will run through an arm tackle and he must be wrapped up. A knock on him is that he has also had problems with injuries. He also fights for those extra yards, leaving himself exposed to take big hits. If he can get back to the player he was two years ago, he could make a huge impact this year. Look for him to go sometime in the mid-second round and maybe a team like Washington or TampaBay may take a look at him.

4 Mikel Leshoure- Leshoure had a breakout year last year for the Fighting Illini, and has been compared to former Illinois running back Rashard Mendenhall. Leshoure is huge at 6’0 232 pounds. The thing that makes him a great prospect is for his size he is very nimble and can get to the second level in a hurry. The knock on him is that he does not seem to always bring it on every play. That is something that could scare teams away from him, but he is definitely a guy to take a look at because of his physical tools. Leshoure should go late second, early third round to a team that likes to run the ball on offense such as the Tennessee Titans or the New York Jets.

5. Kendall Hunter- Hunter had a very solid career at Oklahoma State. Hunter does not have the physical stature that people expect out of a running back in the NFL. However, what Hunter brings is just a knack to find a crease and make plays. He has a very similar style to former running back Priest Holmes, in the fact that he is very patient and he uses his blockers very well. He has had his fair share of durability issues, but he is confident those are in the past. He should go mid-third round to a team that has a star running back, that could use a breather every once in a while. A couple of these teams would be the Jacksonville Jaguars and the St. Louis Rams.

6. Jordan Todman- Todman had a very successful year which led him to leave college after his junior year and enter the draft. Todman has outstanding speed and he can get in the open field in a hurry. Another plus for him compared to the guys above him is that he can help out a team in the return games as well. Todman is not a very physical runner and he struggles to break tackles. When Connecticut went up against the better defenses, he only averaged 3.3 yards per carry. This can be accredited due to the fact that Connecticut did not have quite the talent that those teams had in those games.. Todman is going to get a chance because of his versatility and look for him to go off the board in the early part of the fourth round. Teams like the Patriots and the Colts could take a look at him and use him because of his versatility.

7. DeMarco Murray – Murray may not be the biggest risk/reward running back in this class; he could also be the biggest risk/reward player at every position in this draft. Murray is an explosive athlete and when he gets the ball in his hands, he has the ability to take it the distance at any time. He can run, catch the ball out of the backfield, and also play a major role in the return game. He ended his career at Oklahoma with the most touchdowns in school history. However, even with that impressive stat, his career at Oklahoma was up and down. Murray had some injury problems in college, which are scaring some scouts away. With that being said, some team is going to take a chance on him off of potential alone. In the right system, he could be a very dynamic weapon. He could go anywhere from late second to late fourth round, it just depends on which team wants to gamble on him. A team to keep an eye on is the New Orleans Saints. They may be losing Reggie Bush and DeMarco Murray could provide a lot of the big play potential that Bush does.

8. Shane Vereen- Vereen has helped to continue the trend of talented running backs to have successful seasons at California. Marshawn Lynch, Javhid Best, and Justin Forsett are all running backs who have made some plays in the NFL. Vereen should be no different. He benched 225 31 times, the best of any running back at the combine. He has also been involved in the return game, which is always a plus. A negative is that he often does help his quarterback at all on pass-blocking. He is a good running back who should be able to contribute and to help out a team. He should go late third round to a team like Arizona or Miami to help in the run game.

9. Delonte Carter- Carter was a huge part of getting Syracuse back on the right track in leading the Orange to a Pinstripe Bowl victory of Kansas State. Carter is a pinball at 5’10, 215 pounds.He is very effective running through the tackles. As a defense, you must gang tackle or he will just run right through you. He lacks the elite speed to get to the second level and beyond. He also has a tendency to try and get to the outside instead of working to his strength and continuing to attack north and south. He should be picked sometime in the late fourth to early fifth round and will be a good value pick by whatever team gets him. Cold-weather teams like Chicago, New England, and Green Bay could use him to help control the clock.

10. Alex Green- Green was a somewhat of an unknown at the beginning of the year but started to turn some eyes during the season. He is a big running back at 6’2 220 pounds, but also has the speed to make some plays. He had some ball security problems fumbling eight times on 271 touches in the past two years at Hawaii. He also played in the WAC where the defense is not real great and the offenses are spread out, helping to open up the field. Green is an interesting prospect with his size and speed and teams in the fifth round should like what they see there. A team like the Eagles could take a look here as Lesean McCoy has had injury issues in the past.

Sleeper: Noel Devine- Devine was electric in college having 36 career runs of 25 yards or more. He is tiny at 5’8 160 pounds, which is scaring teams off. He is not going to be able to carry the football 20-25 times, but the way game is changing, he will not be needed. Pound for pound this is one of the strongest players in the draft. If he can stay healthy, a team could pick him up at the end of the draft or even as a free agent. He will get a chance to prove he can do it though, and whichever teams gives him that shot, could be very thankful in the future.

Honor Roll: Harvard’s Gino Gordon could very well find his way onto an NFL roster. The swift runner is also adept at catching passes out of the backfield, and also blocks well for his smaller size. Gordon was the 2010 Co-Ivy Player of the year & was named to the All-New England FCS team, nad was the all-time yards per carry leader (5.3) and Harvard’s fourth all time leading rusher with 2,643 rushing yards and 25 Career TD’s (23 Rushing). Mike Montoya out of Canada’s Laurier College could also be another surprise selection. He does everything asked of him, is a “100% team player” and had did 41 Bench reps at his third party combine. He’s eligible for this draft because he graduated early last year. In 2009 he had 847 Rushing Yards and 6 TD’s. He is a tremendous blocker with a low center of gravity, making him hard to get off his feet.

This running back class may not have the “superstars” like an Adrian Peterson or a Chris Johnson, but there are many productive running backs in this class. There are a lot of durability issues with this class, but if they manage to remain healthy, this has the potential to be a solid class with many running backs contributing to their team’s success.

I know the news agent in the village doesn't open until 9.00am so she hasn't gone there, how long should a man be expected to wait for his breakfast?and should I get out of bed and see whats wrong

Agent Orange Seattle : El Corazon 98109 on 2011-05-22

Reseña de Family of Fallen Leaves: Stories of Agent Orange by Vietnamese Writers [Familia de hojas caídas: Historias de Agente Naranja por escritores vietnamitas] de Charles Waugh y Huy Lien y de The Invention of Ecocide: Agent Orange, Vietnam and the Scientists Who Changed the Way We Think About the Environment [La invención del ecocidio: Agente Naranja, Vietnam y los científicos que cambiaron la manera cómo pensamos sobre el medioambiente], de David Zierler .Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Germán Leyens

When I served as an Army medic in Vietnam, I often saw a 19-year-old solider whose job was to spray an herbicide called Agent Orange on anything green inside my base.

Vietnam vet to be honored at DC ceremony Lebanon Daily News (LEBANON DAILY NEWS BRAD RHEN) ONO - As a US Air Force sergeant, Richard Copenhaver Sr. spent more than two years in Vietnam between 1965 and 1968. Later in life, beginning in his 40s, he developed problems with his feet and legs to the point where he ... Due to Agent Orange, veteran awarded $459700Wilmington News Journal, OH all 2 news articles »

In 2003, just like most every other year in the last 30, the Chicago Bears needed a QB.  Still on the draft board at pick #22 in the 2003 NFL Draft was a cannon-armed prospect named Rex Grossman, who was coming of an impressive two-year run at the University of Florida.

However, Grossman's tenure in Chicago was one of the most-memorable in recent history, and (mostly) for the wrong reasons.  His one claim to fame while wearing the Navy and Orange was obviously the 2006 season, when he QB'd the Bears to the Super Bowl to challenge the Colts.

Now, I'm not necessarily considering Grossman one of the all-time draft busts in franchise history, but a case can be made that he could be considered.  

In his first three seasons with the Bears (2003-05), Grossman started a grand total of seven games, threw for just over 1,300 yards, with 4 TDs and 6 INTs.  Then came the Super Bowl season (2006), followed by two more seasons of infamy.  In 2007 and 2008, Grossman started only 8 games, and he was not re-signed after becoming a free agent in 2009.

Question for you all: Does Grossman deserve to be included in the group of all-time worst Bears draft picks?

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On a wintry mid-March afternoon at a sparsely attended  meeting  of a House Financial Services subcommittee, a handful of legislators heard testimony on five bills that would repeal or replace parts of last year’s sweeping financial services reform legislation, better known as Dodd-Frank after its chief congressional sponsors. 

Each bill had a different goal: One would release some derivatives transactions from margin rules; one would exempt private equity advisers from registration requirements; another would void an executive compensation disclosure regulation contained in the new law.

The commonality among the five bills? They were all sponsored by freshman Republican legislators holding coveted committee spots, who were showered with campaign donations from financial industry groups immediately after the November elections, according to an analysis by The Fiscal Times and the Center for Responsive Politics.

The freshmen – Steve Stivers of Ohio, Robert Hurt of Virginia, Michael Grimm and Nan Hayworth of New York, and David Schweikert of Arizona -- all hail from swing districts. Each won with 54 percent of the vote or less and will likely face tough reelection battles in 2012 when Republicans seek to maintain control of the House.

Long-time Republican operatives say freshmen legislators with scant legislative experience were anointed by GOP leaders and wound up sponsoring bills that would clearly benefit the bottom lines of firms in the financial services industry.

“It’s orchestrated. The leadership is trying to take care of them,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican campaign consultant at The Dilenschneider Group, who rose to national prominence during the Reagan years and most recently ran former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign. “A lot of that bill isn’t popular, and it’s a good way to get close to people who want it repealed.”  As expected, both legislators and industry representatives deny any connection between the money and legislative outcomes.

Donations by PACs and special interests have always flowed most generously to members of committees that consider legislation or regulatory issues.

The sizeable financial industry PAC contributions – Stivers alone raised at least $220,500 since the Nov. 2 election with nearly half coming from the finance, insurance and real estate industries known as FIRE –also illustrate how campaign contributions buy access to senior as well as junior members of key committees. Campaign finance experts say that donations by PACs and individuals associated with special interests have always flowed most generously to members of committees that consider legislation or regulatory issues germane to their interests.

The new chairman, Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., an avowed critic of Dodd-Frank, took in more than $1.4 million in FIRE-related contributions to his personal and leadership campaign committees over the past two years, with 84 percent of it coming from industry PACs. It was the most of any member of the committee. Yet Rep. Barney Frank, D- Mass., one of the main architects of the legislation spawned by the 2008 financial meltdown, also used his campaign and leadership committees as magnets for financial sector PAC money. He brought in $1.25 million in FIRE-related donations, with 42.4 percent from PACs and 57.6 percent from individuals working in financial services.

Other top-ranking legislators on the committee pulling in more than $600,000 for their campaign and leadership committees during the 2010 election cycle from FIRE-affiliated PACs and individuals included capital markets subcommittee chairman Scott Garrett, R-N.J., and Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., a fifth-term legislator who also chairs the House Republican Conference. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Michael Capuano, D-Mass., the ranking minority members on the financial institutions and oversight and investigations subcommittees, respectively, also pulled in more than $600,000 from companies and employees from industries that their subcommittees oversee.  (See chart for top ten FIRE recipients.)

Any suggestion that bill sponsorship is related to campaign finance is flatly rejected by the legislators.   Stivers, for instance, said through a spokeswoman that he “is influenced by the people of Ohio’s 15th Congressional District” and that he is “focused on creating jobs and improving the economy in the district.”

The banking industry, which has fared poorly in public opinion polls in the wake of the financial crisis and recession, denies their campaign contributions can buy votes or get bills introduced or passed. Their donations only give them access so they can voice their concerns about pressing economic matters. “We believe that it is our responsibility to participate in the political process to ensure that we protect our shareholders’ investment in our firm,” Goldman Sachs says in its annual report to stockholders.

Goldman Sachs spent more than $1 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter of last year in addition to its campaign contributions.

The politically influential investment bank spent more than $1 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter of last year in addition to its campaign contributions. Since the last election, it has stepped up its contributions to freshman Republican legislators in particular, giving at least $8,000 to Stivers, $6,000 to Hayworth, and $1,000 to Grimm. The average member of the Financial Services Committee received more than three quarters as much in contributions from industries under their jurisdiction than the average member of Congress. The Law that Tipped the Scales
In July 2010, Congress passed a major financial services reform bill, co-sponsored by Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., that imposed a sweeping overhaul of banking regulations and numerous new disclosure requirements on corporate America and derivatives traders. Almost immediately, the affected industries attempted to water down the new rules by paying millions of dollars to lobbyists, many of whom previously worked on the Hill either as legislators or as staff to key committees, to pressure agencies such as the Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which are writing the new rules.

But with Republicans now in control of the House, the groups affected by the bill are also mounting a campaign to pass legislation that would either eliminate or dilute key provisions and funneling campaign contributions to the key legislators on the committee, including the dozen Republican freshmen, many of whom scored surprising upsets and received minimal contributions from the sector prior to the election.

• Grimm, 41, a Tea Party-backed candidate who entered politics after working as an undercover FB I agent exposing financial fraud, narrowly won his Staten Island seat despite being heavily outspent by incumbent Democrat Michael McMahon. During the race, just 25 percent of Grimm’s $1.3 million in contributions came from people or PACs associated with the finance, insurance or real estate industries compared to 20 percent of McMahon’s $2.7 million. Since the election, however, Grimm has raised 61 percent of the donations reported through the end of February from financial PACs with major donations coming from Goldman Sachs ($6,000), the American Bankers Association ($5,000) and the Investment Company Institute ($3,000), which represents the mutual fund industry.
  
  
• Stivers, a 46-year-old stock broker turned career politician from the Columbus, Ohio, suburbs, was a one-man financial juggernaut in the 2009-2010 election cycle, raising $2.7 million for his successful campaign to unseat Democratic incumbent Mary Jo Kilroy, who raised a similar amount. During the race, only 19 percent of his contributions came from individuals and political action committees associated with FIRE firms compared to less than 6 percent for Kilroy. In the first two months of this year, according to FEC filings, 85 percent of Stivers' $92,000 in receipts came from FIRE political action committees, including $5,000 from the Investment Company Institute and $4,000 from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
  
  
• South central Virginian Robert Hurt, a 41-year-old lawyer and state legislator, narrowly defeated incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello with 51 percent of the vote despite being outspent $3.8 million to $2.5 million. Neither man in the largely rural district received much from financial service firms during the race – about 10 percent for Republican Hurt compared to 6 percent for Perriello. In the four months after Election Day, however, a third of Hurt’s nearly $100,000 in PAC contributions reported thus far came from FIRE firms or trade groups, including $5,000 from the National Association of Realtors, $3,000 from the Independent Community Bankers and $2,500 from the American Bankers Association.

During the March hearing, which was heavily stacked with industry witnesses favoring the bills, each sponsor used very similar language to describe why the bill was important to their constituents. Requiring registration of advisers to private equity funds that provide capital to “struggling companies” will “impose an undue burden on small and mid-sized private equity firms and decrease capital available for job growth,” said Hurt, who sponsored the bill exempting them from that requirement in Dodd-Frank.

Damon Silver, a lawyer for the AFL-CIO, called Hurt’s bill the “no accountability for leveraged buyout funds act.”

Nan Hayworth, a physician representing well-off Westchester, Putnam and Orange counties north of New York City, sponsored the legislation repealing the requirement that publicly-traded companies include a salary comparison between top officers and average employees. “This bill eliminates irrelevant and confusing disclosure information . . . that diverts resources from job creation,” she said. Silver referred to it as the “promote CEO pay secrecy act.”

Grimm, who is sponsoring legislation that could exempt from Dodd-Frank’s new margin requirements two-party derivative transactions between highly regulated banks and firms that hedge currency and interest rate risk in their normal course of business, also sounded the jobs theme.

“We all want to create jobs. There was a meltdown. A lot of regulations weren’t enforced. There was a lack of oversight,” he said. But “the pendulum has swung so far that we could be over-regulating industry.”

Grimm’s bill should be called the “help create another AIG act,” Silver said.

Second Round Fund-Raising
Grimm has been particularly active on the money-raising front since the last election. He has held at least six fundraisers, according to the Sunlight Foundation, which keeps track of fundraising invitations. At an early February outing dubbed “Festa di compleanno” at Carmine’s just off Capitol Hill, a Washington outpost of the well-known New York City eatery, the suggested contributions for his birthday celebration were $2,500 to co-host; $1,000 for PACs; and $500 for individuals.

The monthly corporate PAC filings with the Federal Election Commission contained no individual donations from the intimate dinner, which a restaurant staffer said was held in a private dining room near the main bar, a room with its own overhead TV screen and lined with expensive bottles of wine. PAC contributions reported so far for that day included $1,000 from Goldman Sachs, KMPG Partners, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors.

Grimm, a former Marine who served in the first Iraq war, has been tapped as a future leader in the Republican Party. He’s one of 12 regional co-chairs for the National Republican Congressional Committee responsible for helping candidates throughout the Northeast in the next election.

While New York City would seem to be ripe territory for an adroit Wall Street fundraiser, the role is somewhat at odds with Grimm’s experience prior to entering politics. In 2002, Grimm went underground for nearly two years as a hedge fund manager in an FBI sting dubbed Operation Wooden Nickel.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission eventually brought civil charges against at least 15 hedge fund operators for engaging in fraud and receiving ill-gotten gains from the sale of foreign exchange derivatives, which in some circumstances could become exempt from margin requirements should Grimm’s proposed bill become law.

This post originally appeared at The Fiscal Times.

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With the return of Chuck came the return of Alexei Volkhoff and, of course, the adoration of our critic.  Now joining Dan are his faithful sidekicks to dissect "Chuck Versus the Family Volkoff!"

And by dissect, we, of course, mean discuss which game we'd gamble our lives on and other nonsense in our weekly Round Table:

1. Favorite Chuck quotes of the evening?

Dan F: Volkoff: It's true. I cut in front of William in the cafeteria line.

Dr. Toboggan: Elias "Pick a game: dice, roulette, cards. You win the tracker is yours. I win, you die.  Chuck: "Do you have UNO?

Eric H: In light of HBO bringing the incredible Game of Thrones to life in just FOUR days, I have to give it to show's cute nod to the show.  "You don't give your kids direwolves." God I love you and your nerd references, Chuck.

2. Chuck had UNO. Volkhoff had Chess.   Now pick your game to gamble your life on!

Dan F: I  could go with Battleship or Twister like my good friends Bill and Ted, but I think I'd have to say BINGO. It's all luck, so that would probably be my best bet.

Dr. Toboggan: I would definitely go with risk. The game takes 24 hours anyway so I can work on escaping plus I don't think there's a better game out there.

Eric H: War. It's not just a game in Vegas Vacation. I've been playing it a lot at my local casino (Seminole Hard Rock for my local South Floridians!) and it appears you can't lose! (More research pending)

3. Couple with stronger chemistry: Charah or Morgan/Casey?  Bonus points if you given Morgan / Casey a couple nickname in your response:

Dan F: Oh Morsey has some of the best chemistry on tv, it's just sad that they didn't get to show it that much last night. Their living situation is turning out better than anyone could have expected.  Bonus Point

Dr. Toboggan: Yea I have to agree with Dan. I was going to call them Mosey but the two of them have better chemistry than any other couple and can carry the shows comedy by themselves.

Eric H: Come on guys, clearly it's Corgan. And we all know I 'ship any couple that can drink their orange juice in unison.

4. Thoughts on Vivian's fast descent into evil and backstabbing her father?

Dan F: Like I noted in my review, it was extremely rushed. I know we haven't seen her for a couple of episodes, but when someone changes that drastically, it makes more sense to allow the audience to watch the transition happen.  The only thing that can save the story line is if Vivian ends up being a triple agent.

Dr. Toboggan: Again, I agree with Dan.  It felt rushed and predicted. I guess to defend the show, if you're going to do something so predictable, it's better not to drag it out but it certainly happened pretty quickly.

Eric H: Duh.  It's obviously 'cause she's faking it and is a triple agent.  Even in the Chuck universe no one changes that quickly with little to no explanation.

5. Thoughts on Mary's return and the Agent-X story line?

Dan F: I was surprisingly pleased to see Mary back this week, as I've mentioned how much I dislike the character before.  I think it was because she pointed out to Ellie that she is a spy and can be doing more than babysitting.  On the opposite end of the spectrum from the Vivian story, I think the Ellie stuff is moving too slowly.  They need to find a happy medium between throwing stuff in our face and dragging things out.  I really would have been happy if Chuck told her the truth right then and there at episode's end.

Dr. Toboggan: I liked having her back. I think it is going to make the Ellie storyline more exciting and I am interested in seeing how she fits into everything as he season winds down.

Eric H: Agreed that it's always nice to see Sarah Connor return.  But this Agent-X storyline?  Yawn.  Even for Chuck standards, this is a sloooow arc. Or maybe it was just that two week hiatus. Either way, bring on Agent-X already!!

As the sun begins to set on an unseasonably gorgeous Minnesota April evening, former Viking Willie Howard barks out instructions to his new team. He moves his linebackers to the proper gaps. He instructs his offensive tackles how to start high and finish low when blocking for a wide receiver screen. His cadence effortlessly shifts between stern and humorous, keeping his knowledge-hungry pupils riveted. No fewer than forty players are attending the Tuesday night practice. With only five days until their home opener, they're soaking in every last bit of information from their Head Coach. After all, he did play at the highest possible level in football.

The practice session lasts exactly as long as the sun does. As the players walk off the field with virtually no natural light left in the evening, it's safe to say that these ladies will be prepared for their game on Saturday.

Yes, ladies. The Minnesota Machine, the local women's professional tackle football team, has made a significant upgrade to their coaching staff for the 2011 season.

Most Viking fans know Willie Howard as a promising defensive lineman that was drafted in the second round of the 2001 NFL draft, only to have his career cut tragically short by a devastating leg injury just eight games in. Although his time in the pros was unfairly brief, Howard uses the lessons he learned both on and off the field to this day.

Willie Howard didn't grow up with football. In fact, he didn't play a down of football until the age of 14. As a 6'4", 265-pound high school freshman in California, a coach of his Los Altos High School's football team wisely encouraged him to go out for the team. He played on the varsity squad briefly in ninth grade, but he was a fixture on the team for the remainder of his time there. Unfortunately, Willie's dominant play didn't translate into much success for his team--there were only 17 players on the team at the time. Howard recalls a 3-36-2 record during his time at Los Altos.

But while Howard's team didn't make much noise, he was able to turn heads at the Stanford lineman camp during his junior year of high school, where he was projected as one of the top linemen in the nation. Stanford offered him a full scholarship immediately after the camp, and Howard jumped on it since campus was only five miles from his home town.

After a successful career with the Cardinal, Howard was drafted by another Stanford football alumni--Dennis Green. (Green was the Head Coach at Stanford before taking the Vikings job.) Howard had never interacted with Green before the Vikings chose him, but he enjoyed playing for his new coach.

Willie remembers the exact day he got drafted. "I remember April 21, 2001, getting the call from Denny," Howard recalls. "Obviously I would have loved to get the phone call in the first round like anybody would have, but Michael Bennett got the call and I was fortunate enough to be there in the second round. When you talk about a coach with integrity and morals, I think Denny Green provided that combination. He had an ability to coach players and put together a staff that was working in the best interest of us as players, to be better players and human beings."

Willie also remembers the exact moment that his career ended. (This shouldn't come as much of a surprise--his memory is absolutely uncanny. After our interview, Howard rattled off the first and last name of each player on his brand new team by memory--in order of jersey number.)

"There was about two minutes and fifty-two seconds gone by in the third quarter," Howard hyper-accurately recalls. "In the first half I think I had eight tackles; Chris Hovan had gone down so I was getting a little more playing time. I was on Bruce Matthews; I was lined up on the right defensive tackle and Bruce was the left guard. It was a toss right, so therefore I was kind of out of the play. I was engaged with Matthews as he headed towards the linebacker, and Brad Hopkins came in from behind. An illegal cut block, and he rolled up on my ankle."

Howard knew the injury was bad right away. "As I was leaving the field, I called my agent right away. I told him, 'unless I have a miracle in me, I think I'm done, because I think I broke my shin.' The pain was excruciating."

If only it were that simple. It turns out that the hit on Howard had torn his ACL, PCL, MCL, LCL, and meniscus, fractured his femur, and broken his ankle. In other words, not since Kyle Broflovski's knees exploded in "South Park" has someone blown out their leg that bad.

The injury still lingers with Howard to this day. He can't stand on his leg for more than about three hours before it goes completely numb. After instructing the Machine practice, he favored the injured leg with a noticeable limp. While he's still feeling the effects of the one play that ended his career, Howard isn't the type to dwell on it. "I don't regret it for a minute. It made me a stronger person...the education component of my career allows me to maintain a productive living for myself and my family."

The Stanford education Howard received through football helped him quickly rebound from the injury. "I talk to high schools all over the place and help them understand that the beauty behind being a football player is having the opportunity to go off to college. Because an education can never be taken away, even though with someone like myself, the millions of dollars that you envision can be taken overnight. In essence, that's what happened to me."

Howard still closely monitors pro and college football, especially his alma mater--he proudly sports a Stanford tattoo on his right arm. "I actually had a chance to go to the Orange Bowl and watch Andrew Luck put on a great performance," Howard proudly exclaims. He keeps in touch with current and former Vikings players as well, such as Adrian Peterson and Randy Moss. "It's pretty much a fraternity once you play in the NFL. When Randy came back to Minnesota, he gave me a phone call saying he was back in town. So the relationships are still there and I keep in as much contact as they want to stay in contact with me." Howard also discussed the NFL lockout, explaining that just like any relationship, the agreement needs to be based on trust and compromise. (He gets it, we get it--so why the hell can't the players and owners get it?!)

So how does a former NFL defensive lineman become the head coach of a women's football team? The answer is quite simple--when Howard sees an opportunity to educate, he rarely passes it up. He still coaches the Robbinsdale Cooper High School football team in the fall, and he coached the South Metro (now Minnesota) Dragons semi-pro men's team for the past couple of summers before joining the Machine this year.

"What the Machine were trying to do lined up so well with what I wanted to do with community service and how I want to give back," Howard explains. "Obviously my schedule's tight, but the rewards are great. You have 45 women, many of them that have never played the game before joining the team. They're really like kids that want to know more about the game. Every day in practice, they're busting their butt and asking questions. They're asking so many questions and they're eager to learn. It was an easy transition for me to fall into."

While much of his new team may not have grown up with the game of football, Howard remains impressed with what he has seen on the field. "Women are told to play hockey or maybe some rugby at most if they want some contact. But when you get out here and watch them play football, you'd be surprised to see some of these women hit. A lot of them would be able to compete at some level with some guys. Not every single person, but there are some that you'd never know if their hair wasn't in a ponytail coming out of their helmet. These girls can hit. This ain't no Lingerie Football League."

After the interview concludes, Howard immediately returns to answering questions from eager players while he shuts down the facilities for the night. Willie Howard may not have been blessed with much time to make an impact in the NFL, but he's making a big impact on football of all levels with his time now.

If you're as football deprived as most fans these days, check out Howard's team, the Minnesota Machine, during their home opener this Saturday. They play at 7:00 PM at Minnetonka High School for each of their home games; you can check out their full schedule here. (In the interest of full disclosure, you can also hear yours truly controlling the PA announcer duties as well as cheer on my sister, who plays for the Machine.)

agent orange veterans benefits

A house made Leo Berk an artist. It was a miraculous house. An impractical, leaky, flamboyant house made of steel ribs and gobs of discarded green glass and coal and wood and rope. This house is called the Ruth Ford House (great photos)—it was designed by not-quite-legitimate (in a good way) architect Bruce Goff (a onetime student of Frank Lloyd Wright) for the flashy artist Ruth Ford in 1950 in Aurora, Ilinois. So many people came to gawk that even attention-hungry Ford had to move out, and a series of owners followed. One of them was the Berks.

On the jump is the story of how the Ruth Ford House turned 6-year-old Leo Berk into the artist he is today, with pictures. Last month, Berk went back to his childhood home to live for a week, sleeping under his old skylight and making new art based on the formative place in a "residency" he invented for himself, with permission from the home's current owner, architectural historian Sidney Robinson.

So tell me about this residency you invented.

Well, I’d always stayed in contact with the owner who bought it from us in December 1987, Sidney Robinson. In 2001, I went and spent a couple of hours there and I started crying in front of him because it was just so overwhelming—I have a lot of experience tied up in the house. The house has changed his life in a parallel way to the way that the house has changed my life. Before he came to look at the house, he did not like the architect, Bruce Goff. He didn’t take him seriously, didn’t think he was anyone of importance. It is a really hard house to own in some ways. Before we sold it, we had had it for sale on and off for years.

You lived there how long?

Seven years, from age 6 to 13.

It was like negotiating the sale of an artwork instead of a house. The first thing my dad said was, the roof leaks, and Sid said, “I would expect it to.” And that’s the moment that my dad thought “Oh, we might actually have someone that’s going to buy this house.” The house is more sculpture than it is residence in terms of functionality and practicality.

How did your family find it?

I grew up in a tiny rural village in England, too small to be on the map. My dad worked for a construction machinery company, and he got transferred—my dad is American and my mom is British—to Aurora, Illinois, where the factory was. They sent my mom and my dad out to go house-shopping ahead of the move, and they looked for a house for two weeks and couldn’t find anything in their budget that they liked, and, like, the day before they left, they drive past the Goff house.

My dad sees it from the back seat out the corner of the window and sees the for-sale sign and the real estate agent tries to talk him out of it, but he wanted to go. And my dad then said that was the house they were going to buy.

My dad is a very practical person, but with these moments of spontaneity—and that was one of them. They decided to buy the house right then. I think it was in maybe foreclosure? It was in very bad shape, and they bought it for not a lot of money, and my dad did a lot of work on it to get it livable. So it was one of those moments that completely changed the trajectory of my life, I believe. I honestly don’t think that I would have been an artist had I not lived in the house. I don’t actually know what I would have done, but I don’t think I would have been an artist. That house shaped me, and that’s really what I was trying to think about when I was there, was how architecture can really shape someone, how it can transform someone in a positive way.

When were you there? Did you sleep in your old bedroom?

The dates were March 22nd to the 29th. Yeah. I had two bedrooms in the house, and I slept in both. One of them I shared with my brother when we first moved there, and one of them was when my brother wanted more space and I wanted my own room—there really are only two bedrooms in the house—so I moved to the balcony which is kind of an interior balcony. So I had a room with no walls that was in the center of the house and this skylight, it’s like a 25-foot diameter skylight and that was just basically the ceiling to my room. So I slept there one night [last month]. Sidney left me in the house alone for two days and one night, so that night I slept out in the open, basically, in the middle of the house.

What were you thinking would happen?

I woke up from a dream [months ago] about the house where I had an idea for an artwork having to do with the house —

Could you remember the artwork?

Yeah, I did. And actually I don’t know if I thought of the artwork after I awoke or while I was asleep, it was kind of in-between. But that’s not how I usually think of artwork. I thought, I could go back and make a whole show about the house. I’ve always talked about how the house has influenced my aesthetic, but I thought why not make a show that is directly about the house and how it shaped me and how architecture can change people.

So what are the hotspots in the house for you? What are the places that feel?

Well…there’s a lot!

The orange steel ribs are salvaged from World War II Quonset hut structures, they come together to make a skylight.

There’s the orange piano that came with the house, was made for the house, color-coordinated with the architecture.

There’s the floating stairs, these stairs that kind of climb up this I-beam.

There’s that central copper clad spire that is also the fireplace, and there’s all these structures in the house that—the way that everything intersects, all these pieces and materials, is really unusual. Like the floating balcony is almost suspended. The pie of the house, the interior/exterior part is separated by this 20-foot tall glass wall.

The exterior wall is made out of coal—this black masonry is coal. All the wood is cypress. On interior and exterior surfaces there are these World War II surplus hemp rope lines—navy surplus, so made to be exposed to the elements.

There are chunks of green glass interspersed in the coal. He sourced them from this plate-glass factory in St. Louis: They’d have their giant ladle for pouring out this glass, and then what was left in the ladle that didn’t come out, it would cool and then it would crack, and they’d take it out of the big ladle and put it into this giant pile of irregularly cracked chunks, and so that’s what the glass is.

And it goes all the way through, so when the sun is setting and the house is getting dark, these chunks of glass are shining brightly. In the evening and in the morning, it’s just, like, unbelievable.

There’s so much glass in the house that for privacy there’s these rubber and fig trees that are growing in planters alongside the glass. It’s really organic in the way that he created places for giant trees to be growing inside of the house, and you might see some growing into the skylight in different images of the central skylight.

In the bathrooms are these large terrazzo, cast-in-place tubs, and over them were round skylights salvaged from B-17 bombers—and the ceilings in the bathroom are rope that swirls around this B-17 bomber dome. While my family lived there, we managed to break both of the bathroom skylights, so that’s one of the projects that I’ve begun is finding replacements for those [working with the Museum of Flight in Seattle].

There’s a strip of neon that illuminates upwards at the herringbone ceiling. So that was a pretty innovative thing for 1949.

And there’s the radiant floor. That was what I was having the dream about.

It was kind of early on with radiant floor technology, so it had some kinks to work out and had these hot spots and cool spots. I have this memory of lying on the floor and trying to align myself with the hot spots watching TV.

What was the dream?

So when I went there I rented an infrared camera and I shot imagery of the floor. You can see hot and cool spots, so suddenly you can see where all of the copper pipe was inside of the concrete from heating the floor, and I shot imagery so that I could make something from that. My original idea was I wanted to make a rug with that image on it, the infrared image. That was my dreamt idea. I haven’t gone back to that piece yet, but so far that’s what I think I’m going to do. Just the memory of how that floor really defines the space in a way, like the cat would always sleep on the warm spots, and so you kind of developed a sense of the warm and cool spots on the floor in the house. So I went back and mapped them with this tool so I could depict them and really understand what was going on beneath our feet, too.

There’s not one opening window in the house. There’s just ventilation hatches all around the perimeter of the large dome and around the perimeter of the bedroom wings. There’s not one bit of drywall or plasterboard or anything like that, so everything has a material that is itself.

There’s concrete, cypress wood, rope, coal, glass, a little bit of painted wood but really very little of something that’s being altered as other than its real material quality. So that’s kind of like where I think I get a lot of my material sensibility as an artist, too.

Not masking things.

Right. All of the doors and, well, there’s very few straight lines in the house, so there’s these closet doors and cabinet doors that are all curving, so the craftsmanship in the house is insane.

When I went back, I just couldn’t imagine owning the house and having to maintain the level of the craftsmanship that the house was built to, it was really high. So I’m sure I get that from the house.

A lot of Bruce Goff’s houses have kind of, like, disintegrated, and this one has not—it really depended on who built them. He didn’t do a lot of detailed drawings. He really relied on the builder to figure out a lot.

I’d always known that this house was built by someone who studied under Bruce Goff for a little while, but I didn’t know that when he built the house he was 26 years old.

Wow. What’s his name?

Don Tossi.

So he was the general contractor and he was 26. And I know back in the 1940s, people grew up a little bit faster, but this still floored me that he did that when he was 26 years old. It was built for I think $60,000 and built in 17 months.

Did you and Sidney talk at all about the work and the show you’re working on?

Oh yeah. The three nights he was there, we went out to dinner and talked for four to six hours each night and had breakfast together on two of those mornings and hung out for at least three hours talking.

He knows everything about the house. He knows everything about prairie modern architecture. He knows everything about Bruce Goff. He’s a 67-year-old architecture professor who has a lot to talk about.

It was such visual and emotional stimulation from being at the house, from being back in this place, and then I got intellectual stimulation from this professor, from just talking about the place.

Have other artists worked at the house?

Stephen Prina shot a film in the house a few years ago. [The Way He Always Wanted It, 2009.] It premiered at the Tate Museum [London]. I haven’t seen it because I did write Stephen Prina a couple years ago wanting to see if there was a way that I could get the film to show at the Henry [Seattle], and he didn’t respond. Sid has even tried to get in contact with Stephen Prina because he thought he was going to be getting some kind of copy of the film, and Sid is not hearing back, either... I’ve had the film described to me, there are long, tracking, curved dolly shots in the house that are sequenced with live music being played in the house and Stephen Prina singing.

Do you know why he [Prina] chose the house?

Originally he just wanted a house that had a curve in it that could match this track that he had for this dolly. And then when he found the house, the piece started becoming more about Bruce Goff and about the house, and I think some of the lyrics he wrote for the song come from love letters between Bruce Goff and his lover. So it sort of became about the architecture and the architect.

There’s also a John Cage piece where you play the living room of a house, so Third Coast Percussion are going to be doing that on the 100th anniversary of Taliesin—I think it’s this summer. They’re making a video of that. I do have this idea that I could have a show about the house and also screen that Cage video and also the Stephen Prina film.

When you make work about the house, do you think of it as documentary or fiction?

Fiction. Fiction in that it’s my experience of the house, I’m not trying to make an objective depiction of the house. And so I did that infrared photography and then I also shot some videos there that were pieces that I thought of while there.

You’re a sculptor, even when you’re working on paper. Have you ever shown video before?

Yeah, I did, long time ago, when I was in the Bumbershoot show that Michael Van Horn curated. It was a video that I shot at the same time that I was going to the veneer mills and doing the veneer pieces. I set up a camera over the veneer conveyor and shot video of the veneer shooting past, slowing down, stopping, starting ,and then there’s steam coming out of it, so it’s kind of a seductive image. I did kind of a poor job of capturing that image and wished I had done better.

What were the ideas you came up with at the house, and why video?

I shot some videos that were just documentary, like I need to remember this. But then I shot one video that was just a moment, kind of like an epiphany moment, where you see something and it leads to all these connections happening in your mind.

Acoustically the house is insane, you can talk quietly and hear somebody all the way on the other side of the house because it’s a giant dome. At one point Sid started playing piano and I shot video right then.

What’s the next step for you?

Well the first thing I did was go to the Museum of Flight [looking for B-17 dome windows to replace the original skylights], and I edited these two videos, and Scott [Lawrimore] is working on exhibition possibilities for this show, because it’s not going to happen in his current space. I’d love to have a show in that space but this isn’t going to be it. And then, I want to make some sculpture out of some of these materials.

I forgot to mention the smell of the house, which is powerful and as soon as I cross the threshold of the door it’s the first thing that hits me. It’s this smell that I have never smelled anywhere else, and smell and memory are really connected. I’ve done a bunch of research on what that smell could be, and I think I’ve figured it out, and I’d like to get that into sculpture somehow too. There’s so many good materials, you know, to work with, that are associated with the house, that I just want to try out making sculpture with them, see if it looks good, see if I can do it. So that’s the next step.

In the house, did you dream?

Yeah, all my dreams happened in the house when I slept there. And I’m also not, like, a big rememberer of dreams, but all of the dreams I had, I remembered dreaming about the house. It’s one of these things where there’s a risk of sounding really corny and ridiculous when talking about the house because I’m not normally a person that—I’m pretty practical and not really someone that really gets caught up in sentimentality. Really, I usually don’t like artwork that is in any way nostalgic. But I have this belief that the house made me who I am, and that’s kind of a crazy thing to believe.

Most architects you talk to today would not give Bruce Goff much thought or kind of think that he was a wacko. And I understand that, because when you look at his architecture, it’s really different than the current convention of, like, white-walled glass boxes, really pared-down minimalism of today’s steel and glass. I wouldn’t be able to really argue with someone, with an architect, about whether or not this is good architecture, academically good, or theoretically good. But what I would be able to argue is that I lived in that house for 7 years and it changed my life for the better, and that seems like a pretty ambitious, amazing goal for architecture, and if that’s possible, then to me the house is really an enormous success.

I’ve been thinking so much about the house—it was built at the same time as the Mies in Plano. But that one is floating above the ground, and this one is sunken, literally, into the ground. That one is facing all outwards and this one is facing inwards into the center spiral.

There’s a not very good Goff house in Seattle. I think it’s on Queen Anne. I drove by it years ago and can’t remember what it looked like. He also composed music—he would compose player piano music directly to the roll, so not writing out music but actually cutting out little squares with an X-acto blade or whatever, each square, four sides, punching out these holes to be read by a player piano, so they have this visual character as well as this musical character. Creatively, he was kind of an enormous person.

How many residents have lived in the Ford house, and what will happen to it next?

It has been landmarked, so it’s protected, and Sid has set up a foundation to pay for any repairs into the future beyond standard maintenance. I think there have been 11 residents. It’s an experience. The house leaked like a sieve. I remember this Hills Brothers coffee can we had, that we put out to catch water—I found it in a closet when I was there, completely rusted. I recognized it right away.

^{All photographs by Leo Berk}

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Running Matsui Discharge w/ Agent and 10% Neo orange pigment. Printing through 110 mesh. Black 100% cotton T. Hit once / flash / hit again for good coverage on manual press. Put through forced air conveyor dryer at 750 degrees for 1.5 minutes. "Bright" Orange comes out visually completely cured....

Agent Orange Seattle : El Corazon 98109 on 2011-05-22

In the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster, radiation has contaminated the food and water supply and the ocean in Japan. Radioactive particles have been carried to distant lands, though no dangerous levels have been detected in other countries. During this time of possible exposure we need to protect ourselves from the toxicity of heavy metals and radiation. Anyone could be exposed to radiation from the nuclear reactors in Japan through contact with contaminated products or travelers, or by ingesting contaminated food, even if the exposure is relatively low in level.

There are three simple principles involved in detoxification. The most important is chelation, or the binding and removal of metals and other toxins from the body. Second, the body has its own methods of detoxification which can be encouraged. And third, antioxidants will scour and remove free radicals that have been created by oxidative damage. Everyone can easily take supplements to produce these results and protect the body from heavy metal and radiation toxicity.

Chelation can be accomplished with one or more of several supplements.

Chlorella is a green algae and spirulina is a blue-green algae which contain chlorophyllin and other nutrients that bind toxic compounds in the gut. They are both used as chelating agents of heavy metals and other toxins. They are readily available in most health food stores. Seaweed has a similar ability to inhibit absorption of toxins in the digestive tract.

Laminaria is a brown seaweed that contains sodium alginate, which has been shown to chelate heavy metals and treat radiation sickness.

Modified citrus pectin has been shown in clinical studies to remove heavy metals including lead, mercury, arsenic and other toxins (Econugenics). Pectins and alginates are polysaccharides known as polyuronides, molecules that form chains in an "eggbox" structure that attract and trap radioactive metals. Typical dosage is 5 gm of the powder per day.

Zeolite is a naturally occurring mineral that has a crystalline structure that traps metals. It has been shown to remove depleted uranium from the body. Dosage is 5 gm of powder per day.

The body's natural chelating agent is called metallothienein (MT). This protein binds to toxic metals for delivery to the liver or kidneys for excretion. MT also prevents toxic metals from reacting with other molecules in the body, thereby preventing toxicity. The body's production of MT can be encouraged by taking certain botanical and nutritional supplements. Specifically, Humulus (hops) and Andrographis, as well as zinc, will all help regulate the genes associated with MT production (Metalloclear, Metagenics).

Glutathothione is the body's primary antioxidant. It can be produced in every cell of the body, but the liver is the primary source. Glutathione is capable of breaking down carcinogens and heavy metals. Supplements including N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) and alpha lipoic acid (or R-lipoic acid) will support glutathione production. A reduced, liposomal glutathione supplement can also be used to increase glutathione directly.

Milk thistle, or its active extract sylimarin, supports liver cell synthesis and promotes glutathione production.

Supporting the small intestine's ability to maintain an effective immune system is an important component of detoxification. L-glutamine is an amino acid that protects the small intestine lining from radiation damage. Probiotics (lactobacilli and bifidobacteria), and prebiotics (arabinogalactan, beta glucans, and inulin) will maintain a healthy intestinal lining.

In addition to supporting the body's own production of antioxidants, various supplements can provide additional support. These supplements include vitamin C, coenzyme Q 10, grape seed extract (or resveratrol), astaxanthin (from krill or other sources), beta-carotene, and others. Of course many fruits and vegetables provide significant amounts of antioxidants, especially those with red, orange, or purple color.

Safeguard your body and protect it from radiation damage by taking at least one chelating agent such as chlorella, modified citrus pectin, or zeolite.

Support the body's own detoxifying mechanisms by taking reduced glutathione, or its precursor N-acetylcysteine, humulus, and/or milk thistle. Support the small intestine's ability to remove metals with L-glutamine, probiotics and prebiotics.

Get antioxidants from fruits, vegetables, and supplements of vitamin C, CoQ10, grape extracts, krill, or other sources.

Most other products can be purchased at health food stores or easily found on the Internet. Follow the dosage recommendations of the manufacturer on most products. None of the products mentioned have any toxicity, so overdosing is not a problem. In general, children take one-third to one-half the adult dose depending on their weight.

Disclaimer: Dr. Neustaedter has no financial ties with any manufacturer of the recommended supplements.

About the author:
Dr. Randall Neustaedter, OMD, has practiced and taught holistic medicine for more than thirty years in the San Francisco Bay area, specializing in child health care....

Continued at:

http://www.naturalnews.com/031987_radiation_poisoning_protection.html#ixzz1Iq7tt...

• added by: Dagum  
• 2 comments

The Juke Joint Anaheim : AGENT ORANGE, THEE SPECTORS, DISGUSTER, NEW SKOOL KINGS on 2011-05-07

LRS Realty & Management, Inc. is a Full Service Property Management Company established in 1988 and specializes in the leasing, managing, and sale of single-family homes, condominiums, and apartments. We serve Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego Counties.
Responsibilities:

. Actively prospect for new property management contracts for homes.
. Show properties to prospective tenants and review credit applications.
. Review and complete lease agreement and contracts.
. Actively market and post your listings on our systems/online.
. Complete move-in/outs and advise owners on how to get property rent-ready.
. Conduct semi-annual property inspections

Qualifications:

. Must have a current CA DRE License.
. Proven track record of success.
. Self-driven with positive attitude and strong work ethic.
. Excellent communication and time management skills.
. Have a home office setup (computer, fax, scanner, Smartphone, etc)

* You'll have the training and support with our team. We’re seeking dedicated and committed professionals. This is a full-time position (50+ hours) and 1099 commission.

Keywords: Sales, Leasing, Apartment Leasing, Leasing Manager, Leasing Consultant, Leasing Agent, Sales Agent, Property Manager, Property Management, Real Estate Agent, Agent, Realtor

• Location: Valley - LA
• Compensation: 1099 Commission – Full-time
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

LRS Realty & Management, Inc. is a Full Service Property Management Company established in 1988 and specializes in the leasing, managing, and sale of single-family homes, condominiums, and apartments. We serve Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego Counties.
Responsibilities:

. Actively prospect for new property management contracts for homes.
. Show properties to prospective tenants and review credit applications.
. Review and complete lease agreement and contracts.
. Actively market and post your listings on our systems/online.
. Complete move-in/outs and advise owners on how to get property rent-ready.
. Conduct semi-annual property inspections

Qualifications:

. Must have a current CA DRE License.
. Proven track record of success.
. Self-driven with positive attitude and strong work ethic.
. Excellent communication and time management skills.
. Have a home office setup (computer, fax, scanner, Smartphone, etc)

* You'll have the training and support with our team. We’re seeking dedicated and committed professionals. This is a full-time position (50+ hours) and 1099 commission.

Keywords: Sales, Leasing, Apartment Leasing, Leasing Manager, Leasing Consultant, Leasing Agent, Sales Agent, Property Manager, Property Management, Real Estate Agent, Agent, Realtor

• Location: San Diego
• Compensation: 1099 Commission – Full-time
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Environmentalists are critical of Monsanto because the company has manufactured and sold several toxic substances including Agent Orange. In fact, Monsanto has a long and sordid history when it comes to pollution. Today Monsanto develops biotechnology products like genetically modified plants though they provide little to no research on the crops's effects on human health. Recently, glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide, Roundup, is being investigated for its impact on animal, plant, and human health. Some experts believe glyphosate causes cancer.

Nicholson Baker

One Saturday last month I went to Lafayette Park in Washington D.C., across the street from the White House, in order to protest several wars. The squirrels were out doing seasonal things. A tree was balancing big buds on the finger-ends of its curving branches; the brown bud coverings, which looked like gecko skins, were drawing back to reveal inner loaves of meaty magnolial pinkness. A policeman in sunglasses, with a blue and white helmet, sat on a Clydesdale horse, while two tourists, a father and his daughter, gazed into the horse’s eyes. The pale, squinty, early spring perfection of the day made me smile.

The demonstration wasn’t officially supposed to start until noon, but already off in the distance a few hundred people had gathered near a platform festooned with a row of black-and-white Veterans for Peace flags. It was March 19, the eighth anniversary of the shock-and-aweing of Iraq, and there was an air of expectancy: arrests were going to happen that day. I sat down on a bench and watched volunteers setting up loudspeakers. Birds were getting in as much chirping as they could before the human noise began. A woman with an armful of red and black signs passed by. Her signs said:

STOP THESE WARS
EXPOSE THE LIES
FREE BRADLEY MANNING

Jay Marx, head of Proposition One, a nuclear disarmament group, took the microphone. He was wearing a knit hat. “Testing, one, two, three,” Marx said into the microphone. “Testing our patience. Testing, four, five, six, seven, eight years of war. Eight years of lies! And we’re live! This park is live! The Vets for Peace are live in Lafayette Park!” (Cheering.)

Code Pink, a women’s antiwar group, was in charge of the pre-noon proceedings. Jodie Evans, Code Pink’s founder, sang “When we make peace instead of war,” to the tune of “Oh when the saints go marching in.” She had on a black hat and a pink vest. She introduced a retired army colonel, Ann Wright, who had resigned her job at the State Department in 2003 because she couldn’t countenance the invasion of Iraq. “I’ll tell you, when Code Pink’s in the house, you know it!” said Wright, to hollers of approval. She pointed across the street. “And the White House knows it!” Wright told us that she had just gotten back from Afghanistan, where the Obama administration was building a $500 million embassy complex. “It’s going to be the largest embassy in the world—larger than Baghdad,” she said.

As a retired colonel, as a former member of the US State Department, and as a citizen, I say that it is our obligation to raise hell! To raise cain! To get these endless wars stopped, and take care of America!

(Big cheering.)

I hurried off to buy some double-A batteries for my audio recorder and when I got back a group called Songrise was performing a heartbreaking a capella version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The crowd was bigger now, about eight hundred people. More police had gathered, too.

Caroline Casey, another patroness of Code Pink, came on the stage to explain, in a strong contralto voice, what it meant to be advocating peace at the time of vernal equinox and lunar perigee. The culture of cataclysmic dominance was going down, Casey told us, and the culture of reverent ingenuity was rising up out of the cracks. She invited us to spiral the best of ourselves forth into what she called “the memosphere.” She also offered a quote from Hafiz, a Persian poet: “The small man builds prisons for everyone he meets, but the wise woman ducks under the moon and tosses keys to the beautiful and rowdy prisoners.” She tossed a figurative key to young Wikileaker Bradley Manning, in solitary confinement in Quantico, as an agent of democracy, and she tossed a second key to President Obama, to help him see the wrong of Manning’s imprisonment. Obama was himself, she said, “a prisoner of empire.”

A group of Code Pinkers arranged themselves in a row and opened seventeen pink umbrellas that spelled “BRING OUR WAR $$ HOME.” The crowd was up to about fifteen hundred people by now. A small but committed group of pro-defense protesters—eight of them by my count—were standing out in the street holding flags. Some of their signs seemed to date from another era: CHE IS DEAD GET OVER IT! (held by a woman in sunglasses), and JANE FONDA TRAITOR (held by a man in a black biker jacket). One woman, wearing a gigantic red hat with a red bow, had a sign that said:

I Stand 4
CODE RED, White & BLUE
NOT Pink & YELLER

I went back nearer the platform to hear some of the Vets for Peace speakers. Mike Ferner, who worked on a Navy hospital ship during the Vietnam War and was the author of Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran for Peace Reports from Iraq, was the master of ceremonies—he was an immediately likeable guy with a thick assymetry of graying hair. He introduced Debra Sweet, director of World Can’t Wait, another antiwar, anti-occupation group that had its beginnings during the Bush era. “We have to take a stand against these immoral, illegitimate wars, and this torture being done in our name,” she said. “I’ll see you in front of the White House!” (Huge cheer.)

Caneisha Mills, who had successfully sued the city of Washington for setting up military-style police checkpoints in poor neighborhoods, said: “The President of the United States, Barack Obama, said that he was going to make a change in the United States. The change that we’ve seen has only been for the worse.” Obama and the government were claiming, falsely, that there was no money for education and health care, Mills argued—and now he was calling for military intervention in Libya, even after Libya announced a ceasefire. “We can see that he only cares about wars of occupation and massive slaughter,” Mills said.

Zach Choate, injured in Iraq, read a Dear Mr. Obama letter, which he then rolled up and put in a pill bottle that had held one of the medications that he’s had to take since the war. “You said you would bring my brothers and sisters home, and they’re still there,” he read. “5,938 of my buddies have died. I’m here today to act peacefully in civil disobedience for my disapproval of these wars.”

I walked around the crowd and took some pictures of a six-foot-long scale model of a Reaper drone. It was painted gray, with wide wings and underwing missiles tipped with red and orange paint, and it was balanced on a pole above our heads. What would daily life be like, it prompted us to ask, if we lived in a country where real drones were flying around high overhead, able to murder by remote control? It would be deeply radicalizing and terrorism-sustaining—obviously.

A woman held a white cloth with lettering on it: “How Many Lives Will You End? How Many Billions Will You Spend? Before You End This Madness?” Meanwhile someone—I missed his name—began talking about the heavy “F.O.G.,” or Forces of Greed, which surrounded us. “President Obama—with his very lovely smile and lovely family, and beautiful rhetoric—sometimes fools people. Now we know that he’s part of the F.O.G. The F.O.G. needs to be lifted.”

A woman shook my hand and said “You are so familiar—have we been arrested together?” I said no, I’d never been arrested.

Ralph Nader was up eventually. He began with some words of sympathy for the victims of the disaster in Japan. Then he said, “General Petraeus said there are fifty al-Qaeda, they estimate, in Afghanistan. Why are we blowing that country apart? Why are we sending our injured and sick home day after day?” Iraq, too—we’d blown that country apart. He quoted a coinage from a recent book called Erasing Iraq: “sociocide.”

Someone near me with yellow dyed hair abruptly turned his back on Nader and said “I’m still pissed off at that son-of-a-bitch about Florida.” Everyone else was clapping, though. How was it, Nader asked, that twenty-five or thirty thousand Taliban fighters, with no air force, no navy, no tanks—armed only with Kalishnikovs and suicide belts and rocket-propelled grenades—were able to resist the most powerful military force in history? “Because,” said Nader, “they have a cause that says ‘Expel the invader.’ Expelling the invader will be forever the cause of anybody in the world who is invaded.”

A duct-taped bucket came around for donations to Vets for Peace, and I stuffed in some money. Then Brian Becker of the Answer Coalition, a socialist group that sponsored some of the biggest peace demonstrations before the Iraq war, tore into the Libyan intervention, which had begun with the launch of a hundred cruise missiles that morning. “We have to learn the lessons that are so crystal clear, as Obama and the Pentagon and France and Britain prepare in the next few hours to start dropping bombs on the people of Libya in the name of democracy,” Becker said. “Let’s know this: Libya is the largest oil producer in Africa, and there’s no possible way that if the US goes into Libya that it’s ever going to come out.” Libya must be the masters of their own destiny, he continued. “We ourselves reject the idea, fed to us once again, that US imperialism, with all of its guns and bombs and missiles, is going to help an oppressed people. The only help we can give to the people of Libya and Egypt and Tunisia and Yemen is to make our own revolution right here!” (Whooping and cheering.)

Watermelon Slim, a craggy country blues singer and Vietnam vet in a camouflage T-shirt, told President Obama to listen up. “Mr. Obama, these wars were George Bush’s wars,” he said. “They are now your wars. I hate to say that, but it’s a fact.” Vietnam vets, Slim said, were now standing at the White House to make known their opposition, just as they’d done back in 1971: “Mr. Obama, you and Mr. Nixon got that in common. We’re paying attention to you. We say, bring our brothers and sisters home, right now!”

Somebody gave me a flyer for the next protest, on April 9th in New York City. Somebody else handed me another flyer, “How is the War Economy Working for You?” It was published by the Veterans for Peace’s Smedley D. Butler Brigade. On it was a quote from Marine Corps General Smedley Butler (1881-1940): “I spent 33 years in the Marines being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers,” Butler wrote. “The general public shoulders the horrible bill in lives, shattered minds, and back-breaking taxes for generations.”

Then Daniel Ellsberg, former Marine Corps company commander and distributor of Vietnam War secrets, was on. He wore a blue blazer and a blue shirt and a sober tie. He was only a few weeks away from his eightieth birthday. He looked great. “Can one person make a difference?” Ellsberg asked. “I would say that without Bradley Manning having released the cables through Wikileaks that inspired the uprising in Tunisia—along with the self-sacrifice of a Tunisian named Muhammad Bouazizi, who burned himself to death in protest against the oppression there—without either of those individuals, Ben Ali, our dictator there, whom we were supporting, would still be there. And Mubarak would still be in Egypt. So one person can make a difference.”

Ellsberg asked us if we knew the names of the two languages of Afghanistan. Almost nobody in the audience knew. “The two languages are Dari—which is eastern Farsi, or Persian—and Pashto,” he said. “In Vietnam, none of us spoke the language, but we knew the language that we didn’t speak—that it was Vietnamese. We’re fighting in a country now where we don’t know the language we don’t know.”

Kings, Ellsberg said, once locked their critics away in dungeons till they were forgotten; the French, he reminded us, referred to these dungeons as oubliettes. Kings also once declared wars without parliamentary approval. Bradley Manning was now in an oubliette at Quantico for revealing America’s war crimes; and the Libyan intervention was, like Korea, an illegal war, waged without congressional approval. President Obama believed that he was in a throne room in the oval office, said Ellsberg, with a crown on his head. It was up to us to knock that crown off. (Wild cheers, including Indian war-cry ululations.)

Ellsberg said: “One of the groups in Tahrir Square, that had been fighting Mubarak for some time, called itself Kafaya, ‘enough.’ We need an ‘enough’ movement: enough to empire, enough to imperial wars, enough to oubliettes.” And he ended with: “This is a good day to get arrested at the White House, and tomorrow at Quantico.” (Mad applause.)

Mike Ferner took the mic. “If you’re planning on getting arrested, if you have any questions, Matt Daloisio is back here behind the stage. Come on up and see Matt.” Once arrested, you had to pay a hundred dollars to be freed, or else you had to appear later in court, Ferner advised. He introduced Chris Hedges, columnist for Truthdig, who said, “If you want to stop terrorism, you must first stop committing acts of terror.” Ferner then gave us guidance on the march. “This is going to be a silent march,” he said. “We need to keep in mind what we’re here for, which is to observe the eighth anniversary of invasion of Iraq. We’re here for a solemn purpose. So let’s be that way, purposeful and thoughtful in our march.” He thanked us for coming and then he said “I’d like to add one personal note to this, which has really been rubbing me raw for some time now.” The people in Afghanistan and Iraq were bearing the brunt of the military aggression, Ferner said, while our cities, our veterans, and our public institutions, were all collateral damage. “Our infrastructure and our public institutions may not be being bombed, but they’re being allowed to slowly rot. And that has got to stop.”

The last speaker was Ryan Endicott, an Iraq marine veteran. He was full of powerful indignation, and he spoke at the top of his lungs. “When we joined the military, we rose our right hand, and we swore to defend the people of this country against all enemies foreign and domestic,” he said. “And the biggest enemies to the people of this country do not live in the sands of Iraq. They do not live in the caves of Afghanistan.” He gestured toward the White House. “They live hundreds of yards away!” (Roar of agreement.)

Endicott said: “We know the realities of these brutal occupations, and we know that these people are not our enemies. The fact is that these wars have cost the American people more than just our lives and our limbs.” The wars had cost trillions of dollars, he cried—trillions that could have gone toward free education and health care, that could have prevented millions from losing their homes, and that could have helped thousands of homeless veterans get off the streets. “And that’s why we’re here today in the streets! The streets that we built! With our sweat, and our tears, and our blood!”

Revolutionary change was possible, Endicott believed: Harvey Milk, Martin Luther King, the people of Tunisia, the people of Egypt, had all made revolutionary change. “We’re going to shut down our workplaces. We’re going to shut down our factories and our schools. And we’re going to tell this government not one more dollar! Not one more bullet! Not one more bomb! Not one more day of US imperialism!” (Cacophony of applause.)

People began arranging their banners and signs and assembling to march. “While everybody is waiting, will you please remove your hats?” said Watermelon Slim. “Except those of us who have chemical gear on.” Then he came to attention. “Present—arms!” He played taps on his harmonica, with a slow mournful vibrato. “We must mourn, we must also show our anger,” he said. “We must also bear this war evenly. Let’s go let them bear some of it, too. Come on.”

Then we marchers set out, led by a World War II vet from the 90th Infantry Division, Third Army. We walked silently around several blocks to the west of the White House (evidently the police didn’t want us to actually circle the White House), and then half an hour later, we massed where we’d begun, in front of the black, sharp-tipped, White House fence.

There were many policemen now: motorcycle cops, park police, horseback police, K-9 police, and sinister-looking SWAT teams in black hats and black uniforms tucked into high black boots. It was a strangely varied festival of police “protection.” They were hauling out segments of a metal crowd-control fence. They locked together the segments, fencing off a large area of public sidewalk and street. (The street, Pennsylvania Avenue, is normally open to public foot traffic and closed to cars.) And then they announced that if you stood on the wrong side of the temporary fence you were going get arrested. The police created, in other words, a potential criminal infraction where there should have been no infraction. For standing on a public sidewalk, in a place where people had strolled undisturbed moments before, you could now be arrested for “disobeying an official order.” I decided that this was ridiculous and that I wanted to be arrested. But after consulting my wallet, I realized that because I’d given forty dollars to Veterans for Peace, I didn’t have enough cash to bail myself out. Next time, I thought.

More than a thousand of us stood against the new barricade, shouting, along with the hoarse-voiced bullhornist, “This is what democracy looks like!” And “Money for jobs and education, Not for Wars and Occupation!” And “Stop these wars! Free Bradley Manning!” And “From Wisconsin to Iraq, stand up, fight back!” And “They say more war, we say no more!” I suddenly felt the rising power of an outraged crowd. It has a different kind of persuasiveness than any verbal argument does. I watched a blind man in a wheelchair, missing several fingers, chanting “US out of the Middle East, No justice no peace.”

A hundred and thirteen protesters were eventually arrested in front of President Obama’s White House that afternoon. (Obama, meanwhile, was down in South America trying to sell F-18 warplanes to Brazil.) The arrests took hours. Someone called out “You’re arresting the wrong people! Arrest Bush I, arrest Bush II, arrest Obama!” One of the women, when she was out of sight in the arrest tent, began a series of blood curdling screams of protest. “Let us see what’s happening,” someone called. As a paddy wagon drove off, someone called out “The jello’s no good in the slammer, don’t eat it.”

In the end the SWAT team had to summon two city Metro buses, in addition to the wagons, to carry off the detainees. Both buses carried ads for breakfast at McDonald’s: “Puts the A.M. Back in Amazing.” The police so parked the paddy wagons and the buses that the crowd couldn’t witness the arrests. As a man with a ponytail was pushed into the back of a paddy wagon, a woman in our crowd read from the constitution, the part about how Congress cannot abridge the right of the people “peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” I applauded her. There was no question that the police were denying the public the right of peaceable assembly.

There were cheers when Daniel Ellsberg, forty years after his arraignment for leaking the Pentagon Papers, was led toward the arrest tent. He turned toward the White House, obliging a policemen who wanted to take his picture. His wrists were zip-corded behind his back. He flashed us a double peace sign from his cuffed hands.

When the arrests were all done, one of the cops collected some “Free Bradley Manning” signs and put them in a garbage bag in the trunk of his cruiser.

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Duke freshman guard Kyrie Irving will enter the 2011 NBA Draft with plans to hire an agent, meaning he’s in the draft to say. Mike Krzyzewski announced this Wednesday afternoon. Irving is expected to be among the top three picks, possibly #1 overall in the draft. “Our whole program is overjoyed with having Kyrie here for one year and that he has the chance now to pursue a dream of being a high draft pick and a great player in the NBA,” said Krzyzewski. “We are totally supportive of Kyrie, his family and his decision. We look forward to continuing to work with him during the upcoming months leading to his entry into the NBA and afterwards while he is an NBA player. He is a great young man, a terrific student, and a truly amazing representative for our program and for Duke. We love him and are very happy for him and his family.” Irving, a 6-2 guard from West Orange, N.J., played in just 11 games this season, sitting out 26 contests with a toe injury on his right foot. He aver...

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that two posters on KRX-0401 were presented at the 102nd annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research currently ongoing at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Perifosine, the Company's novel, potentially first-in-class, oral anti-cancer agent that inhibits Akt activation in the phosphoinositide 3-kinase pathway, is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials for refractory advanced colorectal cancer and multiple myeloma.

Jerry hutcheon,served in vietnam in 66' 68' as a assault boat coxswain, with 5 campaign stars,also received the president's unit unit citation, unit citation w/oak leaf. For services in night operation around vung-tau april 66', after serving dignosed w/ diabetes-2 in 04' exposed to agent orange ,ptsd, neurophathy,retinopathy,hearing loss.....Receiving 100% service disability 

Topics: mental health

The Minnesota Vikings are now on the clock in our BTB Community Mock Draft. Former consensus Cowboys target Prince Amukamara just came off the board to in-state rival Houston. Let's take a look at whom Minny selects to help the team rebound from a disappointing 2010 campaign. Leslie Frazier needs all the help he can get up there.

Draft Pick # 12

Team Name: Minnesota Vikings

GM:KJDH2154

Selection: (QB) Jake Locker, Washington

Why the pick:

(AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

HIGH PRIORITY TEAM NEEDS (lower number indicates higher priority) according to Drafttek.com:

-- Threat Level Red (priority 1-2):Quarterback, Feature Wide Receiver

-- Threat Level Orange (priority 3-4): 4-3 Defensive Tackle, Free Safety, Guard, Left Tackle, Slot Receiver,  COP Running Back, Right Tackle

-- Threat Level Yellow (priority 5-6): Tight End, Center, 4-3 Defensive End, 4-3 Outside LB

-- Threat Level Green (priority 9): 4-3 Middle LB, Strong Safety, Feature Running Back, Posession Receiver

 

table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;}

Draft Pick	Team	2010 Record	Assigned GM	Team Needs	Selection
1	Carolina	(2-14)	Alexcomestokill	4-3 DT, 4-3 DE, WR1, WR2, WR3, CB	AJ Green
2	Denver	(4-12)	Sean N	4-3 DT, 4-3 DE, FS, SS, 4-3 OLB, 4-3 ILB, TE, ROT	Nick Fairley
3	Buffalo	(4-12)	BTB	Everything except RB and WR, Kitchen Sink	Marcel Dareus
4	Cincinatti	(4-12)	staubachfan	QB, 4-3 DT, WR, 4-3 DE, FS, 4-3 MLB, OG, OC	Patrick Peterson
5	Arizona	(5-11)	howboutdemcowboyz	QB, 3-4 OLB, CB, OG, LOT	Cam Newton
6	Cleveland	(5-11)	BlueEyedDevil	4-3 DE, 4-3 OLB, 4-3 MLB, WR, FS, CB	Robert Quinn
7	San Francisco	(6-10)	regaberto	3-4 DT, 3-4 OLB, CB, OC, QB	Von Miller
8	Tennesee	(6-10)	accidentalinnuendo	QB, CB, 4-3 DE, 4-3 OLB, 4-3 MLB	Da'Quan Bowers
9	Dallas	(6-10)	ChiaCrack	ROT, FS, OG, SS, CB, SILB, WILB, 3-4 DE, 3-4 OLB	Tyron Smith
10	Washington	(6-10)	Creasy729	QB,RB, WR, OG, OC, 3-4DT, 3-4 OLB, FS, CB	Blaine Gabbert
11	Houston	(6-10)	I am Ironman!	3-4 DE, 3-4 DT, 3-4 OLB, FS, CB	Prince Amukamara
12	Minnesota	(6-10)	KJDH2154	QB, WR, 4-3 DT, 4-3 DE, FS, LOT, OG,	Jake Locker

Poll

Do you think the GM made a good decision with the pick?

• Why yes, yes I do.
• It's a risky pick, but stranger things have occured.
• No, that should never have happened.

  10 votes | Results

• Lacy J, Banks of the Chicago Sun-Times: "After seven years of rejection by the Basketball Hall of Fame, former Bulls assistant Tex Winter, 89, finally will get in. So will Dennis Rodman. And sources say Chicago native and 76ers great Maurice Cheeks also will be inducted Aug. 12 in Springfield, Mass. 'It’s been a long time coming, and it’s well deserved,' Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said. 'Not only because of the tremendous impact he had on the NBA and the championships he helped win, but because he also had a great college coaching career. It’s just sad that it didn’t happen when he could really enjoy it.' Hall of Fame forward Scottie Pippen agrees. He regrets this wasn’t done before. Winter suffered a stroke two years ago, basically leaving him speechless. 'It’s about time they decided to induct Tex,' Pippen said. 'They should’ve done this years ago.' It was Winter’s triangle offense that Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson implemented with the Bulls and Lakers."
• Gary Peterson of The Oakland Tribune: "When the Class of 2011 is announced Monday, Chris Mullin will be among its members. Of course, at this rate the official announcement will be an anticlimax. Over the weekend, ESPN reported that Tex Winter, coach and architect of the triangle offense, had made the grade. The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that coach Dick Motta failed to receive enough votes. Meanwhile, Dennis Rodman, while in Detroit to have his No. 10 retired by the Pistons, reported that he was golden. Leave it to the bad boy among Bad Boys to scoop the club that just admitted him as a member. So where does Mullin fit in? There are indications the Hall is weary of being criticized, not only for some of its curious decisions (don't get us started on Dick Vitale), but also for its lack of accountability. Hall chairman Jerry Colangelo is pushing to release vote totals this year. That would be a first. But it would be a hollow gesture if the Hall of Fame, ostensibly serious about shoring up its credibility, admitted Rodman on his first try while leaving Mullin on the outside looking in for the fifth consecutive year. You just don't do that to a player with a more complete game and more comprehensive body of work. Look, it's the Basketball Hall of Fame, all-inclusive. It's not just the NBA Hall of Fame. Or, for that matter, the College Basketball Hall of Fame, or the Olympic Basketball Hall of Fame or the Attention-Getting Hair Statement Hall of Fame. With his distinctive crew cut, though, Mullin would qualify on all counts."
• Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald: "The MVP race is down to two candidates. Derrick Rose has one serious competitor to fend off in the final six games of the regular season. It’s not Orlando center Dwight Howard and certainly shouldn’t be Miami’s LeBron James. The one player with a legitimate chance to beat out Rose is an old favorite, Kobe Bryant. Bryant seemed to fall out of the picture early in the season based on a perception the two-time defending champs were underachieving. The Lakers spent much of the season trailing San Antonio and Dallas in the Western Conference standings. But since the all-star break, the Lakers have gone 17-2, even with Sunday’s loss to Denver. They’ve got an outside chance of catching the Spurs for the overall top seed. ... Statistics and team success are not necessarily the reason Bryant could win the MVP award. It’s possible voters could view this as a lifetime achievement award, maybe rightfully so. During 14 seasons in the league, Bryant has been named MVP once. That’s one less than contemporaries Steve Nash, Tim Duncan and James, even though Bryant has a chance to match Michael Jordan with his sixth championship by the end of June. Are voters ready to crown Rose the MVP at age 22? He would be the youngest in NBA history."
• Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star: "The security guards who work the lower corridors of the Air Canada Centre seemed shocked and delighted by the rarest of occurrences on Sunday night: An NBA player volunteered to help them keep the peace near the luxury suites. Yes, there was a game to play in less than an hour. But Dwight Howard, the Orlando Magic centre, spared a handful of minutes to set up an impromptu checkpoint outside the visitors’ locker room. Howard did his best tongue-in-cheek impersonation of a power-drunk rent-a-cop. He hassled media-badge-wearing reporters just because he could. He let others pass because he could. And when the security-guard shtick got tired, he moved on to fresher material. 'There’s a show after the game. My show,' Howard said. 'I’m an adult entertainer.' That’s not necessarily a stretch, of course, since Howard, the impossibly muscled seven-footer, is fond of parading shirtless around NBA arenas while wiggling his derriere to a beat only he can hear. And perhaps there’s something about his vane goofiness that doesn’t help his case when it comes time to parse the candidates for league MVP."
• Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News: "As the losses piled up to unthinkable heights, and the Spurs’ once unapproachable lead in the Western Conference dwindled to next to nothing, Matt Bonner found himself looking back in time and across an ocean for perspective. Playing for an Italian team, Sicilia Messina, as a professional rookie in 2003, Bonner not only endured a losing streak longer than the one the Spurs ended Sunday with a 114-97 demolition of Phoenix. His team finished dead last. 'It wasn’t my fault though,' Bonner said. 'The team went bankrupt, and a couple guys stopped showing up.' Say this much about the Spurs’ six-game losing streak, the club’s longest since 1996-97: At least the checks still cleared. The frustration-venting that occurred Sunday at the AT&T Center was more priceless than any paycheck for the Spurs, even if it came at the expense of a Suns team now eliminated from playoff contention. ... 'Losing six in a row, after winning so many games all year, wears on you mentally,' Bonner said. 'First and foremost, (it was) get the win, end the losing streak, and try to build off that confidence.' For Bonner, Sunday meant something else. For the first time in a while, being penniless in Italy did not feel like the good old days."
• Benjamin Hochman of The Denver Post: "The thumping heart of the Nuggets beat his thumping heart with his fist, as a stunned Staples Center crowd watched in awe, wondering who these guys were with all the gall. Kenyon Martin and his Nuggets teammates showed up in L.A. and beat the Lakers on their home court 95-90 on Sunday afternoon, thanks to Martin's offensive rebound tip-in with 11 seconds left, following a missed Nene free throw. The Nuggets (47-29) are an improbable 15-4 since trading Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, after the biggest win of their season -- defeating the Lakers (55-21), who entered Sunday's game 17-1 since the all-star break. 'You hear about the Lakers and Dallas,' Denver's Raymond Felton said of the top teams in the Western Conference. 'But you've got to talk about the Nuggets too.' Sunday's win clinched a playoff spot for Denver, now three games behind No. 4 Oklahoma City in the standings. 'There's no question that we're excited about trying to figure out what we're going to be,' Nuggets coach George Karl said of his revamped squad."
• Kevin Ding of The Orange County Register Asked about the ramifications of this loss -- and the chances for home-court advantage in possible series against San Antonio or Chicago definitely took a hit -- Kobe Bryant laughed … pretty close to uncontrollably. He smiled big and called a reporter a 'smart-(aleck)' for asking a later question about San Antonio. Indeed, it had been just 40 hours earlier in Utah that Bryant had actually said this about securing a higher seed and home-court advantage over the Spurs: 'It means nothing.' The reason he dared set that bar so low is that he had this ground-zero summation for where the Lakers stand: 'We’re right where we want to be.' ... The Lakers have regained their confidence and swagger. They’ll take the game from someone or possibly give it away. It’s on them -- not anyone else in this league. It’s actually a better place than the Lakers have been at any point in recent years. They couldn’t be absolutely sure what they had two years ago after blowing the previous NBA Finals to Boston. Last season, as we’ve already discussed, they were just trying to patch it together to the end. This season, they know. They already know. So, if you ask about everything else? It means nothing."
• Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times: "The basketball was launched 60 feet, landed on a TV camera atop the basket, and bounced hard toward the crowd, but Lamar Odom was still upset. He failed to box out Kenyon Martin, allowing the Denver Nuggets' forward to slip in for a tip-in with 11 seconds left in the Lakers' 95-90 loss Sunday. 'That's twice this year,' Odom muttered to a reporter as he ambled across the locker room 30 minutes later. Indeed, Odom allowed San Antonio forward Antonio McDyess to score with a similarly late tip-in two months ago. The Spurs mobbed McDyess, celebrating perhaps their biggest victory this season. The only action on the court at Sunday's was Odom slinging the ball in frustration from one end to the other. Odom was mad at himself. He also hoped to get some help from Ron Artest, who was on the other side of Martin. 'Me and Ron have been playing basketball all our life and we didn't communicate on that last free throw,' Odom said. 'We were supposed to squeeze [Martin], know what I'm saying?' Said Artest: 'I guess [Martin] punked us. Or he cheated. One or the other.' "
• Joseph Goodman of The Miami Herald: "Heat forward Mike Miller admits he feels a little guilty. He was supposed to be in the running for the Sixth Man of the Year Award. Instead, the likable shooter could be considered one of the NBA’s biggest individual disappointments of the regular season. The significance of that statement is not lost on Miller, who has struggled this season due to injury. 'You do feel guilty at times because you want to be able to do more and help but I have to make sure I’m healthy for the stretch we have left,' Miller said. At this point, that’s the most important thing -- that Miller is as healthy as possible for the Heat’s playoff run. He has played in only 36 games this season because of injuries, including torn ligaments in his thumb, a nasty series of blows to the head and, most recently, a bruised right knee. After missing the Heat’s first three games of road trip, Miller played extensively Sunday against the Nets."
• Barbara Barker of Newsday: "LeBron James considers himself a fan and a student of the game, so it was no big surprise Sunday when he said he has been paying close attention to the teams jockeying for the lower playoff seeds in the Eastern Conference. What was a surprise is that James doesn't care whom Miami plays in the first round. 'Doesn't matter,' James said before a 31-point, 11-rebound, seven-assist effort in the Heat's 108-94 win over the Nets. 'I don't care, personally.' Well, he should. The one team that could give the Heat a series clinched its playoff berth Sunday night right across the river from here. Knicks-Heat is the one first-round series every Knicks fan should want to see, and with less than two weeks to go in the regular season, it remains a distinct possibility. Of all the Knicks' possible first-round opponents -- the Celtics, the Heat and the Bulls -- Miami is the most intriguing for historical, matchup and story-line reasons. The teams have a lot in common. Each boasts a pair of players among the top 15 in the league. Each lacks size. And each is composed of new players who are struggling to understand their roles and trying to jell. OK, maybe it would be more accurate to say the Knicks have two of the league's top 15 players in Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire and Miami has two of the top three in James and Dwyane Wade . But that only lends some David-and-Goliath excitement to the matchup."
• John Canzano of The Oregonian: "I suspect both sides left the Rose Garden pleased with themselves under the circumstances. Portland got victory No. 45. Dallas gave up no secrets. Fans got a Chalupa. Bliss. Which brings up a point: These two teams are a perfect first-round postseason date. If there ever was a conspiracy theorist in the NBA offices -- one with a soft spot for first-round matchups -- we'd get the Mavericks and Blazers in the opening round. Both sides are well-coached. Both sides have star players. Both sides believe they're the better team. Both sides suffer from bouts of bizarre inconsistency. There are great fans in both Dallas and Portland. And the series would be a lock to go seven wild games, culminating in Dallas for a spirited, ratings-heavy, do-or-die Game 7 in which both sides flexed every imaginable tactical move. Basically, the game we didn't get on Sunday. The hope here is that Portland understands the Mavericks allowed them to play Slap Jack on Jason Kidd's forehead. The Dallas reserves showed spunk, but that was it."
• Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: " If Dirk Nowitzki needs any extra data for his claim that Tyson Chandler is the Mavericks' MVP, all he needs to do is run the game tape of Sunday night's debacle. Chandler missed the game with a lower back contusion and while Brendan Haywood had 11 rebounds and put in a hard night's work in many respects, it was clear that the absence of Chandler makes a huge difference on the Mavericks, particularly at the defensive end. ... As Nowitzki said, the Mavericks don't have any real reason to panic right now. They lost three games in a row, but they have no chance to catch the Lakers and now with the third seed looking like a lock, they will likely rest some of their key players in the final five games. 'Worried is a bit much,' Nowitzki said when asked if he was worried. 'You go through ups and downs in a season. Obviously, it's a little late in the season to go through a down. That's a little disappointing. But it could be worse. It could be in the playoffs. We need some home cooking now. Hopefully, we'll have Tyson back and then we got to go for it again. We got to play better, get more out of myself. Jet hasn't been there on this trip. J-Kidd's got to make some shots. Just all across the board.' "
• Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: "If nothing else, the Rockets showed again they will not go quietly. In the first quarter, Kyle Lowry was barking at Atlanta’s Zaza Pachulia, accusing him of an intentional elbow that opened a six-stitch gash on Lowry’s upper lip. By halftime, Rockets coach Rick Adelman was shouting at everyone, demanding a defensive effort he was not getting. But by the time the Rockets had turned things around, rallying from a 14-point deficit to a 114-109 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday at Toyota Center, fans were chanting 'MVP, MVP,' a Kentucky blue-hued salute to Chuck Hayes and, in a way, to the Rockets’ stubborn pursuit of the last Western Conference playoff spot. 'You can say what you want to say about this team, dissect the wins how we want,' Rockets guard Kevin Martin said, 'but at the end of the day, we’re just a pretty darn good basketball team.' But the Rockets’ playoff chances were reduced again, even with their seventh consecutive home win moving them five games over .500 for the first time this season. With the Hornets’ win Sunday, the Rockets trail Memphis and New Orleans by three games with just five left."
• Herb Gould of the Chicago Sun-Times: "For fans and media, the Bulls’ magic number is four. All the Bulls need to do is win four of their remaining six games, and they’ll have the best record in the Eastern Conference and home-court advantage through the first three rounds of the playoffs. If the Heat and Celtics each lose a game -- and the Celtics still play in Chicago and Miami -- even a 3-3 mark would do the job. Considering that the Bulls have 20 losses, one more than San Antonio, the best overall record in the league also is very much in play. And the Lakers only have 21 losses. For the Bulls, though, there’s no magic in those numbers. There’s only a process of honing their game so they’re ready to handle whatever lies ahead. 'It might sound crazy, but I’m just worrying about over here,’ guard Derrick Rose said. 'Our destiny’s in our hands. We’re trying to finish strong and win every game.’ Rose was pretty much speaking for the whole team."
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: "Zach Randolph was an All-Star snub and might be hard-pressed to win any postseason honors this season. However, Hollins considers Randolph the Grizzlies' most valuable player with the franchise on the verge of locking up its first playoff berth since the 2005-06 season. 'Of course, he's our MVP,' Hollins said of Randolph. 'Ever since he's been here we've been a good team. Last year we didn't have enough to get over the hump. We didn't make it to .500, but we were pretty close. We made a 16-game improvement, and now we're on the cusp of doing something special.' Hollins said management would be remiss not to work out a contract extension with the 6-9, 10-year veteran. The Griz recently presented Randolph's agent, Raymond Brothers, with the framework of a four-year deal. Both sides continue to report they are involved in constructive contract talks that should lead to a deal. ... Hollins said he always believed that the black hole label placed on Randolph was unfair. Hollins argued that Randolph was always asked to be a primary scorer with is previous teams. In Memphis, Randolph readily accepted that there would be nights when he'd have to sacrifice scoring to counter defensive schemes."
• Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: "The last thing the Thunder needs to run into in the postseason, it seems, is an opponent that implements and executes a zone defense. Fortunately for Oklahoma City, the Denver Nuggets, the Thunder's current first-round opponent if the standings hold, use little to no zone. But Portland, which is in sixth place and only three games behind Denver, mixed in a zone throughout several stretches of the last two meetings. And, like Phoenix, it bothered the Thunder. The Thunder's struggles against a zone have largely been caused by the same problem that plagues many young teams. OKC has grown hesitant the moment a team switches. The Thunder sends too many passes around the perimeter rather than exploring possible gaps within the teeth of the defense. Those passes are a good show of patience, but they generally lead to a 3-point shot that plays right into the defense's hand."
• Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel: "The Bucks could play the 'what if' game but it won't change their status on the outside looking in at the NBA playoffs. Milwaukee trails the Indiana Pacers by three games for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot following Indiana's loss at New Orleans on Sunday night. But any combination of Bucks losses and Pacers victories totaling two will eliminate the Bucks. Indiana also gained a tiebreaker with Milwaukee by virtue of its 89-88 victory over Milwaukee on Friday at Conseco Fieldhouse. ... Milwaukee could have dramatically changed its position with victories over Charlotte and Indiana last week, but instead lost a pair of one-point decisions. The Bucks missed their last 11 shots, including three in the final seconds, in an 87-86 defeat to the Bobcats. And Drew Gooden missed an off-balance three-pointer in the final seconds after a designed play broke down against the Pacers. 'It's just a little too late,' Bucks center Andrew Bogut said after the team's 93-87 overtime victory against Philadelphia on Saturday. 'If we could have got those a couple weeks ago it would have been nice.' Bogut was asked if he ever thinks about how the Bucks would have fared if Gooden and some of the other players who missed extended time had been on the court. 'We can't look at it that way,' Bogut said. 'I have a page or two of 'what ifs' for the season. There's a lot of things that could have worked, that could have changed, but we've got to live with reality and push forward with what we've got.' "

Following are whispers we've been hearing from around the league:

• Bears TE Greg Olsen did what was asked of him last season — he improved as a blocker, which had always the weakest part of his game — and team observers say he's a better all-around player heading into 2011. We hear the Bears have interest in extending Olsen's deal beyond '11, and Olsen would be receptive to those talks, but the league has told team employees not to discuss current players with agents during the lockout. Getting a deal done this year with Olsen, who will be looking to maximize his value in his prime years, could be difficult.

• Our Rams sources tell us they think the team does have some interest in Vikings WR Sidney Rice should he become available in free agency. However, the Rams are also a bit leery of the hip injury that limited him this past season.

• Some in Atlanta are pushing for the Falcons to trade up in the first round of the draft to acquire one of the top prospects at wide receiver. The top-ranked receiver, Georgia's A.J. Green, is being projected to go as high as No. 1 overall and he probably won't get past the Browns at No. 6, however. Atlanta could use another weapon at receiver and there's no doubt that the team is interested in the draft's top talents at the position, but the cost will be great to move so far up the board from their slot with the 27th overall pick. Sources doubt that the Falcons would pull the trigger and put together the package it would take to be in position to land Green.

• Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald probably isn't thinking much about his future in Arizona at present while on safari in Africa. But when he returns, team sources tell us money is not likely to be a drawback in any negotiations for a new contract. "The thing with Fitz is not pay; the Cards will come up with enough money," one team insider said of Fitzgerald, whose current deal expires after the 2011 season. "The big thing is the direction of the offense and the quarterback. He has a lot of trust in Whiz (head coach Ken Whisenhunt), but he could be a tough sell."

• We hear Cardinals safeties Matt Ware, who has a diabetic condition that few close to the team knew about until it was revealed after he was nominated for the Ed Block Courage award, and Hamza Abdullah, very well could end up battling each other for a spot on the final roster.

• The word from our 49ers sources is that the future probably bodes quite well for TEs Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker. "(New head coach Jim) Harbaugh loves the tight end. He had three of them who helped kill Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl. I could see Walker really blossoming under Harbaugh. He's very dedicated and athletic." 

• With so many other positions needing to be addressed, we hear the Broncos are content with the safety duo of Brian Dawkins and Renaldo Hill. The team is not expected to spend a lot of money to upgrade at that spot but could use one of their draft picks to bring in a player to learn from the savvy veterans.

• Although Jaguars TE Zach Miller's production decreased slightly in his second season, we're hearing the club is not disappointed with the former college quarterback. Miller continues to refine his skills as a blocker, and still serves as one of the most dangerous downfield threats on the roster.
 
• Colts LBs Philip Wheeler and Pat Angerer are expected to compete for the starting "Sam" linebacker position next season. Wheeler began the 2010 season as the starter, but was too inconsistent to hang on to the job. As a rookie, Angerer played pretty well once he was given an opportunity, but his natural position is still in the middle.
 
• It would behoove Texans QB Matt Leinart, who is a potential free agent once a new CBA is reached, to remain in Houston. Leinart is likely going to be a career backup, but head coach Gary Kubiak — a very good handler of QBs — is the right guy to continue developing Leinart at this stage of the former Heisman Trophy winner's career.

Mamairis:

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First let it be said that the entries to this contest were amazing--and so much fun to read! You've proven once again that social media can indeed be murder. We hope you all are writing these books like mad because we want to read them. And if you don't write, them we will:).

And now a drum roll please...

FIRST PLACE goes to Silver James:

The Bluebird Murders

Self-appointed arbiter of internet manners, Reggie Van Pelt tracks miscreants misusing Twitter. His wicked barbs in 140 characters can eviscerate even the most clueless. When the worst offenders mysteriously die, a series of emails to local police detective Jamie Grimm puts her on the trail. Is Van Pelt a vigilante or a hero? And who is the guy shadowing Jamie’s every move? Is he really from the FBI’s cyber crime unit or is Dan Owen an internet stalker homing in on Jamie and her investigation? A technophobe at heart, Jamie has to take a crash course in all things social media in order to track the killer before she becomes his next victim.

(Silver, please contact Hallie Ephron for your prize.)

SECOND PLACE goes to Linda Leszcluk:

Tara Cauldfield, wealthy and pampered, is used to getting what she wants. But what she wants this weekend is to go away with her very unapproved of boyfriend. Thinking to fool her wealthy parents, Tara gives her cell phone to Kristen Trace, a scholarship student at Morningshade School, along with $100. Kristen’s job – to send regular text messages to Tara’s parents telling them what fun Tara is having on her weekend with “the girls”. What neither girl knows is Tara has been targeted by kidnappers who have tapped the GPS code on her cell phone to track her movements. When FBI Special Agent John Trace is called in on the case, he has no way of knowing it’s not the Cauldfield’s daughter he’s searching for but his own.

(Linda, please contact Julia Spencer-Fleming for your prize.)

THIRD PLACE goes to CPatLarge:

So I’m a hacker – get over it. Not all of us are nerdy, unwashed males hanging out in questionable Internet chat rooms because we’re socially inept. Some of us are reasonably articulate, employed, and civic-minded. And we’re female. My friend Carmen and I work in the college computer lab to pay our way through school. We like to explore the system, see what we can learn, expose security weaknesses, not create havoc for havoc’s sake. Never expected to find our director using the network to tap into classified materials at the Air Force base east of town. Now the bastard killed Carmen and thinks he can frame me for the whole mess. Not happening. As my Gypsy grandma always says, karma’s a bitch. In this case, her name’s Fatal Woods.

(Pat, please contact Hank Ryan for your prize.)

FOURTH PRIZE goes to Sapphire Savvy:

A lady finds that her dead child's name is being used on facebook, and this person uncannily knows information that only the child did. When she finally decides to seek their banning or to find their IP address she finds it is coming from somewhere within her own house.

(Please contact Roberta Isleib for your prize.)


FIFTH PLACE goes to Edith Maxwell:

The Feoffees are a secretive cabal entrusted for more than 3 centuries with a prime piece of real estate. Feelings run high in the town because the Feoffees have not been transferring rents from the trust to the schools, as is their mission. In an attempt to gain support, they form a Facebook community page. A citizen opposed to their secrecy creates a false identity and begins posting facts about the unsavory lives of the three men. When one of the Feoffees turns up dead on the beach and linguist Lauren Rousseau is accused of the murder, she tracks down the killer by analyzing the language used in the accusatory posts.

Edith
http://edithmaxwell.blogspot.com/

(Edith, Please contact Jan Brogan for your prize.)

HONORABLE MENTIONS--we loved them all, you guys are amazing!

April 1, 2011 1:31 AM

Rebecca said...

When an online friend seemingly disappears, art historian Megan Toomey decides to track down her friend in person. She is shocked by the discovery that her online pal doesn't appear to exist, and all of her social media and even employment networking profiles have been forged for some unknown purpose. Meg doesn't know what to think: is her friend--whomever she or he may be--a potential victim of a crime, or perhaps a perpetrator of one? As Meg peels back the many layers of deception, she begins to worry that she herself is a target of a faceless person or group with a hidden agenda.

April 1, 2011 2:22 AM

Lynn said...

What if the only evidence of a murder was a photo and a cryptic message sent to your Facebook page? And what if no one, the police, your friends, even your boss believed the photo was real? No one but you. Feeling like the girl who cries wolf, Vanna Jones, who’s more used to covering the society page and local festivals for her small hometown paper, must track down the clues and find the killer before she winds up the subject in the next photograph.

April 1, 2011 9:42 AM

cujorilla said...

LOL - Last One Living: A young girl, Kiera, in her early teens finds out she is adopted and joins an adoption peer group on Facebook. She is contacted by someone claiming to be her father and sets up a meeting. In the meantime, she researches on her own and finds she may have three siblings who are also in the Facebook group. Each one has been contacted by "Father" but none know that any of the others have been contacted. As their sibling relationships become known to each other, they start vanishing. Is it "Father" or someone else who is responsible? Keira's only clue is a series of private messages signed LOL, that her missing siblings have received before disappearing. What's so secret that the four must be kept apart and can Keira keep from vanishing herself? Will she be the Last One Living?

April 1, 2011 10:40 AM

Jack said...

Angelina "Mama Bones" Bonacelli takes over her New Jersey Shore mob family using Twitter, her church website, and a carefully drilled-down advertising campaign on Facebook.

April 1, 2011 12:08 PM

Jean said...

in her fifties now and accepting that her mind was not the vault she once imagined. she gets a friend invite from a guy on facebook. she draws a total blank but sees they've got lots of mutual friends from college days. no one she asks actually remembers him but all say nice things. and anyway it's not like she'll ever run into him as she doesn't attend reunions and he lives hundreds of miles away. trying to be more social even if only with virtual shadows from the past, she accepts. his posts are innocuous and he fades into the hundreds of updates that accumulate every couple days. his profile pictures are a bit odd; a segment of a landscape, corner of a table and one day a grainy detail of an elbow. her wardrobe was not extensive in college. and though today she couldn't always remember why she'd walked from the kitchen to the living room, she could remember what she wore back then. she recognizes that elbow because it was wearing her favorite orange checked shirt from 1981. so she sets out to find what this guy's getting at.

April 1, 2011 2:54 PM

Kelly S. said...

History professor Cordelia Watterson joins on on-line history chat group and immediately hits it off with one of the other posters, "Sally K" who is doing historic reconstruction work in one of Louisville's oldest houses. Cordelia is saddened to get an e-mail from the group's leader that Sally was killed in a tragic accident while working on the house. But then she is shocked to then get an e-mail from Sally, begging for her help. Cordelia alerts her detective friend Hunter. A trace of the e-mail reveals it was sent from Sally's phone- while sealed with Sally's personal effects at the morgue! Her autopsy reveals her accident was actually murder. What was the secret that Sally had found out that led to her death? And who sent that last e-mail from the morgue?

April 1, 2011 5:17 PM

Pat Marinelli said...

A woman and her husbnad have both been downsized from thier jobs in order to obtain an income, she sets up a Facebook account and offers her husband as a "Handyman" to single women who need work done around the house, i.e. carpentry, plumbing, car repairs, etc. All the little jobs you can't get big contractors to do. Within two months, she must hire extra "handymen" because they have such a huge workload. But have any of these women noticed anything missing around the house?

April 1, 2011 7:43 PM

Lorilye said...

Reggie is a computer hacker company’s hire to break into their computer systems, locate their vulnerabilities and close up the holes, by day. By night, he uses the information gained to find and stalk his next victim. Holley is a serial killer profiler with the FBI, but when she starts an online relationship with a mild mannered librarian, comments he makes in texts, emails, and Facebook chats makes her suspect he might be the very person she’s tracked for four years.. Torn between a relationship Holley believes might be ‘the one’ and a man she thinks maybe targeting her as his next victim, she walks a fine line between woman and profiler.

April 1, 2011 9:34 PM

Jordan said...

Kaytlin Garner lives and works as a photographer in Gloucester, VA, a thousand miles from her family and the town in which she grew up. She talks with her sister, Rachel, every day until Rachel quits answering her phone and messages over Facebook. When Rachel disconnects from the world, Kaytlin starts receiving text messages from an unknown number and pictures only she has copies of get posted to her blog. Once she gets a call from the Carthage police telling her that Rachel is missing, she decides to go home.

Kaytlin goes immediately to the police station once back in the small town and is met by the one person she thought she’d never see again: James Lawie. With a degree in Technology Information Systems, he’s the lead on the case. When two of Rachel‘s friends are found dead, through posts to Kate‘s blog, Kaytlin tells Lawie what has been happening to her. They realize that the only way to get down to the bottom of what’s going on is to find Rachel. The problem is that the stalker knows every move that the Lawie and Kaytlin make, he’s piggybacking off their technology; finding Rachel is going to lead the stalker right to her but it’s a chance they are going to have to take.

APDEMOLITION SUPERVISOR John Feal (left0 Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.; Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Kir´sten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. and Rep.Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., participate in a gathering at ground zero to cel´ebrate the passage of the 9/11 Health and Compensa´tion Act. Joseph...

A great year for women? Twelve months ago we predicted that it would be. Were we right?

This time 12 months ago we promised it was going to be the biggest year in feminism ever. So was it? Er, sort of. We weren't wrong about it being a celebratory year. But our predictions of the feminist events to watch in 2010 were a bit hit and miss. Where did we strike gold? The significance of the movie Precious, the story of an overweight, illiterate teenager in 80s Harlem, pregnant by her abusive father ("primarily female cast", "a must-see", we said). Come the Oscars, the film won six nominations and two awards. What did we overestimate? The impact of Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It! ("a great film"). That turned out to be a bit of a howler. The film went right under the radar, more's the pity.

So what else did we get right? Well, it was always going to be a bumper year and maybe we could have even got a bit more excited about it. 2010 marked the 40th anniversary both of the publication of Germaine Greer's still controversial The Female Eunuch and of Kate Millett's landmark Sexual Politics. It was also four decades since the agenda-changing first ever National Women's Liberation conference. This killer combination of events galvanised campaigning groups everywhere and if anything our predictions of a feminist bonanza in 2010 underestimated the resurgence of grassroots activism.

The first ever Feminism Summer School, hosted by UK Feminista in July, was a major success, picking up international coverage. And the Reclaim the Night movement was invigorated in force, with more than 2,000 women attending candlelit vigils in central London in November, where DJs kept the crowds going until 2am. Meanwhile more than 1,000 people attended London Feminism Network's October conference. Student activism came into its own even before the recent protests, with Leeds University unleashing a feminist flash mob during Freshers' Week, complete with a giant papier mache vagina dancing to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Last month Women Against the Cuts joined in with demonstrations at the Treasury.

Our film predictions were admittedly a bit lousy – with the no-brainer exception of Precious. The animated anti-Disney film, Ponyo, about a fish-girl who swims away from her father's underwater castle (what's not to love? You go, girl!) pretty much tanked. Tina Fey's screwball comedy Date Night turned out to be more about her tummy control corset than about female liberation. And Angelina Jolie's potentially inspiring "Tom Cruise replacement" role as a CIA agent in Salt was eclipsed by her burgeoning status as Earth Mother Extraordinaire.

We did tell you to look out for Mad Men series three – "the best show on TV when it comes to exploring gender relations". But even we couldn't have predicted the rise of the Cult of Joan. Or that the Washington Post would crown Mad Men "the most feminist TV show in history" – simply for demonstrating the consequences of a world where sexism goes unchallenged: "Mad Men's writers aren't sexist. The time period was."

Our book predictions were spot on, just about. We said Andrea Levy's The Long Song would win the Booker. It made the shortlist – and won the Orange prize. We failed to spot Emma Donoghue, though, whose bleak but highly acclaimed kidnap novel Room was the Booker favourite until Howard Jacobson pipped her at the post. Natasha Walter's Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism (Virago) was indeed the hugely controversial event we predicted. It was praised by some ("an important book" said Sarah Vine in The Times; "kicks Nuts magazine right in the nuts," said Bidisha in the New Statesman) but awarded the "meh" badge by others (Joan Smith: "still the same old inoffensive feminist at heart").

Kat Banyard's The Equality Illusion (Faber) – which, months before its release, we credited with "exposing some uncomfortable facts" – also made a splash. "A terrific read," said Louise Doughty. "Give it to David Cameron – and the chairman of Marks & Spencer," said Anthea McTeirnan in the Irish Times. We perhaps gave a little too much prominence to Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow (Jonathan Cape) – "Brace yourself for a furore as Amis takes on sexual politics." Bracing was not necessary. The Great One's latest novel largely failed to re-ignite the gender debate, despite being described as "strange and sparkling" by the New York Review of Books.

There were two gigantic omissions in our books category, however, which I am still personally kicking myself about. Two books came out this year which, in the long-term, could change how we view gender for ever. We didn't list them in our events of the year. Mea culpa. Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences (Icon Books) finally debunked the myth that men and women's minds are significantly different. And in Pink Brain, Blue Brain (OneWorld), Lise Eliot argued that we create gender stereotypes in our children by unwittingly reinforcing barely perceptible differences in female and male brains from birth. Both books were favourably reviewed and hotly discussed. Over time their conclusions could have far-reaching consequences as significant as The Female Eunuch.

Where else did we misfire? BBC Three's Lip Service – "a sexy, funny and irreverent drama" that "could prove to be even more daring than cult US series The L Word"? No. It was something of a damp squib. We would have been better focusing our attentions on ITV's Downton Abbey, a surprise "feminism lite" ratings winner, with superb roles for the oft-neglected older woman and even a Suffragette storyline. (OK, so the "votes for women" theme was a bit weak, but we appreciated the nod nonetheless, and especially the scene where the politically aware Lady Sybil shocked everyone by wearing – gasp – a pair of trousers and a sequinned headband. Not the sort of stuff you usually get on ITV on a Sunday night.)

At least we bigged up Elles@centrepompidou, one of the biggest exhibitions of women's art in the world this year, as well as the 2010 Whitney Biennial in New York ("an unprecedented 52% of the artists featured are women"). But we couldn't possibly have foreseen the exciting news that sound artist Susan Philipsz would win this year's Turner prize. Although it's painful to note that she's only the fourth woman to win the award in its 26-year history. Roll on more accolades like this in 2011.