Split (1)

train · ~63.1M rows (showing the first 991k)

text stringlengths 0 634k
Last year in Canada, there were two nation-wide campaigns to fight mental health stigma. The first focused on the financial cost of mental health. It was launched by one of our major banks, and had a slick advertising campaign full of dark colors and statistics. There were multi-page discussions in the national newspapers, as well as multiple bus shelter advertisements driving home the point: Mental illness is a cost to the Canadian economy. The other, Stand Up For Mental Health, was launched by actual people with mental health conditions. The program is open to people with a variety of diagnoses, and trains them to become stand-up comics, making jokes and wise-cracks about the experience of being mentally ill, as well as other aspects of the lives of the comics. Last year, Stand Up for Mental Health did a cross-country tour to university campuses in the hopes of raising enough awareness to get a Pepsi Refresh Grant so they could get more funding for their work. I encountered both of these programs at university.
On October 20 & 21, 510 students and teachers came to the Hoover Presidential Library for a day of humanitarian efforts. Author/illustrator Susan L. Roth flew in from New York to talk about her book “Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and Three Cups of Tea.” The book tells the story of Greg Mortenson’s first building project in Pakistan. Students came from 23 different school districts to hear Susan speak and learn about Hoover’s and Mortenson’s humanitarian efforts: Hoover’s beginning in 1914 and extending throughout his life and Greg’s in present day Pakistan. It was a day full of humanitarian efforts. Stay tuned…I have lots more to tell!
Transportation is a vital part of our present day society. Cars especially, have come to dominate our lives. We depend on them to get us to our jobs and other places, because other methods may be too expensive or time consuming. Gasoline is used in a majority of our cars today, but as gas prices soar higher than it has ever been, it just seems crazy to continue using this type of fuel to power our cars. This has spurred a proliferation of scientific research to find a new method that would not only outperform gasoline, but also have a better fuel economy. Clearly, there isn’t one type of fuel so far that is perfect. Each fuel has its pros and cons, and the goal of this website is to demonstrate all the different types of technological advances in fuel that have occurred over the past to teach people of all ages, particularly the consumers as well as students who want to learn about the future, so they can make more educated decisions involving the diverse world of alternative fuels and cars. This website will provide a comprehensive and an in depth analysis of all the different types of possible fuels. In creating this website we want people to be aware that gasoline is not going to be around forever and it is important to find a new fuel that is more abundant and has a better fuel economy than gasoline.
Have you been in a car crash? Are you suffering from chronic pain because of your injury? You don’t need to suffer. Here at Summit View Health Center we have been treating auto, work and recreation related injuries for over 10 years. We have the experience, knowledge and plenty of staff to help you get through this tough time. Watch our video (to the right) that talks about recovering from auto injuries to see how chiropractic can help. Injuries like cuts, bruises and broken bones are easily identified and treated. But other types of injuries may not be visible. Pain or discomfort may develop in a day, a week, a month, a year or even longer. They can present themselves as headaches, joint aches, tingling, numbness or many others. These types of “hidden” injuries can be very serious and cause long term damage (such as disc degeneration or bulges) if left untreated. Getting the proper treatment early after your crash can be very important in recovering quickly. Most auto injury pain originates in the spine, and that’s why chiropractic can be beneficial: we get to the underlying trauma that you experienced and help your body heal. Dr. Gray is great at correctly diagnosing your problem and will give you the advice and proper treatment that you need to get out of pain and enjoy your life again. He utilizes chiropractic adjustments, physical therapy, massage therapy, pain injections and spinal decompression to get your body back to a pre-injury status as soon as possible. Accidents cause spinal misalignments in the body, a serious condition that distorts your structure, irritates nerves, bones, ligaments and discs and can damage your overall health. Any accident, no matter how mild, can create nerve-damaging misalignments. It is for that reason that if you have ever been in an accident or fall, no matter how minor, you need a chiropractic spinal checkup to ensure that your spine is free from these health destroying abnormalities. Only a chiropractor is trained to analyze your spine for the vertebral subluxation complex. Is chiropractic care helpful in serious accidents? Absolutely! But in such situations it is necessary to first attend to any life-threatening emergency such as bleeding or hemorrhage, stoppage of breath, loss of fluid electrolytes, internal organ damage, broken bones, serious contusions or abrasion, shock and the like. This is the specialty of the medical profession: dealing with trauma. Long-term damage to the spine and head is especially common in auto accidents. Doctors of chiropractic have for years recognized that most victims of automobile injuries do not fully recover under medical care – they may continue to have problems for years after the accident because their structure is often ignored. New medical terms acknowledging the incomplete healing of accident victims have recently arisen: Postconcussion Syndrome (PCS), Whiplash Syndrome (WS), Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries (MTBI), and Mild Head Injury (MHI). All people who have been in an accident or trauma should see a chiropractor to have their spinal columns checked for nerve pressure caused by vertebral subluxations or spinal stress. A chiropractic adjustment can make the difference between life and death, between a life with pain, disability and sickness and a life of true recovery, activity and accomplishment. Whiplash is probably one of the most misunderstood kinds of injuries. For those who have experienced first hand the effects of a car crash, you know all too well that whiplash occurs when you are struck by a high force that causes unnatural jerking back and forth of your head. When this occurs, muscles and ligaments, that support your spine can be overstretched, or even torn. This disruption can also cause a misalignment of vertebrae and stretching of the spinal cord. Most instances of whiplash occur during a front-end or rear-end automobile collision. The force of the vehicle being struck or striking another object are quite powerful (even in low speeds), and can cause the neck muscles, ligaments, and tendons to twist and turn with incredible, unnatural force. These tissues, when stretched far beyond their natural limits, can become torn and, in some cases, permanently damaged. In addition, vertebral discs in the cervical spine can bulge, tear, and rupture. Symptoms of whiplash may include one or more of the following: - Headaches, especially behind the eyes - Dizziness or Blurred vision - Pain in the shoulder, arms and/or hands - Ringing in the ear - General stiffness - Burning and/or piercing pain in the neck, jaw or face, shoulders (may be a sign of a muscle or ligament tear). - Sharp pains when moving (a possible sign of disc damage) - Swallowing difficulty - Loss of range in motion - Low Back Problems
Stanford researchers have developed a novel algorithm that creates visually-pleasing three-dimensional models from a single still image. Make3D uses a variety of visual cues that people use for estimating the 3-D aspects of a scene. The algorithm starts with breaking the image up into a number of tiny patches. For each patch in the image, it uses supervised learning techniques to infer both the 3-D location and 3-D orientation of the patch. The algorithm models both image depth cues as well as the relationships between different parts of the image. Other than assuming the environment is made up of a number of small planes, Make3D makes no explicit assumptions about the structure of the scene enabling the algorithm to capture a much more detailed 3-D structure.Stage of Research In a pilot study, the algorithm was tested on approximately 600 images and it was effective on about 65% of images. The inventors, Ashutosh Saxena and Andrew Ng, have made the algorithm available at Make3D . Approximately 22,000 users have converted about 25,000 images to 3-D models on this website. Currently, the algorithm works best on images of outdoor scenes, such as mountains, lakes, houses, streets, etc. Researchers plan to extend the algorithm to other environments, such as close-ups of individual objects.
All human cultures and social groups that we know of respond to music and dance. The type of music may vary but the underlying, fundamental principles of making music are the same. Our recognition of, and emotional responses to, pleasant and unpleasant music seems to be universal, expressed even in very young infants and seemingly independent of our cultural upbringing. So what exactly is music for? Why is it a universal that can profoundly affect people, why is it such an essential part of our lives? Music is a form of communication which is different from language. In humans, music stimulates emotions and elicits autonomic and physiological responses. It entrains neural activity and is inextricably linked to movement and dance. Music facilitates interactions within groups and can create common arousal states. It helps to provide cohesion and organisation to our social architecture. Throughout recorded history, leaders – whether of nations, political parties or religious denominations – have understood the power of music to influence populations. In recent times, researchers have shown that music structures time and provides mnemonic frameworks that aid learning and memory, help organise knowledge. Many of us can remember the lyrics of songs for example, but may not remember much, if any prose. Attaching words to music somehow makes the words easier to memorise. Yet despite all of this, the impact of music remains mysterious: it does not seem to do anything, it does not transmit data and information in the same way as language/speech. For many, the evolution of language in Homo sapiens is a unique event that is linked to the evolution of the cognitively modern mind. What then is the relationship between music and language, and to what extent are they dependent or independent of each other? Our brains are known to be wired to process both forms of communication, but from an evolutionary point of view did music come before language, or vice versa, or was there a common precursor that somehow separated into two systems when Homo sapiens evolved, with both types of communication retained? Was music an important element that contributed to the early well-being of our species? What, if any, advantages did music give to Homo sapiens from an evolutionary perspective as our founders migrated out of east Africa to colonise the planet? Why does music continue to exist alongside language and remain important to all human cultures, thousands of generations after the founders of our species evolved? Modern neuroscience research, especially using new imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) confirms that the processing of music has a consistent structural foundation in the human brain. It has been known for some time that, in right-handed individuals, language is mostly processed in the left cerebral hemisphere while many aspects of music involve right hemisphere activity. But new imaging data have revealed even more complex circuitries involved in music and language processing. Numerous regions of the brain are integrated into networks that subserve music or language processing and analysis, but the neuroimaging data also show that separation of these processing streams is by no means complete. For example, there is overlap in brain areas that process the emotional (prosodic) aspects of music and speech, and studies have shown that musical training results in a shift towards processing in the left cerebral hemisphere. As research continues, more is learned about how music-related circuits differ from, or overlap with, other pathways involved in cognitive and emotional processing. For example, brain areas associated with positive responses to music overlap with networks associated with reward behaviours, subjective experiences and acts of social cooperation. In close association with the evolution of the modern mind, I believe music was of critical importance to our early ancestors; increased fitness and reproductive advantage of a group is gained not only by an individual’s success but also if cooperative behaviours benefit other members of the group, and importantly for our ancestors these benefits extended to others who were not necessarily genetically related. For most people, music therapy remains a branch of “alternative” medicine, something outside the mainstream. But recent research suggests that it is time that this attitude was changed. For example, training in music has measurable effects on brain plasticity and can influence learning ability during development. Music also seems to have mnemonic powers, activating circuits in the brain that are linked to aspects of memory processing. There are also structural changes in developing brains associated with early musical training, and exposure to music seems to have beneficial effects on children suffering from developmental disorders such as autism and Williams syndrome. In adults, many studies have shown that music used with physical therapy improves motor control and coordination, with benefits for rehabilitation after injury or in degenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. Music therapy may also improve memory recall and social awareness in Alzheimer’s patients and recent studies on stroke patients have shown that controlled exposure to music improves cognitive function, increases motivation and awareness, and enhances positive mood states. Taken together, the evidence suggests that music remains just as essential to Homo sapiens now as it was 70,000-80,000 years ago. It continues to be important for development of our children, for our health and for our overall sense of mental well-being. Above all, music is perhaps the primary medium which enables individual members of the species Homo sapiens to forget their mortal vulnerability and come together as a collective group to share and enjoy common physiological and emotional experiences.
Like Bishop John Spong, Marcus Borg is among a growing number of scholars who are committed - as they see it - to rescuing Christianity from the clutches of fundamentalism and making it relevant for the twenty-first century. Borg argues that the literalist approach to the Bible and to Christian language in general is a relatively recent phenomenon which does not do justice to the language as originally intended. The Christian faith, in fact, is all about language - it is a matter of "speaking Christian" much as one might speak French or German. Just as we would not be able to call a person French who could not speak or understand the language, so we cannot regard someone as a Christian who cannot play the Christian language game. But here we have a quandry, Borg suggests. Church-goers are adept at speaking the language - indeed, they do it with aplomb every Sunday - but most do not understand it, so in that sense they cannot properly be called Christian. What is required is the recovery of the original meaning of the language which Christians use with such matter-of-fact assurance. By way of illustration, let us refer to one particular term: "ascension". In Borg's words: "For many people today... the ascension refers to an event within the space-time world - a historical event, even if supernaturally caused, a 'public' event in the sense that anybody who had been there would have seen it." (p.176). So most Christians still presuppose that Jesus ascended to heaven on the clouds, quite literally. But is this how the Bible itself sees it? The departure of Jesus is seen by different writers in different ways. In Matthew's Gospel (28:16-20) Jesus parts from his disciples on a mountain in Galilee, and the language of ascension is absent. In Luke 24:50-53, he parts from them on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem, apparently on Easter Sunday, and, again, the language of ascension is absent. Only in Acts 1:9-11 (also written by Luke) do we get the classic ascension story "after forty days". These inconsistencies suggest that the story of ascension was always meant to be taken metaphorically. It symbolises Jesus' lordship, that he is with God beyond space and time, and so can be with us always, not as a ghostly being "up there", but as a living presence with us and among us. This is how Christians of today should understand the ascension, and not as a once-upon-a-time event. Borg applies this same method to all the stock words and phrases used by the Christian (salvation, mercy, sin, righteousness, heaven, born again, only way -even God), and argues that the most useful interpretation of all these is metaphorical. Why should all this matter? Perhaps because the greater part of the troubles and conflicts caused by religion can be put down to bigotry over particulars: which religion is correct? which demonination is correct? which is the "proper" way to observe the Lord's Supper? and so, ad infinitum. Treating the Scriptures and religious language as metaphor releases the believer from commitment to any one way, and into the freedom of worshipping God according to personal conscience. Borg's book is easily accessible, and highly recommended.
University of Michigan professor and blogger Juan Cole reviews recent news from the Middle East and discusses Hugo Chavez’s "devil" comment at the United Nations. [includes rush transcript] - Juan Cole Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He runs an analytical website called "Informed Comment" where he provides a daily round-up of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. AMY GOODMAN: Right now, we’re going to turn back to an interview I did on Friday, when we stopped in Ann Arbor and we broadcast from the University of Michigan. There, we spoke to Juan Cole. He is professor of Middle Eastern history. I asked him about the situation in Iraq. JUAN COLE: — a United Nations report on Iraq, which was extremely disturbing. There was a 15% increase in deaths reported in Baghdad in July and August, nearly 7,000 dead between the two months, up from May and June, which were already horrible. 90% of these deaths seem to be death squad killings. People show up dead in the streets in the morning. The United Nations talked about torture. The bodies show signs of acid, chemicals, drills into joints, into the head. It’s horrible. AMY GOODMAN: The UN Rapporteur on Torture says the situation is worse now than under Saddam Hussein. JUAN COLE: Well, I think it’s difficult to quantify these things. My own feeling is that if you averaged out the deaths attributed to the Baath Party from 1968 to 2003, up until February or so, the average was still about the same. There seemed to be an average rate of horrible death and torture in Iraq. But in the last six months, since the golden dome at Samarra was blown up, a Shiite shrine, that provoked death squads to attack Sunnis in revenge since that time. And, of course, then there have been Sunni reprisals. The rate of killing has increased alarmingly. AMY GOODMAN: And what do you see as the cause right now? JUAN COLE: Well, there’s a behind the scenes, late at night in the alleyways, a civil war going on between Shiites, Iraqis, and Sunni Arabs. And this is a war that has many dimensions. It is a turf war. It’s about ethnically cleansing neighborhoods, controlling territory. It’s about rivalry over control of resources, including petroleum smuggling and antiquities smuggling, other kinds of smuggling. It is a political contest, to position themselves for when the Americans leave. But it is, it’s certainly at this rate of death a civil war. AMY GOODMAN: Civil war. JUAN COLE: Without any doubt. AMY GOODMAN: Unqualified. JUAN COLE: Unqualified. AMY GOODMAN: Sectarian civil war? JUAN COLE: Well, it is sectarian in some places, in the sense that it’s between two religious groups, the Sunni Arabs and the Shiites. It’s not always being fought on religious grounds alone. And there are places like Kirkuk where it’s ethnic, it’s between Arabs and Kurds or between Turkmen and Kurds. So it is multidimensional. If can you find an ethnic marker between two Iraqis that’s different, it can be the basis for violence right now. AMY GOODMAN: What about daily life right now for Iraqis? What is a day like? JUAN COLE: Well, of course, it’s a big country, and so it differs very much from city to city, from region to region. If you were up north in the Kurdistan region — Erbil, Dahuk, Sulaimania — it’s good times. It’s economic boom. They’re building suburbs. There’s a Disneyland at Sulaimania. You can’t tell, from what people tell me, that anything is going on. But if you move south slightly to Kirkuk, there are bombings, there are assassinations, there’s ethnic tension. If you move on down to Mosul, there are entire neighborhoods apparently that are controlled by the guerrilla movement. And then as you come down to Baghdad and Ramadi, it’s truly horrible. There’s a feeling of no security. Shops have difficulty opening. They’re often closed. They close up at 2:00 if they are open. There have been reports that the bustling famous book market on Mutanabbi Street is a ghost town; nobody goes there. And people are afraid to go out. JUAN COLE: Parliamentary leaders meet, but in the Green Zone, which is to say behind concrete barriers and behind Marine guards. In this summer, Grand Ayatollah Sistani complained bitterly that 60% of them were out of the country. It was just safer to be in London. He said you can’t run a legislature like that. And so, the meetings of parliament often have a hundred parliamentarians missing. That’s par for the course. And they do meet. They do try to hammer out agreements, but they don’t have much power. They don’t have the ability to give commands and have them obeyed, for the most part. Some of them are party leaders or militia leaders in their own right, and they have a little more power. But apparently they’re losing control of the grassroots. There was fighting in the city of Diwania not so long ago by Mahdi Army militiamen against the local Shiite government. Moqtada al-Sadr’s people say he didn’t order it. That was something that the local leader decided to get into. Well, it means he’s not in control of the Mahdi Army in Diwania. And I think that’s typical now. Iraq is becoming more and more fractured. AMY GOODMAN: What do the sides want? JUAN COLE: Well, in a way, it’s what they don’t want. The Sunni Arabs don’t want to be completely dominated by the Shiite religious parties, whom they code as being very close to Iran, and by the Kurds. The Sunni Arabs are afraid that essentially they’ll be cut out of the deal. They don’t have natural resources in their part of the country, in west and north Iraq. They don’t have petroleum fields. There’s a big field around Kirkuk, which is in Kurdish-controlled territory. There’s a big field down at Ramallah in south Iraq that the Shiites control. And the Shiites and the Kurds increasingly are moving towards semi-autonomy. I mean, this is almost like, you know, remember when the Soviet Union broke up, that for a while they said, 'Well, we'll still be together somehow. It will be the commonwealth of independent states.’ Well, Iraq is moving towards being a commonwealth of independent provinces. And the Sunni Arabs are afraid that this movement by the Shiites and the Kurds will leave them high and dry. The Shiites resent deeply the violence that the Sunni Arabs have resorted to in order to prevent the Shiites from coming to power, from exercising that power, from moving towards greater autonomy from the central government. You know, the Sunni Arab guerrilla groups have been horrible in their tactics. They’ll bomb a wedding in a city like Hillah. And then they know that evening, in Islamic law, you immediately have the funeral. They’ll come back and bomb the funeral that evening, hit the same group of people again. So, if that happens every week for a while all around the country, eventually people just hate each other. AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Professor Juan Cole here at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In fact, we’re sitting in a classroom. You talk about the Kurds. BBC is reporting that Israel is training the Kurds. JUAN COLE: Well, BBC is reporting that there is an Israeli company or two that’s been giving training to Kurds using ex-Special Ops forces. These are private security guards now who are giving training. AMY GOODMAN: Not at the behest of the Israeli government? JUAN COLE: Well, we don’t know exactly. AMY GOODMAN: Or proxy? JUAN COLE: We don’t know exactly what is the relationship. There have been rumored to be good relations between the Kurdish regional government and the Israelis for some time. And there have been earlier reports by Sy Hersh of Israeli intelligence agents operating in Kurdistan, in fact spying on Iran from Kurdistan. So if ex-Special Ops Israeli security companies are providing training to the Kurdish peshmerga, this is not a huge surprise. It would violate Iraqi law. But Kurdistan increasingly is not operating under Iraqi law. They give out their own visas. They invite foreign companies to come and do prospecting without telling Baghdad. They recently have decided they’re not going to fly the Iraqi flag anymore. I mean, you have an independent country here that has its own army. It says the federal troops may never step foot on Kurdish soil. So Iraq has become, for the Kurds, a mere fig leaf. They are doing whatever they want to do, and they don’t want to anger Iran and Turkey to the extent of provoking hostilities, so they don’t declare independence, but they are operating as though they are independent in all but name. AMY GOODMAN: The Iranian president said in New York when he was at the United Nations that his government doesn’t need a nuclear weapon, is open to negotiations on suspending nuclear activities. Your assessment of where this all stands? JUAN COLE: Well, the Iranian government has all along maintained that it’s not trying to get a nuclear weapon. Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, who’s the theocrat of Iran and sets law, says that atomic bombs are immoral in Islamic law. You can’t use them because they inevitably kill large numbers of innocent civilians, which is contrary to the rules for waging war in Islam. It can only be waged properly against combatants. And so, Khamenei has forbidden atomic weapons. The Iranian government has all along maintained that it has no weapons program. And no weapons program has been found. The International Atomic Energy Agency is frustrated that the Iranians haven’t always been transparent. They haven’t declared all of their experiments. There are facilities that they haven’t allowed visits to. And so there are suspicions as to why all this should be and what the Iranians are up to. But the report says they haven’t been able to testify that there is a weapons program. So what President Ahmadinejad said was consistent with Iranian policy all along. AMY GOODMAN: We did this interview on Friday at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I spoke with Professor Juan Cole. I asked him about a new controversial congressional report that alleges that Iran is further ahead in the development of nuclear weapons than previously believed. I asked him if this is similar to the misinformation campaign in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. JUAN COLE: I think there’s enormous amounts of hype coming out of Washington and out of John Bolton’s office at the UN about Iran. Allegations are constantly made. In fact, the news media tend to fall into this trap, because Iran does have a nuclear energy research program, which is permitted under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which they are signatories. And they do have inspections. They have regular inspections. Those inspections have not been completely satisfactory. But no country that’s been under the NPT has ever developed nuclear weapons. And Iran — it’s a little mysterious. Why would they sign onto this if they were in fact violating it? Why not just — now, there’s nothing that requires you to join. India didn’t. Pakistan developed a bomb, and these were permitted to India and Pakistan. That’s another question as to — you know, it’s a dangerous neighborhood. Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons and has brandished them, threatened neighbors with them. AMY GOODMAN: Ahmadinejad doesn’t raise that very much, actually, does he? JUAN COLE: No, Ahmadinejad — well, Ahmadinejad does. I mean, he does talk about the hypocrisy. But it’s because he’s saying, ’We’re not trying to get them in the first place,’ so that’s not his argument. The people who raise the hypocrisy argument about Israel’s arsenal, and now India and Pakistan’s, which all seem to be just fine with Washington — there’s no crisis about that — the people who raise that mostly are the Egyptians and the Saudis and the Arab world, which would like a nuclear freeze-out. They don’t want Iran having nuclear weapons. They wish that Israel would give its up. They are not enthusiastic about India, and so forth. So it’s become an increasingly dangerous neighborhood. And the argument is made in Washington that there are vents somewhere in these facilities that show that there are deep bunker facilities that we don’t know about, that they’re up to something. And then allegations are made that the Iranian state is peopled by crazy people. The argument is — it’s a frankly racist argument — that you’re dealing with madmen here, and therefore they may not be allowed to get nuclear weapons. I mean, I’m against proliferation myself. I think it’s better that fewer countries that have these things, the better off the whole world is. But the Iranian state hasn’t invaded aggressively another country for 200 years. It hasn’t demonstrated itself to be peopled by wild men. And it is an authoritarian government — one can criticize that on various grounds — but it’s not been an aggressive government. It’s not like Saddam Hussein. JUAN COLE: Yes, Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. He has a thing about Jews and Israel and the Holocaust that comes across very clearly when he talks about it. It’s a kind of paranoia or fixation. And, you know, Ahmadinejad is not a really educated man. He’s got an engineering degree. He’s from what we call the bazaari class. This is people who, from a shopkeeping background or hung around at mosques, and kind of self-educated, and so forth. So he’s not a man of the world. His predecessor, President Mohammad Khatami, lived in Germany for seven years and has written, using the German sociologist Jurgen Habermas’s theories of civil society. Khatami has written on dialogue of civilizations and open society, and so forth, and has reprimanded Ahmadinejad for his bizarre statements about the Holocaust. So this is not, you know, an Iranian government stance or an Iranian stance. This is something that’s peculiar to Ahmadinejad. And remember, the Iranian president is powerless, virtually. The commander-in-chief of the armed forces is Khamenei, the Supreme Juridprudent. Ahmadinejad can consult on the appointment of cabinet ministers and ambassadors, but there are very few orders that he could give of any significance in the Iranian system. He’s kind of like our Secretary of the Interior or something. So what he thinks about things isn’t that important. JUAN COLE: Well, there’s a congressional report on Iran, which came out and was extremely sloppy and made all kinds of false allegations. There’s a caption at one point that says that Iran is enriching uranium to weapons grade. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. Indeed, you know, people don’t know the technicalities of it, and I’m not an expert on it myself, but I do know the Iranians are using small refrigerator-size centrifuges — they have about 164 of them — to enrich uranium for energy purposes. And that’s a whole different deal than if you were making a weapon. If you were making a weapon, you would need 16,000 centrifuges, and they’d have to be hooked up in a special way that they do something called cascading, so that the fissionable material has the right form for making a bomb. Well, the Iranians don’t have 16,000 centrifuges. They have 164. And they say that they’ve managed to enrich to 2.5%. You need to enrich to something like 80% in order to make a weapon. And being able to enrich to the amount needed to make fuel is a different order of magnitude. JUAN COLE: Well, it was actually written by a staffer named Fleitz, who used to work for John Bolton. And this kind of use of false allegations against Iran and innuendo and intimations that they’ve got a weapons program that is far advanced, this is typical of Bolton and the far right wing of the Republican Party. AMY GOODMAN: A lot was made of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez talking about President Bush as a devil. Can you talk about President Bush’s language over time? JUAN COLE: Well, my argument is that Bush started this, with his use of the phrase "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address, and I think it’s shameful. I think that we are a secular country. Our law does not — in fact, our law forbids the government from favoring any particular religion or for favoring religion over secular people. And the use of the word "evil" or "devil," these are theological terms. Personally, I don’t believe in a personal Satan, and I resent my elected officials dragging me into a discourse about the world, in which whole countries are made satanic. And what does that mean? It means you can’t talk to them. They’re evil. You can’t sit down with them and negotiate. It takes diplomacy off the table. And once you take diplomacy off the table, what’s left? Ultimatums and war. So this absolutist language, this theological language drags the secular republic into being a warmongering theological state, just in the essence of it. And Bush, when he starts calling other countries and leaders "evil," well, aren’t they going to do the same thing to him? The immaturity and the clownishness of Hugo Chavez’s comments were widely commented on, but nobody in the American mainstream press seems to think that Bush was being immature and clownish in talking about Iran as part of an axis of evil. AMY GOODMAN: And the term "Islamofascism"? JUAN COLE: Well, the term "Islamofascism" is a form of bigotry. It is an attempt to tie a great religious tradition, to which a very substantial portion of humanity belongs, and has belonged through the last millennium, to a Western secular political tendency, the fascist movement of the 1930s, which, by the way, wasn’t influential in the Middle East among the Middle Eastern masses, and the intellectuals in Cairo denounced it. And it’s just horrible to tie Islam and the Koran and the ideals of the Islamic religion, to try to tie them to Hitler and Mussolini. You know, if somebody were to do this to Christianity or Judaism, there would be an enormous outcry, but it’s alright to do it to Muslims. AMY GOODMAN: What about Egypt right now and the statements of the President Mubarak’s son? JUAN COLE: Well, Gamal Mubarak is very potentially the successor in Egypt. They are republics in the Arab world, but sometimes they have an almost monarchical succession. Bashar al-Assad in Syria succeeded to Hafez al-Assad. So a lot of people think that Gamal is being positioned to take over when his father steps down. Hosni Mubarak, the leader of Egypt, has presided over a long period of political stability in the country, but he is 78, and there will be a transition in the near future. Gamal now has come out and said that Egypt needs civilian nuclear energy and has been carrying out, off and on, small experiments, and that this may get revved up. And he also came out and rejected the Bush administration’s ideas for the greater Middle East, which is a codeword for U.S. imposing, in various ways, through pressure or military action, what it calls democracy on the region. Mubarak represents a tradition in Egypt of military rule — in business suits, but basically it’s a military government — which puts a limit on where society can go. And they are very afraid that one person, one vote, free and open politics, might lead to the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist religious trend, which has authoritarian tendencies, might take over the country, and so he’s very much against going too far in what Bush calls "democratization," and he’s rejected it. JUAN COLE: Well, the problem with the situation between Israel and Lebanon is that the war was inconclusive. The Israelis didn’t get what they were looking for, and neither, I think, did the Hezbollah. Lebanon is a very divided society, and it has been badly hit. It’s probably been set back in its economic development 20 years. Towards the end of the war, the Israelis released, it is estimated, up to a million cluster bombs in the south. These — a lot of cluster bombs don’t explode. So there are these bombs lying around all through South Lebanon that children will pick up, and already a dozen people have died from them. And this is a war crime, quite frankly. I mean, Hezbollah committed war crimes during the war, in targeting civilian cities like Haifa in a random sort of way, and Amnesty International has denounced them, and that’s true. But this is a massive war crime, to let loose this number of cluster bombs in South Lebanon. AMY GOODMAN: Estimates of what? Up to 350,000? JUAN COLE: Even more, and there was — it was done in the last days of the war, so it wasn’t even being done for obvious military purposes. This was a political act. It was an attempt to make South Lebanon inhospitable to human habitation, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and simple ordinary morality. And, of course, it wouldn’t work. The Lebanese farmers are going to go back to their farms, and if there are cluster bombs, then they’ll just have to try to deal with them. So there was a mindset during this war of punitiveness towards the whole Lebanese public. It wasn’t a war just with Hezbollah. I mean, they took out bridges up at Jounieh, which is a Christian port. They hit Tripoli port. They bombed Achrafieh, a Christian area of Beirut. They bombed the airport. I mean, the whole country was attacked, not just the Hezbollah. And it was an attempt to turn the Lebanese against one another, and it didn’t work. The Lebanese, although they have their differences, had a civil war, and they know what that is, and they weren’t going to have another one to please the Israelis. AMY GOODMAN: How has the war between Israel and Lebanon changed the political landscape of the Middle East? JUAN COLE: Well, it has definitely weakened Israel’s position. Israel is the regional superpower in that part of the world. It’s the only nuclear power in the Middle East, and it had been known to easily defeat Arab armies in 1967, even in 1973, where they were surprised they riposted quite well. And they marched into Beirut in 1982 with very little trouble. So this is the first time that they’ve launched a military push of this sort and failed in their war aims. They’ve been — they were stymied by Hezbollah. Merkava tanks were — their armor was penetrated by Hezbollah RPGs. The Hezbollah seems to have been able to listen in on some of their communications and therefore to know their plans. AMY GOODMAN: Is Ehud Olmert going to survive? JUAN COLE: Oh, I think that he’ll survive. There’s not very much of an alternative. If Labor hadn’t been so stupid as to enter this unity government and Amir Peretz hadn’t been so stupid as to offer to become the Defense Minister, then Labor could have positioned itself as able to do a better job, but in a way Labor was tainted, as well. AMY GOODMAN: Which leaves…? JUAN COLE: Which doesn’t leave much. I mean, people have turned away from the Likud Party. It only got nine seats. And so that’s why I say, I mean, I think the government will limp along, just because there’s nothing obvious to replace it with, but Olmert has certainly been weakened. AMY GOODMAN: You survey the Arab press. How does it compare to the U.S.? JUAN COLE: Well, it’s like night and day. In the Arab world, the first value people are looking for is local independence, and they judge everything that happens by how it affects their local independence. It’s kind of an analogy to people who are concerned about state’s rights in the United States, so they don’t want the federal government being in their business in a big way. Well, for the Arab world and for the Middle East generally, the United States is like the federal government. I mean, it is a presence in everybody’s lives. It shapes people’s policies; it shapes their lives, their culture and so forth. And so, from their point of view, there was never any question, for the most part, in the Arab world, outside Iraq, that the American presence in Iraq would be bad for people. The opinion polls all showed this. And they felt, you know — they had had a long experience with European powers coming in and ruling them, the French in Algeria and the British in Egypt, and so forth. And it always seemed to them a bad deal. So they had no question that the Iraq misadventure would go bad, and so they’re not surprised at all that it has. And from their point of view, the Lebanon war was an act of naked, unbridled Israeli unprovoked aggression on the whole country of Lebanon. It wasn’t, as the western press depicts it, you know, the natural reaction of the Israelis to their soldiers being attacked and kidnapped. And so it’s a completely different point of view on the world that is in the region. It’s one that is very little heard and can be very little heard in the western media, and it’s unfortunate. It means that there’s a discourse in the United States that’s different from the discourse in the Middle East, indeed different from the discourse in Europe. I mean, the United States is a peculiarly insular society in which the reference points are very much internal. If a Republican senator or congressman isn’t saying something, then it’s very difficult to say it and have it be heard, aside from on Democracy Now! AMY GOODMAN: Professor Juan Cole, he teaches history at the University of Michigan and runs the website, " Informed Comment," about the latest developments in Iraq.
They aim to beat falling markets but are seen by some as risky bets that can go disastrously wrong, as with the near-collapse of the Long Term Capital Management Fund hedge fund in the US in 1998. They are not open to the general public, but instead offer their services to extremely wealthy individuals and professional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies. The man credited with creating what were to become known as hedge funds was a sociologist, Alfred Winslow Jones, in 1949. But they first hit the headlines in a big way in 1992, when financier George Soros's fund made hundreds of millions of pounds betting that the pound would be ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In 1990, for instance, Mr Soros's noted Quantum fund was up 30% when the overall US market fell by 3%. They tend to be highly secretive and can charge very high fees. One potential benefit of hedge funds for the investor is that they seek to remove exposure by producing a positive return in spite of the direction of the market. The funds invest in anything they judge will make them profits, and often use complex investment strategies, but four main types can be identified. :: Market neutral or relative value, which try to exploit market inefficiences or mispricing. :: Event driven, which invest on anticipated mergers, bankruptcy or corporate reorganisations. :: Long/short, which allow fund mangers to buy some assets but sell others they do not yet own. : Tactical trading, perhaps the most volatile of all, which speculate on the future direction of markets. Although many hedge funds are based offshore for tax reasons, if management is based in the UK they are regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
A cancer diagnosis often brings with it a prescription for radiation therapy to kill diseased cells and shrink tumors. The underlying rationale for this course of treatment is that the high-energy radiation damages the DNA in a tumor mass, thereby arresting its growth. But the results of a study published today in the journal Science indicate that radiation therapy may actually attack tumors in two ways. Scientists report finding genetic evidence that radiation-induced damage to the blood vessels feeding a tumor plays a pivotal role in causing the mass to recede. Monica Garcia-Barros of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and her colleagues tested radiation therapy on genetically-engineered mice with cancerous tumors. Specifically, they looked at mice incapable of producing an enzyme known as acid sphingomyelinase. This enzyme is made in so-called endothelial cells, which cancer cells recruit from their host to form blood vessels to nourish the tumor. That process, known as angiogenesis, hit the headlines in 1998 when cancer researcher Judah Folkman of Harvard Medical School discovered two natural compounds that shrank tumors in mice by cutting off the blood supply. The researchers determined that animals incapable of producing the enzyme did not respond to radiation therapy nearly so well as their normal counterparts did. The reason for this, they surmise, is that acid sphingomyelinase regulates cell death in the delicate endothelial cells. Without it, they can resist the effects of radiation. Lacking this enzyme thus put the engineered mice at a disadvantage¿and revealed to the investigators that radiation attacks not only the tumor cells, but the endothelial cells that nourish them. Notes study co-author Richard Kolesnick of Sloan Kettering, "When the angiogenic blood vessels are damaged, the death of tumor cells results." The authors hope their findings will lead to improvements in patient care, perhaps by helping researchers find ways to prime tumors to succumb to lower doses of radiation. Zvi Fuks, another co-author of the study, explains: "We need to understand, at the therapeutic dose range, the unique roles that the microenvironment and tumor cell components play in the overall response of the tumor to radiation to maximize the value of such treatments."
Wagner thespians dig deep into Asian culture for Gilbert & Sullivan's classic operetta Wagner College theater students needed some supplies as part of the preperation process for "The Mikado." They warmed their voices, collected scripts, studied the score, stretched limbs for dancing -- and got out scissors and glue. Yes, these recreators of the most-performed Gilbert and Sullivan work had to do a bit of an art project. Designed to help get a clear picture of what director Rusty Currico calls "a challenging show," he assigned the collage project to get inside the show's political overtones, Asian influences with geishas and kabuki, and a totally different time period, 1845 to 1870. In the mythical Japanese town of Titipu, where sons of royalty are betrothed and flirting is punishable by beheading, the son of the Mikado conceals his identity as a minstrel, Nanki-Poo, to escape an arranged marriage and instead marry Yum-Yum, his lady love. Yum-Yum already has a fiance, Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner. And so the plot twists and turns as the Mikado demands a beheading within the month and it seems Nanki-Poo would be the likely candidate, except that there is also a law against killing the son of the Mikado, even if his true identity is hidden. Meanwhile, Nanki-Poo's betrothed, Katisha, the very jealous and long-in-the-tooth, is in search of her intended. Currico has performed and directed the work, which borders on farce, numerous times over his career, but for the newcomers, "The Mikado" can seem daunting. There are so many pieces, mastering the language, hearing intricate harmonies and getting the humor. So it's a matter of layering, Currico said, and adding one component at a time. The final pieces are the costumes and make-up. The Mikado is "considered the crowning glory artistically" for William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, Currico said. In addition to the collage and writing family histories for some of the characters, students were given homework to watch movies like "Shogun" and "Memoirs of a Geisha." They also watched tapes of ancient Japanese dance and learned about the kimono. The shows included in the Wagner main stage and Stage One season are chosen to offer a wide range of experiences and genres. Operettas are the beginning of musical theater, said Currico. Gilbert and Sullivan are the late 19th century writer/composer royal team. (They were both knighted.) Witty parody was their specialty. As a director, Currico said he's looking forward to seeing all the effort pay off in performances that are fun. "The audience will be entertained," Currico said. "You don't leave Gilbert and Sullivan thinking about personal mysteries or changing the world. It's entertainment."
Magnetic Field Theory Introduction and Summary This last SparkNote concerning magnetic fields is a purely theoretical one. We don't examine particular configurations of wires, solenoids, and magnets. We don't look at the force on moving charges. Instead, we simply look at magnetic fields as a special kind of vector field, and describe them purely in terms of the mathematical properties of such a field. We are able to do this such that a magnetic field can be described completely by two simple equations. In essence, we are able to compress all of the preceding topics into two equations. Before we make these mathematical statements, however, we must first develop the multivariable calculus used to derive our equations. We develop the concepts of divergence and curl, and introduce the two important theorems: Stokes' Theorem and Gauss' Theorem. Equipped with this background we can then apply the math to magnetic fields, generating our two important equations. By finally analyzing magnetic fields on a purely theoretical level we complete our study of magnetic fields. We have looked at the effects of magnetic fields, the sources of magnetic fields and, finally, in this SparkNote, the theory of magnetic fields. This complex topic must be attacked from many angles in order for us to understand it.
It is Good Friday, the day on which Christians reflect upon Christ's crucifixion. On this day we offer our Christian readers a selection of photos from the last couple years which we hope you will enjoy. The one above is from a July, 2005 visit to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ near Groom, TX, between Interstate 40 and Route 66. This crucifix stands outside a church in London at Bryanston and Old Quebec Streets, at least it did as of when I shot it last October. I was aware only recently that "crucifix" and "cross" are not interchangeable words. A crucifix is an image of Jesus Christ on the cross, while a cross is...well, a cross. Incidentally, the loincloth he wears is called a "perizonium." Here's a crucifix tombstone in the lush, overgrown (and rainy that day) environs of London's Highgate Cemetery, also from last October. For the benefit of genealogists, I note that this tombstone marks the graves of Maria and Mathias Kallenborn, who died in 1928 and 1930, respectively. And here, thousands of miles away, is nearly the same image in the stark, windswept landscape of St. Patrick's Cemetery in Chapman, Kansas, USA, last May Day. Notice that in the last three photos, the posture of Christ's head is the same - fallen to his right. I looked into this a bit, but found no scriptural basis for it (which doesn't mean there isn't one). A look at Wikipedia's listing for "crucifix" reveals four more crucifix photos...all with Christ's head to his right. I don't know if that is a coincidence or not; perhaps all are based on an older artwork used now as a reference. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can comment and shed some light on this. Here's another statue in St. Patrick's Cemetery in Chapman, Kansas. And here's another of Highgate's tombstones. See some of Highgate's crosses as well as more of Chapman, KS in our recent St. Patrick's Day post. Last month in the Desert Botanical Gardens of Phoenix, Arizona, I noticed this Crucifixion Thorn (Castela Emoryi), which is native to the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. It's not as thorny as the The Thorny Orange Tree (Poncirus trifoliata) of China, but evocative of a crown of thorns, nevertheless. Some of you might find this Wikipedia article on the crown of thorns and its supposed relic remains interesting. Speaking of plants, the Dogwood Tree, seen in the photo above in its white and pink flowering forms at left and center, is the state tree of Missouri and produces the state flower of Virginia. As of today, it is already past its peak flowering period in Missouri, which is unfortunate for the small town of Neosho, MO, where a dogwood tour scheduled for two weekends from now has been cancelled because there'll be nothing left to see. This is because of the double-whammy of unseasonably warm temperatures of late (global warming?) and the current arrival of freezing temperatures and snow in April. Why mention dogwood? Because of the Christian fable that the cross upon which Jesus was crucified was made of the tree, which, legend holds, was larger and stronger at the time. Afterwards, Jesus is said to have altered the form of the tree into its thin, twisted-branch form such that it could never be used for this purpose again. The petals of its flower are said to represent the four arms of the cross, stained with his blood. Of course, Good Friday, like many Christian holidays, has pagan roots, but is most identified in Western culture with Christianity. Some Christians even de-emphasize the day; uncomfortable with the pagan origins of both Good Friday and Easter, they also point out the contradiction between Jesus being dead three days and nights, while there are 48 hours between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
VIA readers share their favorite stops for viewing wildlife. Arizona–Sonora Desert Museum Tucson, Ariz. “Everything about this place is first class,” says Michael Stone of Hillsboro, Ore. “The mammal, bird, reptile, and insect exhibits are in a natural environment in an area with large stands of saguaro cactus. Make sure you see the winter–spring raptor show.” (520) 883-1380, desertmuseum.org . Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary Folsom, Calif. “Not your typical zoo,” writes Barbara Schroeder of Rancho Cordova, Calif. “The rescued wild animals include golden eagles, hawks, coyotes, cougars, ‘hoof stock,’and even feral cats.” (916) 351-3527, folsom.ca.us/depts/parks_n_recreation/zoo . Oakland Zoo Knowland Park, Oakland. “A magical, family-friendly place,” says Virginia Wong of Corte Madera, Calif. “There are 660 native and exotic animals; during the holidays the zoo is open in the evening and you can walk the lighted paths listening to seasonal music. There’s even a train families can ride.” (510) 632-9525, oaklandzoo.org . Sacramento Zoo William Land Park, Sacramento. “All the must-see zoo animals are here, except elephants,” says Karen Mizuno of Tracy, Calif. “And there are extra attractions—river otters and a reptile house. Plan a full day, with a picnic lunch in the park.” (916) 808-5885, saczoo.org . Safari West Santa Rosa, Calif. “You can’t beat the thrills among this park’s 800 animals, including giraffes and cheetahs,” says Diane Carlin of Reno. “You’re driven through in open vehicles as if you’re on an African safari.” (707) 579-2551, safariwest.com . San Diego Zoo Balboa Park, San Diego. “The most beautiful zoo,” says Karyl Woolsey of Pollock Pines, Calif. “The flora is as interesting as the fauna, and the Elephant Odyssey, which has elephants, lions, and other animals, will take your breath away.” (619) 231-1515, sandiegozoo.org . San Francisco Zoo San Francisco. “You can feel that the animals are well cared for,” says Jenny Strickland of San Ramon, Calif. “You’ll never forget feeding time for the grizzlies and penguins, or the steam train and carousel.” (415) 753-7080, . Zoo Boise Julia Davis Park, Boise. “There are a couple of hundred animals at this great place, but my family’s favorite spot for visits is the Butterflies in Bloom exhibit,” says Meg Glasgow of Eagle, Idaho. “It’s a large flower-filled greenhouse in which hundreds of butterflies fly free; you get to walk right through it.” [Butterflies in Bloom reopens next summer.] (208) 384-4260, zooboise.org . Animal Ark Reno. “This small wildlife sanctuary offers close-up views of rescued animals including bears, wolves, tigers, mountain lions, and many others,” says Heidi Littenberg of Reno. “It also hosts cheetah runs every couple of months that are both informational and exciting.” (775) 970-3111, animalark.org . Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas. “I can sit for hours watching the dolphins play and interact with people here,” writes Kathy Brennan of Las Vegas. “It’s incredibly calming.” (702) 791-7188, miragehabitat.com . West Coast Game Park Safari Bandon, Ore. “A family-friendly educational adventure,” says Toni Jacobson of Gresham, Ore. “We’ve held baby snow leopards and tigers, other baby big cats, an opossum, and even a baby skunk. Many animals have grown up here, including a tiger who had been raised with a dog.” (541) 347-3106, gameparksafari.com . White Wolf Sanctuary Tidewater, Ore. “Ten rescued arctic wolves live here, all born in captivity,” says Carol Gladwin of Corvallis, Ore. “Some are quite social and some are shy. Daily tours in the afternoon include a talk about wolves.” (541) 528-3588, whitewolfsanctuary.com . Photogaphy by Rick Murphy/San Francisco Zoo
If you’re among the 37 million Americans who suffer from sinus problems, you know just how miserable the symptoms can make you feel. The congestion. The facial pain. The postnasal drip-drip-drip. Summer often brings a bit of a respite, as the cold viruses that trigger most cases of sinusitis are less active in warm weather. And, experts say the sinus problems that do crop up in summer can often be avoided -- if you take these six precautions: Clean air filters frequently and air ducts at least once a year. Keep humidity in your house below 50% to prevent mold growth. Install dehumidifiers in basements and other damp areas. Avoid moldy areas: basements, garages, crawl spaces, barns, compost heaps. Keep pets outside. If you must keep pets indoors, do not allow them in bedrooms; bathe them often. Use plastic covers for pillows, mattresses, and box springs. Get rid of overstuffed furniture or down-filled bedding/pillows. Wash bedding in hot water every week. Wear a mask and gloves when cleaning to limit chemical exposure. Install hardwood floors instead of carpeting. Limit number of throw rugs. Avoid dust-collecting window blinds and long drapes. Use window shades instead. Vacuum twice a week. Wash bathroom surfaces and shower curtain with diluted bleach. Check the forecast. Stay indoors on hot, dry, windy days when pollen count is high. If mold is a problem, stay inside during rainy or windy days. Check the time. Between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., pollen counts are highest. Avoid being around freshly cut grass whenever possible. Avoid yard work! Mowing stirs up grass pollen. Flowers are loaded with pollen; so are many trees. Raking leaves stirs up mold spores. Let someone else to do your yard work, so you can avoid these pesky allergens. Wear a mask. If you must work in the yard, an inexpensive painter's mask will protect you from grass and flower pollen as well as mold. Take a shower. After being outdoors, get rid of allergens that may have collected in your clothes and hair. Take a shower, wash your hair, and change clothes. Use the clothes drier. Don't hang clothes and linens outside to dry. Pollen and molds can easily attach to them. Vacuum your car. Lots of animal dander is shed from your clothes onto your car's interior. Keep car windows closed, and close vents. Use air conditioning.
There are many different types of waste management equipment, all of which mainly involve the relocation and compacting of waste. Waste includes anything from trash found in household garbage cans to toxic waste produced by chemical plants. Different types of waste require specific equipment and treatment, due to the variance in waste type and the safety of the substance being handled. The most common type of waste management equipment is the garbage truck, which is used to move waste to be stored and compacted. Waste management equipment tends to be detrimental to many parts of life, including health and aesthetics. While waste management equipment includes incredibly complicated machines, it also consists of much simpler equipment, such as garbage cans, which come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Small, simple cans consisting primarily of plastic commonly are found in homes. Larger cans are used for public and industrial purposes, where larger volumes of waste need to be contained. These cans often have lids or some sort of overhead covering, which is used mainly for odor containment or aesthetic purposes. Nearly all garbage cans use garbage bags, which allow for waste to be easily taken out. In non-residential waste management processes, garbage is typically stored in a large dumpster. Dumpsters are fully enclosed and usually have a removable top or a small hatch for depositing garbage. Many dumpsters also have drainage holes near the bottom to drain any excess liquid from the collected garbage as it decomposes. After a certain period of time, a garbage truck will collect the waste by using mechanized forks that insert into slots on either side of a dumpster. The forks then pick up the dumpster, and dump any waste within it into the truck. Garbage trucks come in different varieties to accommodate different types of dumpsters, or under some circumstances, the waste being handled. Typically, however, garbage trucks are identified by how they load garbage. There are front loaders, rear loaders, side loaders, pneumatic collectors, and grappling trucks. Front, rear and side loaders load garbage exactly as their name suggests: either from the front, rear, or side. This is usually done through mechanized forks that lift the dumpsters upside-down over the truck, which forces the garbage out. Pneumatic collection trucks handle waste in a somewhat similar manner to a vacuum cleaner. In some situations, waste is stored underground in a liquified form, such as sewage and chemical waste. These types of garbage trucks have a crane with a large hose attached. This hose can be connected to an opening in the ground, and any liquid stored below is sucked out through a vacuum. Grappling trucks, on the other hand, are used for collecting large amounts of solid waste; these also have cranes, but instead of a hose, they have a large grappling "claw."
Depending on the age and size of your existing hot water heater, replacing it with a tankless model can save you as much as $30 per month in energy costs. Throw in the benefit of never running out of hot water and it is hard not to install a tankless water heater today. There are several things to consider before purchasing a water heater. Step 1: Find the heater that best suits your needs. Tankless water heaters are rated by the number of appliances they can consecutively produce hot water for. A two-appliance water heater can produce enough water to operate a shower and a sink, but a three-appliance heater can supply hot water to a shower, sink and washing machine all at the same time. Tankless water heaters have a limited number of degrees they can effectively raise the water temperature by. In colder climates where incoming water is icy cold, a larger heater is required to raise the temperature enough to actually make hot water. Step 2: Finding a location to properly install a tankless water heater can be a challenge. Although the heaters do not weigh too much and can be installed into drywall, plaster, wood or cement, venting constraints and gas supply requirements can be an issue. The heater should be mounted on an outside wall, near the gas and water supply entrances, and in an area that allows at least a foot of clearance around the heater and 2 feet of clearance in front of the heater. Step 3: Venting a gas-powered tankless water heater requires a 4-inch stainless steel exhaust vent and a 4-inch PVC inlet vent. The vents should be at least 3 inches long but no more than 26 inches in length. Vents need to be a minimum of 3 inches apart and need 2- to 7-feet clearance from things like windows, existing vents and even sidewalks. The cost of the stainless-steel vent pipe should be considered when choosing a location. Step 4: Gas line length limitations depend on supply line size and can be found in the owner’s manual of each water heater. Hooking up the gas supply to a tankless water heater should be done by a professional. Once attached, the supply will need to be pressure-tested to assure safe and efficient operation. Following the manufacturer’s instructions is the only way to properly install a tankless water heater.
I’m very excited to welcome my friend, B. J. Scott, on the day she released her second book, Highland Quest, a sequel to her hugely successful Highland Legacy. She’s going to tell us some very interesting things about the origins behind holiday traditions: Primarily an author of Historical Romance, when I do a blog, I normally answer the standard interview questions about what started my interest in writing, discuss something related to the craft of writing or directly related to my books—some historical fact or tradition that people might not be aware of. With the holiday season quickly approaching, I asked Callie if I could stray from the norm a bit. Instead of the typical post, we decided to share some interesting tidbits about the origins behind some of our holiday traditions. In keeping with a historical theme, I will touch on some customs that started in or before medieval times and carry through today. At this festive time of year, we decorate with colourful lights, wreaths, garlands of pine, ivy, holly, mistletoe, and of course a tree. These symbols of the season have been around since as long as any of us can remember, but have you ever wonder why we use these things to adorn our homes? Holly, Ivy, laurel, rosemary and other plans such as pine and Mistletoe were originally used in pre-Christian times to help celebrate the Winter Solstice Festival, to ward off evil and to celebrate the rebirth of spring. Keep in mind, at that time mid March was considered the beginning of the new year. During the dark, cold winters, the wind howling was believed to be the voices of lamenting spirits. The greenery was brought into the home as a means of protection, in addition to ability to freshen the stale air. The Druids believed good spirits lived in the bushes of holly and wore sprigs in their hair when they took part in the rituals of cutting and gathering mistletoe. Believed to be male or female, the plant brought into the home first was said to determine who would rule the house in the upcoming year, the wife or the husband. However it was bad luck to bring either into the home before Christmas eve. Early Christians believed holly sprang from the feet of Christ as he roamed the earth, that the spiked leaves represented the thorny crown he wore during crucifixion, and the red berries symbolized the blood he shed for mankind. To avoid being persecuted during Roman pagan festivals, Christians decorated their homes with mistletoe and holly. Knowing the Romans would not fight in the presence of either plant. Mistletoe is another sacred plant according to the Norse, Celtic Druid and other pagan cultures. It is also believed sacred by North American Indians. Druid priests and their followers wore sprigs of holly in their hair when they entered the wood in search of mistletoe. Cut with a golden sickle, the mistletoe branches were caught before they could hit the ground, then distributed among the people, hung over doors as protection, was placed in a baby cradle to guard the infant from fairies and fed to the first cow that gave birth in the new year to protect the herd. In Scandinavia it was linked to the Norse goddess Frigga. When he son was killed by an arrow of mistletoe she wept tears of white berries that brought him back to life. Frigga blessed the plant and kissed all who passed under it, thus spawning the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe. As the tradition continued, sprigs of mistletoe were hung from the rafters and it was said a maiden standing beneath it could not refuse a kiss. To do so would mean she’d never marry. The man she kissed would either become her husband or a dear friend for life. Other significant holiday plants are Laurel, if worn as a wreath on the head it symbolized victory of God over the Devil. Ivy, a plant the clings to walls and trees reminds us that we need to cling to God and religion for support. Rosemary, connected to the Virgin Mary because it was said to be her favorite plant, was said to protect people from evil, and to promote friendship and good will. Hanging a circle of evergreen in the form of a wreath during the winter months goes back to Roman times when they were hung on the doors after a victory. Roman women wore wreaths in their hair, as part of wedding ceremonies. The word wreath, ‘writhen or writhe’ in Old English meant to twist. Evergreen, a symbol of eternal life was thought to have special powers and used to decorate. Twisted into a wreath and adorned with holly and other sacred plants they offered protection and hope for the spring. Evergreen trees were used to celebrate winter festivals both pagan and Christian for thousands of years. No one is sure when they were first used as a Christmas tree, but it likely began in Northern Europe at least 1000 years ago. Scandinavian and German cultures were the first to use them and the tradition spread throughout Europe and later the new world. Queen Victoria, made the indoor tree popular during her reign, given her husband’s German ancestry. So the next time you hang a garland or decorate your tree, remember where the traditions first started. With a passion for historical romance, history in general, and anything Celtic, B.J. always has an exciting work in progress. Each story offers a blend of romance, adventure, suspense, and, where appropriate, a dab of comic relief. Carefully researched historical facts are woven into each manuscript, providing a backdrop from which steamy romance, gripping plots, and vivid characters—dashing alpha heroes and resourceful, beguiling heroines you can’t help but admire—spring to life. A PAN member of RWA, World Romance Writers, Celtic Hearts Romance Writers, and Savvy Authors, B.J. also writes contemporary, paranormal, time travel, and romantic suspense. And now her new book: No longer content in the shadows of his older brothers, Bryce Fraser rejoins the fight for Scottish independence, but arrives too late to inform his fellow patriots of a surprise ambush. Seriously wounded and left for dead, Bryce awakens to find Fallon MacCrery tending his wounds, a twist of fate that rekindles passion and desire he’d vowed to forget. Gifted with second sight and having lost everyone she ever held dear, Fallon believes her ability and her love are curses that if pursued will mean Bryce’s demise. But when she learns the English army plans to destroy the Bruce and his followers, she risks all to warn them, even her heart. Can their unspoken love stand the test in a time of uncertainty and war, or will the plans of their enemy, a traitorous laird from a rival clan keep them apart forever? Loch Ryan Scotland, 1307 “Wa . . . water,” Bryce mumbled, but there was no one there to listen. His throat was parched and he ran his tongue over dry, cracked lips, but his action offered no relief. An entire loch lay only a few feet away, but he couldn’t muster the strength to drag himself to the bank and quench his thirst. “Cold . . . so cold.” Despite the sun beating down on him, he’d swear he was encased in ice. His life’s blood seeped from his wounds, soaking the ground beneath him. He tried to raise his head, but the excruciating pain radiating across his chest stole his breath away. Was this what it felt like to die? If so, he prayed the Almighty would be merciful and take him now. Bryce moaned, a shift in his position bringing on another nauseating wave of agony. He sucked in a short, sharp, gulp of air and stretched his arm out as far as he could, his fingers grappling in the dirt. If only I could reach my sword. Beads of perspiration dampened his brow. As the strength slowly drained from his body, drawing a simple breath became more difficult. The end grew near. No time to make amends for sins of the past, and he had committed his share. Regrets? He had those, too. “Fallon.” He whispered her name then heaved a ragged sigh. He could see her beautiful face, her soft, porcelain-like skin with just a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Raven tresses hanging loose in a riot of curls down her back. Her petite, slender body had just the right curves to drive a man wild with desire. Mysterious sapphire eyes that held him captive and a heart-shaped mouth he’d never tire of kissing. If he had one wish before he died, it would be to hold her in his arms one more time, to find himself nestled between her thighs, making love until neither of them could take anymore. But he’d missed his chance when she left Fraser Castle after his brother’s wedding, returning with her clan to their home in the borderlands. Determined not to allow Fallon, or any woman, to breach the protective wall he’d built around his heart, he’d let her go. A restless spirit, he longed for adventure. While he admired his two older brothers, he was tired of living in their shadows. Alasdair had turned down the position of Laird when their father and older brother were killed at Berwick on Tweed. Connor, the next in line, had accepted the responsibility and did the Clan proud. He was happily married and Bryce was certain his wee son, Andrew, would be raised to follow in his father’s footsteps. Bryce held no land or title. Until he had made a name for himself and earned these things, he had nothing to offer a wife. But marriage and family were not part of his immediate plans. He loved women, all women. Be they large, small, short, tall, fair, or plain, it made no difference as long as they were willing to warm his bed, and expected no long-term commitment in return. When he was a lad of sixteen, he’d made the mistake of falling for the daughter of the village smithy. Totally enamored with each other, they’d vowed their eternal love and he believed they’d marry some day. He swallowed hard at the ball of emotion rising in his throat, and clenched his teeth against the sudden ache gripping his heart. He’d heard when a man is about to die, his life experiences flash before his eyes. But some memories were far too painful to revisit. He balled his fists at his sides, his nails digging into his palms. He didn’t want to think about the past and didn’t want a woman in his life. While Fallon was the only lass who had tempted him to stray from his chosen path, she was better off without him. Or so he’d told himself when he returned from a morning ride to learn she’d left Fraser Castle without saying goodbye. Clinging to the memory of their brief time together, Bryce closed his eyes and waited for death to take him. But distant voices and the sound of approaching footfall alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone. “Over here,” a man shouted. “I think this one is still breathing.” “Aye, he’s alive, but for how long? The lad has lost a lot of blood,” another man commented and clucked his tongue. Hovering on the edge of consciousness, Bryce heard the conversation going on between two men, maybe more. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids proved too heavy. Judging by the familiar burr, these men were Scottish, but so were the traitorous bastards who had attacked them. For a sennight, he’d ridden day and night. However in the end, he was too late to warn the Bruce’s brothers and their small group of Irish and Scottish islanders of the impending threat. Rushing headlong into an ambush and outnumbered four to one, their fate was sealed. This wasn’t the first time the MacDougall Clan sided with the English. Staunch supporters of John Comyn’s bid for the Scottish crown, they’d turned their swords and their loyalty against their countrymen when Comyn was murdered at Grey Fryer’s Abbey and Robert the Bruce was accused of the deed. After the massacre at Methven—the last major battle fought between the English and the Bruce before he went into hiding—the buggers lay in wait, attacking the Scottish survivors as they tried to make their way to the Argyle Mountains to regroup. The battle of Dail Righ would forever be a stain on the MacDougall clan’s name, and a battle Bryce would long remember. Nor would he forget their leader. Today he’d had the long-awaited chance to make good on his oath to see the blackguard pay for his treasonous acts, but he’d failed. Instead, he’d found himself on the receiving end of Dungal’s sword. “I canna believe Scots would kill Scots. These poor fellows dinna have a prayer of making it to shore unharmed,” the first man said. “Aye, the ship was run aground and there must be at least fifty dead men on the bank of the loch. There appears to be a mix of Irish and Scots, but nary an English soldier or a MacDougall plaid among them.” The man speaking nudged Bryce’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. “This appears to be the only one alive.” A dizzying wave of excruciating pain shot through Bryce’s chest as he was rolled onto to his side. “What do you plan to do with this fellow, Donald?” the second man asked. “We canna just leave him here to bleed to death.” “We’ll take him with us. My niece has some knowledge of healing. She cared for my wife when she had the pox . . . rest her soul.” Donald paused for a moment before he continued. “After Mairi died, the lass decided to stay on for a while. Mayhap there is something she can do for him. Best we make haste. I dinna want to be here if the bastards return.” “I’ll be surprised if he survives the journey. But we can always bury him along the way if need be,” the second man responded. Strong hands slid beneath Bryce’s shoulders, raising him to a sitting position, then someone grabbed his legs. A few garbled words of protest were all he could manage before darkness closed around him.
But the real life force of the magazine has always been its contributors, not its contributions. It has given voice to poets celebrated and unknown; it has printed probing inquiries and private reflections; it has invited discourse and inspired movements. “The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine,” wrote Poetry founder Harriet Monroe in 1912. “May the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius!” As Poetry observes its centennial year, it has sought to “celebrate poetry, not Poetry.” That’s how editor Christian Wiman phrases it in his introduction to the magazine’s commemorative anthology, The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of Poetry Magazine (University of Chicago Press). The book is not meant to be a “best of” compilation, like some anthologies. Instead, Wiman and Poetry Senior Editor Don Share selected poems that, over the course of a century, have simply stood out. “Every poem in this book,” Wiman writes, “[falls on the] spectrum between life and learning, between linguistic powers…and the messy living reality out of which all language, if it would stay alive, must be rooted.” Beyond that, the poems of The Open Door find more unity in their distinctive imaginative power than anything else. The first word goes to Pound (“In a Station of the Metro”), and the last word to Yeats (“The Fisherman”), but in between we get Laura Kasischke after T.S. Eliot, and Jacob Saenz before Langston Hughes. Short quips of prose from the magazine and its letters provide a rough contextual frame, but mostly the reader is left to wander and discover, and the poems are left to speak for themselves. There is just enough surprise to expose our minds to others’ worlds, but not so much that we lose a sense of who we are. To supplement the book, the foundation has opened a gallery exhibition featuring original photographs of its contributors. Every contributor to Poetry is asked to complete a thorough questionnaire and submit a photograph. No one at the magazine knows exactly when, or even why, this practice began (though Monroe herself was known for being thorough). But they’ve held onto the files, and over the years thousands of contributor bios have accumulated in the Poetry offices. Many capture poets at the onset of their careers, before their future successes or descents into obscurity (the file of a young Sylvia Plath, for instance, describes her summer plans for touring Europe by motorbike). The exhibit itself is rather modest, comprising only six small glass display cases. Yet the photographs themselves can be stirring in their insights. There is no guideline for what contributors can submit, and they have responded with appropriate ingenuity; there are poets posing and poets writing, but also poets drinking, exploring, and standing shirtless—not to mention a stuffed rabbit and a dog. As with the poems of the anthology, the photos resist paraphrase. Their impressions are enough. Gary Snyder squints intently into the camera, standing in the luminous outdoors; James Merrill leans back indifferently in a chair, lips parsed; Robert Frost sits in pensive silence, inside a departing train. One photo, mounted hastily on blue card stock, comes with a scrawling question: “Can you use this?” In today’s literary scene, it’s become somewhat vogue to question whether poetry itself can still be effectively used. But in placing its focus on the poems and poets that have made the magazine what it is, Poetry has proven that there is still much to be had and said. There are lives behind this “seemingly unkillable magazine”—lives with plenty to say about our own.
An ice disc, ice circle, or ice pan is a natural phenomenon that occurs in slow moving water in cold climates. Ice circles are thin and circular slabs of ice that rotate slowly in the water. It is believed that they form in eddy currents. Ice discs have most frequently been observed in Scandinavia and North America, but they are occasionally recorded as far south as England and Wales. An ice disc was observed in Wales in December 2008 and another was reported in England in January 2009. Ice discs Ice discs form on the outer bends in a river where the accelerating water creates a force called 'rotational shear', which breaks off a chunk of ice and twists it around. As the disc rotates, it grinds against surrounding ice — smoothing into a circle. A relatively uncommon phenomenon, one of the earliest recordings is of a slowly revolving disc was spotted on the Mianus River and reported in a 1895 edition of Scientific American. Ice pans River specialist and geography professor Joe Desloges states that ice pans are "surface slabs of ice that form in the center of a lake or creek, instead of along the water’s edge. As water cools, it releases heat that turns into frazil ice" that can cluster together into a pan-shaped formation. If an ice pan accumulates enough frazil ice and the current remains slow, the pan may transform into a 'hanging dam', a heavy block of ice with high ridges low centre.
Once again, with standard time approaching and daylight savings time ending, you actually gain an extra hour of sleep and that alone can screw up your sleeping patterns. At least temporarily. But what about oversleeping? How many people, especially teenagers, sleep over 10 hours a day? WebMD carried an article on Physical Side Effects of Oversleeping. So the question is, how much sleep do we really need? I will use the time change from Daylight Savings Time (DST) to Standard Time as a good experiment to determine how much sleep you really need, and IF it is possible to live on less sleep. With less sleep, and more time on your hands, you won’t have the excuse, “I don’t have time”. How Much Sleep Do We Need? The short answer is your sleep hours should be a multiple of 90 minutes (give or take a few minutes) which is your REM cycle. That’s either 6, 7.5, or 9 hours of sleep. I know some executives who sleep 4.5 hours but they are fuelled by adrenaline and pure motivation to succeed. Or fear of failure. Executives and Officers are just wired differently. Some marathoners like Paula Radcliffe sleeps 10.5 to 11 hours a day. That number may include a 90 minute midday nap between workouts. People who wake up in the middle of their REM cycle from alarm clocks report feeling groggy, lethargic or simply grouchy for the entire day. I’ll bet you know a few people like that! You will have to train your body to wake up naturally at the end of your REM cycle. Obviously, it’s better to wake up BEFORE the alarm clock and use the extra time to organize your day, or perhaps squeeze in a Yoga or dynamic stretching routine. Personally, I sleep 6 hours a night Monday to Friday. On Saturday, I get up at the same time, as my body just wakes up naturally from the last 5 days of habit. By Sunday, I do wake up at the same time, but manage to sleep an additional 90 minutes or sometimes an extra 3 hours depending on my “sleep deficit” if that theory actually exists. The Sleep Deficit Theory If you do believe in this theory, where your body has to catch up on the lack of sleep, AND you have a couple of days off work approaching, then try this experiment. On the Thursday and Friday night before Daylight Savings Time ends, sleep in as long as your body needs to. Ditch the alarm clock. (Do keep track of the number of hours you sleep, however). Also keep a rough estimate on how long it takes for you to fall asleep. It may be a soon as the head hits the pillow or it may be anywhere from 10-15 minutes. YMMV. Then on Saturday night, after adjusting all your clocks and watches, sleep as much as you feel, but wake up as soon as you feel semi-conscious from the end of your REM sleep . Ignore the current time, and check your stopwatch or internal clock. If you are hoping to do more in life, then it would be a perfect world if you woke up on 1.5 hours less sleep compared to Thursday and Friday night. There are so many factors involved here, from number of caffeinated drinks during the day, alcohol consumption, and to the type of hard workouts you are doing. Speed workouts affect the CNS and that alone will affect your sleep pattern or morning mood behaviour. But I’m pretty sure your number of hours of sleep will be in multiples of 6, 7.5 or 9. So why on earth do they tell you to sleep 8 hours? Because it’s exactly one third of 24? Who says our circadian rhythm is 24 hours and not 25? Or do they expect you to do something for 30 minutes before bed? Keep the suggestions to yourself, please! REM cycle varies, especially with age, so the 90 minute model may vary from individual to individual. Optimizing the Results Once you have your numbers, you now have to back track, just like your annual training plan’s competition schedule. If you must get up at 6:30am, and you need 7.5 hours of sleep, then you know you must sleep by 11 pm. Any later and either (1) you are dead duck from waking up from an alarm in the middle of your REM cycle. Or (2) you MIGHT wake up at 5:30 or 6 pm after 6 hours of sleep (4 x 90 minute REM cycles) Knowing this information, you would start “getting ready” for bed at 10:30pm. One plus One or Two plus One I find you can go one day with “less than optimal” sleep, say 6 hours, but the next day you may need to get back your normal sleep of 7.5 hours. Other people I know can go two days on a deficit but by the third day, they need to return to their normal sleep pattern. Waking up at 5am for an early morning flight doesn’t bother me. I just have to watch out for time zone changes. After years of tinkering, I can wait until Sunday to catch up, sometimes with a mid week nap after work and a mid-day nap on Saturday after Lunch. By Monday, I am all charged up again. Throughout the Day Another important consideration is adjusting your life around your optimized patterns throughout the day. On less sleep, you might be fresher in the AM, so I would do reading, research or important meetings. By the afternoon, especially after a big lunch, I try to do physical work. Or at least walk around a lot. No boring meetings! At the end of the day, if you work 8 hours, and sleep 8, then you only have 8 for yourself. Add traffic, commute, overtime, and oversleeping, then that 8 shrinks down to 1-2 hours very fast! So every hour less of unnecessary sleep will be added to your “bank account”.
Twin Falls Chalet is a privately operated backcountry lodge, which has been operated by Fran Drummond since 1962; she has owned the operating rights since 1968. The lower building was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1908. The construction of the two-storey main lodge was completed by the CPR in 1923 and first opened for business the following year as a Tea House. The Tea House was operated by the CPR on a leasehold basis through the 1920s, '30s and '40s. In 1953 it was closed, as the rail tourism business declined in favour of automobile-borne tourism. In 1954 the Tea House and other CPR properties were sold to Brewster and Ford Mountain Lodges Ltd., who reopened the Tea House in 1959. In 1969, when the National Parks services started closing down and tearing down backcountry shelters and warden cabins, they proposed the demolition of the Tea House, citing poor repair and the absence of utilities. This prompted Fran Drummond to start a long but victorious battle with the Canadian Government. Now, Twin Falls Chalet is a national historical site known as “Twin Falls Tea House National Historic Site of Canada”; dedicating plaques were installed by Parks Canada at the site in 2006. Most of the hiking trails in the area were constructed by the CPR and it’s Swiss Guides in the early 1900’s. As well, many of the mountains, lakes and streams bear the name of CPR officials: Marpole Lake1, Mount Kerr2, Lake Duchesnay3. In 1906, the Alpine Club of Canada named two mountains in the area the “President” (after Thomas Shaughnessy) and the “Vice-President” (after David McNicoll). CPR can also take some credit for the founding of Yoho Park. In 1901, then Secretary of the CPR Charles Drinkwater suggested that the Yoho Valley be made a national park to expand the recently created Mt. Stephen Park Reserve. By 1911, fourteen of the twenty park’s hiking trail had been built by the CPR, including the Yoho Valley Trail in 1901, leading to Twin Falls. Yoho National Park was originally established in 1886, first comprised of 26 km² in the area of the Burgess Shale; it was enlarged several times and now totals 1,313 km². The Park lies entirely within the Province of British Columbia; the Continental Divide and Banff National Park form its eastern boundary. From Twin Falls Chalet and its surroundings, visitors can admire the double cascading effect of Twin Falls. Twin Falls Creek is forced in two by a large block, and then shot over a massive cathedral Limestone cliff, plunging 180 meters before cascading down a narrow gorge (one could argue that the cascades below the main plunge should be included in the overall height of the falls, thus adding another 20-30 metres to the total height of the falls). There are recorded accounts of trail workers employed by the CPR using dynamite in 1924 in an (unsuccessful) attempt to make the two falls equal in volume. The south fall is usually of lower volume because of a sharp bend in the creek above the falls where debris impede the flow. Twin Falls Chalet was featured in the 2006 PBS National documentary “Great Lodges of the Canadian Rockies” (). It is also featured in countless hiking, guiding and tourism books on the Canadian Rockies. Twin Falls Chalet was visited by the King of Siam (now Thailand) in 1930. The American painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) did a painting of the falls in 1916 and stayed at the “bungalow”: . Canadian painter Lawren Harris (1885-1970) of the famous Group of Seven, came to paint at Twin Falls where he met his second wife, Bess Houser, who ran the lodge in 1931-1932. Twin Falls Chalet was also visited by a President of Harvard University and by American writer Dale Carnegie.
What happens when a Senator dies in office or resigns? How is the replacement handled? Procedures for electing Senators are outlined in Article I, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, as later amended by paragraph 2 of the Seventeenth (17th) Amendment. Ratified in 1913, the 17th Amendment not only changed how Senators are to be elected (direct election by popular vote) but it also outlined how Senate vacancies are to be filled: When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.What does this mean in practice? The U.S. Constitution grants the state legislatures the power to determine how U.S. Senators are to be replaced, including empowering the chief executive (the governor) do make these appointments. Some states require a special election to fill a vacancy. A few states require the governor to appoint a replacement of the same political party as the previous incumbent. Typically, a replacement holds office until the next scheduled statewide election. From the Congressional Research Service (2003, pdf): Prevailing practice is for state governors to fill Senate vacancies by appointment, with the appointee serving until a special election has been held, at which time the appointment expires immediately. In the event a seat becomes vacant between the time of a general election and the expiration of the term, however, the appointee usually serves the balance of the term, until the next regularly scheduled general election. This practice originated with the constitutional provision that applied prior to the popular election of senators, under which governors were directed to make temporary appointments when state legislatures were in recess. It was intended to ensure continuity in a state’s Senate representation during the lengthy intervals between state legislative sessions.Here are the exceptions or where Governors do not have unlimited powers:: - Alaska, Oregon and Wisconsin do not allow the governor to make interim appointments; state laws requires a special election to fill any Senate vacancy. - Oklahoma also requires that Senate vacancies be filled by special elections, with an exception. If the vacancy occurs after March 1 of any even-numbered year and the term expires the following year, no special election is held; rather, the governor is required to appoint the candidate elected in the regular general election to fill the unexpired term. - Arizona and Hawaii require the governor to fill Senate vacancies with a person affiliated with the same political party as the previous incumbent. - Utah and Wyoming require the governor to select an interim senator from a list of three candidates proposed by the state central committee of the political party with which the previous incumbent was affiliated.
After you assess a dog and record the behavior responses on the SAFERŪ worksheet, the assessment team should review the dog's worksheet and scores. If any of the canine behaviors displayed during the assessment are a concern, the team should: Review the assessment video to ensure that the assessment was conducted correctly and that the dog was not handled in a way that could account for the particular response. If you identify a problem with handling, return the dog to the kennel, and wait until the next day to reassess the dog. If you have more than one assessment team, another team should conduct the second assessment. If not, the original assessor and observer could swap roles when repeating the assessment of this dog. If the assessment process and dog handling were conducted appropriately, bring the dog's assessment to the attention of your Animal Behavior or Animal Care Supervisor to determine next steps. Options for Dogs with Behavior Issues Each shelter is unique and has different resources available to address behaviors identified during SAFER assessment. Next steps will vary from shelter to shelter, but here are options to consider. If staff and cage space are available, allow the dog another 24 hours to settle into his surroundings and then reassess the dog. If you have a behavior staff, put the dog on a behavior modification program and reassess after the program is complete. The behavior modification protocols developed for specific SAFER assessment items are a good starting point for the dog's individualized program. If you have experienced behavior foster homes for dogs with behavior issues, you can set up the dog with an experienced foster volunteer to follow through with the behavior modification program and observe the dog's behavior in a "real life" setting. If you do not have a behavior department, you can use community dog trainers to devise additional behavior modification protocols, work with the shelter dogs, or serve as behavior foster homes. A local rescue group may be interested in taking the dog. Sharing the dog's assessment with the group allows them to make an informed decision about whether or not they have the resources to meet the dog's needs. SAFER and Euthanasia Decisions The SAFER Aggression Assessment can help supervisors make euthanasia decisions, but the assessment alone should never be the only input to this decision. Whenever a life or death decision must be made, we strongly recommend that you consider the following information in addition to the dog's assessment scores: Relinquishment surveys done at intake Veterinary reports from the health check Input from animal care technicians, volunteers, and foster homes who have interacted with the dog The following video provides more information about choosing appropriate next steps after a SAFER assessment.
Bible Analysis (B-AN) B-AN 201 Genesis (2) An analysis of the "Book of Beginnings". God's plan is studied in detail with reference to the Creation, the Flood, and the nations. The outworking of God's history of redemption for the nations is traced through a biographical study of the four Hebrew patriarchs. B-AN 203 Matthew (3) A study of the gospel written for the Jew, presenting Jesus Christ as the Messiah and King of Israel. Dispensational and prophetic features of the book are noted, with special emphasis on the development of the presentation of the kingdom and related eschatological truths. Matthew's contribution to the various areas of theology is considered, and application is noted throughout the course. B-AN 303 Romans (3) A detailed analysis of the book of Romans with an introduction to the historical, geographical and religious contexts in which Romans was written. Also considered will be the theological, ecclesiological, and practical issues applicable to the church today. B-AN 404 Acts (2) A detailed analysis of the Book of Acts, with emphasis being given to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and to the establishment and development of the church. Problem passages are given special consideration. Application to current church polity and missionary endeavor is made. Bible Related (R-RE) B-RE 101 Introduction to Bible Study (3) Provides foundational principles for understanding and interpreting the Bible and surveys the methods and tools needed for effective Bible study. This course will conclude with a study of dispensations. B-RE 102 Christian Experience (2) Truths relating to the Christian life (salvation and progressive sanctification) are presented from Scripture. Topics relating to salvation include the need for and means of salvation along with security and assurance. Topics relating to progressive sanctification (the believer's growth in Christ-likeness) include discipleship, the constitution of man, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, prayer, the will of God, and separation. Special emphasis is placed on helping the student to grow in his or her own walk with Christ. Bible Survey (B-SU) B-SU 101 Old Testament Law, History, and Poetry (3) A survey of Old Testament law, history, and poetry, giving such points as the background of the book, key words and verses, information about the author, date and circumstances of writing, theme, importance, features, and the high points of each book. B-SU 102 Old Testament Prophets (3) A survey of the books of the Old Testament prophets, giving such points as the background of the book, key words and verses, information about the author, date and circumstances of writing, theme, importance, features, and the high points of each book. B-SU 104 New Testament Survey (3) A survey of the books of the New Testament, giving such points as the background of the book, key words and verses, information about the author, date and circumstances of writing, theme, importance, features, and the high points of each book. Systematic Theology (T-SY) T-SY 102 Doctrine Survey (3) An overview of all the major doctrines in the Bible. This course is designed as a basic introduction to the study of each of the Bible's various doctrines, their relationship to each other, and their practical value in the life of the believer. T-SY 201 Bible Doctrine I (3) A systematic study of the Biblical doctrines of the Scriptures, the Person of God the Father, and the Person and work of Christ. T-SY 202 Bible Doctrine II (3) A systematic study of the Biblical doctrines of the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit; the origin, nature, and destiny of angels and Satan; and the origin, nature, and destiny of man. T-SY 301 Bible Doctrine III (2) A systematic study of the Bible's teaching concerning sin and the various facets of salvation. T-SY 302 Bible Doctrine IV (2) A systematic study regarding the church as God's unique undertaking in this dispensation and a presentation of the Baptist distinctive. A careful study is also made of the panorama of prophetic events. T-SY 304 Apologetics/Christian Evidences and Contemporary Christendom (3) A formal study which defends, on the grounds of reason, the divine origin and authority of Christianity. The course includes a brief introduction to various apologetic systems, the value of apologetics, and extensive treatment of Christian evidences--particularly emphasizing the inspiration and reliability of the Bible, a brief look at the rise and influence of theological liberalism, and the major characteristics of New Evangelicalism.
Sunup to Sundown - EnergyGauge USA 2.0 Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) You need special tools to design high-performance homes - residences where energy efficiency creates greater comfort, health, and energy savings. Making decisions about energy efficiency requires the accurate calculation of energy use and demand, and the comprehensive evaluation of proposed improvements. A new software tool helps meet these requirements. EnergyGauge USA, an hourly simulation tool for the design and analysis of high-performance homes, performs detailed hourly simulation analysis for energy use, ratings and code calculations. Version 2.0 adds many features to the first-generation product, including thermal mass, photovoltaic (PV) system simulation, solar water heating, and detailed hourly outputs. The software, designed by the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), provides a user-friendly front end to simulate a residential building. It uses the DOE-2 engine with new functions, including a detailed attic model, thermal distribution systems, and HVAC performance modeling (see Parker et. al, 1999). The software has three entry modes: International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), rating, and detailed. Under detailed entry mode, all inputs are available to the user for altering. Code and rating entry modes do not allow certain variables to be altered due to the governing rules. For a typical building, Version 2 computes an annual energy analysis in less than five seconds on a 2.4 Ghz machine. Calculations include annual energy use, IECC calculation, energy ratings, system-sizing based on ACCA Manual J seventh edition, and economic analysis of improvements. The program has passed the HERS BestTest (Fairey et. al), a verification procedure developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to determine the accuracy and effectiveness of the energy load prediction capability of software tools used for home energy ratings. EnergyGauge USA has also been verified against measured data (see Figure 1 and Fuehrlein, et. al.). Figure 1. Measured and modeled temperature data using EnergyGauge USA. The measured peak on day 140 was during SF6 infiltration testing by staff and was not modeled by the software. One drawback of many design tools has been their inability to include windows and doors in an accurate, easy manner. Wall descriptions are now entered by orientation with doors and windows located within a wall. Even insect screens and their shading effects are included for windows. In addition to the various wall constructs, a separate thermal mass input screen has been added to allow for greater accuracy of passive solar heating options. Evaporative cooling systems are now modeled as well. Utility rate inputs have been expanded. Waterheater tank wraps and refrigeration have been added to refine estimates of appliance energy use. In the pursuit of zero energy homes, two important renewable strategies are featured with detailed simulations: solar water heating and solar-electric systems (PV). Solar Thermal Systems Most building simulations use simple solar savings fractions for solar thermal systems, which do not account for climate-specific performance. EnergyGauge USA 2.0 allows users to enter detailed descriptions for solar waterheating systems (see Figure 2) so users can match solar thermal systems with climate-specific performance. The model accounts for pumping energy or allows for a PV pump to be specified. The program provides default solar inputs that enable users to explore the potential for solar without having detailed system specifications. The photovoltaic system is modeled with Sandia National Laboratory’s PVForm, providing a detailed analysis based on the module, orientation, tilt, and inverter. Databases of current PV modules and inverters are included with the software. A new set of reports, pertinent to PV, has been added (see peak summer day performance in Figure 3). System-sizing and the evaluation of alternative designs are essential for efficiency. EnergyGauge always included a multitude of reports, from a simple annual simulation summary to system sizing reports and comparison reports for input, energy use and economic analysis. Version 2.0 adds the ability to export hourly data to a spreadsheet or database, as well as new hourly reports and graphs. Users can select any day of the year or any consecutive period, graph a daily profle, and compute minimum, maximum, average and total values for the parameter. These new reporting and exporting features allow greater use of the software for utility planning programs.
I recently wrote an article about my complicated relationship with corn for Edible Toronto Magazine (something which I've blogged about before). I'll warn you this is a longer-than-usual post - although it's actually a pared-down version of the full Edible Toronto article - but bear with me. If you love corn, you should read this. And if you don't have time, please watch this video I made to accompany the article. My recipe for summery sweet corn chowder is below. I’ve never been a picky eater. In fact, aside from a short-lived vegetarian stint as a teenager, I have always considered myself a proud omnivore. I will eat anything and everything, and with gusto! I am what we call in French a gourmande. I simply love to eat. And I used to sink my teeth into an ear of corn without hesitation, anticipating only the pure pleasure that a juicy, golden cob can provide on a sunny summer day. But in the late 1990s I read something that completely changed my eating habits: the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes sold in Canada contained genetically engineered corn whereas the same cereal in Europe did not. I was annoyed to learn that we Canadians had so passively allowed these new mystery ingredients into our foods so I dove headfirst into a research and film project about genetically engineered (GE) foods, or GMOs, as they are more commonly known. And I was so dismayed with what I found out that I decided to do everything in my power to avoid eating them. But this isn't as easy as it seems since the three main GE foods – canola, soy and corn – are in about 80 percent of the processed foods found in our grocery stores (click here for a long list of hidden GMO ingredients). Since these aren't labeled, a convoluted guessing game begins. And since most farm animals are fed GE soy and corn, suddenly meat and dairy were out for me as well, unless they were certified organic. (Organic certification prohibits the use of GMOs.) So what happened is I went from being an omnivore to being a very, very picky eater! It isn't easy to explain it to people. It just doesn’t come out very smoothly, no matter which way you cut it. At least vegetarians, diabetics, heck, even vegans get a little understanding and respect. But try explaining that you’ll take a pass on those nachos because they are likely made with genetically engineered corn, cooked in genetically engineered canola oil, and smothered in cheese from cows that were fed genetically engineered soy and corn. If you ever want to create an instant awkward silence followed by a raging debate at a dinner party, I recommend this technique. But seriously, you do end up sounding like an annoyingly paranoid food snob who asks way too many questions; someone nobody wants to eat dinner with. So over the years I have learned to be increasingly discreet about my non-GMO inclinations when dining in public. But then again, isn’t that what landed us here in the first place? We Canadians are just so polite and docile about everything. Maybe if we put up a good food fight, we would actually stand a chance at proper labelling and knowing what we're eating (which by the way, may be about to happen in California! Goooo California! Vote yes for labelling!) I used to be somewhat comforted by the knowledge that most of the GE corn on the market was field corn intended for animal feed or processed foods. There were virtually no genetically engineered sweet corn varieties being grown in Canada. I could still indulge in my beloved slathered-in-butter corn on the cob as much as I wanted. But all of this changed last summer when a variety of not-so-sweet GE sweet corn called Attribute, from the company Syngenta, started being grown and sold in Ontario. With a heavy heart, I scratched yet another one of my favourite foods from my list. I wanted to find out if I should be on the lookout for any other new GE sweet corn varieties this summer, so I consulted Health Canada’s list of approved “plants with novel traits,” as they mysteriously prefer to call them. I could see that various varieties of GE corn had been approved over the years, but that they were all field corn varieties. So I contacted Health Canada to inquire about sweet corn specifically. They informed me that they do not provide “information on which varieties of sweet corn are currently being grown in Canada.” So I contacted Lucy Sharratt at the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN). She confirmed that it is next to impossible to obtain this kind of information from our government. “You practically have to be a detective to find out what GE crops are being grown and sold in Canada”, she explained. Lucy informed me that, in addition to Attribute, there are three varieties of Monsanto sweet corn on the market this year, modestly dubbed Temptation II, Obsession II and Passion II. When I hear these names, I can’t help but simultaneously think of bad perfumes. . . and the witch and her shiny, poisonous apple in Snow White, but I digress. By now you’re probably wondering what the big deal is. Why not just eat the darn corn and stop worrying so much. Usually, when people ask me why I go through all the trouble, I recommend that they watch The World According to Monsanto, a film by award-winning journalist Marie-Monique Robin. It answers a lot of questions and is a real eye-opener. But I suppose that, fundamentally, it’s the idea of genetic engineering that disturbs me most since it involves artificially forcing genetic material from one organism into the DNA of an entirely different species, something that doesn’t happen in nature, and with consequences that are difficult to predict. Then there are the increasing number of peer-reviewed animal-feeding studies showing evidence of organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, and reproductive failure. And earlier this year, scientists at the University of Caen in France showed that the Bt protein found in genetically engineered corn can be toxic to human cells, an alarming discovery given that last year doctors at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found Bt toxin from GE corn in the blood of 93 percent of the pregnant women they studied. When people hear of my aversion to GE corn, I am often asked if I would rather have pesticides on my food. The answer, of course, is no. But the reality is that if GE corn isn’t sprayed with pesticides (which it usually is), that’s because it has been engineered to create its own pesticide. The pesticide is now inside the plant rather than outside of it. In fact, the cultivation of genetically engineered crops has led not to a decrease, as we are often told, but to an increase of 383 million pounds of herbicide use in the U.S. over the first thirteen years of GMO cultivation. This increase is due in part to the emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds (or “superweeds”) caused by herbicide- resistant GMOs, such as Round-Up-resistant crops. And since these herbicide-resistant superweeds are becoming harder and harder to control using conventional herbicides like Round-Up, companies are now turning to stronger and more toxic chemicals, as Andrew Kimbrell explains in my video above. Given all of this, you’d think that our government would conduct thorough scientific studies before approving new genetically engineered foods but, instead, it relies on industry studies done by the very companies seeking approval (and profits) for these new foods. In 2001, the federal government was blasted by an Expert Panel of the Royal Society of Canada for its flawed and inadequate regulatory system when it comes to GMOs. The panel, a senior body of preeminent scientists and scholars, made 58 detailed recommendations for improving the regulatory system and approvals process to ensure it does what it is meant to do, which is to protect Canadians. Alarmingly, only 2 of the 58 recommendations were implemented.
September is the peak month for tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic. During the satellite era starting in 1966, the Atlantic has averaged 3.7 tropical storms and 2.4 hurricanes during the month of September. South Florida residents breathed a sigh of relief after Isaac recently passed through without strengthening to a hurricane until it got into the Gulf of Mexico. Now we wonder where the next tropical storm will form. There is a low pressure system currently located over the Gulf of Mexico just off the western Florida panhandle. The National Hurricane Center is giving this disturbance a low chance of developing into a tropical cyclone over the next couple of days. Regardless of whether it develops or not, it has the potential to bring additional rains to portions of Florida. In addition, the global models are nearly unanimous in developing a tropical wave forecast to come off the coast of Africa later this week. It is obviously way too early to predict where this disturbance will go. The formation point graphic shows where all the tropical storms (a total of 496) have formed in the Atlantic Basin during the month of September from 1851 through 2011. A lot of them formed in the deep tropics between Africa and the Caribbean similar to recent Hurricane Isaac and Tropical Storm Leslie that is currently headed in the general direction of Bermuda. The historical record shows a couple of the most memorable September hurricanes to strike South Florida: the costliest United States hurricane on record after adjusting for inflation, population and wealth – the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926; and the second deadliest United States hurricane on record – the Lake Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928. Both the 1926 and 1928 hurricanes formed in the deep tropical Atlantic. The formation point graphic shows many storms forming elsewhere over the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico as well as a fair number over the Caribbean. No one can tell you at the moment where the next storm will form, but it is a sure bet that other tropical cyclones will develop before the season ends. We are still in the peak of the hurricane season.
Title: Thomas Long, Buckfield, 1848 Contributed by: Turner Museum and Historical Society Contributed by: Stanley Museum Media: Black and White Photograph Tax Records Showing 3 of 8 View All Address: 98 Rackleff Street, Portland Owner in 1924: Annie M. Long Address: Chester Street, Portland Owner in 1924: Devisees of John N. Long The largest textile factory in the country reached seven stories up on the banks of the Saco River in 1825, ushering in more than a century of making cloth in Biddeford and Saco. Along with the industry came larger populations and commercial, retail, social, and cultural growth. Valentines Day cards have long been a way to express feelings of romance or love for family or friends. These early Valentines Day cards suggest the ways in which the expression of those sentiments has changed over time. Maine has a long history of boat and ship-building, spurred by the timber resources and the many sheltered ports along the coast. Shipping and trade were especially important in Maine in the 19th century.
“What do you think of the machine-gun? Wouldn’t you rather have a typewriter or a camera?” Decent people, who take a pride in sociology, sometimes when they are faced with the realities of the revolution, pose questions of this ... calibre. Some of them wax lyrical in disapproval of all violence and all dictatorship. To put an end to oppression, poverty, prostitution and war, they trust only in the intervention – above all the literary intervention – of the Mind. In fact enjoying considerable comfort in society as it is, they haughtily place themselves “above the social melée”. What they especially prefer to the machine-gun is the typewriter. Others, without repudiating violence, formally repudiate dictatorship. The revolution appears to tern to be a miraculous liberation. They dream of a human race made instantly peaceful and good by the removal of its bonds. They dream, in defiance of history, truth, common sense and their own experience, of a total revolution, doubtless not only idyllic, but short, decisive and definitive, leading to a radiant morrow. “Fresh and joyous”, one would say, so much does this conception of the final struggle resemble the official myth of the “war to end war” dreamt up in 1914 by the allied bourgeoisies. No period of transition; no dictatorship of the proletariat (“Down with all dictatorship!”); no repression after the workers’ victory; no revolutionary tribunals, no Cheka! – above all, ye gods, no Cheka! – no more prisons ... A smooth entry into the free city of communism, the arrival straight after the tempest at the Blessed Isles. What these revolutionaries – our libertarian brothers – prefer to the machine- gun is ... garlands of roses, red roses. A third lot, finally, profess that for the moment the monopoly of the use of the machine gun should be left to the possessing classes, and that one should try to lead them on gently, by persuasion, to give them up ... Meanwhile, these reformers take infinite pains to get ultra- rapid firing regulated by international conference ... They appear to be divided into two categories: those who genuinely prefer negotiation to the machine-gun; and those who, because they are practical and free from illusions, honestly prefer the use of asphyxiating gases. In fact nobody – except perhaps a few manufacturers of arms and ammunition – has any special predilection for the machine-gun. But the machine-gun exists. It is a reality. Once the mobilisation order goes out, you have the choice of being in front of it or behind it: of serving the symbolic death-machine or being its target. We advise workers to turn to a third solution: to seize the murder instrument and turn it against those who made it. The Russian Bolsheviks were saying from 1915: “Turn the imperialist war into civil war.” Everything we have just said about the machine-gun applies to the State and its apparatus of constraint: prisons, courts, the police, the security services. The revolution does not have a choke of weapons. It amasses on its bloody arena those forged by history, those which have just fallen from the hands of a defeated ruling class. Yesterday, to constrain the exploited, the bourgeoisie had to use a heavy apparatus of coercion; today, to break the final resistance of the dispossessed exploiters, to stop them taking back the power, and then oblige them to abdicate their privileges for good, the proletariat and the peasantry require a powerful apparatus of repression. The machine-gun does not disappear, it changes hands. There is no question of choosing the ploughshare instead ... We should however be on guard against simplistic metaphors and analogies. It is not in the nature of the machine-gun itself to change, whatever use is made of it. Whether it is muzzled with a cardboard plug and installed in a museum; whether it is used harmlessly in school training sessions; whether it is held by a ploughman from Beauce cowering in a shell-hole, to pierce the flesh of the Westphalian peasants who are his brothers; whether it is set up on the threshold of an expropriated palace, holding the counter-revolution at bay – not a thread, not a screw is changed ... An institution, on the contrary, does change along with the men and still more, infinitely more, the classes which make use of it. The army of the feudal monarchy before the French Revolution of 1789-1793, a small full-time army, formed by bought mercenaries and poor devils recruited by force, and commanded by nobles, in no way resembles the army which comes after the bourgeois revolution, a nation in arms, spontaneously answering the call that “The fatherland is in danger” – an army commanded by former sergeants and by professional soldiers. Equally deep is the difference between the imperial army of the old regime in Russia, led to defeat by one Grand-Duke Nicholas, with an officer caste, harshly imposed service and a “gagging” regime – and the Red Army organised by the Communist Party, with Trotsky as its great moving spirit, with its worker commissars, its propaganda services, its daily appeals to the class consciousness of the soldier, its epic victories ... Equally deep, if not more so, is the difference between the bourgeois state, destroyed from top to bottom by the Russian Revolution of October 1917, and the proletarian state built on the rubble. We have raised the question of repression. We shall see that the analogy between the repressive apparatus of the bourgeois state and that of the proletarian state is much more apparent than real. In mid-November 1917, the Soviets, exclusive holders of power for a few days, had carried a complete insurrectional victory throughout Russia, and now saw the era of difficulties opening up. To continue the revolution was going to be a hundred times more difficult for them than it had been to make it and take the power. In the big towns there was not a public service or an administration working. The technicians’ strike threatened the most densely populated towns with untold calamities. Water, electricity and provisions might run out in a few days; with the sewage-works out of action, epidemics were to be expected; transport was more than a little precarious, and supplies were a problem. The first People’s Commissars who came to take possession of the ministries found the offices empty and closed up, with the cupboards locked, and a few hostile, obsequious porters waiting for the new masters to have the empty drawers of the secretaries forced open ... This sabotage by the bureaucracy and technicians, organised by the capitalists (the “striking” civil servants got a stipend from a Committee of plutocrats), lasted for several weeks at its sharpest, and for months, even years, in attenuated form. Meanwhile the civil war was slowly hotting up. The victorious revolution, not the least inclined to shed blood, in fact showed a dangerous degree of indulgence to its enemies. Freed on parole (as in the case of General Krasnov) or ignored, the monarchist officers assembled hastily in the South, forming the first nuclei of the armies of Kornilov, Alexeyev, Krasnov, Denikin and Wrangel. The magnanimity of the young Soviet republic was to cost her rivers of blood for years. The historians will certainly ask themselves one day – and communist theoreticians would undoubtedly do well to keep ahead of the work of the historians – whether, with greater rigour at the outset, with a dictatorship which had been obliged to reduce the enemy classes to impotence without delay by measures of public safety, even when these classes may have appeared passive – whether Red Russia could not in this way have spared herself something of the horrors of civil war and the double terror of Red and White. This was apparently Lenin s thinking, as he set himself very early on to combat hesitations and half measures in repression, just as in everything else. It was Trotsky’s conception, spelt out in certain draconic orders to the Red Army and in Terrorism and Communism. It was Robespierre’s, telling the Convention on January 16, 1792: “Clemency which makes pacts with tyranny is barbarous.” The theoretical conclusion which seems to come out of the Russian experience is that a revolution cannot at its beginnings be either merciful or indulgent, but must be harsh. In the class war, it is necessary to strike hard, and carry off decisive victories, so as not to have constantly to reconquer new ground, with constant new risks and new sacrifices. Between October and December 1917, revolutionary justice carried out only 21 executions, the majority of them of social scum. The Extraordinary Commission for the Repression of Counter-Revolution and Speculation, Cheka for short, was founded on December 7, in the face of increasingly bold operations by the enemy within. What was the situation at that point? In general outline, as follows: The embassies and military missions of the Allies were centres of permanent conspiracy. Counter-revolutionaries of every hue there found subsidies, weapons, political direction. The industrialists, placed under workers’ control or dispossessed, were sabotaging production with the aid of the technicians. Tools, raw materials, stock, work secrets, everything which could be hidden was hidden, everything which could be stolen was stolen. The transport union and the co-ops, directed by the Mensheviks, aggravated the problem of supplies. Speculation made scarcity worse, and aggravated inflation. The bourgeois Cadets (Constitutional Democrats) were conspiring; the Socialist-Revolutionaries were conspiring; the Populists were conspiring; the Menshevik social-democrats were conspiring; the anarchists were conspiring; the intellectuals were conspiring; the officers were conspiring; each town had its secret chiefs-of-staff, its provisional governments, together with administrators and hangmen, ready to emerge from the shadows after the imminent coup. It was doubtful who could be rallied. On the Czechoslovak front, the commander-in-chief of the Red Army, Muraviev, was preparing to betray and go over to the enemy. The Socialist-Revolutionaries were preparing to assassinate Lenin and Trotsky. Uritsky and Volodarsky were killed in Petrograd. Nakhimson was killed in Yaroslavl. Uprising of the Czechoslovaks; uprisings at Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, Murom, Kazan ... Plot by the Union for the Fatherland and Liberty; plots by the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries; attacks by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries; the Lockhart affair (the British acting consul in this case was less fortunate than M. Noulens). Plots would follow one after the other for years, undermining the state from within in line with the external offensive of the White armies and foreign intervention. There was to be the affair of the Tactical Centre in Moscow; the activities of the Englishman Paul Dukes and the Tagantsev case in Petrograd; the attack by Leontievsky in Moscow (the case of the “clandestine anarchists”); the betrayals of the fort of Krasnaya-Gorka and the Semenovsky Regiment ; the economic counter-revolution and speculation. For years, directors of nationalised enterprises would in fact remain in the service of the expropriated capitalists, giving them information, carrying out their orders, sabotaging production in their interest; there would be countless abuses and excesses of all kinds, the leading party would be infiltrated by those who like to go fishing in troubled waters – mistakes by some, corruption on the part of others; petty-bourgeois individualism would be unleashed in chaotic struggles ... There was no question about the need for repression. The Cheka was no less indispensable than the Red Army and the Commissariat for Supplies. A hundred and twenty years before, in a similar situation, the French Revolution had reacted in an almost identical manner. The revolutionaries of 1792 had their Committee of Public Safety, their Revolutionary Tribunal, Fouquier-Tinville, and the guillotine. Nor should we forget Jourdan the Head-Chopper or Carrier of Nantes. The September days, the ban on emigrés, the law on suspects, the hunt for disaffected priests, the depopulation of the Vendée, the destruction of Lyon ... “All internal enemies must be killed,” Danton quite simply said, “in order to triumph over our external enemies.” And accused before she Revolutionary Tribunal – he, the “minister of the Revolution”, of the September massacres, accused of wanting clemency – he cried out: “What does it matter if they call me the drinker of blood? Let us drink the blood of the enemies of mankind, if we have to ...” I shall quote, not Marat, whom proletarian revolutionaries might with some reason claim to follow, but the great orator of the moderate party of the bourgeois revolution, Vergniaud. Requesting summary – terrorist – proceedings against the emigrés in the Legislative Assembly, on October 25, 1791, the tribune of the Gironde said: Legal proof! You count at nothing the blood this will cost you! Legal proof! Ah! We would rather avoid the disasters which would provide us with such proof! By what strange aberration do the bourgeois of the 3rd Republic, whose ancestors used terror to defeat the monarchy, the nobility, the feudal clergy and foreign intervention, wax so indignant against the Red terror? We do not deny that terror is terrible. Threatened with death, the proletarian revolution resorted to it in Russia for three years, from 1918 to 1921. It is too readily forgotten that apart from the revolutions necessary to give it birth, bourgeois society took centuries of terror to emerge and grow. Big capitalist property took shape over the centuries through the implacable eviction of the tillers of the soil; manufacturing and then industrial capital were accumulated by the implacable exploitation, aided by bloody legislation, of the dispossessed peasantry, reduced as they were to beggary. This appalling page of history is passed over in silence in school text-books and even in great works. We know of only one full account – concise but masterly – and that is by Karl Marx in Chapter XXVI of Capital: Primitive Accumulations. “At the end of the 15th and during the whole of the 16th century,” Marx writes, “throughout Western Europe there was a bloody legislation against vagabondage. The fathers of the present working class were chastised for their enforced transformation into vagabonds and paupers.” One of the aims of this very specific legislation was to supply industry with manpower. The lash was the sentence for vagrants, slavery for those who refused to work (Edward VI, King of England, decreed in 1547), branding with a red-hot iron for those who tried to escape, and death for persistent offenders! Theft was to be punished by death. According to Thomas More, “7,200 great and petty thieves were put to death in the reign of Henry VIII”. England then had a population of three to four million. “In Elizabeth’s time, rogues were trussed up apace, and there was not one year commonly wherein three or four hundred were not devoured and eaten up by the gallows.” During this glorious reign, vagrants of over 18 whom nobody would hire for at least 2 years were put to death. In France, “at the beginning of Louis XVI’s reign (Ordinance of July 13th, 1777) every man in good health from 16 to 60 years of age, if without means of subsistence and not practising a trade, is to be sent to the galleys.” In one of her letters of which literary people are so fond, Madame de Sévignt speaks with charming simplicity of the customary hangings of peasants. For centuries, justice has been nothing but terror organised to the advantage of the possessing classes. To steal from a rich man has always been a greater crime than to kill a poor man. Since the falsification of history required by the class interests of the bourgeoisie is the rule in the educational systems of all democratic countries, so far as I know there is still no serious history of social institutions in French at the disposal of the schools or the public. We are in fact obliged to resort to documentation on Russia. The Marxist historian M.N. Pokrovsky, in his remarkable History of Russian Culture, devotes a chapter of some 20 pages to the subject of justice. Under Ivan III, in the fifteenth century, justice was administered by the boyars, the dvoriani – the nobility, the privileged caste of landowners – and by “good” (meaning more precisely by rich) peasants. The opinion of a few “good people” was more than enough to justify a death sentence, when, naturally, the accused was a poor man. “By the end of the fifteenth century,” writes M.N. Pokrovsky, “it was already clear that the suppression of suspects was the essence of the law.” Suspects to whom? To the rich, of course. A document dating from 1539 confers the right of dispensing justice on the nobles (the boyars) assisted by “worthies” (rich peasants). The statute laid down the death penalty for “brigands whether caught in flagrante delicto or not” and authorised the torturing of “bad people”. Once the confession was obtained, the “guilty” party would be hanged; if he did not confess, he could still be imprisoned for life. The ordinances according this right did not admit that a nobleman could be put on trial: the law could only begin to be applied to peasants, merchants and craftsmen, and became rigorous only in the case of the poor. To grasp the ferocity of this justice, it is only necessary to go over the history of the peasant revolutions – the Peasants Wars in Germany, the “jacqueries” in France – which marked the emergence of capitalist property. Similar institutions existed in all countries where there was serfdom. This class justice of the feudal class of landowners did not completely disappear, giving way only gradually to the more complete but no less ferocious class justice of the absolute monarchies, characterised by the growing importance of commerce. Up until the bourgeois revolution – until the most recent period of history – there was no equality before justice, not even a purely formal equality, between rich and poor ... Did the Soviet revolution in Finland, repressed in 1918 by the White Guards of Mannerheim in alliance with the German rearguard of von der Golz, strike some of its enemies before falling? Probably; but the number was so small that the bourgeoisie didn’t even keep account of them. On the contrary, in this country of 3,500,000 inhabitants, in which the proletariat is not a high proportion of the population, 11,000 workers were shot by the people of order and more than 70,000 were interned in the concentration camps. The Soviet Republic of Hungary (1919) was founded almost without bloodshed, thanks to the spontaneous abdication of the (bourgeois) government of Count Karolyi. When the People’s Commissars of Budapest judged the situation desperate, they in turn abdicated, handing over power to the social-democrats. For the three months that it lasted, the dictatorship of the Hungarian proletariat, though constantly threatened by internal plots and by the Czechoslovak and Roumanian invasions across its frontiers, killed a total of 350 of its enemies – including the counter-revolutionaries who fell, arms in hand, in local uprisings. Horthy’s courts and officer gangs killed thousands of people in “reprisals” and interned, imprisoned and maimed tens of thousands. The Munich Soviet (1919), in response to the massacre of 23 red prisoners by the “regular” army, shot 12 hostages. After the Reichswehr entered Munich, 505 people were shot in the town, 321 of them without the slightest pretence of justice. This number included some 60 Russians picked up by chance. There are no valid statistics on the victims of the White terror in Russia in the areas where counter-revolution and foreign intervention triumphed. But the victims of the anti-semitic pogroms in the Ukraine alone, under General Denikin, are estimated at one million. The Jewish population of whole towns (such as Fastov) was systematically wiped out. The number of workers who died in the repression of workers’ insurrections in Germany, from 1918 to 1921, was estimated at 15,000. I shall not record here either the names of martyrs or symbolic episodes. I am only trying quickly to give certain principles a grounding in facts. There have been too many painful experiences which should have clarified the proletariat on this point – too many dictatorships, too many White Terror regimes are still in operation for detailed examples to be necessary. From Gallifet to Mussolini, via Noske, the repression of revolutionary proletarian movements, even when accepted and presided over by social democrats, as happened in Germany, is characterised by the evident determination to strike at the living strength of the labouring classes: in other words to physically exterminate the leaderships as far as possible. Repression is one of the essential functions of all political power. The revolutionary State, at least in the first phase of its existence, needs it more than any other. It appears that in its three basic elements – the police, the army, the courts and prisons – the mechanism of repression and coercion does not vary. We have just made a study of a secret police force. We have gone into its most secret recesses and dirtiest corners. And we have seen its impotence. In the hands of the ancien régime, as we said, this weapon could neither save it nor destroy the revolution. We do however admit of the decisive efficacy of this same weapon in the hands of the revolution. The weapon is only the same in appearance: an institution, we repeat, undergoes profound transformation according to the class it serves and the ends it pursues. From top to bottom, the Russian Revolution destroyed the coercive apparatus of the ancien régime. On these ruins, it triumphantly built its own apparatus of force. In bourgeois society, power is exercised by rich minorities against poor majorities. A government is only ever an executive committee of an oligarchy of financiers supported by the privileged classes. Legislation aimed at maintaining in obedience all the wage workers – the majority of the population – must of necessity be very complex and very severe. Every serious attack on property must in one way or another result in the suppression of the guilty party. Thieves are no longer hanged; not because “humanitarian principles” are “making progress”, but because the balance of forces between the possessing classes and the non-possessing classes and the development of class consciousness among the poor no longer permit the judge to throw such insults at the poor. But – and we are only speaking of French law, which is of only medium ferocity – major theft is punished by forced labour; and the sentence of forced labour is carried out in such circumstances and with such “supplementary conditions” that the life of the convict is certain to be broken. Every sentence of five years hard labour means a double sentence: once set free, the prisoner is obliged to remain in the colonies for a period equal to his stay in prison; those sentenced to more than eight years hard labour are condemned to stay in Guyana for life. This is the most unhealthy of the French colonies! Banishment, the “supplementary” life sentence, also means Guyana, and is very close to being forced labour. It is the lot above all of repeated offenders in non-professional crime. Four sentences of theft, larceny etc – the successive theft of four 100-sous coins would be a case in point, and I have leafed through enough criminal files to know that this is the kind of case at issue – can lead to banishment. Or seven sentences for vagrancy. In other words, to be found on seven successive occasions on the streets of Paris with no bread and no roof over your head is a crime punishable by a life sentence. In England and Belgium, where there are workhouses and depots de mendicité (beggars’ centres), the repression of begging and vagrancy is no less implacable. One more thing. The bosses have need of man-power and cannon-fodder: the law punishes abortion implacably. The eternal nature of private property arid wage labour being taken for granted at the outset, no effective remedy can be applied to social ills such as crime. A permanent battle is on between Order and Crime, “the army of Crime”, army of the poor, the army of the victims, of the irresponsible, who are pointlessly and indefinitely decimated. The point has still not been made clearly enough that the struggle against crime is an aspect of the class struggle. At least three quarters of common law criminals belong to the exploited classes. The penal code of the proletarian state does not, as a general rule, allow the death penalty in criminal cases (except sometimes where the physical suppression of particular incurable, dangerous madmen is the only solution). Nor does it allow life sentences. The severest sentence is ten years imprisonment. Deprivation of liberty, a measure taken for the safety of society and for re-education, is conceived of as excluding the medieval idea of punishment, of suffering imposed by way of expiation. In this realm, and in the present situation of the Soviet Union, the material possibilities are naturally far behind the aim in view. The building of the new society – which will be without prisons – does not begin with the construction of ideal prisons. This is beyond doubt; but the impulse is there, and a thorough reform has begun. Like the legislature, the courts, from the clearest class standpoint, take account of the social causes of crime, and the social origins and situation of the criminal. Being without bread or lodging, as we have seen, is a serious crime in Paris; in Moscow it is, in a criminal case, an important mitigating circumstance. Under bourgeois law, to be poor is often a crime, and always an aggravating circumstance or ground for presuming guilt. Under proletarian law, to be rich – even within the very strict limits in which, during the period of the NEP, individual enrichment is tolerated – is always an aggravating circumstance. The great liberal doctrine of the State from which the capitalist rulers have only really deviated in wartime – when they had their own war capitalism, characterised by state control of production, strict control of trade and of the distribution of products (with rationing cards), a state of emergency etc – advocates the non-interference of the State in economic life. In political economy it adheres to the laissez-faire, laissez-passer position of the Manchester school. The State is considered to be the instrument for the collective defence of the possessing classes; a war machine against competing national groups, a machine for repressing the exploited. The administrative functions of the State are reduced to a minimum; it is under the influence of socialism and the pressure of the masses that the modem State not so long since took over the management of public education. The economic functions of the State are reduced, as far as possible, to the establishment of customs tariffs aimed at protecting industrialists against foreign competition. (Labour legislation is always a gain of the workers’ movement.) In a word, respect for capitalist anarchy is the rule for the State. Whether you produce, sell, re-sell, speculate without limit, with no concern for the general interest: it’s all right. Competition is the law of the market. Crises thus become the great regulators of economic life; they rectify the errors of the big industrialists at the expense of the workers, the lower middle classes and the weakest capitalists. Even when big trusts ruling over whole countries effectively suppress competition in vast spheres of production and trade, the old doctrine of the State, so much in line with the interests of the Kings of Steel, Coal, Salt Pork or Shipping, remains generally untouched: such is the case in the United States. This recollection of facts which everybody should know is obligatory for us in order to make a better definition of the workers’ and peasants’ State, as in the Soviet Union, with its nationalisation of the land, minerals, transport, large-scale industry and foreign trade. The Soviet state governs economic life. It acts each day directly in the essential functions of economic life. Within the narrow limits in which it permits capitalist initiative, it controls and regulates it, exercising a double tutelage over it: by law and by what we may call direct action on the market, credit and production. The prevention of crises is one of the most characteristic features of the policy of the Soviet state. Every effort is made to eliminate crises from the time the first symptoms appear; it is not unreasonable to predict, once social development has reached a certain point, that they can be completely eliminated. Whereas the capitalist state is content on principle only to fight the ultimate effects of social causes it does not permit itself to tackle, the Soviet State takes action on these causes. Begging, prostitution, the precarious state of public health, crime, the decline of the population and the low birth-rate, are only the effects of deep-lying economic causes. After each economic crisis, crime increases; it can’t be otherwise. And the capitalist courts become doubly severe. For the troubles caused by the normal working of the capitalist economy – anarchic, irrational, governed by the egoism of individuals and by the collective egoism of the possessing classes – the bourgeoisie knows no remedy but repression. The Soviet state, attacking the causes of the evil, has evidently much less need of repression. The more it develops, the more efficient, concerted and planned will be its economic activity, the less repression will be necessary, until the day when the intelligent management of production will, through prosperity, suppress social ins such as crime – which has to be dealt with by coercion in order to prevent the spread of the infection ... There will be much less thieving when no one is hungry any longer; there will be no thieving at all once abundance for all is accomplished. Even today – and we are a long way from our goal! – our conviction is that, contrary to appearances, the Soviet State uses infinitely less repression than any other. Just think about it: in the present economic situation of Russia, would a bourgeois government not have to rule by force to an infinitely greater extent than the Soviets? The peasantry are often discontented. They find the taxes too high and industrial articles too dear. Their discontent is sometimes expressed in acts which have to be classed as counter-revolutionary. The peasantry as a whole has nonetheless given the Soviets the military victory – the Red Army consisted above all of peasants – and continues to support them. A capitalist government, restoring the land to the landowners, would have had to contain the anger of a hundred million peasants, which it could only have done by unceasing, pitiless repression. This is precisely why all the White regimes in the pay of foreign financial interests have fallen. It is moreover too often forgotten that Soviet society, in its eighth year of existence, cannot be fairly compared to bourgeois society, which has the advantage of a tradition of authority several centuries old and more than a century of political experience. Long before 1789, the Third Estate was, contrary to Sièyes’ vehement claim, a respected force within the State. The first 50 years of economic development of the bourgeoisie were no less years of atrocious class dictatorship for that. The falsifiers of official history knowingly willed into oblivion the truth about the first half of the nineteenth century. Modern capitalism, marching on to opulence, rode over the bodies of several generations of workers who lived in hovels, slaved from dawn to dusk, had no democratic rights, and gave over their eight-year-old children to the factory, to be devoured down to the very muscles ... On the bones, flesh, blood and sweat of the generations thus sacrificed the whole of modem civilisation was built. Bourgeois science ignores them. We are obliged to refer the reader to Karl Marx’s Capital. He will find in Chapter XXIII terrible pages on England from 1846 to 1866. I cannot resist quoting a few lines from it. A doctor, charged with making an official inquiry, finds that “indeed, as regards the indoor operatives, the work which obtains the scanty pittance of food, is for the most part excessively prolonged. Yet evidently it is only in a qualified sense that the work can be deemed self-supporting.” Another investigator says there are “about 20 large colonies in London, of about 10,000 persons each, whose miserable condition exceeds almost anything he has seen elsewhere in England.” “Newcastle-on-Tyne,” says Dr Hunter, “contains a sample of the finest tribe of our countrymen, often sunk by external circumstances of house and street into an almost savage degradation.” The Standard, an English conservative paper, wrote on April 5, 1866, in relation to the jobless of London: “Let us remember what these people suffer. They are dying of hunger ... There are 40,000 of them ... In our presence, in one quarter of this wonderful metropolis, are packed – next door to the most enormous accumulation of wealth the world ever saw – cheek by jowl with this are 40,000 helpless, starving people.” “The Irish famine of 1846 killed more than 1,000,000 people ... To the wealth of the country it did not the slightest damage.” (K. Marx) To transform the sweat and blood of this people of wretches into ringing guineas of full weight, bearing the portrait of Queen Victoria; for these hopeless people, condemned by the development of mach in- cry and crises, to die in poverty, to consent to die without revolt, like tied beasts, what formidable constraint was required? But one of the principal means of capitalist constraint is clearly in evidence: hunger. It was half a century of what could be called economic terror. The worker laboured, Threatened with unemployment, threatened with dying of hunger, laboured like an industrial galley-slave, laboured like a beast, only to die of hunger in the end – after 15 short years. (We have no data on the average life expectancy of wage workers at this period, which is regrettable: such figures would sum the whole thing up.) It is still the same in our day: economic constraint – by means of hunger – is by far the most important factor, and the only really effective one, while repression only adds to it what is required to defend capitalist “order” against certain particularly worrying categories of its victims (thieves) and against revolutionaries. To repeat: terror is terrible. In civil war, for every fighter – and such wars scarcely admit of any neutral parties – it is a question of life or death. Educated in the schools of the reactionaries, the working class, living under the shadow of the threat to its life, must strike its enemies to death. Prison intimidates no-one: riots too easily break down the bolted doors which can also be opened by corruption or the ingenuity of conspirators. Another necessity impels men, at the highest point of the struggle, to resort to the terror’s ravages. From the time of the armies of ancient days, decimation is the classic way of keeping troops in obedience. It was practised during the Great War, notably on the French front after the mutinies of April 1917. This should not be forgotten. It involves executing one man in ten, without concern for the guilt or innocence of the individual. On this point, an historical observation is in order. In 1871, the Communards were more than decimated by the Versaillais. We have already quoted the moderate estimate of the number shot by Gallifet: 20,000. The Commune had 160,000 fighters. The redoubtable logic of class war – that is what the French bourgeoisie, the most enlightened in the world, the bourgeoisie of Taine and Renan! – teaches us with these figures. A class does not admit itself to be defeated, a class is not conquered, until such a high percentage of losses is inflicted on it. Imagine – a situation familiar in Russia in the heroic years of the revolution – a town of 100,000 inhabitants divided into 70,000 proletarians (I am simplifying: proletarians and related elements) and 30,000 people belonging to the bourgeoisie and the middle class, accustomed to considering themselves as forming the legitimate ruling class, educated and not lacking in material means. Is it not obvious, especially if the struggle is limited to the town, that the resistance of this counter-revolutionary force, however strongly or weakly organised, will not be broken until it has suffered some quite impressive losses? And is it not less dangerous for the revolution to strike too hard than not to strike hard enough? The bourgeoisie has furnished the exploited classes with plenty of bloody warnings. Now they are rebounding on it. History warns of this: the more suffering and poverty they inflict on the labouring classes, the more bitterly they resist the day of reckoning, the more dearly will they pay. Like the Revolutionary Tribunal of the French Revolution, but in general with rather less summary proceedings, the Cheka of the Russian Revolution dealt out justice to its class enemies, implacably and without the right of appeal; like the Revolutionary Tribunal, it judged less on the basis of depositions and precise charges and more on the enemy’s social origins, political attitude, outlook and ability to do damage. It was much more a question of striking a class trough the men belonging to it, than weighing up definite acts. Class justice only dwells on the examination of individual cases in periods of calm. Mistakes, abuses and excesses appear particularly disastrous in relation to social layers which the proletariat must seek to rally to it: the middle peasantry, lower layers of the middle classes, intellectuals with no private means; and also in relation to dissidents of the revolution, sincere revolutionaries who take up objectively counterrevolutionary positions because of ideologies far removed from an understanding of the realities of the revolution. I remember the anarchists who, in 1920, when the Red Fleet was defending Kronstadt and Petrograd with difficulty against an English attack, imperturbably went on in their few boats with their old anti-militarist propaganda. I am also thinking of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries who, in 1918, strove to throw the Soviet Republic, deprived of an army and of any kind of resources, into a new war against German imperialism, which was still strong. Between these “revolutionaries” gone astray and the men of the old regime, revolutionary repression endeavoured and must always endeavour to distinguish; but it is not always possible. In every social battle, a certain percentage of excesses, abuses and errors cannot be avoided. The duty of the party and of all revolutionaries is to work to limit these. The scale of these errors only really depends on the following factors: A certain cruelty results from the material circumstances of the struggle: full to overflowing, the prisons of a proletarian revolution do not, in respect of hygiene, bear comparison with the bourgeoisie’s “good prisons” in normal times. In besieged cities where famine and typhus rule, there are rather more deaths from this in prison than outside. What is to be done about it? When the jail is full of proletarians and peasants, this idle question does not bother the philanthropists in the slightest. At the time the Communard prisoners were held in the Satory camp, lying under the open sky on the bare ground, in the mud, shivering through terrible nights in pouring rain – forbidden to get up, and the sentinels with orders to shoot at anyone who did get up – a great philosopher, Taine, wrote: “These wretches have put themselves beyond the bounds of humanity ...” Following the seizure of power, the proletariat, called to tasks without number, firstly resolves the more important: food supplies, city organisation, external and internal defence, the inventory of expropriated goods, the seizure of wealth. It devotes its best forces to them. Revolutionary repression – and this is a cause of mistakes and abuses – is left only with second-rate personnel, albeit under leaders who absolutely must be taken from among the firmest and finest of men. (This is what the dictatorship of the proletariat did in Russia, with Dzherzhinsky – and in Hungary, with Otto Corvin.) The tasks of internally defending a revolution are often among the most delicate, the most painful and sometimes the most horrific. Some of the best of the revolutionaries – men of high conscience, scrupulous outlook and unswerving character – must devote themselves to it. Through their intervention the party exercises its control. This political and moral control – unceasing in this field as in every other – expresses both the intervention of the most conscious vanguard of the working class, and the scarcely less direct intervention of the masses of the people under the effective control of whom the party is situated in every action it takes. This guarantees the class character of the repression. The possibilities of mistakes and abuses are reduced in proportion to the forces which the vanguard of the proletariat is able to put into this sector. Police provocation is above all the weapon – or the curse – of decomposing regimes. Conscious of their impotence to prevent what is going on, the police incite initiatives which they then repress. Provocation is also a spontaneous, elementary action, resulting from the demoralisation of a police force at its wits’ end, overtaken by events, which cannot perform a task infinitely above its capacities, and nonetheless wants to justify the expectations and expenditures of its masters. The Okhrana was unable to prevent the fall of the autocracy. But the Cheka made a strong contribution to preventing the overthrow of Soviet power. The Russian autocracy in fact fell rather than being overthrown. A shaking was all it took. The old, dilapidated building, whose demolition was wished for by the great majority of the population, came tumbling down. The economic development of Russia meant the revolution was required. What could the secret police do about it? Was it up to them to solve the conflict of interests of the opposing camps of deadly enemies, desperate to escape from a situation with no way out other than the class war – the industrial and financial bourgeoisie, big landlords, the nobility, the intellectuals, the déclassés, the proletariat, the peasant masses? Their actions could only gain the ancien régime a limited reprieve, and that on condition that it agreed to certain appropriate measures of general policy. How absurd was this thin line of policemen and agents provocateurs, working blindly to turn back the beating of the waves against the old, cracked, shaking cliff, ready to crumble and engulf them! The functions of the Cheka are not so absurd. In a country divided between red and white, in which the red are naturally the majority, it seeks out the enemy, discovers him, and strikes. It is no more than a weapon, in the hands of the majority, against the minority – one weapon among many others, and an accessory one at that. It only takes on major importance because of the danger that the enemy s bullets may strike the revolution in the head. It is said that the day after the seizure of power, Lenin worked all night on the decree for the expropriation of the land. “As long,” he said, “as we have the time to get it through. Let them try to take it from us after that!” The expropriation of the lands of the nobility instantly procured the support of 100 million peasants for the Bolsheviks. Repression is effective when it completes the effect of efficient measures of general policy. Before the October Revolution, when Kerensky’s cabinet refused to satisfy the demands of the peasantry, the arrest of revolutionary agitators only increased trouble and exasperation in the villages. After the displacement of social forces which took place in the countryside through the expropriation of the land, the interests of the peasantry led them to defend Soviet power, and the arrest of Socialist-Revolutionary or monarchist agitators – the former trying to exploit their past popularity in the countryside, the latter to play on religious feelings – removed one cause of disturbance. Repression is an effective weapon in the hands of an energetic class, conscious of what it wants, and serving the interests of the greatest number. In the hands of a degenerate aristocracy, whose privileges are an obstacle to the economic development of society, it is historically ineffective. Let us not deny that it can be as useful to a strong bourgeoisie in decisive periods as to the proletariat during the civil war. Repression is effective when it acts along the lines of historical development; it is impotent in the last reckoning when it goes against the grain of historical development. On twenty occasions, at the height of the civil war as before the seizure of power, Lenin occupied himself with re-establishing Marx’s teaching on the disappearance of the State and the final abolition of constraint in communist society. One of the reasons he invokes when calling for the replacement of the word “social-democrat” by “communist” in the name of the Bolshevik Party is that “the term social democrat is scientifically inaccurate. Democracy is one of the forms of the State. Now, as Marxists, we are against all States.” I can also recall an article he wrote, in bitter days, for the 1st of May (in 1920, I believe). The iron fist of the proletarian party was still keeping war communism going. The red terror was only somewhat abated. Beyond the heroic, terrible present, the men of the revolution kept their eyes calmly fixed on the goal. Immune to any utopianism, scornful of dreamers but unshakably attached to pursuing the basic aims of the revolution, Lenin, the uncontested leader of the first proletarian State, the moving spirit of a dictatorship, would evoke the future in which work and the distribution of its products will be governed by the rule “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. Here is the supreme difference between the capitalist State and the proletarian State: the workers’ State works for its own disappearance. The supreme difference marked by the constraint-repression exercised by the dictatorship of the proletariat, is that the latter constitutes a necessary class weapon working for the abolition of all constraint. At the end of the last century, it was possible to entertain the great dream of an idyllic social transformation. Broad-minded people went in for this, scorning or twisting Marx’s science. They dreamed of the social revolution as the virtually painless expropriation of a tiny minority of plutocrats. Why should the proletariat in its magnanimity not break up the old blades and the modern firearms and grant an indemnity to its exploiters of yesterday? The last of the rich would peaceably die out, at leisure, surrounded by an atmosphere of healthy distrust. The expropriation of fit treasures accumulated by capitalists, together with the rational reorganisation of production, would instantly procure well-being and security for the whole of society. All pre-war working-class ideologies were to some degree penetrated by these false ideas. The radical myth of progress dominated. The imperialist powers were nonetheless mounting their artillery. In the Second International, a handful of revolutionary Marxists alone discerned the great outlines of historical development. In France, on the question of proletarian violence, some revolutionary syndicalists had a clear view of things ... Capitalism, previously no doubt iniquitous and cruel but wealth-creating, now, in the apogee of its history which began on August 2, 1914, became the destroyer of its own civilisation, the exterminator of its own peoples ... After its prodigious development throughout a century of discoveries and feverish advances, scientific technique, in the hands of the big bourgeois, the bankers arid the trusts, was turned against man. Everything of use for production and for extending man s power over nature, enriching his life, was now used to destroy and kill with suddenly heightened powers. A morning’s bombing was enough to destroy a city, the work of centuries of culture. One six millimetre bullet was enough to cut short the working of the best organised brain. We cannot forget that a new imperialist conflagration could mortally wound European civilisation, which has already been so hard hit. It is fair enough to predict that due to the advance of “military art”, we shall see the depopulation of whole countries by air forces armed with the chemical weapons whose unnamed dangers were denounced in 1924 in an official document by the League of Nations – whom no-one will accuse of revolutionary demagogy! The flesh and bones of the millions of dead of 1914-1918, under their patriotic monuments, were still not enough to remove this threat from mankind. Looking the harsh realities of revolution in the face, we must not forget these things. The sacrifices imposed by the civil war, the implacable necessity for terror, the rigours of revolutionary repression, and the inevitability of painful mistakes, then appear in their rightful proportions. They are the smallest of evils compared with such immense calamities. The cemetery of Verdun alone would be more than enough to justify them. “Revolution or Death.” This watchword from a fighter at Verdun still contains profound truth. In the coming dark hours of history, this will be the dilemma. The time will have arrived for the working class to carry out the harsh but salutary, saving task: the revolution.
The Blaue Reiter Almanac Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, Eds. 465 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115 0878467009 $22.50 www.mfa.org The Blau Reiter art movement began in 1911, founded by the same two young painters who here edit THE BLAUE REITER ALMANAC: it blended international culture with European avant-garde and THE BLAUE REITER ALMANAC provides essays long unavailable in English. This documentary edition is edited by Klaus Lankheit and blends art history and a survey of moments with black and white illustrations and Blaue Reiter philosophy. A 'must' for any who would understand the premises and foundation history of the Blaue Reiter movement. Single Action Sixguns Gun Digest/KP Books 700 E. State Street, Iola, WI 54990-0001 0873499530 $39.99 1-800-258-0929 From modern sixguns to antiques, the single-volume sourcebook SINGLE ACTION SIXGUNS: THE DEFINITIVE, FULLY ILLUSTRATED REFERENCE WORK covers everything in an illustrated guide and is a 'must' for gun collectors and hobbyists. Color photos appear on every page along with first- person insights on gun purchases, brands, gun tricks, production specs and more. The first-person comments throughout reflect author John Tafflin's in-depth knowledge of these guns and their history. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 0393704521 $34.00 1-800-233-4830 Both practicing therapists and those seeking to expand or enter into the field will find ONLINE THERAPY: A THERAPIST'S GUIDE TO EXPANDING YOUR PRACTICE an invaluable, unique guide. The idea here is that therapists can be empowered by embracing the Net as a medium of communication with patients, learning web-based tools from message boards to chat rooms and video conferencing to reach new clients and add access channels for those already under treatment. Since most of these methods will already be familiar to a wide audience who uses them in everyday life, the transition will be easy, and the focus of implementation in ONLINE THERAPY, rather than theory alone, assures a realistic approach. 1006 Gravenstein Hwy N., Sebastopol CA 95472 Tyler Mitchell's WEB MAPPING ILLUSTRATED: USING OPEN SOURCE GIS TOOLKITS (0596008651, $39.95) provides an important illustrated guide to building interactive maps, from working with map data while cutting expenses with the new open source tools available, to gathering map data, storing and managing it, and generating web services to gather data from different sources. An outstanding, cost-effective toolkit of options for web mappers. Digital video enthusiasts will welcome the tips offered by Joshua Paul in DIGITAL VIDEO HACKS: TIPS AND TOOLS FOR SHOOTING, EDITING, AND SHARING (0596009461, $29.95). Film novices and experts have long used workarounds and tricks to improve conventional motion pictures, so there's no reason digital video users can't employ some of the same tricks to optimize projects. Chapters cover everything from troubleshooting common problems to creating effective and unusual visual effects, fooling audiences with audio tricks and editing audio for maximum results, and adding professional features. Simply an outstanding resource for digital video editors at all levels. Cheah Chu Yeow's FIREFOX SECRETS: A NEED-TO-KNOW GUIDE (0975240242, $29.95) provides a step-by-step workbook introduction to Firefox, the noted Web browser, covering both popular and lesser-known features. Use themes to customize Firefox, access its hidden features, and use the best practices to get the most from Firefox - plus, use the accompanying CD-ROM of Thunderbird extensions and themes to further enhance Firefox's capabilities. Dan Pilone and Neil Pitman's UML 2.0 IN A NUTSHELL: A DESKTOP QUICK REFERENCE (0596007957, $34.95) reviews the language and semantics of UML, covering the latest version of the language as chapters survey diagram types, symbols, and how tagged values and UML profiles work. Don't review UML 2.0 IN A NUTSHELL as a coursebook, but as a reference to the language, helping learns develop logical UML-based software projects. Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson and Jo Walsh's MAPPING HACKS: TIPS & TOOLS FOR ELECTRONI CARTOGRAPHY (0596007035, $29.95) covers the new applications and potentials of cartographic mapping tools as they apply to GPS devices and new navigation sites online. From free map services and potentials in projecting cartographic statistics into various systems to building an in-car navigation system and taking advantage of free or inexpensive GIS programs to create maps, MAPPING HACKS packs in the reviews of a wide range of GIS programs and systems and applies them to projects and real-life applications. Hi everybody, I am back with another iteration of Kaveny's Bookshelf, with promises of a lot more to come in the next few months. But first I want give my readers an update of what I have been doing for the last several months which is to say just like Rodney Dangerfield have been am back in school for the last several semesters. In the process I would like to make a few comments about my love hate relationship to the academic world which I have strong reason to believe is reciprocal Elsewhere I have stated that I have about the same relationship to the academic world as a problem patron does to his favorite neighbor tavern. That is to say I make trouble, get warnings, I am asked to leave, stomp out swearing to now do something really interesting. As I start to do this something interesting I again realize that the academic world has something I need to continue and find myself back in the game so to speak. In way Universities are to me like banks were to reformed bank robber Willy Horton. When asked why he robbed banks he simply answered. "That's where the money is" For me if I would say the same thing about ideas, but most important collegial with others who share my interest. I would also want to this that I have a lifetime serious vocational interest in religious studies, and I am in the process of getting an intellectual and vocational retooling to pursue this interest. One my Biblical Literalist colleagues said it would help if I knew the number of books in the Christian and Hebrew Bibles. Well of course the questions depends on which of the hundreds of versions and editions ones means. I would add that Ideas and particularly literary, social, and even (much to my dismay) Freudian theories have a kind of life of there own That is to if the are solid and based on something more than mere conjecture. Then they can help us to understand thing which exists in the real world of lived experience in the built environment. I will give a few examples from some books I have read across my lifetime with purchase information so you can easily find them, and perhaps next month summarize a couple of papers and long reviews I have written, which I think are of general interest. Like everything else with me it starts with a story actually two stories which are woven together across thirty six years of my lifetime. In 1967 I left the University of Wisconsin Madison graduate school of education writing the F word on several of my final exams because the was a war going on and I found that I could not love justice and my country at the same time and left with all my bridges burning behind me. I was twenty three years old and under the mistaken and rather self important assumption that my melodramatic and self destructive gestures were something that the world cared about. When I teach as I plan to I well have an entire section in my courses on the futility of melodramatic and self destructive gestures, since I have almost in spite of myself lived through more than I can count, but not so many recently. Enter Jean Paul Sartre. And back to my story. I stayed in Madison Wisconsin because that was my home and for the next couple of years I drank hundreds of pitchers of beer and played chess and engaged in metaphysical speculation with Doctoral Candidates in a theoretical branch of mathematics called topology, but I must add my life has always been drug free. I would add that perhaps the most profound thing anybody has said about the late 1960's was that we the protestors were dead right about the war, and dead wrong about drugs. Lloyd Alexander (Translator) ISBN: 0811201880, $12.95 and she was impressed with me and I was impressed with Sartre. I would add that neither Cathy was my soul mate. That is who is my present wife of nearly twenty years and soul mate for twelve before that, but both Cathy's were in there way very kind to me, though I did not know this until a while later because in a sense brought me back into the world, and perhaps helped me to meet my soul mate. Okay by now my reader you are thinking well Philip that all very interesting but after all this is a book review column and not your autobiography. Well last night I was privileged to attend the first session of existentialism course from the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire from world class scholar Dr. Ned Beach who teaches with natural and intensity, and clarity which make the equal of great names I have taken courses from at the University of Wisconsin Madison, or I have heard on the BBC, or watched perform at over the one hundred academic conference I have participated in the last twenty five years, when I presented my first paper in a graduate student comparative literature at University of Wisconsin Madison in 1984. Six years later I returned to earn two more advanced degree. Well in any case Ned opened to a class of about thirty of us by asking if any of us knew anything about existentialism I was able to quote Sartre's on words from the introduction to Nausea where he clearly states that "existence precedes essence" Thus, Sartre re-directed three two and a half Millenniums of philosophical inquiry. So what does that mean to Me. Well it meant that I was in the world and it mattered more than anything else. In it meant in Feb 2 1971 I quit drinking booze never to drink again, and that mattered. It means we are what we do and the moral choices we make matter. And finally it means that to matters whether we act in good or bad faith. Here I am going to introduce some work I did one Albert Speer for my Holocaust studies course last semester to show how I think Sartre thinks things matter. I have some academic work to share with you in which I make uses of Sartre's concepts of Good and Bad faith but that will have to wait until next month because. I am running on empty and starting to fade. Thirty-five years have passed since the destruction caused by the Encryption Wars devastated much of society. In direct reaction, the computer based subliminal animation, known as sublimation was created to regulate actions. All humans living in Cybernetica were expected to undergo the surgical implant of a chip to control the behavior of the law abiding citizens. However, there exist those outside the domination of the implants. These are lumped together as criminals and hunted down by the leaders of the corporatism that rule the city. That in turn has led to some banding together of the fringe element. One particular group, the Drifters, plans to tear down sublimation and return civilization to its roots of freedom, but this revolt will be fought mostly in cyberspace, which is owned and controlled by the Cybernetica corporatism. However, no one is prepared for the spark, an assassination attempt of an actress or the results of the hiring from shadows of two con artists to investigate the murder. CYBERNETICA is an intriguing science fiction cautionary thriller that brings 1984 into the cyber age by depicting a society in which computers do the thinking for people. The story line moves forward on several fronts including the who-done-it, but deftly comes together with a battle to determine the future of mankind; one side wants programmed cattle while the other prefers free will. Orwellian fans and anyone who appreciate a well written exhilarating warning tale about the government-industrial-media complex telling us when to go to the bathroom will want to read this dark futuristic thriller. Murder in Montmartre ISBN: 1569474109, $23.00 In January 1995 in the working class neighborhood of Montmartre in Paris, the police arrest fellow officer Laure Rousseau for killing her partner, Jacques. She swears she is innocent as she explains to her childhood friend private investigator Aimee Leduc that Jacques was meeting an informer with her as his backup when he was killed; she was arrested because her gun was fired and residue was on her hands. She persuades Aimee of her innocence and to take on her case. Aimee knows she will find the truth somewhere in the dingiest sections of Montmartre. There she immediately meets a boy who swears he witnessed the killing; she believes him, but also knows he will not be credible with the police or the courts. Other clues lead to danger from street hooligans and a Corsican separatist group that wants Aimee to leave the neighborhood. Instead the intrepid sleuth keeps digging, but soon finds the investigation takes a side tangent involving her deceased father and buried under the soot of police indiscretions, scandals, and illegalities that seem to touch her not so clean friend. In her sixth French mystery, the Aimee Leduc tales are some of the best private investigative novels on the market over the past half a decade or so. MURDER IN MONTMARTRE is a bit darker than usual, but sill retains that powerful story line that grips the audience form the moment that the two long time friends discuss the murder. Fans will want to go with Aimee as she goes home to find clues to what went wrong in order to exonerate her buddy, but the mean streets of Montmartre are even gloomier and grittier than her nightmares. Cara Black is at her best with her latest murder in France thriller. Part One. Troy remains the only challenger to the Greek domination of the seas. However, most believe that the city-state is starting to show flab and the time to end their control of the Hellespont that links the Aegean to the Black Sea is soon. When Trojan Prince Paris allegedly abducts the beautiful Helen, Greek ruler Menelaus has his excuse to take the city. Ulysses agrees to help though he believes that Helen went willingly with her lover. Thus the lengthy Trojan War has begun (short blip in this book). This is a terrific retelling of Ulysses' Odyssey that Homer and mythological fans would appreciate, as readers tour the islands with the great champion, on his quest, as a guide. Part Two. Author David Lundberg follows much of Ulysses'' travelogue to see how much of the spirit of the great king and his peers still live in modern day Greece. Readers will enjoy the insightful tour that could stand on its own as a fine guide to the Greek islands. OLYMPIC WANDERING is an entertaining unique look at the Greek culture that will elate readers with its use of Ulysses to tell about the glorious past and tracking his trek to relate a deep look at modern Greece. Imitation being the greatest form of flatter; this reviewer expects to see similar combos of tale and a travelogue as the pairing at least by a talented writer like Mr. Lundberg makes sense while educating and entertaining. ISBN: 1416509186, $24.00 Rhavas is an honorable pious person trying to do the right thing in accordance with his beliefs in the heavenly God Phos and avoid falling into the traps of the evil God Skotos. Though cousin to the Empire of Videssos Avtokrator Maleinos II, Rhavas serves as the prelate in remote Skopentzana; of course remote was how he felt when he first was "exiled" there, but since finds he enjoys the place. Still, he hopes to one day to return to his hometown as the ecumenical patriarch of Videssos the capital city even as he wishes no ill will towards the present priest Kameniates who remains in good health. When civil war suddenly erupts, the Avtokrator recalls troops protecting the borders to defend his reign. However, the withdrawal of the border guard enables the nomadic Khamorth warriors to invade causing the residents of Skopentzana to flee. In his haste to leave, Rhavas learns he contains a lethal power to curse someone to their death, which he uses while struggling to survive amidst the chaos of the outside invaders, the rebel forces, and those loyal to the Avtokrator. As he wanders the countryside, Rhavas observes that evil seems to have triumphed over good; he logically concludes that Skotos is the more powerful of the dueling Gods. Using religious themes like the BRIDGE OF THE SEPARATOR and a "war" between heaven and hell, Harry Turtledove provides an intriguing fresh Videssos tale. Rhavas is a fascinating soul who has converted to the side of the evil one based on his observations of hellish chaos that has engulfed Videssos. Though action-packed with plenty of adventure that will grip fans of the series, it is the religious philosophical debate that rages inside the lead protagonist that makes for a strong entry as Rhavas logically argues that to the victors go the religious texts and related dogma. ISBN: 1416509194, $25.00 "The Flying Warlord". Since coming from twentieth-century Poland, Conrad Stargard has been planning for the Mongol invasion that will occur based on the history books he has studied in 1241. In his nine years in thirteenth century Poland he has brought twentieth century transportation, communication and weapons; Conrad pushed the rights of women and the poor. Now, the gazillion horde blitzkrieg begins while the Time Lords are upset with his thirteenth century reengineering. Book four in the series is a strong close out to the three previous tales that set up the Mongol Horde invasion of Poland. "Lord Conrad's Lady". Lord Conrad's wife Lady Francine is an upset woman. It is not the barbarians being defeated at the gates or that Cracow burns, or even a serial killer (another of those twentieth century oddities). It is the hotties flirting with Conrad, who acts like a rock star even as the Time Lords consider intervention. Book five feels more like an afterthought clean-up tying up loose ends that "The Flying Warlord" failed to do so. Still the time paradoxes caused by Conrad is fun to follow. "Conrad's Quest for Rubber". The Exploration Corps are on a field expedition to study the midnight sun when Conrad recalls them to send them to the Amazon Rainforest seeking rubber. They bring disease that devastates the native population while also succumbing to the local illnesses and peril. Still Lord Conrad requires rubber and so they continue the quest. The sixth tale comes across flat except perhaps for die hard fans as the tale seems like a second aftermath in spite of the Time Lords deeper involvement. Though two of the reprints seem like afterward minor tales, fans will enjoy the time travel escapades of Lord Conrad mindful of the movie Norman's Awesome Experience, but also wondering why not package The Flying Warlord with the first three thrillers. Princess of Wands ISBN: 1416509232, $25.00 Mississippi mom and loving spouse Barbara Everett believes she lives the perfect Christian life, but needs a break from domestic tranquility. However she never expected that time off would lead her to battle alien invaders using her Kung Fu skills. Though she works quietly, her efforts are noticed by a top secret group that handles supernatural cases for the FBI. This shadowy law enforcement team hires Barbara to join their spiritual squad. She soon finds herself working a paranormal case at a science fiction convention where a necromancer kills geeks, fans and writers in order to employ the brainless in a nefarious localized take over the convention scheme. Finally, Barbara visits nearby Gulfport, Mississippi to dine on Cajun food. However, instead she teams up with New Orleans Homicide Detective Sergeant Kelly Lockhart on stopping a demonic serial rape murderer the Bayou Ripper. All in the life of a soccer mom turned paranormal crime fighter. Though more like three related novellas, PRINCESS OF WANDS is a fantastic fantasy starring a wonderful heroine who just wanted a bit of excitement in her too perfect life and learned that sometimes you get what you prayed for. The interrelated tales are amusing, filled with action (some tongue in cheek), and contain a message that good always defeats evil. John Ringo is at his best with this strong Christian based fantasy that delivers its significant point through the adventures of the PRINCESS OF WANDS. ISBN: 0786018119, $6.99 The serial killer removes the entire skeleton from his victims leaving behind skin, muscle and a form of identification. New York Police Department Lieutenant Detective John Driscoll leads the difficult investigation that with each new corpse the political suits and the "elated" media exponentially raise the pressure to stop the psychopath grows though neither group has altruistic motives. The Irish Catholic lead cop also struggles with his life outside the department. His beloved wife Collette lives in a vegetative state at home as she has for five years since the accident that also killed their daughter, but his religious beliefs will not allow him to pull the plug on her; and his attraction to his partner Margaret only makes John feel more guilt. Still he compartmentalizes his personal feelings into a back brain cell because John must concentrate on stopping this particular gruesome serial killer. THE BONE THIEF makes this an exciting serial killer police procedural though readers will wonder how John can keep his wife home (not just expense - think of the complexities of Terry Shiavo) though he is also a sympathetic character for trying to do right with his spouse. The story line moves quickly especially when the killer is performing his surgery and to a lesser degree during moments of John's lament. However, the use of a young teen hacker while the cops barely can turn on their machines seem double stereotypes from an earlier computer age (even an illiterate like me can surf the net). Still this is a tense thriller that fans who appreciate a novel killer will want to read. After working Robbery/Homicide in Los Angeles and undergoing a horrible tragedy homicide detective Claire Morgan moves to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri where the biggest crimes are domestic disturbances someone stealing a lawn ornament, and x-rated phone calls. That all changes when a murder occurs at Cedar Bend Lodge which is owned and operated by the wealthy and charismatic Nicholas Black. The victim, a famous soap opera star, is found posed underwater sitting at a table covered with kitchen items as if she was waiting for a meal to be served. At first Claire thinks Nick is the most likely suspect especially when someone attacks her and puts her in the water to drown. She arrests Nick then and there she but he is released after cops prove with the security tapes he wasn't the person who attacked her. When she learns the relationship between the victim and Nick, she crosses him off her suspects list and he begins helping them profile the serial killer. The medical examiner discovers that it is the victim's body but someone else's face attached to the body. When another victim wearing the first victim's face is found in the place where they tape the soaps in L.A. is found Claire's past is exposed. Her boss is so livid he suspends her but she is later reinstated and finds herself in danger because she was the target all along. Linda Ladd has written a riveting and chilling thriller that is really two stories in one. The second story is about a child called Brat who is the victim of physical, sexual and emotional abuse who at the age of fourteen began a killing spree. He kills the victims and chops off their heads so they can keep his mother's head company. How this relates to the main storyline is an another great mystery written by an author who knows how to create two separate but parallel stories. HEAD TO HEAD IS memorizing and exciting reading and the sexual tension that exists between Claire and Nick adds an extra layer to this fantastic novel. Eight years ago, sexagenarian Walker suddenly drove over sixty miles an hour hitting head on the vehicle containing Rick Summers' mom Mari Anne and his sister Allison; their seat belts inexplicably opened a nanosecond before impact; both female Summers died. Walker walked away swearing he could not brake or steer the out of control car. Three years later Rick's dad remarried, but he never visits the Mount Moriah Cemetery near their hometown of Fair Lawn nor wants his son in his new life. Rick comes every anniversary to tell his mom and his sister how well he is doing, which he knows is a lie. Finishing his visit, Rick enters his cab, but quickly notices his human driver lying on the road dead replaced by a rotting female corpse once called Judith. Unable to escape, he is driven to the Fair Lawn home of Katarina "Kat" Petroska, whom he once loved. She is not there, but a hostile Meggan assumes Rick was stalking Kat who recently vanished. Hell has returned to Fair Lawn with Rick being the focus of one particular female resident with a memory longer than a lifetime and eternity to cause harm as she did eight years ago. This tense horror tale grips the audience from the moment that Rick turns to leave the cemetery only to hear the whisper "take care, Rick" but no one is there and never slows down until the final confrontation in Rick's hell. The frightening story line is action-packed with reanimated corpses doing harm to any one near Rick. Fans will keep the lights on all night as Gary Frank writes a scary thriller that leaves the audience constantly looking around to insure no invasions from the grave has occurred. The Light Horseman ISBN: 1932815457, $6.99 In 1917 as part of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign the Australian Light Horsemen brigade attacks the enemy lines at Beersheba. Dale Winters and his younger brother were amongst the soldiers who obeyed orders that all know probably mean their death. Dale lived while his sibling died. With the Great War over, Dale returns to the family station a broken man who feels guilt for surviving while his sibling, who followed him as kids and into the military, died. Arizonian Emily Castle always wanted to visit her Uncle Charles' Castle Winters Sheep Station in Australia as she always marveled at the tales he told in his letters. When her uncle dies, she inherits half the station. She travels to Australia looking forward to meeting the two boys Charles raised, but learns one died in the war and the other acts dead. Though half in love with the Dale of the letters, she knows this is not her romanticized champion. When Emily bets her half of their station on a horserace, she begs Dale to ride for her, but that would mean breaking a death pledge. This historical tale with a supporting romantic subplot is a timely terrific look at the human cost of war based on a real unit and their famous charge (see the movie The Lighthorsemen for more insight). The story line focuses on the mentally broken Dale and the woman who hopes her love for him nurtures him back to being whole. This gripping character driven tale takes no prisoners as to who truly sacrifices vs. who patriotically calls for others to sacrifice through the anguish of the battle fatigue syndrome protagonist. Only the patience and nurturing of a loved one can provide solace and even that may not be enough. In 1877, Paris Garrett travels to the dangerous Arizona Territory in hopes of fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a famous stage actress though she has no experience. When she feels down with no hope of achieving her goal, she thinks of her beloved late father who encouraged her to always seek to make your dreams happen. Joshua Grant left his first love law enforcement, which he hopes to return to soonest, but first must meet the stipulations of his late uncle's will. He must marry within two weeks or his odious cousin inherits the opera house. Though he does not want to own the opera house and detests giving up law enforcement even temporary he would rather be dead then let his relative gain possession. Still he has no one in mind until a talented songwriting dreamer arrives in town. Joshua knows she is a mistake, but he wants the wannabe actress so why not marry her. Of course he first must win her over while his cousin has other plans for her, him, and the opera house. LASSO THE MOON is an amusing historical romance starring two likable protagonists and a vile antagonist. Joshua has no idea what happened to his simple life feeling eh must be JINXED; first with the will and now with Paris whose CHARMED innocence and obsession somehow SEDUCED his heart. Fans will laugh at the escapades of the lead couple and hiss at the villain as Beth Ciotta provides a warm lighthearted nineteenth century romantic romp. In 1943 in Wantage, England, someone tortures before killing Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Weaving and his lover; the bodies found in her cellar. Concern over this homicide is extremely high because Weaving has been a key participant in the planned D-Day invasion of the mainland. Scotland Yard Reserve Squad lead the investigation as much into who committed the killings and what did they learn from the late military officer. In spite of RS chief Tommy Livermore's chagrin, the War Office Intelligence Liaison Curry Shepherd takes over much of the inquiries claiming security. He also persuades Woman Detective Sergeant Suzie Mountford to switch sides at work joining his team and in bed dropping Livermore for her new boss. Still the concern remains whether top secret Operation Overlord has been breached. This intriguing World War II espionage police procedural is a fine thriller that provides an interesting look at the pre D-Day planning. The who-done-it is more critical than just a double homicide investigation as the allies need to capture the culprit to learn what he or she might know and who they divulged that information to. In her fourth appearance, Mountford remains a bit weak needing male rescuing, but in spite of her seemingly pathetic skills John Gardner provides a fine historical spy story. ISBN: 0312352441, $24.95, 352 pp. Veteran cops who thought they had seen everything want to puke; some do. The killer removed the fat from the obese woman as St. Anselm, Florida detective Sophia Tregaskis thinks the murder reminds her of a flensing operation performed by whalers on whales. Her partner former NYPD detective James Fallon takes charge of the crime scene. The clues are few if any. Two more identical deaths of obese females follow, making it obvious that a serial killer targets overweight women. To aid the cops, psychologist Dr. Eva Swanson begins profiling the killer. As they dig for clues, James admires his partner for holding up and providing insight into the case, as the culprit is quite clever. As the city panics, the Mayor and police chief, encouraged by the demands of the media to catch the killer or resign, pressure the two lead sleuths. Sophia has learned so much from her veteran partner, the consummate professional not allowing anything to intrude on uncovering the identity of the killer except his desire for his much younger partner, but his top priority remains stopping the ritual-like murders before another victim surfaces. In this day and age in which serial killers are common in police procedural novels few match up to the centerfold Lector or the real things, but the "sophisticated" culprit of PERFECTIONS he comes reasonably close especially as he dines and wines on quality food and drink,. Readers and Sophia appreciate James professional and methodical sleuthing for instance lecturing a cop who carelessly parked his car on a crime scene lawn. Though the climatic final twist is somewhere in the realm of Rod Serling plausibility, fans, except overweight females, will enjoy this solid suspense thriller. In Italy, aging violin makers Castiglione and Rainaldi, Father Arrighi and police detective Guastafeste are players in a string quartet. The four men enjoy playing together as they respect one another though they can be quite caustic with one another; still they try to make as much time available to practice and perform. Rainaldi tells his friends especially Castiglione that he is on the trail of a great find, a priceless violin. However, instead of the glory and euphoria of a great find, someone kills Rainaldi. Father Arrighi performs the funeral attended by the other two men of their musical group as well as family and friends. Guastafeste investigates the homicide though he knows he has a personal stake that should probably exclude him from looking into the murder that he believes is tied to the rare violin. Castiglione assists him as a violin maker expert especially with his insight into construction. Clues soon lead the two men from their rural section of Italy to England, but uncovering the identity of the killing genius remains seemingly impossible even as the duet makes progress towards their objective. Though the whodunit is terrific it plays base to the rich textured musical perspective. The story line harmoniously blends the music with the murder mayhem without slowing down or neglecting either. Castiglione and Guastafeste are a wonderful pair, who at times are quite cutting with each other, as they follow clues in an effort to uncover the culprit who changed their quartet to a trio. Paul Adam provides a virtuoso performance. In Cleveland private investigator Lincoln Perry plays HORSE with Amy Ambrose when her editor informs her that an arsonist was taped burning down a house with a woman inside. The suspect Ed Gradduk eluded the cops, but upon hearing that name Lincoln is stunned as they were best friends as children. Several years later Lincoln adhering to his oath as a cop had arrested his pal. Still feeling guilty of betrayal though he knows he did the right thing, Lincoln wants to help Ed. He visits Ed's hostile mother and then his pal Scott Draper when Ed comes down the stairs of the bar insisting he never killed the woman regardless of tapes. Cops see Ed who flees; they drive after him but when he stumbles they accidentally hit and kill him. Lincoln believes Ed and decides to prove his friend's innocence to clear his name. With the help of his partner Joe Pritchard, Lincoln begins his quest not realizing that his path leads to a serial arsonist protected by those who could make trouble for Lincoln. The second Perry hard-boiled detective tale (see TONIGHT I SAID GOODBYE ) is a terrific who-done-it because of the hero's belief that though he did the right thing as a cop years ago, he failed his pal by not being there afterward; thus clearing Ed's name is an obsession heated by a need for redemption. The twists and turns of the arson-murder investigation is clever and plausible while quite entertaining. The key cast members, not just Lincoln, seem genuine especially characters like Ed's mom who holds Lincoln culpable for her son's downfall. Michael Koryta provides a deep mystery with a strong support cast and a powerful lead detective working the mean streets of Cleveland. The Princess of Burundi ISBN: 0312327676, $23.95, 288 pp. In Libro, Sweden, everyone is stunned when the mutilated corpse body of husband and father John Harald Jonsson, out on a job, is found in the snow. Based on the disfigurement, whoever killed the renowned cichlids tropical fish expert, passionately hated John. Death had to be a relief for the obvious evidence like three cut off fingers that shows he suffered while alive. Thus, homicide detectives Ola Haver and Ann Lindell, who comes off maternity leave to work the case, hone in on a forty-two year old troubled person, his family, and especially an acrimonious nutcase who apparently had a run in with John. However, proof proves difficult to come by making the two sleuths wonder if they are going down a wrong path. Reassessing what they know and suspect, Ola and Anna continue to search for the motive by someone who obviously detested the victim, but could it have to with his personal life or his work at the aquarium that led to this vicious homicide. This tranlastion of an award winning Swedish police procedural reads in many ways more like a deep insightful psychological thriller though the detectives diligently work the homicide. The characterization is top rate as the audicne undertsnads what motivates several key players while the support cast enhances that perception. Fans will enjoy the excitng tale and look forward to hopefully more translations of the works of Kjell Eriksson, perhaps THE ILLUMINATED PATH. In 1910 Camden, England, Scotland Yard Detective Walter Dew feels somewhat ill as he looks over the crime scene in the cellar of a family house. The victim is Bella Crippen, a former music hall singer under her maiden name Elmore before she married Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. The obvious prime suspect is the husband, but he is nowhere in sight. A witness recognized jewelry that Crippen's female companion, who was not his wife, wore that belonged to Bella. The sleuth assumes Crippen is on the lam though possibly also dead if by some remote chance he is not the killer. At the same time that Walter heads the homicide investigation, in Antwerp, Belgium, Mr. John Robinson and his teenage son Edmund board the passenger ship SS Montrose to traverse the three thousand plus miles of the Atlantic to Quebec, Canada. In fact John is actually Hawley and Edmund is his lover Ethel LeNeve. Neither realize as they try to limit contact with the crew and other passengers that Dew continues to follow their trail. CRIPPEN is an intriguing historical fictionalized account of a real sensationalized at the time love-murder triangle. The tale moves back and forth between the present (circa 1910) and the late nineteenth century childhood of the title character. Though the insight into the pre-homicide Hawley is fascinating, that subplot also slows down an interesting Scotland Yard investigation. Still fans will gain insight into late Victorian and Edwardian England as well as what motivated Crippen to kill his wife and run off with his lover in an apparent crime of passion. Readers will appreciate this deep Edwardian tale, but struggle between the two appealing segues that take away from each other. ISBN: 0345476158, $24.95, 496 pp. In Copenhagen, Cotton Malone observes "Red Jacket" knock down and steal the purse of his former boss at the U.S. Justice Department Stephanie Nelle. Red Jacket races up the Kobmagergade but to avoid capture he jumps off the tower slicing his throat on the way down. Stephanie is shook up because she realizes this was no ordinary thief; he somehow knew her business involving her work as head of the DOJ's Magellan Billet. Cotton goes back to talk with Stephanie, but she leaves. A bit hurt, the former agent decides to sleuth as he assumes Stephanie did not want him probing into her official work. He soon finds himself studying the religious order of the Knights Templar that allegedly died out soon after its last master died in 1308 France. Behind that he learns that several groups feverishly search for the Great Devise that disproves the Resurrection and tears apart much of the heart and soul of Christianity. As he and new teammates interpret the clues, the current Templar Master Raymond de Roquefort and his supporters want them dead before they uncover the "Rosetta Stone" that will destroy Christianity. The action is non-stop from the moment Red Jacket commits suicide until the final confrontation with killer monks. Cotton is a courageous soul who meets his Muslim female counterpart while on the investigation. Religious conspiracy buffs will appreciate the complex abstruse puzzles that are part of sub-genre cloning of the Da Vinci Code. Though some of the rationalizations defending lethal actions seem stretched even for religious fanatics (another cloning device), Steve Berry keeps THE TEMPLAR LEGACY fresh by avoiding the usual dissing of Christianity, instead he provides an action-packed arcane thriller that will have the audience interpreting the enigmatic clues along side of Cotton and his pilgrims. ISBN: 0345470974, $24.95, 416 pp. In Philadelphia, a vicious sly serial killer enjoys reenacting famous death scenes from movies. He films his work and then splices its content in with originals like Psycho. After adding his real gruesome take to a video, he returns the revised film to the store so someone can rent his "director's" cut. People who have seen Hitchcock's Psycho for instance are in for quite a shocking "director's" cut. Philadelphia homicide detectives Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne investigates the homicides though the latter works part-time as he still recovers from a gunshot wound. Since the killer's is talented with his filming and cutting, in between Kevin chomping on pain pills, the two sleuths look into the local film industry for clues to include a major producer and pornography movie makers. The two partners also have baggage from their personal lives as Kevin struggles to stay connected with his teenage daughter following his divorce and Jessica worries about her preschooler after tossing out her womanizing spouse. The serial killer makes this a strong thriller as readers can envision his splicing his work into classic film scenes. This makes for an electrifying investigation mostly run by Jessica. Though the two sleuths seems to be overloaded with personal baggage that slows down the case, fans of police procedurals or gimmicky serial killer tales will take pleasure in reading SKIN GODS and obtaining the two detectives' first case together (THE ROSARY GIRLS). This anthology consists of the first thirteen (in chronological order of when released) Conan tales, which most literary historians agree were the start of the sword and sorcery sub-genre. The tales are well written and enhanced by terrific illustrations by Mark Schultz. Those who grew up with the Schwarzenegger films will find Howard's Conan a much more complete character (actually the Marvel Comic book series captured more of the original essence). The stories are exciting though they were written in the 1930s. The collection also includes much more information on the Conan tales including maps, an untitled draft and several synopses of potential future tales. The Miscellanea and Appendix sections are fun to read during spare moments as fans will gain an understanding of how creative the author truly was, but clearly the exhilarating stories is where the superb reading experience is at as that affirms Mr. Howard's greatness. In England though several weeks have passed, event planner Isabel "Izzy" Serranti has not recovered from being dumped by her boyfriend. That coupled with feeling overweight has left Izzy lacking confidence in her abilities to hold the attention of a man. When she sees her childhood best friend, who inexplicably became her teenage tormentor, financier Simon Monkwell she babbles about food while he apparently fails to recognize her. Simon hires Izzy to perform a planner's miracle as his family estate Pantiles is in financial trouble, but to save it he must fool potential American investors that all is well. She would like to refuse him, but he is so handsome and debonair while she is oafish, but the reason she agrees is because she inadvertently gave away some Pantiles' insider information to her lout of an ex. Thus she hosts a weekend in the English countryside where investors, their wacko families, a tarantula and others interfere with the attraction between Simon and Izzy; however it is what caused teenage Simon to turn into a bully that remains between them. PARTY GIRL is a warm British chick lit romance starring a likable but unconfident lead female struggling to make a weekend right for the man she loves who she expects will mistreat her as he did when he turned thirteen. Izzy is an interesting protagonist coping with the families of her and Simon, other fractious souls like the help, the demands of the Americans, and SOCIETY GIRLS invited to the gala. Though the support cast at times overwhelms the tale with the baggage they bring to the weekend event, dizzy Izzy makes this a fun often amusing romantic romp. Every Breath You Take ISBN: 0345479904, $24.95, 334 pp. Self-made millionaire Mitchell Wyatt assumed he was an orphan but is actually a member of the prominent Wyatt family, who looked upon his birth as an embarrassment. When his brother William learned about Mitchell, he engineered a meeting with his sibling. Mitchell quickly cares for his brother, his sister-in-law and his nephew Billy. When William disappears, Mitchell comforts his sister-in-law and Billy; not realizing the Cook County Attorney General believes he killed William and probably his father too. Kate Donovan is on the Caribbean Island of Anguillia waiting for her boyfriend of four years to join her, but meets Mitchell; they share a passionate interlude and Kate breaks it off with Evan when he arrives, but finds Mitchell returned to Chicago to answer questions about the murder of his brother. Kate thinks he deserted her and Evan tells her he used her to get revenge on his father who played a role in sending him away when he was an infant. She believes Evan and after a brief bitter exchange at a social gala Kate and Mitchell don't see each other for three years until another crime brings them together. Fans of Danielle Steel will appreciate the mainstream fiction EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE. The story line is loaded with suspense as the audience anticipates Mitchell's arrest and subsequently what he will do. The relationship between Kate and him feels more obligatory of the sub-genre than a genuine meeting of the hearts. Still reader will enjoy the tense tale pondering how it will end. ISBN: 0345480589, $24.95 Since taking over for the murdered CHAIRMAN Bill Donovan ten months ago, Everest Capital CEO Christian Gillette has several incredible successful ventures already. However, THE PROTEGE David Wright accidentally killed a prostitute during a bondage session. Complicating matters for the guilt laden second in command is that the Carbone mob has pictures that they use to blackmail him into revealing insider information on the CEO even as he wonders whether the gang wants control of the Vegas NFL team owned by Everest. At the same time, Christian uses his opposition to try to leverage information about his father a senator who died in a mysterious plane crash sixteen years ago. His efforts lead him to defrocked former CIA agent Norman Boyd who sells him a bill of goods as to what happened while in reality working for the Carbone crowd. Of course he still has a few deals to make worth millions to the company. Though too much is going on between the lead protagonist's personal life and business lie and that of some of his subordinates especially the person he has been mentoring, fans will marvel how well everything ties together in this tense financial thriller. In spite of too many subplots, the action-packed story line moves at a fast pace, which is a tribute to the talent of Stephen Frey. Overall this is a fine thriller from the moment the hooker's neck accidentally snaps with a haunting descriptive popping sound until the final crackling confrontation. ISBN: 140006421X, $24.95, 336 pp. In 1985 in a trailer park near Jacksonville, seventeen years old Lemuel "Lem" Altick goes door to door selling encyclopedias. Though he makes good money, the job devastates his nonexistent social life and makes him feel middle aged so he plans to stick with it for one year and then find something more appealing like sleeping through college. Lem tries to sell his wares to Karen and the "Bastard" when someone kills both of them. Stunned into inertia Lem listens to Melford Kean explain that these two, as animal abusers, deserved death. Meanwhile police chief and self declared mayor of the trailer park Jim Doe investigates the double homicides, but seems more interested in keeping Lem quiet anyway possible. Apparently the killings interfere with the Mayor's fund-making rackets including a speed trap, the encyclopedia selling operation, and a hog farm where animals are brutally mistreated before being dumped in the "waste lagoon" that also serves as a human cemetery. Not sure which side is less psychopathic, Lem wants to live long enough to register in college and steal kisses from a bookselling peer. In the tradition of the zany South Florida (though this is few hundred miles north on I-95) suspense thriller, THE ETHICAL ASSASSIN is a wacky coming of age tale starring a bewildered teen wondering how he got into this quagmire. The story one told from the shocked Lem's perspective is loaded with puns, barbs, and satirical asides on life in Reagan America. The secondary cast makes for a wild time with loonies (whose names matter) aging the stunned teen. Sub-genre fans will welcome David Liss, who provides a fresh madcap mayhem to the Florida swamps. ISBN: 0345467523, $23.95 The media and the parents of the victims and even the survivors hold child psychiatrist Dr. Julia Cates culpable after a teenage patient of three years Amber Zuniga went on a rampage killing four peers. However, no one holds Julia to task more than she does herself as she keeps looking over what she did, trying to figure out what she could have done different to prevent the tragedy. In between the Pacific and the Olympic National Forest, Rain Valley is a tiny insulated town, but has a problem. Chief of Police Ellie Barton pleads with her sister Julia to come to the northwest to help a mute little girl who came out of the nearby woods; local assumption is the child was raised by wolves. Julia heads north to work with the child she names Alice. Local Dr. Max Cerrasin assists her as she tries to reach Alice and learn who her parents are while also rejecting the persistent courting advances of her new medical partner. MAGIC HOUR is a deep character driven tale that grips the audience once the depressed Julia leaves Los Angeles for the Pacific Northwest and never slows down until the final encounter. The exciting story line is driven by the emotional needs of Julia as much as by Alice. Who the child is and who her parents are lead to a fine mystery (similar to a real story from the early twentieth century) to a superb drama. A Hole in Juan ISBN: 0345480198, $23.95, 240 pp. It is been almost a month since Amanda Pepper and Mackenzie were married but now that the schoolteacher is considered family, her husband's kin send his nephew Pip stay with them for a while until he calms down and gets over his broken heart. Her spouse, a former homicide detective, is now in school studying to get his PH.D in criminology. He is a part time private investigator and Amanda is learning to be on call they can supplement her income from Philly Prep. Mischief Night is coming up soon but the atmosphere at the school is dark and foreboding as the senior students are not acting like themselves. Physics teacher Juan Reyes is complaining that equipment disappears and reappears and blames his students who think he is too hard and strict with them. Amanda is getting notes that point to something terrible happening at the Friday Mischief party at the school. Two female students who are supposedly best friends are constantly arguing and two males who were best buddies have a vicious altercation. Professor Reyes is seriously injured in what police think is an accident but is in reality a sadistic prank that viciously backfires on the students who caused it. All these happenings are linked but unless Amanda figures out what it all means, a terrible tragedy will occur. Gillian Roberts has written another exciting mystery that demonstrates how a mob can rule and force their collective mindset on another person. After reading this book readers will understand how a Columbine situation can happen if stops aren't taken to prevent it. A HOLE IN JUAN is a chilling and terrifying storyline involving crimes that are beyond comprehension yet seem plausible. The protagonist takes action making her a true heroine. Olivia "Livie" St. Martin tries to stop the man with the blue bird on his arm from abducting her older sister Melissa, but he just slaps the little girl away and throws Missy inside his black truck. As he drives off, Livie's parents hearing her screams race outside, but they are too late. Her mom hugs Olivia, but that was the last squeeze she ever received from her. Over three decades later, Olivia is Director of Trace Evidence and Materials Analysis at the FBI lab in Virginia when her former husband Dr. Greg van Burns informs her that the DNA of the man she testified abducted her sibling, Brian Harrison Hall, does not match a hair found on Missy's corpse. Hall is freed while Livie is stunned as the only thing that relieved her survival guilt was the conviction of her sibling's rapist-killer. Needing to learn the truth, she breaks office procedures by leaving the lab to do field work. Olivia quickly finds evidence that a serial killer is loose and has been for years; his last known victim in Seattle where she teams up with workaholic Police Detective Zack Travis to stop a clever psychopath and to figure out who killed Missy. THE KILL is a fast-paced character driven investigative tale starring a stunned heroine who knows the irony that her field of expertise exonerated Hall. The romance between Livie and Zack seems somewhat forced, as the investigation takes front and center as the crime lab guru and the homicide detective follow clues that take several intriguing twists. Fans of police procedurals with an overwrought obsessed star will want to read Allison Brennan's fine thriller and seek her two previous FBI tales (See THE PREY and THE HUNT). Little White Lies ISBN: 0345486862, $6.99, 320 pp. Sick of living in Bath and wanting to taste swinging London, Natalie Raglan quits her job at an advertising firm and ends her relationship with her boyfriend. Once her ties to Bath end, she moves to London. However, just because she moved to the big city does not mean anything has changed except that Nat feels even more alone than ever. More embarrassing is that outside of bills, wrong numbers, and crank calls, the previous renter Cressida Langdon receives all the friendly calls and fun mail. However, the frustrating turning point occurs when Cressida receives an invitation to attend a gala at swanky Soho House. Unable to resist Nat decides to attend pretending she is Cressida. Rubbing elbows at bashes at the Soho House with the rich and famous is great, but it is dating investment banker Simon that makes Nat feels she is dancing on clouds for she loves him, but also feels part of her is in the pits of hell because he loves swinging urbane Cressida not mousy Natalie. This character driven tale centers on a lonely individual who remakes herself by "stealing" someone else's image. Natalie soon learns several life lessons on deception yet also believes that without it she would never have tasted love ("far better to have loved …"). Readers will empathize with Nat as she hobnobs with the elite, which was her dream until she met Simon who she believes fell in love with her Cressida persona not the real Natalie. Fans of contemporary fiction will appreciate Natalie's dilemma for she knows she must reveal the truth, but that will end her relationship with the man she loves as trust is important. Murder at the Foul Line Using real anecdotal examples from headlines over the last two decades Otto Penzler implies that modern day basketball and criminal behavior share the courts. Thus this marriage led to the fourteen short stories that make up the fine MURDER AT THE FOUL LINE. The contributors are a who's who of mystery though some are surprises as the sport link is not evident in their resumes. Each tale is solid with some contributions (those of George Pelecanos and Laurie R. King) being backboard shattering dunks that Chocolate Thunder would have relished adding to his repertoire. Overall a fun steady anthology with no air balls, but few fast break slam dunks; still sports mystery readers will enjoy the compilation as the violations by the protagonists lead to a winning series of shots. All in One Piece ISBN: 0892967978, $24.95, 307 pp. After divorcing her wealthy husband and losing much of her income, psychic Reggie Cutter moves into the townhouse she inherited from her aunt Jo in Boston's South End. Jo was a psychic who helped the police on many cases and Reggie is following in her footsteps. Her life takes a dangerous twist when she gets hit by a car. Her upstairs tenant Steven Damelin sees the incident and believes it was t an accident not someone deliberately trying to kill her. After getting her fixed up Stephen talks about a deal that Jo was going to invest in and ask Reggie if she is interested. She puts him off. That night she hears strange noises and the next morning she sees blood dripping from Steve's apartment into hers; she opens his door and sees him lying on his floor, the victim of a gruesome murder. Since she is involved the police don't want her working the case. She intends to listen to them but she has a vision of Steve in water and a piece of wood hitting him. She decides to do her own investigation by interviewing plenty of suspects who had reason to kill him, and almost winds up getting killed by a murderer without mercy. ALL IN ONE PIECE is a charming amateur sleuth mystery with the eccentric cast of characters adding humor to this who-done-it. The protagonist is a down to earth person who thinks of her psychic powers as a tool to be used as one more investigative method while readers will look at her as the kind neighbor next door that everyone likes. Cecelia Tishy has a knack for creating a plausible mystery with a paranormal twist. The Tenth Circle ISBN: 0743496701, $26.00, 400 pp. Daniel Stone was the only white child who lived in an Alaskan Eskimo village where because of his race, the boys picked on him until he finally acted out by stealing, vandalizing property, fighting and a host of other petty crimes. When he was eighteen, he left Alaska and reinvented himself and now is a mild mannered comic artist; a stay at home dad to his teenage daughter Trixie, who he will protect at any cost. Trixie is in love with Jason who dumped her for another girl but she does everything in her power to get him back. At an unsupervised teen party, Trixie tries to make Jason but it backfires and she returns home telling her father he raped her. Jason is arrested and let out on bond but the lead detective on the case finds inconsistencies in Trixie's story. Just when they are about to drop the case, a date rape drug is found in Trixie's blood taken when she went to the hospital right after she claimed rape. Jason is now going to be tried as an adult but that is not the end of the story only the beginning. Jodi Picoult always writes an exciting thriller wrapped around a social issue and in THE TENTH CIRCLE the concern is date rape and how it affects the victim, the family and the suspect. The plot takes so many unexpected twists that readers have no idea where the storyline will finally take them. The audience will empathize with Trixie, a young adult who is facing issues her parents never dealt with and she struggles to deal with them on his own. This book is going to make the New York Times bestseller list. Behold the Many ISBN: 0374110158, $24.00, 304 pp. In 1939 Anah's daughter Hosana dies; though she mourns her loss, Anah prays that the death will lift the curse. In 1913 Hawaii, young Leah comes down with Tuberculosis; her mother tries to hide the illness, but is caught. The child is sent to a remote orphanage in the Kalihi Valley in the Ko'olau Mountains. One year later her sister Aki joins her and not long afterward another sibling Anah is sent there. In 1916 Leah dies and subsequently so does Aki. Anah vows to stay there forever and the ghosts of the children who have died there including her two sisters communicate with her. In 1924, Anah marries Ezroh with plans to finally leave the orphanage. However, the ghosts are angry and jealous that she is able to go anywhere while they cannot. They try to stop her marriage, but fail; however she and her family are cursed by one of the spirits. Over the years Anah has several children, but never overcame the guilt of surviving nor of leaving. In some ways BEHOLD THE MANY is a deep historical tale with plenty of insight into Hawaii and how tuberculosis victims were treated. However, it is the relationship when they lived and after they died between the surviving sister and her two deceased siblings that make for an eerie ghost story. Anah's beliefs that she communicates with all the dead children at the isolated clinic seems very real though some skeptics will say she compensated for her losses. Though time moves too fast making it somewhat difficult to follow, fans will relish this strong ghost story. The Good Life ISBN: 0375411402, $25.00 Luke McGavock detests his upper class hollow life so he decides to make changes to the chagrin of his wife Sasha, who insists she covers both of their needs with her activity to help the poor through elitist charity galas. Their teenage daughter enjoys the material life that his financial job covers. He quits his high paying Wall St. financial job seeking something meaningful. At the same time that Luke is going through a soul searching, publisher Russell Calloway and his previous stay at home wife Corrine barely know one another anymore though they raised twins that were initially sired through the artificial insemination of her sister. Corrine now wants to do something meaningful so she is trying to break in as a screenwriter. 9/11 changes everything as Luke and Corrine meet at a Ground Zero soup-kitchen. They are immediately attracted to one another but seek comfort that they know their respective spouses will fail to provide to them after watching so much death and destruction. They turn to each other and begin an affair with both wondering what is truly THE GOOD LIFE. The deep look at how 9/11 affected the social life of Manhattan's upper crust make for an intriguing drama until the affair intercedes and brings the plot back to soap opera realm. The key four characters seems genuine especially the before and after Luke and Corrine. Meanwhile fans will ponder the philosophical title in a world that is five degrees from a suicide bomber. ISBN: 0758211058, $14.00 Government scientist Dr. Sydney Hale cannot believe how her life has turned upside down. Assailants broke into the top secret lab killing everyone except her. She managed to escape barely, but flees in denial as people she has worked with are dead. The Feds assume she is behind the break-in and homicides. Hunting with pals, Special Operations Jack Wilson notices several men shooting at a woman on the run. He fires at the goons, forcing them to retreat and regroup, but soon finds his three friends dead courtesy of the snipers. Jack vows revenge, but first catches up with Sydney to learn what she knows. Her story makes him wonder if perhaps she conceals her role in the original lethal incident followed by a fall out amongst criminals. Still he smells typical DC cover-up so plans to keep the cute female Einstein alive until he learns the truth. Initially wary of one another, they begin to bond and fall in love, but the only way to survive is trust and neither feels comfortable testing the waters. Readers will dive head first into this exciting romance thriller and not come up for air until the final confrontations with the enemy and between the two heroic protagonists. The action-packed story line starts off seemingly with brawn meets brain (some might classify it as beauty and the beast), but the audience will quickly realize that Einstein's female clone is in pretty good physical shape and the Marine can use the muscle inside his skull. Fans of espionage suspense thrillers will want to join the distrusting duet on the lam as Amy J. Fetzer provides what will prove to be one of the sub-genre's best of the year. I Love You to Death ISBN: 0758210396, $14.00 "My Love Life is Killing Me". With the ink not quite dry on her divorce papers, Alex looks forward to dating again, but is not sure how to take the dive. Her best friend comes through arranging a blind date. Things initially seem okay until her date dies in the men's room with undercover private investigator John looking into what happened. Alex wants to team up with John, but he wants to form a personal relationship only as he does not want Alex to get hurt. "Dial M for Mortified". With her coffeehouse Sacred Grounds grinding near bankruptcy, Darcy needs a gimmick to get customers to come in once; she feels most will return. She throws a "blind date night" bash that turns into a monster success. At her gala is reporter Noah, who Darcy is attracted to even if he seems more like someone who failed to have his first caffeine fix. However, everything changes when someone adds a homicide to their coffee. "Dead Men Don't Write Checks". Elementary school teacher Franny feels she is a chivalrous knight protecting her neighborhood from the developers like the Landry Foundation that bulldoze historical buildings in the name of progress. She decides she must confront the dragon in his lair so she wears her sexiest outfit and crashes the Landry Foundation's annual fundraiser to tear down CEO Theo. Shockingly it is attraction at first sight between Theo and Franny until one of the opponents dies during dessert. These are three amusing blind date romantic suspense thrillers with homicides to spice up the relationships between the protagonists. Readers will appreciate Amy Garvey's fun I LOVE YOU TO DEATH as long as they do not have a blind date on the horizon. Stolen Pleasures. Earl Sebastian Blake left the boredom of the Ton behind especially the narrowness of the inane rules to become a pirate; shockingly the blueblood became quite good as a bluebeard known as the notorious Captain Phoenix. When he captures a feral big mouth female, she stuns him by claiming that their fathers married them by proxy as her name is Lady Blake. She shocks him further as she rips his skin off with her temper that shows no fear of him; only his kisses shuts her up except for that desirable moaning. Lucien's Gamble. Womanizer Lucien Remington lives by the golden rule in which he has the gold so he makes the rule. He is a notorious womanizer who is considered a social pariah despite his wealth. However, his antics costs him his heart's desire, Lady Julienne La Coeur until dressed as a male she enter a private all men's club seeking her foolish brother. Lucien sees opportunity and seizes the moment as his body would recognize his heart's desire regardless of her disguise. Her Mad Grace. Hugh La Coeur prefers wine, women and wagering more than being an Earl. However, he finds himself stuck in a dilapidated mansion owned by a crazy duchess. However, though he wants to allude his hostess, Hugh wants to sleep with the companion Charlotte even though she obviously hides something from him; something that could prove dangerous to him if he learns what her secret is. BAD BOYS AHOY! contains three wonderful historical novellas starring strong females ready to battle against and on the side of the bad boys they love. The robust compassionate courageous women make for a fine time as they do not fear men who make other males shake in fear and ladies tremble in anticipation. This is a fine "Bad Boys" entry. Crown of Stars ISBN: 075640326X, $25.50, 540 pp. When the Aoi crash landed on their return to Earth after centuries in the aether, the collision caused a cataclysm that led to earthquakes, flooding and the sun to disappear behind a cloud of dust. The people can't plant crops because the frost lingers and food is in short supply. New lands and alliances are formed and King Sanglant of Wendor is trying to bring his people together to ride out the after effects of the collision. When he consolidates his reign, he wants to annex Varree as it once belonged to the empire. Sanglant knows that he will not have an easy rule since many want what he has and the church refuses to recognize his marriage to the excommunicated Liaeth, a fire daimon who is not quite human but a woman he will not forsake. Relatives in his family who rule in their own realm want to conquer Sanglant's land and annex them into the Lady Sabella's dominion. The Ashioi, who are finally reunited with their exiled brethren, plan to invade the human lands in revenge for what was done to them. Fighting battles against their enemies, Liaeth must prove she is a worthy consort for her one true love while Sanglant tries to hold his country together. In a land where the creatures of myth and legend are very real, humans must learn to understand and if necessary fight those who want nothing less than all humans' dead. Political intrigue and battles abound in CROWN OF STARS but the love that Sanglant feels for his wife is the shiniest light in the heavens and gives him the strength to do what he thinks is right. Liaeth is a woman of incredible strength, power and beauty who battles deadly magical creatures, befriends people who reject her and learns that her strength and love for Sanglant makes her a formidable foe to his enemies. Kate Elliot concludes her series with a powerful and brilliant epic fantasy. The Radioactive Redhead John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem ISBN: 0756402824, $6.99 In 2060 feeling at times extinct especially when he is on a case, Zachary Nixon Johnson is the last private eye on Earth. His assistant Artificial Intelligence HARV has been downloaded into his brain. Though helpful HARV seems to find ways to irritate Zach especially when he experiments on himself without warning the sleuth. However, this time his partner goes to far when HARV decides to find his feminine side and undergoes a sex change operation so that he is now the she HARA. Zach goes to the Oakland Kabuki Palace Theater and Dinette to meet with a potential client. Kabuki Droid Assassins try to kill him as part of the production The Revenge of the Forty-Seven Samurai. He survives the onslaught and manages to save the life of teen superstar Sexy Sprockets, who the People Against Talentless Acts (PATA) want dead. Things turn worse when the beleagured sleuth learns he is also the star of a new reality show Let's kill Zach so he asks his psi "niece" Carol to help him before realizing that she dyed her hair red same as Sexy and HARA; three redheads cannot be good for anyone's health let alone the world's last private detective. As always in a Zachary tale, zaniness rules as the last living private eye struggles with three lethal scenarios. The network's reality show stars him in a death role; PATA efforts to kill Sexy though he somewhat agrees with their cause; and finally dealing with three volatile redheads at the same time that could lead any male into suicide just to escape. The amusing science fiction mystery story line is lighthearted fun as the escapades keeping coming at Zach. ISBN: 1587671123, $30.00 In Brackard's Point, New York, guitarist Ronnie leaves the band Retribution, Inc. to attend the Full Sail audio production program in Florida. His departure leaves base playing singer Chuck and drummer Mark in need of a guitarist fast since they are the opening act for renowned Your Kid's On Fire at an upcoming concert. Mark tries to persuade Joey to leave Chaos Theory, but he refuses. Desperate, the duo tries an open audition hoping someone in Westchester, Putnam, or Bergen Counties can strum a guitar. Ernie the nerd looks anything like a fierce rock band member, but he plays angry punk rock with compassionate and skill. He learns his segues fast and apparently has the gig though whenever he plays his fingers bleed. However, when Joey becomes free, Mark wants to drop Ernie for the better imaged guitarist, but Chuck disagrees. Will the band break up over the selection of the third member or will they find a compromise? Neither Chuck nor Mark is ready for the destructive path their disagreement leads them to. RETRIBUTION, INC. is a tremendous lyrical portrayal of a local rock and roll band buckling under the stress of replacing a member that might simply end with the break-up as egos take control of the decision process. The story line though only involving four individuals runs the gamut of the five stages of group dynamics from forming (in this case re-forming), norming, storming, performing and adjourning; though that climax to the group seems overkill. Each of the four musicians is unique bringing different skills and personalities to the band. Fans will appreciate this dark look at the competitive egomaniacal nature of music band members even those who are just escaping garage grunge. After the fire ravaged his face, Andy Sayers came to live with his grandma in the remote village Pinecrest, isolated even from other towns on Mount Crag. Andy lives apart from the townsfolk not just because he finds their fundamentalist Christian control insidious but also because adults look at his face in horror. Still he has dated though his ex-girlfriend recently became the victim of a serial killer. He earns a scholarship to attend the local Hand of God College, which elates his true believing grandma that he will find Jesus there. On Halloween, Amanda Bollinger drives Andy to a nearby graveyard where she seduces him with her incredibly elongated tongue, but as he is in the midst of passion something wrong grips his testicles. He wants to run, but Amanda persuades him to come to the family mansion where he meets her family, a brood of people the result of incest with physical and mental disorders that would make a circus side show seem normal. Because of his scarred visage, he is the Chosen One to lead THE FOLKS of the Bollinger brood. Though the graphic details of the FOLKS may turn off some readers, fans of gothic horror will enjoy this tense thriller. The story line of to be or not to be a Bollinger takes a back seat to the sinister suspense laden atmosphere in which the audience expects bad things to happen to Andy. Several key members of the Bollinger minion have distinct personalities including the patriarch who wants to groom Andy as his heir, the sex predator Amanda, and a boy-man with strange ethics. Not a typical read, fans who appreciate something different in their horror tales will want to read this cross between Layton's Beast House and Browning's Freaks. ISBN: 1587670909, $40.00 "So Long Gerry" by Terry Lamsley. The flat is in a perfect location, the cost reasonable and the ability to move in immediately elates "mature" student Gerry Royal. However, ideal turns surreal when a stranger asks for Maggie; Gerry soon begins to wonder if he shares his flat with the previous occupant as her past seems to want to replace his present. "Langthwaite Road" by Simon Clark. When his friend Paul Robertson died on Langthwaite Road, Vic Blake begins researching the history of what he learns is a deadly place where in the last five years, eighteen people have died and thirty severely injured in car accidents. He soon believes that there is more to the road than just pavement. Guitar in hand and faith he is doing the right thing, he plans to exorcise Langthwaite Road. "In the Valley Where the Belladonna Grows" by Tim Lebbon. Sixteen years have passed since Mary last seen another human, but now a man offers her freedom. She rejects it. The next day another man arrives saying her spouse Sherlock wants her home, but she refuses having never forgotten his betrayal. Others follow until she ponders whether she should visit her apparently dying husband. "Stumps" by Mark Morris. In the garden of their new home, the Morgan family of four find polished "stumps". For no apparent reason, these stumps frighten the family patriarch Colin who begins losing his grip on reality as he believes his past has come calling on him from the graveyard. These are four interesting horror tales grips the audience because each one contains everyday people caught by something paranormal that initially seems so forebodingly normal. The Eyes of the Carp T. M. Wright ISBN: 1587671115, $30.00 Kevin grew up in a household with seven siblings, his parents, and a menagerie of animals. He knew death when he was young as his dad had a tendency to back up without looking so was always running over a pet or two until the day he ran over his three years old daughter Doris. Forty years later on his deathbed, he tells his only surviving child Kevin that he wishes he never hit Doris. Over the years filled with death, Kevin learns to speak with ghosts who over time have become his only friends; phantasms like Ghastly William and Fat Leonard, his late dad or some other dead blood relative. He keeps track of his encounters in a journal, but when he looks back he wonders about his spouse; neither William nor Leonard can explain where she fits into his life as she seems just out of his reach even when they touch. THE EYES OF THE CARP is a complex character driven ghost story though readers will wonder if the phantoms are real or the imagination of an individual who has lost his mind. The journal entries make the circular plot that arcs to various points but never linear (even on the circle) difficult to follow and requires a one sitting read (the novella format is perfect for this thriller), but it is worth the time as the audience will find the logic behind what seems insane ramblings of a deluded soul whose mind is spiraling out of control fascinating. This terrific psychological ghostly tale will send readers seeking other such horror stories from T.M. Wright (see COLD HOUSE). In Black Hills, Pennsylvania, seven years ago, eighteen-year-old high school student Eddie Farris killed his abusive father, a prison guard in what the teen later called The Showdown. Eddie has since become a macabre caricature of a boogeyman; everybody talks about him in a ghoulish way. The isolation started with his girlfriend Rachel fleeing Black Hills right after the lethal Showdown. Still over the next seven years the lonely Eddie tries to overcome the Showdown mental aftermath by following his psychiatrist's advice to write it down; though that has not proven a total catharsis, it helps. Eddie constantly wonders if things would have been different if his younger sister Mary did not die when she was four in an accident, but also believes his dad accidentally killed her during one of his abuser moments. After seven years away, Rachel returns home accompanied by her son, Eddie's child no one bothered to tell him about. She claims that his father is harassing her with increasingly threatening phone calls, but Eddie killed his sire in the Showdown or did he? He notices someone in the shadows stalking him, taunting him, threatening him. BLACK FIRE is a terrific tale that keeps the audience guessing whether Eddie finally lost his tenuous grip on sanity, is being set up by others to lose his mind, or his dead dad dancing from the cemetery. Thus, readers will consistently consider between psychological suspense and horror as James Kidman slowly delivers clues then and now by rotating between the present and the Showdown. Strong thriller starring an intriguing individual who at best has crossed the line between rational thinking and insanity as his past catches up to him now perhaps with something evil from beyond. ISBN: 1587670348, $35.00 In Malcasa Point, California teenager Mark physically fantasizes that one day he will date Alison. Mustering up his courage he finally asks her out; she accepts on the stipulation that he spend FRIDAY NIGHT IN BEAST HOUSE after it closes. Excited he agrees to meet her stipulation hoping this is the ticket to ecstasy even though he knows the day time tourist attraction has been the sight of several ghastly homicides. On Friday night Mark breaks into Beast House. He proceeds to hide in the Beast Hole hoping to quietly pass time and emerge as a hero in the eyes of Alison. However, Beast House earned its reputation for grisly inexplicable murders and soon Mark and Alison will learn even wet fantasies can turn nightmarish in the wrong environs. Richard Laymon's final Beast House tale is a terrific entry in a great series that like it predecessors (see THE CELLAR, THE BEAST HOUSE and THE MIDNIGHT TOUR) hooks the audience into a complacency that slowly turns into tension and suspense wondering what will happen next to Mark. The delightful protagonist slowly realizes how much trouble he is in as he learns the truth about Beast House. Not quite at the emotional roller coaster levels of the previous three novels; this tale is a tense gripping thriller that will have readers searching for the previous books. Blue November Storms ISBN: 1587671107, $30.00 In Beacon Point, Pennsylvania, the townsfolk named the high school football stars the "The Lightning Five" for their athletic exploits. Steven, Harry, Joe, Matt, and Adam were best friends and even built the Summer Place in the woods overlooking the nearby lake together. However, a girl died there, but instead of investigating what happened, the fearsome fivesome were treated like heroes. Two decades later, Adam, who the others thought was dead as he seemingly vanished, calls his friends to ask them to meet him at Summer Place. Adam never truly overcame the tragedy that haunts him still, much more so than his buddies. Excited over the prospect of seeing him for the first time in years, Steven, Harry, Joe, and Matt agree to a twenty year reunion at The Summer Place. The five meet filled with nostalgia and excitement, but also lingering is the one dark episode., However, a meteor shower suddenly attacks from the sky with unnatural blue stones hitting near where the quintet reunite. Not long afterwards the woodland animals go berserker trying to kill the trapped humans forced to retreat onto the roof of The Summer Place, an eerie reminder of the tragic pivotal moment in their lives with each remembering while wondering if they like the critters could turn into sociopath killers. BLUE NOVEMBER STORMS starts off as a deep psychological thriller in which the audience wonders what happened twenty years ago and why suddenly Adam reappears; however Brian Freeman sets the reader up as the tale digs inside the psyche and soul of the lead five, it twists into an old fashion B-movie horror tale (cross between King's Maximum Overdrive and the Ninja Turtles) yet retains that soul deep look at the ensemble as each wonders if the others will turn lethal. Brian Freeman provides a solid tale that fans will enjoy. Big Ronnie demands his three childhood associates, who became his friends after the incident bonded them, Jason, Frank, and Lizzy return home to Random, Illinois to complete what they started years ago. They thought that had destroyed the horror, but as Ronnie has informed them, they failed to finish the job. This Halloween they must achieve what they did not do when they were preadolescents. Though years have passed, the incident when they were twelve years old still haunts each of them. Thus the trio race home to Ronnie's summoning. It has wrecked one's marriage and permeates every word of the horror novelist amongst them. Now the quartet knows they must confront it again, but each is wary as they know they ROLL THE BONES for the second time, but this time luck may not be with them and if not they will roll death. Readers will wonder from the start what did the foursome confront as kids and will meet shortly as adults. The tension builds up until the altercation, but then picks up even more suspense until the final watery climax. David Niall Wilson cleverly keeps the audience off balance for a while wondering if this is a psychological thriller or supernatural chiller until the author brings the readers and the quartet into the beginnings of the confrontation. ROLL THEM BONES is a magnificent tale about for some you can't go home while others may have physically left but never mentally departed. Kealan Patrick Burke ISBN: 1587671204, $40.00 Seventeen years old Ohio teenager Timmy Quinn has the uncanny ability to help homicide victims obtain a modicum of revenge by sharing his gift with the murderers. Over the objections of his mother sick of the visits from the curious, the desperate, and the crazies, he agrees to help his neighbor Mr. Knox with his burden, but explains that it is up to the spirit whether to communicate with Quinn; some have moved on while others just do not want to be seen by any living being. However, the case shakes him at a time when he is vulnerable with his parents splitting. His father asks Quinn to come to their ancestral home in Dungarvan, Ireland to especially meet his grieving paternal grandmother. Though reluctant to leave his mom behind, Quinn thinks this is the right thing to do so he travels across the Atlantic. However, instead of solace in the sea town, he finds the ghosts there much more gruesome looking than back in the States. He wonders why and who the brutal killer could be. He begins to investigate not understanding that he places himself in danger of being the next victim. Though the ending defies the Burke Law of paranormal-physics (as established throughout by the encounters) THE HIDES is a fantastic ghost story that grips readers from the moment a desperate Knox asks Timmy for his help and continues at a fast pace when the teen takes his skills to Ireland. The action-packed story line works because Timmy and his supernatural talent seem genuine so that the audience believes in ghosts and other apparitions. Horror fans will take immense "gruesome" delight reading Kealan Patrick Burke's solid chiller. ISBN: 097651852X, $14.95 ISBN: 1933353600, $16.95 Not to long ago, Brother Jerome past away, but in his mind he feels busier now than when he lived. Ironically he was a stay at home monk rather than a traveling soul as he is now especially when his friend Leo the live friary feline takes him on one of those weird adventures as his "dead" cat guide Quant. At the friary, the new guardian Father Aidan seems opposite to his reputation of being an easy going person; instead he is tight and sets strict rules that disturb the brothers. Unbeknownst to all the residents except Leo, Father Aidan is undergoing a faith crisis with no one human to turn to for help. Instead he finds some renewal with paintings, but to fully regain his lost soul he will need a feline miracle. However, Quant is to busy to show his Seraph soul to the skeptical Guardian. Brother Jerome, due to a freak accident, has exchanged places with the Ancient Crete Minotaur. While he resides in the Labyrinth uninterested in dining on teens, the bull relaxes at the monastery's modern day shed looking for some meat. ANGELOS, the sequel to the fabulous JEROME AND THE SERAPH, is a delightful fantasy that uses humor to tell a deep philosophical tale. The story line moves forward (stop quibbling - back in time too) as the audience, Jerome and Aidan receive a feline education that showcases the true meaning of relativity. Life including religious choices depends more on the era and locale than on the dogma. Robina Williams provides a terrific tale that the audience will cherish. By the Sword Mike Yorkey and Rick Myatt Broadman & Holman ISBN: 0805440739, $14.99, 320 pp. During Passover, commandos assault the Jewish Bottstein family in their home in Jerusalem threatening to kill them or else. When pregnant Kareh chose or else they kill her and her unborn; the other members of her family including her three years old son were already dead. Other attacks occur in Jerusalem during the night. Washington National newspaper reporter Amber Robbins has covered the Middle East for two years, but has never seen or heard of such a coordinated slaughter as the Passover Massacre. While the West claims extremists caused the horrible destruction, Amber connects the massacre to recent bombings of churches and synagogues. Soon Amber identifies the fanatical sect Islamic Revolution behind the murders as the charismatic Ayatollah Hoseni demands a sea of Islam with no infidels anywhere; convert to Allah or die. While the attacks are spreading and growing in intensity, the West clings to its obstinate message that only a few are causing the lethal problems, but Amber believes otherwise; she feels Ayatollah Hoseni has powerful sponsors including Iran and perhaps even the royal Saudi family. This action thriller seems over the edge unless readers have read Richard Clark's Against All Enemies or Scorpion's Gate; if they have, BY THE SWORD suddenly seems plausible. Fans will appreciate this frightening tale that contains a strong cautionary message to beware because any extreme fundamentalist group can prove dangerous when they insist it is only their way (maybe Wal-Mart should call it the Hanukkah or Kwanza season). Amber is a courageous soul, but is clearly out of her depths in her opposition to the Ayatollah Hoseni and his powerful supporters. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special operations and Low Intensity Conflict the Honorable William J. Davies orders General Buck Grant to shut down the Columbian job immediately. He wants three of the four agents to handle a potential terrorist act in the American Heartland where a Soviet nuclear bomb is headed. He also demands Buck not use that lunatic Creed Rivera, the ghost killer. However, Hawkins, Hart or Chronopolous are unavailable even if Buck could find any of them; thus he sends Creed without a leash leaving behind his comrade and the two terrorist killers they stalk. Outraged Creed flies to Denver to abduct the most dangerous woman in the world, Cordelia "Cody" Stark, who looks like the poster child for librarians rather than an international nuclear arms broker. However, as Creed stalks her waiting to make his move, three brutes attack her. With her cover broken and unable to shake Creed who saved her life, Cody flees knowing that if caught she will spend time in Leavenworth, but at least the map that everyone wants is stacked away in a terrific hideout in plain sight. The third "Crazy" tale is a wild romantic suspense starring perhaps the craziest of the foursome and the only woman for him, the courageous somewhat kooky Cody. The story line like its predecessors (see CRAZY HOT and CRAZY COOL) is fast-paced from the moment that Creed arrives in Colorado and never slows down until the final altercation in which all hell breaks loose with Cody in the middle. Fans of the miniseries and sub-genre readers will enjoy the tale of the "Blond Bimbo and the Bomb mostly due to the two "bad to the bone" protagonists. Chrissy McMullen went from being an Illinois cocktail waitress to a Los Angeles psychologist; between her two professions she considers herself an expert on the human condition. Her best friend Laney Butterfield works as her receptionist and there isn't anything she wouldn't do for her including finding her boyfriend Jeen Solberg who disappeared at a convention in Las Vegas for techno-geeks. This is a true test of friendship because she can't stand Solberg who she calls many derogatory names to everyone but Laney. Solberg's boss has not heard from him but isn't worried because in Vegas Jeen told him he needed a few days vacation time. Nobody else has heard from him either including his co-workers and next door neighbor. Solberg calls Chrissy to ask her to meet him at a designated location. When she goes to get her car two thugs abduct and manhandle her but she escapes. She learns that Solberg's boss thinks he embezzled, $500,000 dollars from the company but Chrissy is sure that is not true and he is in trouble. She asks questions and ends up turning herself over to the real perpetrator in return for letting the person he kidnapped go. Now Chrissy is alone with some very dangerous men and has no idea how to extricate herself from the situation. Lois Greiman's protagonist is a cross between Stephanie Plum and Harry Minor of the Mrs. Murphy series. Chrissy gets herself into zany, dangerous and unusual predicaments like Stephanie but she also has the savvy of Harry which allows her to extricate herself from potentially lethal situations without the help of a man. Lieutenant Jack Rivera is sticking to Chrissy in the hopes she will confide in him and like in UNZIPPED the sexual tension is so thick, one can cut it with a knife. The mystery is well written and readers will thoroughly UNPLUGGED. ISBN: 0974768049, $15.00, 305 pp. Her architectural husband Brad Morris mentioned that the hollow leg bones on big dinosaurs seems from an engineering perspective impossible; thinking about it the pregnant Jennifer begins to theorize that perhaps an external organism attacked the mallow. However, her opportunity to prove her theory goes wrong with the entire paleontology team dead, but before dying Jennifer manages to call Brad to save their child. Several years later, pandemic destruction leaves few survivors. Brad and his son William meet a few other survivors as they make their way to sanctuary. Shannon, Jason, Nancy, her son Tim and her sister Cindy, and Trick stay alive while watching loved ones die horribly. Corpses are everywhere. None understand why they are the chosen to live when others died so horribly. In common they share a genetic mutation that has allowed them to become the survivors of the malady. The world they knew is gone and no longer safe for middle class people. One more death occurs while strange psychic powers blossom. The human SPECIES has taken the next Darwinian step of survival of the fittest. Michael McBride provides a fabulous end of the world thriller that grabs the attention of the audience from the moment of the initial tragedy and never gives readers a moment to catch their breaths until the final tragedy occurs. The action-packed story line is at first difficult to follow as several subplots involving the survivors occur, but that also enables fans to meet the key players and sense the big picture scope of the calamity as well feel the impact on the shocked individuals. Book one of the SPECIES trilogy is a winner that will have fans seeking out the next tale, SPECIES: THE HIVE. In 1774, during Captain Cook's second expedition in the South Pacific, the crew captures the thrush-like Mysterious Bird of Ulieta. Cook presents the unique specimen, only one of its kind ever seen, to his highly renowned friend, naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, who was on the first trek. Stuffed and given a place of honor as the rarest creature in Joseph's collection, the bird ultimately vanishes at the same time his lover Mary Burnett, who disguised as a man sailed on the second trek, disappeared. Over two centuries later, wealthy collector Karl Anderson and his lover Gabriella persuades her ex, British conservationist John "Fitz" Fitzgerald, to search for the Mysterious Bird of Ulieta. Though he has not heard her voice in fourteen years and wants nothing to do with a search he catalogues with extinct species, the enthusiasm of his lodger Katya convinces him to agree. While Karl wants to add the bird's DNA to the Ark Gene project; American Emeric Potts searches for the valuable paintings that were reportedly encased with the lost bird. The two subplots rotate with the historical story line containing more energy perhaps because it is straightforward with fewer twists than the modern spin. Still the duality comes together nicely so that the audience receives a deep late eighteenth century slant inside a solid twentieth century thriller. Adding to the suspense is that the key casts in both eras seem genuine with many of the Cook crowd coming from real life. Martin Davies conjurers up the best bird investigation since the Maltese Falcon flew the coop. This particular Conan collection contains five of Robert E Howard's tales (Servants of Bit-Yakin, Red Nails, The Black Stranger, Beyond the Black River, and The Man-Eaters of Zamboula). Fans of the series know these are some of the best Conan escapades with plenty said on each. However, what make the compilation fun are the extras added on top of the thrillers. Included are early drafts of Mr. Howard's tales, an insightful essay the Hyborian Genesis that this reviewer found fascinating, and additional analysis of the recurring themes especially honor and death found in the Conan stories. As always the illustrations provided this time by Gregory Munches are top rate, but also seem so different than that of Gary Gianni's in Bloody Crown of Conan. Obviously targeting Howard fans, those who sword and sorcery fans who have not read the works of the founding father will also appreciate this anthology as the pride and courage of Conan stands out in every escapade in each of these incredible adventures. Sword Across Time Catherine Anne Collins ISBN: 1931742871, $14.99 New York magazine reporter, Tamara relaxes at her mom's home in rural Vermont, but feels compelled to search the attic. In her "quest" Tamara uncovers an ancient looking tome. She asks her mother Diana, a Wiccan witch, about the book. Diana claims the find is the ancient journal of Niumbe, the Lady of the Lake, High Priestess of Avalon. Though Tamara scoffs at that explanation, the rest of the story is even more ridiculed as her mother also insists that Tamara is Niumbe's descendent. Not long afterward in what she rationalizes is a coincidence, Tamara travels to Glastonbury, England on an assignment involving a Wiccan ceremony. She knows from Niumbe's journal that Glastonbury Tor is the alleged site where she fought Merlin over Excalibur. Private investigator Gavin Calder finds an ancient looking tome allegedly scribed by Merlin in his parents' attic. He takes it to his friend Mac, a bookstore owner, when Tamara enters Mac's shop carrying Niumbe's journal. Instantly Gavin and Tamara are attracted to one another, but both skeptics begin to ponder all the coincidences that brought them together. They wonder are they being manipulated to repeat the past or is fate using love to right the wrong. Using the Arthurian legend as a base, Catherine Anne Collins provides a delightful modern take as Tamara and Gavin must overcome skepticism, toss away logic, and control their feelings to battle each other or the diabolical enemy manipulating them as she did Niumbe and Merlin. The fascinating story line contains two plots that include flashbacks to Camelot and the modern day spin. Fans will wonder whether history will repeat itself or unite in love against a sly manipulative third party. SWORD ACROSS TIME will make believers of the Camelot crowd that Ms. Collins has had access to genuine Camelot journals. Legacy of Morevi Tee Morris and Lisa Lee ISBN: 1896944299, $19.95 Off the coast of Ireland, Captain Rafe Rafton sails the Defiant through "The Graveyard of Lost Ships" that he learns is a space-time continuum; they end up in the Kingdom of Morevi where he helps the ruthless First Queen Askana Moldarin against her enemies from within and from neighboring Eyrie. He succeeds, saving her life and her kingdom, and becomes consort to the Queen (see MOREVI: THE CHRONICLES OF RAFE AND ASKANA). Rafe and Askana initially assume happily ever after as he is a hero to her people and to her. However, as he struggles to adapt to life in Morevi, he finds the influential Ladies of the Blood want him to go home; somehow they persuade his daughter Ahstari, the Second Queen, to join their cause of removing the foreign usurper. However, before he can consider what to do about his child turning against him, Rafe must lead a battle that he knows his side cannot win against the dangerous Southern Wood creatures and the deadly magic of Morevi's former allies the Elves of Arathelle. One mistake and Rafe will welcome death as a better outcome for him. This second tale contains all the exhilarating thrills and magical chills that made the first Morevi entry terrific. The superb story line hooks the audience as the adventures begin early and never slows down. Rafe, like the true champion he is, feels prepared for epic hostilities on the mundane and mystical planes, but also fears he lost his daughter to the pure blood movement that want him deported. His relationship with the First Queen is that of love, but that might not prove enough, that is if he survives the upcoming war. This is a great character driven action-packed fantasy. Goddess by Mistake ISBN: 1930709323, $TBA Thirty something high school English teacher Shannon Parker stops at an auction sale where she notices a vase containing a portrait of her on it. She wins the bid with a ridiculously low price tag due to a mysteriously appearing crack inside the vase. On her way home, Shannon is transported from her vehicle to a luxurious temple where her friend Suzanna calls her Lady. She soon learns that the vase was a portal that her "twin" the High Priestess of Epona Rhiannon used for them to switch places; Suzanna is actually Rhiannon's slave Alanna. Centaur ClanFintan arrives with his "horsies" to demand Rhiannon complete the hand-fastening ceremony that would have them married for a year. Shannon goes through the ceremony, but refuses to take any lip (or other body part) from a man built at least down there like a thoroughbred. Instead she treats him and others the same way she taught teenage hormonal maniacs in Oklahoma. As the transplanted Shannon and the shapeshifting centaur fall in love, she tells him who she is while they team up to battle malevolent demonic vampires and prevent the real Rhiannon from returning. The first "Goddess" book contains the enjoyable ingredients that make these mythological romances fun to read because the species of mythos seem genuine and the strong heroine is ready to battle; in this case her new society, her beloved, her "twin", and the vampires using the techniques honed in teaching wars with teenagers. This tale is amusing mostly due to Shannon's observations and quips yet it has its' serious moments too (for instance the worshipped Goddess learns that teachers are treated with contempt as those who can't and paid accordingly). Though the heroine adjusts too easily, fantasy romance fans will cast about seeking the remaining delightful Goddess tales. After leaving Brazil for Portugal and gaining financial sponsoring in Lisbon, by 1731 Bartolomeo Louren is ready to test his airship, the Passarola in front of His Majesty Joao V. However, Bartolomeo's flying machine angers Cardinal Conti who believes that if man was meant to fly, God would have given Adam wings. With the force of the Portuguese Inquisition, he forces Bartolomeo and his younger brother Alexandre to flee via their airship to France. French King Louis XV supports Bartolomeo's efforts to improve on the Passarola as the enlightened monarch sees great military advantage in fighting enemies on the ground from the air. Meanwhile the Acadmie des Sciences hire the siblings to measure distances to the polar circle, which they undertake. On the dangerous trek, Alex claims to have seen a great city, but no proof is offered and his older brother admits he never saw the phantom sprawl. After a return to France, Alex goes home to Brazil as the adventures are over for him, but Bartolomeo starts a new epic in India. Based on the real account of two eighteenth century brothers, PASSAROLA RISING is a superb historical fiction novel that brings to life the first half of the eighteenth century through the passion of siblings who want to soar through the sky. The tale is told in a look back memoir like manner by Alexandre, who romanticizes and worships his creative talented and daring older brother. Readers will enjoy the adventures of two daredevils defying church, royalty, and other powers of society to live out their dream even though for one of them it turns into a relatively short fantasy. The Thrall's Tale ISBN: 0670034649, $25.95 In 985 A.D., Eirik Raude is exiled from Iceland; he leads a party of his followers to settle in Greenland. Amongst those on the ocean faring journey is Irish catholic Katla, enslaved by Einar when he captured her during a raid. His son Torvard violently rapes her. Seeress Thorbjorg buys the battered young woman still wearing her rosary and nurses her back to health enabling Katla to give birth to a daughter, Bibrau. Thorbjorg becomes more of a mother to Bibrau, teaching her all she knows especially of Nordic mysticism. Katla misses her ability to openly practice her religion, which along with the violent way she conceived, lead to her hating her symbolic daughter. Bibrau knows her heritage including how all the other Greenlanders disdain her and how much her mother loathes her; she vows to use all that her mentor taught her to avenge all those who scorn her. THE THRALL'S TALE rotates the first person between the lead three females so that readers learn what motivates each one of them in a world where they remain outsiders and anticipate a tragic confrontation. The story line combines a strong look at the Norsemen colonies in Greenland at a time when Christianity is beginning to gain acceptance. It is this deep look at society in flux through the "victimized" trio that makes Judith Lindbergh's fine historical tale soar. Bridge of Souls ISBN: 0060747609, $14.95, 528 pp. Though he wishes he could go back to before when he was a general in the Morgravian army, Wyl Thirsk courageously continues to live with his "gift" of life granted to him by the now late Myrren the witch. Myrren's "gift" is a spell that propels his spirit to occupy the body of anyone who murders him. Currently Wyl resides in the body of his sister Ylena while he continues his quest to kill King Celimus of Morgravia with a secondary objective to thwart the monarch's intention to marry Queen Valentyna of neighboring Briavel. Meanwhile Myrren's late father Elysius before turning to dust "assigned" young Fynch "mentored" by Knave the dog to annihilate the malevolent magician Rashlyn. These two quests will soon link up leaving a depressed Wyl and unconfident Fynch in mortal danger from two evil abominations, but failure leaves their countrymen at risk. BRIDGE OF SOULS, the final bodysnatching tale in the Quickening trilogy (see MYRREN'S GIFT and BLOOD AND MEMORY) is a fabulous epic fantasy that grips fans of Fiona McIntosh from the moment the boy magician Fynch and Knave communicate. The story line never slows until the final confrontation between good and evil. Though it is better to have read the previous tales to understand how things progressed to the bridge of no return, epic fantasy readers will appreciate the action-packed climax as Wyl tries to save the people of his nation and those of the neighboring country as well as the woman he loves in a desperate final gamut. Heir of Autumn Giles Carwyn & Todd Fahnestock ISBN: 0060878908, $25.95, 450 pp. Ohndarien is a city of peace where little crime exists and freedom abounds. The realm is governed by the Children of the Seasons, men and women who took the Test of Stone and those who are found worthy of the Heartstone. They wear a diamond in their chests that grant them magical powers. Prince Krellis of Physendria came to Ohndarien to conquer but instead but was persuaded by one of the Children Baelandra to take the test and when he passes it he becomes one of the Children. Krellis trains the army and governs justly so that the people and soldiers become loyal to him. When his son with his dying breath tells his father that Brophy was the one who raped a Faradan girl, Krellis exiles him. He is shipped to Physendira who intends to invade the Ohndariens. He becomes the Queen's champion in the deadly game Nine Squares. From there he travels to the island of Cinder to ask the Opal Empire to help them in the upcoming war. On the island is a potent weapon that if let loose could destroy the world. Once the Opal Empire realizes that Ohndariens were preventing the Legacy of Efflen from being used, they change sides and agree to help. However it will be Brophy who will be the one to save his homeland if he is willing to pay the price. HEIR OF AUTUMN is a terrific and spellbinding work of high fantasy. There is enough political intrigue, battle scenes and romance to keep readers' attention at an all time high. Told from the perspective of various characters, fans becomes so involved with the tale that they are unable to stop reading even for one moment because they want to see what happens next. The authors have an excellent sense of place that allows the audience to believe these locales actually exist. No Present Like Time ISBN: 0060753889, $13.95, 416 pp. In the Fourlands several years have passed since THE YEAR OF OUR WAR, but now a rare challenge to a position in Emperor San's Circle of the immortal Eszai occurs. Shockingly the newcomer defeats Gio Ami, and replaces him as the Swordsman, Serein. Feeling humiliated by his defeat, as only the second immortal to lose the vaunted inner circle position in several centuries, Gio vows to regain his place of prominence and more. Meanwhile San sends Eszai members Comet Jant Shira, the new Serein, and the Sailor to negotiate with the natives of a newly discovered island, Tris to obtain their agreement to join the Fourlands. The mission fails as the islanders, knowing they were once the fifth land of the Fourlands, want their paradise to remain out of the empire. However, a deadly Insect, who should never have been on board the Stormy Petrel, is released on Tris at about the same time Gio leads an assault on San's castle. The sequel to THE YEAR OF OUR WAR is a fine fantasy that contains two major well written subplots: the future of Tris and the insurgency led by former Swordsman Gio. There are also several minor threads involving specific relationships between characters, but those weigh down the prime sagas even when Jant uses drugs to visit the intriguing and critical to this tale realm of Shift. Still this is a well written original thriller that fans will enjoy as more people see the "Emperor's New Clothes" while the Insects still cause havoc. Laura Anne Gilman ISBN: 0060772794, $10.99 King Arthur declares that he and 93 knights will seek the Holy Grail. In Camelot, a gala occurs to celebrate the upcoming quest. However, something strange occurs when all the adults abruptly fall asleep while all the children remain awake; adding to the discomfit of those not asleep is the fact Merlin is missing. Gerard squire to Sir Rhaymond d'Abmont realizes an enchantment has occurred, but that the children must pretend all is normal or their enemies will take advantage of the vulnerability. Gerard, Queen Guinevere's handmaiden Ailis, and Newt the horse boy know only Merlin can reverse the spell. They begin a trek to find the missing wizard unaware that a malevolent force will kill anyone who tries to prevent the destruction of Camelot. GRAIL QUEST is a fun young adult Arthurian fantasy that looks at Camelot from an entirely different perspective as children must save the day. Though his appearances are limited, Merlin steals the show as everyone knows not to mess with someone who can turn you into a rat; in some ways he seems like the Merlin in the Disney cartoon The Sword in the Stone. The three heroes are terrific with differing personalities as the squire and the horse boy squabble all the time while the handmaiden tries to keep the peace. Targeting the Potter crowd, Laura Anne Gilman enchants her audience with her version of the Knights of the Round Table. ISBN: 0060541881, $15.99 The town council wants to sell off the historical cemetery to a developer. They insist that no one except an old woman visits the place and it is expensive to keep it up. They do not know that twelve years old Johnny Maxwell uses it as a short cut and that he has personally met and talked with some of the vertically challenged residents such as the Alderman. The deceased people interred there are irate that their final resting place is to be bulldozed and refuse to lie around letting it happen. They draft Johnny as their spokesperson. Johnny enlists his friends like Wobbler Johnson, who thinks the whole thing is nuts but will help his pal. Their efforts to publicize the history are ignored as no one remotely famous is buried there; in some ways even with names on stones it is sort of a Potter's Field. The dead are no longer going to take it so they plan to kill the project before their bones are rattled except that they cannot agree on a plan. Only Johnny can bring the two parties together, but neither the dead nor the living heed the words of a preadolescent. The sequel to ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND is a terrific amusing satirical fantasy that is fun for readers of all ages. Johnny is the center of the story line that holds together the graveyard humor with his family escapades and the townsfolk plots of future development. Perhaps the only quibble for adult readers is the fast climax, but remember the targeted audience is the preadolescent crowd who will laugh out loud at the ironic dark humor. ISBN: 0060543337, $24.95, 272 pp. University of Wyoming Professor Sally Alder always start her Women's Rights in America class with the English common law "Rule of Thumb" that a man must use physical force to correct anything he deems is misbehavior by his wife or children; even the bible affirms that this is God's decree. In the twenty-first century, Sally points out that we are more enlightened, but some still hold to the rod and sword. Student Charlie Preston stopped attending class about a month ago, but now sits outside Sally's office battered; she refuses to go to the cops, her family or even a hospital to insure no internal damage. Sally provides Charlie with some money while assuming the coed's dad Brad, who has harmed her before, beat her up. Charlie vanishes again and not long afterward Sally learns that someone killed Brad. The obvious suspect is Charlie so Sally with the help of attorney Dave Haggerty investigates the homicide as she firmly believes her abused student is innocent. In her fourth academic mystery (see BYE, BYE LOVE) Mustang Sally places herself in danger in an effort to prove the innocence of an abuse victim. The story line starts off very interesting as Sally lectures her class of mostly zombies on the Rule of Thumb that fascinatingly is never mentioned by Fundamentalists when quoting scripture as the rationale behind a social poison. The investigation is fun to follow while the heroine's relationship with Hawk is jeopardized by the attention Dave gives her. Fans of strong resourceful female sleuths will enjoy the Professor's latest escapades. ISBN: 0385337973, $21.00 Starting with the challenge by the O'Shaughnessy sisters in their introduction to guess who wrote which tale, this terrific crime based anthology consists of eight new stories as well as eleven others previously published elsewhere but not together. The tales are fun to read especially the delightful Nina Reilly's sleuth story Paul van Wagoner stars in "Success without College" and Gertrude Stein heads two others. Each tale is fun to follow especially when the audience learns of the crime. In addition the award winning The Long Walk is also part of the compilation. Fans of the O'Shaughnessy siblings will appreciate their salute to the criminal mind while new readers will seek their Reilly legal thrillers, but everyone will take their fifty-fifty shot at guessing authorship. In AD 57 Britannia, Breaca of Mona agrees with what others including the Roman Standard Bearer Vindex have said that fighting alone means eventual defeat. However, uniting the tribes against the brutal outsiders seems impossible especially since her potentially best ally her brother Ban the Valerius lingers in prison. Ironically in spite of her sibling switching sides several times betraying his people and the Romans, he remains her only hope to help her unite the still bickering clans even after fourteen years of occupation by Emperor Claudius' legions. Over the next couple of years Breaca remains steadfast feeling strongly that she must continue to take the fight to the Romans. That is why she kills Vindex and leads the rescue of Caradoc. Her success brings hope to her and her Eceni people who now call Breaca the Boudica, "Bringer of Victory". She wonders if perhaps her new husband Prasutagos could expedite the removal of the Romans from Eceni. However, the Romans also have heard of the legendary warrior woman and plan to attack the island of Mona where she is allegedly leading the insurgency. The third Warrior Queen historical tale (see BOUDICA: DREAMING THE EAGLE and BOUDICA: DREAMING THE BULL) is an exciting look back at Ancient Britannia during a two-three year period in which Boudica tries to rally forces against the Romans. Manda Scott enables her audience to see much deeper inside her key protagonists so that motives are apparent especially Ban, who's hard to fathom his honor system from a modern day perspective. Though the story line at times feels padded and subsequently slows down, for the most part this is a terrific addition to the epic saga; fans of the series will appreciate this entry while newcomers should read the previous two thrillers first. The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes ISBN: 0778322750, $24.95, 384 pp. In the Triangle area of North Carolina Corinne Elliot and her lover reporter Ken Carmichael discuss her pregnancy when he learns he has been yanked from the Gleason murder trial coverage. Angrily he puts on the TV news only to have Corrine, once she sees the victim's face, tell Ken that the accused is not guilty of killing pregnant Professor Genevieve Russell, wife of the then governor, because she was there in 1977 Chapel Hill, twenty-eight years ago. Corrine's mom therapist Eve Elliot also knows that Gleason never killed Genevieve. However, if she admits the truth she will spend time in jail, shatter her marriage to dear Jack, and destroy her loving daughters Dru and Corrine and that of Genevieve's surviving family. For the truth is she guiltily abetted in the abduction of Genevieve that still haunts her husband, now the University of Virginia President Irving Russell, and their daughter Vivien. If she fails to speak up an innocent man will die. As she ponders what to do, Corrine is coming home seeking the truth from the woman who lovingly raised her. Though similar suspense laden family dramas have been told before, readers will appreciate Diane Chamberlain's deep take due to a strong cast and the smooth transitions between today and what happened in 1977. The exciting story line grips the audience once Corrine recognizes the dead woman, never slows down while Eve thinks back to the mountains of lies that make up the foundation of her life and relationships, and the final confrontation between the members of two families tied together in tragedy. The emotional realism of reactions by the various cast members makes THE SECRET LIFE OF CEECEE WILKES a delightful character driven thriller. ISBN: 0778322726, $6.99, 384 pp. In 1855, impoverished twenty two year old Kate VanNam leaves Boston to start over in Fortune, California where she has inherited a mansion and a gold mine from her Great-Aunt Arielle VanNam Colfax. When her Uncle Nelson, who raised her and her brother dies, she decides to find her fortune out west. However, when she arrives on the West Coast she finds her situation not golden as the house is so dilapidated it may be dangerous and there is no gold left in her mine; ergo no fortune. Sheriff Travis McLoud does not hide his fear that the beautiful easterner means problems keeping her safe from the horde of miners wanting her. Also arriving in town is Winn Delaney, who decides the Bostonian is the perfect complement to him as the only true gentleman in Fortune. However, Travis soon finds he wants to step to the head of the line courting the kissable Kate even as that makes the owner of the Golden Nugget Valentina Knight jealous while someone wants the "worthless" gold mine at any cost to others especially the well being o f the transplanted Bostonian. This is an amusing western romance starring two amiable protagonists. Travis has a strong foreboding that the arrival of Kate is trouble for him, but initially he thinks as a law enforcement official, but soon revises his estimation to that of his heart in jeopardy. The zany story line makes for a fun mid nineteenth century tale. Nan Ryan always writes an exciting and delightful romance novel. The Cotton Queen ISBN: 0778322696, $12.95 In McKinney, Texas Babs reaches the finals of the Cotton Queen Beauty pageant. There she meets and eventually marries air force mechanic Tom Hoffman. However, the happy couple remains together a short time as he dies in a maintenance accident during World War II. She returns home to raise their daughter Laney by herself though she has no employable skills as she was not trained for anything but marriage. Years later Laney resents her June Cleaver 1950s mother. Instead Laney revolts holding her mom in contempt. To her chagrin, her seventeen years old daughter Rachel has entered the Cotton Queen pageant that Laney has always boycotted as demeaning. While Rachel understands both her mother and grandmother, she walks the middle wanting both to make peace and be there for her while knowing her father Stan and her two younger brothers will support her endeavor. The story line rotates between Babs and Laney so that the audience obtains a close look at a generation gap wider than the Grand Canyon. The only common ground between the two females seems their love for Rachel (and her two brothers though they play minor roles). Interestingly both Rachel and Stan believe that Babs and Laney are two peas in a pod. Pamela Morsi provides an interesting look at a huge generational war. The Devil's Waltz ISBN: 0778322734, $6.99, 384 pp. Viscount Christian Montcalm needs to pay his bills off soon or face disgrace. He decides gambling will keep the collectors at bay for a short time; instead he needs a biddable wealthy wife. He chooses seventeen years old Hetty Chipple, daughter of a rich shipping magnate Josiah who wants his offspring accepted into high society. Josiah hires Annelise Kempton to teach his daughter how to behave amidst the Ton and serve as her escort. Annelise believes she is on the shelf because she is too tall, too smart and too outspoken for her male peers. When she catches Hetty trying to sneak off with Christian, she intercedes and rips his skin off. To his surprise he finds himself attracted to the "Dragon" and plots to wed her charge and bed her. Annelise knows her job is to keep the undesirable fortune hunting wolf away from Hetty. As Annelise and Christian battle, they fall in love, but they both know they are too poor to marry besides which neither trusts the other. That is until she rescues him from the teen chatterbox. This Regency gender war is a well written romantic romp starring two wonderful enemy combatants fighting over a spoiled teenager. The story line is at its best when these two strong protagonists go toe to toe and lip to lip. A late smuggling suspense is also well-written, but seems unnecessary as the skirmishes between the lead couple makes for a delightful historical romance. ISBN: 0778322688, $6.99, 384 pp. In 1902 New York amateur sleuth Francesca Cahill gets her father to agree to support her marrying notorious businessman Calder Hart, who he fears will break his daughter's heart one day but dad stipulates she wait one year to wed him. Not long after compromising with her caring father, Francesca receives a note from Rose who asks her to come quickly to Daisy Hart's home. Though she is reluctant to visit Daisy, Calder's former lover, who hates her, Francesca comes anyway. A near hysterical Rose asks Francesca to investigate the homicide of Daisy as she does not trust the police. Francesca would prefer to team up with Commissioner Rick Bragg as she has done several times recently. However, her mind is made up for her when she sees Calder, who was supposed to be in Boston on business, staring at the battered corpse. The evidence points at her fiance as the killer. Everyone assumes he committed homicide except Francesca who refuses to believe her beloved would kill so viciously though she knows he is concealing something from her. The latest Cahill historical amateur sleuth tale (though not paid can you remain classified an amateur sleuth after eight or nine investigations?) is a terrific tale as the audience obtains a fine murder mystery and further insight into how Francesca's parents feel about Calder as a son-in-law. The inquiry is interesting because everyone assumes that Calder killed Daisy except Francesca who sets out to prove she is right in spite of her beloved not cooperating. Brenda Joyce freshens up her Cahill capers with this fine who-done-it that also moves forward on the two male fronts that had seemed stagnant in recent books. A Necessary Evil ISBN: 0778322742, $21.95, 416 pp. In DC and in Nebraska someone is killing men who have abused power with an emphasis on priests. Though the M.O. is similar and the victims all tainted, FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell begins to think two different perpetrators are at work with a common bond. That assumption leads her with the help of her mentor Dr. Gwen Patterson and Detective Julia Racine to search for the link between the killers, which she believes, is an Internet role-playing game for those who have suffered abuse at the hands powerful males. As Maggie worries about her friend Gwen who is acting strange and wants distance from Julia, the case takes a weird spin when the man she hates most in the world, brutal Father Michael Keller, is forced to return based on a package he received while hiding in a remote part of South America, with an offer to help her stop the killings in return for his ability to vanish once again in Venezuela. Maggie debates making a Faustian deal with the child killing devil while vengeance continues. Alex Kava's latest exhilarating O'Dell thriller showcases the profiler struggling with a complex case made more difficult by the actions of her beloved teacher Gwen, whose fears of field work hampers her ability to help. The fast-paced story line for the most part contains the two subplots that move back and forth between Omaha and DC before tying together in an exciting action-packed tale. Fans of the series will enjoy Maggie's dilemma as to whether to deal with A NECESSARY EVIL or not. Debbie Macomber, Katherine Stone & Lois Faye Dyer ISBN: 0778322122, $7.99, 304 pp. "5-B Poppy Lane" by Debbie Macomber. In Cedar Cove, Washington, anti-war protester Ruth Shelton has been exchanging letters and email with USMC Sergeant Paul Gordon. However, he is coming home from Afghanistan on leave and wants to meet her in person. She has doubts because of his occupation. "Liberty Hall" by Katherine Stone. Former sergeant Jake Morrissey visits his friend Dan at the University of Washington Medical Center's rehabilitation Medicine Department where his brother in arms is getting an artificial leg installed. Jake meets English Professor Chloe Abbott whose group the Seattle's Women's Club has donated much of the medical equipment. They are attracted to one another form the start, but someone with a grudge plans to use her as a throw away pawn to get at Jake. "The Apple Orchard" by Lois Faye Dyer. In Sarah's Orchard, Washington though he knows he will be punished by his mother's latest boyfriend, Nick rescues the toddler. Elizabeth's grandparents Charles and Clara are grateful. Years later, an adult Nick returns to Sarah's Orchard where to his shock Clara knows him instantly as Elizabeth's hero. He stays there basking in the grandparent-like love of Charles and Clara. When Charles dies he remains there for Clara. When Elizabeth returns home, she and her hero fall in love but he keeps his military experience secret from her so she has doubts. These three terrific Washington State novellas star heroic military men and realistic women with doubts about a relationship with a soldier/veteran. The key to the tales is that diverse opinions on the Global War Against Terrorism is treated with respect and not wrapped inside phony for or against patriotic fervor while honoring the soldier. ISBN: 0778322378, $7.99, 384 pp. In Washington DC Quinn Harlowe left the Department of Justice to become a consultant. In a park, her friend DOJ attorney Alicia Miller starts screaming at Alicia that she need her help. They go to a nearby restaurant where Alicia loses it entirely and runs off only to enter a black Lincoln Town Car. Unbeknownst to Quinn, inside the vehicle is another DOJ colleague Steve Eisenhardt accompanied by two goons. They warn him to be quiet before dropping him off as they have pictures of him with a fifteen years old daughter of a senator. Quinn and her former boss Gerald Lattimore worry about Alicia. When she goes home to her cottage in nearby Yorkville where Alicia has been staying Quinn finds her friend's corpse. Not long afterward Quinn meets and is attracted to undercover US Marshal Huck McCabe and his partner Diego Clemente, who are infiltrating the violent Breakwater Security that the department believes is a terrorist vigilante group and probably behind Alicia's death. Though Quinn's doubts about her estranged friend committing suicide seem on target, her need to investigate appears off kilter even if she worked for DOJ. Her suspicions that Huck is more than just a security guard prove accurate, but not in the way she expected as she assumed he was a thug though she likes his kisses. Their relationship is fun to follow as he cannot give away his cover while she believes her heart has betrayed her. Fans will enjoy Quinn's investigation in which Huck struggles to keep her safe without destroying the case or endangering his partner. ISBN: 0778322718, $6.99, 480 pp. Christmas is being celebrated around the globe when the simultaneous terrorist attacks occur. In every time zone a Catholic Cathedral is devastated. At the same several economic points like an oil rig and the New York Stock Exchange data base were also hit. Whereas the former left thousands dead; the latter killed no one. Additionally, an anomaly in Baden, Baden happened when a small church was targeted. Saudi moderate Ahmed Ahsami feels betrayed. He set up the economic terrorism to hurt the west without causing deaths, which is why he chose Christmas. However, when you partner with the devil anything can happen and this case did. He plans vengeance for Islamic and Catholics as he tells Vatican Monsignor Vectroni of Stewards of Faith. In France, history aficionado General Jules Souet celebrates the first step he fostered towards his taking over as the world's leader. At the same time UN Office 119 operative Renate Baehle is filled with rage over the Baden, Baden murders as her family was eradicated in her opinion to get at her. She plans vengeance on those who committed the atrocity. Renate and Lawton Laine begin tracking the Internet banking that was needed to support this pandemic terrorism even as the nuclear genie appears on the verge of escaping the bottle. This exciting doomsday thriller smoothly ties two modern day conspiracies from competing groups vying for world domination back to Moses. The story line leaps around the globe as numerous subplots bring across the vast scope of the secret societies to dominate the planet. Initially difficult to follow with so much happening seemingly everywhere, the regional actions tie back together to forge the main exhilarating plot. Fans will appreciate this fast-paced powerful conspiracy thriller. In Tampa, Florida, though he hides his feelings, Michael Romano, a partner in an architect firm, knows that he wants the company's bookkeeper his best bud Kyra White as his own though he fears risking their friendship in any attempt to romance her. Following her latest rejection from some office loser, Michael takes Kyra to her favorite spot, a bookstore. Tired of male rebuffs, Kyra buys Sex Kitten 101 planning to remake her image from competent numbers manager to sexy siren. From her hair to lip gloss to clothing, Kyra radically changes her appearance. Men, including a recent rejecter, desire her, but one kiss makes Kyra realize that she wants Michael. As they fall in love, Kyra quits her job because of an embezzlement charge hanging over her head. Additionally, Michael detests introducing his beloved to his parents because he feels ashamed of their old country ways. Thus, what easily should be a love of a lifetime built on passion and friendship appears doomed. SKIN DEEP is a well-written torrid romance that reminds this reviewer of a General Hospital sub-tale (included Carl Anderson's song Friends and Lovers). The story line is what readers expect from the talented writing team Tori Carrington as the plot emanates heat from the two delightful lead characters. Though the embezzlement is interesting, the tension between Kyra and Michael is so hot that the money stealing becomes a minor nuisance rather than a strong subplot. Fans of equatorial relationships will want to read this tale because no one turns up the solar heat quite like this author team does. Silhouette Intimate Moments ISBN: 0373274742, $4.99, 300 pp. Presley, Oklahoma firefighter Shelby Fox hears a scream from the nearby home of M.B. Perry. She races over to insure the schoolteacher is okay only to find the woman on fire in her bed with a man watching. The apparent arsonist attacks Shelby. Police Detective Clay Jessup visits his close friend Shelby at the Presley medical Center where she recovers from her beating, but cannot remember the assault or why she was found unconscious in the home of M.B. by her crewmates working the fire at that house. Shelby plans to find out one way or another what her selected amnesia hides from her. As they follow clues at new arsons that use microwave ovens amongst other devices to set deadly infernos she begins to recall bits of the atrocity she observed and how she became a victim. The arsonist killer wants his only witness dead while Clay wants the woman he loves safe and sound by his side. Rightfully so, the romance takes a back seat to the well written arson investigation that has the two protagonists seeking a serial killer who in turn is seeking the heroine before she identifies him. The action-packed story line grips the reader from the moment that Shelby intrudes on the horrifying burning of her friend and never slows down through a series of fires until the final confrontation. Though the romantic relationship never heats up, the third Hot Zone thriller (see MELTING POINT and BURNING LOVE) is an exciting tale worth reading. ISBN: 0373513933, $4.99 The Top Secret Medusa Group is assigned to protect Anya Khalid at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Born in the Emirate of Bhoukar, but raised in Brisbane, she has become a world class figure skater who with the blessing of the Emir represents her birth country in the games. However, instead of being a heroine, many of the Bhoukar residents believe she is an abomination flaunting her sexuality and defying Islam. Medusa Isabella Torres is assigned as the lead to protect the skater because there is a viable assassination threat including a suicide bomber who could take out innocents as well as Anya. Delta Force Commander Dex Thorpe leads the overall security to quietly insure Munich does not happen in upstate New York. He detests working with a female, but soon changes his mind as he observes how competent Isabella is. As they team up to protect a skater carrying the world on her shoulders, the two operatives fall in love; but each knows keeping Anya safe and preventing a tragedy takes priority over their personal needs. Timed perfect with the Olympics in Torino in February and with the Spielberg movie, the latest Medusa tale is a strong novel that will excite the audience at any time of the year. The thriller stars a strong proficient female and a chauvinistic male who quickly becomes a born again supporter of women in dangerous missions due to the brave skillful work of Isabella. Part of the fascination in this novel resides with Anya who has pressures few if any (perhaps Jesse Owens in 1936 or Israeli athletes after Munich) have ever faced. The story line is driven by this wonderful support character as Cindy Dees provides the deepest best Medusa thriller yet because of Anya. Following the Russian incident, Calista St. James vowed never again to depend on Damien DeLuna who swears he loves her and acted out of her best interests; she thinks he chose the mission over her and can live with that, but not his method. However, Calista has a new problem when her medical team devastates her team sending kind hearted people like Jake into a rage. She needs to find the cure to an illness whose symptoms defy medical knowledge as the indications behave contradictory. Calista learns that a potential elixir is in a dangerous part of South America so she enlists the only man she believes can get them in and out, Damien who will lead her. Damien agrees, though he has some safety stipulations, as he will do anything to prove his love to his cherished Calista. RADICAL CURE is an exciting medical thriller with a touch of romance. The story line starts at a fast-paced speed with Calista and her team trying to free a girl from white slave traders, shifts into a higher gear with Jakes turning into a lunatic, and finally accelerates even more as the lead couple goes to South America. Fans will feel the sexual tension between Calista and Damien who, if they survive this mission, still have plenty to overcome as love is not enough as she trusts him with her life but not her heart. ISBN: 0373513925, $4.99 Gotham Rose member Chloe St. John, the Princess of Astoria of Denmark was engaged to attorney Marcus Sterling III, but he died in an explosion. However, Chloe knew the truth that her fiance was setting her up for a kidnapping so she is not mourning her loss. Though Chloe has moved in with Architectural Restoration reporter Jack Quaid, Gotham Rose President Renee Dalton-Sinclair insists she attend his funeral to cut down the questions from reporters. Afterward, Renee informs Chloe she has her field assignment for her. Apparently the international criminal mastermind the Duke runs an escort service that fronts a while slave market. They abduct young Russian women with no family ties to sell to willing buyers. Marcus somehow was tied to the group. Though it will upset another Gotham Rose member to be yanked from the case someone fluent in Russian needs to take over. Renee wants Chloe to be a "victim" of an abduction so they can trace the trail and capture the elusive Duke. Though she anticipates the danger the case will entail, neither she, her best friend Emma nor Renee come close to the reality. The latest Gotham Roses thriller is an exhilarating action-packed suspense tale that never slows down from the moment that Chloe learns her assignment from Renee. The story line is fast-paced once the heroine prepares herself to be abducted and once done realizes how the best laid plans can go astray. Though some of the escapades seem over the top, fans will appreciate this strong look at surprisingly a real problem, the international slave trade. Twelfth Night Proposal Karen Rose Smith ISBN: 0373197942, $4.25 In Avon Lake, Texas, Verity Sumpter compensates for her grief over the recent death of her twin brother by giving everything she can to her charge little Heather Montgomery, whose mother passed away and whose father Leo spends all his time working at the Montgomery Boat Company. When Heather gets hurt, Leo realizes how much he has failed his daughter as she refuses to let go of her nanny to go to him. He vows to change that. As Leo spends more time with Heather, he also finds he likes having Verity by their sides. Leo quickly realizes how much Verity loves Heather and that his child feels the same way as if the nanny was her mommy. Soon though he knows he should not, father like daughter falls in love with the nanny in spite of her efforts to remain in the background and hiding her beauty. Verity reciprocates those deepest feelings with the Montgomery duo though she knows how much love hurts as she still mourns the death of Sean. The TWELFTH NIGHT PROPOSAL is a warm compassionate contemporary romance that closes out Karen Rose Smith's delightful Shakespeare in Love series on a high note. The three prime players suffer from loss, but with each other gain strength making a strong case that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Verity is a fabulous protagonist struggling with life until she realizes how much Heather needs her. Leo hides behind his work to avoid emotional attachments. Finally Heather is confused by the death of her mom and the abandonment of her dad. These three wounded souls come together to forge a terrific family drama that truly celebrates the Bard. The Hobo Chronicles ISBN: 1590885899, $TBA As he watches his mother slowly die, Acey Tapp knows he owes a ton of money so when he finds a card advertising McMunn and Son Investigations he goes there hoping to score a job. He meets elderly Webster Munn, the "son" in the company, but before they can talk the sleuth collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile a client Karen Grout arrives wanting to hire Webster to find her missing daughter. Acey does not correct her identity misconception and accepts the case for Webster. Karen explains that when her daughter Tina Lynn was sixteen she vanished but clarifies that the last time she saw her daughter was in 1956, forty-nine years ago. Webster splits the fee with Acey, telling him to go earn it. Acey starts with Tina Lynn's high school buddy Shelly Norton nee Weiss who gives him a picture of her best friend with a young man; insisting they ran off together. Acey recognizes the tattoo on the man as the same as one recently found dead hobo. As he follows the trail handicapped by a local law enforcement official who discourages his cold case investigation, but encouraged by a possible new squeeze, Acey uncovers more than just a missing person who fled to Canada; he finds a series of homicides over the last five decades. A tongue-in-cheek hard boiled detective story, THE HOBO CHRONICLES is a delightful mystery that works because of the relationships between Acey and several other important players especially his sleuthing "mentor", who preps him on what he must do. The whodunit is cleverly written to fool readers (and Acey) though clues are in plain sight. However, besides a terrific action-packed tale the keen humorous barbs between McMunn and Tapp make for a fun time. The five women are at the Lakeside Inn to attend the wedding of Jennifer to Michael. Each has differing feelings about marriage and relationships with men in general. All feel they are in some form of a personal crisis. The bride's Aunt Elizabeth Anderson plans to confront her seemingly indifferent husband Phil after the ceremony as she sees nothing positive with their quarter of a century together especially since she assumes he loves his jogging partner Delia. The wife of Michael's boss Suzette Burke thinks her spouse Jim is cheating on her. Jennifer's widowed paternal grandmother Margaret Simpson misses her Calvin, who died almost a year ago. The groom's sister-in-law Laura Fairbanks suffers from postpartum depression, but her husband David, their family and her friends refuse to see her mental troubles as their two month old daughter Amy is perfect. Finally Ingrid Campbell suffers from doubts about tying the knot to Jason; she fears she agreed to his proposal as a knee jerk reaction to her best friend's wedding. This character driven tale contains a female ensemble effortlessly rotating chapter leads. The shifting view point is easy to follow as each of the fivesome differs in relation to the bride and that brings some depth to the troubled quintet. Though readers will empathize with each of the lead players, what initially seems like anguish built up over varying time periods, resolves relatively too easily though not all remain as couples by the end of the day; expediting the issues make the quintet seem somewhat shallow. Still this is a fine relationship drama starring likable people in trouble. The Healer's Heart: A Modern Novel of the Life of St. Luke Diane M. Komp ISBN: 1578569133, $13.99, 352 pp. Yale University Medical School Infectious Disease specialist Dr. Luke Tayspill visits his dying father in Ohio. Being there makes him wonder how his currently estranged journalist wife Theo is dong in London, where she deals with a strange physical diagnosis that she hides from Luke and from the post-traumatic stress disorder caused when she covered war ravaged Sarajevo. He further reflects back on his childhood when his father showed no positive emotions while his grandfather gave him a zest for life. Inside a secret compartment of a locked desk, Luke finds a hidden manuscript "The Deaths of Lukas Tayspill" written by his late loving grandfather Giles, he is shocked not just by the title, but also by the revelations of two ancestry Luke Tayspills dying martyr deaths and the tale of a third to be completed in the near future. He decides to finish the story his grandfather set forth in the journal. Seeking closure, Luke travels to war wracked Sierra Leone where his grandfather's story started but he will "write" the ending with his actions in this devastated African nation. THE HEALER'S HEART is a strong modern day retelling of the St. Luke story that fans will appreciate. Luke is a terrific protagonist whose discovery of the journal opens his mind to all sorts of possibilities when one believes in Jesus while performing good deeds. Though the story line contains too many subplots in too many different periods that at times makes it difficult to follow, Diane M. Komp provides a strong character driven look at faith in the modern age. ISBN: 0758210000, $12.95 Kamille Cooper believes that the best way to stay young is through nips and tucks that keep her lips full, her stomach lean, and even her elbow fashionable. Everyone who knows Kamille think she is a success because she has it together emotionally and mentally, but she knows inside otherwise fearing a wrinkle will ruin her. Nora Perez loves a good time especially hopping the night clubs every night with a different man in hand. However her age has begun to show on her face and other body parts with men starting to ignore her. Nora can not live with herself without a man so she decides as she nears forty she must recapture the youth she is losing via a face lift and more. Motherhood, apple pie, work and age have devastated Brenda Harrison's once lithe body. She fears her husband no longer desires her as he increasingly comes home late from work. She decides to reverse the aging process with a nip and a tuck to entice her spouse to come home for nooners. In DC these three women begin attending plastic surgery 101 with all the modern day treatments to tighten their bodies, help them recapture their lure and beauty, and slow age creep. A cosmetic friendship forms in which each wonders will this be enough to keep men salivating? These three interwoven subplots concentrate on how much America is into the youth culture willing as much to destroy one's body to push back the aging line. The three female stars are unique protagonists with different fears and needs that each one believes cosmetic surgery will cure or at least delay the inevitable. Patrick Sanchez provides a deep harrowing character study of how far someone is willing to go to look young. Girls Who Gossip ISBN: 0758207603, $12.95 Helaina Denner mourns the death of her beloved mom when she decides to end the estrangement and reconcile with her wealthy dad because she needs family at this moment. Thus she travels to Colorado where she tries to hide her feeling of appall from her aloof father and her aunt, who are having an open affair while the relative who connected to both of them lies warm in her grave. Unable to cope Helaina turns to alcohol, but that only leaves hangovers. Her friends feel for her but she detests the pity she senses behind their sympathy. She knows she must find closure with her mother's sudden mysterious death and move past her rage at her dad and aunt for desecrating her mom. Helaina finds some solace with poet Owen, who helps her inch closer to emotional harmony, but the weights on her back make progress seem snail-like. GIRLS WHO GOSSIP is a deep character study of a despondent grieving young woman feeling all alone since her mother died trying to connect with her father, but makes no progress on that front, which in turn depresses her further. Helaina's relationship with Owen seems very realistic with its ups and downs as both have problems, but the emotionally battered female finds herself in the crosshairs of needing and wanting a loving relationship but fearing to embrace one as love hurts. Fans of contemporary fiction will want to read this strong insightful tale. The Manolo Matrix ISBN: 0743496140, $13.00, 352 pp. The Internet game "Play-Survive-Win" involves three participants: Target, Protector, and Assassin. The Protector must prevent the Assassin from killing the Target who seeks to obtain a code that if entered before death, they survive rich; but if killed the Assassin earns the award money. Someone has brought PSW to the real world with permanent death as a strong possibility. Manhattan waitress and wannabe performer Jennifer Martin signed up years ago to play PSW online, but never did. Now she is notified just like her former roommate had been (see THE GIVENCHY CODE) that she is playing the game in the real world as a Protector of suspended FBI Agent Devlin Brady, who was involved in the last game. Jen takes the threat serious, but a guilt laden Devlin feeling remorse over killing his partner, welcomes the Assassin's bullet. That is until he realizes Jen could die for him. The Target protects the Protector while they work together to solve PSW before the assassin can kill either of them; making matters even more dangerous, the Assassin has a grudge against her Target. The latest PSW thriller is an action-packed yet character driven romantic suspense tale that never slows down once Jen, who takes the PSW notification email seriously, struggles to get the Target motivated. In fact the only reason Devlin plays is he feels a need to protect his protector. The Assassin is perfect as she sees an opportunity to avenge Devlin for doing his job by locking her away. The MANOLO MATRIX is magnificent. Killing Neptune's Daughter ISBN: 1933108053, $14.00, 249 pp. After all the bad things she did and the things that were done to her, Tina left Woods Hole on Cape Cod when she finished eleventh grade. She totally remade herself into another woman named Noelle and married a famous rock star who was a heavy drug user and wife cheater. Their exploits were featured in the media at every opportunity as tabloid favorites. One night Noelle leaves her Greenwich Village apartment and goes to her favorite spot, the St. Lukes in-the-Fields where a man rapes her before killing her with a marlinspike. Also living in the Village is sports reporter Billy Bagswell and even though he only met her once since they both began residing in New York City, he returns home to Woods Hole for her funeral. When Tina was living in Woods Hole, she was a slut, having sex with who she chose and reveling in the power it gave her. Unlike NYPD, mutual friend Catholic priest Father Zal and Billy think the killer lives in Woods Hole and has nothing to do with Noelle's New York lifestyle. The friends reminisce about the bad old days and begin to piece together the various puzzle parts of Tina's life, trying to conceptualize who had a motive to kill a former Woods Hole resident. KILLING NEPTUNE'S DAUGHTER is not a pretty book but it accurately reflects the darker goings on between high school students. One can't help but feel sorry for the victim because circumstances forced her to behave the way she did and each of her "friends" have their own guilt to bear. Randall Peffer is a talented writer who gives new meaning to the phrase vigilante justice. DeKok and the Death of a Clown ISBN: 1933108037, $14.00, 184 pp. In Amsterdam fifty-five years old real estate broker Julius Vlaanderen explains to Inspector DeKok that someone stole a million Euros worth of his jewelry collection, but the safe that contains them shows no evidence of a break-in and only the owner and his lawyer have access. The only other person aware of the collection's location is the victim's son Maurice. Though he works homicide, DeKok tells his partner Dick Vledder they will investigate the jewelry theft since no murders are under review at this time. However, before they can begin digging, DeKok and Vledder learn of a dead clown floating at nearby Crier's Tower. The victim has a knife obtruding from his back. Vledder immediately recognizes that the deceased is Pierrot a popular Dutch performer. As the cops investigate this murder and interrogate the members of the troupe that Pierrot belonged to and to a lesser degree look into the Vlaanderen robbery, DeKok begins to see a link. Although Vledder insists there is no connecting of the dots, the senior Inspector wonders whether what he believes happened in both cases can be enough to uncover the identity of a clever killer. The third translation of a DeKok Dutch police procedural (see DEKOK AND MURDER BY MELODY) is a fabulous tale that sub-genre fans will want to read in one delightful sitting. The story line grips the audience from the moment the Inspector questions the realtor about the theft and never slows down until the final "butterfly" effect. DeKok is an excellent cop while his partner and others bring out the best in the sleuth. This is must reading for fans who appreciate a strong European investigative tale. ISBN: 0758214065, $12.95, 304 pp. Twenty years old Suzanne Brennan met Jaxon Navarre on a nude beach on Crete. They felt an instant attraction and went up to a cave where they made love. However, both agreed to a one night stand with no exchange of names. Four years later Vancouver, Canada resident Suzanne tells her friends that her last night in Crete was the best sex, perhaps the best moment of her life. At the same time in San Francisco Jax thinks back to the beautiful blonde in the cave. He regrets he failed to get her personal information; he now knows that his marriage that occurred just after that incredible one night was a farce, which is one of the reasons it ended in divorce. Encouraged by her pals, Suzanne puts out an Internet ad asking for her "Chocolate Man" to respond; Jax reads her personal and knows she has to be her. He responds and soon they agree to meet again. Will they have a second one night stand or will they go for much more as neither has forgotten that night in Crete? Though the probability seems slight that Jax will happen to look at personal ads on the net coincidentally at that moment, fans will enjoy this second chance at love, erotic style. The story line is fun to follow whether in Crete or on the Pacific coast as the lead duo is likable and seem to belong together. The support cast, especially her buddies, add to the fun and hopefully will do that and much more in their own tales. Readers of torrid contemporaries will enjoy this hot romance. ISBN: 0758214405, $13.95, 320 pp. "Pretender". Sunshine International accuses employee McCall Lindsay of embezzling funds from the Summers Group. Her friend arranges for the beleaguered woman to hide on Pleasure Beach on South Padre Island. Derek Summers, CEO of the Summers Group also arrives at Pleasure Beach. After assuming she is a hooker, they make love, but she fails to correct his mistake. Over that weekend they fall in love, but once their names surface their fantasy will end. "Same Time Next Week". At Pleasure Beach single business consultant Kinsey Carlyle is thinking of accepting a proposal from boring dentist Zachary Taylor when she meets reconstructive surgeon Marcus Wallace, who suffers from cardiac problems. They exchange first names and no more as they make love. However he wants more as he loves Kinsey, but becomes angry when he learns she is married with kids as he wants her everyday not just next week, but a punch in the eye makes him see double while revealing the truth to him. "Jack of Hearts". Cardiologist Jack McMillan travels to his vacation house on Pleasure Beach to forget being dumped by Mardee. However, living next door is the best friend of Mardee's sister, talk show hostess Royce St. Clair. As the two argue over everything in life, they make love and fall in love, but he suffers from commitment phobia caused perhaps by his wondering if he could be fickle or rebounding. These three fun erotic romances will heat up readers as the lead couples seek pleasure initially, but gain so much more. ISBN: 0758207646, $22.00 In New Orleans, Maid for a Day owner Charlotte LaRue agrees to service Emily Rossi's emergency request for help. Emily is hosting a gala for out-of-town guests attending the Mardi Gras, but her personnel maid left on a family emergency. However, Charlotte has doubts and not just because she is shorthanded as Emily's husband, Robert is reported to be a cold-blooded crime boss, who will kill anyone in his way including the cops suspect, his father. Charlotte tries to concentrate on doing her job even when she sees and hears a raging Robert screaming at everyone as some of his Faberge eggs are missing. Still the fee is top dollar though Charlotte does not want to know the source so when Emily asks her to also fill in for a server, she agrees. The masquerade ball proves lethal to the mob king as he is WIPED OUT with Emily holding the murder weapon. The cops assume the spouse did in her husband, but Charlotte thinks the police want to sweep the dirt under the rug with Fat Tuesday about to begin. Reluctantly she investigates the other family members who hated the patriarch as well as his opportunistic rivals and ambitious gang members. Adhering to her policy that she was not hired as a MAID FOR MURDER, Charlotte vows to stay out of the homicide investigation. However, being who she is when she notices little things that only a forensic expert or a cleaning person would see, she feels she must at least prove that the prime suspect is innocent. Fans will polish off her latest New Orleans adventure though with Katrina and now the controversy over hosting or canceling Mardi Gras the tale has an eerie feel to it. This is an excellent mystery. ISBN: 0373895690, $12.95 For several years, columnists Jenny George of Street Beat and Slaid Warren of Slaid in the City have competed in public and especially in private email and phone calls repeating the same message of beat you so top this. Surprisingly, considering the rivalry and the same coverage of city politics, these journalistic warriors have never met in person. Both work the same story that links the mayor's office with obtaining illegal kickbacks and prohibited expensive freebies in exchange for favors. Jenny and Slaid race to St. Croix where the CEO of Reilly Films, Jack Reilly, is hosting New York City officialdom especially the decision-makers from the Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting. Her live-in lover Chris seems happy she will be away for the holidays as he looks forward to working with "model thin". When Slaid and Jenny meet in person for the first time sparks fly as she realizes he is much nicer than her goading opponent image she has of him and he concludes she is wonderful person so much more than the shallow reporter he treasures teasing. WHAT MEN WANT is a fine journalist investigative romance starring two "wrestlers" wanting the other to concede that they are the superior reporter. Following the same beat on the same fourteen miles in length small island makes it difficult to believe they never met in person until they go to the Caribbean. That aside, the story line is fun and filled with antics and stinging barbs between the likable lead couple. The investigation adds to the rivalry while serving as the matchmaker between two enemy combatants falling in love. ISBN: 037389564X, $12.95 All her friends seem married except her. Instead Manhattanite Tracey Spadolini lives with her lover Jack, but he seems to suffer from commitment phobia. The worst incident occurs at the wedding of Jack's former Brooklyn roommate Mike Middleford, Tracey's boss at Blair Barnett Consulting, to nasty Dianne. Not only did Jack not want to go he is negative about tying the knot in general. Tracey is mortified as she wants to be Jack's wife. Tracey gains some hope when Jack's mom tells her that her son has taken out a family heirloom ring that he will surely give to her as an engagement ring. Tracey is excited because she loves Jack and wants to raise a family with him, but days turn into weeks and finally months with no ring forthcoming. Tracey has lost all hope and wonders if she must move on beyond the man she loves. Jack's "blindness" to Tracey's concerns make for a fine chick lit tale even though the heroine's grieving over her single status can send the audience wanting to smack her oblivious beloved that is until the readers learn we don't know Jack. The story line centers on Tracey's lament as the last single in Manhattan. Wendy Markham provides a lighthearted romp starring a young woman wondering why everyone but she and Jack assume she is on the verge of becoming engaged. Having just graduated from Oxford with no experience, Anna Travis knows that the only reason that Detective Chief Inspector James Langton hired her as Detective Superintendent is who she knew. When James was a newcomer, Anna's late father Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Travis mentored him so the DCI pays homage to the man who made him a cop by hiring his daughter. Anna plans to work diligently to prove that James was right to take a chance on her. A serial killer has murdered six prostitutes over twelve years, but apparently the seventh victim has no record of selling herself. DSI Langton and DS Travis find a suspicious link between the latest fatality, a seemingly innocent teen, and film actor Alan Daniels. Widening the geography of their inquiries, Anna and James analyze homicides at Daniels' movie shoot locations where similar deaths to their case occurred in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. Though the evidence is impelling against the actor, no beyond a shadow of a doubt proof surfaces; instead the charming Daniels turns his attention on Anna. This is a terrific British police procedural that pulls no punches on why Anna gets the job. The investigation on both sides of the Atlantic is fabulous as both cops and other law enforcement types feel that Daniels is their killer, but there is nothing substantial to take before a jury. The triangular relationships add suspense as the audience wonders whether the naive rookie will fall for the seductive charm of the polished actor or will she act on her admiration and attraction to her superior. Lynda La Plante, author of the delightful Prime Suspect series, provides a marvelous first act to the elation of the sub-genre. The New Animated Sherlock Holmes: The Novels Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Leslie Klinger (editor) ISBN: 039305800X, $49.95 Last year's perfect holiday gift for the mystery readers were the Holmes 56 short stories with illustrations and notes that provided incredible insight into the author and the great detective. Leslie Klinger, who pulled off the miracle of Christmas 2004, does it again for 2005. This time the Holmes scholar provides illustrations (some came with the original novels) and astute footnotes and more to the four Holmes novels (SEE A STUDY IN SCARLET, THE SIGN OF FOUR, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, and THE VALLEY OF FEAR). As with the shorts, besides having the novels (this reviewer read the last one for the first time recently) the tome contains anecdotes and definitions to Victorian era terms and lively Holmesian debates and treatise on related subjects. The third stand alone homage to Mr. Doyle is the holiday present of this year and not just for the Baker Street Irregulars. The Dream Life of Sukhanov ISBN: 0399152989, $24.95 Russian avant-garde artist Anatoly Pavlovich Sukhanov once admired the freedom and boldness of western art; his early work reflected that "decadent" influence. His inspiration changed when he married Nina, daughter of Soviet sponsored painter Malinin. That marital connection gets Sukhanov a bureaucratic job as a state critic of western decadence and cheerleader of Communist endeavors. Quickly Sukhanov rises up the bureaucracy to become Editor-in-Chief of Art of the World, a publication that ridicules Western art. With his rise, he receives the elitist Moscow apartment and other perks. By the late 1980s and in his fifties, Sukhanov knows his wife and daughter have no respect for his sell-out while his ambitious son disregards him because he has no polish to rise any further. Sukhanov also suffers from writer's block and is unsure whether to cheer or fear that Gorbachev will change his upper class lifestyle. His past and present collide when he meets a former artist friend who didn't sell out so never gained material advantages, but the edge is reached when someone else's positive freelance review of Russian painter Marc Chagall replaces his diatribe on the decadence of Dali. This is an insightful biographical fictionalized account of an individual who by selling his beliefs in the Soviet bureaucracy receives all the perks, but has lost his self-esteem and knows his family belittles him. Interestingly Sukhanov senses his lifestyle is about to end, but his feelings are mixed; as he welcomes this, but also fears he can never go home. Olga Grushin writes a fantastic insightful look at a man broken by a system. The Tavern on Maple Street ISBN: 0399153438, $19.95, 336 pp. ISBN: 0399153454, $21.95, 256 pp. In 1950 in Manhattan, Josephine Flannigan has stayed off the drugs for about two years while working at Tiffany's where she pilfers jewelry to sell, supplementing her income. She meets Nathaniel and Maybelline Wilson of Westchester County in the law offices of Jackson, Smith & Alexander. Nathaniel tells her that Nick "the Greek" suggested she could help them find their nineteen years old daughter Nadine, a Bernard drop-out hooked on drugs, who vanished three months ago in the city with a boyfriend Jerry McFall. They provide her with a retainer of, $1000 and another, $1000 if successful. Though she has never done anything like this and has no idea which Nick the Greek recommended her as that is a common street name, she accepts the case. Joe begins searching the mean streets of hell's Kitchens seeking out the pimps on the assumption that would be the only way Nadine could pay for her habit as he knows form first hand experience. However, danger lurks on every corner and with every stranger as well as the threat of returning to the environs where she first embraced drugs. Set just after World War II, DOPE is a gritty look at the underside of Manhattan where the drop-outs from the Blackboard Jungle die easily with no one to grieve them. The story line pulls no punches with its in your guts glimpse of the mean streets where drugs and prostitution are king and queen while the euphoria of victory in Europe and the Pacific is someone else's celebration. Joe is a fabulous heroine who knows the peril that walks everywhere she goes in search of the Westchester runaway as pimps and sellers do not want anyone interfering with their assets. ISBN: 0399152784, $25.95 For us boomers raised on the remarkable 1950s Disney production, AMERICAN LEGEND substantiates much of the Davy Crocket TV shows, but also augments it with insight into how much more complex a person the frontier legend was regardless of Buddy Ebson's summarizing ballad. Buddy Levy fills much of the gaps including mildly negative commentary. For instance, there is insight into Crockett's two wives, five children and four step-children in which the hero's itchy feet kept him on the road a lot; both his strong spouses took care of the home front with iron wills, but the hero was not home that often (regardless of offspring count). Interesting to this reviewer's memory of the Disney show has Mr. Crocket going to Washington as a success story, but the biographer paints a more balanced picture of a somewhat failed politician. However, the most interesting new items (at least to me) is Crockett wrote a bestselling autobiography in which he barnstormed the country selling it and his dispute with his former Commander in the Creek War President Jackson over the abusive Indian Removal Act of 1830. This is an intriguing look at an individual who in the first half of the nineteenth century was a living legend that authenticates how accurate the Disney portrayal was; one worth reading and the other worth watching. Train from Marietta ISBN: 0446695319, $12.95, 374 pp. In 1933 Katherine Tyler heads from her home in New York to work for her uncle as a nurse in a San Francisco hospital. However, her father's business partner William has his nephew Eddy Jacobs, boyfriend to Kate's sister Susan, abetted by two thugs (Hayden and Squirrelly) kidnap her in West Texas during a train stop. William plans to use her as a pawn to extort money and other valuables from her affluent dad John. Kate's desperate father ignores the warnings of bringing in the law; he contacts the Texas Rangers. In turn craggy rancher Tate Castle searches for and rescues Kate. Tate is shocked by his attraction to the seemingly frail city girl; she reciprocates his deep feelings. As they flee together she proves stronger than she looks, but his handicapped daughter Emily rejects her father finding a new love; even if Katherine is willing to give up everything for a ranch life in Texas. TRAIN FROM MARIETTA is a terrific Depression Era romantic suspense starring two likable protagonists, a realistic child with physical and emotional problems (though both are resolved too easily), and antagonists who range from insane to avaricious to desperate. The action-packed story line never slows down from the moment that William begins his plan until the final altercation with a crazed Squirrelly. A final twist will surprise the audience, but fits the key relationships between the cast and hopefully leads to another Dorothy Garlock 1930's thriller. ISBN: 0446694371, $10.99 Linda Leigh Sinclair was born in 1947 to an overprotective mom. When the teen watches the civil rights and other monumental movements on TV news during the 1960s, she knows she wants to become a reporter. Over the objection of mom, she covers the 1963 rally led by the Reverend King in nearby Washington, D.C. for her high school paper. Five years later Leigh covers the Democratic National Convention in Chicago when riots break out. When her best friend Mary Beth vanishes, Leigh uses her still fledgling investigative skills to trace her to the anti-war counterculture in San Francisco. She falls in love, but that does not work out though he returns her feelings. Not long afterward she meets someone else and gives birth to Carly, but she and the father go separate ways. Leigh knows how her mom felt as she wants to protect Carly from life's precarious nature. When Carly turns up missing, Leigh turns to God for solace just as she has done before when tumultuous events made no sense. The third generation Women of Ivy Manor (see CHLOE and BETTE) is a kaleidoscope look at major events mostly during the 1960s and 1970s. The story line moves quickly from the Freedom March to the Chicago Convention to Give Peace a Chance rallies as Leigh proves she is in deed an Ivy Manor descendent with her survival instincts. Interestingly her faith in God comes from a no atheist in the fox hole perspective as she worries about her daughter just like her mom used to agonize over her. Lyn Cote writes a warm entry starring an interesting protagonist, but it is the backdrop of events that ignite the tale. In London, twenty-seven years old events planner executive Holly Krauss seems to have it all. Her business is not only a major success; she is the driving force behind it. She is married to a nice man Charlie who cherishes her and has close friends like her business partner Meg who want to be there for her. However, Holly cannot see how much her inner circle care for her because she suffers from bipolar disorder; a condition she assumes will one day consume her just like her father. Thus regardless of whether she is in her manic or depressive stage she lives over the edge at work, at home, and in between with alcohol and drugs her prime partners. One particular over indulgence leads to a one-night-stand with dangerous Rees, who she afterward believes is stalking her. Other incidents of out of control behavior push Charlie and Meg away from her as they assume she is paranoid; Holly insists that being paranoid or as in her case bipolar does not mean someone is not following you to do harm. Still Meg tries to be there for her. CATCH ME WHEN I FALL will remind readers of the film Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? Readers will wonder if Holly's self destructive nature is the real cause behind her fear or whether Rees is really stalking her. The tale loses some of the early tension caused by Holly's behavior as Nicci French switches emphasis to the suspense (is she being stalked by someone planning to harm her?) over the impact of untreated bipolar disorder. Thus what starts as a potentially powerful psychological character study turns into a well written thriller. In 1967 in Suffolk, England, the three Mortland sisters and their mom Stella move into a medieval abbey following the loss of the family patriarch. Though in their twenties Julia and Finn have somewhat moved on, but Stella and thirteen year-old Maisie still grieve. Stella hires local artist Lucas Feld to paint a portrait of her daughters. Meanwhile for Julia and Finn, it begins as a summer of love with the middle daughter seemingly sharing trysts with Lucas, childhood friend Daniel Nunn or perhaps pre-med student Nick Marlow while Julia considers running off to London. However, the summer turns bitter when tragedy occurs. By 1991, Lucas is a renowned famous artist whose highly regarded painting The Sisters Mortland will be the center of a retrospective showing of his works. Daniel never recovered from the tragedy of what started as his greatest summer, but ended as his hauntingly worst as he fixated on the three sisters and the tragedy that shaped all their lives. THE MORTLAND SISTERS is a fabulous character study that grips the audience who want to know what happened to destroy the idyllic summer of 67. The perspectives cleverly shift with the changing eras. Maisie providing her viewpoint of the goings on in 1967; Daniel takes over in 1991 with his point of view of the "present" and what he recalls from the most wonderful and most devastating summer of his life; finally Julia brings closure to the drama. Each of the key players seems different and reacts accordingly to the events that Sally Beaumont lays out throughout the gripping story line. Readers will cherish this powerful character driven tale. Working for the Devil ISBN: 0446616702, $6.99, 416 pp. Interrupting the soaps, Tierce Japhrimel, a demon, visits highly regarded necromancer Dante Valentine to meet his Prince or die. Put that way, the tough Dante agrees to go along with the gun toting demon to a meeting with Lucifer to learn what the Prince of Darkness wants from her. They catch the subway to Hell where Lucifer offers Dante a contract that she cannot refuse or she dies; of course what the Prince wants her to do probably means she dies anyway. Dante is to capture a rogue demon accompanied by Japhrimel, who is more than a kick butt demon; he is a demon assassin. Accepting the kind offer made in good faith, Dante begins to search for the rogue though she is distracted by other items not directly related to her investigation. Japhrimel somewhat keeps her focused as they argue over everything especially when she spins into sidebars. WORKING FOR THE DEVIL is a fun urban noir paranormal thriller that stars a bristly courageous loner, a no nonsense demonic sidekick, and a horde of paranormal and human cretins who make the mundane things like riding a train into a supernatural event. As the glue to the plot, Dante turns the story line into a fine investigative tale though her inquiries do not go into first gear until the latter half of the novel, but her capers occur throughout. Fans will want more starring this acerbic street tough necromancer. C.I.: Dark Target After he lost his sister on 9/11, Boston Police Officer Dave DeLuca reenlisted in the army and went to Iraq as a counter intelligence officer where his performance was deemed excellent. After returning with his team to the states, Dave received a promotion to Chief Warrant Officer 2 and leader of "Team Red, a special operations counterintelligence unit. His first assignment is to find Cheryl Escavedo who while working at the underground base in Cheyenne Mountain allegedly stole classified material. The search leads to the Arizona Desert where Dave and a tribal policeman track Cheryl's footprints until they suddenly end near a sheet of glass-like material. Realizing that he has not been given the whole story he demands his superior officer tell him what is really going on and learns that she probably stole information on Darkstar, a top secret star wars type weapon that mustn't fall into enemy hands. The clues take the team from a cult that believes that a UFO is coming to Mexican drug lords and Cheryl's roommate. Deluca feels that it isn't the woman he's really after; that proves right because someone has taken control of Darkstar and is using it for his purposes that run counter to what it was originally designed for. C.I. DARK TARGET is a novel that has plenty of action, excitement and James Bond type adventures. The authors clearly prove the point that without accountability the political-military-industrial complex can do what it wants without the public being the wiser. It also means that when things go wrong, the people who work in the shadows are called upon to fix things up or die trying. Readers will look for more capers starring the protagonist and his Team Red. As Christmas arrives, serial killer Temple Gault leaves a special present for law enforcement, a naked female left dead in Central Park. The FBI calls in consulting forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta to help on the case even as Temple leaves another gift, a transit cop in a subway tunnel. However, Temple's chutzpah hits a new high when he delivers the dead body of a local sheriff to Scarpetta's morgue in Richmond, Virginia. The ingenious Temple has shaken Scarpetta with this bold move at a time when the Virginia state medical examiner has personal problems with her family and with a lover. Still after almost losing control and nearly killing her niece, Scarpetta takes a deep breath before entering in the game of cat and mouse that will take her back to the New York subway tunnels. As always in a Scarpetta thriller, the heroine and her crew perform brilliant forensic work that brings to the forefront the science of criminology. The visit to Gault's kin is an emotional stunner as they are as much victims as are the loved ones of those he kills. The cat and mouse game that leads to the New York subway tunnels is gripping and exciting. The only drawback is Gault, who in spite of his genius at setting the stage even on his opponent's turf and using those he kills as props, he never comes across as a plausible grandmaster serial killer on a par with the ME; her messes-up personal life brings her down to his level. Still this is a fast-paced tale that the Scarpetta crowd will appreciate. The Scarpetta Collection: Volume 1 ISBN: 0743255801, $26.95 "Postmortem". In Richmond, Virginia, Chief Medical Examiner for the commonwealth of Virginia, Dr. Kay Scarpetta struggles with stopping the serial killer, "Mr. Nobody,'' who strangles young women. Her seemingly 24/7 tireless efforts searching databases and seeking forensic clues are taking its toll on the ME while a bitter chauvinistic male tries everything to insure this high powered female fails even if it means more women die. This is Scarpetta's terrific debut tale filled with intriguing forensic science woven into the serial killer plot while an irritable heroine struggles with testosterone officialdom as much as with finding the culprit. "Body of Evidence". In Richmond, Virginia someone brutally slashes to death historical romance writer Beryl Madison in the woman's home. The crime scene evidence points towards the victim knowing her killer as no forced entry appears. State medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta also investigates other seemingly related deaths; that of writer Cary Harper and the suicide of his sister. Meanwhile, the FBI looks into the activities of Madison's lawyer though Scarpetta cannot see the link to her case. As she follows the forensic clues in Virginia and Florida, someone threatens to kill Scarpetta. This second Scarpetta thriller is one of the best forensic tales written in the past decade or two, as the heroine works a difficult case with intelligence and aplomb while the readers obtain deep insight into the working of a medical examiner. Both terrific thrillers hold-up well though published in 1990 and 1991 respectively as they showcase the early Scarpetta using forensic science to investigate homicides. Worth the price to fans and anyone who wants to read Scarpetta's roots. Though this reviewer rarely reads essay collections, this form of literature is both my favorite and my most detested format (corollary to the 50 page rule of why keep reading if it so bad, for essays a 20 page rule). When satirically amusing and filled with irony on "postmodern" life, nothing beats an essay such as classics like the "postmodern" "How to Cook Roast Pig" or "A Modest Proposal". David Foster Wallace provides ten delightful articles on a variety of topics ranging from the relativity of pornography to generalizing the insipidness of sports autobiographies extracting from Tracy Austin's perfect tennis adventure (Bill and Ted for a set anyone). In Mr. Wallace's delightful way, if one wants to know whether a lobster feels pain while undergoing scalding water treatment, don't ask the cook, the lobsterman, or the zoologist; go to the source (not sauce): ask the lobster who obviously is not dancing their life away. Same goes to McCain's presidential bid lost during a failed debate with a fundamentalist demanding the senator turn no cheek insisting Christ condemned homosexuality. Though the asides can be difficult to follow with abbrev, they are fun to follow up on with their deeper explanations and Americanization of the English language through ibid. Readers will appreciate the deep look at "postmodern" American life as a fabulous INFINITE JEST. The Kindness of Strangers ISBN: 0060564741, $24.95, 400 pp. When Roy Laden died, the impact on his family was devastating. His widow Sarah struggles with her catering business and raising their two troubled sons. Teenage Nate has been suspended twice skipping school to visit his dad's gravesite. Her younger son fifth-grader Danny struggles with the loss too becoming more reticent. Sarah visits their neighbors Mark and Courtney Kendrick, but finds by himself eleven years old Jordan who seems very sick. Worried Sarah rushes Jordan to the nearest hospital where the doctors treat what was a suicide attempt, but also shockingly diagnose that the preadolescent suffers from gonorrhea. The cops obtain a search warrant to look inside the Kendrick home where they find plenty of pedophile evidence against Mark who has vanished; nothing implicates Courtney, a physician treating her son's sexual transmitted illness on the sly, except covert submissive omission as a parent. The three Ladens now have something else that needs healing though each realizes nothing like what Courtney must require. Though at times preaching, THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS is a powerful family drama that looks at the impact of child sexual abuse on next door neighbors. The Ladens are wonderful characters as they alternate respective of the Before and After while readers and the trio will feel for Jordan, loathe Mark as a devil, and detest Courtney as a monster for not interceding. The story line is crisis driven as each Laden struggles with what they knew Before in different ways from the guilt of Sarah to the titillating amazement of Nate and to the shocked Danny of what happened to his peer by so called loved ones. Katrina Kittle hides nothing with this dark well written but not easy to read tale of abuse. More Than Friends ISBN: 0066214599, $18.95, 416 pp. Next door neighbors in the Boston suburb Constance on the Rise, the Popes and the Maxwells have been close friends to each other seemingly forever even sharing a summer place in Maine fittingly dubbed "Popewell". Annie Pope and Teke Maxwell were college roommates while their future spouses John David "J.D." Maxwell and Sam Pope have been best buds since childhood and work as full partners at a Boston law firm whose top gun is the Maxwell patriarch John Stewart. Nothing could rip apart the loving friendships between two generations of Popewells. However, nothing until tragedy occurs. Thirteen years old Michael Maxwell is shocked when he sees Teke and Sam making love. Stunned and feeling betrayed, Michael races outside without looking in front of a pickup truck driven by Teke's former childhood boyfriend Grady Piper. Michael remains in a coma from the accident while J.D. angrily wants to take out his frustration on everyone involved especially Grady. That is until the infidelity surfaces leading the Popewells to war with one another while Michael lingers in a comatose state. The key that keeps this fine family drama from becoming a melodramatic emoting soap opera is the reactions of the key cast members to the tragedy as each in a restrained way feel as if they caused the accident. Thus the ensemble Popewells and Grady seem genuine while coping poorly with what happened to the youngest. Barbara Delinsky is at her best with this sobering look at friendship. The Deep Blue Alibi ISBN: 0440242746, $6.99, 496 pp. Monroe County, Florida police believe business mogul Hal Griffin shot his yacht guest EPA official Steve Stubbs with a spear gun into the chest. Griff calls attorney Victoria Lord, daughter of his former partner, to represent him. Victoria cuts short her vacation with her partner Steve Solomon to rush back to Key West to help her "Uncle" Griff though she wonders why he stopped calling her a few years ago. As Victoria adhering strictly to the law tries to uncover what went down at sea without the interference of Steve, he insists on helping her in his nuke the rules style on the case. The evidence is overwhelming that Griff shot the dying Fed with greed as the motive. The yacht contained 100 grand. Though Solomon is somewhat tied up trying to learn why his father has been suspended from the judicial bench, he still finds time to battle with Lord in and out of court while her inquiries take her back to the partnership between her dad and Uncle Griff. The latest SOLOMON VS. LORD legal thriller is a fun tale mostly because of the amusing battles between the lead couple. Whether they are in a courtroom or at dinner, Steve and Victoria exchange barbs and rips skin off as few partners can. The investigation is cleverly done so that the attorneys believe they have a losing case, but what makes THE DEEP BLUE ALIBI so entertaining is the humorous second war of the lawyers. The Myth Hunters ISBN: 0553383264, $12.00, 384 pp. In wintry Maine lawyer Oliver Bascombe suffers from cold feet not just because he went outside in the snowy weather, but more because tomorrow he is to get married. He explains to his older sister Collette that he has doubts as he cannot think of one happily ever after marriage though he further explains that he thinks he loves Julianna; yet wonders how can you be sure even if his fiancee is wonderful, intelligent and beautiful? While reading The Sea Wolf to pass time, the outside storm smashes through his Victorian home door carrying something inside a vortex. Suddenly "the winter man" staggers from the middle of all that snow now inside Oliver's home. The newcomer pleads with his host to help him even as he informs Oliver he is known as Jack Frost and that he needs him to save his life from a deadly Myth Hunter from beyond the Veil. Ignoring his wedding, Oliver agrees. While Oliver enters the Veil on his quest to save the life of Jack Frost, his sister Collette investigates his disappearance and the murder of their father with the help of Police Detective Ted Hallowell. This terrific fantasy grips the audience with the abrupt change from the calm of a reluctant groom pondering how he can be sure to when Frost busts through the door. The story line is action-paced but plays out with two subplots: a fantasy quest beyond the Veil and a murder mystery disappearance on mundane earth. Both work because of the strong cast that makes believers out of readers that Jack Frost, THE MYTH HUNTERS and the land of the fae exist. ISBN: 0553383647, $12.00 The Cataclysmic War ended the reign of magic with mages fleeing for their lives. Over the next three centuries, in spite of the demise of magic as a combat tool and the thought that the Cataclysmic War was the war to end all wars, battles continue using savage mundane methods to kill or maim your adversary. In 2208, the Year of the Black, Kosar the Thief watches the rider in red serendipitously comes to the village Trengborne. He is stunned as the stranger begins a slaughter killing the young and anyone else offering resistance even the militia while taking blows that should have left him dead. Kosar notices one teenage boy escapes up the dark hillside. That lad Rafe Baburn saw his parents and others murdered by what had to be a demon. Evidence has surfaced that magic has been rebirthed in the young; the Red Monk and his minion plan to eradicate it before the one soul possessing the skill can mature enough to use it against them. Kosar meets and teams up with A'Meer the Shantasi warrior in a search to find and protect Rafe from the Red Monk, but first must expedite him from Hope the witch. This epic coming of age fantasy grips the audience from the moment the Thief fearfully observes the red-robed killing machine and never slows down as Kosar finds allies to protect the dying world's perhaps last hope Rafe. The exhilarating story line paints a dark gloomy Poe like atmosphere throughout especially when the adversaries take center stage. The key characters in particular the teen and his champions are unique individuals that make their realm seem even more nightmarishly real. Tim Lebbon paints the darkest DUSK that will have readers keeping the lights on until dawn breaks. Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral ISBN: 0553382640, $11.00 When fifty-six years old Annie Freeman dies from ovarian cancer she sends her ashes inside her red shoes via UPS to her friend Katherine Givens. Annie's instructions are to lead around the country funeral procession of her closest pals starting at Sonoma, California to Albuquerque, the Keys, Manhattan, Lake Superior and an island near Seattle, at each site her best friends are to sprinkle her remains. Katherine would do almost anything for the woman who understood her better than anyone. After a reluctant start and a bottle of courage labeled as Shiraz, Katherine begins to put together the odyssey of the last request of the San Francisco State University English professor. Under two weeks later, Katherine joined by Annie's university colleague Jill Matchney, women's crisis worker Laura Westma, neighbor Rebecca Carlson and hospice aide Marie Kondrinsky trek along Annie's given route. The women bond sharing secrets of their late zany pal who not only lived life to the fullest and encouraged others to do likewise, but she was also there to help the downtrodden do so. Using flashbacks to when Annie first met each of her pall bearers, readers obtain an intriguing character study inside a sisterhood bonding. The story line reflects mostly on Annie, but also provides insight into the greatness that she saw and supported in her cronies. Though the tale at times turns too melodramatically angst-laden, contemporary fiction readers will want to journey around the country tossing the ashes of a fine person. Prior Bad Acts ISBN: 0553801988, $26.00, 384 pp. It was such gruesome murders that hardened police officers, had nervous breakdowns, heart attacks and felt shattered. Two children were tortured, butchered and hung by their necks from the ceiling. Their foster mother who hoped to adopt them was eviscerated from her throat to her groin. Karl Dahl was arrested for the murders because his fingerprints were on the scene, a neighbor' son saw him looking in the window, and the victim's necklace was on his person when he was arrested. At a hearing, Judge Casey Moore refused to let Dahl's prior crimes be introduced at the trial, a call that made her many enemies. When she goes to the garage to get the car she is assaulted and left unconscious. Detective Sam Kovac starts off disliking the judge and ends up caring for her. He vows to protect her from people who might want to harm her including the former lead detective who demands justice. Her enemies also include Dahl who is obsessed with her and broke out of prison and her husband who has a secret life and might think she is in the way. Four more deaths occur before Casey is kidnapped and it is up to Kovac to save her if he can get to where she is being held captive in time. Fans of Kay Hooper, Iris Johansen, and Linda Howard will find Prior Bad Acts a chilling thriller with a surplus of suspects. Although Dahl is a killer, there is another murderer on the loose and his identity will come as a surprise to the audience. Characters from ASHES TO ASHES AND DUST TO DUST make a repeat performance giving the police procedural a sense of continuity. Tami Hoag is one of the best crime writers in the new millennium because she makes her audience believe that the storyline is possible. Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown ISBN: 055380362X, $25.00, 246 pp. After Fair cheated on Mary "Harry" Minor they separated as she nursed her anger and hurt for years. Fair spent years trying to reconcile with Harry and after a few years his perseverance finally paid off. They remarried in a church with all their close friends as witnesses including their pets Mrs. Murphy, Pewter and Tucker. Many of the residents, including Harry are growing grapes so that they can make wine from them. Professor Vincent Farland lectures on how bioterrorism can be used to destroy crops. He once taught two vintners in the area; Toby Pittman, an unstable person, who thinks people are out to destroy Rockland Vineyards, and Arch Saunders who become the partner of Rollie Barnes, the owner of Spring Hill Vineyard. Arch had an affair with Harry when she divorced Fair and he wants her back. Professor Farland disappears and the police think foul play is involved. Toby calls Fair to look at his donkey's cut on his hind leg, but he finds him murdered, by a gunshot. When the professor is found buried on Harry and Fair's land, suspicion falls on him. Harry thinks the two murders are linked and the same person who killed them is responsible for the deadly insects planted on their land. When a third vintner is killed, Harry struggles to put the pieces together even if it means exposing herself to danger. Once again Rita Mae Brown and her collaboration with Sneaky Pie Brown has written a delightful, charming and intense amateur sleuth mystery. Part of the charm of this series is that the animals can communicate with each other across species lines and their conversations and actions win the hearts of the audience. Now that Harry and Fair are married the love they feel for one another is obvious and adds to the tale. Ms Brown has written another enthralling mystery that makes her readers feel enchanted with her storyline. ISBN: 0451214854, $19.95, 240 pp. Brenda Scott Royce ISBN: 0451217543, $12.95, 304 pp. To supplement her income, Manhattanite Holly Heckerling takes in typing while she hopes to make it big as a stand-up comedian with her partner Danny, whose girl friend Carter is her best buddy. Holly's mom died years ago and when her father deserted her so she moved in with her demanding Aunt Kuki until she was old enough to move out on her own. She cannot say no to anyone so ends up in messes trying to be the Good Samaritan. In Starbucks, Holly feels sorry for Tom a father and his precocious daughter Nicole as he has an immediate elementary school crisis as only a little kid could cause. Holly steps in takes charge and saves the day. A grateful Tom asks Holly out explaining he is getting a divorce. She accepts, but struggles with her cousin stealing and selling celebrity socks, his girlfriend demanding she cut off her leg cast and a writer leaving a deep manuscript for her to type that feels close to home. Now she rooms with a monkey, a snake, a cat, and a rodent while wondering about the writer and about her Starbucks man even as Aunt Betty joins the menagerie forcing Holly to hide the freeze dried mice. This zany contemporary tale stars a nice young woman who wants to help everyone, but her efforts usually end in worse disasters except when she helped Tom and Nicole. The ensemble cast including Tallulah the monkey have distinct personalities and seem like every person's friends and relatives, but because of the multiple happenings at times it can get difficult to keep track of who is stealing socks. Still fans will appreciate this amusing modern day version of You Can't Take It With You that contains the serious undertone of to thine own self be true. Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too ISBN: 0451217632, $19.95, 272 pp. Ex-heiress Nora Blackbird is not having an easy time of it as she is still trying to pay the taxes on the family estate while looking for money to do so. She broke up with Michael Abruzzo, the son of a mafia don because he went back into the family business but she is pregnant and dating Richard, a crime reporter for a respectable Philadelphia newspaper. Neither her sister nor her friends know she is pregnant and she doesn't intend to tell anyone who the father is. Although she has to avoid stress because her pregnancy is high risk, she becomes involved in the murder investigation of Zell who married the widow Fitch; when she died he inherited the estate and the money. Nora goes to the Fitch estate to meet her friend Delilah Fairweather and sees Pierpont Fitch angrily leaving the premises and nearby is Boykin Fitch, a state legislator running for the senate. Zell refused to let them in the house. Delilah is the last person to see Zell alive and she fears because she is black, the police will zero in on her as a suspect. Knowing her friend isn't guilty; she agrees to help Delilah by finding the real killer. Once again Nancy Martin writes a serio-comic who done it featuring a protagonist who always goes from the frying pan into the fire. Not only is she investigating the many suspects who hated Zell, but she has to force herself to keep away from Michael; who might be involved in the kidnapping of the son of his family's enemies. Nora slowly realizes that all is not what it seems with Michael's activities and the police investigation. The author has written a who done it that is sassy, exciting and impossible to put down. The heroine has a charm and a vulnerability that endears her to the audience. The Serpent Dreamer Late in the tenth century, Norsemen raided his Irish home killing his most of his family, and raping and kidnapping his twin sister May. Corban Loosestrife, obsessed with saving his sister, avenges the Viking brutality and withstands the blood retaliation (see THE SOUL THIEF and THE WITCHES' KITCHEN). By 993 he returns to his new home in Vinland only the colony is razed, his spouse dead, and May is an ephemeral creature living more in a spiritual realm. He gains shelter with the nearby Wolf clan due to his sibling, but, is not fully accepted because Chief Miska is jealous of his sharing a special psychic bond to the woman the clan leader loves; Wolf tribe healer Epashti is the lone exception cherishing the outsider with her soul. Before she turned fae-like, Miska sired a daughter with May. Their offspring Ahanton contains some of the paranormal skills that May possesses. The child informs her sire that the Sun People are invading so Miska heads east to forcibly unite the feuding tribes; she also tells her uncle that he and pregnant Epashti must escort her west to the land of the Sun People. Soon east meets west when the Miska-Corban feud explodes. The third Corban Nordic mythological historical tale is a terrific thriller that brings to life the tenth century in North America. The story line is loaded from the start, but the action explodes from the moment Corban heads west and never slows down until the final twisted confrontation. With a strong cast that brings the bygone era alive, fans will fully enjoy this stand alone tale, but will also want to read the previous novels in what is one of the best Dark Ages trilogies in years. ISBN: 0765303361, $24.95, 304 pp. Dermot, the husband of the beautiful, enticing and caring Nuala Annie McGrail, adores his fey wife. Her mystic powers have led them into solving mysteries that have saved lives and brought criminals to justice. When Nuala Annie wakes up screaming about spies being around them, Dermot knows that her dream is a vision and they will be plunged into another mystery very soon. At a party celebrating that Nuala Anne has finally becoming a citizen, an explosion rocks the foundation of the building; Nuala knows that the home of John and Estelle Curran just blew up. Having recently had dinner with the Currans, Nuala and her husband want to help them; they get a chance to do so when the couple, on the advice of a detective (who knows Nuala's history), ask for their assistance. Two more attempts are made on the family and Nuala realizes someone is spying on them. With the information Dermot collects from the various family members she tries to figure out who it is but there is a plethora of suspects. There is plenty of action and excitement in this exciting who-done-it. Andrew M Greeley's heroine, a mystic, singer, wife, mother and investment counselor accountant is a total charmer with her husband as totally enamored of and bemused by her as is readers. There are enough colorful suspects to keep the reader guessing who the spy is until the author the chooses to reveal that person's identity in this fast paced paranormal thriller. The Tokaido Road Lucia St. Clair Robson ISBN: 0765305208, $15.95, 528 pp. In 1702, betrayed and dishonored by Lord Kira, Lord Asaro commits suicide. Kira's warriors force Kasana, daughter of Asaro via an outside-wife, to become a courtesan in Edo. She vows vengeance starting with restoring her father's name and honor; she wait for the opportune moment to flee the brothel that imprisons her so she can journey along the Tokaido Road to find and obtain the support of her late father's chief samurai Oishi Kuranosuke. Disguising herself as a poor priest she escapes the brothel and begins her quest to travel from Edo to Kyoto with Kira's minion pursuing her. Also assigned to bring her back to her brothel is Ronan Hanshiro. As he watches her perform in disguise and as good as any samurai, Hanshiro falls in love with the runaway whom he has not yet met. However, he knows she has no reason to trust him and besides honor calls for him to fulfill his contract of returning her to her master. THE TOKAIDO ROAD is a fabulous look at early eighteenth century Japan in which aristocratic and samurai classes adhere to a deep rooted honor system that include suicide when one "breaks" the code and a need for offspring to do whatever is necessary to regain lost respect, as without honor there is no esteem. The action takes a back seat to the historical details of feudal caste Japan so that the audience obtains a better understanding of Zen philosophy and the rigid rules of society that places honor above all else. More historical fiction (based on a real account) than a thriller, fans who appreciate a vivid powerful look into a different culture will appreciate this glimpse at a bygone era in Japan. In the Shade of the Jacaranda Wings of Morning ISBN: 0800759648, $12.99 288 pp. In 1556 heiress Regan MacLaren marries her childhood friend Drummond, but halts their lovemaking when her drunken groom acts brutish in front of his equally intoxicated friends and brother Walter. The next day Regan learns that Drummond was murdered by the laird of Clan Campbell Iain when he went on a raid to obtain a bride gift for her, was caught, surrendered, and was cowardly killed. Walter demands justice, but insists their poor clan cannot obtain such from the likes of the mighty Campbells. Instead he waits to abduct Iain at an opportune moment when they can bring him stealthily to justice at their keep. Regan worries when Walter leads a party to snatch Iain so she follows. She stumbles and is found by Iain's men who bring the injured woman to their chieftain. Regan suffers from amnesia, but quickly Iain and her fall in love. However, once she learns who she is, she will need to decide between her clan in marriage or the Campbells not realizing that Walter plans to take away her choices. WINGS OF MORNING is a terrific sixteenth century Scottish romance starring a delightful cast that brings to life the feuds and pacts of These Highlands Hills. The story line contains a bit of a mystery as to whether Iain really murdered Drummond and if not who did, but clearly the relationship between the laird and the amnesiac make for a fun tale as he wonders what will happen to them once she regains her memory. The return of the lead couple from CHILD OF THE MIST augments a fine historical tale that will have readers pondering how the diabolical Walter will bring justice to Iain and take Regan as his. Lady X's Cowboy ISBN: 0843956666, $5.99 In 1883 London, Colorado cowboy Will Coffin intercedes and rescues Lady Olivia Xavier from assault of three punks. She thinks the hunk who saved her from Lord Pryce's hired thugs could have been the front cover model of the western dime novels she loves to read. Lady Olivia hires Will to help her save the brewery that she inherited from her late husband; her unscrupulous rival Lord Pryce will do anything to either destroy or preferably steal her firm. Meanwhile Will has come to England to find his family here. He has no plans to socialize with people he does not understand nor is able to communicate with; yet somehow he and Lady X who speaks a foreign language that sort of sounds like English, communicate through their hearts. Though the lady and the cowboy are in love, their respective social classes are more than just oceans apart. This is a terrific Victorian romance that focuses on cultural differences between a tea toting English aristocrat and a cow poking American cowboy. The story line emphasizes the Grand Canyonesque gaps that the loving pair must surmount if they want a permanent relationship; a concept both desire and fear. Humor via stereotyping presumptions add to the fun as Olivia cannot understand how he can be gentle instead of a rough hooligan like in the dime novels; while Will struggles with how his English rose can be understanding and kind instead of haughty as he assumed all aristocratic ladies pretend a loftiness that make dudes like him feel like sewage. Fans will enjoy Zoe Archer's superb historical driven by two obviously in love characters that live light years apart in lifestyles. A Moment on the Lips Phyllis Bourne Williams ISBN: 0843956593, $6.99, 320 pp. On his seventieth birthday, John Price will be forced to retire as the CEO of the Boston based Price Investment firm. He has groomed his son Grant to take over though his other child Thomas is still in the running. All Grant has to do to obtain the job is persuade Melody Mason, a Wall St. legend to come back from small town Tennessee to run one of their portfolios. Grant offers her an incredible deal, but she blithely says no. A desperate Grant travels to Tennessee to ask Melody in person. She still says no, but admits his company's help to college students is a good thing. Melody provides a counter offer. He stay in town for one week while she works her new knitting store and she will come to Boston for one week to train his team and to evaluate the portfolio. Grant agrees, assuming he will win her over. He will soon get what he wants as he wins her heart, but she leaves anyway as Melody knows Price Investment is more important to him than she is. A MOMENT ON THE LIPS is an interesting glimpse at a workaholic and a former workaholic who have had no balance between their money-making lives and their personal lives until Melody no longer can deal with the headaches, ulcers and other physical symptoms. The work-obsessed Grant is the more intriguing individual as he has not yet found that equilibrium between work and play while the born again Melody achieve this by quitting Wall Street. Their changing relationship is fun to follow as fans wonder whether Grant has the courage to modify his goals when he falls in love. ISBN: 0425207420, $7.99, 352 pp. In 1513 guilt-ridden Lachlan Maclean never wanted to become a soldier, but does because he holds himself culpable for the death of his father when he failed to kill an enemy; redemption is what he is willing to die for. He hopes to restore honor lost by replacing his brother at the side of King James in the upcoming battle with the English at Flodden Field. During the skirmish Lachlan fought like a man possessed, but ultimately was wounded and buried underneath his steed. Widow Kimbra Charleton supports herself and her daughter by scavenging for the values of the war dead along side her late husband's odious family. Her in-laws demand she kill any Scot who remains alive. She finds Lachlan still breathing but wearing a costly plaid and a valuable jeweled brooch so she assumes he is of noble birth. Unable to kill him, Kimbra rationalizes that she will nurture him before ransoming him. However, as he heals, he suffers amnesia, unable to remember his name. Worse she finds that instead of dumping him or informing her in-laws that she houses a Scot so they kill him, she wants her patient like no one ever before not even her late husband. BELOVED STRANGER, the sequel to the superb BELOVED IMPOSTER, is a fine early sixteenth century romance. The tale stars a beleaguered ethical hero seeking to redeem his honor though amnesia makes him wonder if he has done evil things and a fabulous lioness willing to do anything for her cub except turn in her patient to certain death as she clearly sees he is an honorable soul. The action packed story line moves forward at a fast pace, but it is the lead pairing that drive a fine return to the MacLean clan. ISBN: 0425208923, $6.99, 368 pp. The Queen in Winter Claire Delacroix, Lynn Kurland, Sharon Shinn & Sarah Monette ISBN: 0425207722, $13.00 "A Whisper of Spring" by Lynn Kurland. Lothar kidnaps elfin Princess Iolaire. Human Symon attempts to rescue the female who haunts his dreams. "When Winter Comes" by Sharon Shinn. Sosie believes she needs to keep her numinous nephew Kinnon and his mother, her sister Annie, safe as many want to use the youngster for selfish gain. However, she soon needs help; Darryn provides that assistance though Sosie wonders about his motive. "The Kiss of the Snow Queen" by Claire Delacroix. Gerta the seer sets off on a quest to rescue Cai the sorcerer from the evil Cath Pulag. She receives mysterious aid from a spirit. "A Gift of Wings" by Sarah Monette. Agido the mercenary protects her former lover Maur, but soon needs his help when someone is killed at an inn as she is the prime suspect. These four romantic fantasies are fine tales with delightful lead protagonists who depend on one another to survive their respective quests. However, none of the fantasy realms are fully developed in spite of some characters having paranormal powers and using them. Still this is a fun time for fans who appreciate romances of a different sort. Goddess of the Rose ISBN: 0425208915, $6.99, 345 pp. Mikki feels out of synch with the world around her and the only thing that pleases her is her award winning roses that she cares for by giving them her blood during the new moon. She begins having dreams of a man-monster and a woman gives her rose scented anointing oil. In a play about Medea, she is asked to read some lines about Hecatate. Afterward she then visits the rose garden in the park and uses her blood to heal the sickening roses. Her blood accidentally is smeared on the statue of a minotaur creature and he suddenly comes to life, chasing her until she loses consciousness. Mikki awakens in the Realm of the Roses and her handmaidens tell her that she is the High Priestness of Hecate. She awoke the Guardian who was entombed in the statue in the garden in Tulsa. Now he is back to protect the realm while the Priestess is to care for the roses so that the realm will survive and magick and dreams will be sent out to all the worlds. The Guardian is forbidden by Hecate to love the high priestess unless she can love the man inside the outer visage of a monster. Mikki brings new life and changes the realm and in return the denizens love here include the Guardian but can beauty love the beast and if so when tragedy strikes will eternity keep them apart? PC Cast who is well known for her blending of mythological tales and romance creates in GODDESS OF THE ROSE a beautiful adult fairy tale when the heroine teaches the Guardian to see himself through her eyes and is willing to sacrifice herself to save the realm. Mikki feels at home in her new world because she is connected to it through her blood and the roses. Readers will be enchanted by GODDESS OF THE ROSE. ISBN: 0425208516, $6.99 Flesh and Stone ISBN: 0425209059, $6.99 Undercover gargoyle Connor Rihyad "kills" his former Chicago leader Nathan Cross in order to join the Minnesota sect that recently tried to raid his home group. He is to learn from inside why they wanted to steal the male children. He succeeds to a degree though his new associates do not trust him. His covert work has several immediate hitches as he detests that this gargoyle sect has kidnapped women to rape as breeding sex machines so that they can have many male offspring and he feels especially connected to human Mara Kincaid. From the start, she impresses him with her courage that the other gargoyles fail to notice as she like all women are beneath them. He vows to protect her even as she too is furtively trying to learn what happened to her friend Angela. To his shock Connor soon concludes that an unknown mastermind has a plan to use the Minnesota group to change the world as gargoyles will no longer follow their ethical reason for living by protecting humanity and instead rule the world. FLESH AND STONE is an intriguing paranormal romantic fantasy that makes believers out of readers that gargoyles exist. The action-packed story line starts off with a shocker at least to fans who read the previous novel (see CARVED IN STONE for his tale) when Connor "kills" Nathan and never slows down until he knows what his desires are and confronts mano a mano the nasty Devlin. Vickie Taylor (apropos name for a writer of gargoyle thrillers) provides her audience with a fabulous suspense filled thriller. Awaiting the Moon Donna Lea Simpson ISBN: 0425208494, $6.99, 368 pp. In 1795 Englishwoman Lady Elizabeth Stanwycke journeys to Wolfram Castle in Germany to become a tutor to Charlotte, niece to Count Nikolas von Wolfram, as she has nothing else. Near the estate she notices a man chasing a woman in the woods, but her escort, Katrina Leibren, insists they not stop and tells her to forget what she saw. At the castle, she meets her new employer, his two sisters and an uncle as well as the visiting Count Delacroix. Elizabeth soon finds herself wondering what is going on as she hears strange noises and witnesses eerie events. The weirdest is her growing feeling for Nikolas, who at times is coldly aloof while on other occasions, is passionate as if he feels the heat between them. Still unable to resist the mystery of the occupants of Wolfram Castle and especially the wolf-like howling just outside, Elizabeth begins to investigate not realizing how dangerous that is to her well being including her heart. AWAITING THE MOON is a fast-paced historical romantic suspense that will keep the audience wondering whether the sub-genre is gothic or supernatural. The key element to Donna Lea Simpson's clever prose is whether a werewolf is running loose in Germany and if so is that creature Nikolas? Elizabeth as she falls in love with her employer ponders which is worse; that he is a murderous shapeshifter or that he is a homicidal lunatic. Fans of either sub-genre will treasure this strong Regency era thriller. The Hunter's Prey ISBN: 0425210359, $14.00, 192 pp. These ten erotic tales showcase the erotic tales exploits of three Lone Star vampires, Don Rafael, Ethan and Jean-Marie starting in Reconstruction Era Texas to modern day trysts. These are not romances with happy ever after endings, and the key characters, the vampiric trio and their one night stand women are never fully developed. However, the escapades are torrid, passionate, and run the gamut of much of the range of sexual encounters including bondage. An interesting twist is that the females recount their most ardent capers with their supernatural lovers though once told lose the memory of their greatest night of lovemaking. These stories are Venusian hot, perhaps even pornographic, yet well written; fans of vampiric sexual escapades will enjoy this collection while looking forward to feature starring roles of the Texas vampires. Adriane on the Edge At twenty-eight Baltimore area single, Adriane Gelki struggles with her existence caused by her deep rooted feelings of being unwanted and unloved by anyone ever since her parents committed a double suicide. She works at City Hall's Office of Neighborhood Enhancement, but feels like a member of the living dead as her gut wrenching loneliness reaches every aspect of her soul and in a self prophecy Pygmalion Effect prevents her from reaching out to others, which in turn isolates her further. Digging into her heart for courage, Adriane vows to live life on the edge, which in her case is a very tiny but critical step towards meeting someone. Joking, a new concept for Adriane, she solicits an undercover cop only to be arrested for prostitution; sentenced to counseling, Adriane feels at home when her therapist drops dead during their session. Every effort to join the living seems to lead to a further setback; even her adopted dog bites her during the night. Still Adriane continues her pledge to live albeit not to successfully. ADRIANE ON THE EDGE is an amusing yet deep character study of a young woman trying desperately to find herself beyond the shadow life she lives by connecting with others; a daunting task for an individual never recovered from her parents' suicides. The series of incidents that Adriane fumbles and stumbles through are hyperbole that leads to a dark serio-comedy as beyond the laugher is the fundamental need to belong. Paul Mandelbaum uses graveyard humor to provide a picture of hope even when the darkness engulfs seemingly every molecule that makes up a person who just wants to connect with anyone. Dead Men Don't Lye ISBN: 0425207447, $6.99, 240 pp. As the eldest Benjamin Perkins watches out for his siblings and mother and is the troubleshooter for the family owned specialty shop, "Where's the Soap?" Upon leaving the store, Ben finds a corpse on the backstairs of the shop. He recognizes the victim as the soap supplier to their store and the squeeze of his sister Louisa. Louisa had just learned that her Jerry was stepping out on her, which led to a very public spat so Ben insists she retain a lawyer before he calls the police because she had a motive, a means, and an opportunity. He calls his police friend Kelly to help them but she is not soft on her pal's family. She intends to identity. the culprit even if it turns out that the prime suspect Louise actually committed the murder. Ben is as determined if not more so to find the real killer as he believes his sister is innocent. So far Tim Myers has produced three successful amateur sleuth series in which each tale is an exciting entertaining cozy. His latest winner as always has the violence offstage; yet without any graphic detail readers can picture the results of lye placed on a face (think Phantom of the Opera). The family members are likable and seem genuine especially with their relationships, but this who-done-it belongs to the sleuthing pair Ben and Kelly. Axel of Evil ISBN: 0425206858, $6.99 In 1977 Moscow, fourteen years old Russian figure skating superstar Igor Marchenko defects to America. A few years later, he wins the only American gold figure skating medal at the 1982 Winter Olympics. After he retired Igor became a coach, but never returned to his homeland until now at forty-two years old, as coach of the 2005 U.S. Ladies' Silver Medalist, Jordan Ares competing in the "U.S. vs. Russia: A Figure Skating Challenge" event. On the first day of practice in Moscow Igor collapses and dies in the Natzionalnaya Arena. 24/7 Sports Network researcher Rebecca "Bex" Levy agrees with officials MURDER ON ICE occurred. The evidence points towards Igor's long time American rival Gary Gold, coach of Jordan's prime U.S. challenger Lian Reilly. However, Bex thinks that is hometown judging so she makes inquiries of the Russian skating team and the facility management and staff. As Bex skates closer to the truth, she finds herself ON THIN ICE from an unknown assailant. The third Bex Levy figure skating cozy is a terrific tale that highlights the changes since the late 1970s between Russian and American relations subtly displayed by two New York Times headlines (in the novel that is): 1977's "Defection" and 2005's "Murder". The first showcases the glee and despair of the Cold War adversaries while the second represents the western media's present ability to investigate what happened to Igor. As the evidence piles up making Gary the golden suspect, only Bex has doubts as she looks at who else would have motive; anyone in the facility had means and opportunity. Fans will score Alina Adams with 9s and 10s for her superb figure skating murder mystery. Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps ISBN: 0425207552, $14.00, 384 pp. Twenty-seven years old Mexican-American Marcela Alvarez enjoys her single life making plenty of money as a highly regarded animator at Panoply Studios. However, at a family wedding, nasty cousin Sonya states that Marcela is a half-breed. When her aunt and grandma say nothing; Marcela seeks out her mom, who affirms that she met a "guero" (white) at a prayer group, had a tryst and became pregnant. Her spouse forgave her and has always treated Marcela as his own. Stunned, Marcela, who has had little to do with her roots even though she is close with her family, is obsessed to prove she is a Latina especially after her two half-sisters rationalize her lack of interest in things Mexican is caused by her white blood cells. She draws up a list of ten items to prove she is Mexican to the core starting with dating. However, the only available remotely Mexican male she knows is Panoply accountant George Ramirez, who cannot speak Spanish. As they date and she tries to fulfill the list though not easily, he wants more as he loves Marcela, but she chooses less as she fears her feelings for him. Though this reviewer normally detests the dreaded chick lit list, it makes sense for the delightful BECOMING LATINA IN 10 EASY STEPS. The story line focuses on the antics of Marcela as she previously was totally assimilated into American culture, but once she learns she is not a purebred has a need to straddle her Mexican heritage. Fans will appreciate this solid character study that showcases the third generation, the "McD" hyphenated crowd that is so Americanized much of the roots are gone even with the two older generations still alive and kicking. And the Envelope, Please Barbara Bretton, Emilie Rose and Isabel Sharpe ISBN: 0373836937, $5.99 "Ever After" by Barbara Bretton. Single mom of preschool twins, Julia Monahan attends the Reel New York Film Festival awards ceremony where she meets Hollywood's top action hero Jack Wyatt. However, though she enjoys her time she knows that happily ever after is in fairy tales not in real life. "An Affair to Remember" by Emilie Rose. Though he attends the Reel New York Film Festival awards ceremony as a recipient Hollywood actor Conrad Carr feels miserable because he misses his better half the late Tara Dean; even his craft fails him as he believes he lost the skill when she died. At the bar he meets wannabe actress, North Carolinian Jenna and invites her to tell him her dreams. Instead she helps him end his freefall and soon soar again as he has found a new inspiration, but she refuses to believe him as his first marriage was fairy tale legend. "It Happened One Night". Lindsay and Gavin fell in love, but the magic of Hollywood hype broke them apart as he only desired fame. She left for Vermont. Now one year later they meet at the Reel New York Film Festival awards ceremony with both realizing the attraction remains perhaps even stronger, but he must persuade her that she means everything to him; much more than Los Angeles, movie roles and scripts and awards even living with New England chickens if necessary. These three fine contemporary romances catch the ambience of Hollywood at an awards celebration though the guys have their work cut out to convince their ladies they want a lifetime of co-starring. Marjorie M. Liu ISBN: 0505526301, $6.99, 368 pp. Artur Loginov was once a Russian mobster with the uncanny skill of "hearing" other people's memories by simply touching them. Perhaps it is the sadness and nostalgia in some of the recollections he hears or more likely the rampage of terror that murdered so many, but Artur turns himself around by becoming a private investigator, working for global Dirk & Steele. When he is abducted, Artur assumes his previous life has caught up with him, but also knows to adhere to his vow to keep silent at the cost of his life about Dirk & Steele, who provided his first reason to live by allowing him to belong to something. He changes his mind about why he was kidnapped when he meets the other "guests" at the facility where he is being held. They, like him, have psychic skills. He especially finds himself attracted to Elena Baxter, whose feelings of being alone touch Artur's soul. Her gift of healing amazes even a tainted soul like Artur. The duo team up with shapeshifters to escape the prison only to realize that only Elena and Artur as a team can stop their former warden host from achieving a most malevolent objective. The sequel to the wonderful TIGER'S EYE, SHADOW TOUCH, is a great romantic fantasy thriller that is must reading by sub-genre fans. The story line makes believers of the audience that X-Men like people exist. The action is fast and furious, but it is the characterizations that make this such a wonderful read. When Kirk & Steele enlisted Artur they fulfilled a basic human need to belong, but Elena provides him with an even more basic need. Maslow aside, Marjorie M. Liu provides a fabulous tale that will bring her plenty of kudos and award nominations. Her family is as renowned as their enemy, but Jane Van Helsing does not have her heart into hunting and staking vampires. At times she wonders if she shares the same blood as her famous kin as the thought of killing an abomination makes her queasy. Lady Jane assumes nothing could propel on the hunt. That is nothing except her beloved brother is Transylvania so someone has to carry out the family business in England. Reluctantly she decides to stake an earl Neil Asher whom she believes is a vampire. Her plan is simple seduce and stab. Neil, known for the beautiful women he escorts about town, is shocked that he finds the freckled loud mouth attractive. He enjoys the verbal battles though his valet detests the ruined wardrobe that is becoming his norm. The stab jabs he can do without, but he is not so sure he can claim the same about Plain Jane. However, when they are caught in a compromised position, the alleged vampire and the vampire-slayer must marry. Jane sees this as an opportunity to go after Dracula while Neil just wants to kiss her senseless. In a short time, Minda Webber has staked out a unique segment of the paranormal romantic fantasy sub-genre with her delightful late 1820s tales. Her current story focuses on the Van Helsing offspring who like the heroine in her previous novel, Clair Frankenstein, seeks out vampires though their reasons are different. This sensational screwy satirical sequel will have readers laughing at Jane's capers and Neil's reactions to her antics. The action-packed amusing story line also is loaded with literary references that are fun to follow as these witticisms augment a zany well written tale that howls for more. ISBN: 0505525879, $5.99 At the moment of his greatest triumph, being anointed the High King of Eire, the euphoric Parlan vows to make the Goddess Eriu his queen. Angering the Druids with the affront to the Goddess, Eire is placed under a curse that only he can break by fulfilling a quest. Ironically if he succeeds he might also win the hand of Eriu who he loves with all of his soul. Parlan has one year to accumulate four magical artifacts hidden in dangerous locales. If he succeeds in collecting the sword, spear, cup, and stone, he then must fight and defeat the Black Dragon using the artifacts correctly. If he fails at any point, the Black Dragon will turn Eire into a wasteland. GODDESS OF EIRE is an intriguing fantasy with some limited romantic elements supporting the prime story line of the misguided champion trying to save his people from the lethal wrath he brought upon them in the name of love. The action-packed story line will enable readers to believe in the magic of the Druids and the supernatural powers of the Gods. Parlan, filled with both love and guilt, is an interesting star as he strongly feels that when he succeeds he will achieve his two, at least in his mind, compatible goals. He makes the quest for the artifacts and the Goddess Eriu a fine read. ISBN: 0505526115, $6.99 Lady Arielle Blaylock has lived a somewhat sedate protected upper class life until she wore the Egyptian cat amulet. Now during the day she remains that prim and proper Victorian lass, but at night she dreams erotic seductions that frighten her when she awakens because they seem so real. In that dream realm where sorcery rules two men desire Lady Arielle. She wants both of them as each somehow holds a lovemaking spell that has ensorcelled her, but she also distrusts Luke and Seth not knowing what either truly desires of her. However, Arielle realizes she is in trouble in this alternate dream world where she may remain forever if she chooses the wrong man; one will help her regain the light of day while the other dooms her to eternal darkness. This is a terrific paranormal romance that will remind the audience of Frank Stockton's classic The Lady or the Tiger placed in a fantasy realm. If Arielle selects the wrong champion she will have closed the door to her going home permanently. Arielle is a wonderful protagonist while the two males competing for her affection make the dream realm genuine. Colleen Shannon provides a fine thriller that will elate sub-genre readers. The Lost Get-Back Boogie James Lee Burke ISBN: 1416517065, $9.99 Korean War veteran turned country-and-western musician Iry Paret spent a couple of years in Angola for manslaughter. He survived prison by staying on lethal alert knowing that the guards and the inmates are dangerous to anyone who depends only on hope, prayer, or drugs. Upon his release, Iry heads to New Orleans where he plans to play the honky tonk and drown his life with alcohol. However, the haze of drink does not keep Iry from feeling depressed. He concludes he needs to leave Louisiana if he to get back his lost boogie. He treks to Milltown, Montana near Missoula where his jazz playing former cell mate Buddy Riordan's father Frank owns a ranch by the Bitterroot River. Once there, he observes Buddy is always on LSD while Frank wars with the local pulp mill that is polluting the area. However, Iry finds himself attracted to Buddy's slightly overweight estranged wife, Beth, who wants both men to go straight, drop the drugs and booze and stay out of Frank's war. Iry can do two out of three, but feels obligated to be at Frank's side as David's sidekick against the goliath lumber companies. This is a reprint of a terrific early James Lee Burke thriller that brings to life the 1960s through mostly the downtrodden Iry. Frank, Buddy and Beth are fabulous support characters who enable the audience to understand what motivates the lead protagonist. With the backdrop of development vs. environment debate before Nixon established EPA, fans obtain a fabulous thriller wondering which side the antihero will join. Master of Darkness ISBN: 1416513345, $6.99, 384 pp. In San Diego, renegade vampire Laurent knows Tribe Manticore pack leader Justinian placed a bounty on his head. As he flees Laurent regrets coming out from beneath the vampiric radar screen to make amends with Justinian. Laurent senses two Tribe Primes are closing in on him and thinks a human hunter may be nearby also. Vampire hunter Eden Faveau cannot believe she gave up Hawaii to hunt vampires just because her father and brothers are at a security conference. When the two Tribe primes attack Laurent, Eden intercedes thinking he is Sid Wolf a member of Clan Wolf, their vampire client. He fails to correct her. As they work together, Justinian captures Eden and dangles her as a pawn to get Laurent to come for her. Laurent cannot allow harm to come to the mortal he loves though he fears her reaction when she learns he deceived her. He also realizes history is to about to repeat the slaughter of the late nineteenth century with a dangerous war coming between humans, werewolves, vampires and others with no one trusting anyone not even family. Susan Sizemore's latest vampire romance (see I BURN FOR YOU and I HUNGER FOR YOU) is an exciting thriller starring an interesting female hunter, who does not like the occupation, and a rogue vampire who knows he has enough troubles, but cannot resist the lure of his partner. The pairing is a delight as they fall in love, but he hides who he is and his agenda from her; once she knows the truth he fears that his burning hunger for her will not be enough to overcome her thirst for the blood of her "Gambit" flowing from his corpse. The action-packed story line contains a twist that will make readers thirst for more of these delightful supernatural tales. Cruel and Unusual ISBN: 0743458095, $6.99, 367 pp. Baltimore homicide detectives Kay Delaney and Danny Finnerly are partners on the job and in their personal lives even though she has commitment problems that will not allow her to move in with her lover let alone marry him. Their latest case starts off bizarrely when a human heart is left near the posh private Langley Country School. During the interviews of the staff, the two cops learn that a student Leslie Richter was murdered two months ago. Kat has a hunch that the heart and the murdered girl are connected, which makes her wonder if they have a serial killer on their hands. A few weeks later, another young woman is raped, beaten, and left for dead near a highway; she dies in the hospital. Forensic evidence affirms that the same person killed the three coeds and when a fourth has been abducted Kay is in a race against the clock to find her before she too dies. Fans of police procedural thrillers like those written by Kay Hooper and Leslie Glass will want to read the tense BLUE VALOR. The story line that provides the tormented internal soul of police officers especially how their struggles with a nasty case involving youngsters impact their emotions and subsequently their personal lives. Illona Haus is a talented author who provides many twists to the homicide investigation that will keep her audience wondering what will happens next. However, it is the humanizing of her heroine and her partner that makes this a very worthy read. The Highlander's Stolen Bride ISBN: 074344275X, $6.99, 384 pp. Highlander Laird Derek Hardwicke is settling his late mother's English estate while also visiting a friend where he meets English Lady Rosalyn Carmichael, who is fleeing her nasty step brother Calder Westcott. After Derek rescues Rosalyn from an intruder, she explains that Calder plans to wed and kill her to gain her inheritance. For her safety, Derek takes her to his keep Castle Gray though he knows he must ignore his attraction to her as he is expected to wed childhood friend Megan Trelawny whose brother is lord of a rival clan. However he fails at keeping his emotions in check and soon Derek falls in love with the woman he vows to protect; Megan reciprocates. Still duty and the expectations of his clan that he forges an alliance with the Trelawany brood by marrying Megan serve as powerful inhibiters. To wed an English rose could prove an affront to Megan's clan and enable his step-brother Ethan to foster further dissension within his clan and gain an edge to take over. Meanwhile the diabolical Calder sets in motion a scheme that will enable him to gain access to the keep and ultimately Rosalyn. Though the antipathy between the half-brothers is somewhat irritating, the relationships between the lead couple and the disapproval of everyone (except Megan) especially his clan coupled with the sinister brilliance of Calder comes together in a tense wonderful historical romance. The exciting story line is clearly character driven with Derek as the center struggling between duty and love. Calder is a fabulously sociopathic villain whose final plan is lethally brilliant. Scottish historical romance readers will appreciate this fine "Pleasure Seekers" tale by George. Body of Evidence In Richmond, Virginia, someone brutally slashes to death historical romance writer Beryl Madison in the woman's home. The crime scene evidence points towards the victim knowing her killer as no forced entry appears. In fact she seems to have let the culprit into her home though she feared an unknown assailant threatened to kill her, which is why she cut short her Key West trip. State medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta also investigates other seemingly related deaths; that of writer Cary Harper and the suicide of his sister. Meanwhile, the FBI is looking into the activities of Madison's lawyer though Scarpetta cannot see the link to her case though she believes there must be one. As she follows the forensic clues in Virginia and Florida, someone threatens to kill Scarpetta. However, the courageous M.E. refuses to back down from uncovering the truth behind the Madison murder and the related deaths of the Harper siblings. This early Scarpetta thriller is one of the best forensic tales written in the past decade or two, as the heroine works a difficult case with intelligence and aplomb while the readers obtain deep insight into the working of a medical examiner. The action-packed story line grips the audience from the moment the culprit slices and dices the writer and never slows down as Scarpetta and her team seeks clues to identify the killer. Patricia Cornwell, who has written a myriad of terrific thrillers, may have written her best with the powerful entertaining BODY OF EVIDENCE that holds up as a top gun in spite a rash of imitators on TV and literatures. ISBN: 074349153X, $7.99 When Deborah Harvey, the daughter of the National Drug Policy Director, and her boyfriend fail to return home, the FBI investigates based on the assumption that there is a link to her father's job. When their remains are finally found, the media, linking it without substance, to eight other dead in pairs of two near Williamsburg, Virginia, dub the culprit the Couples Killer. State Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta joins the investigation into the latest killings. Not much data can be gleaned from the skeletons though the killer leaves a glaring jack of hearts at each crime site. The Feds, state, and local law enforcement trip over each other like the Keystone Cops. Meanwhile Kay and Richmond homicide detective, Pete Marino, follow the paths, many of which dead end in cul de sacs, left behind by a devious killer made even more complex by a reporter and the Harvey family. This reprint of an early Scarpetta thriller is a fine entry as a difficult case turns ugly and convoluted by so many participants especially the interference by cops and amateurs. Kay, her Valkyrie cohorts, and Pete are at their best working through a myriad of potential clues obfuscated by politicians, reporters, cops and family members who devastate crime scenes and more. Fans of the great M.E. will enjoy this fine forensic police procedural. In the Thrill of the Night ISBN: 0451217845, $6.99 In 1813 the five wealthy Merry Widows serve as the board of trustees for the Benevolent Widows Fund. Though their late spouses were kind individuals each has vowed to not marry again as they like the freedom death provided them. One of the quintet, Lady Gosworth tells her companions that she spent the winter warmed by a youthful lover. Grace, Beatrice and Marianne are shocked while Wilhelmina just smiles. The ladies agree to consider lovers and to continue to support one another regardless. Marianne turns to her late husband's best friend Adam Cazenove, a noted rake, for guidance. He detests the thought of Marianne with a lover though he rationalizes that the memory of David may be why he rejects the idea. She persuades him to go over her list of possible candidates, but he finds a reason to eliminate most; those he cannot cross off in good conscience he plans to stop any tryst from happening. If anyone is going to sleep with Marianne it will be him though he is betrothed to Clarissa Leighton-Blair and he fears he is not the man that David was. IN THE THRILL OF THE NIGHT is an amusing chick lit regency due to the wild antics of the lead male. Though Adam is engaged and rejects the notion of twenty-nine years old Marianne remaining celibate the rest of her life (he assumes marriage one day), he cannot tolerate any of those pretenders sleeping with her so he performs humorous intercessions to prevent the men from doing so. Fans will enjoy his zany escapades as he eventually realizes that he loves Marianne, but doubts she reciprocates because he assumes David filled her soul. ISBN: 0451217772, $7.99, 384 pp. Although Josie-Baylor-Bates was unable to convince a jury in criminal court that Kevin O'Connell beat up his wife Susan within an inch of life, she won a huge monetary settlement for the victim in Civil Court. After leaving the courtroom, she is accosted by Grace McCreary, the sister of Matthew who Josie was intensely in love with and thought was her soulmate until she discovered he lied about having any family. Matthew's wife jumped off the balcony and was killed and the coroner ruled it a suicide. However, the police, especially the surprisingly caring Detective Babcock refuses to close the case because he believes that it is not quite as cut and dried as the coroner believes. Nobody is more shocked than Josie when Grace is arrested and reluctantly she agrees to defend her. This puts her back in Matthew's orbit who seems more concerned with his campaign than the plight of his sister's defense. Josie makes a good case at the probable cause hearing but as more and more secrets are revealed, Josie begins to wonder if either her client or her brother is telling the truth. While she is dealing with the McCreary siblings, Kevin is terrorizing her and her ward while looking for Susan. One day if there is any justice, Rebecca Forster will be a household name because her legal thrillers are on a par with John Grisham, Scott Turow and John Lescroart. Her stylized and intricate plotting and her realistic characterizations make for a fantastic story while her ability to incorporate several sub-plots including one about the protagonist's personal life makes this so much more than an outstanding legal thriller. Did You Declare the Corpse? ISBN: 0451217802, $6.99, 288 pp. Georgia Magistrate MacLaren Yarbrough is visiting the Scottish Highlands for two weeks but her companion is not her beloved husband Joe Riddley but her friend Laura MacDonald. Joe thinks it is safe to take a fishing vacation with his son and two grandsons because Mac won't have any mysteries to solve or trip over dead bodies. Little does he knows that his worst fears will be realized when a heartless killer tries to murder Mac. The mystery begins when Mac overhears a person on their tour arguing with the brother-in-law of the laird of Auchnager about a business deal. Before that incident that argumentative individual acted like he was another tourist on a holiday jaunt. While visiting a local church one of the tourists is found lying in a coffin inside the holy facility, the victim of murder.. Mac immediately assumes the laird's brother-in-law did the deed until that poor soul winds up in a second coffin. Without meaning to, Mac observes her fellow tourists and asks questions to try to bring the culprits to justice though she ends up feeling sorry for them even though they killed somebody. Patricia Sprinkle's latest Thoroughly Southern mystery, although placed in the Scottish Highlands, is still a down home, at times hilarious cozy. This is a mystery Agatha Christie would be proud to claim as her own. The intricate plotting and the eccentric cast of characters are just two of the reasons that DID YOU DELIVER THE CORPSE? is a one sitting reading experience. The heroine is eminently likeable and her homespun wisdom instantly endears her to the audience who will want this grandmotherly person to adopt them. The Second Chance ISBN: 0451217861, $6.99, 320 pp. Scotswoman Flora MacCallum is a widow raising her three small children by herself ever since her beloved Seamus died in an oil rig incident in the North Sea while working for expatriate American Libby Mackenzie. When a pregnant Libby asks her to do a favor that means being away from her children for a few weeks for the first time Flora wants to say no. However, her kids, her friends and family insist she travel to Ipswich-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts to open up Libby's new B&B as the hired hosts declined at the last minute. In the small New England town, Flora meets renowned composer Gavin Matheson who stopped writing music since his ex-wife Miranda ran off with their now six-year old son Gabriel. As he has told his partner Alec Greyson he lost his inspiration Gabriel and no Claptonesque muse has come forth; that is until he meets Flora. As they fall in love, neither Flora nor Gavin are confused about their feelings and whether they want to take the next step in their relationship, but a perilous situation will force the duo to learn what is important in life. The lead couple and much of the support cast make for a deep contemporary romance that has a late suspense spin. The story line is terrific when the tale concentrates on the SECOND CHANCE at love confusing Flora and Gavin, but he hears the music for the first time since his son was snatched from him. Though the Gabriel-Miranda subplot seems over the edge, fans of a wonderful contemporary romance with a tense climax will appreciate Jaclyn Reding's return to Ipswich-by-the-Sea (see THE SECRET GIFT). Beyond the Wild Wind ISBN: 0451217853, $6.99, 352 pp. Sea Captain Istabelle O'Bannon of the Adventuress steals loot from pirates to redistribute back to their victims. However, she has been captured by her enemy Horik who takes her greatest treasure from her; something that she needs to have returned if she is to regain her confidence. Desperate for help she sends a note to a monastery where her best childhood friend Mangan O'Bannon is spending a year of reflection. When mercenary Ruark Haagan arrives at the monastery seeking help for his badly injured companion Sven, Mangan cuts a deal. Ruark goes in his place to assist Istabelle in exchange for no fee for caring of Sven. Ruark assumes that Istabelle is just a silly lady with no real troubles. She thinks he is Mangan who she has not seen in a decade; so is stunned when he refuses to help her. He changes his mind, but fears he must not reveal his identity for he will scare her off. As she keeps secret her treasure from her champion, Ruark and Istabelle fall in love, but first with his help she must confront her devil Horik while her beloved must reconsider his theory that there is no place called home. BEYOND THE WILD WIND is an intriguing historical romance that takes off from the moment that Istabelle tosses the bathing Ruark's breeches high on a tree and absconds with his sword. The story line never slows down as she mistakes his identity as her anointed hero, a role the mercenary does not want to be, but his desire of her gives him no choice. The final exhilarating confrontation provides a too convenient solution to part of Istabelle's dilemma, but also climaxes a delightful romance. "Prologue". Aphrodite visits the office of CUPID, INC. run by her favorite offspring Eros and his wife Psyche. The business partners explain to his mom that these modern times pose difficult problems in the art of turning lust into love. Though believing an old fashion arrow remains the best remedy, Aphrodite agrees to help. "The Accountant and the Virgin". Sara tells Psyche she wants her boss Zeth or his doppelganger to remove her from the virgin club. Instead she is given the wrong address and ends up seeing Nic the accountant, who wants to count her ledger from the moment he sees her. "The Stars in Her Eyes". Action thriller star Kevan wanted to say no, but he owes Psyche for saving his life. He changes his mind when Janie arrives and cleverly dispatches an annoying reporter. Though an alleged one time fantasy, both wants each other for dessert. "One Mile Up … A Little to the Left". At a Max-Out magazine event celebrating Monet, Karee and Bret meet. Cupid, Inc. invited both on a mile high flight in their specially arranged jet-erotica. The pair shares a flying fantasy with each wanting to soar again without a plane. "The Spy Who Rubbed Me". His mother demands Paul, a retired jewel thief, steal Aphrodite's golden apple at the Vegas Troy Casino under the auspices of Cupid, Inc. Paul is chased into Manzana Cafe where the owner and her daughter Helen protect him. Paul and Helen team up to steal the apple, fall in love, but compete with Greek Gods for the prize. These four amusing erotic contemporary romantic fantasies cleverly apply the theme of the Greek Gods interfering (in these cases matchmaking and more) in the lives of mortals. Murder Can Run Your Stockings ISBN: 0451217810, $6.99 On the flight back from Minneapolis to La Guardia, private investigator Desiree Shapiro meets attorney Ben Berlin. Desiree was returning from her friend's wedding while Ben was heading to the funeral of his beloved Aunt Bessie Herman. The grieving Ben mentions that she fell down a set of stairs in her home breaking her neck. Over a week later Ben calls Desiree to hire her to investigate the death of his aunt, whom he believes was murdered. He explains that NYPD Sergeant Spence stated that elderly women should not wear high heels; Ben says his aunt no longer wore high heels since breaking an ankle last year. Happy to have a paying client, Desiree questions the victim's younger son Joel, his fiancee Frankie, and his older brother Donnie. She touches base with Spence and treks across the Hudson to Aubrey, New Jersey where realtor Cliff Seymour detested the fact that Bessie refused to sell him some choice land there. Finally she discusses the situation with a long term friend of Bessie. As she digs deeper, Desiree agrees homicide occurred, but the killer hides amidst friends, family, and business cronies of the septuagenarian victim. Readers will agree that chance enabled Desiree and Ben to fly to New York together, but it was his comment that she seemed too soft and feminine to be a PI as opposed to overweight that leads to their discussion on the plane and the case (the fee helped). The investigation is clever as Desiree ponders who might kill to obtain Aunt Bessie's assets even as she understands that as time vanishes, solving the case becomes increasingly problematic. With her personal life having a few spins too, fans will enjoy the latest Manhattan caper of Bloomingdale's finest sleuth. Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse Smoky Mountain Tracks ISBN: 0451218027, $6.99, 272 pp. Hanover County, North Carolina, nestled in the Smoky Mountains, is home to Raine Stockton, the estranged wife of Deputy Sheriff Buck Lawson. She is a dog trainer extraordinaire and used to go on search and rescue missions but since her beloved canine Cassidy died, she hasn't had the heart for it any longer. That is until she receives a frantic phone call at three in the morning from Buck asking her to take her SAR dog Cisco to help in the search for Cindy Winston and her daughter Angel. When they fail to find them, she starts to return home when Cisco and Raine trip over the murdered body of Luke Pickens, a drug user and alcoholic, who kidnapped the two females but no proof of Cindy or Angel, is nearby. Cindy walks home to her mother's house injured by a bullet Luke put in her with no idea where Angel is. Upset that Cisco failed to find the missing girl, Raine starts asking questions, discovers that the whole episode might have to do with a land deal and continues to use her SAR canine to hunt for clues in Angel's disappearance. Donna Ball is a famous multi-faceted author who has written compelling novels in the horror, romance, paranormal and women in jeopardy genres. Now she turns her considerable talent to mystery writing and has provides an exciting, original and suspense laden who-done it that will please her myriad of fans who have been waiting too long for her to publish another book. SMOKY MOUNTAIN TRACKS is a simply fabulous mystery starring a likable dedicated heroine; anyone who reads it will eagerly await the next book in the series. Zero to The Bone Simon & Schuster ISBN: 0743250176, $23.00, 271 pp. Ex-con Nina Zero a freelance photographer for the tabloid newspaper the Scandal Times, is realizing a dream by having a showing of her photographs in a respectable gallery. The model she used in the photographs never shows up but Nina thinks Christine is just going to be fashionably late. A CD sent to the newspaper that she never viewed turns out to be a snuff film and her co-worker Frank who watched it brings it to the showing for Nina to see. The woman who was killed has a tattoo of Betty Boop on her left shoulder just like the Christine has. A hiker stumbles over Christine's body in the Santa Monica Mountains. Both Nina and Frank decide to follow the story. Nina because she cares and would like to find the killer and Frank because he thinks he can gain much mileage from the murder which has all the ingredients for a sensational story including the darkest side of S&M, where one is almost to the point of death. From the dark world that Christine inhabited and enjoyed, the investigation takes them to the corridors of the Hollywood elite where everyone has a price except for Nina. Robert Eversz is a dark gritty urban noir thriller writer who imbues his characters with the full spectrum of human emotions and reflects that back to the reader who sees them in a disturbing light. The author brings every emotion out of the audience from joy to sorrow and everything in between. Yet this stark novel has its light moments involving Nina's dog Rott and its moving moments (Nina's father trying to reconnect with her). ZERO TO THE BONE is in a class by itself. John J. Nance Fit to Die Karen Hanson Stuyck ISBN: 1594143692, $25.95 In Houston after twenty-seven years of marriage without any warning, Rob Prescott vanishes, but before the dentist disappears he wipes out his joint bank accounts and absconds with the values from their home while his wife Lauren did volunteer work at a nearby hospital. At fifty, overweight Lauren needs work. Her friend Meg arranges an interview for her at City Magazine where the editor offers her a chance to write an article on the recently demised health nut Stan Harris, but concentrate on the Svengali claims he made of turning his two spouses from overweight losers into confident healthy perfect specimens and on rumors of supplement abuse. As she interviews Stan's associates and his family, Lauren begins to ponder whether a homicide disguised as a heart attacked induced by a potassium overdose occurred. At the same time as she searches for her spouse accompanied by her two daughters, they come across a corpse and other illegal activities by Rob the dentist to the mob. Either inquiry could prove hazardous to Lauren's health. Though how Lauren can become a reporter seemingly overnight seems a stretch, fans will enjoy this fun amateur sleuth tale in which the three Prescott females search for their father and what really happened to Stan. The story line is fast-paced as the Prescotts leap into one bind after another, but keep on trucking in their efforts to solve both investigations. The Harris case has some interesting twists while the Prescott disappearance is a bit of a surprise as to why he vanished. Readers will enjoy the antics of the Prescott women as they go from one caper into another escapade not fully realizing the danger of either of their inquiries. ISBN: 1594144370, $26.95 When Mattie Adams was fourteen her mother with the aid of an outlaw managed to get her daughter safely away from the Nate Dorsey gang, but failed to escape. Rancher Will McCarthy and others find Mattie wandering lost and take her to the safety of nearby Wayside Station where she assumes her mother died in the escape attempt. When she overhears the locals gossip about her being an "Outlaw's Brat and a whore, Mattie decides to move to St. Louis to live with her Aunt Elizabeth. Over the next six years Mattie never forgot her rescuer, but she knows that Will can select any woman so he would never settle for an Outlaw's Brat. When Will tells her that her mother may still be alive, she returns to Wayside Station. She negotiates with Will and other ranchers who want to assault the Dorsey gang hideaway to stop the rustling. As she rides with Will to rescue her mom and end the rustling, Mattie knows that her puppy love for Will is as strong as ever, but she assumes it is unrequited. Though readers will wonder why the law waited six years to close in on the Dorsey gang (the increase in rustling activity does not seem enough), OUTLAW'S BRAT is an exciting western romance. Mattie is a fabulous protagonist treated by many residents of Wayside Station with contempt. Will is a fine champion who proved his love for her when she was fourteen by doing nothing as he knew she was too young and besides she was recovering from a trauma. This couple turns Lee Scofield's nineteenth century tale into a fine read. The tenth anniversary of the death of the king of hillbilly rock and roll Colton Purcell is coming soon. In Vegas where Colton frequently performed just before his death, there are several galas planned including a sound alike contest. As many of his fans plan to attend the events, Colton's manager "Big Daddy" Babcock is murdered with the King's scarf from his farewell show. Regency magazine CEO Bishop sends his reporter Harry Bauer to follow up on the homicide since he interviewed Big Daddy just last week; Harry assumes Bishop wants him out of town when he marries the reporter's ex-wife. At the same time, Colton's only daughter Melissa is to marry Latino superstar Pablo while her mother Ladonna known by all as "Ladzilla" objects. Harry meets Gabriel Freeman in the Vegas airport; he claims to be an offspring of Colton at the same time rumors fly of a related nursing home abduction in Memphis by Nurse Marjorie Versette whose home is a shrine to the King. When his journalist pal is murdered, Harry investigates the dark secrets of the King and his retinue ten years after the performer died. Obviously everyone knows who the King is, but Michael A. Black provides an intriguing refreshing spin filled with twists that take some getting used to (just ask Harry) as the story line moves forward on several flanks. Harry's inquiries, like the plot, follow several directions including the deaths of Big Daddy and a reporter friend (that left Harry All Shook Up) as well as Freeman's claim; all converge in Memphis. A delight for the Elvis crowd, fans of a journalist investigative thriller will also appreciate this fine Love Me Tender not homage to the King of Rock and Roll. ISBN: 1594144559, $25.95 In Lincoln Grove, Illinois popular highly regarded high school teacher Diane Boston lives with her Marfan syndrome inflicted teenage son David. Her former spouse Greg detests her for hiding secrets from him and for coddling their son, who he wants custody over. David's best friend Billy Davis finds a stash of his father's hard core porn movies from the late 1970s. The two young teens recognize the star Lucy Luv as David's mom. Billy's dad catches his son watching and recognizes her as Diane too. He gleefully informs the tabloids as a way of avenging her beating him out for a job at the school and her rejecting his sexual advances. California porn producer Aaron Valentine learns that Lucy Luv is in Illinois and sees this as the break in a two decade old betrayal that he plans to correct. He sends his muscle Emo Tuff to take care of business. Corpses begin appearing in the diamond centers of New York and Chicago and in Lincoln Grove until Emo abducts David. The past comes back to haunt Diane as her secrets become public. Besides her concern for her son, she needs to worry that Aaron will demand the gems taken from him. The story line is at its best as a deep character study of an ethical middle class paragon suddenly held in contempt by those who named her teacher of the year. The Aaron-Emo spin adds action and excitement, but takes away from the choices that Diane has to make as the lioness instead must go after her cub. Still Raymond Benson provides a fine tale starring an ethical individual who has enough on her plate without Aaron and Emo seeking to break her bones one at a time. Returning to Taos ISBN: 1594144370, $26.95 Ten years ago Elena Water left her husband Tom in Taos, New Mexico taking her son Johnny with her. A few years later, Johnny left her to study music and live in Taos under the tutelage of family friends Jack and Maggie Dalton, who run a musical production company. As Johnny is becoming a success, someone shoots and kills him. Elena, who had not spoken to her son in months or seen him in five years, is stunned by her loss. As the cops fail to break the case, Elena arrives in Taos vowing to bring justice to her son's murderer. Tom and Maggie are worried about her mental state as she insists she is talking with Johnny who is giving her some clues to his homicide though her findings are uncannily accurate. Because Johnny refuses to tell her who killed him, she assumes he is protecting someone, perhaps a loved one, but who had the motive to commit homicide? RETURNING TO TAOS is a haunting amateur sleuth tale in which the audience wonders whether Elena is losing her mind though she seems to easily converse with Johnny. Thus, fans will ponder paranormal or psychological; either way the audience gets a deep look inside the grieving mother who finds no closure perhaps because she was somewhat estranged from her son who she cherished, but failed to let him know that when he was alive (underlying message: don't wait - tell your loved ones while they live). Regardless of Elena's state of mind, RETURNING TO TAOS is a powerful mystery with a terrific twist that grips readers from the first "mother-son conversation" inside her head until their last. ISBN: 0312353723, $27.95, 384 pp. On the night of September 10, 2001, Englishwoman Victoria Wentworth plans to ship Van Gogh's classic Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear that she owns to Bryce Fenston, CEO of New York based Fenston Finance; Victoria expects Fenston to sell the masterpiece to a Japanese collector. That same evening someone breaks into Victoria's home, kills her, and slices off an ear; the Van Gogh is stolen. On September 11, 2001, a plane crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Fenston Finance employee Anna Petrescu manages to escape from the edifice before the tower collapses. She knows that Fenston was planning to keep the Van Gogh painting and that everyone assumes she died in the tragedy. Not correcting the latter, Anna intercepts the Van Gogh. However, goons chase her as she flees London for Hong Kong; FBI Agent Jack Delaney is also in hot pursuit as he sees a link between Fenston and the homicides of three collectors besides Wentworth who were employing him as an intermediary. The globe converges on Anna who now tries to vanish in Bucharest with a Fed and an assassin after her. This exciting thriller goes over the top, but no reader is going to care as the escapades of Anna fleeing with the painting with a Fed and a lethal female assassin on her trail makes for quite a tense duel. The story line is ultra fast-paced never slowing down from the first impression especially once Anna realizes that everyone assumes she died in the North Tower tragedy until the final triangular confrontation between the good, the bad and the ugly. Brenda Jackson, Delilah Dawson, Joy King & Maryann Reid ISBN: 0312349017, $13.95 "Extreme Satisfaction" by Brenda Jackson. Cathleen admits to her best friend and business partner Lisa that all their success means nothing without a good man at home; Lisa remarks she has one while Cat confesses she made one major error when she dumped Rory to further her career. She vows to get him back. Though he still loves her, Rory no longer trusts her with his heart. "Satisfy Me" by Delilah Dawson. Max worked in her father's garden as a teen, but though they began falling in love, Shauna, under parental pressure, rejected the boy who left her roses. Five years have passed and they meet with her hosting a bachelorette party and he the bachelor's gala. After he "rescues" her when her car fails late that night, they sleep together, but she wonders if he wants her or more revenge points over her late dad's labeling him "Ghetto". "Ice Princess" by Joy King. Madison is the Ice Princess though she has sex with business associates. That is until she meets the landlord of the Manhattan building in which she just purchases a loft. However, as love flows between them, Madison turns to her male comfort candies out of fear. "The Morning After" by Maryann Reid. After feeling she wasted her time with Leonard, Alexis wants out of the BMW (Black men Working) suicide dating game when she meets Rasheen, who as a Bed-Stuy teen lived a violent life, but is a good person. After a great night in bed, Alexis has doubts the morning after because Rasheen is not a BMW. These are four superb cotemporary tales starring likable strong protagonists. Lovers and Players ISBN: 0312341776, $24.95 Aging billionaire Red Diamond orders his three sons to come see him if they want their name to remain in his will. All three know their father never messes around when it comes to money as they learned first hand with his take that hill business dealings; so each rushes to attend the summoning though it interferes with their lifestyles. Realtor Max, entertainment lawyer Chris, and supermodel Jett pay homage to the great one because no one wants to be left out of the will. Meanwhile Red's ex-wife Mariska has ties to the Russian Mafia and is willing to use them to get what she wants. Jett's one night with New York heiress Amy Scott causes chagrin and guilt as unbeknownst to either she is engaged to marry his brother Max. Finally the daughter of Red's housekeeper, singing wannabe Liberty is willing to do anything to move up the ladder of success. While the monarch holds court with his princes in attendance, all their extraneous activities threaten the king and his court especially when someone brutally murders Mariska and the evidence points to the King and his retinue of jesters. Initially LOVERS AND PLAYERS contains multiple story lines starring the four male Diamonds and their female interests; yet Jackie Collins keeps her players and their enjoyable segments reliably consistent until she brings them together into a cohesive delightful thriller. Readers will wonder if one of the Diamonds aced Mariska and how will the Max, Jett and Amy soap opera triangle play out. On top of all that is larger than life Red who is in everyone's knickers (in the case of females that is literally; his sons figuratively). Ms. Collins as always entertains. ISBN: 0312938489, $6.99, 352 pp. Frank Tallient hires Chicago based cryptozoologist Diana Malone to investigate strange killings in the swamps near New Orleans. Her new client wants Diana to capture whatever is murdering the local populace; both expect a mundane serial killer is at work, but also understand the underlying reason he chose her is the possibility that a more esoteric murderer, an ABC (Alien Big Cat) like a wolf or even a werewolf is behind the slaughter. Former Special Forces soldier and native son Adam Ruelle is the best person to guide Diana through the bayou jungle, but if he is even alive, which is doubtful, he is the posterboy of recluses and probably will reject her request. Still she tries and he reluctantly agrees when he cannot persuade her that the only animals she wants to see is a cub at a baseball game in Chicago. At night in the eerie Louisiana swamps, Diana begins to fall in love with her strange guide; an emotion she thought dead since her beloved Simon Malone passed away. Against all he understands about his heritage, Adam reciprocates though he believes the "curse" needs to end with him. In daylight she believes he hides the truth about himself and what he knows about their prey, who stalks the scientist and her escort. The fourth paranormal romantic suspense fantasy Moon tale is a terrific entry in what is one of the better running sub-genre series of the last few years. The lead couple is an exhilarating pairing as they fall in love, but both have monster doubts about any relationship that is if they survive being the hunted. Readers who appreciate a strong one sitting thriller will want to read CRESCENT MOON and the other Lori Handeland lunar tales (DARK MOON, HUNTER'S MOON, and BLUE MOON). While riding his Harley to go shoot pool at the nearby Rack and Balls in Middlesex, Connecticut, electrical engineer Charlie Shepherd hears the explosion in his new neighbor's garage. He goes to insure no one is hurt; inside a female insists she is okay. He remains concerned that the New York model, who moved next door to him, rejects his pleas to call 911 but Eve Dupree does agree to shoot pool with him. He is the best in town until she wins their wager rather easily. However, Charlie handles his defeat gracefully even though he feels he was handicapped by his wood. He becomes upset when his cousin Rick Banister of the modeling world arrives, but Eve showers her attention on the engineer to his shock and euphoria. Eve needs his help with her inventions while Charlie desires her but is heading to Hoover Dam for his next job. As he cannot resist her lure and helps her with her gizmos, someone hovers in the background ready to sabotage any device that appears ready for the experimental design stage. At the same time the kisses between the ingenious model and the engineering nerd send both to the moon without a craft. The fifth NERD GONE WILD romance is a fun often amusing romantic suspense with beauty needing to show her brains while Nerdy needs to simply be with her. The story line is terrific when Charlie behaves as a NERD IN SHINING ARMOR and Eve chooses GONE WITH THE NERD over the hunks from her modeling world. The sabotage intrigue provides action, but that seems forced, especially in a tale when the model relishes her beloved talk nerdy to her in the bedroom and the garage. Metis Indian Gabriel Du Pre is happy his granddaughter Pallas is home even for a short visit while on hiatus from her studies in DC. Also back in Montana is Chappie, the son of Gabriel's friend. The lad lost a leg, an eye, and a wife while serving in Iraq; Du Pre thinks the veteran lost his mind too. While the family reunions are going on, Pastor Flowers, a fundamentalist from Texas, and his extended family move into the area. Not long afterward, a young girl calls the cops asking for help as she is a runaway, but insists if they find her they will kill her. At the same time graffiti criticizing the local church ministered by Father Van den Huevel appears on the walls of that facility. As Du Pre, in between shots of whiskey and smoking his rolled cigarettes, and others search for the missing girl that he believes connects to the zealous religious fundamentalists who violently attack others with their my way is the only way theme. Du Pre's latest Montana tale is a terrific thriller, but it is the tons of sidebars that reflect on many of today's issues such as the health of returning veterans from Iraq, a slowly dying small town, and religious fundamentalism that make the story line fascinating. For instance, the impact of real sacrifice (not BuSh claims of Americans giving up so much to support the war) on a solider in which the government fails to pay for an artificial leg - someone has to fund the tax cuts. Peter Bowen is at his best as he NAILS down much of what disturbs Americans with Du Pre's delightful thirteenth Big Sky thriller. Total Waste of Makeup ISBN: 031234872X, $12.95 As a personal assistant to Drew Stanton, a top movie star, Charlize "Charlie" Edwards seems to be living the good life in Southern California, but she is beginning to feel her age as she closes in on thirty due to her younger sister's upcoming marriage. Her family continues to drive her nuts as always, but the nuptials especially reminds her she is alone and will never have any children calling her mom. To comfort her self with the empty nest syndrome, Charlie begins writing advice notes for the imaginative niece that has not been perceived, but she will one day hold though the kid will read her expertise probably in the next century. She also begins going out on dates after a male moratorium. To her amazement though most were calamities, she falls in love with set photographer Jordan though she also admits to her two confidents, Dawn and Kate, that she does not like him. The key to this fine chick lit tale is the camaraderie between the three friends that seem so genuine that it serves as the plausibility anchor to the cast and the story line. The advice notes to a future niece are fun to follow as the audience also sees what makes Charlie tick while she can name her hemorrhoids after her family and her boss. However, the friendship between the three women who instinctively know first hand when a relationship is a TOTAL WASTE OF MAKEUP make Kim Gruenenfelder's tale fun to read. A Case of Imagination In Parkland, North Carolina, her former employer and the person she leases her office from, Reid Kent blithely informs Madeline Maclin that no one would hire a former Miss Parkland as an investigator, but she plans to make Madeline Maclin Investigations a success though she has no clients. Her friend psychic Jeremyn Fairweather asks her to accompany him to inspect his new inheritance a home in nearby Celosia that he obtained from his late Uncle Val Eberlin, who the locals classified as a nut. Mac agrees while thinking Jerry looks sexy, but fears a rebound love following the debacle of a marriage to her former husband selfish Bill. In Celosia Jerry thinks of converting his new house into a psychic shop. Meanwhile beauty pageant director Evan James tells them he is having problems with protestors and ghosts so naturally Jerry and Mac become involved; he on the spiritual plane while she on the mundane realm. While his acrimonious girlfriend Olivia hates seeing Jerry and Mac together, they investigate allegedly otherworldly interference though the homicide seems more human spawned than supernatural. This is a charming regional who-done-it filled with eccentric characters including if one believes Jerry a ghost or two. The relationship between Jerry and Mac is terrific as fans will expect romance to blossom, but both also carry baggage, hers being her former husband and his being a dark secret. Once the audience meets the key players enough to understand much of their respective motivations the Celosia mystery takes charge of the story line leading the reader to wonder if there are spirits at play and will the two stars become a romantic entry or not. This is a first-class Carolina caper. Out of Order ISBN: 1590582527, $24.95, 234 pp. Though they see life differently and only know each other less than a year, loan processor Jason Talley and married couple Sriram and Vidya Sundaram have become friends. Sriram asks Jason to hide a red sari he is bringing as a present to his mother when he visits her in India; he has not told his beloved wife yet that he plans to return home without her for a few days. The next day Jason returns to their apartment complex in Corning, New York to find his two friends dead in what the cops believe was a suicide murder. On the spur of the moment, Jason decides to deliver the sari to Sriram's mother; he sends an email to all those on Sriram's list telling them he comes to pay homage. Jason flies to India where he finds everyone else on the tour a geriatric except for Canadian Rachel Moore who won the trip with a lottery ticket. She bullies the reluctant Jason into leaving the formal tour to ride the trains to see the real India though she insists they skip the Taj Mahal. As they journey together, Sriram's former India computer associates and his American based employer want the sari that they believe contains a "magical" program stitched on it. OUT OF ORDER is a fabulous thriller starring an individual whose entire life has been planned to the nanosecond until he goes to India. Suddenly, the sane, safe, and secure lifestyle that Jason has lived for twenty-seven years vanishes especially when he meets the spontaneous Rachel. Fans will appreciate the beleaguered Jason struggling to determine friend from foe and the RELATIVE DANGER of each as everyone except Rachel seems to have an agenda involving the sari. Mark de Castrique ISBN: 1590582276, $24.95, 264 pp. In Gainesboro, North Carolina, just before dying from cancer Montagnard expatriate Y'Grok Eban informs Boston cop Kevin Malone that the "Raven has come home" scaring the street tough police officer though he is not totally sure why. The brave Y'Grok saved many American lives during the Viet Nam war, but the exile never went home once he fled for the Carolina hills. Now a grand funeral befitting a genuine hero is planned that has caught the attention of the national media. However, someone enters the Clayton & Clayton Funeral Home, knocking unconscious director Barry Clayton before apparently stealing the corpse of Y'Grok. Barry's friend local Sheriff Tommy Lee Watkins is upset for personal reasons because four decades ago Y'Grok saved his life when he served in Nam. Kevin, coming south for the funeral, joins forces with Tommy Lee and Barry an ex-cop to locate the body, learn the meaning of Y'Grok's last cryptic message and find out why something that happened forty years ago suddenly haunts those still living today over an ocean and a continent away. Using a contemporary mystery, Mark de Castrique provides an intriguing look (through the memories of those gathering for the funeral) of the Viet Nam War in which the Montagnard served as loyal allies to the American troops. The search for the stolen corpse and the efforts to break Y'Grok's enigmatic last words turn into a strong investigative tale that spins into much more as the war still haunts these men while they each reflect back to try to define what the final words of their late brother in arms meant. FOOLISH UNDERTAKING is a fabulous thriller that grips the audience from the moment the corpse is purloined and never slows down until Raven comes home. Kiss From a Rogue ISBN: 0060834110, $5.99, 384 pp. In 1816 Dorset, the estate of Lady Sylvia Montgomery's late husband is bankrupt. Sylvia feels she must take action not out of some aristocratic obligation, but because she worries what will come of the locals; some families have already fled to Canada. Thus, the ingenious Lady assumes leadership of the local smuggling operation. While his brother served in the Napoleonic War, Lord Anthony Sinclair properly behaved as expected of the spare. However, now Benjamin the Earl has returned safely to London and married "Joe" (see WHAT AN EARL WANTS), a brilliant investor, who has made a fortune for him and the family, Tony has no idea what to do in life. He decides to become a rake while he ponders his future. Tony's skirt-chasing leads him to Dorset where he meets the beguiling widow who he knows has a secret that he plans to uncover and exploit to get Sylvia in his bed. However, he falls in love with her and he believes she reciprocates; but she is an earnest woman working at saving her villagers. To earn Sylvia's respect he must stay at her side, but is unprepared for the illegal events that unfold at Lulworth Cove. This sequel returns Tony on his romantic caper with another equally strong take charge female. The Regency story line is filled with plenty of action, but the real adventure is Tony's efforts to prove to his beloved Sylvia he will be there for her regardless of the escapades she leads them into; she assumes he is a wastrel. With her second wonderful historical, Shirley Karr shows she is no one hit wonder as readers will take immense delight in the gender bending battle of the smuggling sexes. Bark M for Murder J.A. Jance, Virginia Lanier, Chassie West, and Lee Charles Kelley ISBN: 006081537X, $6.99, 320 pp. "Red Shirt and Black Jacket" by Virginia Lanier- Two robbers kill a convenience store clerk and the police send Jo Beth Sidden, Jasmine Jones and their bloodhounds to scent out the killers. The dogs steal the show in this exciting mystery that has a very big chase scene. "Nightmare in Nowhere" by Chasse West. Duke the German Shepard wakes A.J. up by licking her; she carefully gets out of the backseat of a car that looks like it is going to drop into a deep river. She has no idea where she is or why she was in the car or who was the driver. The dog takes her to Jake, a police officer vacationing in Maryland but he has no phone to call for outside help. Jake tries to help the amnesiac but someone keeps shooting at them forcing them to run from the cabin. Chassie West has written an exciting tale with realistic characters. "The French Poodle Connection" by Lee Charles Kelley. Former cop turned homicide detective Jack Field is at Cady Clark's home teaching her dog not to bite people when her ex-husband turns up with a gun because he just robbed a bank. Cady gets the gun after Jack knocks her ex unconscious and holds it on Jack forcing him to go to a deserted area while she frees her ex. This is the beginning of a crime spree that ends with four dead, five if you count Cady, who Jack doesn't because he believes she is alive. Lee Charles Kelley has written an entertaining mystery filled with twists and red herrings. The Case of the London Cabbie by J.A. Jance- Septuagenarian Maddie Watkins plans to prove that the twenty nine year old man her sister loves is a con artist after her fortune. She hires him under a false name to drive her around to look at properties that supposedly belonged to her later husband. Catching him in many lies, she follows him in her car only to be threatened by him when he catches her and her sister becomes his hostage. JA. Jance has written a fantastic mystery with a heroine who deserves her own series. It's Never too Late to Be a Bridesmaid ISBN: 0060596139, $12.95 As she closes in on her fiftieth birthday, Angie is at the point of no return and needs help as she is behind on planning her daughter Jenna's wedding. She turns to her best friends, but soon worries about them as she realizes none are in a mental state to assist her; instead they need help. Marie's marriage with Jack appears over; grandmother Jess dates men younger than her children; and Gwen seems like an early Alzheimer's victim with no ability to recall anything which in turn has led to a lack of self confidence which in turn leads to more forgetfulness. She soon concludes that menopause has struck making her realize nature must take its course. At the same time, she wonders if menopause can be used as an alibi if she kills the bimbos dating her son and her former husband; they offer her help with the wedding, which means more work for her as these female morons have individual bra sizes greater than their combined IQ,. In her second adventure to regain control of her life, Angie struggles with the upcoming nuptials of her daughter, but as she seeks help from her three amigas she deduces they each face big crises. Her pals were there for her when Bob dumped her (see IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO GET A LIFE) so Angie plans to reciprocate, find time to put on a wedding and cope without killing the double teaming bimbos. Though a serious undertone with the troubles facing the aging boomers, this is a lighthearted amusing romp starring a woman who struggles to regain control of her life at a time when everything seems out of control. ISBN: 0060596139, $12.95 Amy the new mother, Meriel the bored West-Indian housekeeper, Naomi part of a different lifestyle couple with Claude (though they each clean the dirty linen), Faith the new widow, Talia the injured ballerina, and Susan the therapist all live in the same Manhattan apartment house. At the laundry room Susan listens to their individual woes and offers sage advice to help each one cope with their personal crisis. However, no one is there for Susan. She believes her once picture perfect family is near collapse. Her spouse spends way too much time in the office as if he needs to avoid her or has something better there to occupy his time; her daughter is a rebel with a fast food cause; finally her son is on the verge of puberty, but each step forward leads to two steps back as she thinks he will be eligible for Medicare by the time his body changes. Susan needs a psychiatrist, but what she has is friends willing to listen to her woes and advise her now how to clean the dirty laundry. SPIN DOCTOR contains an intriguing premise as the audience sees the woes of the apartment six and a half (Naomi and Claude get one and a half) mostly through the eyes of Susan, the professional member of the rinse cycle club. The story line shifts focus from one of the sextet to another though Susan remains the glue that holds the plot together. Leslie Carroll deftly insure her ensemble has differing personalities and tsuras, but there are too many to keep score of and that shrinks the shrink's effectiveness. Still this is a fine Manhattan character driven drama that uses laundry vernacular to clean away one's troubles. In Between Men ISBN: 0060766824, $12.95 In Los Angeles though she and her husband Carlos recently divorced high school ESL (ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE) teacher Isa Abelian enjoys her work and is proud of her son Andrew. Life is good that is until she is voted the least sexy teacher in the school, which includes some educators old enough to be the twenty-nine years old Isa's grandmother. Adding to her humiliation, Carlos reveals in detail on national radio what a failure in bed she is. When she is knocked unconscious by a soccer ball, she finds coach Alex looking into her eyes asking if she is all right. She decides then and there pushed by a beautiful sexy guardian angel to do a complete makeover from frump to siren to score with Alex. However becoming a glamour queen is hard work when teaching and raising a teenage son while Alex seems immune to her advances when in fact he debates with himself whether he should drop his pride to date the sexiest woman in the L.A. school system. IN BETWEEN MEN is an amusing lighthearted romp starring a wonderful Latina-Americana protagonist who became complacent failing to care for herself and in turn lost respect. Her guardian angel is a cute aside that allows comparisons between the two beauty enhancing-detracting extremes while the hunk, who corner kicked his way into her life, provides the incentive more so than the school sexometer scoring system. Fans will enjoy Mary Castillo's satirical glimpse at sex appeal of a working mom. The World According to Mimi Smartypants ISBN: 0060786361, $12.95 She is license-less so she rides the train in her morning Chicago commute. Thirty year old Mimi Smartypants decides to keep a journal of her thoughts on any topic. Mimi might type on her web blog a tirade about her family or friends, especially those Y carriers, raves on the latest punk rock group, or just how well her pension plan and other investments are doing. Nothing is sacred to Mimi except perhaps Browned Eyed Girl Van Morrison at least before he became famous. Mimi Smartypants sees the world from her 5' 1" towering height as medicine chests worth exploring or her take on home decor (aside to Mimi: try being a book reviewer - worse on the home than rugrats or terriers). Ms. Smartypants amusing reflections on life are fun to follow (easier to read in book form when riding the C-TRAN than using a computer on the Clayton County public bus system) as she pulls no punches when she knocks an icon down, but does so with humor. Readers will be amused by her observations and those who want more can do so at her bloggering site Smartypants.Diaryland.com which is filled with droll musings on the world according to Mimi Smartypants. Reverend Curtis Black feels blessed as the third time is the charm. He vows to God that he will ignore life's temptations and set a pious example while running Deliverance Outreach and tending to his flock in Mitchell, a small town near Chicago. He also swears to remain faithful as he has for the two years of their marriage to his third wife, Charlotte and be a real father to their seven years old son, Matthew. However, Charlotte, on the other hand who is fifteen years younger than her spouse, wants a taste of the wild life that she thought she would gain by marrying the womanizing preacher who jumped her bones when she was seventeen. She overspends to compensate for his sudden middle class holiness and when that proves insufficient turns to his best friend Aaron Malone for uninhibited sex. Curtis learns about her cuckolding him and confronts Charlotte, who confesses and pledges never again. However Aaron wants Charlotte back in his bed and starts a nasty campaign to succeed by telling his pal about all the transgressions committed by his wife including hinting that Matthew is not Curtis' offspring. The reformed born again Curtis holds Charlotte culpable for his fall back to womanizing. The three-peat of the life of Curtis Black (see CASTING THE FIRST STONE and TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING) is another well written tale starring individuals who refuse to take responsibility for their actions; it is easier to blame someone else for one's sins. The story line is driven by the devilish triangle as the behavior of each one spirals them into questionable activity. Fans of the series will appreciate the continual soap opera saga that stars three intriguing no soccer mom or football dad characters whose raunchiness make for a fun read. For Better or Hearse ISBN: 0060739045, $6.99, 272 pp. Washington DC wedding planner Annabelle Archer is hosing a wedding at the Fairmont Hotel but she is having a problem with one of the chefs. Chef Henri came after her with a knife when she went into his kitchen to talk about changing the serving of an appetizer. Working around the problem, Annabelle awaits for the newly married couple to arrive from the church at the reception from the church when she sees Chef Henri impaled on the ice tiger. Georgia Rhodes, the catering executive at the Fairmont for years is afraid the general manager, who hates her, will use the murder as an attempt to fire her. Nobody is more surprised than Annabelle when Georgia is arrested because the police have evidence, a motive (they argued just before he was killed) and plenty of opportunity. She asks Annabelle to help clear her name. In the course of the investigation evidence Annabelle collects and give to he police mysteriously disappears; two more employees of the Fairmont are killed and her car disappears in the valet parking lot. FOR BETTER OR HEARSE is an awesome Annabelle Archer mystery because everyone who knew the victim hated him so there are a lot of suspects for the heroine to eliminate. The plot is filled with humor especially during scenes when the newlyweds decide on wedding details. Annabelle's loyalty to Georgia is strong because her friend helped her when she first started her company even if it means putting her own life in danger. Laura Durham has a hit series on her hands. Scandal of the Black Rose ISBN: 0060799234, $6.99, 384 pp. Her parents expect her to concentrate on marrying the Earl, Marcus Deveraux, but Anna Rosewood is distracted; she vows to bring to justice the unknown assailant who murdered her twin brother Anthony. Her only clue is a letter Anthony had containing no words just a circle with pictures of a sword and black rose inside. At a Vauxhall Gardens masquerade party, Anna pretends to be a light skirt so that she can enter a pavilion with the same symbols as the letter contains. Working undercover for the government to uncover the person responsible for the dueling deaths of young aristocrats, Marcus' cousin, Roman Deveraux, sees Rose and makes a bid for her; both are stunned by his kiss, but she flees. At a family dinner to introduce Anna to Marcus' family, "Rose" and Rome recognize one another. He wonders if she is taking his cousin for a ride so he investigates her while she continues her inquiries into her sibling's death while they also fall in love. However, he rejects his feelings because he refuses to cause the same type of scandal that his father once caused; besides which he does not trust the enigmatic Rose. This exciting Regency romantic suspense catches the reader's attention on two levels; that of who leads the mysterious sword and black rose gang and how the lead couple will come together without hurting the nice Marcus. The former is what brings Anna and Rome together though that also includes a strong dose of distrust; while the latter turns into a delightful triangle and more. Historical romance fans will enjoy this fine thriller with a final shocker of a twist that leaves a secondary protagonist deserving a future tale. She always dreamed of slaying dragons, but at nine she and her regal siblings Clarice and Sorcha fled their war-ravaged kingdom to live in separate exile in England. Princess Amy Rosabel vowed to fight real dragons not fairy tales creatures as she ardently feels she must intercede when injustice occurs. In 1810 living on the isle of Summerwind, Amy is irate that the gentry stole elderly islander Miss Victorine's beading machine invention that is now the rage of London high society. Amy holds culpable the Marquess of Northcliff for causing this affront. She vows to teach this arrogant aristocrat a lesson on neglect of duties and injustice, and get Miss Victorine the money she earned.. Her plan works perfectly when she and Miss Victorine kidnap the Marquess, Jermyn Edmondson. Amy chains him in her basement and sends her demands to his uncle Harrison to pay a ransom for his nephew's safe return. She thought wrong as his uncle wants Jermyn dead so he can inherit everything. As his anger cools, Jermyn and Amy begin to fall in love, but she wonders how her heart could betray her with the enemy. The second Lost Princess Regency is a terrific historical romance that starts off with SOME ENCHANTED EVENING that includes an abduction, chains and manacles. Stockholm syndrome aside, the lead couple are a delightful amusing match-up who fusses and fights, but falls in love with one another. Fans will enjoy their rousing battles even as his uncle betrays him by ignoring the ransom demands with the fondest wish they kill his nephew (think Ruthless People). Book two is a winner with the Crown Princess Sorcha's tale still to come. Driven To Murder ISBN: 0060583207, $6.99, 368 pp. Rebecca Monroe own Vintage & Classics, a car restoration shop in Head Tide, Maryland, which is the prime reason Racer Peyton Madison's chief mechanic hires as part of the crew in the open-wheel race at Indianapolis. She is glad to get away from home after learning the people who raised her aren't her biological parents and she has a grandmother she knows nothing about. Being at Indie is a dream comes true for Rebecca who loves driving vehicles from the sixties, seventies, and eighties. The dream turns into a nightmare when a rash of accidents happen including a cut break-line, watered gas and stripped lug nuts occur. The car originally supposed to race is so torn up that Peyton replaces that car with the more expensive and glamorous Lotus 49C. Rebecca is positive that the accidents were really sabotage in disguise; her assertion is confirmed when someone shoots at them hitting the windshield. Needing the money and not wanting any negative publicity, Peyton refuses to call the police, a decision that will cost him when the saboteur comes after him. Rebecca is determined to find out who the criminal is and why Peyton is the target; a choice that puts the life of an innocent child, who attached herself to Rebecca, in danger. In DRIVEN TO MURDER, Judith Skillings provides a racing mystery that is complex and cleverly constructed with so more crossroads readers won't know which path is the right one. The protagonist charges into danger knowing doing nothing will not make things safer. Rebecca is spunky, kind and independent, which brings her the affections of two very different men. Readers will thoroughly enjoy this enthralling mystery. ISBN: 0821778021, $6.99 Hollywood superstar Jude Jamison is not used to being rejected, but Stillbrook, Ohio gallery owner May Price declines his no longer subtle attempts at seduction. She refuses to believe that the famous hunk wants some Middle America spinster like her. Desperate he decides to play hard ball with his polite rejecter, however swinging his hard bat fails as he strikes out once again. Ready to lick his wounds as a loser and return to California defeated, Jude gets a break when May tells him she has a problem involving her brother. He insists on helping her and keeping her safe from her problem, but definitely not from him. However, as he closes in on the kisses of the century, his past arrives to cause the couple more trouble. JUDE'S LAW is a fun screwball romantic farce similar to the madcap movies of the 1930s. Jude is hilarious as every time he is about to hit a home run, interference occurs. May is his innocent beloved who denies the Hollywood hunk is in love with her; she assumes he is playing and joking though she admits his knowledge of art is a pleasant surprise. The suspense adds tension, but also amusement as once again interference occurs into the seduction efforts of a former love machine who feels he is too young to be walking on three legs. Lori Foster provides a delightful lighthearted romantic romp. In Pear Blossom Creek, waitress Victoria Cavendish works the late shift at Ozzy's Diner. A customer leaves with a red haired woman without eating his meal. The next day this occurs again. The next morning Victoria learns that two red haired women have been murdered; both left the diner with the stranger. She is a bit concerned because she has red hair. That night the stranger offers to take Victoria home. Surprising herself she agrees. He explains that he is Antonio Batista and that Victoria needs to keep her door locked. She invites him inside, but instead he leaves. He stays nearby concerned that the vampire Dimitri Falco might come for Victoria. A third woman is dead and a new stranger arrives in town, vampire hunter Tom Duncan, who warns her to beware of the man with the yellow eyes as he is killing red headed women. That night Victoria sees yellow eyes; Antonio arrives and advises Falco to leave or else. Soon the three strangers converge over Victoria. Antonio is willing to fully die for the human he loves; Yellow Eyes is obsessed with adding her to his red-haired dining pleasure; and Tom distrusts anyone who sups on human blood. The strong lead couple and the solid support cast (including the return of the heroes of AFTER SUNDOWN) make for a fine vampire romance. The story line feels more like a mystery than a horror thriller though the war of the vampires is anticipated by the audience. Though Falco's red headed obsession is never explained and some readers might not appreciate the simplicity of the final conflict (this reviewer thought it was on the mark and apropos), supernatural romantic suspense readers will enjoy reading this fine tale. For almost two decades Annabelle Essex thought her marriage was pretty solid. Their son was in college. That all changes when her spouse is arrested in an incident that makes it into the newspaper with a picture worth a thousand words informing her that her spouse is gay. Since she hates her job and her husband has been outed and wants out of their marriage, Annabelle wonders if this might be a good time to fulfill the dream of three months in the Left Banke in Paris. She begins to paint and encouraged by her sister travels to Paris where she meets a younger sculptor Jean Luc Le Garric who stirs her hormones, but she remains raw from her spousal debacle. Annabelle is an intriguing protagonist struggling with what she perceives is a betrayal that makes her reassess her values starting with men, employment, and what she really wants out of life. The romance in Paris is fun to follow though some of the fortyish Annabelle's reactions to other women in Jean Luc's life seem to fast for someone whom was happily married for eighteen years just a few weeks ago. Fans will enjoy this tale of a woman trying to rediscover herself following a shocking revelation that turns her belief system upside down. ISBN: 0373880782, $5.50 Not known for a layback approach to life, bestselling writer Janine Ruvacadois is stunned with Dr. Harvey's medical finding that she suffers from sever osteoporosis that could easily lead to her being wheelchair bound. She feels this is not an opportune time to worry about breaking bones as her son is turning into an evil teen and her mom is driving her crazy; alas part of the woes of the sandwiched. Even her ex is trying to cook his way back into her life. However, Dr. H forces Janine to do more than just reassess her lifestyle of taking the hill at any cost. Besides diet and medicine, she begins an exercise program to at least prevent any further damage to her skeletal structure especially her spine. As she works out, she meets Tom Kennedy who finds her attractive and brings encouragement to a still upset Janine. TREADING LIGHTLY may be a Harlequin Next tale, but it is not a romance; instead the story line focuses on a fortyish woman needing to adjust how she lives due to osteoporosis. The story line provides the audience plenty of information on this somewhat common crippling illness though at times the amount slows down the pace of a solid character study. Janine is terrific with her efforts to change from a drill instructor into a mellow mushroom as she tries to learn to tread lightly. Party of Three ISBN: 037371324X, $5.50 In Tipperary Springs, Australia, a small resort town near Melbourne, Ally Cummings finds her fiance sleeping with another woman in her home. She tosses the philander out of her house and her life. Ally vows no more men until she can decide what type of male excites her as her ex was a bloody bore anyway. Her new tenant, Chef Ben Gillard vows he wants no women in his life as he needs to be a full time dad to his twelve-year-old-son, Danny. However, though he wants nothing personally to do with his landlady, he offers her a job at the restaurant he works at. Abby and Ben agree to be only friends and to help one another in a pinch. Neither expected the attraction nor his son playing matchmaker as both swore off for at least a decade not a week the other gender. PARTY OF THREE is a lighthearted frolic starring two nice likable norms surrounded by families of zany maniacs. The story line is often amusing when the feuding families take center stage while Ally and Ben play peacemakers by falling in love, a most unwanted devotion while his son seconds that emotion. Fans of a fun romp between two individuals in denial will enjoy this fine Aussie romance. Not Without the Truth ISBN: 0373713215, $5.50 Sixteen years ago Lauren Stanley's mother, the consul in Peru, inexplicably committed suicide. Lauren has tried to move on, but has not had closure on the tragedy so decides it is time to head to the South American country to learn what caused her mother, who seemed to have it all, to suddenly kill herself. In Peru, Lauren nearly dies in what seems like a questionable accident. Only the quick action of local psychiatrist Dr. Armando Torres saves her life. He tells her she should go home as it is not safe for her here. She wonders whether he wants her to leave for his own reasons as she demands he tell her what he knows about her mother's death as he was there when she took her life. NOT WITHOUT THE TRUTH is a fast-paced romantic suspense tale that starts at hyperspeed when Laurena arrives in South America and never slows down until the final altercation. Lauren is a terrific center holding the plot together with her need to know, which in turn provides some insight into her mother (at least from her memories). Armando in some ways is the more interesting character as the audience wonders what was his relationship with the mother including how involved was he on the night of the accident. Kay David writes a strong enjoyable action-packed romantic thriller that readers will devour in one sitting. In Valdez, Alaska helicopter tour guide owner Ivy Pierce assumes upon meeting Alex Ladrovik that he is another vagabond looking to temporarily work for food. However, he shocks her when he stays around to continue to help her after her partner-uncle has a heart attack. Already attracted to Alex before his kindness, Ivy sleeps with him. Alex has no time for romantic alliances as he follows the route his father took three decades ago before vanishing. However, he cannot leave Ivy at a time she needs help. Even harder for him is that he falling in love, but he has a mission to complete and a home in California waiting for his return. She wants him to stay, but can understand why he would not want to remain in a cold pristine wilderness. This is a fabulous contemporary romance with a touch of a mystery (what happened to his dad?) that emphasizes falling in love in a remote area, the stark beauty vividly described. The lead couple is a delightful charming pair as Ivy and Alex are every attracted to one another though her initial impression is that he is a homeless hobo and his is of a frontier woman who needs no man. The suspense is actually in the romance as fans will wonder whether he stays, he goes home alone or she goes with him. Angels and Outlaws ISBN: 0373792344, $4.75 Police Detective Manolo Blahnik sees the woman dangling on a precarious ledge outside the eighth floor window and assumes suicide, probably due to man trouble. He helps Cass Richards back in and tells her no man is worth her life. She call him an idiot for jumping to the wrong conclusion about her jumping instead insists she was not killing herself, but her scarf got caught and yanked her out the window. She is thankful to be alive after the freaky accident. Meanwhile Sam continues to search for a high class thief who burglarizes upper class homes during parties. Coincidentally Cass has been at every one of the robbery galas. As he wonders if she could be the thief, he also ponders how she purloined his heart. ANGELS AND OUTLAWS is an interesting police procedural romance that starts off on the wrong foot when Cass follows the momentum of her designer scarf out the window while Manolo thinks the rich fox was trying to kill herself probably over some male trouble. The story line is hot and humorous as the lead duet wildly battle in and out of bed. As always Lori Wilde provides an entertaining humorous romantic suspense thriller. ISBN: 0373792328, $4.75 Known as a player, his best friends bet Nick O'Malley that he can not be without a woman for thirty days; Nick is on the honor system. He figures his new job will help him fill much of the time and keep his head off of females. Detective Serena Riggs is on the trail of a criminal, who rumors say, is an S&M freak. She dresses up as a dominatrix and enters Nick's hotel room. He is stunned as he has never been aroused like this; he knows it is more than just the outfit as it is the woman. She, in turn feels the heat of his turn-on, the kinky costume, and incredible desire. However, she also thinks Nick is the criminal as he remains ignorant to why he got the job in the first place; he resembles a certain fetish felon. The mistaken identity forged relationship makes for an amusing romantic suspense thriller as Nick, upon seeing Serena becomes a fan of the S&M scene. The story line is tongue in cheek as the two lead characters err when it comes to the other, but soon believe to err is divine in this case. The police procedural elements take a way back seat to a fun heated romance. Night Train to Rigel ISBN: 0765307162, $24.95 Two hundred years into the future, the Western Alliance Intelligence Agency fires whistleblower Frank Compton for exposing the Yandro colony, a fiscal fiasco that allegedly was to turn earth into an interstellar superpower, but only lined pockets of the wealthy. The alien Spiders assign the courageous Frank to stop a pending war on Yandro. Accompanied by the female human Bayta, a Spider mole, Frank rides the hops to the Quadrail galactic transit system from earth to Yandro. In Jurian space, the Halkas attack Frank and Bayta, but they escape only to learn that the enigmatic Modhra have caused the crisis at Yandro. Meanwhile Bellido insurgents want to destroy the intelligent coral on Modhran. As Frank struggles to figure out who is the enemy, Bayta warns him to avoid contact with the insidious coral while others recommend otherwise if he wants to learn first hand the truth why the coral is the center of a potential galaxy-wide war. Though there are too many twists young adult readers will enjoy this solid science fiction thriller because of the ethical hero's dilemma of sorting the enemy from friend as everyone even Bayta seems like they want to harm him. The action-packed story line has Frank and Bayta jumping from one escapade to another; so fans will have no time for a deep breath. Though the hazards are overdone to hide friend from foe, fans will enjoy this fine caper of one caring person ready to battle the universe to save the innocent, though he does not know from what. ISBN: 0765314371, $27.95, 400 pp. Lupanar sorcerers invade the neighboring planet of Scalticar. The locals are overwhelmed as the superior technological forces of the off-worlders prove victorious in battle after battle. Bows and arrows cannot dent the armor of the Lupanar military and their laser beams cause death and destruction on an unprecedented level. Scalticar Wayfarer Constable Inspector Danolarian Scyverin puts together an odd team to initially harass and hopefully eventually defeat the invaders though they know the chances are nil to none. Still 87pound no-weakling Constable Riellen, feline Constable Waller, and Lavenczi join with the Inspector to forge a counter insurgency. Meanwhile Danolarian hides his desire for a personal relationship with Lavenczi, who's unable to reciprocate due to the guise of a magical spell. When she obtains two Lupanians' fighting machines, the Constable team suddenly believes they have a fighting chance though the enemy still has overwhelming technological superiority. The third Moonworlds' tale (see GLASS DRAGONS and VOYAGE OF THE SHADOWMOON) is a fine fantasy remake of the War of the Worlds in deep space. The story line is fast-paced and filled with plenty of action, but also contains numerous subplots moving back and forth between the various factions making it a bit difficult to follow at times though all this scrambling cleverly augments the core theme of the chaos of the resistance. With more science fiction than the previous two tales yet still loaded with fantasy elements (just ask Scyverin on unrequited love), fans of the series or Wells will want to read the Moonworlds' version of the War of the Worlds. ISBN: 0312858868, $14.95, 416 pp. Chronicle reporter Andrew Wesley receives the book, Secret Methods of Magic by Alfred Borden, from his adopted father who said a woman asked him to forward it to him. A note from K. Angier is sent to his editor offering information to Andrew on newsworthy Father Franklin. K. is Lady Katherine who sent him the Borden book; she claims they knew each other as children and that her father killed him. He has been haunted by similar memories feeling he shares his body with someone else. They team up looking at their respective family trees seeking the links. Alfred Borden fanatically exposes those magicians he considers a fraud. In 1878, Alfred tries to prove that talented Rupert Angier is a con artist at a seance that the latter and his spouse host. During a melee, the zealot pushes Rupert's pregnant wife causing a miscarriage. Outraged Rupert vows vengeance. As both rise in popularity, Alfred learns how to use the new science of electricity to transport from one spot to another. Rupert travels to Colorado to obtain the help of reclusive electricity guru Nicola Tesla. While Alfred's stunt is a parlor trick Rupert obtains the genuine article. However, tragedy hits their descendents including Andrew and Katherine when Alfred pulls the plug on Tesla's gizmo as Rupert performs the stunt. This exciting time paradoxical award winning thriller hooks the audience once the story line reverts to the mid nineteenth century and keeps readers guessing as to what is going on and will happen. The cast past and present are fully developed so that the feud between Rupert and Alfred feels so real that in turn makes them human and the curiosity of their descendents to learn the truth also feels genuine. Fans will appreciate the amateur sleuth modern day subplot and the companion historical science fiction that blends into a superb thriller. ISBN: 0765304139, $25.95, 464 pp. In 2095, the man-made space habitat Goddard with ten thousand on board also goes into orbit around Saturn. The Goddard sends explorer spacecraft Titan Alpha to the surface of the Saturn moon of TITAN seeking evidence of any form of life in the black ice frozen seas or the island that make up the orb. However, something goes wrong with the probe leaving chief scientist Edouard Urbain to defend what happened and to gain support to salvage the mission. Meanwhile Goddard's leader Malcolm Eberly turns to the rings for what he hopes will prove a strong investment even as he wants to shut down Urbain's wasted project because feels no money can be made from one cell life forms or other endangered species that reside in the way of progress and development. Former CEO Pancho Lane plans to stop Malcolm from exploiting and strip mining the rings even if it means a suicide ride into space to succeed. His sister and Malcolm's ex lover Holly Lane worry over the welfare of the colonists as incidents begin to happen that could ultimately prove lethal. Ben Bova's latest Grand Tour of the solar system is an intriguing tale in which the extrapolation from current scientific information on Titan leads to terrific hypotheses that outstrips in many ways the human aspects of the story line. Fans will gain plenty of understanding about conditions on Titan, the Saturn rings, and to a lesser degree the planet from Mr. Bova's usual delightful theorizing extracted from the known information. Though the conflicts between the Goddard leaders never take charge of the plot and their resolution seems too simple for these fiery adversaries, no one explores outer space quite like Mr. Bova does. A Fire in the Sun George Alec Effinger ISBN: 0765313596, $14.95, 304 pp. The Well Of Tears ISBN: 0765312069, $27.95, 480 pp. In Slievmordhu, Jewel lives a wonderful life showered with love from her family until King Maolmordha's troopers kill her parents. Unbeknownst to Jewel, her savior, Step-Uncle Eoin feels remorse for causing this tragedy all because he was jealous of her father Jarred for being married to the woman he loved Lilith. Knowing he placed his beloved niece in danger, Eoin takes her on a perilous journey through the Great Marsh praying he can get her to safety in the nearby kingdom of Narngalis. He has yet to tell her that he revealed to the king's minion that she and her father were the last descendents of the feared sorcerer Janus, making her a pawn to open the Dome of Strang where the wizard's powerful secrets lie. Eleven days looking over their shoulders, the wayfarers struggle until they clear the marsh. However, deadly unseelie wights capture Eoin. Jewel seeks refuge at High Darioneth where she meets the weathermasters and the Storm Lord Avalloc Maelstronnar-Stormbringer. She soon learns that Eoin is dead and finds solace with the people of High Darioneth until she learns that no one guards the Dome of Strang so decides it is time to learn about her roots. THE WELL OF TEARS, the second entry in the Crowthistle Chronicles (see THE IRON TREE starring Jarred and Lilith), is a fabulous coming of age fantasy starring a wonderful heroine whose world is destroyed by the betrayal of a loved one. Eoin is an intriguing character though his time in the tale is short as the audience feels his ignominy of what he wrought. The story line is character driven with Jewel the focus of a fine fantasy quest to find out what truly flows in her blood. Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories ISBN: 0312875274, $27.95 Selecting only thirty tales from the fifty year career of Grand Master Frederik Pohl had to seem impossible as you want representation from the five different decades to show trends as well as quality. Obviously with a science fiction hall of famer like Mr. Pohl several editions of his best stories could easily be produced. No one will have any negative comments on the chosen thirty though some might feel a personal favorite was left out. As he has done throughout his career, most of the selections warn humanity about excesses that lead to a dark catastrophic future using hyperbole to make the case that there is no inclusive in extremism only a deadly future. Personal favorites include the "The Greening of Bed-Stuy" and "The Merchants of Venus". All the contributions are terrific, but stories like "Let the Ants Try" written in 1949 but set in 1960 has an eerie nuclear war time twist that make the audience think what if. A superb collection (based on last week in Montreal - probably banned in the White House as anti-patriotic), science fiction fans will appreciate that the greatness mantle fits Mr. Pohl; as demonstrated by these entertaining thought provoking cautionary tales. Touch of Evil C.T. Adams & Cathy Clamp Former pro volleyball "Terminator" turned bonded air courier Mary Kathleen "Katie" Reilly travels the globe delivering valuables. However, the glamour and boredom of this jet setter comes from her war with the Thrall, vampires to the illiterate. The Thrall who considers humans as prey want Katie eradicated like a nuisance bug; however classify her as Not Prey following her rescuing her former fiance Dylan Shea six years ago; ironically he dumped her for her best friend Amanda, took her cat Blank and became part of the human herd owned by the Thrall. Most vampires recognize Katie as a formidable enemy who is clearly Not Prey until now. However, the Vampire Queen Monica decides differently sending her Thralls, Hosts, and Herds after Katie, but apparently has other uses for the human because her orders are not to kill the 6'1" athletic Amazonian adversary. Refusing to hide, Katie fights, but instead of her brother Joe having her back, werewolf firefighter Tom tries to keep her safe. However, the odds seem overwhelming in favor of the vampire queen obtaining her desire. The reason supernatural fans will appreciate TOUCH OF EVIL is the orderly world developed by the two authors that make vampires, werewolves, and psychic phenomena seem ordinary even while the supernatural creatures are vastly different from the "normal" bloodsuckers and shapeshifters. The action-packed story line is driven by the heroine who readers will root for as the Thrall and their human slaves and fodder attack her. Besides trying to keep Katie safe though she is quite capable, Tom terrific provides an interesting cross-species romantic element to a strong supernatural drama. The Golden Hills of Westria Diana L. Paxson ISBN: 0765308894, $24.95, 352 pp. In Westria Prince Phoenix has doubts that he is a worthy successor to his father especially since King Julian never praises him only criticizes his efforts to be regal. On the other hand his best friend Sombra thinks Phoenix is more than worthy as she feels he will run the country with compassion and strength. However, his misgivings rise when she informs him that she will attend the College of the Wise to improve her adept abilities. Slavers abduct Phoenix, who uses the name Johan. While his father desperately searches for him, to survive Johan becomes a gladiator fighting to the death in a traveling circus. As the Red Dragon he enables his berserker rage to turn him into a lethal killing machine. At the same time Mother Mahaliel and an army of fanatics are conquering everyone in their path as they head for Westria. The only hope for the kingdom resides in Phoenix to rise from the ashes to lead the counterattack, but he is nowhere in sight. Sombra senses where he is and begins a quest to rescue the man she loves. One generation has past since the epic fantasy THE JEWEL OF FIRE, but the action and deep characterizations, a trademark of Diana L. Paxson remains solid. The story line is a coming of age thriller as Johan must adapt to circumstances in a mature manner or suffer the consequences, perhaps even die. Readers will wonder whether Sombra will be able to rescue him in time so that he can in turn save his people from the invaders. The return to Westria is purely golden. Every book Diana L. Paxson writes is a winner. ISBN: 0765354489, $6.99 To live Endekian females need to mate with the men or their cells deteriorate and quickly die. The men control life literally on Endeki as every other year a woman must have a man to prevent the cellular deterioration caused by the Boktai defect. Endekian cellular research scientist Dr. Alara Calladar resents the cavalier enslaved citizenry of women and vows to find a cure for this illness. Rystani star pilot Captain Xander abducts Alara because he is in dire need of her uncanny psychic skill of just looking at a person to typecast their DNA molecular structure. He seeks the purebred DNA of the mythological Perceptive Ones as the only potential elixir to prevent a virus from pandemic killing millions or more. However, Alara is in trouble as her biological clock is ticking so she needs what she least wants in life, a man with only Rystani available. He offers to make love with Alara in exchange for her help with stopping the deadly Terran virus. She was unprepared for her cells especially of the heart to adapt to only his lovemaking while he realizes this is his soulmate even if she is a member of an enemy species. Though the third science fiction romance in the Kearney universe) see THE CHALLENGE and THE DARE), THE ULTIMATUM is a terrific stand alone thriller that grips the audience once readers understand Alara's dilemmas especially involving the deaths of her parents and Xander's mission to save the galaxy. The story line is action-packed, but also insures that the lead heroes are full blooded individuals with desires beyond their respective quests. As with the previous two novels, this is a must read for sub-genre fans. Tobias S. Buckell ISBN: 0765312271, $24.95, 352 pp. The Wicked High Mountains prevented the Aztecas from conquering the peaceful Nanagadans, a colony of Caribbean refugees because there is no way an army can pass through the only small pass. The Aztecas worship their gods the Teotl and the Nanagadans serve their gods the Laoas; not realizing the "gods" are really aliens who use the humans to war against each other because Loasas and the Teotl want to destroy one another. For over a century the Aztecas have dug a tunnel under the mountains and are poised to invade Nanagada. Only one man can stop them John deBrun but he has suffered from amnesia for twenty seven years and has made a new life for himself with his wife and son. Many people are looking for John including Oaxcytl, who was ordered by a Teotl to get the coordinates of the Ma Wi Jung and his comrade Pepper who has been stranded on this backwater planet for three centuries and wants John to use the Ma Wi Jung to help them go home. On an expedition to the frozen North John is almost killed while the Azteca prepares to break through to the city. Only John can save them if his memories return in time to devise a plan that will force the Aztecs to retreat. Tobias F. Buckell is a fantastic world builder exploring the cultures of the various people living in Nanagada. Through Oaxyctl, readers get a glimpse into the Azteca culture that is much like the Aztec civilization on old Earth complete with blood sacrifices and slavery. John is a stranger in a strange land but he loves his adopted world and is willing to fight to keep her safe. CRYSTAL RAIN is an exciting work of science fiction filled with lush descriptions, a fast paced action oriented plot and characters that are complex and realistically drawn. ISBN: 044101366X, $22.95, 288 pp. Gram calls bookstore owner Sylvia Lynn to come home as Grandpa Liam just died after wandering outside in the cold night of mountainous Upstate New York. Her lover Madison offers to accompany her, but Sylvia says no. Sylvia returns to Lynn Hall the same day that Gram beckoned her to come home with all intentions to flee as soon as she can. However, as if she never left, the dilapidated house, the forest and the nearby supernatural creatures seduce Sylvia trying to entice her to stay. Gram introduces Sylvia to the sewing club members of the Fiber Guild, women who meet monthly to insure that the magical barricade that keeps Lynn Hall from the deadly Fay remains in tact. However, the magical barrier is showing signs of wear and tear, which places Sylvia, a hybrid offspring of two worlds, yanked from both sides who feel she is the key to victory over the hated abominations on the other side of the barrier. Returning to the landscape of the classic WINTER ROSE, Patricia A. McKillip provides a deep character driven modern day fantasy that stars a harassed heroine who just wants to leave town as she has never understood why her Gram watches her like a hawk observes its prey. The action-packed story hooks genre fans from the moment that Sylvia knows Gram is calling her before picking up her phone from across the country and never slows down through several brilliant twists that will bring accolades to this dazzling author. A stand alone novel, readers will want to peruse this tale and its award winning precedent. Sean Williams with Shane Dix ISBN: 0441013783, $7.99, 400 pp. The Archon, an artificial intelligence created by the Sol system, bred the Exarch to rule over the humans in the Arc systems. The Archon does not want the Geodesica, a hyperspatical network, to allow anyone entering the various entrances to the ancient maze and when people try it, whole systems of colonized planets including Bedlam and Sublime are destroyed. The humans or Naturals as they are called in the year 2438 want their independence from Sol, the Archon and the Sol system. Melilah, a Natural, a fragment of Exarch Isaac Deangelis and cell pilot Eogran Palmer journey in Geodesica where they see wondrous sites, dead zones and exits that lead far from where they want to be. They find no weapons to use against the Archon and wonder how they will get out. Meanwhile, in real space, the disenchanted Exarchs including another fragment of Deangelis, Palmer Horsfall inhabited by another rebel Exarch unite the system to rebel against the Archon. Ironically, another fragment of Deangelis, along with the help of Sol and the Archon fight the rebels until he is instructed to sue for peace with a people who neither trust him or his allies or the Archon's promises. Sean Williams and Shane Dix create a future that is so technologically advanced that readers feel that they are visiting a foreign country with a culture so alien that other humans would have no place there. The authors are great world builders, their prose lush, visual and so descriptive that the audience can actually picture it, especially Geodesica. There are many surprise twists so that the audience never becomes bored as they peruse this enthralling space opera. ISBN: 0441013813, $7.99, 304 pp. In the Tri-Cities of Washington State, Mercy Thompson works in her garage on a vampire's car with her payment being no monetary fee for protection money as normally demanded by the bloodsuckers. Besides being a mechanic, Mercy has her own supernatural skills as one of the few souls who is a skinwalker, able to take the shape of a coyote. Her harmonious day ends when fifteen years old Mac, a homeless werewolf, asks for a job. She hires him. Mercy introduces Mac to her neighbor Adam Hauptman, also a werewolf who is the alpha leader of his pack. Mac also meets several of the other top shapeshifters. Not long afterward, Mercy finds Mac's corpse on her doorsteps. She visits Adam, who is drugged and his daughter kidnapped. The alpha of all the packs the Marrok's son Samuel, a mercenary werewolf, a vampire, and Adam's pack accompany Mercy as they search for the teen. However Adams is abducted next with his friends realizing some might die in an attempt to rescue him and his daughter. Fans of Laurel K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff are absolutely going to love MOON CALLED. The delightful heroine is not exactly ruled by raging hormones or her animal instincts as she makes human impetuous decisions to help those she cares about even lf her actions place her in danger as often happens. The story line is loaded with plenty of action, but Mercy makes the plot hum as she enables the audience to feel that Patricia Brigg's fine tale is plausible, vampires, werewolves, and fae oh my. The King's Own ISBN: 0451460715, $7.99, 432 pp. Lord Rabbit, heir to the throne of his cousin King Jusson IV of Iversterre, is in the town of Freston with the royal retinue. The townsfolk and much of the kingdom do not want to see Rabbit on the throne because he was raised in the Border where the fae reside and he has the magical powers of the four elements that will make him a powerful mage once he learns to control his skills. His teacher, Lurel a sentient mountain cat who walks on two legs, and the elf Wyln are with Rabbit adding to the local fears as most remember losing the war of acquisition to these species. Rabbit is also claimed by his His Grace Loran of the Border making him a bridge between the two cultures and a weapon to be used if the Taurlian Empire tries to annex Iversterre. When invisible hands touch him in the town square, Rabbit uses his powers to repel the attack frightening the townsfolk even more. Afterward he is sent to jail, but freed by his monarch to work under Thadra, Commander of the Army. Laurel fears that someone is trying to bind him so that they can use his magic as theirs. When dark magic kills Rabbit's jailer, the townsfolk assume he committed that atrocity and others. He wonders if agitators are in league with a sorcerer who wants the king dead and to accomplish those ends conjured a soul eating demon that only Rabbit might be able to stop. Fans of Shannara and the Lord of the Rings will relish this richly descriptive and enthralling high fantasy saga. Fully developed characters and an action oriented story line keeps readers' interest at extraordinary high levels. Rabbit is a wonderful principled protagonist, who is an innocent but is learning quickly to be politically savvy soul. His efforts will endear him to the audience who will demand more thrillers starring this likable hero. ISBN: 0451460731, $23.95, 448 pp. In a distant past beyond the handed-down memories of humanity, the Eater of the World was devastating Ephemera. To stop this global assault, a desperate plan was developed by the most powerful magic practitioners, the Guides of the Heart. The planet was split into numerous lands connected by strange magical bridges while the Eater of the World was "imprisoned" without a land base. Over time the pandemic attack by the Eater of the World became part of mythology though the Landscapers knows of his presence and continue to insure his isolation. At the Landscaper's School, angry at the world student Nigelle enters a forbidden zone that everyone fears. Her action is the prelude of what the Landscapers hoped would never happen under their watch, the first opening of the prison that restrains the Eater of the World. At the same time, Sebastian the Succubus is bored of sexual fantasies, a bad condition for a sexually charged being. His only pleasure comes from his nocturnal visits to Lynnea the maid, who dreams of love. However though he wants to pursue her even in daylight he fears his kind only destroys her kind. Meanwhile a Landscaper and a Bridge enlist his help on a quest to prevent the Eater of the World from returning. This terrific romantic fantasy rolls out on two delightfully interrelated subplots: save the world segue and a star-crossed love story. The story line is fast-paced once the quest begins, but takes a wonderfully original twist involving Lynnea. The title character is an intriguing protagonist who at almost thirty is bored with sex games, which is the essence of a succubus. Fans will treasure Sebastian's duel sagas. Knighthood of the Dragon ISBN: 0451460677, $15.00, 416 pp. The war of attrition between the kingdom of Deraine and Roche has been bloody with both sides willing to send pawns to death to gain a slight edge. Entire units are treated as fodder to move a position forward a few miles. Neither side will grudgingly give an inch though the decision makers remain comfortable far from the deadly front lines. Dragon Master Hal Kailas knows first hand how bad the war has depleted his forces as his side slowly loses the entrenched ground war and Roche begins to show superiority in the skies with their black dragon riders. Kailas has to find an answer even as he squabbles with his superior officer Asir the King who refuses to listen to supply inadequacies including a dragon shortage and a lack of trained soldiers. He must emulate the enemy and take the war to their civilian populace. Meanwhile his adversaries make a concerted effort to catch the Deraine war hero with plans to lock him away in magical binds inside a death camp as a demoralizer aimed at his people. As with the first Dragonmaster tale (see STORM OF WINGS), there are obvious comparisons to the trench warfare and aerial fights of WWI and the civilian attacks of WWII, but set in a fantasy realm. The story line showcases the fortunes and foibles of armed combat; highlighted by the concept that peaceful solutions are for the naive while the realist errs on the side of someone else's death. However, as the tale spins its moral issues, the key characters even Hal never seem to have learned anything from their previous adventures. Still KNIGHTHOOD OF THE DRAGON is a superb military fantasy that will have the audience looking forward to the reprint of the LAST BATTLE. While reading this latest collection of Sheehan stories, I wondered if the title was a play on words. Epic Cures does feature stories involving cures for human failings and desires. But "epicure" also applies, thanks to this writer's glorious treatment of words, his devotion to the sensuous enjoyment of words. For certain, Tom Sheehan is a master craftsman of words. In these 22 stories, Sheehan skillfully eases readers into the lives of his characters. Barriers are broken and lessons learned in true Sheehan style. His world of stories is one of small miracles and unexpected blessings, the wonders of dawning sexuality and bird-broken silences, earthy humor and ironic revenge. In Sheehan's stories, "The impact of words often lasts well beyond the sound of them…The energy of them is sometimes indestructible." (From "Flesh of an Unwanted Fish") He allows his words to renovate houses and lives, to exact a fitting vengeance, to reprise love. In profound ways, Sheehan softens with the sweetness of life those hard knocks that often leave humans reeling. He shines a light on humanity's raw edges and in that process of revelation allows us to experience "the marvelously imponderable things of life." To illustrate my points, I've chosen one character from one story as a sample. Meet Duke, from "The Duke's Black Bag:" "Drake Ulban Kincaid (Duke to all), forty two, looked like a bag of razor blades, tough as a bag of nails and for almost ten years running had been the Navy middleweight boxing champ. His face was a series of acute edges and angles… The boxing leavings were permanent, but worn badge-like, and lifted his eyes. All first impressions made him, at once, serious and of keen interest. He came to Idaho's foothills from twenty-seven years in Uncle's Navy hardly trusting anybody who didn't pack it up as he did himself (like comrades in deck-hidden gun mounts, knowing each other's sweat, arm strengths, their attention to detail, their own page of saltiness.) Men pass the test or they don't; women might ride the fence." Tom Sheehan's words, characters, and scenarios are memorable. His work is highly recommended. 850 3rd Avenue, New York NY 10022 ISBN: 0786018119, $6.99, 377 pages Bone Thief is one of the best debut novels I've read in this genre. If this suspense thriller does not scare the bejabbers out of you, nothing will. Very few fictional scenarios provide the punch and chills I experienced while reading Bone Thief. Characters and details were realistic and horror penetrated to the marrow. O'Callaghan's protagonist is Detective Lt. John Driscoll, a cop who dresses with panache and openly grieves his personal sorrows. When he's not working as a cop, Driscoll cares for his brain dead wife in the home they shared. His young daughter was killed in the same accident that left his wife a vegetable. This Irish Catholic cop is an appealing character, not only for his skill as an investigator but for his devotion to a wife whose existence depends on machines. The author skillfully weaves Driscoll's personal life with an investigation into murders perpetrated by a serial killer. Readers meet the serial killer early on. Colm Pierce is wealthy, intelligent, educated, multilingual, privileged, and hopelessly insane. His public persona is one of urbane normalcy. But Colm learned his insatiable desires and skills from Daddy, and nothing eases those desires like human bones. One boneless carcass after another turns up in carefully chosen sites around the city, and it's Driscoll's job to find the madman. Both Pierce and Driscoll speak fluent Old Irish, an interesting side plot that provides a few small clues. 2021 Pine Lake Rd. Ste. 100, Lincoln NE 68512 ISBN: 0595379753, $13.95, 161 pages C.H. Foertmeyer excels at creating imaginative plots and developing unique characters. For his tenth book, he delivers murder, miracles, and supernatural happenings in the heartland of America. The county roads of Kansas cut through peaceful prairies, fertile farmland, and tiny rural communities. In the gently rolling hills along each road, everyone knows their neighbors. Life is safe and predictable, until Reed Haskell and Vern Sanger take their stolen vehicle off the beaten path. Reed is a vicious killer, a murderous animal without heart or conscience. Vern is a prison escapee thrown into Reed's path by chance. Vern is a lonely man who loves his wife and child and contemplates revenge against the man who wrecked his life. He sticks with Reed through a rampage of robbery, murder, and arson because he dreads to be alone, but Vern is not a killer. Ed Brinks is a retired NYPD cop who moved his family to Kansas for a more peaceful life. When a gas leak and fire destroy his home, he finds himself drawn deep into a mystery he can't explain. Topeka detective Ray LaCosta investigates and soon both men join forces to reveal incredible happenings. A stranger named Michael appears at every juncture of their investigation, saving lives and providing hints to Reed and Sanger's whereabouts before fading into thin air. This same man appears to Reed and Sanger with a warning to Vern: "Respect the life." I don't want to give the plot away. These four men are thrown together, with the mysterious Michael appearing before and after each crime scene. The answers to questions asked by all four men defy logic and come from the distant past to impact their present and future. DNA and fingerprints provide solutions, but only one small part of the amazing truth. C.H. Foertmeyer thinks and writes outside the usual genre box. If you are tired of the same old formulaic genres, I recommend you give Hell's Interstate a try. If You Could See Me Now: A Chronicle of Identity and Adoption 2000 Wadsworth Boulevard, #195, Lakewood, CO 80214 ISBN: 1932961208, $23.95, 240 pages Michael Mewshaw is an award winning journalist and best selling author of fiction and non-fiction. This latest book is the personal testament of a man forced to re- examine a past that returns to haunt him. Recalling, exploring, and ultimately making sense out of that past is the framework of If You Could See Me Now. Mewshaw's considerable skill as writer lends heart and spirit to his bittersweet chronicle. Michael Mewshaw is a successful writer, living in London with his family, when a young woman named Amy contacts first his sister, then him. Amy is an adoptee searching out her birth parents before marrying and starting a family of her own. Mewshaw knows the identity of her birth parents but is reluctant to get involved. That chapter of his past is painful, a troublesome time he'd just as soon not revisit. But he's the child of a fractured family himself and understand's Amy's desire for answers. Out of sympathy and admiration for her, he haltingly, over time, shares what he knows about the circumstances surrounding her birth and subsequent adoption. In the early 1960s, Adrienne Daly was a beautiful, quicksilver young woman focused on a successful future. More than one young man was slavishly devoted to her enigmatic whims. Michael Mewshaw is one of those men, a naieve kid who sees the charismatic Adrienne as beyond his grasp as lover and wife. Adrienne is pregnant with another man's child when she asks Michael to accompany her to California and stay with her until the baby is born. His devotion is such that he does as she asks, drops out of college and moves to California, gets a job to support her, and helps arrange adoption details. That Adrienne might be using him for her own selfish interests doesn't occur to Mewshaw at the time. He believes her when she says she loves him and that they will eventually marry. As Mewshaw investigates past happenings and reconnects with Adrienne and Amy's father, the truths he learns are disturbing and unsettling. Adrienne Daly is no longer the dependent, dysfunctional girl she was when Mewshaw knew her. She's become a successful over-achiever, traveling the globe, living in exotic places with her husband and children. Adrienne wants no part of Amy. On the other hand, Amy's birth father is delighted to know the child he fathered with a woman he can't forget. When Mewshaw compares notes with this man, he realizes that the woman they both idealized was one tough cookie -- a coldly calculating, conniving schemer who never truly loved either of them. Once Amy was born and placed for adoption, she left both men behind to pursue her future plans. If You Could See Me Now takes the opposite perspective of most stories of unwed motherhood and adoption. Adrienne Daly was not unloved and abandoned by the men in her life. She was adored by at least two men left cynical and shaken in her wake. Mewshaw shares his memories poignantly and honestly from the male perspective. The results are powerful, indeed. International Plaza II, Suite 340, Philadelphia, PA 19113-1513 ISBN: 1413485960, $18.69, 227 pages Keith Cymry says he is an "underground" writer. Critics say he writes brilliantly in postmodern style. Christians, Jews, and Muslims may take exception with this book's portrayal of their God. Big business and its political cronies don't come off smelling like a rose either. And that's just for starters as Cymry provides convincing doses of modern reality laced with sex, symbolism, fantasy, and humor. Is the after life really a Club Med-like place where all the gods from ancient times form alliances to impact life on earth? And do these consortiums look down upon a dull, wasteful society with boredom and cynicism? In Cymry's book, lesser gods like Ra, Cernunnos, and Buddha are shocked at the influence of Yahweh/Allah/Jesus/Lucifer on humanity. Humans are chosen to change man's destructive path and bets are made by gods on both sides as to the outcome. Two humans chosen arbitrarily by the gods are Mary Beth Donovan and Uriah "Stoney" Freestone. Mary Beth is a feisty Catholic girl with flaming red hair and a penchant for sexy men. Her constant companion is a black ocelot named Michelob. All her fantasies are fulfilled in one virile package when she stops for a hitchhiker, Freestone. Stoney is a Druid, a powerful, determined man dedicated to providing solar energy to the masses. A pet raven named Rocker accompanies Stoney wherever he goes. When the Celtic god Cernunnos appears and gives Mary Beth an ancient amulet in a gold walnut shell, only she and Stoney can understand symbols transmitted by the amulet. Big business, in the form of Jared Darcy Ambrose, conspires to steal the amulet because it represents total power and unimaginable wealth. Cymry writes well, with occasionally brilliant flashes of narrative. He wraps compassion and concern for Earth and her people in myth and symbolism, but the underlying message here is the strength of human love and courage. Thanks to lovers like Mary Beth and Stoney, the world may not be doomed. But yes, it's entirely possible that the gods just might be crazy. Fresh Feathered Eggs John F. Burgess and George D. Burgess 1094 New DeHaven Street, Suite 100, West Conshohocken PA 19428-2713 ISBN: 074142682X, $16.95, 275 pages In the 1940s and 1950s, Prof. John Frederick Burgess and Col. George D. Burgess were simply Freddy and George. The Burgess brothers have come a long way since their days of growing up in rural Kansas. Fresh Feathered Eggs is their story. It's packed with the sort of family memories, humor, and love that nurtured a powerful generation of Americans. As children, Freddy and George learned from their parents and extended family that there are no gray areas in life. Actions are either white or black, right or wrong. As growing boys, they might have strayed into the occasional gray area, but not for long. Life was fun for growing children in the middle years of the 20th century. The Burgess boys were not held captive by high tech toys and television. Imagination lead them into mischief and scrapes and also rescued them from time to time. Freddy was adventuresome, high spirited, energetic, a feisty lad who knew no fear. George was timid, cautious and thoughtful, living in a world of make believe heroes. It's through the eyes of Freddy and George that readers revisit a nostalgic time when neighbors pitched in to help each other, doors were never locked because it was not necessary, and life was safe for children. The Burgess brothers learn from their misadventures and benefit from structured rules set by their parents. They also learn from exploring the world around them, often with hilarious results. And they learn from their eccentric relatives and friends who are portrayed with tenderness and love. This book is a delight in every way and highly recommended. The prose descriptions of falls and hikes are magnificent enough to do justice to the beautiful scenery. They are also very useful and practical, warning the hiker of difficult areas, or places where it is easy to lose the trail fork or take the wrong fork. The reader can benefit from the on-trails experiences of the authors before investing all the time and effort it takes to see some of these gorgeous scenes. Another helpful and informative feature is the highlighted paragraphs throughout the book that sometimes describe particular flora or other natural occurrences that may be seen in that area in certain seasons, and also information pertaining to the history of the area and often the name of the falls, frequently of indigenous origin. From Gooseberry Falls to Pigeon River Falls, and not omitting my favorite, the Brule River falls and the Devil's Kettle, Waterfalls of Minnesota's North Shore is a great hiker's manual and may open the way to encourage the less experienced hiker to explore this beautiful area. A final note of interest is in the content of the bibliography, some 15 or more books on related subjects. One that struck my eye was True North: Alternate and Off-Beat Destinations in and around Duluth, Superior, and Shores of Lake Superior, by Tony Dierkens and Kerry Elliot, published in 2002 by Adventures Publications in Cambridge, Minnesota. I see I have another wonderful resource about the North Shore to investigate and will look forward to doing so. Waterfalls of Minnesota's North Shore is recommended for campers, hikers, nature lovers, scout or nature group leaders, and also armchair explorers because of its beautiful descriptions and photographs. It makes a great gift for someone planning a vacation in the area, or for anyone. Dreaming the Hound is the third in a planned quartet of novels about the life of Breaca, known as Boudica, or the Bringer of Victory. Like the two before, Dreaming the Eagle and Dreaming the Bull, it is fraught with mystical imagery and visionquest experiences that color the lives of the Eceni and other tribes in Roman-occupied Britain of A.D. 57. The immense power of this set of books lies in the reverence for "dreaming," a tribal Druidic tradition that guides all decision patterns of the beleaguered Eceni and other tribes. In the many brutal and bloody conflicts with Romans and allies, Breaca and her half brother, Ban-become Valerius, fight and finally find their way to become allies once again. The fascinating interplay of complex cultures and loyalties common to Roman -occupied Britain is continually highlighted. The terrible ending scenes describing the brutal rape of Breaca's daughters, Cygfa and Graine, and subsequent torture and scourging of Breaca herself are totally gripping and shattering. Scott is a total genius in her evocation of this dimly historic time and place. Her subtle command of language and use of imagery features nature as a dramatic player, and the communion with ghosts, both loved and fearful is astoundingly evoked. Underlying all is a bone-deep awareness of the intensity of relationships between Breaca and her family, between Valerius and Corvus, the Roman prefect who loved him, and between Valerius and his father, unknown to him until he sits his long nights on Mona with the Druidic warriors. Dreaming the Hound is an absolutely gripping novel to read. The fourth work in the quartet is in the works and will undoubtedly cover the Eceni uprising led by Boudica in reaction to the events so vividly portrayed in Dreaming the Hound. Manda Scott is truly a great writer and artist. A former Senior Vice President in the banking industry did little to satisfy Gayle Wigglesworth's cravings to be, well, creative. So she spent her spare time away from organization and management learning to be a potter. A current resident of Houston, she and her husband regarded the move from San Francisco as a "foreign assignment," but they became attached to Houston. She and her husband love to read and travel, and she is presently working on her third Claire Gulliver mystery, INTRIGUE IN ITALICS. Claire Gulliver is the proud owner of "Gulliver's Travels," a travel bookstore in San Francisco. She is a former librarian, is in her forties, and so far hasn't been married. But her relatively quiet life is interrupted in the first CG mystery, TEA IS FOR TERROR, where she tangles with foreign terrorists after she agrees to take a travel group for a friend. WASHINGTON WEIRDOS opens with Claire reluctantly emerging form her safe bookstore to accept an award from the grateful owners of Vantage Airlines, Inc. for her part in foiling a bomb on one of their flights. Almost immediately she is mugged on the Washington Mall, and just as the knife of her attacker can do any real damage, her friend Jack tackles the would-be killer: "The body came out of nowhere, slamming into him sideways with a force which sent them both to the ground. The knife flew through the air; the streetlight gleaming off the blade traced its trajectory. She wanted to run, to scream, to cry for help but she stood mutely rooted. Her eyes were riveted on the men on the ground in front of her. He would-be attacker rolled free and came up on all fours. He was poised, looking at the knife, which lay temptingly only a few feet away. But her rescuer's hand protectively hovered over it, his gaze fastened on the attacker's eyes." NEVER SAY MURDER is almost a pulp detective story, except there is no detective involved. But Walters infuses his tale with all the great qualities of Nero Wolf's Archie. Greg is the hero and narrator of the story. There is a murderer out there and colorful characters who have something to hide. The plot takes place in New York, the Gotham of murder. A great tale! ISBN: 1413772587, $21.95 Aaron Paul Lazar is an engineer who writes in his spare time in upstate New York. His many interests include dogs and cats; gardening; cooking; photography; cross-country skiing; music; and fine arts. UPSTAGED is part of the LeGarde Mysteries that were introduced in 2005 and include DOUBLE FORTE; MAZURKA; AND NATURE SINGS; DIE FIEDERMAUS; VIRTUOSO; PORTAMENTO; and THE GREEN MARBLE. In this second Gus and Camille mystery, set in Upstate New York's Genesee Valley, Gus is a college professor who lost his first wife to cancer. He meets his soul mate in Camille, the daughter of his secretary. Camille has her own issues, but Gus wins her heart. In UPSTAGED Camille is staging a school play that Gus wrote, loosely based on the Woodstock experience. Petty jealousies, teen angst, and vibrant talent all combine to create an atmosphere rife with danger: "My heart skipped a beat as I dashed over and knelt by her side. She had fallen three-and-a-half feet from the edge of the stage and had landed on a music stand on the floor below. A rivulet of red flowed from her temple. Marshall quickly joined me at her side, panting from his downhill sprint. He leaned down to Camille. His face worked with emotion. In the recesses of my mind, I idly wondered if his feelings for her went beyond that of a business relationship. After a few seconds of shock, he roared into action." Aaron Paul Lazar wastes no time in pulling the reader into this mystery of music and the theater. He deftly weaves his interests into the tale, and the reader is transported into the world of high school action. Lazar knows his music and theater, which provide a wonderful backdrop in and of themselves. But his obvious love of family adds another layer to this sweet and wonderful mystery. In Lazar's world, family, food, music, and love are all important. He provides plenty of action and some very good recipes to break up the tale. UPSTAGED is a first-rate mystery that makes the reader want to immediately grab all the other books in the series. Lazar is a talented writer with a heart and an eye for mystery. Debra Shiveley Welch 164 Erin Woods Drive SE, Calgary, AB, T2B 2S1 Canada ISBN: 1894936426, $14.95, 48 pages In this heartwarming book by author Debra Shiveley Welch, we are privileged to experience the depths of her love and thankfulness for her adopted son Christopher. The author takes you on a journey from her and her husbands head-bent prayers to their God asking for a child, receiving their blessing and the child's growing years. Very touching, very sensitive. In her work, Ms. Welch tenderly tells of the Lord giving attributes to her yet unborn son while in the womb of the frightened young mother. God takes some sweetness from the Cherubs, sweet music from the birds, laughter from the dolphins, and wraps them in love from the mother placing it all carefully into the spirit of the unborn babe. A beautiful gift of life waiting to be unwrapped and cherished and placed in the arms of a loving mother and father. This is a wonderful work that any adoptive parent, or any parent that truly knows how blessed they are, could give to their beloved child to show them how much they are loved and how special they are. It is filled with wonderful poetry and essays of experiences shared and life lived. A delightful, heartfelt work that I am proud to recommend. The Origin of Culture 3100 Kramer Lane, Austin, Texas 78758 ISBN: 0976498162, $18.95, 360 pages I found this book totally absorbing, however, not a simple read, but one that needs to be approached with an open mind, allowing yourself time to reflect and digest the information being given. Author Thomas Dietrich decodes ancient areas such as astrology, mythology, natural disasters and even climate trends and geological evolution and how they intertwine in history. He takes these topics, and more, and shows how they certainly have been instrumental in our past and our future. Quoting from Mr. Dietrich's press release, he says the following, " We cannot advance scientifically, nor can we form a philosophically-correct image of this world, without the information that the ancient people have so patiently collected for us, and have transmitted over such immeasurable periods of time." This book itself shows the intense research that Mr.Dietrich has done to provide the information within the pages of this work. Incredible! I found his work to be fascinating and I particularly enjoyed reading the area about the birth of Christ and the signs and symbols foretelling that event. Very interesting. Now understand, this is not a quick read, but one that you will want to make sure you have time to truly give before you begin. The author has packed this work full of information and you will most certainly need time to digest it. A work that is an eye opener and one that will most definitely make you stop and think, read,learn and understand more than you thought possible. The Wizard the Ugly and the Book of Shame ISBN: 1582346739, $16.95, 32 pages In this book we meet Leitmeritz who is a powerful wizard who uses a Red Book of Spells to help people. He helps toads turn back into Prince's and people who are sick feel better, but he never helped Chancery, his assistant. Chancery is not very handsome, well actually people call him Ugly and this makes him sad. The Wizard told him he must find out himself how not to be ugly so one day when the wizard is away Chancery tries to use his book. Oh no! Things couldn't go more wrong and poor Chancery is still ugly, and the Red Book of Spells is not working, but after Chancery tells the truth to the wizard and the book is back to normal; he finds out how to no longer be Ugly. This is a cute tale showing how we are beautiful inside if we just look. The illustrations are well done and will capture the children's attention as they travel along in this mystical tale. New York, NY ISBN: 0312342779, $23.95, 240 pages Lennon has never robbed a bank in his life; he is what they call, "The Wheelman." Lennon knows how to drive, how to escape, that's his job and the service he provides for the robbers. But not this time; something terrible has gone wrong in this heist and now Lennon finds himself in a body bag ready to be dropped in a pipe in Philadelphia. Interested yet? At first I had some trouble getting into the read but once I did it was quite a ride. We have the Russian Mafia and the Italian Mafia and several freelance crooks who are all after one thing, the 650k that has disappeared after the bank robbery and no one seems to know where it is, but heads are stacking up in the search. And we have revenge for several murders which is always an emotion that leads to total destruction and there was no exception in this read. Tightly written, loaded with deceit, corruption, suspense and even loyalty; this book will keep you absorbed from beginning to end. A great storyline, a refreshing differnt swing on anage-old subject with some very interesting characters. Well done! The Ambler Warning 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY ISBN: 0312316712, $24.95, 528 pages In this work we meet Hal Ambler, drugged and tucked away in a secret Psychiatric facility called Parrish Island. This is where the government stores their spies when they lose touch with reality, but Hal's case is different. A sympathetic nurse helps him escape and soon we travel with Ambler as he tries to figure out who he is, who he was and why he was imprisoned. This work is packed full of suspense, adventure and mystery. Almost everyone is a suspected enemy and those who aren't end up dead before they can help. The work is fast paced, twisting like a tunnel in a dark tomb with many dead ends. Characters are sinister and what one would expect in such a read, and the ending is not at all what you think it will be. Like spy adventures that wind around like mountain roads? If you do; this one is for you. Great read. More Memories of Papillon Diary of a Mad Dog Dennis Fried, Ph.D PO Box 339 Osprey, FL 34229 ISBN: 0967933528, $13.95, 203 pages As a dog lover I have to say this book is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I giggled my way through it enjoying every single page and every single observation that our dear little canine friend had to give about these things called, "humans," and the way they live life. After hearing her take on a few things I actually wondered if perhaps she wasn't correct. Scary thought isn't it? The chapter on "Marriage," is just plain outrageous and I wonder if my dogs have the same thoughts as Genevieve does on this subject; they probably do. If you want to read a book that will just bring you pure reading pleasure, this is the one for you. You certainly will smile and giggle a lot, but you just might close this work with a new outlook on just why humans do things the way they do. One never knows. Highly recommended. I'm All Dressed Robie H. Harris Illustrated by Nicole Hollander Little Brown Publishing 1271 Avenue of The Americans New York, NY 10020 ISBN: 0316109487, $7.99, 28 pages This is an adorable teaching story. Grandpa is having a birthday party and their little boy wants to go in his underwear. Mom and dad explain that it is cold outside and he must put clothes on and they help their little boy get dressed. Unfortunately dad must wrap Grandpa's present and everyone must wait to leave and during this time their little boy decides he is hot and takes all his clothes off again. When it's time to go he decides he will dress himself. He doesn't get his clothes on the way we would expect them to be worn, but he does it the way he feels is right. Mom and Dad allow him to go to the party this way. After all, he is dressed and he will be warm; he is very proud of his dressing job and very happy mom and dad are too. The illustrations are lively and colorful and are very eye-catching to a child. This is a really cute teaching story. Trust Me Mom Illustrated by Ross Collins ISBN: 158234955X, $16.95, 32 pages This is an exciting day for Ollie; it is his first trip to the store all by himself. He listens to his mother as she reminds him of all the do's and don'ts and then he is on his way. However, mom didn't warn him about the witch, the aliens, or the monster that he encountered on the way; but Ollie can take care of himself as you will see in this fun tale of imagination for children. Very cute book with great colorful illustrations. Every Week A Season New York, NY ISBN: 0345483375, $14.95, 290 pages In this work we are taken inside the lives of numerous college football coaches as they basically do their job which is no small thing. We share with them as they analyze their games, recruit high school players, deal with the media and take care of the players in all areas. The author does an outstanding job of putting the reader right in the middle of the muddle, so to speak. If you are a football fan and want to know more of the inside workings this book will be a treasure for you. A hard realistic look at the workings of college football and all it entails. The Devil You Know Walker Books For Young Readers 104 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10011 ISBN: 0802789811, $16.95, 32 pages The Fells are living with a small naughty devil and they want to get rid of him so they call upon the services of a Ms. Phisto who promises to get rid of him and has the Fells sign a contract. She does the job but replaces small devil with hundreds of more and turns their house into a devil den. What are they to do? This is a story showing that sometimes it's best to deal with what you know rather than what you don't. The story shows that things can get a whole lot worse if we don't make the right decisions concerning the problem we have. This is a different type of storybook, with a different slant on dealing with situations and will certainly make children think. The illustrations are very, very colorful and definitely bring life to the story. Flirting With Disaster 9-15 High St., Sutton, Surrey, England ISBN: 0727862812, $27.95, 250 pp. Our beloved Kate and Cam are back in this next book of the Kate Carpenter Mysteries, but this one far surpasses the previous. Kate and Cam find themselves at a crossroad in their relationship; one that may well end in disaster and we see Cam leave our heroin to take a trip alone that was meant for the two of them. Kate, now confused and hurting is thrust into a relationship with another and again is plunged into a life and death situation of murder, mayhem and mystery. I feel author, Deborah Nicholson has truly outdone herself in this latest work. Her growth as a writer is extremely evident as she holds your thoughts captive in this read. She brings romance, mystery and adventure expertly into this work and intertwines characters in the storyline that are both loveable and repulsive. You never forget Cam, although he is not present through most of the read and you find yourself in the same emotional dilemma concerning heartstrings to him that Kate is feeling.This is always a mark of an excellent writer when they pull you into the mind of their character. You wonder about Kate; is her spirit truly one with Cam or will her heart belong to another? And who is after Kate and why? I have to say this is truly the best work by Deborah Nicholson yet; grabbing your attention and understanding of the story whether this is your first taste of this series or if you are reading along with each outstanding book as it is released. I honestly give this book my highest recommendation. It is one of romance, mystery, adventure and a storyline with heart. I believe we truly have another winner. Well done! Edward Abram, Ph.D. McGraw Hill Publishing Avenues of the Americans, New York, NY ISBN: 0071442065, $21.95, 256 pages How many of us have read and tried to follow the advice of countless diet books, and walked away more frustrated then when we began? Inside the covers we read, do this, do that, eat this, don't eat that; and the list goes on. Not so in this outstanding work by author Edward Abram. Yes,there is hope for you and for me. Our author goes to the root of the problem of not being able to maintain a healthy weight by diving into our thought patterns and showing us how they affect the way we eat, see ourselves and live. Believe me he will write about things you have long ago filed in your mind but you really have not forgotten. You will be shocked to see how these memories affect your weight and life. I enjoyed this book; learned a lot and I truly believe it is a real eye opener. If you have tried every diet you can find and feel as if nothing will ever work for you; I strongly suggest you give this book a try. I believe by understanding the information given in this book you will finally breath a sigh of relief and get on the right track to a healthier you. Highly recommended. If you have a product to sell this is the book for you. I have never seen a work that is so packed full of ideas and information to help you get ahead and done in such a clear and concise way. On each page you will find a great tip to use to promote yourself and our author explains each one and how to use it to your advantage. Here is an example of a few topics: Under "Event Marketing," Your Pitch; under "What To Join," Cost of Membership; under "Web Relationships," Tips & FAQ, and this is just naming a few that are included in this work. Want to get ahead? This book will surely help you. Very thought-out and extremely well-done. ISBN: 189330289X, $16.95, 256 page "My Name Is Esther Clara," is the story of the life of one amazing woman, one that will touch you in a way you did not think possible, but is true nevertheless. There are times when a work comes along that reaches deep inside of you and feels comfortable, snuggly and warm. As you read the words you settle down with a soothing cup of hot cocoa and share the heart of a beloved grandmother. As she spins the tales of her life, her mark upon this earth, you know you have been privileged to share her existence. This is what you will find within the pages of author Laural Johnson's touching work, "My Name is Esther Clara." As a reviewer I have read works in every genre and enjoyed them; but once in a while I come upon a read that does more than entertain but somehow grabs the true meaning of life and in doing so awakens me to what is and is not important. That is what this book has done for me. Ms. Esther's main attribute was her love and loyalty for family, despite hardships that life presented to her, she never lost sight of that main objective, and somehow through reading her story you also realize the importance of the truths she not only spoke but lived. In this work as you share Ms. Esther's life you will giggle and cry at the many wonderful tales she tells; you will sigh at the coming and going of a woman who was the glue of her family, one that the world may not remember her name, but one whose memory will never be far from the hearts of those who knew and loved her and still live within the precepts and dignity that she bestowed upon her family. "My Name Is Esther Clara" , is a story that is sure to warm your heart, help place your priorities in order and will be stored in your memory forever. I am so glad that I too was touched by Esther Clara and I look forward to sharing Eternity with her. Wonderful work Ms. Johnson. Jim Michael Hansen Dark Sky Publishing Inc. 218 S. McIntyre Way, Golden, CO 80401 ISBN: 0976924307, $13.95, 363 pages At the onset of this outstanding work we meet Denver's homicide detective Bryson Coventry, a no-nonsense cop who is head over a chilling murder investigation, one that has roots as deep as a giant oak that twists and turns in the darkness of the earth. Attorney Kelly Parks, a young lawyer working for a large elite law firm in Denver is involved, but she does not know how nor does she know how she could possibly be connected to the murderer, but she is. A woman is murdered; another is missing and linked to a series of murders committed in the past, now they know they are dealing with a serial killer. One who knows his business, his victims, his enemies and seems to always be one step ahead of the frustrated but determined Detective Coventry. The author builds the case, adds his characters carefully, fitting each one into the theme of the story, building upon their personalities, their faults and strengths arranging them in a way that continues to breath life into each page of the read. The FBI is involved, agents joining forces with Denver police in a race for time to save the life of a young woman and the darker side of humanity is projected as we meet strippers and drug addicts and those who kill for the thrill. What a ride! In this work, author Jim Michael Hansen, works every angle that a thriller read should have. Skillfully he defines his characters; so precise is he, that you are actually in the mind of the killer, the victim and those desperately fighting to save them. His twists and turns are mind-boggling brining you to one level of suspense, whipping you around to fear and anger, plunging you into frustration and horror and leaving you in a heap of reading ecstasy. Night Laws in my humble opinion is a Masterpiece, a story that you will long remember after putting the book down, and I give it my highest recommendation. (Two hours later, slightly intoxicated). Why did I decide to write it? As a lawyer (a lawyer with a mortgage and a family), I have almost no time to read books and probably haven't read more than five since I graduated from high school. But several years ago I happened to pick one up - a crime thriller - and read it for reasons that now escape me. I thought it was pretty cool and decided right then and there to write my own some day. (That's why I do most things - because I think it would be cool.) It didn't seem like writing a book would be that hard to do. Boy was I wrong about that. SHIRLEY: Well Jim, hope you had a good time celebrating! Now, if you are sober enough would you please tell me about the storyline, how you came up with it. It certainly is unique. JIM: Part of the storyline involves a law firm that purports to go the extra mile to retain an important client who needs help, the extra mile being a slightly illegal act. Anyone inside the legal business, myself included, knows that most law firms are extremely aggressive about obtaining and retaining clients. Thus the fact that a law firm might take this one additional step, and do something slightly illegal to help out one of its important clients, doesn't require a quantum leap in logic. This situation appealed to me because it is so believable. That sets the stage for what the firm might be forced to do if it's illegal conduct leads to bigger and more drastic problems than it ever imagined. The predicament is especially interesting since the firm can't go to the police. When the firm gets tangled up with a serial killer, things really take off. SHIRLEY: Indeed they do, what a ride. Please tell us if the characters in your book were fashioned after people you know or have come in contact with. JIM: Bryson Coventry is fashioned after me, except that he's way cooler, taller, younger, gets all the chicks, and doesn't have to bother will little things like cutting the grass, changing the oil or filing out tax returns. We also drive the same vehicle - a Toyota Tundra. Other than that, all the characters are fictional. However, I tried to ensure that the basic structure of each character is consistent with real people who occupy those types of positions and professions. For example, the young associate attorney, Kelly Parks, has a stellar pedigree, works her ass off, but also has a bit of a wild side. I know lots of real people who fit that mold. SHIRLEY: Readers, Jim's characters are very well defined and except for a few, very likeable. Of course there has to be some 'nasty, un-likeable,' people in this type of book. Jim, how did you choose the locations in your book? JIM: Easy, they're the only one's I know. One of the first rules of writing is to write about what you know (which, unfortunately, limits me drastically!) I do know Denver and Colorado, however, and wanted the book to be real and believable in all aspects. So I went out of my way to set the scenes in recognizable landmarks. Denverites reading the book will instantly recognize the 16th Street Mall, downtown's financial district, LoDo, the foothills, etc. I must apologize to readers outside Colorado, however, because I don't describe these places very well. SHIRLEY: You did a fine job Jim. How long did it take you to complete your book? JIM: All freaking day. SHIRLEY: That long? Who would have known! smile JIM: Actually, I started Night Laws in 2000 and wrote about 200 pages. Then my law practice got in the way and I had to set the book down for more than three years. In fact, I even forgot about it. Then I pulled it out in 2004, dusted it off, scrapped about half of what I had written, then finished it off in about six or eight months. I'm guessing that I have over a thousand hours in it. If someone told me 2000, though, I couldn't argue with them. SHIRLEY: What was the most difficult part in writing your work? JIM: The most difficult part in writing the book was getting all the words in the right order. I had them all there in front of me, in a dictionary, but arranging them in a pleasing manner was like trying to solve a ten-dimensional Rubic's cube. Another difficulty was continuity. I often had to put the book down for days and weeks and attend to the real world of fighting the good fight for my clients. When I picked it back up, I had to reorient myself. Worse, I usually found that I now didn't like what I wrote before, and ended up rewriting that rather than moving forward. SHIRLEY: What was the most enjoyable part? JIM: Finishing the manuscript and then throwing it to the ceiling in celebration. I immediately wished I had numbered the pages. Actually, I was really exciting to start off in the morning with a fresh piece of paper and see where the book would go. The story wasn't scripted, so I never knew where the plot would go or what the characters would do. I enjoyed putting them in situations and tried to figure out what they would really do, if this were a true story. I also enjoyed throwing them as many curves as I could. An example is when the bad guy, David Hallenbeck, returns to the farm house one evening to find out that a couple of bikers had taken over the place. This is the kind of concept that might come to me in a ten second flash and then turn into its own chapter. SHIRLEY: Let's talk promoting, exactly what are you doing to promote your work? Any tips for other authors? SHIRLEY: Do you belong to a writer's group? JIM: I'm sure I could learn a lot of new tricks from writer's groups, but unfortunately have no time to join any group, writing, bowling, base-jumping, concrete-knitting or other wise. Besides, I already learned how to write from that famous book: Read Gooder, Write Gooder, Speak Gooder. I heard it's now in its 20th printing. SHIRLEY: Let me ask you this, what has writing this work done for you and what do you hope it will do for your readers? What do you hope they will take away with them after reading your work? Was it written for pure reading entertainment or is there a hidden message? JIM: The primary objective of a novel, in my opinion, is to entertain the reader and to let the reader experience the thoughts, emotions, actions and situations of others, without dying. By writing Night Laws strictly in point of view (POV), the reader sees things from the viewpoints of several different characters. The reader is in on the action and gets to compare his or her own makeup to the people in the book. That type of comparison allows the reader to learn more about his or her inner-self and thus grow as a person. I think. SHIRLEY: Is this your first work or do you have other books published? If so, would you tell us a little about them. Also, do you have any other works in progress? If so in what genre and when will they be released? JIM: I've written some other books, namely Gone With the Wind, The Old Man and the Sea, Hawaii, The Grapes of Wrath, stuff like that. I've also had several legal articles published, but Night Laws is my debut novel under my own name. It represents the launch of the Laws series featuring Lt. Bryson Coventry. The second Laws book should see a late 2006 publication date. I have the basic plot laid out and have to say, all modesty aside, that no reader will be left disappointed or unshaken. Visit me at for updates. If you like Night Laws, you will love the second book in the series. SHIRLEY: You did a really great job with "Gone With The Wind!" I'm sure you are proud. How many hours a day do you write? JIM: 27-28, usually. SHIRLEY: May I borrow your clock? JIM: If I have a whole day to set aside, my ideal schedule is like this. I head down to Einstein Bro early in the morning, drink coffee after coffee and sketch out the chapter - where, when, who, beginning problem, resolution, hook at the end, etc. Then head home to write the entire chapter, usually 5-10 pages, which takes most of the day. After super, I read and edit it for an hour or two. By the end of the day I have 10 hours in it and 5-10 pretty good pages. The next day I reread it, discover it's junk, and scrap all but three pages. SHIRLEY: Where do you hope your writing career will be in 3 years and what are you doing to achieve that goal. JIM: In three years I hope to be only one year older. SHIRLEY: May I borrow your calendar? JIM: It's my wife's, actually. I also hope to produce another two or three high quality Laws novels with interesting plots, memorable characters and captivating prose. I personally like Bryson Coventry so he's going to be around for a while. My basic goal is that when someone reads one of my books, they were glad they did so on a number of levels. It's all about the reader. SHIRLEY: A question a little off the beaten track, do you read and if so what genre is your favorite? JIM: I read the instructions on the fire extinguisher every time I catch on fire. Other than that, though, I don't read much, except law stuff. Running a law firm, being a family man and trying to write my own books leaves me absolutely no time whatsoever to scratch my head or read books by others. I've probably read five books in the last twenty years, a flagrant breach of one of the cardinal canons of being a good writer according to Steven King and many others. While I know I'm missing a wonderful universe of words, there is a small silver lining. I don't get enamored by anyone else's style and don't try to emulate them. My voice stays my voice - for better or worse - and doesn't end up being someone else's voice coming out of my mouth. How's that for a visual? SHIRLEY: Ah! I need to get you busy reviewing. Would you tell us a little about yourself, outside of being a published author? JIM: Before becoming a lawyer, I had a real job, namely teaching math to inner-city junior high school students in the Cleveland Public Schools for ten years. If the pay hadn't been so crummy, I probably would have done it forever. Kids are great and the satisfaction of helping them is more than you can ever get being a lawyer or an author. Now I have my own law firm, Jim M. Hansen, P.C., and practice law in the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area. I represent a wide variety of corporate and individual clients in civil matters, with an emphasis on civil litigation, employment law and OSHA. Visit me at . There's more boring stuff about me there than you'd ever want to know about in a lifetime. Honest. The second book in the Laws series - Shadow Laws - will be released in late 2006 or early 2007. Information on this title is posted on my website. SHIRLEY: Jim, thank you for doing this interview with me, it really has been fun getting to know you. Readers, I'll tell you all right now, I have just read Jim's new book and you will not be disappointed in it. Another winner that is for sure. I think we will be hearing a lot about Mr. Hansen in the future and I wish him the best and many blessings on his work. James A. Cox
BOB ABERNETHY, host: Welcome, I’m Bob Abernethy. It’s good to have you with us. Today, a special report on the events and issues we see ahead in 2011. We do this with the help of Kim Lawton, managing editor of this program, Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service, and E.J. Dionne of the Brookings Institution, the Washington Post, and Georgetown University. Before we begin our discussion, as we close out the first decade of the new millennium we remember some of the stories that set the stage for the news we expect to cover in 2011 and beyond. Our managing editor Kim Lawton took a look back at the events of the last decade. KIM LAWTON, managing editor: The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were perhaps the defining moment of the decade, and the repercussions are still being felt on many fronts. In the wake of the tragedy, mainstream Muslim leaders tried to spread a message that Islam is not synonymous with terrorism. But those efforts were complicated by an expanding extremist movement that recruits over the Internet, as well as several high-profile arrests of Muslims plotting more attacks. American Muslims worked to define their place in US society, but many felt unfairly targeted by enhanced security measures and what they saw as a rising tide of Islamophobia. President Obama made improving relations with the Muslim world one of the priorities of his new administration. The 9/11 attacks led to American involvement in long and difficult wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Religious and ethical leaders debated whether each conflict was just. President George W. Bush argued for a doctrine of preventive war, the idea that it was moral to attack a country to prevent it from attacking us first. The ethical debates intensified with revelations that the US was using torture as a means of getting information. After thousands of deaths of troops and civilians, President Obama announced the end of combat operations in Iraq and the intention to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan. Economic crises dominated much of the end of the decade as recession, unemployment and foreclosures took a toll on faith-based groups and the people they serve. Religious institutions were forced to slash their budgets and lay off staff even as they were asked to do more to help needy people. Religion continued to be a potent force in politics. In 2000 and 2004, President Bush rallied religious conservatives. He set up a new White House office to expand government partnerships with faith-based social service organizations. Analysts spoke of a God gap, with voters seeing the Democratic Party as unfriendly toward religion. In the run-up to the 2008 elections, Democrats and the Obama campaign developed an unprecedented outreach to compete for religious votes. Many in that faith coalition were disappointed the Democrats didn’t build on the momentum in the 2010 midterm elections. Meanwhile, religious conservatives were energized by the Tea Party movement and vowed new activism leading up to the 2012 elections. Religious groups across the spectrum were involved in policy debates, from health care to immigration and gay marriage. Issues surrounding homosexuality provoked bitter debates within religious institutions and American society as a whole. The 2003 election of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in the US Episcopal Church brought the worldwide Anglican Communion to the brink of schism, even as other denominations continue to debate the role of gay clergy. In 2003, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, with four other states and the District of Columbia following suit. The issue continues to work its way through the courts. For the Roman Catholic Church, a dramatic changing of the guard with the 2005 death of John Paul II, who had been pope for more than 25 years, and the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. For the US Catholic Church, much of the decade was focused on addressing a massive clergy sex abuse crisis, enacting new guidelines to prevent abuse, and confronting litigation that saw more than two billion dollars in payouts to victims. In 2010, the clergy abuse scandal exploded across many parts of Europe and posed new challenges to the Vatican and top church leaders. The new millennium began with a sense of relief that a predicted Y2K computer meltdown never materialized. It ends with the development of social media like Facebook and Twitter offering new online possibilities for personal connection and outreach, enabling information to be disseminated at lightning speed—both for good and for ill. EJ DIONNE (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution): You know, watching Kim’s set-up piece I was thinking of Yogi Berra’s great line: ‘Predictions are hard, especially when they’re about the future.” And who would have imagined a decade unfolding the way this last decade just unfolded? So I think we’re all in a difficult situation here. I think when you look forward to this Congress, so much of it is not going to be about social issues. The last Democratic Congress kind of acted to get some of those out of the way, notably don’t ask don’t tell. I think they really wanted that through because they knew it was going to be very difficult this time over. You may have some debate about abortion around the healthcare bill. Republicans want to repeal it. I don’t think they’ll be able to but they going to have a variety of ways of trying to hem in President Obama in sort of putting it into effect. So I think you may see it there. I think one of the sleeper issues will be fights we might have around the National Endowment of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, where you have, if nothing else for purely political reasons it’s a question where conservatives can talk about it as an economic issue: should we be spending the money? But there are always issues related to cultural values that get into those debates. So I suspect you are going to see some of those arguments around the humanities and arts endowments. Personally, I hope it doesn’t happen that way, but I think that is going to happen. ABERNETHY: How about immigration? LAWTON: Well, I was going to say that I am going to be watching to see how some of the evangelical political activists maneuver with the Tea Party politicians that got elected. You know, in this last election there was so much talk about how the Tea Party was so ascendant and there were a lot of religious conservatives that were supportive of the Tea Party. But when you get to issues like immigration or some of the other issues involving a social safety net for the poor, evangelicals don’t always line up as economic conservatives. And so while they might be hoping for some action on abortion or maybe even some of the gay marriage type issues—I don’t know that that’s going to come up in Congress, but I’m going to be watching some of the economic issues that do have some moral implications to see how much evangelicals, and some Catholics who were supportive of the Tea Party—where they come down. ECKSTROM (Editor, Religious New Service): Right, and there are a lot of moral issues that a lot of religious groups care about. And so I think what you’re going to have is maybe a different set than what we’ve seen in the last couple years. Whereas under the Democratic Congress we were talking about moral issues like the environment and the minimum wage increase and things like that, you’re probably not going to see as much of that with a Republican House. Instead, you’ll have issues that maybe more conservatives tend to latch on to. But it’s not that these social issues are going to disappear, it’s just that there are going to be a different set of them. DIONNE: That’s a good point, because you are going to talking more and more about budget deficits and cuts in government programs, and I think it’s going to be fascinating to see how religious groups that sometimes seem to be aligned with conservatives on some of the cultural questions are actually going to be saying no, you can’t cut this program for the poor or that program for the poor, because there are a lot of Catholics, a lot of evangelicals, and many in the rest of the religious community—mainline Protestants, Jews, Muslims—who really want to protect some of those programs. So I think their voices are actually going to be very important at a time of budget stress. ECKSTROM: And one issue I think that’s worth watching that we’ve already seen indications of is that House Republicans want to hold hearings on American Muslims and the radicalization of American Muslims – sort of home-grown terror threats – and what’s going wrong within American Islam that it’s allowing this to happen? So it’s a different kind of religious issue but one that’s already going to be on Congress’s agenda. ABERNETHY: Before we leave that, E.J., what about the tone, the spirit that you expect. Is it going to be awful? DIONNE: I’m not very optimistic that we’re going to see an outbreak of comity and friendship across party lines. On the Muslim hearings, having Congress sort of investigate a religious group in the country raises all kinds of questions, which I hope get raised. I’m not sure that the deal that President Obama reached with the Republicans on taxes can be easily replicated across other issues. After all, tossing out about $858 billion is a lot easier than cutting $400 billion or whatever they decide to do. So I think it’s going to be a very difficult couple of years. LAWTON: And also, sort of in the backdrop, this coming year in politics is going to be the run up to the 2012 presidential election, and so that’s going to be complicating anything anyone wants to get done because there’s going to be a lot of posturing as people try to set themselves up for the next presidential election. DIONNE: Which brings us to some very interesting debates inside the Republican Party. Your point about the Tea Party and the Christian conservatives overlapping but distinct groups—how are they going to play those roles inside the Republican fight for the nomination? LAWTON: And a lot of religious conservatives were very unhappy with the Republican establishment, felt like they took them for granted, Republicans took the religious conservatives for granted—wanted them to come out and work and vote but didn’t necessarily take care of their issues. It will be interesting to see whether they feel the same way about the Tea Party as well. ABERNETHY: And back on this question of tone, everything perhaps is going to be made more dramatic by the fact that it’s going to be, this year, the tenth anniversary of 9/11. LAWTON: It’s hard to believe that it was almost 10 years ago when those attacks happened and that really did set up a lot of difficult issues for us as a country, both in terms of the war and as well as in terms of interfaith relations. I know a lot of Muslim groups are sort of bracing after seeing in the previous year a lot of protests against mosques and things of that nature. They’re concerned about the atmosphere and a lot of Muslims I’m talking with are worried about what’s going to happen leading up to the 9/11 anniversary. ABERNETHY: But Kevin, you or E.J. have made the point that we have this real problem of trying to deal with homegrown terrorism and terrorism here that just emerges out of the suburbs some place, and on the other hand protecting the civil rights of a whole group of people. ECKSTROM: This is a huge challenge for American Muslims and one of the big debates within the American Muslim community right now is how much do they cooperate with law enforcement on trying to prevent these sorts of attacks that nobody wants to see? How much should parents report their kids if they’re acting strangely or going to bad Web sites or talking in radical terms? And there’s a lot of Muslims who are afraid of being entrapped by the FBI and being led into plots that they might not otherwise do. But then they also know that if they don’t report them nobody else is going to and if there’s an attack, things are only going to get worse. DIONNE: You’ve got tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in American suburbs, living middle-class lives, and if one or two or three or five of those thousands of kids is discovered to get involved in terrorism, suddenly we’re talking about these very middle-class, classically American places being breeding grounds for terrorism. I think one thing that is going to sort encourage that is if we make this big American Muslim middle class feel excluded from the rest of us, and we’re really going to have to think that through. Of course we don’t want home-grown terrorism, but we’re nowhere like where the Europeans are, because we have this great tradition of upward mobility and inclusion in our country. LAWTON: And this has been a challenge for American Muslims themselves within their communities. If we launch programs to combat homegrown terrorism, homegrown extremism, if we launch programs in our mosques, does that appear like we’re giving in to the stereotype that all Muslims are potential terrorists, and so they’ve really struggled within their community how to approach this problem. They want to look proactive. They want to look like they’re addressing this as good, loyal Americans, but how do you do that without giving into the perception? ABERNETHY: Kevin, what do you expect to happen with the cultural center/mosque near Ground Zero? ECKSTROM: Well, it’s going to be a challenge. They presumably have all of the zoning things that they need. They’ve got their permits and the city is going to allow them to build it. What they’re missing right now is the money. And it’s going to take them a while to raise as much money as they’re going to need, but it’s also going to be difficult to get, I think, a lot of people to support that because that center is so radioactive and it’s generated so much heat that there’s going to be a lot of people who maybe don’t want their names associated with it. And on the flip side, there’s a lot of Americans who don’t want the money coming from some foreign anonymous donor somewhere, so they have a big challenge there. ABERNETHY: Now you were referring earlier to the fact that the beginning of 2011 may well seem like the beginning of the election campaign of 2012, E.J. DIONNE: Right, and I think you’re going to see some sort of interesting positioning inside the Republican Party. I mean, we still don’t know if Sarah Palin is or is not going to run for president. Sarah Palin seems to be more representative of the Tea Party side of the right, although she has clearly some Christian conservative support. Mike Huckabee is going to be competing with her as the spokesperson for Christian conservatives, but every Republican running for president wants a piece of that vote, because it is such an important vote in the Republican primaries, and that’s going to start right now. It’s already started, before the show went on the air. ECKSTROM: And I think something worth watching there is Mitt Romney, who is at the front of a lot of these polls, these straw polls, whether or not he tries to make the case about his Mormon faith again with the evangelical base. A lot of people say, you know, he did that; he doesn’t need to do it again. Other people say that he’s never going to win them over; there’s a certain amount of the base that’s just never going to accept a Mormon candidate. So I think it will be interesting to watch how he navigates the Mormon question. ABERNETHY: And meanwhile, E.J., every pundit worth his salt is giving Obama advice about what he needs to do, how he needs to change himself, how he needs to change his language. Talk about that. DIONNE: Well, the range of advice goes from you must be nicer to the Republicans and look like you’re a centrist to you’re political and moral obligation is to confront these guys and have a big argument so that the issues can be clear to the country. And I think he’s going to try to do a little of the former to say I’ve reached out my hand to them, and when the hand is rejected on certain issues, he’s going to flip to the second. But I think one of the things to look for is whether he does speak more in a moral and spiritual language both about himself and the underpinnings of his policies, but also about this sense of America can grab its position in the world back after a period when Americans felt we were in decline. I think there’s going to be some John Kennedy-esque rhetoric coming out him getting the country moving again in the coming year. LAWTON: And the Democratic Party is going to have to figure out what it wants to do in terms of faith-based outreach. There was a lot of criticism from Democrats about how the party handled that in the last midterm elections and a lot of faith-based moderates and liberals and even some conservatives that don’t consider themselves Republicans felt that the party didn’t do enough to reach out to them, so that’s going to be something they’re trying to figure out as well. ABERNETHY: Meanwhile the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is supposed to begin n 2011. What are your expectations there? LAWTON: Well, there’s some really difficult ethical debates still lingering in terms of what America leaves behind in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of civil society and … ABERNETHY: And safety and protection for the people who helped us. LAWTON: Exactly. Religious minorities and people who were seen as being part of the American offensive—what’s going on with them and what responsibility does America have within that? And those are going to be difficult questions. I’ve been surprised how little the religious community has been focusing on these issues of war. It seemed like last year, in the last election, people just didn’t really talk about those ethical, moral issues. ECKSTROM: And, you know, we’ve heard a lot of talk about the president’s problem with his base—you know, the liberal base is dissatisfied for any number of reasons. But it’s worth remembering that a good chunk of that base voted for him because he said he was going to close Guantanamo Bay, and it’s still open, and that he said he’d get us out of Afghanistan, and he actually sent more troops in. So there’s, I think, some ethical problems that he faces in terms of not moving fast enough on that issue. DIONNE: Actually, he said he’d get us out of Iraq, and he said Afghanistan was the good war, and we’ll presumably continue to pull out of Iraq. My hunch is that if we have a withdrawal this year from Afghanistan it’s going to be very small. It’s clear that the new timeline that the administration wants seems to be 2014. And there’s going to be some opposition in his own party to not withdrawing more quickly. I also think some of the new conservatives who are less interventionist in Congress may also be a surprising opposition to a long commitment there. ABERNETHY: Let me ask you to look at Europe and the Vatican. What do you expect there in terms of this ongoing struggle about the sex abuse of kids by priests? Anybody? DIONNE: Everyone is silent. ECKSTROM: Happy topic. Well, this pope has the unfortunate possibility of his legacy being presiding over this sex abuse scandal that reared its ugly head—that the church didn’t learn anything from the first time around. And I think he has made some progress in sort of admitting that the church needs to do some introspection and figure out what went wrong so that we don’t make this happen again. But the pope is going to be 84 in 2011. I don’t know how much more time he has left in that job, but probably a few years, and I think he’s going to be doing some legacy-making, because this is now at the point where he can still do some things and see what happens. LAWTON: Well, so many people in the church are frustrated because they want to get beyond this issue but they just can’t do it, and so that’s been something they’ve all had to confront. DIONNE: I think it’s sort of an argument between people who defend the Vatican and the church say look, they understand, they’ve tried to fix this, they’ve made some moves versus others who say that they still haven’t fully taken responsibility for changing the structures of the church. It’s a classic argument between more conservative or traditionalist people and people looking for greater change in the church because they think it needs it, and I think that is an ongoing struggle and that the sex abuse scandal is a piece of that larger struggle. LAWTON: Well, we should also point out that last year a lot of the things we discussed we didn’t predict. So, as E.J. said, it’s hard to know that. I think it is going to be a pivotal year for religious groups and issues surrounding homosexuality, whether we’re talking court cases around gay marriage or whether we’re talking denominations still really struggling over how to handle gay clergy and gay bishops. And the Anglican Communion, which has really been torn about by this subject, is also going to have to face some tough questions this coming year. ECKSTROM: I’m going to keep an eye on Archbishop Tim Dolan in New York, who is the new president of the Catholic bishops conference. He’s a media-savvy guy, he gives you a bear hug, he’s sort of a telegenic face for the church. But he’s no shrinking violet. He will take on the issues of the day, but in sort of a friendly kind of way. It will be interesting. The only real power he has is the power of the megaphone, and which issues he chooses for the bishops to emphasize. DIONNE: I think that’s an excellent selection. I would say if I could combine Palin, Huckabee, Obama, Romney—we’re going to see if the nature of the discussion of religion in our politics changes substantially this year or not. As we’ve already said, there are challenges to each of those figures, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with it. ABERNETHY: I have been wondering with respect to Iraq and now Afghanistan why there was no peace movement—not more of a peace movement. Do you think with Afghanistan, as we begin to come out of there, that there will be such a thing? DIONNE: I think going into Afghanistan there was very broad support when we started because many people, except for pacifists and a few others who have legitimate reasons for opposing all war, most people thought this was kind of a just war response, so you didn’t have a big opposition. I think now a lot of people say God, this is a terrible mess. I don’t have a good answer coming out of it, and I think that sort of undercuts what might otherwise be a big peace movement.
For the past decade, pharmaceutical manufacturers have struggled to cut inventories in their supply chains. On the surface, they have made little progress. Gains in efficiency seem to be swallowed by rising complexity and volatility. The average inventory to COGS ratio in pharma—55 percent—is the same as it was ten years ago. Pharma managers looking for a way out of this situation could learn much from industries like electronics, which have tackled many of the same challenges with considerable success. Fragmenting markets and increasingly diverse customer demands have certainly added to supply chain complexity. According to our Pharma Operations Benchmarking (POBOS) study, for example, the number of SKUs handled by a typical plant doubled between 2004 and 2009. Complexity is painful for supply chain managers, in part because it makes volatility more expensive to handle: inventories must double to maintain the same service level across twice the number of SKUs, for instance. Increasing volatility has multiple causes. Some is external: market fluctuations due to supply shortages caused by quality issues, demand spikes driven by pandemics, or the growing importance of tenders. Other volatility is internal, driven by characteristics of the supply chain itself. Even where final demand for products is relatively stable, long production campaigns and large, infrequent customer orders dramatically amplify volatility via the well-known “bull-whip” effect. We frequently see situations where, while final demand fluctuation is only two or three percent, the demand experienced by the packaging plant can swing by 30 to 150 percent, leading to overcapacities in production or high work-in-progress and finished goods inventories. The different drivers of demand volatility seem to call for different responses. In tackling volatility driven by external factors, supply chain managers will often look to increasingly sophisticated planning and forecasting systems, which “push” product into the supply chain according to predicted demand. Production managers, by contrast, frequently cite the success of Lean manufacturing systems, like those pioneered by Toyota, which reduce internal volatility with their appealingly simple “pull” based scheduling systems. In practice, both approaches have their limitations. Pull systems, which work so well when demand is level, can struggle to respond rapidly to peaks, forcing companies to stockpile costly safety inventories in their buffers or “lean” supermarkets. Push scheduling theoretically helps to manage volatility, but in practice a plan is only as good as the skills of the people, the master data, and the forecast used to drive it. When the forecast turns out wrong, push systems can quickly run into problems, and costs pile up. Unfortunately for the proponents of push scheduling, forecasts are wrong as often as they are right. When we assessed the performance of demand forecasts at one pharma company, for example, we found that the forecast was less accurate than a simple linear extrapolation of sales data 60 percent of the time. A Third Way Now some companies have made a deliberate decision to abandon dogma and seek a hybrid approach that combines the best attributes of both push and pull. From lean pull systems, managers can draw on simplicity, strict control of WiP, and the reactive nature of the process. From SCM, they can know how to handle complexity and effectively use available forecast data and robust IT systems. The hybrid system relies upon the simple kanban approach used in lean production, but modifies it to make better use of available forecast data. Kanbans are visual signals used to instruct an upstream process to manufacture a certain amount of product. They are usually cards, or software messages, but they can even be the bins used to hold intermediate stage materials. Typically, when a downstream process has used one kanban’s worth of material, it sends the kanban upstream to instruct the previous process to make one more. By integrating forecast data into the pull-based scheduling system, the hybrid approach dramatically increases the system’s ability to respond to foreseeable short-term spikes in demand, caused by seasonal fluctuation, new product introduction, or promotional activities, for example. To instruct the system to make additional product in preparation for a forecast peak, planners issue special “disposable” kanban cards for the required additional production quantity. These cards are used only once, “pushing” additional product through the system to temporally increase finished goods inventories, and are thrown away once production of the additional quantity is complete. The secret to the effective operation of the hybrid system is deciding how much to make based on permanent versus disposable kanbans. Extensive simulation of different demand scenarios reveals two factors are the main drivers: forecast error and demand variability. Taking it to the extreme, 100 percent permanent kanbans are used if forecasts are poor and demand variability is very low. An empirical formula determines the percentage of permanent kanbans for all intermediate cases. This “trusted” portion of demand can be anything between 50 and 80 percent of the total demand, depending on the product portfolio, the market dynamics, and the behavior of people in the supply chain. In this way, plants can be confident that all their additional production will be absorbed by real demand. If demand exceeds the trusted fraction, finished goods inventories will be depleted to a critical level, and a new production order issued using permanent kanbans. Wherever specific events lead to demand peaks, disposable kanbans avoid stockouts. A key benefit of the hybrid approach is simplicity of implementation. Production staff do not need to learn a new system—they just use the standard kanban system whether they are producing to forecast, or to stock. Existing shop-floor control systems can be used and IT integration is straightforward and simple. This simplicity has proved to be a particular benefit for companies seeking to improve supply chain performance in developing regions, for example, where local management may struggle to enforce compliance with more complex traditional supply chain management and scheduling systems. At companies that have struggled to cope with complexity and demand variability, the effect of the new approach has been substantial. One electronics manufacturer, for example, had switched its entire production to a classic pull-based scheduling system. That change delivered dramatic improvements in service level, inventory reduction, and manufacturing productivity. But problems remained. To maintain service levels in the face of volatile demand, the company needed to keep large component inventories in a huge on-site supermarket. The problem gradually became worse as increasing SKU complexity drove those inventory requirements ever higher. When it switched to the hybrid model, the company was able to cut finished goods inventories by a third. As pharma companies begin to experiment with the new approach, the results have been just as compelling. One drug manufacturer used a combined push and pull approach to manage production scheduling across multiple plants, some in developing economies. By replacing its existing supply chain management system with a simple, kanban-driven pull scheduling system, the company dramatically improved its overall supply chain efficiency. At the same time, disposable kanban cards allowed the company to respond to predictable volatility, like seasonal demand peaks, regional plant closures or promotion activities in its OTC business. Overall, the hybrid approach reduced finished goods inventory by 50 to 70 percent, depending on the product line. In the face of increasing product complexity and rising demand volatility, pharmaceutical companies are struggling to reduce inventory costs while maintaining service levels. Now some companies are overcoming the limitations of conventional supply chain planning approaches by using a new system which combines the simplicity and robustness of lean, pull-based scheduling systems with a vastly improved ability to respond to spikes in demand.
The Atlantic hagfish, scientifically known as Myxine glutinosa, is an unusual sea creature. Its body is covered with special glands that can emit a sticky slime. In fact, a single hagfish can produce enough slime at one time to fill a milk jug. This has earned it the name "slime eel", although it is really not an eel at all. A hagfish will actually "sneeze" when its own nostrils fill with slime. Hagfish slime is different that any other natural slime secretion in that it is reinforced with tiny fibers. These fibers make the slime strong and difficult to remove. It is believed that the hagfish uses this slime to protect itself from predators. It can also be used to easily produce a protective cocoon for the hagfish. It is believed that this slime can actually suffocate predators by clogging their gills if they come in contact with it. The hagfish has a trick for escaping this slime cocoon. Believe it or not, this animal can tie itself in a knot and then pass the knot down the length of its body to wipe the slime away. The Atlantic hagfish has been called the nastiest and most disgusting little creature in the sea. Over 60 different species are known to science. There is actually some debate among researchers as to whether the hagfish is really a fish. It is more closely related to some primitive creatures such as the lampreys. Hagfish have a long, eel-like body that averages 18 inches (about a half meter) in length, although it is believed that some of them can grow as long as 32 inches (nearly a meter). The hagfish is a scaleless fish with soft skin and thick barbels on the end of its mouth. Hagfish have a partial skull but no vertebrae, so they cannot technically be classified as vertebrates. They have no jaws and no bones. Their skeleton is made up entirely of cartilage. They have very poorly developed eyes located just under the skin and are almost blind. They do, however have finely developed senses of smell and touch which help them find food in the darkness of the deep sea. There are four small sensing tentacles near their mouth. They also have between 5 and 15 pairs of gills. Their colors can range from pink to brown to various shades of gray. Hagfish have a very primitive circulatory system that contains four hearts. One heart, known as the brachial heart, serves as the main pump, while the other three hearts serve as accessory pumps. The hagfish is a true monster of the deep. To see why, one only has to examine its greusome feeding habits. A hagfish begins its feeding process by attaching itself to a passing fish. Once firmly attached, it then bores its way inside its unsuspecting host. Once inside, the hagfish will actually eat the fish's flesh with a specialized rasping tongue. It literally eats its victim from the inside out. When no large prey can be found, hagfish will feed on worms and other small invertebrates they find on the ocean floor. Hagfish have a very slow metabolism and can go for months without feeding. They can sometimes be a nuisance to fishermen because they can spoil an entire catch of deep sea fish before the catch can be hauled to the surface. One catch of fish can contain hundreds of hagfish. Very little is known about the reproductive habits of the hagfish. It has been observed that some hagfish species are actually hermaphroditic, which means that they are both male and female. Females will lay up to 30 tough, yolky eggs. These eggs tend to stick together due to velcro-like attachments on the ends. Hagfish are often found curled around their eggs, but it is not know if they actually take care of the eggs with any type of brooding behavior. Hagfish do not go through a larval stage like their cousins, the lampreys. The newly hatched young are nearly perfect miniatures of their parents. The are all born hermaphroditic, but will change to either male or female as they develop. That have the ability to change sexes from season to season. Since local populations of hagfish tend to be quite large, as many as 15,000, it is believed that they have a low mortality rate. The Atlantic hagfish is a deep-water fish. They can be found at depths of up to 5,600 feet (about 1,800 meters). They are known on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean as far north as Norway. Hagfish prefer soft sea bottoms where they can quickly bury themselves when threatened.
The common birdsfoot trefoil, known in Maltese as qrempuċ tal-mogħoż, is an annual plant that produces small, yellow flowers in winter and spring. It belongs to the leguminous family in which we also find important members such as beans, peas and sulla (silla), as well as a large number of indigenous and alien wild plants. Leguminous plants are found on all continents, except on Antarctica, and in most terrestrial habitats. The family consists of about 19,400 species; nearly 110 of these have been recorded in the Maltese islands. Legumes have been utilised by man since the earliest times. Common and broad beans have been cultivated for nearly 8,000 years in Europe, Asia and in the Americas. The flowers of the typical legume develop into a simple fruit known as a legume (miżwet). When mature, the dry legume splits open along a line of weakness to release the seeds. Beans and pea pods are typical legumes. Leguminous plants are also well known for being able to utilise atmospheric nitrogen. They do this by forming a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live in structures known as root nodules. The bacteria convert the nitrogen into compounds which can be utilised by the plants. The availability of a good source of nitrogen compounds allows leguminous plants to synthesise amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins, making leguminous plants a good source of proteins. Furthermore, when leguminous plants die and decompose, their nitrogen compounds enrich the soil and become important components of crop rotation systems. In crop rotation, farmers alternate non-legumes with leguminous plants. A typical rotation in Malta would be a crop of potatoes, followed by onions and then sulla. Crop rotation was widely practised in the past but nowadays farmers prefer to use synthetic fertilisers which sometimes cause more harm than good.
The seed of what would become One Earth Farms was planted years ago when Kevin Bambrough, the president and CEO of Sprott Resource Corp., was standing in the middle of a sprawling field on the Canadian Prairies. Bambrough discovered that most of the land around him belonged to First Nations, but that very few Aboriginals were involved in farming it (the land is instead leased out). He spotted a rare opportunity to grab a massive chunk of an industry that’s still dominated by smaller, family-owned farms in Canada, but where most of the money is increasingly being made by larger, corporate-run operations. “What was typically happening is, guys would come in and lease a smaller chunk of land for their family operation,” says Steve Yuzpe, the CFO of Sprott Resource, an arm of the investment firm founded by legendary investor Eric Sprott. “No one thought to take the next step.” That step was to launch negotiations with some 40 different First Nations who control two million acres of land in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and offer them a chance to participate in the business. The goal is to eventually create a giant, one-million-acre operation, scattered over the three provinces, that would rank among the biggest farms in the world. Launched last year with an initial $27.5-million investment, One Earth now boasts some 93,000 acres under administration, already making it the second-largest farm operation in the country. The farms raise livestock and grow canola, wheat, field peas, oats and barley. There are plans to add flax, lentils and chickpeas. It’s not yet a profitable enterprise, however. Because of its anticipated size, One Earth faces high start-up and labour costs. Potential revenues have also been impacted by an exceptionally rainy planting season that resulted in only 60 per cent of One Earth’s farmland being seeded. But it could have been worse. Yuzpe argues that a key aspect of One Earth’s model is that its farms are spread out over a large region, helping to mitigate such weather-related risks. Not everyone is convinced One Earth’s giant farm will work. Critics point out that One Earth may be geographically diversified, but they still have a lot riding on individual crops. “They have all of this land, so if prices drop they have huge losses,” says Kevin Wipf, the executive director of the National Farmers Union, adding that smaller farms can be more flexible. There are also concerns about the impact big corporate farms have on the land. While Sprott touts One Earth as being more sustainable because the landowners—the First Nations—are participants, others like Saskatchewan farmer and NFU president Terry Boehm note that several companies have tried and failed to manage vast agricultural regions. Sprott, however, believes the key to farming is size and access to capital—an approach that’s backed up by a 2008 Statistics Canada study that found that bigger farms tend to be more profitable. The company is also hoping to further boost profitability by eventually becoming more involved in the creation of food products that appear on grocery store shelves. “People understand that First Nations have a strong connection to their land and to ‘natural’ and ‘sustainable,’ and those are our beliefs as well,” says Yuzpe. “Down the road, I think there’s a real opportunity to create a real positive consumer brand associated with all of these products.”
In data storage, disk mirroring or RAID1 is the replication of logical disk volumes onto separate physical hard disks in real time to ensure continuous availability. A mirrored volume is a complete logical representation of separate volume copies. In a Disaster Recovery context, mirroring data over long distance is referred to as storage replication. Depending on the technologies used, replication can be performed synchronously, asynchronously, semi-synchronously, or point-in-time. Replication is enabled via microcode on the disk array controller or via server software. It is typically a proprietary solution, not compatible between various storage vendors. Mirroring is typically only synchronous. Synchronous writing typically achieves a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of zero lost data. Asynchronous replication can achieve an RPO of just a few seconds while the remaining methodologies provide an RPO of a few minutes to perhaps several hours. Mirroring is different from file shadowing. It is recognized that disks are an inherently unreliable component of computer systems. Mirroring is a technique to allow a system to automatically maintain multiple copies of data so that in the event of a disk hardware failure a system can continue to process or quickly recover data. Mirroring may be done locally where it is specifically to cater for disk unreliability, or it may be done remotely where it forms part of a more sophisticated disaster recovery scheme, or it may be done both locally and remotely, especially for high availability systems. Normally data is mirrored onto physically identical drives, though the process can be applied to logical drives where the underlying physical format is hidden from the mirroring process. Typically mirroring is provided in either hardware solutions such as disk arrays or in software within the operating system. There are several scenarios for what happens when a disk fails. In a hot swap system, in the event of a disk failure, the system itself typically diagnoses a disk failure and signals a failure. Sophisticated systems may automatically activate a hot standby disk and use the remaining active disk to copy live data onto this disk. Alternatively, a new disk is installed and the data is copied to it. In less sophisticated systems, the system is operated on the remaining disk until such time as a spare disk can be installed with minimum disruption. The copying of data from one pair of a mirror to another is sometimes called resilvering though more commonly it is simply known as rebuilding. During the rebuilding process, system performance is usually degraded as the disk system is fully occupied in copying data from one disk to the other. It is often misunderstood that mirroring of disks is a substitute for taking regular backups as it is incorrectly assumed that the only cause of data loss is disk failure. In fact the most trivial of user actions can delete data which then would need to be recovered, and in commercial operations it is far more likely that backups are used to recover from processing errors, user mistakes or vandalism, none of which are protected against by mirroring. Mirroring can be performed site to site either by rapid data links, for example fibre optic links, which over distances of 500m or so can maintain adequate performance to support real-time mirroring. Longer distances or slower links maintain mirrors using an asynchronous copying system. For remote disaster recovery systems, this mirroring may not be done by integrated systems but simply by additional applications on master and slave machines. It is differentiated from a snapshot in that there are no remaining links between the original (or source) and the copy (or mirror). Other benefits of mirroring In addition to providing an additional copy of the data for the purpose of redundancy in case of hardware failure, disk mirroring can allow each disk to be accessed separately for reading purposes. Under certain circumstances, this can significantly improve performance as the system can choose for each read which disk can seek most quickly to the required data. This is especially significant where there are several tasks competing for data on the same disk, and thrashing (where the switching between tasks takes up more time than the task itself) can be reduced. This is an important consideration in hardware configurations that frequently access the data on the disk. In some implementations, the mirrored disk can be split off and used for data backup, allowing the first disk to remain active. However merging the two disks then may require a synchronization period if any write I/O activity has occurred to the mirrored disk. Some mirroring schemes employ three disks, with two of the disks for the redundancy mirroring and the third to be split off for performing backups. In EMC nomenclature, the third disk is called a Business Continuance Volume (BCV).
outsourced/medstudent: break points/dawn breaks I started a new blog to vent about my med school life. I intend on using it more than this one for my friends who wish to follow my thoughts on life. I consider myself to be a strong person. Only two things have managed to bring me to my break point in my life; only one experience has totally undone me. But I must say, after 26 days of being holed up in a room with no responsibility other than the most intense studying of my life, Step 1 study… everyone just needs to get their shit together and the world would be a much better place. • 16 May 2012 “The biggest changes in a woman’s nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition” ― Rabindranath Tagore • 3 May 2012 Maths explains the origin of superhero characters • 11 February 2012 Life may be sad, but it's always beautiful: Literary Syndromes - Alice in Wonderland Syndrome Unlike the namesake of this disorder, sufferers of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome perceive their body parts and other objects in altered sizes. AIWS is commonly associated with migraines, brain tumors, use of psychoactive drugs, and signs of epilepsy and mononucleosis. This is also called Todd’s Syndrome. - Rapunzel Syndrome This syndrome is named after the fairy tale princess with beautiful and astonishingly long hair in one of Brothers Grimm’s bedtime stories. The Rapunzel Syndrome is a rare intestinal condition in humans resulting from tricophagia, or the abnormal urge to eat one’s hair. This diagnosis is medically referred to as trichobezoar. In ancient times, the hair found in intestinal tracks are believed to be an elixir of some sort, able to cure lots of diseases. - Cinderella Syndrome Named after the main character in one of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, this syndrome refers to the common phenomenon in kids where they make exaggerated stories about how they are abused, mistreated, or neglected by adoptive/step-parents. This is different from ‘Cinderella Complex’, which is said to be women’s fear of independence and an unconscious desire to be taken care of by ‘stronger’ others (like metaphorical Fairy God moms or Princes Charming). - Peter Pan Syndrome “I don’t want to grow up!” says J.M. Barrie’s popular character from Neverland. According to pop-psychology, sufferers of Peter Pan Syndrome are adults who are socially immature. They tend to avoid responsibilities and often feel the need to be mothered. - Dorian Gray Syndrome This syndrome is named after the handsome main character of Oscar Wilde’s book The Picture of Dorian Gray who sells his soul so that his portrait will age instead of himself. Sufferers of DGS are characterized by an excessive preoccupation with their physical appearances and youth, thus having problems in terms of coping with aging. Often, people with DGS have narcissistic traits and are heavily reliant on cosmetic procedures and products. - Othello Syndrome Sufferers of Othello syndrome, very much like the namesake of this disorder from one of Shakespeare’s works, are characterized by intense and often delusional distrust of their partners. This syndrome is also called morbid jealousy and is often associated with alcoholism and sexual dysfunction. It can also be found in the context of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. - Pollyanna Syndrome Named after Eleanor Porter’s protagonist in her best-selling children’s book, Pollyanna Syndrome is the psychological phenomenon wherein a person becomes blindly or foolishly optimistic to a point that it’s almost delusional. - Emperor’s Clothes Syndrome The Emperor’s Clothes Syndrome is more like a mentality than a disorder. It got its name from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale where no one in town—until the kid speaks—is pointing out that the Emperor is naked because no one wants to be called ‘stupid’ or ‘unfit’ for their positions. People who have ECS claim that they know something even if they don’t, in order to avoid being judged as stupid or intellectually inferior to others. - Mowgli Syndrome This syndrome is named after the beloved main character of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Mowgli. Mowgli is a boy who is raised by animals. Kids with this syndrome are said to have weak mental and/or physical traits, especially those who have suffered tremendous emotional stress due to parental neglect and abuse. - Huckleberry Finn Syndrome This is named after one of Mark Twain’s boy characters that became darlings to the readers, Huck Finn. It’s a psychodynamic complex in which the obligations and responsibilities avoided as a child, eventuate into frequent job changes and absenteeism as an adult. The HFS may be a defense mechanism linked to parental rejection, low self-esteem and depression in an intelligent person. For most people the word tantra seems synonymous with sex. I’ve spoken a lot about what tantra is beyond its misperceived sexual connotations. But to say that sex has nothing to do with tantra would be inaccurate. Tantra has something to do with everything. Everything. So sex is just as part of the process as eating a meal, meditating, or going to temple. Indulge me for a bit and think about sex abstractly. It’s a lust for another half, an act of complete acceptance of another being, and then taking that being into yourself. You aren’t thinking of the “world” as you know it, the city streets, the economy, television. If the sex is any good, all of your attention is brought directly into the moment. Feeling, experiencing your senses, being utterly present within yourself. Marveling in sheer adoration. And if it’s with someone you love, then there’s nowhere else you would rather be. This is how a tantrik yogi lives life. These are all qualities we should cultivate every moment of our lives. We should never want to be anywhere else other than where we are. A tantrik’s would is present within his senses, not surrendered to the abstract notions of time and space. To a tantrik, it is the common man’s world that is abstract. The “lofty realms of Nirvana”, on the other hand, are simple and present. In the tantrik worldview, your experience of existence is the sexplay of Shiva and Shakti (the goddess). Shakti is everything you experience: smells, sounds, feelings, thoughts, sights, ideas, inspiration, fire, water, etc. Shiva is the thing within, that sense of self, that experiences everything. Therefore a tantrik yogi seeks to experience this at all times before transcending that final duality into non-duality. Namaste. The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the winners: 1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time. 2. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole. 3. Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. 4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly. 5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. 6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid. 7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high 8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it. 9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. 10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.) 11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer. 12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you. 13. Glibido: All talk and no action. 14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. 15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web. 16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating. 13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist. 14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms. 15. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men
A Gallup survey released this week reveals that Mississippi remained the most religious US state in 2012, with 58% of its residents classified as very religious. At the other end of the spectrum, Vermont remained the least religious state, with 19% of its residents classified as very religious. The results are based on more than 348,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking in 2012, including more than 1,000 interviews. Overall, 40% of Americans nationwide were classified as very religious in 2012 — based on saying religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week. Thirty-one percent of Americans were nonreligious, saying religion is not an important part of their daily life and that they seldom or never attend religious services. A separate poll released by Gallup in January indicated that the percentage of “nones” in the U.S. — those not identifying with any particular religion — remained relatively flat in 2012 after growing 1.1 percent in each of the previous two years. The rise of the “nones” is a much-chronicled phenomenon, their ranks swelling by 22 percent over the past four years. Even so, a recent book titled “God is Alive and Well” by Gallup's editor-in-chief, Frank Newport, speculates that “religion will be even more important in years ahead," based on analysis of various factors and trends.
In war-torn Afghanistan, years of upheaval have taken a toll not only on the country's people... UA Grad Students Take on Tucson Revitalization Project This fall, the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning team will present the City of Tucson its official proposal including a master design plan and analysis, literature reviews and case studies. The proposal, requested from city planners and presented to various officials and community members, included bike and walking trails, farmer's markets and other shopping venues as well as a new stadium/concert venue to house events and link visitors to and from the east and west side of Interstate 10. Using existing and planned commuting routes such as bus, biking and the now under construction Modern Streetcar, the team of students led by associate professor Mark Frederickson envisions a sustainable oasis lined with cottonwoods and overhead aluminum shading features that guide pedestrians through the new development. Frederickson, who teaches in the UA School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, seeks opportunities and projects for his students to gain hands-on experience in the field and insight into the reality of the profession. The area the team focused on begins on the east side of Interstate 10 at the foot of Sentinel Peak, commonly known as "A Mountain," which would be the home of the proposed new stadium, and winds its way across Interstate 10 through Granada Avenue as it makes its way through Congress Street. Frederickson said the students' work is an extension of other proposals developed by previous student teams that have taken on proposals for downtown Tucson development. "The project entails the concepts of landscape architecture and its use as an effective catalyst for economic, environmental, social and aesthetic change in urban environments," he said. "And it is a remarkably effective tool for urban and small town revitalization." Downtown Tucson is one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in the Southwest and is where Tucson established its roots. The city's history brings with it three major landscape changes that occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries: - Its division and segregation from the rest of the city to the northeast by the foundation of the Union Pacific Rail line. - Its division from the west side of the city and the Santa Cruz River bed by the development of Interstate 10. - The immense demolition of its original layout and many of its oldest pueblos during urban revitalization projects in 1970s. The project seeks to connect and unify those landscape changes. The team included native Tucsonan members and one with three generations of history in the city. "I have learned so much about Tucson and the site. I did lots of research and also spoke to my grandfather. My parents grew up here, my mother in Barrio Libre and my father in Menlo Park. Those of us who are locals and worked on the project took it very personally, and if someone in the class proposed options where we'd have to get rid of this area or move it, we'd step in with history," said Micaela Machado, a second-year student in the master's program. The students were charged with introducing new ideas and struck another historical nerve with the concept of reintroducing water to the community at the Santa Cruz. Amid dry creosote flats and valleys of cactus, the river once ran year-round, providing the things most needed in a desert: water, shade and cooler microclimates. Its veining pattern was scattered with Arizona cottonwoods, visible from distant mountains. "Our team talked with water conservationists and river rehabilitation experts as well as representatives from Tucson Water, and those conversations made us realize the potential," said Machado, the student spokesman for the group. "Tucson can be a pioneer for sustainability in the Southwest and have riparian areas." The team proposal includes water harvesting for irrigation of a community garden and riparian areas and water features throughout. Next, in the fall the team will present the City of Tucson its official proposal with a master design plan and analysis, literature reviews and case studies.
It is a very great pleasure for me to introduce Marvin Bell. Marvin and I have been friends for forty years. We were together at the Iowa Writers Workshop in the sixties. At that time Marvin gave up soldiering to become a poet. That, by any measure, was a very good career change on his part. If he had stayed in the Army, being a bright and adventurous man, he would have risen rapidly in the ranks. He would have served in Vietnam. Undoubtedly it would have been Marvin, and not Martin Sheen who journeyed to the upper reaches of the Mekong River and took Marlon Brando out. The problem with Marlon Brando in that film, incidentally, was that he was reading T.S. Eliot instead of Marvin Bell. Anyway, to continue with Marvin's unrealized military career, he would surely have been Storming Norman Scwartzkopf's right hand man as they swept north across the desert in the that glorious Gulf War. And today he would be one of Rumsfield's cracked commanders over there bringing peace and prosperity to Iraq. Instead of achieving all that military glory, Marvin, to our great benefit, became a poet. He has written 17 books of poetry and essays. His success can measured by literally dozens of awards-from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Lila Wallace Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the State of Iowa, where he was named its first poet laureate. I could go on but these recitations run against the grain of Marvin's natural modesty. I will just add that we are very fortunate to have in his latest publication, Nightworks, Poems 1962-2000, a selection from all of his books of poetry. During the last decade Marvin has taken to writing poems about dead men and their skulls. These are ghastly poems, but very effective and even inspiring. Marvin's dead men do and say such interesting things that one almost wishes one were dead himself. Anyway, these macabre poems gave me the idea of ending this introduction with a poetic tribute of my own. So I have put together some Shakespeare and some Marvin Bell in a little ditty entitled "Marvin Bell as Yorick." Now Hamlet's ruminations on Yorick and his skull are obviously posthumous. My poem on the other hand--and I take some pride in this--has the advantage of being a pre-humous posthumous poem. That is the subject, though dead in the poem, is, as you see, very much alive in the present and can therefore enjoy the poem before he crosses over, as Hamlet says, into that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. Well, no traveler, that is, until Marvin started writing the dead man poems. OK then, with the help of this homemade prop, suggesting that I am, like Hamlet, holding a skull up before me, I will recite this brief poem, addressed, for this occasion, to Ed Schwarzchild, who by introducing me has to bear some responsibility for this evening's mischief. Welcome to the NY State Writers Institute's final afternoon seminar of the semester. Today we have the pleasure and privilege of hosting poet and activist Carolyn Forché. Those of you familiar with Ms. Forché's books of poems are familiar with her concern with human rights, the human condition, and the importance of memory. The Country Between Us (1982), and The Angel of History (1994), as well as the anthology she compiled and edited Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, and her many translations and articles, show her concern with people's forbearance and perseverance in the face of human-inflicted atrocities through out history and through out the world. In 1998 her concern and actions in bearing witness and preserving memory and culture, were recognized with the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation Award for Peace and Culture. Forché's new collection of poems blue hour deals with subjects similar to those in her previous books, but in a different approach. Whereas in her previous collections there were poems that dealt with specific historical places and horrors – El Salvador, Hiroshima, the Holocaust – blue hour spans all history, addressing situations and events of human inflicted suffering through specific images that are general enough to be applicable to numerous times and places. Thus, these poems are inclusive as they evoke questions about life, its beauty and horror, that pertain to many people and many places. Forché writes that the title blue hour comes from the French l'heure bleue, a phrase used to describe the "time between darkness and day, between the night of the soul and its redemption, an hour associated with pure hovering." In addition to this, she notes that blue is the color of the second sefirah in Kabbalah, and that in Tibetan Buddhism, the blue hour is a time of "clear light" "arising at the moment of death," this light being "the radiance of the mind's true nature." (71) This mystical yet earthly and human time is what these poems address: they luminously present being, they hover over moments of shifting life. There are no stories here, with neatly organized beginnings and endings belonging to a few; these are moments of existence, mystical moments anchored in common place events of daily life and the, unfortunately, constant horrors of 20th century brutality, which belong to all of us. On reading the 46 page poem "On Earth," one can't help but be reminded of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" for both poems create inclusion: Whitman lists and names all the kinds of people in the United States to insist on the multitudes of kinds of people here and to create a song of Americans. Forché creates tremendously evocative images that build and meld together to create the physical and philosophical conditions of existing "on earth," of the human condition. That this condition contains the horrible, and that Forché does not shirk from presenting it, powerfully, should surprise none of her readers. But the poem is also gorgeous. The images are linked lyrics or fragments of lyrics that soar on a shifting combination of the visual, the intellectual, and the emotional. One critic describes the movement of the poem as one of "strob-like intensity" (link Schley ). Others have described it in film terms saying it is "somewhere between screenplay and screen" creating "a trail of luminous images and scenes, personal flashbacks [in which] the politics and literature of the 20th century float toward the inevitable ghost-past-ghost-future." (Fanny Howe, bookjacket & Fogle http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/b/blue-hour.shtml) "On Earth" is an abecedary, a form organized according to an alphabetical progression by the first letter of the first word of the line. Forché, in a note at the end of the volume, mentions that "Gnostic abecedarian hymns date from the third century A.D. Along with Christian and Buddhist texts, they were recovered from small towns on the northern fringe of the Taklamakan Dessert early in the twentieth century," (71) a place, apparently, of religious mixing, which resonates in the spirituality of the poem. The poem is prefaced with a quote from George Burgess, which includes the lines: "In the immediate vicinity of death, the mind enters on an unaccustomed order of sensations, a region untrodden before, from which few, very few travelers have returned, and from which those few have brought back but vague remembrances." "On Earth" is a sensory reproduction of experiencing life amidst death and a history of deaths. It is the quintessential poem of witness. It is a poem for all of us, for all times. It's an honor to introduce award-winning writer Douglas Glover tonight. I must also confess that I found the task of preparing my remarks a bit daunting. There are nine books now, displaying a depth of philosophical, historical and literary learning, and the latest novel Elle from which you will hear tonight--it has recently been announced---is on the short list for Canada's top prize the Governor General's Award-the second time one of Glover's books has been so honored. [Since this speech was given Elle has won the Canada's 2003 Governor's General Award] So a little daunting. But let me begin. Douglas Glover's works inspires his reviewers to use rather colorful adjectives, nouns and adverbs to praise the work: They say, for example: ". . .stories are wildly inventive, deadpan comedies of our universal human catastrophe. They are demanding and wise-stories about language, desire and love (in a very dark place.)" (press release from Goose Lane) "The common thread in the stories is an urgent, energetic writing style and an unblinking focus on the human condition in extremis." (Phillip Santo) "The narrative is by turns funny, erotic, appalling and haunting" (David B. Mattern) "In the confines of a sentence (Glover) can stagger your mind with insight, flush your face with outrage, double you over with amusement or quite simply and sharply break your heart." (Lisa Carey) "This is not a book for the faint-hearted or the squeamish. You should probably forget about giving it to the mother-in-law for Christmas." (Lori Hahnel, Danforth Review) From Bad News of the Heart He says: "My point was that the books in one way or another, upset the apple cart that they work against what is expected, that they in some way challenge received notions whether these are literary, social or political. And this is precisely the kind of fiction I find interesting. It does things I haven't seen before. I do have a very conscious sense in selecting a book for publication that this is an author who is saying something people don't want to hear-that it will make them uncomfortable---even if they love the book." The unique mix of bawdy, Rabelasian humor and observation combined with a deep interest in the philosophical, the mystical, the aesthetic and the historical makes it clear why Doug's work fits the criteria and was chosen. Let me briefly expand further on the many ways the fiction works. The stories and novels succeed at the level of good story-telling, but there is also an attempt to grapple with philosophical issues including the quest for truth, the problem of identity, the problem of evil, the role of the aesthetic, the encounter with the other, the possibility of redemption and always and I think, Doug would say, most importantly, the complexity of love. Political issues such as feminism, capitalism, the identity of Canadians, and their effects on individuals also make their way into the stories as does an overarching sense of broad historical movements--such as the invention of the book--and their effects on the way humans understand themselves and conduct their lives. There is also a range in terms of style and subject manner from the straight realism, to magic realism, to farce, to a kind of Melvillian whimsy. More than one reviewer has commented on the sheer versatility of the work. Glover is also an essayist, thinker and teacher, writing on such subjects as the novel, literary history, the writing craft and contemporary writers including Margaret Atwood and Crista Wolf. Here, too he shows himself not unwilling to do war and to cut through confusion with sharp insightful words: "how sick I am of all those turgid log rolling arguments about whether novels should have ethical messages or whether they should be purely aesthetic confections. Most writers strike a balance that somehow suits their particular temperaments." Last and certainly not least, something must be said of the master craftsmanship of the books---the sheer beauty of the sentences, but perhaps, as impressive is the way Glover can explain to you not only the choices he's made but their literary or philosophical roots; Rabelais, Schopenhour, Levi-Strauss, Kant, Cortazar, DeFoe to name but a few of those. The words passionate, meticulous and hard-working often come to mind when I think of trying to describe Doug. The value of Glover's work has been recognized. As I mentioned he's now been twice short listed for Canada's highest literary prize, The Governor's General Award. Once in 1991 for A Guide to Animal Behavior and now in 2003 for Elle. [Since this speech was given Elle has won the 2003 Governor's General Award] He was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Award for Fiction for Sixteen Categories of Desire. H.J.Kirchoff selected The Life and Times of Captain N as a Globe and Mail top ten paperback of 2001 His first novel Precious was a finalist for the First Novel Award, Books in Canada. His work has been in Best American Short Stories, Best Canadian Stories, The Journey Prize Anthology among other collections. He has been a Contributor to New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Book Review, Washington Post Book World, Tribune Books, Montreal Gazette, and Toronto Globe and Mail. Born Nov. 14, 1948 in Simcoe, Ontario, he graduate from York University, and the University of Edinburgh and received his MFA from the University of Iowa. He worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan and traveled in the Southern U.S. He landed in upstate New York in the early 90's where he continues to reside with his two children Jacob and Jonah. He has worked at the University of Vermont, Skidmore College and right here at UAlbany. I now present to you,--reading from his latest award-winning book, Elle,--Douglas Glover. Ha Jin: Constantly, it’s always kind of an alien language. At the time I started learning it, I was 20 years old…almost 21. An acquired language is not a language I feel at home with at all. But, as you know, I have been making a living at this for a while, and it just stays. And all my degrees are in English. I couldn’t find any other kind of employment. I did try to look for jobs related to Chinese, such as teaching the language, and translation, or work for newspapers. But nobody would hire me because I didn’t have a degree in Chinese. Interviewer: Critics remark on the brilliance of your English. Do you feel that not being at home in the language has helped you in a paradoxical way? Ha Jin: I don’t know…I think there are more difficulties than advantages. And I do feel that that means that I have to work harder, and be aware of my weaknesses. For instance, I can’t be very natural, like a native speaker in the language. I think a lot of the accent of immigrant writers is hard to escape. For instance, in your native language, you can write energetically, or more with syntax, and other aspects. But it’s very hard for you to play with it in English, or to write a dialogue. It’s very hard. I don’t mean that it’s impossible, but it is more difficult. Interviewer: Do you compose mentally in English? Or do you find that you need to translate from Chinese? Ha Jin: I have to compose everything in English. If I am writing the piece in English, from the very beginning I have to think in English. Otherwise, I won’t have the rhythm there, with the writing. Interviewer: Are there any things that would be easier to write in Chinese? Ha Jin: I think any good piece of writing is difficult. Just to finish it means a lot of labor, no matter what language. But for me, I think it would have been easier. I never had the chance to write in Chinese, the way I work in English. In English, I have to revise and revise, and edit and edit, until I’m sick of the thought of that piece. But in Chinese, I never reached that stage. But I guess, if I had had the opportunity, it might have been easier. But, I think the amount of labor would be similar, because, writing in your native tongue, your standard would be different, I guess. Also, your sense of when you were finished would probably be different. So the labor is always there. Interviewer: Do the two languages have their own special limitations? Or are there things that you feel that you would not be able to express in English, or things that you feel you would not be able to express in Chinese? Ha Jin: Yes, I feel English is a very flexible language, and Chinese is very adaptable, too. But I think English is more speculative, very often more accurate. You always have one thing, one word, or one object, for one idea. It’s very clear. Whereas Chinese is rather loose with some things. I think that when the Chinese language describes objects and physical things, it’s very concrete. It’s pretty good. But when the language turns speculative, dealing with ideas, English is much more accurate. Also, in Chinese the written and spoken languages are different; that’s another problem. In English we don’t have that problem; we always emphasize natural speech, and that’s always a virtue. But in Chinese, I don’t think you can write the way you speak. It is very difficult. There is always a literary discourse. That’s another issue one has to be aware of. That means, if you write in Chinese, you have to be literary in a conventional way, more or less. Interviewer: Is the limit a cultural convention, or is it that the language itself cannot be rendered in a conversational tone? Ha Jin: Both, because in the origin of the language, the written word was fixed by an enforcing power. The first emperor decrees and all the different kinds of scripts were eliminated. So, there was only one official script, which fixed the written language in time. As a result, the writing is always stable, compared to the speech. There are different kinds of dialects, and for me, many of them are foreign languages; I can’t understand them at all. But when the Chinese come to the page, there people share the same written word. I think it’s a bad thing. The language itself has critical great poetry written in it, but I think it hurts the language. To some extent, it doesn’t have the emotion of the spoken word, or natural speech. Interviewer: Have you ever translated your work into Chinese from English? Ha Jin: Only once. It was a book of short stories. I only did it because it was a difficult book. The English words were subtle, so it’s very hard to put into Chinese. Besides, there are many voices, so it was difficult to translate. That’s why my wife and I did the work. Still, it doesn’t work as well as it does in English. Interviewer: Do you think you’ll ever do that again? Ha Jin: Unlikely. So far, it’s always been somebody else who does the translation. First of all, I’m a Professor of English. I have to teach. I have my publications, which should be in English; Chinese doesn’t count. I have to survive. Also, once I’ve decided to write in English, that means I give up Chinese. I can’t change my mind. This was fifteen years ago I made this decision; I don’t have that many years to wait to learn how to use a different way. That’s why I want to focus on English, and that means I can take this easily, but that’s something I have to sacrifice. Interviewer: Do you think that there would be a Chinese-speaking audience for your work? Is there already? Ha Jin: I think so, yes. But in Mainland China, only Waiting was published, and cut at some severity as well. So I don’t see when the other works would be published. I think only a book that is not politically offensive to the authorities might be published. But all the other books are published in Taiwan. I would say yes, the books are well received. Also, there’s a Chinese Diaspora. There is an audience for my work. Not a big one, but there is a steady group. Interviewer: You’ve often talked about writing in order to survive, and that can make creating an urgent matter to you. But does that sometimes overwhelm the creative impulse? Does it just paralyze you? Isn’t there an aspect of fear involved? Ha Jin: Sure. Fear is always part of it, always a part of it. That’s a part of the creative process that you have to deal with, and that’s normal. Also, I don’t think that that’s true only for a writer in my situation. For any writer, if you are not sure of your project, or the book you are going to write, there’s always that fear. It’s almost a normal part of the psychology. In the beginning it can be very frightening. You don’t know whether the book will be good, who will publish it. Everything is uncertain. But eventually, you will learn that this is a part of the process. You have to bear with it, there is no other way to do this. So fear, risk, uncertainty—these are just part of the process. Interviewer: Could you describe for us what your general writing process is? Do you write first thing every morning, or do you wait for a lightning bolt of inspiration, or until your ideas come and seep under your skin? Ha Jin: Most of the time, I write in the morning, but if I teach sometimes I can’t. If I don’t teach, I’ll always work in the morning. Always, once you have the time, you can be lazy. If you don’t have time, and you’re always in a hurry, you force yourself to work. So it’s harder in that way, in the fact that you cannot follow it very strictly. I try to write something every day. It doesn’t need to be new things, but sometimes I’ll just do some revision and edit. Most of the time I start in longhand, for the first draft, then put it into the computer. For the rewrite, I work on the screen, and rewrite it many times, until I feel that this has stabilized. Then I print out the hard copy and work with different colored pens, editing. This process is repeated many times, through many drafts of the hard copy. Usually there are 4 or 5 revisions. That’s how I work. Nowadays though, most of the time I don’t write longhand anymore, because to me it would be similar labor. That means I work harder on the computer, with more drafts and more hard copies down the road. I only write longhand when the story isn’t very clear. In a way, when you write, I think your hand is trying to figure out how it works, and for me that might work better. Interviewer: A lot of writers who come here confess to us that they dread teaching, that teaching robs them of time or energy. I was wondering if in some way teaching has enriched your work, or has in any way been a positive influence. Ha Jin: I think so, yes. It takes a lot of time, sure. Sometimes if you don’t have a good class, you feel you’re just wasting your time. But I learned a lot from my teaching, especially in the early years. I have studied textbooks and the skills—how to read stories, and poems with very clear phrasing, so you could calmly analyze. So that in a way helped me to understand the craft. I especially think that teaching literature is very helpful for a writer, because it always reminds you of the standard. What is good, or what a good book should be like, and how it is made. There are always some basic opinions we know, but we tend to forget. Teaching is a way to remind ourselves of what should be remembered. In that sense, I think it is rewarding in it’s own way, but it takes a lot of time, and a lot of the same energy used for your own writing. On the other hand, it is much better to have a steady income, because you can’t depend on the sales of books. Sometimes a good book, a really good book, may not sell at all. The tyranny of book marketing is worse than teaching I guess. It’s much worse than that. Interviewer: You’ve described yourself as a young teenager, as being illiterate. I was wondering to what degree you were illiterate. Ha Jin: I could write a very short letter, I could figure out how to read a newspaper a little, but other than that it would be difficult. I remember when I was 15 (yes, that was in ’71), some classics were re-published in Chinese. I bought a novel but I couldn’t read it. The first two pages took me four or five hours. So, as a result, I had to study the dictionary first, a very small dictionary called New China Dictionary. I had to study the dictionary to know some basic words, and after that I could read the novel. So I was at least half-illiterate. Interviewer: Were your parents readers? Ha Jin: Yes. My father used to bring home a lot of books, hundreds of them. But, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, all the books were burned. So, when I began to be interested in books, I didn’t have anything to read. Among my uncles there, there was a good scholar; he went to college and had been a teacher for many years. So the family had a use for a lot of books. Interviewer: Was there a sense that literature was precious, because it was so hard to obtain? Ha Jin: Later on, yes. But at that time we really didn’t have anything to read, other than revolutionary writings and propaganda stuff. Later on, gradually I realized that literature is a different kind of writing. This is a process. I can’t tell you what year I began to pay attention to good, literary writing. Step by step, I began to be more interested, more attached, to literature. Interviewer: Would that be true of Chinese culture in general? The fact that literature is difficult to obtain, or is rare, or tightly controlled. Does that make it more precious, something held in higher regard? Whereas, in this country, has freedom cheapened literature in some way? Ha Jin: It used to be like that. But very similar to the States, now in China people own private businesses, and most people are interested in making money and getting rich. When most books were banned, there was a sense that a good book is something very different and precious. I think I saw this when I read a few hundred novels (they were not good at all), but at the time there was nothing else. Once anyone had written a book, basically, people just copied them. So, there was a sense of this. There are good writings that were lost, not just the propaganda stuff. Interviewer: Is there an explosion of new Chinese writing that you’re aware of? Ha Jin: Yeah. After the Cultural Revolution in the early eighties, and then in the nineties. There are always new generations, one generation after another. I don’t know how much of it is good, but there is always a new group, a new movement. There is a literary explosion here, a mystic generation, that kind of literary movement. Very often, every ten years you have one or two. Interviewer: Do you read it? Ha Jin: Occasionally, because sometimes there are just good literary works written by new writers, though not often. But often if the work is translated into English, I have to read it because people ask me to comment. Interviewer: I’ve read in an interview that you cited the Russian novelists as one of your influences. I was wondering if you would talk about what you admire in their work. Ha Jin: Sure. Russian authors were not banned in China, even during the revolution. They were not banned, but I think that most young people had that rebellious spirit—whatever it is that you were told to do, you wouldn’t listen, so most people really wanted to learn about literature by Westerners—European and American authors. So, we didn’t pay much attention to the classical Russian authors. It wasn’t until I came to the States, and found many American authors (especially short story writers) would read Chekhov very intently, and so I began to become interested in Chekhov, Isaak Babel, Gogol, and Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, later on. I do feel that they’re closer to my heart, because the world that they describe is very similar to where I grew up. And I feel emotionally, it’s very close to my life. So that’s why I think I often read the Russian authors. Also, I think they are great, especially Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. They have huge, big heart, very spacious. Interviewer: Where does your writing urge come from? Or what compels you to write? Ha Jin: I think the word you used at the beginning, survival, is a major part. Survival, on the one hand, in the physical sense—it helps you keep your job, support your family, and get published in order to get tenure. There are all kinds of physical aspects. There’s also an existential aspect, or dimension. That is, I want to make sense of my life, and one way to do this is to write. That also means I couldn’t do anything else, and this is something I can do. Either way, it’s to claim your own existence, I guess, not just to physically survive, as a human being. Interviewer: Critics have talked about the fact that there’s a sense of determinism in your writing. Your characters are often compelled, by some internal urge coming into conflict with some external force, and I was wondering if you feel a kinship with those characters? Or do you think your characters really do have choices, like you have freedom to make choices, and so on? Ha Jin: I think choices are always limited. Freedom is not absolute. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be freedom. It depends on which character. Sometimes, I do have a lot of attachment or attraction to my characters. But sometimes, if you have a bad character, I feel resentment, even disgust, with them. It really depends on which one—what part of it, what part of the book, what part of the story, and what kind of people are in it. I do feel, more or less, that they’re all my creations so I can’t just say I have no connection with them at all. It’s hard to say which one I like better, or which one I like less. They’re all human beings. I think that’s my purpose with writing, to present a human being, with different dimensions. They should be round, and not just a flat character. Interviewer: Isolation can be an advantage for a writer, and a disadvantage. I was wondering if you could talk about your own isolation, the various kinds of isolation that you’ve experienced, and how they’ve affected you. Ha Jin: You know, I think we all work to be read; that’s why we try to publish. So, isolation cannot be absolute. But I do believe that isolation is a kind of working condition. If you want to work on a book, you have to be relatively isolated. Especially for fiction writers, you have to sit down and work many hours a day in order to finish the book. So, that is a necessary working condition. I think sometimes, I even long for that feeling, because now I have to be involved in many activities, so sometimes I miss the isolation of the early years. I think it’s very important. Also, some writers would say that it’s loneliness that can nourish their art. It may be because you think differently, and have a different kind of companionship, when you are isolated. Very often it’s a spiritual, and not physical companionship. So I think it is a good feeling for writers, especially for young writers; I think it’s absolutely necessary. Born in mainland China, Ha Jin [Xuefei (pronounced Shu-Fay) Jin] grew up in a small rural town in Liaoning Province. From the age of fourteen to nineteen he volunteered to serve in the People's Liberation Army, staying at the northeastern border between China and the former Soviet Union. He began teaching himself middle-and high-school courses in his third year in the army, which he left in the sixth year because he wanted to go to college. But colleges remained closed during the Cultural Revolution, which continued when he was demobilized, so he worked as a telegrapher at a railroad company for three years in Jiamusi, a remote frontier city in the Northeast. During this time, he began to follow the English learner's program on the radio, hoping that someday he could read Friedrich Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 in the English original. In 1977 colleges reopened, and he passed the entrance exams and went to Heilongjiang University in Harbin where he was assigned to study English, even though this was his last choice for a major. He received a B.A. in English in 1981. He then studied American literature at Shandong University, where he received an M.A. in 1984. Ha Jin came from China to America to study literature at Brandeis University in 1985, receiving his Ph.D. in 1993. During this time he studied fiction writing at Boston University with the novelists Leslie Epstein and Aharon Appelfeld. Ha was still planning to go back to China when the People's Army opened fire on students protesting in Tiananmen Square. Ha Jin and his wife decided that they could not return. () When asked which novelists have influenced him, Ha Jin notes that he "couldn't avoid being influenced" by Lu Xun, a Chinese novelist influenced by the Russian novelists. When he found out this connection, he went directly to the Russians and includes them as his influences as well as V.S. Naipaul, Alice Munro, Saul Bellow, Adrienne Rich, and Susako Endo. (Bookreporter) … As a fortunate one I speak for those unfortunate people who suffered, endured or perished at the bottom of life and who created the history and at the same time were fooled or ruined by it. If what has been said in this book is embarrassing, then truth itself is cold and brutal. If not every one of these people, who were never perfect, is worthy of our love, at least their fate deserves our attention and our memory. They should talk and be talked about. So writes Xuefei Jin in the introduction to Between Silences: A Voice From China, (1988) his first book of poetry in which we are introduced to modern life in China. The voices here, the poems in this collection, cover a spectrum of perspectives: from those of a dead soldier - who died retrieving a statute of Chairman Mao – to a battalion commander dealing with the mother of a dead soldier, to the voices of children in the classroom conditioned to not be ambitious, to the voices of 14-year-old children going off to war, to a mother who has sent her daughter to be in the army. The straight-forward simplicity of the narratives understate the emotional tension, which they quietly and forcefully build. In "The Dead Soldier's Talk," the first poem of the collection, a soldier petitions a younger brother or friend to read to him from the "red treasure book" citing his poor memory. It has been six years since he died while saving a statue of Mao. For the reader, but not the speaker, the loss of the speaker's memory parallels the change in the visitor who once vowed to see the dead soldier as a role model, but now only weeps. The memory loss and the move to weeping indicate a distancing from the valuing of such self-sacrifice for a symbol, and, consequently, to the ideology the symbol stands for. The dead soldier never complains. He inquires after his mother and sister. But he is forgetting the words of Mao and he knows something is upsetting his visitor, but does not understand what that would be. The pathos is in his dedication, his desire for more words from the "red treasure book," in conjunction with his potential to discover his loss. He does note that his little sister will be bigger, but the significance of this, that life has gone on without him, has not yet dawned on him. This is contrasted to the weeping of the friend who in weeping acknowledges the loss of a life. The final poem in the collection is "Because I Will Be Silenced." It complements the initial poem of the book in that both deal with kinds of death, one giving voice to the dead, the other is the living man who experiences a kind of death in being silenced. This poem begins:Once I have the freedom to say my tongue will lose its power. Since my poems strive to break the walls that cut off people's voices, they become drills and hammers. This is a fear of impotence, or of a kind of possible drowning inherent in the freedom to say what one wants, where and whenever one wants. Note that the poem's first word is "once" implying that this condition of freedom has not happened yet. This is intriguing as the poems have been clear about the dangers and constraints that people in China were/are living under. The lines "The starred tie around my neck/ at any moment can tighten into a cobra." make it clear that the speaker fears repercussions for his actions, his writing. "The freedom to say," apparently, is not merely site-specific. It is not enough that the speaker is no longer in China. The constraints of being raised a particular way – plus the fear, perhaps, of reprisals targeting relatives still in China – are still present. There is a palpable difference in the quality of anger in Ha's second collection of poems Facing Shadows (1996). The method is still indirect, presenting the situations of people in their voices, yet the anger is stronger, less restrained, perhaps less depressed. Also Ha addresses his particular situation of writing in a non-native language, in a foreign country and issues relative to living in the U.S. In "June 1989" addressed "to a poet in China" the speaker writes of the horrible events concerning Tiannamen square. He dreams that a friend was arrested, dreams the fear, the humiliation, the abuse, and then writes:Since June third my dreams have run wild, craving to kill the killers as if their lives were no more than flies. Such simple, direct statements contain a wealth of emotional intensity. The displacement of desire to "kill the killers" from waking life to dreamlife underscores a belief in a morality that says it is not good to kill at all. The waking self knows killing is an evil, but the dream self, feeling the horror of the massacre, unashamedly desires retribution. This stanza is followed by an explicit description of an atrocity:On television I saw a truck of soldiers pass by and shoot three men who were watching them move out. A small girl hid in a rickshaw, but thirty-nine bullets smashed the vehicle and the life inside. Behind her stood a placard: People are no longer afraid of death, why do you threaten us with death? These last two lines of this quote shouts a determination that is echoed both in the speaker's dreams and in the final stanza of the poem:… An end? Who knows when it will end? From fresh stumps hidden in sleeves deadly hands are growing. From curses behind doors, from groans in dreams, an eyeless typhoon is gathering. There is no end, no end to the desire for a different life – for freedom – no end to the violence. The Chinese government has not "ended" anything. A poem concerned with a different aspect of freedom, freedom under very different circumstances, occurs later in the collection. The speaker of "Gratitude" considers his own expectations, both of getting a job and of what freedom is. He anticipates his gratitude at getting a job, but then doesn't get one. This leads to a meditation on "the fate of Tu Fu and Li Po – / two great poets who had the bitterest of lives." The direction of the poem turns again as the speaker decides he is arrogant to link himself to these poets as he and his family are doing ok:… I am fortunate, for my family is sheltered and we do not starve, and I can even afford to stay in a hotel where a thousand lectures are delivered in two days, where professors look awesome as speakers and hirers. Yet, do not mention again the beauty of this free land. Freedom here is not a way of living but a way of selling and buying. To survive one has to learn how to sell oneself and how to trim oneself into a bolt or a nut to match the machine of a profession. Still, I cannot but feel grateful for being allowed to stay or go, for knowing one price of freedom. The speaker has observed that free-market freedom has conditions, which does not make it any the less valuable nor desirable, but that it was not what he had thought. "A dreamy and beautifully written novel" is how K. Kunhikrishnan describes Ha Jin's novel Waiting (1999). The novel was published in an expurgated version in China, as it was considered by the Chinese government to be a plot to show "China's backwardness and the stupidity of the Chinese people." The novel is about a couple waiting 18 years to get married – 18 years of separation is needed so that the man, Lin Kong, a doctor, may get a divorce from his wife without her consent. "Ha Jin profoundly understands the conflict between the individual and society, between the timeless universality of the human heart and constantly shifting politics of the moment. With wisdom, restraint, and empathy for all his characters, he vividly reveals the complexities and subtleties of a world and a people we desperately need to know," (Judge's Citation, National Book Award). Ha Jin's newest novel The Crazed (2002) is set during the Tiananmen Square tragedy of 1989. Bill Robinson, writing for mostlyfiction.com, describes it as written in a style of "sparse photo-realism. Everything is presented straight on and formally, in sharp focus with few extraneous details. The structure of the novel is theatrical with numerous short scenes that keep the narrative moving and give the book a serial, episodic flavor. This is an easy book to read, a hard one to put down." In the novel, Jian Wan sits by the bedside of his professor, and future father-in-law, Yang on the day after the horrors that occurred at Tiananmen Square. Yang has suffered a stroke and his rantings about life as a professor under Communist rule lead Jian to change his academic, and hence, his life plans. "Writing with a searing restraint born of long-brewing grief over the Chinese government's surreal savageness, Ha Jin depicts a warped society in which everyone is driven mad by viciousness and injustice. But Ha Jin's dramatic indictment does not preclude love, or the ancient power of story to memorialize, awaken compassion, and shore up hope" (Donna Seaman, Booklist).P.R. Dyjak, Graduate Assistant, NY State Writers Institute Ha Jin, of course, has not just traveled from Boston to be with us; he was born and raised in China, where his early education was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, which closed schools for a period throughout Mainland China. In the years that followed, Ha Jin became a member of the Little Red Guard, and spent five-and-a-half years in the People’s Liberation Army. After leaving army service, he eventually earned both a bachelors and masters degree in American Literature. He came to the United States in 1986 to begin doctoral work at Brandeis University. He planned to complete his doctorate and return to teach at a university in China. However, he chose to remain in the United States after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Fortunately for all of us, he also choose to enroll in the creative writing program at Boston University, where as I’ve said, he studied with Leslie Epstein. Since coming to this country, Ha Jin has published three collections of poetry, three short story collections, and three novels. He has managed somehow to be prolific, while always holding his work up to the highest standards. And the work has brought him numerous awards. I’ll just name a few. His first short story collect, Ocean of Words, won the Hemmingway/PEN Award for short fiction. His second story collection, Under the Red Flag, won the Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction. The stories in the collection The Bridegroom won the Asian-American Literary Award. Individual stories of his can be found in three Pushcart Prize Collections, and four volumes of Best American Short Stories. Perhaps his best-known work so far is the novel Waiting, which received both the National Book Award, and the PEN/ Faulkner Award. His most recent novel is The Crazed, which is set during the Tiananmen Square Uprising. Leslie Epstein has also covered a great deal of territory before arriving here in Albany today. He did not, of course, grow up in China. He did, however, grow up in a place that some of us might view as a foreign country; that is, right around Hollywood California. His father and uncle were the legendary screenwriting team of Bill and Julius Epstein, two men who wrote dozens of films including The Man who Came to Dinner, Arsenic and Old Lace, and arguably the best film every made, Casablanca. One might say that Leslie Epstein also learned a second language; he moved east to study at Yale, where he began by writing plays, but eventually turned to novels. And we’re very lucky that he did. He’s published nine books of fiction, perhaps the most famous of them until now has been the novel King of the Jews, which is widely known as a classic of Holocaust literature. The other books include Pinto and Sons, Goldkorn Tales, Pandaemonium, and Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail. His articles and stories have appeared in all of the major newspapers and magazines: The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Yale Review, Triquarterly, The Nation, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Book Review, among others. He has won numerous awards and fellowships for his work. There has been a Rhodes Scholarship, a Fullbright and Guggenheim fellowship, an award for Distinction in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a residency at the Rockefeller Institute in Bellagio, and many grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. I said that King of the Jews had been his most famous work up until now. I say that because his new novel, San Remo Drive, may soon become that famous if not more so. The characters we encounter in this book are unforgettable; it’s a moving, beautifully written novel. Throughout, the prose is absolutely stunning, and an utter joy to read. One of the many glowing reviews declares that San Remo Drive is among the four best novels ever written about Hollywood, and one of the other three, I should say, is his novel Pandaemonium. So that’s two of the four, actually. So, that should give you a sense of who our guests are today. I hope you all welcome them to our not-so-sunny, but lovely University at Albany. Audience Member: I would like to start with a question for Mr. Jin about Waiting. I was hoping that you could discuss your theme of abuse that runs through the novel. For instance, in the end, who do you think did more damage to Manna: Geng Yang, or Lin? Ha Jin: Both of them did a lot of damage, I think. But there is intended damage and unintended damage. By nature, one of the characters did not have a good heart, and he ended up hurting everybody, all of the people close to him. But, this is implied; I don’t think the book will really describe that to you, in real terms. Whereas, by comparison, Geng Yang is an evil character. He hurt others intentionally, and in that sense, he does embody the evil thoughts. Audience Member: The book is entitled Waiting; does that mean that Lin is waiting for something? It didn’t seem to me like he really understood what he even wanted. Ha Jin: Yes, and I think that’s the irony. Some of the characters in the book didn’t know what they were waiting for. That’s why the Lin character expected something, but didn’t know what that was. That’s one of the themes of the book. Audience Member: Then does that go beyond Lin? I was confused whether it just meant that Lin didn’t know what he was waiting for, or if that applied to everybody. Ha Jin: For many years, Manna, his second wife, doesn’t know either. But I think the first wife intrinsically knows. She’s the person who is sure of herself, so that’s a different kind of waiting. She waits for him to return to her. Audience Member: This is for Mr. Epstein. I read a book about a year ago called A Double Dying, and in it there’s a chapter called "Exploiting Atrocity." Alvin Rosenfeld says that the book King of the Jews is a morally bankrupt book. It exploits atrocity in a way that’s not respectable. Obviously, you don’t agree with that (and I don’t agree with it either), but could you answer that, for the people who make that claim? How do you respond to that? Epstein: The book came out in ’79. Twenty-three or twenty-four years ago, I got into such trouble with the Jews over this. I know Alvin Rosenfeld; he has sort of apologized since then, because, to his own surprise, the book has lasted. A new edition has just come out, in fact. I think what Alvin didn’t realize, is the distinction between fiction and non-fiction. He’s a historian, and historians are at war with such things as irony, and with artistic necessity. I needed a river in my town, which was based on Lodz, so I took the river from Warsaw and moved it to Lodz. There is such a thing as poetic or artistic license, and I used it. What he really was complaining about, I think, was the tone of the book, and the humor in King of the Jews. Since I wrote King of the Jews, the archives of the Lodz ghetto were discovered—records kept by five Jews for the town—which recorded the extinction of Jewish life in that town. And they’re very funny. At least one of them has a tone eerily like the ironic tone that I adopted for King of the Jews. Much of the other humor—the intended humor, the jokes in the book—were taken from the Warsaw Ghetto diaries of Ringelblum, which were buried at Warsaw. And you know, when Jews get together they tell jokes, even if it’s on the gallows, and it was gallows humor. I’ll just end by saying that I think that the book was before its time: King of the Jews came out twenty-four years ago. Now, you have Life is Beautiful (not a film that I much like, actually), but it’s easier to see the Holocaust with a kind of dark humor that wasn’t possible then. And I think Alvin’s come to realize that a bit. Audience Member: I wonder how you feel, as a writer, while writing suspense. Do you sometimes feel that you want to do the opposite of what you have written, or what you were going to do, or do you just know where you’re going very strongly? Epstein: I should say that it’s a pleasure for any teacher to be sitting between two of his successful students, not just Ha Jin but Ed (Schwarzschild). And of course, Ed’s still looking for an A, and that’s why you heard that nice introduction. But anyway, Ed may remember me saying this. When asked "How much of the ending of a novel should a writer know?" I always say about 71%. And you can ask Ha Jin the same. It seems to me, if you know absolutely where you’re going, it’s easier to write the book, but it won’t be such a good book. There won’t be room, for what I think you’re alluding to, which is self-discovery, surprise, and changes of mind. But if you know not much more than half, you’re going to flounder a bit. So it’s good to have a general sense of where you’re going. If you’re asking about suspense in this book in particular, someone said to me recently, "Oh I was so upset about the children, I didn’t want anything to happen to them and I was so worried." I did know that nothing was going to happen to them; it wasn’t in these people to really harm children. There are harmed children in the book, but not physically. So I did know that. Ha Jin: Yes, I think Leslie is right. You always know the right direction. But I think it’s also very difficult to know exactly where the story goes, and also, in the process you realize that you can’t make some connections, and there are things that you don’t yet understand. That’s the really hard part. That’s why it’s so important to understand your material to begin with, so you will know how to bring out or suggest all the nuances. It’s very difficult. Audience Member: This is for Ha Jin. In both of your books, you have very strong characters. I like your character development, especially Shuyu—I’m a fan of hers (laughter). When I was reading, I really got into her, and just now when you said that she was a very strong woman, well, you can look at her and say "you’re a woman," but I think on any scale, she was just strong. When you were writing her, was there a specific person whom she was based on, or was this a multiple-research type thing and she was based on a lot of people? Ha Jin: Not really, but I grew up in the countryside, and my father was an army officer, so we moved around a lot. I spent a long time with peasants, kids and families. So I think this older woman character really just came to me naturally. Audience Member: I have a question about what made Richard [in San Remo Drive]so bitter. He seemed to have a negative attitude towards everything, even before the father died, when he was unprovoked. He seemed very disrespectful to me, though completely unprovoked. Epstein: That’s news to me. I’m interested that you had that response to him. Since he’s based on me, I sort of think of him as a fine fellow (laughter). Optimistic, and cheerful, and straightforward wherever he goes. But, apparently not. Can you give me an example of his negativity? Audience Member: One thing is his attitude towards his nanny’s husband. When he goes out to the car, and then comes back, and other people were beating up on him and calling him names, he didn’t really seem to care about this guy who was outside, getting beat up. He also seemed very disrespectful toward his parents, especially his mom. Epstein: Well, if you had such a mother…(laughter). In that particular scene, towards the servants, I think he loves the servants. I think that on the whole, it comes through that he loves Arthur and Mary. Remember, he thinks Arthur is being beaten up, but he’s not; Arthur has just gotten drunk and is having a good time across the street. But what I wanted to show there, was the reaction of his brother Bartie. Richard—you’re right, you’ve picked something up—is quiet, and thinking about safety, and getting out of there, and calling the police. But his disturbed younger brother is the one who reacts, and he throws open the door and says "Leave him alone, leave him alone." What I wanted to show there is that the younger, imperfect person, has the more perfect reaction. Whereas, the more self-secure, perhaps complacent, and mature narrator, doesn’t respond well to that crisis. The more innocent, naïve, and troubled young man—his brother Bartie—does. So I sort of wanted to shift the focus to Bartie’s reaction there, because I wanted to show that Richard was neutral. That’s what you’re picking up. He wasn’t really disrespectful, but he didn’t do the right thing, whereas his brother did. Audience Member: Mr. Epstein, in San Remo Drive: A Novel From Memory, how much of the story is actually autobiographical, and how much of it is made up? Epstein: Very good question. These are the recollections of my childhood, but the different segments of the book have different degrees of recollection. The story "Malibu" is almost entirely as a I remember it; that doesn’t mean that that’s the way it was, but it’s as I remember it. I mean, there was that phony Frenchman; I didn’t like him at all. He took me out on that rowboat, and I was absolutely certain that he was going to kill me. He didn’t. And then, over a lifetime, you come to realize, as I say in the last chapter of the book—and it’s a difference between life as you live it, and what you can accomplish through art—he didn’t want to kill me. I wanted to kill him, and I projected those feelings onto him. That story is almost entirely as I remember it. The others are more or less true. There’s a germ of recollection in all the tales. My mother’s death is exactly as I experienced it just a few years ago. Bartie is based, as best I can, on my brother, as he still lives, in just that way. My mother was much that way. In the story "Negroes," there were two men working on our house on a very hot day in 1948, and I as a child did invite them to swim in the pool, and they did. And then my mother came home. The rest was invented. The coming back with the men, the sexual initiation, was invented. In fact, I think that’s an interesting example of why art is superior to memory. And to people who write memoirs, well god-bless ‘em, but this is not a memoir. There is something revealed about me that’s truer, and that my mind would go in that direction. My psyche would see that the story needs that scene, between those men and that boy—a scene of sexual seduction, that never occurred in actual life. There’s a sort of deeper truth revealed there, than just the story of the swimming pool. The general answer to your question is, it’s quite an autobiographical book, though bent willfully where the needs of art made it do that. Schwarzschild: Ha Jin, I’d like to ask you the same question, about writing from memory of China, having been away from China for so long. Ha Jin: I’m scared, scared to write an autobiographical story. I think any good piece of fiction is somehow autobiographical, in a way that deals much with your own life, with your characters, and a lot of the details that you give to others. I think that’s the issue, really. There’s a distinction between fiction and autobiography. But sometimes a student, or a young writer, has a book where he or she doesn’t know whether to put it in the autobiographical category, or as a novel. I always say that in a novel, you have more freedom. You can invent things that didn’t actually happen, to form your drama. That can be more meaningful. In an autobiography, you can’t say anything that didn’t actually occur, and I think that can cause us to struggle with ourselves. Very often, an author will say to me "I want people to know that this happened to me," but if you’re going to put yourself on the board, you have to make a choice. So, which one are you going to call it? It’s entirely up to you. Of course, as teachers, we always encourage the student to choose the heart—what is best for themselves. Epstein: You know Susanna Kaysen, who wrote Girl, Interrupted? She once told me, "Every memoir is nothing but lies, every true novelist does nothing but tell the truth." I know what she means. The example from that story is I think what she meant. Audience Member: When creating characters, from the very beginning do you have to be thinking about how to get the book published? Do you tailor your work to what you think will succeed, or do you just do what you want from the beginning and see where it takes you? Ha Jin: I don’t know. Sometimes, you know some basic facts. You know the cast of characters in your novel or your story. Very often, I don’t know them very well. I just write and put them on the page, and the story leads them. But in the process of revision, and editing, I began to get to know them better. So the revision process for me is vital. That’s how the writing gets better. It’s very hard to put them forward, jump the characters into the drama and action itself, without revealing more of the characters. That’s why when getting the first book published, there’s always uncertainty, we don’t know. We may never get published. In Leslie’s class, there was one thing he taught us, that I think we should cherish and carry with us: A good book will be published. If it’s not published by a major publisher, some small publisher will publish it. That’s what we should believe in, otherwise we shouldn’t be doing it. A good piece of work has it’s own power to get out there. Audience Member: How does the teacher avoid forcing or encouraging his students to write like him or herself? I imagine that that could be difficult to work around. Epstein: That’s a good question. My answer is "Why avoid it?" (laughter). I’m a very strict teacher. When Ed said that the poster was of Emily Dickinson before, I said "No, it’s Virginia Woolfe, alas." I never knew why we didn’t take that photo of her down. I don’t like the way she writes, particularly. I actively encouraged my students not to write like her. I always said "If you want to learn how to write, don’t write like her," because it’s too subjective, it’s too much in the mind, you’re never going to get to that damned lighthouse (laughter). I trust my students to know that they’re hearing it from me, and from my point of view, and if it’s wrong for them, they’ll discard it. I can only teach what I know, and what I feel, so I push them toward Dostoevsky, or someone that I admire. But you should ask both of them about how I warped them. Schwarzschild: I get to talk to them twice a week, so maybe Ha Jin should answer. Ha Jin: I think that influence is always a good thing. Young writers tend to be afraid of influence, but I think it’s very good to have one influence, and then another after another. Then, you will be a different thing. Also, I think most teachers wouldn’t say, "You should write like us," They always recommended good heritage, and I think that’s important. But, if you read a lot of books, and consider a lot of books that are close to your heart, you will formulate your own kind of heritage. I think that’s a part of the writing process. So in that sense, influence is always a positive force. Audience Member: I’ve read some things about there being just too many writers, especially with all the low-residency writing programs that are around now. What’s your response to that? Leslie Epstein: It’s probably true that there are too many writers. It’s too much to read. But there aren’t too many good writers. That’s for sure. We’re the opposite of a low-residency program. We are one extremely—as Ed and Ha Jin will testify—intense and difficult year. You are with us every minute of that year, in four different workshops, over two semesters. It’s very, very hard. So I can’t speak for low-residency programs. I can speak for ours, and the old chestnut of wisdom is, "Can you teach writing?" I mean, are we doing anything in that one year? I’ve never quite understood the question, because no one ever asks if Jascha Heifetz can teach someone to play the violin, or can Picasso teach someone how to paint, and I don’t know why. Of course, we can’t give people a guide, but neither could Heifetz or Picasso. We can accelerate, through emphasis on craft, things that are going to happen anyway. Failure’s going to happen anyway, for probably most. But success is going to happen to a significant amount of our students, and we can make that happen more rapidly and more surely, and perhaps with a greater sophistication and consciousness, than it would have otherwise. Audience Member: You mentioned before that you were happy to be sitting next to two successful students of writing…and I was wondering what the most difficult aspects of teaching students to write better are. Epstein: Having to discourage those who I feel need discouragement, and all the time being worried that I might be wrong. You know, I’m not always right. I’m probably wrong about Virginia Woolf, but not about The Waves. But, that’s a problem. Sometimes I do have to discourage. In a graduate program, there’s not the time to always pat them on the shoulder. With undergraduates it’s different, but in a graduate program, you have to tell it the way you see it. And people are unhappy. And then if they go and prove me wrong, that’s great. So I think that’s one of the hardest things, feeling the disappointment that you have to cause yourself. Plus, worrying if you needlessly caused it. Audience Member: How do you overcome writer’s block? Ha Jin: I guess there are different kinds of writer’s block. The most serious one is maybe when you just can’t write anything. But for me, the difficult part is when you know you can write, but you just can’t get it right. Also, you spend a lot of time writing and then you don’t get anywhere. You write the words on the page, but they’re not good, you don’t see the connection. I think the only thing you can do to overcome it, is to be patient. That’s what you have to do, again and again. You don’t need to fight writer’s block, because if you force it, and write things that you don’t like, you’re giving up energy that you need for your next book to come. So that means you have to be patient, and just wait it out. That’s my feeling about it. Epstein: I have a three-word answer. I’m very hesitant to give the three words that I have to others, when in the past I had to very painfully learn this myself. I’ve been through it, as many writers have. Okay, here goes, here are the three words: Lower your standards. I think that the search for perfection is very dangerous for the writer. And like what Ha Jin said earlier, you can always rewrite, so if you can get it out and know that you’re not relinquishing it, that you’ll go back to it, and can make it better. But don’t try and be perfect in every sentence. Write it as it comes to you. Lower your standards a bit. Awful advice to give isn’t it, but I’ve found it’s the only advice that works. Ha Jin: But you can make it better later on. That’s why it’s important sometimes to just get something out, so you have a draft to work with. Epstein: Or, become a banker (laughter). Audience Member: This is for Ha Jin. I read a quote where you said something to the effect of " A good novel transcends time." My question is, when you’re writing, do you consciously or unconsciously try to achieve that effect? Ha Jin: Yes and no. I think when you conceive a novel, you always think about whether the story is meaningful. I don’t think a serious author just tells a story, and then if the story is told well, then it suddenly becomes resonant. No. But in the writing process, you know that there are certain things that tie the story closely to its time, so sometimes you try to deliberately avoid using them. But I think time is necessary. You cannot avoid history, the history we have achieved. So a historically authentic feeling is necessary. Still, the ultimate goal is always to go beyond time. Audience Member: How important is the ending of the book? Tying everything all together? Epstein: Absolutely vital, or you leave the reader hungry, dissatisfied, with a sense of unease. Of course, the opposite is when you have tied all the threads together, and there are no loose ends, it’s the most satisfying of all meals, isn’t it. So when I say, you should only know 71% of the ending, you have to find the other 29% by the time you’re done. You really have to knit all the threads together into a shining gauntlet sometimes; it’s absolutely vital. Audience Member: This is for Ha Jin. I was curious about how you decided to write in English. I imagine the language was just so different, how was it that you didn’t say "Well, I’ll think and write in Chinese, then I’ll translate myself"? Ha Jin: A lot of things happen to us in our lives by accident. I did try to look for jobs in Chinese, such as teaching the language, translation, or writing for newspapers. But I didn’t have a degree in Chinese. In this country, you have to have a degree in order to get a job. All my degrees were in English, so it didn’t make sense for me to write in Chinese. In that sense, it was a matter of survival. Since I got into the academic world, I had to keep my job, and I had to publish in English publications. So it was out of necessity, but of course we are not just animals looking to earn our food. I think there were other things as well, because in English I realized there was a tradition in which writers who’s native language was not English, had written in English and later become important writers in English, like Nabokov. That’s the beauty of the language, that there is already that tradition there. That means I very consciously tried to rethink the way I wrote, and prostrate myself to this tradition. In other words, I have to cut away from Chinese, and cut with the past. The Chinese tradition is just a different kind of writing. Audience Member: This is for Ha Jin: To what degree did you use the language as a tool to make some philosophical comments about the political situation? It seemed to me that in Waiting, the main character’s mindset was meant to be symbolic of the political issues of the time. Ha Jin: I think you can view him as just a type, because I think that although he is so passive, he is blind to his own emotion, and doesn’t understand how to love others. But this kind of psychology is not always based upon a political situation. Very often, a man and a woman, who have been traumatized, can also have this similar kind of psychology. I did receive letters from American readers, even women, who would say to me "All my life, I’ve lived like this, I never dared to engage other’s emotion." So in this situation, he is damaged, by the political environment, but on the other hand, this is not just a political statement. It’s about psychology and a certain kind of environment. Epstein: It’s the same as your answer about time, in a sense. Ha Jin: Yes. Audience Member: How important do you think it is for a young writer to attend a Masters program in writing? Epstein: Oh, absolutely necessary (laughter). I didn’t. I think it depends on the writer. I think for some people, it will change their lives. For some, it’ll change it perhaps in a bad way. For others, it won’t make any difference one way or the other. And for others, it would be a mistake. It depends on your time of life, the kind of writer, and the degree of your sophistication. I think if you’re not sophisticated, you better get sophisticated, because there are no unsophisticated fine writers. There are no primitives in literature. It has to do with what Ha Jin said about influences: we all know on whose shoulders we stand, and we continue that tradition through writing programs and the study of literature. And also, it depends on what program you choose. Now you see the non-Virginia Woolf kind of guy that I am, so if you were a very subjective kind of writer, and committed to that, you wouldn’t want to study with me. There are experimental programs where you might want to go, other than our quite traditional program. So, picking and choosing the right people that you’re going to study with is also very important. Ha Jin: I think a writing program can’t teach you to be a writer, but it can shorten the process of your learning, and really accelerate your practice. I don’t think on the whole, most American writers—young or old—are more skilled than European writers. I’ve met some European editors and publishers. They read manuscripts constantly, and they think that young American writers are very similar, because we have the workshops. But, the Europeans are very uneven. That means, anyone who attends the program can I guess reach the average (laughter), but the rest is really up to you. Audience Member: I have a question about closure. Do you feel that when you write, you should avoid tying everything up to much? That it’s possible to leave a reader thinking that they know entirely too much at the end? Epstein: Yes. I think it’s a wonderful question. If you’ve done so, you’ve written genre fiction. You’ve written a mystery, you’ve written science fiction, you’ve written a thriller, you’ve written a woman’s romance, etc. You’re asking whether the mystery persists in a work of art, and yes it does. That’s a very good question. Ha Jin: And extremely few can try and reproduce that mystery, I imagine. Audience Member: This is for Mr. Jin. One of the things that I’ve read about your book Waiting and your poetry is that you pay great attention to your culture. Is there a part of your culture or a part of Chinese history that you hesitate to write about? For example, Tiananmen Square. Are books on that subject allowed to be read in China? My understanding is that anything having to do with The Shining Path is no longer allowed, so I was just wondering about that.. Ha Jin: Sure, and there are subjects that are censored. I did write about the Tiananmen Square event in my novel The Crazed. Because of that, that book will not be read in China in the near future. And that sort of thing has become commonplace. I think in a way I’m privileged as a writer, because I’m writing in English, and so I don’t depend on the literary machine in China. That’s another reason why I decided to write in English: I wanted to separate myself from the literary apparatus of the authorities in China. For instance, only one of my books is published in Mainland China, Waiting, but they cut some sentences. It was cut here and there, and very often the choicest moments were lost. Artistic integrity is another part of releasing a book that I have to be aware of, and by writing in English, to some extent, I can avoid that kind of problem. On the other hand, I do think translatability is a standard in literature. That means that what I write in English should at least sound true, if it is put into Chinese. That is very essential, otherwise I can easily abuse the privilege. Audience Member: I have another question for Ha Jin, about the dream that Manna had regarding Geng Yang and the lover that she had before him. Was that supposed to foreshadow something in the future? Because, I think that was the cause of the discomfort between her and Lin. Because of that dream, she was putting more pressure on him, because she was afraid she was going to lose him. Then with that pressure, Lin was feeling more and more uncomfortable, and unsure of his love for her. Ha Jin: Yeah, you’re right. You’re a good reader. Epstein: And he’s wearing a New York Yankee hat (laughter). Ha Jin: Yes, I think you’re right. It was not a rational dream, I didn’t think it was very clear. But you are right in two ways. All of those years, the rape is never gone. The fear always remains within her. On the other hand, although they were married, her man’s not that reliable. In the back of her mind, Manna does not think he’s that dependable. We know that he doesn’t understand how to love a woman. So I think that kind of fear is revealed in that dream. In that sense, that was foreshadowing the ending. Audience Member: This is for Mr. Epstein. As a teacher, how do you grade effectively? If you get a paper that you know someone worked really hard on, and just think is awful, how do you grade objectively? Epstein: When I see that, I put a C on it (laughter). I don’t give grades story by story, I put comments on them. But BU requires us to give grades, and they very much discourage us from giving all As. In fact, they really don’t allow it anymore. And I think that’s right, because even if some people have worked very hard—maybe even harder than the A student—their stories are distribution of talent, and you do your best to recognize it. And you do try and separate your own proclivities and prejudices from the grade that you give them—the final judgement. But you do have to give it, and we do. Audience Member: Have you ever given all As? Because you said that they forbid it now…but… Epstein: The class that Ed was in was a remarkable class, and I don’t think I gave many Bs. I would say five people in that class are now publishing. I think that the majority of that class has been publishing books, and that sticks in my mind as one of the great classes at BU. So, people did well in that class—of course, not all of them. Audience Member: I was just wondering how often, when you’re writing, do you get an idea for your next book? Ha Jin: I think you should put that aside. You always want to put everything into the book you have now. I think that is a rule in writing, you always keep everything to the thing you’re working on. Audience Member: Doesn’t it happen frequently? Ha Jin: It happens where you’ll get an idea, and you’ll have to know the other book, but you don’t get into it because you cannot afford to fight two battles at the same time. You don’t have enough resources, you just want to concentrate on one book. That’s how it is for me, at least. I don’t save anything for another book because I don’t know when I will write that book. Epstein: Remember my answer lowering you standards? I just thought of another answer, which is "Write Another Book." I’d been working on a rather large historical novel, set in Italy in the 1930s, for years. And then one day, I took a new legal pad and I began to write on it, and it was the first chapter of what turned out to be this book. And I did the next story, and the next, and then things happened and I knew I was working on a novel. I’m only now, four years later, picking up the strings of the Italian book that I had done before. And that happened to me with one other book, Pinto and Sons, which took 11 years to write. During those 11 years, I did two other books. I did Regina, an unknown book that no one reads . . . Ha Jin: I read it. Epstein: Oh, look at that (laughter). There’s only one in existence. I did that, and then I did Goldkorn Tales. So, then I went back to Pinto and Sons and spent another seven years on it. My own favorite book is Pinto and Sons. That may be because it’s such a difficult book. You know, you love the child that caused you the most pain. Ha Jin: It seemed with my recent novel The Crazed, which is in fact my first book, I just didn’t have the skill to do it. So I had to put it aside, and do something else, and return to it again after 13 years. Audience Member: I know it’s difficult for a writer to separate himself or herself from the characters they create. So, my question is, what do you guys do when you’re writing a book? How do you make sure that you’re not too attached to one or several of your characters, whom you might identify with so much? Ha Jin: I don’t think I identify myself with the characters, because I always keep some distance so that I can be more objective. There are other people in other countries who read the book, so I have to be more balanced-minded, I guess. But, of course, you understand your characters’ psychology, sometimes you can’t help developing a deep attachment. But again, you have to step back, and view the character, with their defects, and understand their complexity. Epstein: I think of two characters: One is Trumpelman, the main character in King of the Jews (based on Chaim Rumkowski, a notorious figure in Jewish history, and WW2). Was he a villain? Was he a savior? Or was he someone who sent his fellow Jews to their deaths, or was he someone who saved them? And in the course of the book, I am condemnatory of him. At the same time, you don’t spend a few years writing about someone without feeling merciful, too. So, it’s a very kind of complex balancing of emotions that goes on. The other character would be Richard in this book, who’s me. Who’s odd. I think the important thing there, was for him to act the way in the book I achieved, or meant to achieve, or maybe I achieved it later. You know Wordsworth’s famous dictum, that art and poetry is emotion reflected in tranquility. I think I had to be in my 60s before I could write this book; there’s a certain amount of tranquility, and I think the storm had passed. And that character couldn’t just represent, though some people feel that he does, that sort of angry, negative person. Some one else told me—it was Jhumpa Lahiri, my ex-student who’s now a very successful writer—she wrote me a note about this book saying that it’s the most forgiving book. It moved me that she could say that, because that’s not a word I thought of. But if she feels that I had written this character in a way that he could forgive himself and the people in the book , well that’s good. Audience Member: I was thinking about your answers on the subject of how you grade. What do you do when you get something that’s so incredibly different, that you’re not sure that it’s any good or not? If you think it’s not, do you give it a bad grade and say something like "Oh, but I think you’re breaking new ground here, it’s a whole new realm, blah blah blah…" Epstein: Are you really asking how one can give a grade, maybe not the best of grades, but remain encouraging at the same time? Is that kind of what’s behind your question? Audience Member: Something like that. Epstein: Well, you can give an F with a smile (laughter). It’s another good question. Teaching isn’t so easy. You have to sense who you’re talking to, what they can take, and how not to discourage them. I think maybe the best thing is to try and remember—and how can I forget—that I have been wrong many times, and I will continue to be wrong many times. I misjudge these young people, they have so much potential, how can I say "you’re not going to do it." So, they know that I’m talking to them and even grading them with certain grains of salt, a certain amount of caution and trepidation. If not, I hope they sense it. I have some that are angry at me, still. I know that. I know that there’s nothing I can do about that, but it’s more fun to be around (laughter). Fortress of Solitude (2003) "Mr. Lethem captures with perfect pitch the grunginess and fear of the boy's(Dylan's) life, the undertow of anxiety that constantly tugs at him; but he also captures the adrenaline rush of the city, its tumult of change and changing expectations, as gangs and gentrification vie for ascendancy on Dean Street and hip-hop, cocaine and punk music begin to permeate teenagers' lives." So writes Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times about Fortress of Solitude. Though she describes the novel as "dazzling, but fundamentally flawed" she applauds Lethem's virtuosity in created the worlds of Brooklyn, Berkeley, and Hollywood as well as his compassion and humor in describing the poignant humiliations and enthusiasms of childhood. This latest novel by Jonathan Lethem takes readers to the Brooklyn he grew up in, which he describes as a "petri dish of sorts where it was left up to the children to live out the incomplete transformation of the civil rights movement" (Diane Cardwell, NY Times). The token white kid in a black neighborhood, where his hippie mother proudly sends him to local public schools, Dylan Ebdus get hassled a lot. Actually, he gets "yoked" – a process where some of the black kids in the neighborhood apologetically, but deliberately put him in a headlock, for his money. He is the outsider, and though the mark for neighborhood aggression, everyone is aware that Dylan's whiteness put him on the side of white privilege. His sometimes protector is Mingus Rude, another neighborhood boy a tad older and much hipper who aligns himself with Dylan. Both boys are named after musicians, have artistic (& ambivalent) fathers, and ultimately, their mothers are absent (A.O. Scott, NY Times). Dylan describes Mingus as "the rejected idol of my entire youth, my best friend, my lover" and together the boys, while boys, join together under Mingus's graffiti tag "Dose" and so share an identity. They also share the Aeroman ring, a ring that confers invisibility. Critics have differing views on the effectiveness of such supernaturalism in such a compassionate portrayal of childhood, but readers used to the kangaroos and babyheads of his first book, Gun, With Occasional Music, won't find the foray into invisibility so jarring. Dylan ends up as a music writer; Mingus develops an addiction and spends time in and out of prison. "This is a story about fathers and sons, about best friends who grow apart, about the nervous subtext of race as it has played out in American society in the last three decades, … Mr. Lethem does a magical job of conjuring up Dylan's day-to-day life: the multiple worlds that children inhabit – at home, at school, on the street – each world segregated from the other, each defined by unalterable codes and freighted with desperately guarded secrets" (Kakutani NY Times). This biography, according to A.O. Scott "for all its hurt and fear, is also an unbeatable hipster resume" of what is authentic and cool. Dylan listens to DJs battle in the park long before the city's private school kids begin copying their fashion and behavior. Motherless Brooklyn (1999) "A detective story that transcends its pulp roots not by adopting high-art pretensions but by bringing to the genre an originality and an idiosyncratic sympathy that few other writers could muster," is how Gary Krist of Salon.com describes Motherless Brooklyn. To a traditional noir quest Jonathan Lethem adds a detective with Tourette's syndrome, but never "lets the metaphorical and linguistic possibilities of his narrator's (Lionel) illness overshadow his immensely appealing humanity." This does not mean that Lethem is unaware of the metaphorical possibilities of Tourettes, on the contrary, he writes: Conspiracies are a version of Tourette's Syndrome, the making and tracing of unexpected connections a kind of touchiness, an expression of the yearning to touch the world, to kiss it all over with theories, pull it close. Like Tourette's, all conspiracies are ultimately solipsistic, sufferer or conspirator or theorist overrating his centrality, and forever rehearsing a traumatic delight in narration, attachment and causality, in roads out from the Rome of self. Initially more of a goon than a detective, Lionel becomes more than he was as he tries to find out who killed his boss, his erstwhile father Frank Minna, a low-lever fixer. In trying to solve the murder of this man who rescued him, and three others, from the orphanage, Lionel confronts his personal demons – his relationship to Frank (Minna wasn't your partner. He was your sponsor, Freakshow. He was Jerry Lewis and you were the thing in the wheelchair.), and his problems with romance (I'd never kissed a woman without having had a few drinks. And I'd never kissed a woman who hadn't had a few herself.) and his ability to find things out. "The circuitous, often comic trail that Lionel follows leads him to a menacing, kumquat-consuming Polish giant; provokes one of his fellow Minna Men to start trailing him while he's tailing the murderer; and takes our hero from Brooklyn to the coast of Maine," writes Frederick Zackel of January Magazine.com. Zackel sees respect in Lethem's novel for the private eye genre, citing how Lethem quotes from Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and plays with the traditions and expectations of this genre. Describing Lionel Essrog as "one of the most unlikely private detectives in crime fiction, except in the most post-modern sense," Zackel goes on to note that Lionel compares himself to "a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker of tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster." Does this mean that Lionel, living with Tourette's Syndrome, with its raw release of stress in un-ignorable, disjointed verbal streams, is a post-modern 'everyman'? – I wonder. There is a sense that Lionel is like everyone existing within post-modern anxiety: fractured but not quite fluid in his/her sense of how his self is, in relation to the rest of the world. The unasked question is "how do I make sense of the world" and the answer is, in some ways, that you don't: Lionel needs to shift and re-assess assumptions and connections. That these old assumptions and relations worked for a long time is a part of the disjointedness of Lionel's life, as Gerard Minna points out to him what an anachronism he is, then gets the same accusation from Lionel in regards to his Buddhism. Old ways may get reinvented or revived, but he/we cannot take anything for granted. Understanding depends on knowing the characters and their situation -- which seems to be Lethem's point in the novel, and is why a detective story is such a good vehicle as an demonstration of post-modern life: there are always red herrings, unforeseen connections, and new characters surprising us. The question here for Lionel is, "How do I make sense of Frank Minna's murder," which is just a variation for him of "How do I make sense of my life?" In any case, Zackel calls Lionel Essrog "one of the most fascinating characters I have ever encountered in this genre." The Washington Post described this novel as "One of the greatest feats of first-person narration in recent American fiction." Motherless Brooklyn received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. What is so impressive about dystopic visions is how their connection to present reality, when well-wrought, creates the safe/unsafe chill of thinking "yes, we could be there in a few years." And Lethem pulls this off very well in Gun, With Occasional Music, for yes, there is such a push against questions and news reports that make those in power uncomfortable: questions and the printed word might just be banned soon. And on some days, is there much difference between abstract images and sound instead of TV sitcoms? What also adds to the chill is the "good intentions gone bad" of dispensing with childhood and evolving animals. "Babyheads" are kids whose mental abilities have been chemically accelerated. That their mental lives have been artificially grown means that there is no longer any childhood, so there are no little kids playing anywhere, no more playgrounds, no schools. That their emotional and physical lives have not been accelerated, means they are functioning freaks. The artificial evolution of animals to use our language and to function in the human world creates more unease as it does a Dr. Doolittle meets Mr. Hyde. "Wouldn't it be great to talk to the animals?" becomes "Gee, that kangaroo driving the blue car has a gun!" This condition reflects the traditional concept of western civilization that the human standard is the ideal. There's no sense of human beings existing as a part of the world, but of dominating and engulfing it. The domains of nature, of kangaroos or apes are gone. Human or animal, all beings in this bleak world are encouraged to forget, be calm and not ask questions. The non-resolution of the novel is a continuation of the escapist mentality of this distopia, a very apt way to end. The hero, Metcalf, is awaken after being frozen for six years to find that things have gotten worse. There are no more private inquisitors. All machines now play music – even guns (dramatic movie music, aka occasional music, as in the title). Special blends of drugs are impossible: the people who worked at the makeries have been replaced with machines that dispense a standard issue blend: time-released Forgettol – you're encouraged to write down your name and address before you take it. People carry their memories around with them, small databases, in case they need to check what they know, and of course, they do. And the hero's girlfriend is now the local chief inquisitor. So the hero, as a noble act, kills – not the bad guy of six years ago – but the current big bad and then uses the system to opt out. After the murder, he turns himself in to the inquisitors to be frozen, thinking that next time he wakes, things might be better. And if they aren't, he can get frozen again. He's the good guy, but this is how his world is, and he works it as he can. Publisher's Weekly named Gun, With Occasional Music one of the Best Books of 1994, and the San Francisco Examiner found it to be "Marvelous… Stylish, intelligent, darkly humorous, and highly readable entertainment." The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye: Stories (1996), In this short story collection of weird and delightful tales the reader is taken on investigations of the "what if?" phenomena. What if people could be brought back from the dead ("The Happy Man")? What if sex between one particular man and one particular woman could, truly, make the world disappear ("Five Fucks")? What if the sports skills of the greatest players were dispensed according to lottery ("Vanilla Dunk")? What if 'hardened criminals' literally became fixed and solid as bricks ("Hardened Criminals")? "The Happy Man" is not happy, even though he has been brought back from the dead. For though this might seem like a reprieve and a second chance, those people who are brought back (because of the economic necessity of their families), do get sucked back to hell from time to time. Alas! The main character, Tom, has a personal hell of childhood, fraught with garden party breakfasts that aren't, witches who don't show up when they're supposed to, and a mad scientist who molests and rapes him. The horrifying assault, however, is what triggers his return back to his family. While Tom is in hell, his body is still functioning at home and at work. Only family members notice when he's gone, or gone zombie. And there's that mystery with Uncle Frank … When the worst of life is over, Tom finds out that there are always new hells. "The Happy Man" won third place in the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and was a finalist for the Nebula Award, both in 1991. Anita Pratap (Introduction, 9/23/03) Anita Pratap is not a cocktail party journalist. A few years ago Time Magazine cultural writer Richard Zoglin, said about the state of contemporary journalism: "What has exploded is not news, but talk about news . . . commentary, not information . . . It’s cocktail party chat passing for journalism." I cannot always tolerate journalists talking incessantly about journalism, but I can stand to listen to reporters talking about reporting. In Anita Pratap’s career and in her book, Island of Blood, we hear a courageous, intuitive, and vital reportorial voice telling us about issues and people and places and horrors that we can no longer pretend to mean, "something is happening, someplace else." The world no longer contains a someplace else . . . the world has become small, even claustrophobic. But Anita Pratap has contributed greatly to helping us understand the cataclysmic changes in our world as she has reported on wars, ethnic conflict, natural disasters, the consequences of racial and historical prejudice, and religious and sexual discrimination, and mindless hatred and fear, from Indian dowry killings that send women to death by burning, to anti-Muslim Hindu riots in Delhi, to a cyclone in Bangladesh that took more than 25,000 lives. She became an astute expert on the Sri Lankan civil conflict that has killed more than 65,000 people. In her book she describes her encounter with the despotic guerrilla leader Pirabhakaran in which upon hearing disturbing news, he transforms himself from a seemingly placid, intense but poised leader into a seething, frightening avenger who Pratap compares to a coiled king cobra ready to strike. She tells us about darting in and out of the streets and alleys and marketplaces of Kabul in the middle of the Taliban takeover in the 1996, she and her CNN crew constantly watching for soldiers who could harass or hurt and even kill them. She says, "For the first and only time in my life I did my stand-ups in a burqa and black scarf around my head . . . I had to . . . As I said my lines, I was not concentrating because my eyes were secretly scanning to check if any Taliban soldiers were in the vicinity." She recalls being interrupted by these kinds of soldiers just as she was trying to finish taping a story, and as she saw the soldiers approaching from behind her crew, she gushed out her last 22 words in about one second. It was for her reporting on the Taliban occupation that she won the prestigious George Polk Award for Television Foreign Reporting for 1996. During her career for leading Indian magazines and newspapers, including India Today and the Indian Express, and during her career as a correspondent for Time Magazine, Anita has also won such noteworthy honors as the Eminent Indian Award from the Indo-American Society, the Chameli Devi Jain Award given to the Outstanding Woman Media Person, the Woman Achiever Award by Giants International, and three Pinnacle Awards for her television reporting on Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. She is now working as an independent writer and documentary filmmaker, and the American edition of her book has just been published by Penguin Books. It is important too for us to respect the courage that a reporter like Anita Pratap must have to provide the rest of us with such important news. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that so far this year 22 journalists have been killed because of who they were and what they were doing, and 7 have disappeared in the last two years. Anita Pratap persuades us that most journalists actually are human beings. By this I mean to quote Anita herself in her epilogue, where she says, "I have to thank journalism for putting my life into perspective, for making me treasure the ordinariness of my personal life." Each of her chapters begins with a pleasant, humorous long anecdote about a holiday or a trip or other episode she has shared with her family, and then at some point there is a transition that juxtaposes this ordinariness, this personal happiness, with the terrible, the saddening but the important details of the mayhem and madness she has witnessed . . . endured really . . . as a reporter. And this provides an invaluable lesson, this juxtaposition, reminding us that it’s naive to assume that reporters who can see almost anything and tell us about it are not also personally affected, sometimes for a long time . . . but ironically, they may become even better journalists for that experience. They realize they are called to do journalism because it needs to be done . . . done, and not talked about so much on the cable’s nightly shout shows. She tells a particularly poignant but frank story about how annoyed she was to be called out of a movie theater to cover a deadly bombing in a Delhi shopping area, and then how deeply humbling the experience proved to be as she watched a mother wailing over the body of a dead daughter, who a few minutes before had been shopping for a bridal dress. Anita says about her annoyance at being called out of the theater, "I had ranted in grief . . . Grief! What right did I have to use the word?" Please welcome journalist, and human being, Anita Pratap.William Rainbolt Top of Page Sometimes I wonder is there is anything I haven't seen in my professional life: children with legs blown off, mangled bodies, severed heads, burning flesh, machetes dripping with human blood. I have seen countless dead bodies – carts full of them while covering riots in the remote Indian countryside, hospitals full of them after earthquake, villages full of them in the aftermath of cyclones. Constant exposure to extraordinary events has its side-effects. Along the way, I accumulated sediments that became my personal baggage, developing an irrational but nonetheless deep-seated aversion to harmless things like white flowers and yellow eyes. Sometimes for no reason, I would be startled by a gleam or a smile. Yet I survived, maintaining my sanity, perhaps even my innocence, by learning to celebrate the ordinary. 273-4 So goes the Epilogue of Anita Pratap's book of journalist reporting Island of Blood. It might have been better as a prologue, for it is clear in this collection of real-life, journalistic endeavors (I don't use the word "adventures" for that connotes a sense of fun which reporting in war-torn countries is not) that holding to the normalcy of courteous, ordinary human interactions might be the only way to survive the atrocities of terrorist battles and war. And Pratap does make it clear that she values the ordinary events of life – going on a picnic, spending time with her son. These are the things that keep her sane. The special adherence to human courtesy is something that Pratap notes about those in battle-torn areas: People in war zones help each other in ways people in normal areas don't. Even though slowing down and waiting for a few seconds to give a lift to a stranded civilian can sometimes bring danger, even death upon oneself, people do it – I have seen them do it in Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. 150 It is as though to balance the horror done to other human beings by battle, that people cling to the small, personal acts of kindness. A version of this is particularly evident in the interviews that Pratap does with V. Pirabhakaran, the leader of the terrorist Tigers organization (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - LTTE) in Sri Lanka. When dealing with terrorists, perhaps extreme courtesy is a survival maneuver: it's the flip side of the kindness that makes people living through terrorism help each other, but both are matters of survival. Pirabhakaran is a demagogue; he is also a cult leader. Pratap describes the fanaticism of his followers in detail: Over the years, Pirabhakaran has created a band of followers who at his bidding will lay down their most precious asset – their life– for him or his cause. It can only be an extraordinary human being who can wield such power. He commands the kind of unquestioning loyalty that makes his followers commit suicide, often brutally, with explosives strapped to their chest – just for him. If there is something special about Pirabhakaran, there is something equally special about his guerrillas. They are reticent, disciplined and simple in their habits. They live austerely. Once recruited, cadres have to renounce their friends, their family, their home. The Tiger legion is their new family. They are not allowed to smoke, drink or have sex. Their prized possession is their weapon, usually an The only time they showed some emotion was when they talked about Pirabhakaran, their Annai [elder brother]. A Black Tiger named Sunil said with something close to awe, 'For us, he is mother, father and God all rolled into one.' 98, 103 This description follows with some appalling suicide missions perpetrated by Pirabhakaran's elite group of guerrillas, the Black Tigers. The members of this special corps expect to be dead within two years of being picked to be Black Tigers. Their special treat is that they get to meet Pirabhakaran and have their photograph taken with him. Then they move on to their assignment, usually the assassination of a Sri Lankan elected official or the bombing of a military installation. The regular Tigers also exhibit a willingness to die for their leader. In one instance, the Tigers were attacking a Sri Lankan military installation, using armored tractors and bulldozers since they didn't have any tanks. One Tiger drove her bulldozer through the barricades and into the garrison. By the time the bulldozer stopped, both her arms had been blown off, her cheeks were ripped away. She was not more than 15. As she lay dying, the Sri Lankan soldiers gave her water, which she ferociously spat it out. This is the intensity with which the followers of Pirabhakaran act on his orders. Pratap recounts so many politically and socially relevant atrocities that it is difficult to know what to focus on here. Her accounts of events in Afghanistan are harrowing. One orphanage of 850 children, who were cared for by a staff of 330 people, mostly women, before the Taliban came to power, were down to a staff of four women after the Taliban banned women from working (155-6). The women who did continue working had to sneak around so as to avoid detection. And though boys could continue to go to school, while girls were no longer allowed to do so, since 85% of teachers were women, the Taliban effectively closed the schools. And as Pratap reports, women who are too poor to buy a burqa and who have no man to provide for them, live in perpetual fear of being caught as they defy the Taliban both by working and by going to and from work and home – hiding in doorways and behind pillars – without the required covering (154). Pratap provides some history about Afghanistan, noting its place as a hub of the ancient silk route, and noting the armies that have marched over it – those of Tammerlain, Genghis Kahn, Alexander, British and Russian soldiers. She also reminds readers that Afghanistan is at the confluence of four geographical and cultural areas: the Middle East, China, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, which makes it a great "melting pot of Persian, Central Asian, Mongol, Arab, Indian, Turkish, and European influences" (157). When she was in Afghanistan, Pratap was a television reporter. (Previously she had been a print journalist.) This posed some obvious problems: women were not supposed to work or be seen without burqas and no TV cameras were allowed. By surreptitiously videotaping, and constantly scanning the area for patrols, Pratap was able to report. For the first time in her life, she wore a burqa and a head scarf because, as she succinctly puts it, "I had to." While in Kabul, the TV crew she is with comes across some young soldiers and two tanks, firing at Ahmed Shah Masood, the military leader of the ousted Rabbani regime, who is positioned a few miles outside of Kabul. These soldiers were receptive to being filmed, despite the Taliban ban, which Pratap attributes to their youth and enthusiasm. However, when a senior Taliban commander arrives, he is furious. His fury increases as he notices a woman among the TV crew and throws stones at Pratap. He is too far away to do any harm, but it is a symbolic stoning of a woman for misbehaving (169). Pratap visits and reports from other countries, over events: the Muslim/Hindu riots in India, the cyclone in Bangladesh where 3, 000 of the island's 15,000 residents form a fringe of floating corpses after the storm, and the burning of women for their dowry in India. It seems particularly astounding that such barbarous treatment of women continues unstopped, but Pratap reports that only one percent of dowry death cases result in conviction. And "dowry deaths have increased nearly fifteen-fold, from 400 a year in the mid-1980s to nearly 6,000 in the 1990s" (249). Two years after marriage, twenty-year-old Sunita Vir was battling for life in a hospital bed with ninety-six percent burns. She was beyond medical help. Her dying declaration read like a horror story. Her father-in-law Subh Ram and brother-in-law Dalbir had held her down on a cot while Chand Vir, her husband, doused her with kerosene. One can imagine Sunita's terror explode into excruciating pain as mother-in-law Savitri lit the match. Sunita was being punished for her father's failure to deliver an additional dowry of new appliances. … In modern times, dowry offers a short cut to acquiring material wealth. In jail, Sunita's murderous mother-in-law was unrepentant, wracked not by guilt but by one single worry – her locked-up house. 'I hope all my possessions will be safe," she fretted. 249, 251 What also contributes to the situation, Pratap states, is the "disgrace" of parents who have an unmarried daughter at home. Parents will go deep into debt to avoid the shame of an unwed daughter. This attitude of valuing a woman only according to whether or not a man wants to marry her, plus the treatment of wives as sources of extortable goods, and the apparently invisibility of women as human beings leads to the tragedy of 6,000 dowry deaths in the 1990s. Burning is a usual way for these deaths to be orchestrated, and is part of what Pratap calls a "nationwide pattern of domestic violence" (251). Often victims of violence who do not die do not blame their families, for if they recover, these are the people to whom they have to go home to. Pratap notes that this violence is not confined to merely situations of dowry, but minor domestic complaints – overcooked or over-spiced food – can lead to violence. And this violence has no religious boundaries, occurring within Muslim, Hindu, and Christian families (251-2). Most of the chapters of this collection begin with a reminiscence of a pleasant personal experience or piece of travel by Pratap in which some scene or object will remind her of an assignment. This is an effective way to demonstrate how much her reporting has affected her. These lead-in personal experiences present a strong contrast to the atrocities Pratap has witnessed. The only one that doesn't quite work is the over-long mother and son travelogue that begins the first Sri Lanka section, "Mothers and Sons." Because it is the first chapter of the book, it makes an unfortunate first impression in that Pratap aggressively presents herself as a "regular gal" primarily concerned with the welfare of her son. Though such concern is estimable, Pratap is not really a regular gal but a reporter who has seen many of the world's great human indignities. The over-use of the word "yucky" does not strike a commonality with the reader so much as it belittles Pratap's obvious courage and stamina in getting into dangerous places. Readers might want to start reading farther in to the book, then come back to this first section, so that they have a better sense of what the whole book is about. It’s a great pleasure for me to be able to introduce Charles Simic tonight. I had the honor of teaching with him at the University of New Hampshire (almost 15 years ago now – it seems quite impossible), so it’s a pleasure to cross paths with him again. But as I thought about seeing him again tonight, I realized that we sort of crossed paths once before, in a strange way . . . because in 1954, when Charlie first left Yugoslavia to come to the United States, my family was just packing up to move to Belgrade. Now I don’t know what strange law of physics is operating here, to regulate the distribution of literary energy, or how we both got from Belgrade to New Hampshire, but I suspect that if anyone has access to this kind of secret law, it’s Charlie Simic. I have a rather difficult task here, because Charles Simic has been amazingly productive since his first collection, What the Grass Says, was published in 1967. He is the author of more than 50 books, including some 25 books of poetry, and his work has mapped out an enormously varied imaginative terrain; to make matters worse, he has charted numerous intersections with other poets, not only American (though he has what the musicians call great chops in this area), but also French, Russian, and Yugoslav. He has also translated a number of volumes of work by a number of Yugoslav poets (Ivan Lalic, Vasko Popa, Stavko Janevski and others), and he is the author of more than half a dozen volumes of essays on contemporary poets and writers. I highly recommend The Orphan Factory, which contains memoirs as well as essays, and also a very recent book which has some 25 short and highly readable essays on a whole range of contemporary writers, including James Merrill, Mark Strand, Joseph Brodsky, John Ashbery, Saul Bellow, Czeslaw Milosz, James Tate and many others. The book is called The Metaphysician in the Dark (a good name for Simic himself, if you ask me). Charles Simic won the Edgar Allen Poe Award from the American Academy of Poets in 1975, and a "National Institute of Arts and Letters" and "American Academy of Arts and Letters" Award in 1976. He has received the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award from the University of Chicago, and the international PEN translation award (twice!), as well as a Guggenheim, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and an Ingram Merrill fellowship (you see what my problem is here). In 1984, he was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation award, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for The World Doesn’t End. Well, it’s a major body of work, and I can’t pretend to do it justice here. So let me simply give you a few fragments of his work, in his own words, to get you warmed up a little. Shortly after 9/11, I was listening to the news on the radio one morning, and I heard a song, one of those bits of music that they intersperse between stories – to give you some relief from all that language, I suppose – and I suddenly found myself captivated by a melody I hadn’t heard for forty years, the fragment of an old Serbian folk-song that I had heard as a child in Belgrade, and that I didn’t even know I remembered. I knelt down on the floor in a sort of stunned bewilderment, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, and I put my head right next to the speaker, in a kind of daze, wondering why I knew this melody, and where it came from, and finally I remembered . . . and then, just as suddenly, it was over, the news continued, and the day went on as if nothing had happened. Simic’s poetry strikes me in the same way sometimes, as if it were reaching out into areas of obscurity or forgotten knowledge, or as if he were excavating those moments when the elements of everyday experience suddenly jump out of their places and ask us to follow where they lead. In his poem "The Spoon," for example: An old spoon Simic has an eye that is attentive to the visible world – in "Classic Ballroom Dances," for example: The intricate steps of pickpockets But the visible world is never simply that, because the eye sees things that aren’t always there, "things and their shadows," as he says somewhere. It’s "the great longing of the invisible to see itself," as he puts it in "The Table of Delectable Contents." Follow this path far enough, and you arrive at "Ariadne": In the fine print of her face One might think of Surrealism, and Simic is indeed a hospitable poet, but it would be a mistake to enlist him in any camp. For the extravagance of the imagination, moving as it does beyond the visible world, into the realm of metaphor, is only one piece of the puzzle. More often, in fact, the movement goes in the opposite direction, and words, instead of taking flight, are sent out in search of reality. . .– in Summer Morning" (1971) for instance, where he writes: I know all the dark places Here, it is almost as if he does not know where he is going, and he casts his words out in advance, like enigmatic spidery sentries, sent forth, even before we know where they will lead, to shine their lanterns into the dark. We invent, we imagine or dream, we cast words out, flinging them toward things in a way that approximates but never really reaches them, and Simic knows how much words invent, how much we live by them, but also how much they only approximate, and even sometimes lose the world. Language invents us, but it also fails us, and Simic traces all the possible pathways of this labyrinth, holding on to the thread of reality in a way that is sometimes quite dark, often fierce, but never sentimental or grandiose. His poem, "Eating Out The Angel of Death," for example, points us away from the game of verbal constructions, towards something beyond the reach of words: Something goes through the world He manages to open our attention to these forgotten or inaudible places, but he does so without manufacturing any system, or enlisting in any metaphysical school. His poetry reaches down into those areas of obscurity in our experience – moving out (exploring) into places that are barely reachable – but never overreaching, or trying to set up shop there. "We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us," Keats once wrote – "and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand into its breeches pocket." Keats saw what was precious in the momentary illumination, in what he called "a fine suddenness" ("it’s own silent Working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness" [Nov 22 1817]). This is, for Keats, what ultimately damaged Wordsworth as a poet – that he could not relinquish his ambition to be a moralist. The same difficulty appears in Coleridge, according to Keats: "Coleridge would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude, caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge" (Dec 21-27, 1817). Simic never makes this mistake. He has an enormous tolerance for not knowing, and this refusal of all grand doctrines is one reason why his work has such great independence, even as it remains open and hospitable to a thousand other voices, Russian and French and Yugoslav, as well as American. Sometimes this attention to buried or silent recesses of experience connects us with questions of exile and homelessness, and with the weight of historical memory – in "Hearing Steps," for example, where he writes: Someone is walking through the snow: Grass is everywhere, grass and animals and insects – and trees, with roots that burrow down into our dreams, and dredge up all kinds of crazy and sometimes unwelcome things for us to feed upon: "The bones are already at the table," he writes in "Last Supper": There’s also something trampled Historical memory is never far away in these poems, and the smallest detail or incident can bring the past crashing down on us, but it is never so heavy, in Simic’s hands, as to give rise to pontification. More often, it appears in ways that are both mysterious and comical, and often both at once. This is the genre that he himself uses to describe John Ashbery, namely that of tragi-comedy.Recall the poem "To All Hog-Raisers, My Ancestors": When I eat pork, it’s solemn business. Richard Howard wrote thirty years ago that Charles Simic was an "original" poet, original in the sense of being grounded in something very old and archaic. And for all his curious, modern, very American, post-surrealist experiments in the vernacular, there is something ancient in the way he understands the poet’s work. History and memory and the obscure inheritance we receive from the past – all this is present here, but without the piety or grandiosity of some of his contemporaries. As he says in the poem "Hunger": "That’s all the explanation I find necessary."
Visit the Georgia Wine Highway If you haven't listened to Ray Charles in a while, or seen the Globetrotters do their dance to "Sweet Georgia Brown", or spent a rainy night there – get ready, wine lovers! You are about to have Georgia on your minds again. A second era of wine making is being heralded by varietal-specific, award-winning wines. As early as 1732, Englishman James Edward Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, tried to introduce European viticulture as a part of his economic plan to sustain the new colony. As chairman of a parliamentary committee of investigation, Oglethorpe had been horrified by the condition of English prisons and wished to provide an opportunity for poor debtors and criminals to work out their salvation in the New World. Venture capitalists expected to make large profits out of the industries of silk and wine that were introduced. But the colony did not prosper. Convicts were poor workers, imported silkworms disliked native mulberry trees and wine grapes (vitis vinifera) could not be successfully cultivated due to mysterious New World diseases and indigenous insects. Environmental and labor resources determined that rice and cotton were destined to be the foundation of early Georgia's prosperity. Fast forward a mere 150 years and 300 miles. Efforts to introduce viticulture in the north eastern part of Georgia met with remarkable success. In the fall 1886 Ralph L. Spencer left his birthplace in Essex, Connecticut for Tallapoosa, Georgia (Haralson County, west of present-day Atlanta). He was described as a man of "above average height; well fed and inclining to stoutness; handsome, personable, a born salesman with a flair for showmanship." Spencer, also known to enjoy wine, saw opportunity in the sandy clay of northeast Georgia. He invited a number of Hungarian winemaking families to leave their employ in the mining industry in Pennsylvania and settle on 2,000 acres of land near Tallapoosa. In 1893 some two hundred families of Hungarians immigrated to Georgia and began the cultivation of vineyards. Led by their priest, Father Janisek, they established a Catholic colony about four miles east of Tallapoosa and named it Budapest. Eastern Europeans who had settled in Ohio and various other parts of the United States were also attracted to the area and the new industry. Among them was a group of Slovakians who founded a second town site known as Nitra. The colony quickly flourished into a town with sixty buildings including a Catholic Church, stores and a post office. Soon many of sloping foothills of the Appalachians were garlanded with grapevines. Storage vats were prepared and wineries were constructed. An 1896 map reveals that vineyards then covered approximately 12,726 acres of land in Haralson County, Georgia. Vineyards and wineries dotted the North Georgia countryside from east to west. For a number of years, the Hungarians were very successful in their viticulture and winemaking ventures. Wine was distributed and sold throughout the southeast at the stops of the Southern Railway and Blue Ridge Railroad, often for a dollar a gallon, bring your own container. As Georgia entered the 20th Century it is reputed to have had over 20,000 acres of wine grapes and ranked as the 6th largest producer of wine in the US. By our unofficial count, Georgia has fewer than 400 acres of vitis vinifera (premium French Varietals), planted today. The reason for this dramatic change was prohibition. Georgia became one of the first states to prohibit the sale and distribution of alcohol in 1907, effectively wiping out all wine and vineyard operations. Not until the 1970's would Georgia experience resurgence of successful winemaking. Since the 1970's viticulture and winemaking have steadily regained importance in Georgia's agri-economy. Georgia is currently host to more than 10 wineries, and the rate of new vineyard plantings is among the highest in the Eastern U.S. Production is now about 115,000 gallons annually. In 2001 Georgia's legislature recognized the significance of the industry and authorized the designation of roadways and signage to create the Georgia Wine Trail. Included in the trail is an area of North Georgia where an increasing number of wineries have been started over the last several years. With this designation, as well as other favorable farm winery legislation passed at the same time, we may now see wine production accelerate to industry status.
Proactive, Low-Cost Prenatal Physical Therapy Reduces Pregnancy Complications, Eases Labor and Delivery and Shortens Recovery Time for Mothers ...cant difference in Rahimian's abdominal muscles during her second pregnancy. When Rahimian had her first c-section, her OB/GYN had mentioned that her rectus muscles (abs) and fascia were very weak and that she would likely not be able to ever achieve a flat stomach unless she did Pilates twice a week for m... Type of breast reconstruction impacts radiation therapy outcomes ...mastectomy for breast cancer: ATR (autologous tissue reconstruction), which involves the placement of a tissue flap most commonly from the transverse rectus abdominus muscle as a breast mound, and TE/I (tissue expander and implant reconstruction), which involves placing an inflatable tissue expander over ... Two Colorado Surgeons Become Pioneers In Microsurgical DIEP Flap Breast Reconstruction ...ng breast reconstruction. Women could choose to have saline or silicone implants, use her own tissue flap, or a combination of the two. The transverse rectus abdominis muscle flap, or TRAM flap, was the most common of the procedures. The TRAM flap is the process of taking tissue and muscle from the abdomina... Radiation after Breast Reconstruction ...Fifty patients underwent a reconstructive procedure called tissue expander placement with or without an implant, and 35 patients received a transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous (TRAM) reconstructive flap. Results of the study show, after five years, none of the patients who received a TRAM flap had... Trouan Superior Rectus Forceps Description: Shafts angled 45 degrees, 10 mm from tip to bend. 1 x 2 teeth. Serrated handle with polished finish. Most popular size or model.... Company:Bausch & Lomb Storz Osher Superior Rectus Forceps Description: Shafts angled 45 degrees, 10 mm from tip to bend. Tips curved with 0.5 mm, 1 x 2 teeth. Serrated handle with polished finish.... Company:Bausch & Lomb Storz Bio-Eye Hydroxyapatite (HA) Orbital Implant The implant must be directly integrated (e.g., via a peg) with the artificial eye to allow direct transfer of all available movement from the rectus muscles to the artificial eye The implant must be a natural material and readily accepted by the tissues of th... Company:Bio-Eye Orbital Implants Rectus in Medical Dictionary ...size of a quarter. ... the best site for your stoma as where it is placed has a great bearing on ... Ideally, the stoma is brought through the rectus abdominis muscle. ... Definition of stoma from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary with audio pronunciations, thesaurus, Word of the Day, and ... ...d jejunum quotes. ... Retrieved August 15th, 2009, from www.yourdictionary.com/ jejunum . Comments: ... Jejunum Flap. Omentum Flap. PMR Flap. rectus Flap. SIEA Flap. TRAM Flap. Lower Extremity ... The SIEA microsurgical breast reconstruction, like the DIEP ... ... growth in the jejunum , whi... Rectus in Biological News How alligators rock and roll ...r toward the tail so the lungs inflate when the animal inhales. abdominis muscles, which Uriona describes as the gator equivalent of six pa...eing eaten. Uriona says the diaphragmaticus likely began as part of the rectus abdominis muscle and evolved into a separate muscle. If the diaphragm-l... Rectus in Biological Technology Rectus in Biological Definition Tapetum lucidum (not in humans) Rectus in Biological Dictionary ...e Ventral Hernia ... A discussion of dealing with ventral ruptures in the late term mare. ... In practice, ventral herniation, rupture of the rectus
Four-legged friends might be just what a child needs to be a good reader. Children can build their reading fundamentals with the help of a dog during free events that are being planned by Pierce County Library System for several of its branch libraries, including the one in Graham. According to library officials, “Read to a Dog” events at the libraries help improve children’s literacy skills through the assistance of registered therapy dogs. Children feel comfortable reading out loud, read more often, attempt more difficult books, and look forward to reading. “Reading aloud helps children gain confidence and enhances learning,” said Neel Parikh, executive director of the Library System. “Sharing with a dog provides a new dimension that encourages children to read with enthusiasm.” The first of two events at the Graham library is scheduled for Jan. 8 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The second one is set for the same time on Feb. 19. The library is located at 9202 224th St. E. Similar events are also scheduled for the Summit and Sumner library branches. More information is available at www.piercecountylibrary.org. No registration to participate in the events, which are sponsored by Friends of the Librarie. Officials said the libraries will use only dogs that have passed the required obedience and temperament testing and are registered by an accredited therapy-dog organization. Research on animal-assisted therapy and activities shows that the presence of an animal encourages relaxation, lowering blood pressure and heart rate. Children who formerly did not enjoy reading often begin to look forward to sessions with a furry friend, according to officials. As children start making positive associations between time spent with a dog and reading, they begin to view reading in a positive light. In time, children’s reading ability and confidence can improve because they are practicing their skills in a comfortable environment, which will make them enjoy reading even more, officials said.
Capital: Rayong Location: Eastern Area: 3,552.0 km2 Population: 522,133 Density: 147/km2 Town and Districts Rayong, Ban Chang, Klaeng, Wang Chan, Ban Khai, Pluak Daeng, Khao Chamao, Nikhom Patthana The province of Chon Buri is on Thailand's eastern coast and shares borders with Chachoengsao Province, Chanthaburi Province, Rayong Province and the Gulf of Thailand. There is a mountain range stretching from the north-west to the south-east of the province, while the fertile plains of the north were long used for farming. In Laem Chabang in the south of the province is one of the few deep-water harbours of Thailand. This province is also the nearest beach destination to Bangkok, one of the main weekend getaways for city dwellers. The province features excellent beaches and is also the gate to world's famous Pattaya - Thailand's most famous beach destinations. Pattaya is a significant draw for foreign tourists keen to sample its nightlife, golf courses, water sports and diving around Jomtien and Naklua beaches. The area also boasts numerous restaurants, cabaret, shows, zoos- everything in fact you could possibly wish for on a holiday. A little over two hours from Bangkok, Chonburi and Pattaya can be approached as a day trip or an extended stay. The area boasts abundant natural resources, which are highlighted by delightful beaches, local colours, delicacies and fresh seafood. In addition, Chon Buri is the Centre of the Eastern Seaboard Development Project, with its industrial parks and fishing villages. History During the late Ayutthaya period, when the former capital was being razed to the ground by the invading Burmese, Phaya Tak led a troop of patriots, broke through the cordon of besieging troops and marched to Rayong in order to build up his navy before proceeding on to Chanthaburi. Because of his courage and bravery, the soldiers and local population anointed him as "King" in Rayong. Once he had built up sufficient troop strength, Phaya Tak who later became King Taksin of the Kingdom of Thonburi returned to Ayutthaya, routed the Burmese and set up a new capital in Thonburi.
Online Program Helps Patients Self-Monitor Blood Pressure FRIDAY May 21, 2010 -- An online blood-pressure monitoring program made a major difference in health management for patients with uncontrolled hypertension, new research has found. The researchers studied more than 350 patients, aged 18 to 85, who had uncontrolled high blood pressure -- hypertension. The study participants were randomly assigned to receive ordinary treatment or take part in a monitoring program in conjunction with the American Heart Association's Heart360.org Web site, which helps people manage their heart health at no cost. Those who took part in the online program transmitted blood pressure readings via a home computer to their physicians. Pharmacy specialists reviewed the numbers and adjusted the medications of the patients accordingly, the study authors explained. After six months, 58 percent of those in the program had lowered their blood pressure to healthy levels, compared to just 38 percent of those in the other group, Dr. David Magid of Kaiser Permanente Colorado and colleagues found. The study findings are scheduled to be presented Friday at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke 2010 Scientific Sessions, in Washington D.C.
Sustainable Hydropower – Ethiopian Style At the end of June, Reeyot Alemu, an Ethiopian journalist, was thrown into jail after she dared to raise questions about the proposed Grand Millennium Dam. This is only the latest example of the severe repression that the Ethiopian government metes out against anybody who takes a critical position on its massive hydropower projects. In spite of such repression, the International Hydropower Association recently recognized Ethiopia’s power utility as a “Sustainability Partner.” This is a telling example of the dam industry’s current propaganda effort – an effort that is at best naive and at worst cynical. Ethiopia is rich in rivers, geothermal and solar energy. Given the country’s huge needs and limited resources, the government would be well advised to follow a rational planning process and mobilize all forces of society as it develops its energy resources. Yet Ethiopia’s energy sector is utterly politicized. The government has pulled multi-billion dollar projects such as the Gibe III Dam on the Omo River and the Grand Millennium Dam on the Blue Nile out of thin air. It stitched up both projects with an Italian company that received big no-bid contracts for them – without comprehensive evaluation, a public debate, or notifying its partners in the Nile Basin Initiative. Ethiopia’s politicized approach to hydropower is underpinned by severe repression. Dam-affected people, academics and journalists cannot afford to question government pet projects such as Gibe III and the Grand Millennium Dam. A detailed report by Human Rights Watch documents how the Ethiopian regime uses development projects to systematically suppress critical voices. “Ethiopia’s practices include jailing and silencing critics and media, enacting laws to undermine human rights activity, and hobbling the political opposition,” the report states. As if to drive home the point, several farmers and a journalist who wanted to provide input into the report were detained. The ripples of this repression have even reached our office, as we have received death threats and other abuse for our efforts to stop the destructive Gibe III Dam. A few months ago, the Ethiopian government and the International Hydropower Association (IHA) organized an international conference in Addis Ababa under the motto of Hydropower for Sustainable Development. The sponsors included China’s Sinohydro, the World Bank, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. In spite of the event’s alluring motto, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi did not mince his words. In a blistering opening statement, he condemned activists who opposed dam projects as “hydropower extremists” and “bordering on the criminal.” The government’s thugs will know how to take care of people whom the Prime Minister has branded as “extremists.” Industry representatives, including from the IHA, have in the past spoken out against death threats to civil society activists, and I respect them for this. Yet the IHA has not expressed any concerns about the human rights abuses in Ethiopia’s hydropower sector, and has not answered our questions on the subject. On the day after Prime Minister Zenawi lashed out against environmental activists, the organization embraced the government’s power utility as a “Sustainability Partner.” The IHA and its-co-organizers also announced the establishment of a “centre of excellence on sustainable hydropower” in Ethiopia. I am not opposed to dialogue with repressive regimes if it brings about measurable progress for human rights and the environment. But you need a long spoon to sup with the devil, and define clear rules if you partner with repressive regimes. The IHA has not done so. Dam builders don’t have to fulfill any social or environmental minimum standards for becoming its “Sustainability Partners.” All they have to do is assess one of their projects under the dam industry’s new Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol over the next three years, and pay the IHA a fee of 65,000 Pounds. As we explain elsewhere, they can hire their own evaluators and control the process when their projects undergo assessments. Irrespective of the outcome, the IHA plans to give their projects a “Sustainable Hydropower” logo at the end of the process. The new Protocol foresees that affected people and civil society experts can provide input when projects get assessed. Anybody who gives critical feedback when a project is evaluated in Ethiopia will risk landing in jail or worse. Yet such real-life impacts don’t seem to matter in the brave new world of the IHA’s propaganda initiative. By going through the motions of the new Protocol and paying a fee to the hydropower industry, the Ethiopian dam builders can greenwash their image in an international arena while silencing critics like Reeyot Alemu at home. The notion of sustainability has often been mistreated, but has rarely come so cheap. Yet partnerships cut both ways. With bedfellows like the Ethiopian dam builders, the IHA has put its own legitimacy on the line.
According to the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure, 2010 community profile from the Salt Lake Affiliate, during 2010, 1,200 women in Utah were diagnosed with breast cancer and 250 women died from the disease. The breast cancer occurrence rate in Utah for 2010 was 101.68 per 100,000 and is lower than the national average reported at 122.54 per 100,000. However, only 67% of Utah women schedule an annual mammogram in Utah. National statistics show that Utah boasts the second-lowest incidence rate of breast cancer, but on the state level, it is the most deadly form of cancer for women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a state we are among the lowest in the amount of women who regularly schedule an annual mammogram, more so for women with little or no health insurance. During the follow up program, Breast Cancer: Next Steps - Director of Production, Ken Verdoia, invites the community to learn more about the advances in research and treatment and the support networks available in Utah during the 30 minute follow up program that will include Dr. Leigh Neumayer of Huntsman Cancer Institute and Ginger Thompson, Founder of Happy Chemo. Viewers will be encouraged to call in for the free resources packet of information from the phone bank volunteers at KUED that evening. 801-585-5465
GEOGRAPHY OF FOOD This program explores food and identity in Provence. We learn first hand about the patterns, processes, and cultural meaning of food as it is grown, prepared, and consumed in the South of France. Through group and independent field projects, seminar sessions and guest lectures, farm visits, shopping, cooking, and eating, students will experience the life of the village. Guests from the village and vicinity will accompany us on tours and join us at meals. Our base is a converted convent in the market village of Aups in the Haut Var: the rugged, hardscrabble part of Provence, where limestone highlands support scrub forest and garrigue, and agriculture must bend to the constraints of thin soils, the notorious mistral, hot, dry summers, and distant markets. Olives, vineyards, and truffles are essential elements of the culinary landscapes of Provence; shepherds still lead their flocks through Aups to pastures beyond the village; and indigenous herbs—rosemary, thyme, lavender—distinguish this landscape and infuse Provençale cuisine.
Saltwater versus Freshwater Aquariums Written by Katherine Barrington Learn the arguments for choosing to set-up either a freshwater or saltwater aquarium. People often wonder whether they should setup a freshwater or a saltwater aquarium. They have probably heard pretty convincing opinions on both sides of the argument (and yes, everyone has their own preference) which can make it hard to choose. I currently have both kinds of aquariums so I thought it would be useful to discuss the key differences between the two setups so people could better judge for themselves which one fits them better. This article is not meant to sway you one way or the other as I fully realize that each person has their own preference. Instead, it is meant as an overall view of their similarities and differences. I do want to clarify one common misconception before we start. Many people seem to think that freshwater aquariums are for beginners and then when they get enough experience, they move onto saltwater. While it may generally be true that saltwater aquariums tend to require more expertise, there are plenty of very experienced freshwater hobbyist who simply choose to stay in the freshwater realm. Besides, there are numerous freshwater setups that can provide just as much of a challenge as a saltwater setup. Different Types of Aquariums While we are generally breaking down the types of aquariums you can choose into two large categories – freshwater or saltwater – there are actually subcategories within each of these. These subcategories have a huge impact on aspects of your tank such as cost and maintenance. For freshwater, some of the subcategories include: - Planted tanks - Biotope tanks - Cichlid tanks (African or New World) - Brackish tanks - Predator tanks For saltwater, there are three main subcategories: - Fish-only tanks - Fish-only with live rock tanks (FOWLR) - Reef tanks Throughout the article, I will point to how these subcategories impacts your experience within the freshwater or saltwater world. The thing that most people think of when they think about the main differences between freshwater and saltwater is cost. There is a common perception that saltwater aquariums cost a good deal more than freshwater ones. To be quite honest, this is generally the case. Saltwater fish tend to be more expensive. Saltwater tanks tends to take additional equipment. Corals can add significantly to the cost. All of these things need to be considered, but do realize that cost is relative. For example, a reef tank is probably going to be the most expensive of the saltwater aquariums. Therefore, if you wanted to keep the cost more in-line with a freshwater tank, you could setup a fish-only or FOWLR tank. You could also do DIY projects for much of the additional equipment required for saltwater or you could skip this equipment altogether as some people do (the recent push for nano-tanks has shown to some people that things such as skimmers or sumps are not required in all cases). On the flip side of this, you can certainly make a freshwater aquarium very expensive. For example, if you have a heavily planted tank, the additional lighting, carbon dioxide, and fertilizers can add up fast. African cichlid tanks can require huge amounts of rock that can be equivalent to placing live rock in your tank in a saltwater setup. As you can see, price is a relative thing. Yes, in general, saltwater aquariums are more expensive. But, as you can also see, this is not always the case. It used to be the common belief that you could not have a saltwater tank under 50 gallons. However, this notion has recently been shown false. The rush of nano-tanks in the saltwater world went against many of the beliefs that saltwater people held dear and showed people that saltwater tanks can be as small as you like. In fact many manufacturers are now making 10-30 gallon all-in-one units (example: Nano Cube HQI) specifically for saltwater use. Now, as with all tanks, the larger the aquarium, the easier it is to take care of, but the point here is that there is no longer this size difference between the two categories of tanks. You can have a 5 gallon saltwater tank or you can have a huge tank and the same goes for freshwater. Saltwater tanks do require some additional work during water changes, mostly related to the fact that you have to mix the salt. This can be time consuming as the salt tends to dissolve slowly and requires you to buy a hydrometer to check the salinity level. One way to not use up so much of your time is to mix your saltwater continuously by putting some water and some salt into a large bucket with a heater and a powerhead. You can then leave it for a while (24 hours minimum) and then when you need the water, the salt will already be dissolved. In fact, this is the preferred method rather than mixing it by hand and measuring the salinity right away. Salt can take up to 24 hours to dissolve so measuring the salinity right away is a bad indicator of what it will be in the end. Some people get around mixing salt by buying large jugs of pre-mixed saltwater from their local fish store. You just need to know that this is more expensive than you doing it yourself in most cases. Saltwater lighting can get VERY expensive. Many corals require metal halide lighting which not only is expensive to buy, but is also expensive to run. However, you can stay away from high-light corals and stick with power compact lighting which is a good deal cheaper than metal halide, but still more expensive than the “standard” fluorescent lighting found in many freshwater aquariums. You could also choose a fish-only aquarium where the only lighting requirement is what makes the fish look good. It should also be noted that saltwater corals generally require actinic lighting (not to mention the fact that this kind of lighting makes them really pop). Actinic lighting is not often used in freshwater setups as plants do not benefit from that portion of the spectrum and it can promote algae growth. In the freshwater world, the planted tank is the only tank that really has a lighting requirement and even in these tanks, compact fluorescents are the lighting of choice. In all other freshwater aquariums, you only need the lighting that makes the tank and its inhabitants suit your tastes. There is simply no substitute for a reef aquarium in terms of color. It is just a fact that there is more variety and a wider array of bright colored fish and corals in the saltwater world. The only thing that comes close, in my opinion, is an African cichlid tank (people who do not know much about fish often mistake my cichlid tank for a saltwater tank), but even these do not have the intense color differences found in a full reef tank. Again, the edge probably has to go to saltwater here. While there are certainly enough freshwater species to ensure you never get bored, it just doesn’t compare to the huge array of very different looking fish and invertebrates found in saltwater setups. Being able to add corals and other odd creatures also adds to the variety found in saltwater setups. Again, you can do a saltwater setup without a great deal of additional equipment, but the average saltwater aquarium does usually use more equipment than a freshwater setup. Examples of equipment many people use in the saltwater world that are not required in freshwater include: - Protein skimmer - Salt mix - Live rock - Power heads (these can be found in many freshwater setups as well, but they are generally not required there) - Additional test kits (examples: alkalinity, calcium) While this may seem like a strange category, I felt it was important to put it in here because it is one of the main reasons I think saltwater tanks are so cool. With saltwater aquariums, your tank is always evolving. When you put live rock or live sand in your tank, hitch hikers come along and you just have no idea what to expect next. Very rarely in the freshwater world (outside of snails coming with plants) do you see inhabitants in your tank that were not bought. It is really interesting to sit and watch your saltwater tank and see what is new. Now, along with this comes a negative because not all of these hitch hikers are good (examples: Aiptasia, bristle worms, mantis shrimps, etc.). It can be hard to remove some of these bad hitch hikers and can lead to added stress. The closest I have seen to this in the freshwater world are tanks with fish that readily breed. My cichlid tank is pretty fun to sit down and watch because you can always see new fry hiding in little crevices. You also get to watch mating behaviors and courting. If you want a very dynamic tank, but in the freshwater realm, a tank with breeding fish or a tank with a definite hierarchy (example: African cichlids) can be quite interesting. Another interesting dynamic in saltwater tanks is that you usually cannot see all the inhabitants at one time due to the large amount of live rock. You may see a fish poke its head out or something else swim behind the rock. It really adds to the natural feel of the tank. Freshwater tanks can also be this way. I have a huge rock wall for my mbuna tank and the fish are constantly swimming in and among the rocks. A heavily planted tank also causes this to happen. Ease of Keeping Similar to the fact that most (but not all) saltwater tanks are more expensive than freshwater, freshwater tanks are generally easier to care for. This is especially true when comparing a freshwater tank to a reef setup. Again, there are counter examples (comparing a heavily planted tank to a fish-only saltwater), but generally the variables are less complex in a freshwater setup. Obviously there is nothing in the freshwater world like coral. If you just love coral then saltwater is the way to go. My mother-in-law has a saltwater setup with two small clownfish and tons of coral species. She doesn’t really care for fish all that much, but she loves watching the different kinds of coral in her tank. Keep in mind though that with coral comes additional maintenance. Each one of your coral species may require a different diet, light level, or current preference. You must be willing to put in the time to properly care for these creatures. If you want to watch the miracle of birth in your aquarium then freshwater is probably the route you want to go. Very few saltwater species breed easily in captivity while many freshwater species breed like crazy. I have kept both saltwater and freshwater and I must say that I enjoy each for different reasons. I know some people are very polarized on what they prefer, but I think each can be very entertaining as long as you do your research. If you want to keep your saltwater tank healthy, you need to consider the ideal level of water flow. Installing a wavemaker in your tank will help you strike the right balance. Choosing the Correct Temperature for a Marine Aquarium One of the most important things you must to do ensure the health of your marine tank is to achieve and maintain the ideal temperature.
Not long ago, researchers at the world-renowned University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center published a groundbreaking scientific review of their favorite anti-cancer nutrient — curcumin. Curcumin, along with several other nutrients, is remarkable in that it can actually tell the difference between a healthy cell and a cancer cell. According to Wellness Resources, here is how the researchers explained their interest in curcumin: “’ … Curcumin (diferuloylmethane) … is one of the most powerful and promising chemopreventive and anticancer agents … How curcumin exerts its powerful anticancer activities has been thoroughly investigated, and several mechanisms of action have been discovered … curcumin exerts its biological activities through epigenetic modulation.’” In other words, curcumin changes the regulation of DNA to help kill cancer. In fact, curcumin not only influences epigenetic settings, it also manages the downstream consequences, helping to guide multiple steps in the way gene orders are implemented.
Purpose: To investigate alternatives to arrest the coastal storm damage reduction along the shoreline within the cities of Encinitas and Solana Beach that occurs during severe winter wave climate. Study Area: The Solana Beach-Encinitas shoreline study area is located along the Pacific Ocean in the Cities of Solana Beach and Encinitas, San Diego County, California. Encinitas is approximately 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of Oceanside Harbor, and 27 kilometers (17 miles) north of Point La Jolla. The Encinitas shoreline is about 9.6 kilometers (6 miles) long. It is bounded on the north by Batiquitos Lagoon and on the south by San Elijo Lagoon. The 1,500-meter-long (4,920 feet) southernmost segment of the Encinitas shoreline is a low-lying barrier spit fronting the San Elijo tidal lagoon. Immediately south of Encinitas is the City of Solana Beach. Solana Beach is bounded by San Elijo Lagoon to the north and on the south by the City of Del Mar. It is approximately 27 kilometers (17 miles) south of Oceanside Harbor, and 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of Point La Jolla. Solana Beach’s shoreline is about 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) long. Nearly all of the shoreline in the study area except Cardiff (8 miles total) consists of narrow sand and cobble beaches fronting nearshore bluffs. Problem Summary: In the last 10 to 15 years, The Solana Beach-Encinitas shoreline has experienced accelerated erosion of the beaches and coastal bluffs. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, Southern California has experienced a series of unusual weather patterns when compared to the rest of this century. Fluvial delivery has also been significantly reduced due to river damming and inland sand mining activities. The cumulative effects of these impacts have produced erosion of the once-wide, sandy beaches. As a result of the severe winter storms in the 1982-1983 El Nino year and the extreme storm of 1988, most of the thin sand lens on the Encinitas beaches was lost even prior to the 1997-1998 El Nino season. Within Solana Beach, the chronically denuded beach condition was also worsened after the 1997-1998 season. It is apparent that beach sands were stripped away and lost from the littoral system during that season. With the loss of the wide sandy beaches, storm waves attack the toe of the bluff and eventually form a notch. As the notch depth increases, it eventually triggers an upper bluff failure. The timing of these failures are difficult to predict and often occur several months after the storms have passed. As a result, damages occur to bluff top structures when bluffs collapse. This has prompted property owners atop the bluffs to armor or otherwise try to protect their property before structural damage occurs. Approximately half of the shoreline in the study area has been modified with some type of bluff protection structure, at significant cost. These seawalls provide piecemeal protection at varying levels. Our study focuses on a more comprehensive solution over the critical study area. The loss of beach has also severely degraded recreational value in all reaches, and the loss of beach combined with the undercutting bluff erosion creates dangerous overhangs which constitute a serious public safety issue. There have been fatalities in recent years caused by sudden bluff collapse in the study area and adjacent beaches. The critical areas were delineated in two segments. Segment 1 (Reaches 3, 4, and 5) exists within the City of Encinitas and extends from the 700 Block of Neptune Avenue to Swami’s Reef and is approximately 3.2 kilometers (km) [2.0 miles (mi)] in length; Segment 2 exists within the City of Solana Beach and stretches from Table Tops Reefs to the southern limit of Solana Beach (Reaches 8 and 9) and is approximately 2.3 km (1.4 mi) in length.
cabin, left, Milam County Jail and Courthouse in a Pecan Shell\| Texas on the banks of the Brazos, had served as the seat of Milam County since the time Texas was declared a Republic. In April of 1846 the Texas Legislature authorized a commission to find a more permanent site for the county seat. These men bought sixty acres on the Little River that year and named the new town in honor of Ewen Cameron, surveyor. Cameron's first courthouse was finished that same year and county records were transferred from Nashville. Alone on the prairie and fifty miles from the nearest railroad depot, early residents had an opportunity to become well acquainted with one another. were made to navigate the Little River in the late 1840s and early 1850s. In 1850 one of these attempts proved successful when Capt. Basil M. Hatfield managed to bring his steamboat up the Little River to about 2½ east of town. Cameronians rejoiced and a two-day celebration was held. Sadly, it was learned that only after heavy rains could a boat get through. Regular service was out of the question. Cameron had other problems in the 1870s. When the International-Great Northern Railroad came to Rockdale, people started suggesting Rockdale as perhaps the best location for a county seat. Elections were held in 1874 and 1880, and Cameron scraped by on both occasions. Finally in 1881 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway arrived and Cameron felt secure. Ten years later the San Antonio and Aransas Pass came through. In 19th Century Texas there were two blessings. One would be having a hometown boy become Governor - and the other was to get a second railroad. the railroads, Cameron only had 500 citizens. After the railroads arrived it was suddenly up to 800 and by 1892 the population had reached 2,000. of Ben Milam on the square.\| "'Who will go with Old Ben Milam into San Antonio?' Milam, for whom the county was named, is one of Texas' legendary heroes, losing his life in San Antonio early in Texas' battle for independence." - Lou Ann Although cotton was the town's 19th Century economic engine, the 20th Century brought more diversified industries. Williamson County had discovered oil in 1915 so Milam County began their own exploration. It paid off in 1921 with "the Minerva-Rockdale field." building of the Alcoa aluminum plant in the 1950s revitalized the local economy, but recent environmental concerns have dampened enthusiasm. its rail connection to Giddings in 1959 when the Texas and New Orleans railroad pulled out of Milam County and the Southern Pacific (in 1977) abandoned the rails connecting Cameron with Rosebud. view of the jail - viewed from the courthouse.\| The 1890 courthouse has been restored in recent years and the entire top (which had been removed as a hazard) has been replaced with an accurate (but lightweight) The former jail is now in use as the Milam County Historical Museum. Just east of town across the Little River is the Pioneer Cemetery - where earlier residents are interred. The city cemetery is now close to downtown, a stone's throw from the courthouse and jail. a collection of murals on downtown walls, there are also a few advertising artifacts. These Coca-Cola signs were painted over a five-county area by "Eddie and Monk" - when Cameron had its own Coca-Cola bottling Ghost sign just east of the square.
During 1940s, penicillin, the first commercially available antibiotic, was hailed as a “wonder drug.” Penicillin helped make WWII the first American war where infection was not the major cause of death. But by the 1950s, antibiotic resistance became widespread. Scientists were engaged in a veritable arms race, constantly modifying and developing new classes of antibiotics to beat resistance while bacteria, literally generations ahead, continued to defeat their advances. The same story is true for antivirals, such as Tamiflu (oseltamivir). Multidrug-resistant bacteria and viruses are an increasing problem, especially in hospital settings. Scientists are now looking to develop new methods, beyond standard antibiotics and antivirals, to combat bacterial and viral diseases. Within the past month, many new treatments have been discussed, including the use of small interfering RNA (siRNA). There is currently no effective drug against the Ebola virus, but a new siRNA based method of treating the deadly Zaire Strain of the Ebola virus has proven successful in recent animal studies at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). siRNAs are small pieces of RNA that block specific RNA sequences before they can be translated into a protein. Because they are typically unstable, the researchers used a new method, developed by the Tekmira Pharmaceutical Corporation, to stabilize the siRNA for delivery. This new delivery method could be easily modified and used to treat other viral hemorrhagic fevers or any other viral infections. In fact, it may also be used to develop a broad spectrum treatment against the influenza virus. Another research group has recently discovered a small viral RNA (svRNA) common to all influenza viruses that controls viral replication. This svRNA could easily be targeted and destroyed by an siRNA. This breakthrough in treatment with siRNA offers hope to those who infected by previously untreatable infections, such as Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fevers, or even by common viral infections, such as the influenza virus, that have developed resistance to standard antiviral medications. These new advances in technology and basic science allow for targeted and broad spectrum treatments to an increasing number of antibiotic/antiviral-resistant pathogens. Although these treatments may seem like modern “wonder drugs,” they can ultimately become resistant and ineffective. Because many in the medical field have witnessed first-hand the rise and decline of antibiotic and antiviral effectiveness, a more responsibility approach to the use of these new drugs will likely be taken in effort to delay the emergence of resistant pathogens. While beneficial, all technological advances have the potential for misuse, and a continual effort to raise the awareness of these issues to scientists and the community is needed. The FAS Biosecurity program’s dual use case studies highlight some research related to the topics mention in this post, including the “Antibiotic Resistance” and “RNA interference” case studies.
Diabetes Risks Go Beyond Heart Attacks, Strokes Study: 40% of Deaths in People With Diabetes Are Due to Non-Cardiovascular Causes Diabetes and Cancer continued... Though it’s not clear exactly how diabetes may increase cancer risk, the consensus statement notes: “The relative risks imparted by diabetes are greatest (about twofold or higher) for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and endometrium, and lesser (about 1.2-1.5 fold) for cancers of the colon and rectum, breast, and bladder. Other cancers (e.g., lung) do not appear to be associated with an increased risk in diabetes, and the evidence for others (e.g., kidney, non-Hodgkin lymphoma) is inconclusive. Few studies have explored links with type 1 diabetes.” One common link may be insulin. Often before people become diabetic, their bodies crank out ever higher levels of insulin because their cells stop responding to it, a condition called insulin resistance. Insulin also contributes to inflammation, another process that can drive cancer. Advice for People With Diabetes “The main message for patients and doctors is probably we should think about non-vascular death,” says Di Angelantonio. “We should consider appropriate screening for cancer in patients with diabetes.”
Department of Psychology Although previous studies have examined the peer status of gifted students in upper elementary grades, very little is known about the social status and peer acceptance of gifted children in the lower elementary grades (k-3). In the present study, the researcher compared the peer status of teacher nominated gifted kindergarten children to that of their non-gifted classmates on measures of peer acceptance and social status. Also compared was the peer status of gifted children in the lower elementary grades (1-3) within the regular classroom and an enrichment classroom on measures of peer acceptance and social status. Results indicate that gifted kindergartners were more accepted and more popular than non-gifted classmates. Also, male kindergarten students tended to be less accepted and more rejected than females. There were no significant findings for the ungraded primary classrooms, although there were patterns in the data which suggested that younger gifted children may be more rejected than older gifted children. Future studies should explore this question with a larger sample.
A new meta-analysis from the Harvard School of Public Health shows that eating foods rich in magnesium could cut the risk of cardiovascular disease, the industrial world's greatest killer, by 30 percent. The study of 313,041 individuals will be published in the July 2013 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, one of the study’s co-authors, described the link established between increased intake of magnesium and lower heart disease risk as “the most robust evidence yet.” The Harvard scientists noted that their conclusions favor the consumption of magnesium rich foods like whole grains, legumes and vegetables although the researchers also suggested clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of magnesium supplements in combating heart disease. As the eighth most common element on earth, magnesium taken in pill form could prove to be an inexpensive cardiovascular therapy. In 2004 researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard school of Public health concluded that more magnesium in the diet could cut the risk of type 2 diabetes. Magnesium is also required for maintaining strong bones and healthy blood pressure. People are at greater risk for magnesium deficiency as they age. Symptoms can include headaches, including migraines; leg cramps; muscle weakness; restless leg syndrome; and cardiac arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat. Magnesium rich foods include pumpkin seeds, spinach, Swiss chard, broccoli, squash, soybeans, sesame seeds, halibut and black beans. Brown rice is a whole, natural grain that is produced when its inedible husk is milled away. Brown rice has a subtle, nutty flavor. If the rice keeps getting ground down so that the bran and germ are removed, the result is white rice. This extra milling removes fiber, manganese, folate, zinc, vitamin B1, vitamin B3, vitamin B6, iron, phosphorus, the fatty acids, and 75 percent of the magnesium. In fact, rice bran is one of the richest sources of magnesium; 52 grams of rice bran supplies more than 100 percent of the daily recommended amount. Milling rice to make it white so degrades its nutritional worth that small amounts of B vitamins and iron must be applied to the rice as a coating before it’s allowed to be sold in the US, but 11 nutrients, including magnesium, are not added back. Brown rice has fewer calories and carbohydrates, with more nutrients than white rice. Because white rice has a higher glycemic index than brown rice it raises blood sugar levels more rapidly. According to a 2010 study at the Harvard School of Public Health, replacing 50 daily grams of white rice with brown rice would cut the risk of an individual developing type 2 diabetes by 16 percent. Unfortunately in the United States more than 2/3 of the rice consumed is white rice. In some Asian cultures there’s a bias against brown rice because traditionally it’s been consumed by the poor. The only problem with brown rice is that it doesn’t store as well as white rice because brown rice still retains the essential oils in the germ, so brown rice can go rancid in a few months. This is an easy to make dish that is nutritionally rich, tasty and low calorie. It serves four: 1 cup of brown rice 1 cup of brown lentils 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce 1 tablespoon of turmeric 3 cloves of garlic, minced 1 medium onion, minced ¼ teaspoon of salt Like beans lentils are legumes, so they are high in protein. They are also rich in iron, folate, phosphorus, manganese and thiamin while low in fat. The rice and beans also contain magnesium. Turmeric is a powerful anti oxidant that has been used as an anti inflammatory in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine. It's best known as one of the spices in curry. Garlic and onions have cancer fighting properties. Brown lentils tend to retain their shape better than those of other colors. Rinse the lentils of any dirt picked up in harvesting. The brown rice has already been milled so it doesn’t have to be cleaned. Place 4 cups 2 ounces of water in a large sauce pan with a tight fitting lid. Add all ingredients except for the egg. Boil, stir well, cover and then turn down the heat. Simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally while checking to make sure you're not burning your dish. When all the water is absorbed, fold in the egg. Yields a full cup each with 379 calories, with 18 grams of protein , 70 grams of carbohydrates and just 3 grams of fat per serving . The latest version also contains a TV interview with the producers about how they applied the precepts they learned to live better and younger. Plus there are free bonus videos on "Superfoods," "Superdrinks," "Saving your Face," "Exercise Basics," and "Seeing without Glasses." Preview the anti aging documentary here. As a reader of this newsletter you qualify for a special bonus: Enter coupon code RAN-5 at checkout and save $5 off the selling price here at ReverseAging.TV Get 2 1/3 hours of material for only $19.95!To see how one baby boomer is applying anti-aging precepts to his own life, go to Anti-Aging Diary.com. To embrace anti-aging you need to make a mental as well as physical journey. It's not always easy, but well worth the effort. Remember to watch our anti-aging documentary, “Reverse Aging Now.
What causes Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis? Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis is caused by a mutation in a gene called CYP27A1, which produces an enzyme called sterol 27-hydroxylase. Sterol 27-hydroxylase is required to turn cholesterol into bile acids, which are important in the absorption of fats in the intestine. In addition, when sterol 27-hydroxylase is not working properly, cholesterol accumulates in the tissues. How is Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis diagnosed? Diagnosis can be performed with a biochemical analysis of certain molecules in the blood and urine. Because the gene that is involved in CTX is known, molecular tests are also available to confirm the diagnosis. What are the symptoms of Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis ? - Psychomotor retardation - Pyramidal/cerebellar signs: pyramidal and cerebellar are parts of the brain/central nervous system - Neurologic dysfunction with variable time of onset - Mental retardation leading to dementia - Psychiatric symptoms, including behavioral changes, hallucinations, agitation, aggression, depression, suicide attempts - Optic disk paleness: paleness in a particular part of the eye - Premature retinal aging - Xanthomas:Skin lesions characterized by accumulations of lipid-laden cells. Xanthomas can be a reflection of lipid metabolism alteration or a result of local cell dysfunction. - Premature arteriosclerosis - Coronary artery diseases - Chronic intractable diarrhea - Increased risk of bone fracture - Epileptic seizures - EEG abnormalities What is the treatment for Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis ? If CTX is diagnosed before there has been too much deterioration of the brain, proper treatment can potentially prevent the brain damage that can lead to severe mental dysfunction and eventually death. Treatment with a molecule called chenodeoxycholic acid inhibits abnormal bile acid synthesis and can halt, slow, and in some cases reverse the course of the disease. How is scientific research on Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis progressing towards improvement treatment or diagnosis? The identification of the gene responsible for Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis has allowed scientists to develop better ways to diagnose the disease. In addition, they can use this information to try to improve treatments for CTX. Other Clinical Names for Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis
Welcome to Camerooon Hello from Cameroon. I am a Catholic priest of the Dominican Order. I live in Cameroon since 1993. I am a manager of an orphanage in Yaounde in Cameroon. I have two bikes KLR 650th Both in very good condition and ready to African conditions. If anyone would be interested in visiting Cameroon on my motorcycle is a possibility. You can rent them here on the site. You can live with me and make trips to several days in different parts of Cameroon. Sorry for my English. I use google translater Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon (French: République du Cameroun), is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Bonny, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. The country is called "Africa in miniature" for its geological and cultural diversity. Natural features include beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas. The highest point is Mount Cameroon in the southwest, and the largest cities are Douala, Yaoundé and Garoua. Cameroon is home to over 200 different linguistic groups. The country is well known for its native styles of music, particularly makossa and bikutsi, and for its successful national football team. French and English are the official languages. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões ("River of Prawns"), the name from which Cameroon derives. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established powerful chiefdoms and fondoms. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884. After World War I, the territory was divided between France and Britain as League of Nations mandates. The Union des Populations du Cameroun political party advocated independence, but was outlawed by France in the 1950s. It waged war on French and UPC militant forces until 1971. In 1960, the French-administered part of Cameroon became independent as the Republic of Cameroun under President Ahmadou Ahidjo. The southern part of British Cameroons merged with it in 1961 to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The country was renamed the United Republic of Cameroon in 1972 and the Republic of Cameroon in 1984. Compared to other African countries, Cameroon enjoys relatively high political and social stability. This has permitted the development of agriculture, roads, railways, and large petroleum and timber industries. Nevertheless, large numbers of Cameroonians live in poverty as subsistence farmers. Power lies firmly in the hands of the authoritarian president since 1982, Paul Biya, and his Cameroon People's Democratic Movement party. At 475,442 square kilometres (183,569 sq mi), Cameroon is the world's 53rd-largest country. It is comparable in size to Papua New Guinea and somewhat larger than the U.S. state of California. The country is located in Central and West Africa on the Bight of Bonny, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Cameroon lies between latitudes 1° and 13°N, and longitudes 8° and 17°E. Tourist literature describes Cameroon as "Africa in miniature" because it exhibits all major climates and vegetation of the continent: coast, desert, mountains, rainforest, and savanna. The country's neighbours are Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon is divided into five major geographic zones distinguished by dominant physical, climatic, and vegetative features. The coastal plain extends 15 to 150 kilometres (9 to 93 mi) inland from the Gulf of Guinea and has an average elevation of 90 metres (295 ft). Exceedingly hot and humid with a short dry season, this belt is densely forested and includes some of the wettest places on earth, part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests. The South Cameroon Plateau rises from the coastal plain to an average elevation of 650 metres (2,133 ft). Equatorial rainforest dominates this region, although its alternation between wet and dry seasons makes it is less humid than the coast. This area is part of the Atlantic Equatorial coastal forests ecoregion. An irregular chain of mountains, hills, and plateaus known as the Cameroon range extends from Mount Cameroon on the coast—Cameroon's highest point at 4,095 metres (13,435 ft)—almost to Lake Chad at Cameroon's northern border at 13°05'N. This region has a mild climate, particularly on the Western High Plateau, although rainfall is high. Its soils are among Cameroon's most fertile, especially around volcanic Mount Cameroon. Volcanism here has created crater lakes. On 21 August 1986, one of these, Lake Nyos, belched carbon dioxide and killed between 1,700 and 2,000 people. This area has been delineated by the World Wildlife Fund as the Cameroonian Highlands forests ecoregion. The southern plateau rises northward to the grassy, rugged Adamawa Plateau. This feature stretches from the western mountain area and forms a barrier between the country's north and south. Its average elevation is 1,100 metres (3,609 ft), and its average temperature ranges from 22 °C (71.6 °F) to 25 °C (77 °F) with high rainfall between April and October peaking in July and August. The northern lowland region extends from the edge of the Adamawa to Lake Chad with an average elevation of 300 to 350 metres (984 to 1,148 ft). Its characteristic vegetation is savanna scrub and grass. This is an arid region with sparse rainfall and high median temperatures. Cameroon has four patterns of drainage. In the south, the principal rivers are the Ntem, Nyong, Sanaga, and Wouri. These flow southwestward or westward directly into the Gulf of Guinea. The Dja and Kadéï drain southeastward into the Congo River. In northern Cameroon, the Bénoué River runs north and west and empties into the Niger. The Logone flows northward into Lake Chad, which Cameroon shares with three neighbouring countries.
Mass FGM ceremonies planned in Tanzania afrol News, 9 December - While Tanzania outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) in 1998, mass FGM ceremonies are still going on, in particular in the November-January season. Activists expect over 5,000 girls to be cut "this holiday season". "Saita" recovers after a female genital mutilation ceremony \|© Stephanie Welsh / Amnesty Österreich / afrol News\| The government of Tanzania passed a law prohibiting FGM in 1998 and yet reports indicate that during the current holiday season, about 250 girls have already been cut and over 5,000 girls are at risk of being genitally mutilated in Tarime district of Tanzania’s Mara Region alone. Faiza Jama Mohamed, Nairobi Office Director of the human rights group Equality Now asks, "What is the use of having a law against FGM if the government has no plans to implement it?" "Despite being aware of the preparations undertaken by communities to conduct mass mutilations, the police in Tarime have failed to prevent the mutilations," the gender activist adds. There had also been "no known arrests of any perpetrators related to the cases of the girls who have already been subjected to FGM." It is estimated that over 150 girls have fled for fear of being genitally mutilated and are currently housed in local shelters. “It is a public health and human rights crisis that the Tanzanian government is reluctant to address,” continued Ms Mohamed. In Tanzania, FGM is practiced by specific ethnic groups in Dodoma, Singida, Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Mara regions. Although the FGM national prevalence rate in Tanzania is estimated at only 14.6 percent, it is very high in the regions where it is practiced. This includes Tarime district which has a particularly high rate of FGM when compared to others. According to a 2002 survey conducted by Tanzania's Legal and Human Rights Center (LHRC), FGM is openly and defiantly practiced in Tarime with a prevalence rate of about 85 percent among the rural female population in the region. The practice is performed on cohorts of girls in ceremonies that tak e place at least every two years in almost the entire district. Many girls in this community drop out of school and are married off after undergoing FGM. LHRC fears that every day between November 2010 and January 2011, around 100 girls may be at risk of genital mutilation in the region. Faiza Jama Mohamed heads the Nairobi office of Equality Now \|© Faiza Jama Mohamed dirige la oficina en Nairobi de\| The government of Tanzania prohibits the practice of FGM under its Sexual Offences Special Provision Act 1998. The law provides that anyone having custody, charge or care of a girl under eighteen years of age who causes her to undergo FGM commits the offence of cruelty to children. "Yet, only a handful of cases have reached the courts in recent years and the police are reluctant to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators," according to Equality Now. "Although a number of police stations house units to specifically address gender-based violence, including enforcement of the anti-FGM law, the police continue to fail to protect women and girls from FGM," the group adds. "While it is common knowledge that the communities practice mass ceremonies of FGM every two years, there has been no attempt by the statutory and law enforcement agencies to educate the communities against FGM and to impress on them the illegality of the practice, despite the decades-long efforts of local organizations dedicated to reach these goals," the gender activists hold. According to Ms Mohamed, "there is still time to save girls from FGM. Tanzanian authorities must take strong and immediate action in Tarime against the perpetrators and prevent further incidences from taking place. They need to send parents and circumcisers a loud and clear message that such blatant disregard for the law will not be tolerated.”
ClintonArticle Free Pass Clinton, city, seat (1869) of Clinton county, eastern Iowa, U.S. It lies along the Mississippi River (there bridged to Fulton and East Clinton, Illinois), about 40 miles (65 km) north-northeast of Davenport. The original settler, Joseph M. Bartlett, operated a trading store for Native Americans in the 1830s and in 1836 named the site New York. The Iowa Land Company purchased the townsite in 1855 and renamed it for DeWitt Clinton, former governor of New York. Clinton annexed the town of Lyons to the north in 1895 and later added Ringwood and Chancy. Clinton was one of the largest sawmill centres in the country in the second half of the 19th century, but this activity ended as the lumber supply from the north diminished. Railroading, manufacturing (notably paper, plastics, and chemical products), and agriculture (particularly corn [maize] products) are now the economic mainstays. The city is the home of Clinton Community College (1946) and Mount Saint Clare College (1918). Local attractions include the George M. Curtis House, a restored Victorian mansion of one of the lumber magnates, and the Van Allen Building (1914), one of the last buildings designed by architect Louis Sullivan and now a museum. Clinton Riverboat Days is held annually around July 4. Inc. 1859. Pop. (2000) 27,772; (2010) 26,885.
The largest river in the country of Macedonia, Varder River runs through several national parks, twisting around the mountains and winding through the valleys of the Macedonian landscape. At one time in history, the Varder River served as a vital trade route between Belgrade and the city of Athens. The river even runs right through the capital city of Macedonia before flowing out into the Aegean Sea. The water in the Varder River runs straight from the melting waters of the snow capped mountains of Macedonia. A handful of small villages and some cities along the river provide such services as boat tours and fishing trips, many of which even provide all the fishing equipment, and a few of these tours may even offer to clean and cook the fish you catch. The river also provides many sightseeing opportunities in the form of a wealth of hiking trails and camping sites.
The electrical engineering curriculum prepares students for a career by providing them with the engineering and technical education appropriate to meet modern technological challenges, including course work in mathematics, sciences, humanities, and engineering topics in circuit analysis, electronics, electrical systems, electromagnetics, energy systems, and properties of materials. The department houses laboratories designed to give students easy access for their studies. In addition, there are special-purpose labs serving the fields of power systems, optoelectonics, thin-film electronic materials, analog and digital systems, and more. Companies hiring recent graduates: IBM, Intel, HP, Motorola, Boeing, Caterpillar, Raytheon, Rockwell, and several power companies. Average starting salary: $56,984 Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Lindheimer's Morning Glory Ipomoea lindheimeri Morning-glory family — Convolvulaceae Slides: (click for larger view) Texas is blessed with over twenty species of native morning glories. These vines have attractive foliage and large, often brightly colored flowers that open early in the morning (hence the common name). This species is a stunning vine when in flower, at times being the only plant obviously in bloom in shrublands of the Edwards Plateau. It also occurs in the Trans-Pecos. The common and scientific names commemorate the "Father of Texas Botany", Ferdinand Lindheimer (1801-1879), who collected this species near New Braunfels in 1851. Dried Specimens: (click for larger view) Flowering Months: April, May, June, July, August, September, October
The relationship between stress and salutogenic functioning amongst employees in a state owned enterprise. There is a fair degree of agreement on the variables that act as organizational stressors, however, studies on stress and salutogenic functioning in a state owned enterprise have not been found. According to the literature, salutogenic factors function as generalised resistance resources and a high score on sense of coherence, as well as an internal locus of control correlates with low scores on stress. The present research has a general aim of exploring the relationship between stress and salutogenic functioning, within a state owned enterprise. The levels of stress were correlated with the presence of high or low levels of sense of coherence and whether the individuals display an internal or an external locus of control. A sample of 240 employees (N=240) was used from the organisation. The following questionnaires were utilised to measure the range of variables. Levels of stress were measured by the Experience of Work and Life Circumstances Questionnaire (WLQ). Whereas the salutogenic construct, sense of coherence was measured by the Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OLQ) and the second salutogenic construct, locus of control, was measured by the Locus of Control Inventory (LCI). The statistical analyses included inferential (correlation, t-test and analysis of variance) and descriptive statistics. The results demonstrated significant relationships between low stress levels, sense of coherence and internal locus of control. As such, salutogenic functioning in terms of sense of coherence and locus of control, had a significant correlation with levels of stress.
Space Chronicles on Ice #3 by Don Pettit Confusion in the Southern Hemisphere Nov 29, 2006: People who grew up in the northern hemisphere oftentimes find it a bit confusing when they first travel southward to New Zealand. Coupled with a healthy dose of jet lag from rolling off an airplane, this can lead to some trying moments at finding your hotel for a much needed horizontal sleep. First and foremost, they drive on the wrong side of the road here. Of course, they say the same about us (and they have an accent down here too, or perhaps we are the ones with the accent). It is probably best to say that they drive on the left side of the road while we drive on the right. Realizing that this confusion could cause some rather nasty accidents, the rental cars here have a big decal placed over the speedometer that states, "KEEP LEFT." Very good advice if you plan to drive. However, even if you do not plan on driving, this could still spoil your day as a pedestrian. When you step out into a street, years of training cause you to first look left. This of course is the wrong direction which you realize in the nick of time just before a car coming from the right smacks into you. I do not know if this look left reflex, honed since childhood, can ever be adapted to living here. It is a good thing we were taught by our parents to look both ways. Image at right: "KEEP LEFT" decal on rental car speedometer, which is good advice. This does pose one question. When deployed to McMurdo, operated by USA, and driving to the nearby Scott Base, operated by New Zealand, do we change to the other side of the road? (Photo Credit: Don Pettit) Another subtle aspect of finding your directions in the southern hemisphere is the sun angle. For us northern hemisphere folks, the sun travels through the sky in the south. The warm spot in your house is the south facing side. You plant your tomatoes on the south side of your yard and your ferns on the north. In the southern hemisphere, it is just the opposite. The sun travels through the northern part of the sky and tomatoes are planted in the north section of your yard (and moss grows on the south side of trees). The effect of all this is that you look at a map for directions (with north still being up), decide upon the appropriate path, and then head in the wrong direction based on subconscious whisperings derived from sun angle directions. Fortunately, the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west. Image at left: Mosaic image of the Southern Cross area in the southern hemisphere made from images taken from the International Space Station during Expedition 6. (Photo Credit: NASA) At night, the stars offer both a strikingly beautiful and equally confusing projection (when the New Zealand clouds decide to give you a peek). Your mind applies its standard pattern recognition filter and nowhere can it find a match. The iconoclast big dipper itself is nowhere to be found. And neither is Polaris, the northern star. Like with the sun, the moon travels through the northern part of the sky. When you do find an old friend in a constellation, such as Orion, it is upside down. However, greeting your eyes is a myriad of new stars, draped with a very bright section of the Milky Way. You smile with the excitement of a little kid when you first take sight of the Southern Cross, and relearn the Boy Scout method of finding true south from the Southern Cross and its two helper stars.
Massive not-for-profit corporations, like the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations, that were created by the world’s leading capitalists have “gone to great lengths to rationalize the contradiction between democratic principles and elite dominance.”1 Seen through the eyes of their elitist foundation executives, democracy only functions when it is ran by the few for the many. Education thus takes a key place in the successful promotion of elite governance both on domestic and international planes of action; and although not well known, Edward Berman, professor emeritus of the University of Louisville, has written an important book that examines just this subject. By reviewing Berman’s study The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology of Philanthropy (State University of New York Press, 1983), this article aims to publicize his vitally important, though oft neglected, ideas on the anti-democratic nature of liberal philanthropy. While the history of elite governance is long and troublesome, in Berman’s book we are invited to study the honing of such management strategies from the early twentieth century onwards. Today of course, the Gates Foundation is the most financially powerful philanthropic body in the world (distributing $3 billion in grants last year), but until their relatively late arrival on the scene, the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations (the “big three”) had dominated the philanthropic arena. Indeed, exporting the ideology of the capitalist state has been a key function of these foundations, a care of duty that fell securely on their shoulders as they “represented one of the few sources of unencumbered ‘risk’ capital available during the period from 1945 to 1975.”2 As Berman acknowledges, the interest shown by these foundations in creating and financing “various educational configurations both at home and abroad cannot be separated from their attempts to evolve a stable domestic polity and a world order amenable to their interests and the strengthening of international capitalism.” Their simultaneous promotion of elite governance and massive levels of worker exploitation consequently required the forging of a “liberal consensus” among the ruling class and their allied funcationaries, which would actively prempt radical structural alternatives, and legimitate capitalism – by fostering public acquiesence to elite priorities. To sucessfully facilitate the building of this consenus, the creation of right-thinking educational institutions was essential to generate a “worldwide network of elites whose approach to governance and change would be efficient, professional, moderate, incremental, and nonthreatening to the class interests of those who, like Messrs, Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller, had established the foundations.” Far-sighted elites evidently recognized the popularity of alternatives to capitalism, so in turn advocated progressive reforms which attempted to find the “middle ground between the extremes of oligopoly on the one hand and socialism on the other, while encouraging an atmosphere congenial to increased levels of productivity.”3 This is not to say that the individuals who launched foundation “education” programs during the Progressive Era were not seriously concerned with improving the lot of the poor and downtrodden: just that many of these people with “a deep and abiding concern for the plight of the poor” failed to tackle the root cause of injustice, that is, industrial capitalism. Therefore, as many “charity workers refused to recognize the roots of this mass misery, their palliatives focused more on attempts to reform the existing system and to adjust their clients to it, than to search for alternative organizational structures that might result in a more equitable society less destructive of the immigrants’ communities.”4 (For more on the topic of charitable motives, see “The Russell Sage Foundation and the Manufacture of Reform.”) Many people, even during the Progressive Era, did however challenge the growing power of foundations to define the parameters of legitimate discussion, but the foundation worlds success in fending off such attacks has meant that today far fewer people are aware of the co-optive nature of liberal philanthropy. This is in large part because “[v]iewpoints and perspectives that support the position of the dominant class are funded by the foundations, while those that are seen to threaten that position are not.” Books critiquing liberal foundations, like Berman’s, tend not to fit comfortably within a society whose educational structures prioritize capitalist growth imperatives. Consequently the strategic funding of certain causes enables major foundations “to legitimate particular viewpoints while simultaneously devaluing others.”5 At this point it is important to note that the ideological orientation of foundations should not be surprising given their capitalist origins, but the lack of sustained critical inquiry from progressive activists is certainly far more alarming. Either way: The foundations’ influence in foreign-policy determination and in the extension of their worldview into the domestic polity – and beyond – derives from several interrelated factors: (1) their possession of significant amounts of capital, which can be allocated as their self-perpetuating directors deem appropriate; (2) their ability to allocate this capital to certain individuals and groups strategically located in the cultural apparatus (universities, the arts sector, the media, authors, and publishers), who in turn produce works frequently (but not always) supportive of the worldview of the foundations themselves, thereby providing an important source of legitimation for their perspective; (3) their links to and incorporation into the decision-making stratum of the capitalist state; and (4) their shared view that the development of the domestic polity and polities abroad can best be advanced through the aegis of the world capitalist system, dominated by the United States. (p.38) Berman suggests that one of the key projects supported by the major foundations to evolve a consensus for US foreign policy elites was the War-Peace Studies Project, which ran between 1939 and 1945, and whose “conclusions… present in outline form the basics of United States foreign policy after World War II.” Two “major recommendations” from this project were integral to the propagation of US global hegemony: the first “involved American financial support for and control of” the World Bank (which along with the International Monetary Fund “grew from seeds planted in War-Peace Studies Project recommendation P-1323 of July 1941”); and the second foresaw the need for the development of bilateral assistance agreements, currently operationalized by the US Agency for International Development.6 In this regard, Berman writes that: Foundation officers have always recognized the importance of [foreign] markets and mineral resources for the continued health of the United States and the world capitalist economy, and… they designed their overseas programs with this in mind. The cornerstone of these overseas activities was the development of educational institutions, particularly universities, in those areas that foreign-policy architects determined to be of strategic economic and geopolitical importance to the United States. (p.66) The ideology of liberal imperialism, that is “modernization” theory, was “summed up succinctly” in W. W. Rostow’s book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge University Press, 1960) – a book which was written “during a ‘reflective year’ away from his academic responsibilities, made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation.” And as Berman observes: “An important aspect of this developmental model emphasized the role of the leadership cadres in the new nations.”7 This meant that a new Third World elite had to be developed and courted by the foundation world via the use of educational exchange programs, “whereby students benefiting from their fellowships studied certain subjects at universities whose faculties could be counted on, minimally, to provide the ‘correct’ perspectives.” Early programs bringing African students to the United States were organized in the 1920s by the Phelps-Stokes Fund and by the Rockefeller philanthropies International Education Board, the latter of which provided funding for bodies like the International Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. “Such programs provide effective, but generally unrecognized, mechanisms to further the foundations’ cultural hegemony”; thereby “complement[ing] the cruder and more overt forms of economic and military imperialism that are so easily identifiable.”8 Berman points out that subsequent contributions to this important side of the cultural cold war like the Congress for Cultural Freedom included the Ford Foundation’s Foreign Student Leadership Program, which was initiated in 1955 and “designated the National Student Association [which already “worked closely with the CIA”] as the agency responsible for the selection of ‘responsible’ foreign student leaders to participate.”9 Yet here it is important to emphasize that: There was no apparent coercion involved in these fellowship programs. The foundations have not overtly manipulated potential fellowship recipients. Such blatant methods are unnecessary because of the understanding on the part of fellowship aspirants that their identification with certain methodological approaches or areas of investigation or their demonstration of certain behaviors will serve to stigmatize them as ‘irresponsible’ among the funding agencies, thereby eliminating any possibility of receiving a grant. (p.95) As I have demonstrated previously, foundations also played a major role in shaping academic research agendas in the United States (and overseas). Berman, for instance, explains how: “The Ford Foundation almost singlehandedly established the major areas-studies programs in American universities.” Likewise, important more general research centers supported by foundations during the 1950s and 1960s included MIT’s Center for International Studies (see footnote #7), Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, the Center for Strategic Studies at Georgetown University, the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley, the Stanford University Institute for Communications Research, and the Center for International Studies at Princeton University. In addition, other foundation-backed educational institutions that worked closely with universities included the Institute of International Education (which “was established in 1919 with a grant from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace”), the African-American Institute (which was founded in 1953 with most of its funding during its early years coming from the CIA), and Education and World Affairs (which was founded in 1961 with $2 million from the Ford Foundation and $0.5 million from the Carnegie Corporation). In 1971, Education and World Affairs “was absorbed into yet another foundation-created organization, the International Council for Educational Development, [a group] whose key officers were former Carnegie vice-president James Perkins and former Ford officer Philip Coombs.”10 By way of supplementing and extending the influence of educational exchange programs foundations quickly moved on to provide direct support for “trusted” Third-World intellectuals, “enabling research to be conducted in Third-World countries on socially and/or politically sensitive topics that United States Policy makers considered important.” In some instances researchers worked based in the US, but more often than not, the foundations extended their philanthropic reach to the Third-World countries themselves by financing local research centers.11 Research findings generated by such regional research networks were then used to better manage those in Third-World periphery states for the benefit of the imperial home state, or metropolitan center. These networks serve to encourage the production and dissemination of ideas and data deemed important by universities and agencies in the metropolitan centers. At the same time, this arrangement helps to deflect Third-World researchers from concerns that these same agencies are less anxious to have investigated. This is a conscious foundation policy. As [Robert] Arnove notes: ‘[f]oundation support prevents Third-World activists from coping with their domestic problems in their own terms and addressing them with a level of resources consonant with their level of development. Foundation-induced reform efforts, then, tend to divert Third-World nations from more realistic, and perhaps revolutionary, efforts at social change.’ The foundations are as effective in limiting the production of certain kinds of knowledge as they are in disseminating ideas that they consider important. An important factor in the extension of one group’s hegemony is its ability to encourage intellectuals to investigate certain problems, those which are ‘important,’ while ignoring or devaluing others. Once the selection process assumes an autonomy of its own, the direct presence of the dominant group – the foundations in this instance – decreases while its hegemony increases accordingly. (p.174) Despite the evident success that foundations have had in shaping ideology in the twentieth century their power is “not monolithic” and they “do allow differing points of view to be expressed, although these never or only infrequently form the basis for policy.” Indeed, most of their power is simply derived from the fact that their hegemony remains unchallenged, even from anti-capitalist activists. Yet with the increasing availability of the internet it is now much easier to break the ideological clout of foundations, and while in the past many criticisms of foundations have been rendered inaccessible to most people, this is no longer the case. Many people are already familiar with the historical role fulfilled by conservative foundations in driving the neoliberal revolution, and so now is a good time for activists to more thoroughly scrutunize the insidious influence of liberal foundations. This however is easier said than done as many of the organizations that regularly challenge the legitimacy of for-profit corporate power are in fact funded by foundations, and many such groups would actually cease to operate without foundation support. This problematic state of affairs has led some people to describe the domination of the non-profit sector by not-for-profit corporations as the non-profit industrial complex. Yet in spite of these serious obstacles it is vital that concerned citizens break through the humanitarian rhetoric shielding the foundation world from valid criticism, because if their motives are “repeatedly questioned by those for whom these were ostensibly designed… the influence of these institutions could be seriously challenged.”12 As Berman concludes: The reproduction of a particular kind of cultural capital has historically been the primary activity of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations. There now exists the ironic possibility that some recipients of that cultural capital will utilize part of their capital (in the form of their education and training) to examine in greater detail the foundations’ programs. Such investigations might reveal contradictions between the foundations’ public rhetoric and their institutional activities, thereby presenting a challenge to their continuing cultural hegemony. The foundations’ liberalism, as well as their hopes for continued legitimacy, effectively preclude them from trying to prevent this examination through overt censorship, although they can of course place numerous obstacles in the paths of would-be investigators. It is to state the obvious to say that the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations are powerful institutions. At the same time, we need to understand that they are not omnipotent, nor is their continuing influence as purveyors of capitalist hegemony assured or unassailable. (pp.178-9) Before becoming a revolutionary writer, Gunder Frank noted: “In 1958 I spent three months as visiting researcher at MIT’s Center for International Studies (CENIS) and met Ben Higgins, W.W. Rostow and the others. Rostow wrote his Process of Development (1952) and Stages of Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1962). Although Rostow and company dealt with Keynesian type macro economic and even social problems, they did so to pursue explicitly the neo-classical counter revolutionary, and even counter reformist, cold war ends. The quintessential modernization book, David Lerner’s (1958) Passing of Traditional Society, appeared while I was there. At the same time, Everett Hagen wrote his On the Theory of Social Change (1962), David McClelland his Achieving Society (1961), and Ithiel de Sola Pool his right libertarian/authoritarian political works.” During the 1950s and 1960s: “The major foundations regularly supported the work of … structural or technological functionalists, not least because of their shared ideology. Many of the academic ‘stars’ of the functionalist persuasion received funding to enable them to apply their perspectives to developing nations as well as to the United States. In this respect the work of such scholars as Edward Schils, Reinhard Bendix, Daniel Lerner, S.N. Eisenstadt, Seymour M. Lipset, and Marion Levy, among others, on developing nations takes on particular significance.” (p.107) Funding grants tended to be channeled via the foundation created Social Science Research Council. “While an occasional ‘radical’ viewpoint (e.g., [Barrington] Moore or Robert Heilbroner’s) might be funded, generally through the Social Science Research Council, there was little chance that his isolated voice could be of consequence as it contested with the more numerous voices of developmental orthodoxy.” Berman, p.120-1. [↩] - Berman, p.94. With regard to creating a trustworthy elite of “learned men” for the United States, Berman writes that the Ford Foundations “concern for nurturing an academic elite, which would play the leadership role in the domestic polity, found its best expression in the work of the Ford-created and supported Fund for the Advancement of Education.” (p.72) [↩] - Berman, p.102, p.129, p.131, p.137. For a critical examination of the role of universities and educational exchanges in South Africa, see “Human Rights Watch Brings Neoliberalism To Africa.” For a detailed examination of the influence of philanthropic foundations on education in Africa, see Kenneth J. King, Pan Africanism and Education: A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa (Clarendon Press, 1971). [↩] - Berman, p.178. It is important to note that many radical scholars have been supported by foundations. Yet while radical scholars like Barrington Moore’s views… have received a polite response from academics, the implications of his work have been largely ignored.” (p.76) Thus, while “an occasional ‘radical’ viewpoint (e.g., Moore’s or Robert Heilbroner’s) might be funded, generally through the Social Science Research Council, there was little chance that his isolated voice could be of consequence as it contested with the more numerous voices of developmental orthodoxy. Indeed, it is conceivable that occasional funding of a study contravening the established position was even advantageous for the foundations. The dissenting viewpoint could be used to counter foundation critics who charged that the organizations only subsidized researchers supportive of the foundations’ preconceived positions on particular issues.” (p.77) “Contradictions occasionally surface within the foundations as well. Examples include the funding provided by the Ford Foundation for the avowedly Marxian interpretation of American education authored by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis in 1976, or the Russell Sage Foundation’s 1972 support of three leftist sociologists to study that foundation’s organization and operations. Other examples might include the funding provided for such “radical” researchers on Third-World development as Denis Goulet, the support afforded several left-wing Latin social scientists, or the support and advice given by the Ford Foundation to enable Tanzania to further its program of African socialism.” (p.39) [↩]
Original by Jon J. Thaler. We define time travel to mean departure from a certain place and time followed (from the traveller's point of view) by arrival at the same place at an earlier (from the sedentary observer's point of view) time. Time travel paradoxes arise from the fact that departure occurs after arrival according to one observer and before arrival according to another. In the terminology of special relativity time travel implies that the timelike ordering of events is not invariant. This violates our intuitive notions of causality. However, intuition is not an infallible guide, so we must be careful. Is time travel really impossible, or is it merely another phenomenon where "impossible" means "nature is weirder than we think?" The answer is more interesting than you might think. The B-movie image of the intrepid chrononaut climbing into his time machine and watching the clock outside spin backwards while those outside the time machine watch the him revert to callow youth is, according to current theory, impossible. In current theory, the arrow of time flows in only one direction at any particular place. If this were not true, then one could not impose a 4-dimensional co-ordinate system on space-time, and many nasty consequences would result. Nevertheless, there is a scenario which is not ruled out by present knowledge. This usually requires an unusual spacetime topology (due to wormholes or strings in general relativity) which has not yet seen, but which may be possible. In this scenario the universe is well behaved in every local region; only by exploring the global properties does one discover time travel. It is sometimes argued that time travel violates conservation laws. For example, sending mass back in time increases the amount of energy that exists at that time. Doesn't this violate conservation of energy? This argument uses the concept of a global conservation law, whereas relativistically invariant formulations of the equations of physics only imply local conservation. A local conservation law tells us that the amount of stuff inside a small volume changes only when stuff flows in or out through the surface. A global conservation law is derived from this by integrating over all space and assuming that there is no flow in or out at infinity. If this integral cannot be performed, then global conservation does not follow. So, sending mass back in time might be all right, but it implies that something strange is happening. (Why shouldn't we be able to do the integral?) The possibility of time travel in GR has been known at least since 1949 (by Kurt Godel, discussed in , page 168). The GR spacetime found by Godel has what are now called "closed timelike curves" (CTCs). A CTC is a worldline that a particle or a person can follow which ends at the same spacetime point (the same position and time) as it started. A solution to GR which contains CTCs cannot have a spacelike embedding - space must have "holes" (as in donut holes, not holes punched in a sheet of paper). A would-be time traveller must go around or through the holes in a clever way. The Godel solution is a curiosity, not useful for constructing a time machine. Two recent proposals, one by Morris, et al. and one by Gott , have the possibility of actually leading to practical devices (if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you). As with Godel, in these schemes nothing is locally strange; time travel results from the unusual topology of spacetime. The first uses a wormhole (the inner part of a black hole, see figure 1 of ) which is held open and manipulated by electromagnetic forces. The second uses the conical geometry generated by an infinitely long string of mass. If two strings pass by each other, a clever person can go into the past by travelling a figure-eight path around the strings. In this scenario, if the string has non-zero diameter and finite mass density, there is a CTC without any unusual topology. With the demonstration that general relativity contains CTCs, people began studying the problem of self-consistency. Basically, the problem is that of the "grandfather paradox": What happens if our time traveller kills her grandmother before her mother was born? In more readily analyzable terms, one can ask what are the implications of the quantum mechanical interference of the particle with its future self. Boulware shows that there is a problem - unitarity is violated. This is related to the question of when one can do the global conservation integral discussed above. It is an example of the "Cauchy problem" [1, chapter 7]. How does one avoid the paradox that a simple solution to GR has CTCs which QM does not like? This is not a matter of applying a theory in a domain where it is expected to fail. One relevant issue is the construction of the time machine. After all, infinite strings aren't easily obtained. In fact, it has been shown that Gott's scenario implies that the total 4-momentum of spacetime must be spacelike. This seems to imply that one cannot build a time machine from any collection of non-tachyonic objects, whose 4-momentum must be timelike. There are implementation problems with the wormhole method as well. Finally, a diversion on a possibly related topic. If tachyons exist as physical objects, causality is no longer invariant. Different observers will see different causal sequences. This effect requires only special relativity (not GR), and follows from the fact that for any spacelike trajectory, reference frames can be found in which the particle moves backward or forward in time. This is illustrated by the pair of spacetime diagrams below. One must be careful about what is actually observed; a particle moving backward in time is observed to be a forward moving anti-particle, so no observer interprets this as time Another t reference \| Events A and C are not at the same frame: \| place. C occurs first. \| \| Event B lies outside the causal -----------A----------- x domain of events A and C. (The \| intervals are spacelike) \| \| C In this frame, signals travel from \| B-->A and from B-->C. B is the cause \| B of both of the other two events. The unusual situation here arises because conventional causality assumes no superluminal motion. This tachyon example is presented to demonstrate that our intuitive notion of causality may be flawed, so one must be careful when appealing to common sense. See the FAQ article on tachyons, for more about these weird hypothetical particles. The possible existence of time machines remains an open question. None of the papers criticizing the two proposals are willing to categorically rule out the possibility. Nevertheless, the notion of time machines seems to carry with it a serious set of problems.
Date: 4/1/96 at 20:58:1 From: Terry Perkins Subject: geometry assignment My son's 5th grade math assignment says to name objects in the real world that suggest geometric figures including lines and planes. The definitions of these two terms indicates infinite dimensions. The examples in the text (MacMillan) are the horizon for line and the ocean for plane. What are some other real world examples? Are we taking the infinite dimensions too literally? Is a desk top a plane? Even though your answer will not be received in time, we are still curious. Please help. Date: 4/2/96 at 2:36:53 From: Doctor Jodi Subject: Re: geometry assignment Your question is a really good one. At my college, everyone studies Euclid's ELEMENTS - a great, ancient geometry book - in the freshman year. Classes invariably spend at least the first class, and sometimes the first WEEK discussing the existence of points and lines. The geometry of mathematics is much different from the "geometry" of our experience. In my opinion, such comparisons must be taken with a grain of salt:it is too easy to confuse experience and truth. For example, would you believe it if I told you that the shortest path betwen two objects isn't always a straight line? Or that "straight lines" don't always have to be straight? Of course, having an IDEA of what we're studying - being able to visualize it - is very important. But if we depend too much upon whatwe can see, we may find it difficult to talk about the geometry of four or even more dimensions. (Just for the record, visualizing the fourth dimension is a hot topic among research mathematicians.) Thanks for your question. I wonder what your son's class thinks about the similarity and differences between mathematical and "real" geometry... By the way--I'd say that points are one dimensional, lines two- dimensional, etc. I'd also say that they're infinitely small. A little bit different from your wording, but I think we mean the same thing... -Doctor Jodi, The Math Forum
People often talk about political powers endangering the seat of our government, but the faster than ever disappearing ice of Antarctica might actually be the biggest threat to Washington D.C. Scientists predict Washington as one of many cities in the U.S. that will be several feet under water if the 6000 feet Wedst Antarctic Ice Sheet melts. This huge ice sheet that holds several glaciers in place would obviously have catastrophic effects if it disappeared completely, but certain coastal areas could be at risk if even part of it melts. Some states could be completely submerged. Estimates place a sea level rise at around 16 feet in the case of a major ice shelf collapse. The rise would not be uniform, and strange gravitational effects could result from the lack of pull at the poles. This meltdown could occur anywhere from decades to centuries, or it may not happen at all. Melting and reformation of ice in polar regions is normal and part of natural patterns, but resarchers are concerned to see ice in both polar regions disappearing faster than in any other time in history. While there is evidence that global warming may be part of a naturally occuring cycle, other evidence suggests that the abnormally high melt is partially the fault of human activity. Whether the melt is natural or not, scientists are concerned because it will have major effects on human life either way.
But what if primary care providers could more effectively influence behavior so patients could better manage chronic health problems like diabetes and asthma, or even prevent them in the first place? With its new Intensive Training in Motivational Interviewing course beginning in January, the Center for Integrated Primary Care (CIPC) at UMass Medical School is bringing the proven technique for influencing positive behavior change to local primary care providers. “In health care, if people don’t do what they should to manage their health, we often mistakenly assume it is because they lack information, so we spend a lot of time on patient education. These skills need to be supplemented with skills to build motivation,” explained course leader Daniel Mullin, PsyD, assistant professor of family medicine & community health. Dr. Mullin practices at Barre Regional Family Health Center, a UMMS Family Medicine Residency site that has been recognized as a Level 3 patient-centered medical home (PCMH) by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, and is a CIPC faculty member. Motivational Interviewing is a patient-centered, goal-oriented method of communication for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence. Originally developed 30 years ago as an approach for mental health providers to help change self-destructive behavior in alcohol abusers, MI has since proven effective in primary care as well, where clinicians can use it to address health-related behaviors that adversely affect patients’ physical as well as mental health. “This isn’t just a set of skills for psychologists and social workers who have more time than primary care providers to spend with patients,” said Mullin. “We understand the demands of real-world primary care practice and the patient-centered medical home, and how to adapt MI skills for use in a primary care environment.” Designed specifically for health care professionals working in the PCMH, the new course provides five four-hour group sessions, with time between each session to allow the learner to integrate the skills into practice and build on these skills in subsequent sessions. The training includes individual practice of skills with a specially trained “acting patient.” “One of the unique strengths of our program is that we’re going to observe and record encounters with acting patients, then use the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity coding system to evaluate what they’re doing well, and provide individual feedback on what they need to do to improve,” Mullin noted. The certificate course is available online and, in a first-of-its-kind offering from the CIPC, in-person at UMass Medical School. A limited number of spaces for the in-person session have been reserved with a deep tuition discount for individuals affiliated with UMass Medical School and UMass Memorial Health Care. The deadline for registration is Friday, Jan. 4, for the online and in-person sessions beginning later in the month. Visit to learn more and to register.
“MRSA is a four-letter ‘word’ no healthcare worker wants to hear. What exactly is it? How does it spread, and how can it affect my laundry operation? Does my staff need to take any special precautions? Should I be concerned about my workers unknowingly taking it home to their families?” Equipment Manufacturing: Dan Goldman, Wascomat Laundry Equipment, Inwood, N.Y. MRSA and “stat” are both four-letter words familiar in the healthcare industry, and both call for immediate action. Like other kinds of bacteria, MRSA frequently lives on the skin and in the nose without causing health problems. It’s only a problem when it enters the body. Growing up in the early ’70s, I would often come down with impetigo during the winter wrestling season. This common skin infection spread easily on the wrestling mat, but antibacterial soap and my youthful immune system generally took care of it in short order. Fast-forward to 2009 and a case report of a 68-year-old Type 2 diabetes patient who had to have his leg amputated after contracting impetigo. He was in the hospital for an unrelated matter when his leg became gangrenous. Has impetigo become stronger? Have we become weaker? Yes, and yes. According to an article in an October 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), “The over prescription of antibiotics over the past 40 years combined with the aging of the population are the recipe for these ‘Super Bugs’ mutating and becoming more resistant to conventional treatments.” In Europe, the RABC (Risk Analysis and Biocontamination Control) system has implemented measures to promote optimum hygiene of the laundered textiles and to reduce the risk of infection to patients and staff handling the linens. Even with this, the human factor is still the most difficult to control. Landry Guillochon, a colleague from Electrolux (Wascomat in North America), maintains that the barrier concept is the only solution to consider. It naturally enforces the implementation and consistent application of good hygiene practices, he says. Barrier washers are built into a barrier wall through which neither “bugs” nor operators can pass. They’re equipped with two doors — one for the loading of dirty linen, the other for unloading of clean linen. With the barrier concept, you can be sure that an operator who has just loaded dirty linen isn’t going to unload clean, wet linen without taking the necessary precautions. You will be certain that the laundry cart used for clean linen isn’t the same one used to transport potentially contaminated linen. Regularly washing hands and using sterile gloves will prevent the spread of MRSA, but much thought and planning must be given to the design and work flow of the laundry and linen storage. Linen Supply/Commercial Laundering: Duane Farrington, RLLD, Hancock Co. Laundry, Weirton, W.Va. We’ve had to face many infection control issues the past several years, but I’d say that MRSA has gotten the most attention recently. Those of us who process linen for healthcare facilities have first-hand experience with MRSA and the steps it takes to control it. The first controls to be put into place are actually the easiest and probably most effective. Education — Your staff should know what MRSA is and what is recommended to control it. As an employer, you should be aware of any MRSA cases diagnosed within your staff. Proper wound care is important in controlling this type of bacteria, and education can be your most effective tool. Environmental Control — Proper cleaning can help control the spread of MRSA, but please don’t take this step lightly. Use a good cleaner or disinfectant. Your daily regimen should include cleaning of floors and wiping down all workstations. Remember to document these tasks, as this information can be used to isolate areas that may warrant additional attention. Locker rooms got a lot of attention when we started to hear more about MRSA. The same could hold true of laundries. Standard Precautions — Make sure that your facility uses them. Workers sorting soiled linen should be wearing proper personal protective equipment (PPE) to prevent the MRSA bacteria from coming into contact with clothing. This will help to eliminate the potential for spreading it and taking it home. Last but not least, wash hands frequently. No matter where you go, there is always the potential for spreading germs. Equipment Distribution: Bill Blumel, MHS, Reliable Equipment & Engineering, Ogden, Utah Dealing with MRSA is all about implementing infection control procedures that are already established by the laundry facility staff. This requires detailed communication from the laundry “customer” source that may or may not be a known healthcare patient. Staff should also be aware that MRSA could be spread without symptoms among personnel when infection control is not implemented in all washroom areas. In all situations, washroom personnel should handle MRSA-contaminated laundry in dissolvable, plastic isolation bags. These bags should be placed in a washer-extractor programmed with a high-temperature “kill” wash program and using the recommended chemicals, including bleach. Whether the laundry is post-sorted or pre-sorted, there are multiple “kill” procedures ongoing in the washroom equipment, the dryers, and the ironing equipment and processes. The usual hand-washing techniques utilizing disinfectants and antiseptic soap for at least 10 seconds can bring the spread of MRSA among laundry staff under immediate control. Alcohol-based hand-cleaning products are also effective. Workers should be reminded to clean their hands when arriving for work; before and after eating at work; after using the toilet; after loading soiled laundry in the washroom; before leaving work; and upon arriving home. There should also be a policy that laundry staff members are not to wear work clothes home, especially if you operate a healthcare laundry facility. Finally, ongoing housekeeping efforts that are uncompromising will also minimize the spread of MRSA. Remove debris from all areas of the facility as soon as possible. Clean all surfaces, especially in the restrooms and designated eating areas, regularly. And never allow employees to eat outside the areas you designate. Consulting: Tom Mara, Victor Kramer Co., Oceanport, N.J. When Bobby Kutteh, president and CEO of the Crothall Services Group, recently asked the company’s managers of central laundries and on-premise laundries about what “kept them up at night,” their reply was universal. MRSA and the safety of patients and employees, both in customer hospitals and in Crothall’s laundry facilities, is the No. 1 issue. So, the company embarked on a mission to incorporate a MRSA safety plan into its comprehensive safety and training program. Victor Kramer Co., Crothall’s consulting division, contributed to its development. Upon its completion, as part of our operational surveys at healthcare clients, we review the safety and training programs at hospital laundries and recommend changes, as needed, to ensure they’re in compliance with the latest methods and procedures for dealing with the threat of MRSA. In the event one of our clients doesn’t have a comprehensive safety and training program, we offer our consulting services to assist in developing one. Since preventing MRSA is much easier than treating it once a patient or employee is infected, Crothall’s safety program focuses on prevention — the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves, eye protectors, shoe covers, gowns and aprons; employing Standard and Universal Precautions; proper hand-washing techniques before and after the workday; frequent cleaning of all surfaces in the soil-sort department; daily cleaning of all soiled- and clean-linen transport carts; recordkeeping and incident reporting as part of an exposure control plan; and training. With the use of proper washing and finishing methods and procedures, we concluded that the potential for acquiring MRSA essentially could be isolated to the soil-sort and storage areas, and to the collection, handling and washing of soiled linen. But we also concluded that to best protect hospital patients, employees and the families of employees, the training program had to put significant emphasis on proper hand-washing techniques, including washing with the “right” soap and using paper towels to dry hands. We’re pleased that implementing safety and training programs has resulted in zero incidents of MRSA within Crothall’s group of healthcare laundry facilities.
On 1 April 1680, William Dockwra, a London merchant, established a "penny post" service for London and Westminster. At the time, there was only one General Letter Office in London and Westminster to receive and dispense the mail; there was no provision for the general distribution of letters. Dockwra and his associates divided the urban area into districts with subordinate offices in each district. The principal office was Dockwras house. Every hour, messengers collected letters and parcels weighing under one pound in weight from receiving houses and took them to district sorting houses. From there, deliveries were made to local homes and businesses, often more than once a day. The cost of the service was one penny. Dockwra is credited with the use of the first "penny post paid" handstamp. In addition, he used a time stamp that helped to deflect any criticism regarding claims of delays in delivery. On 23 November 1682, the Dockwra penny post system ceased to exist as a private enterprise and was merged into the General Post Office.
An architectural landmark on Embassy Row The Finnish Embassy, located across from the Vice President's residence on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington D.C., captures the spirit of Finland. Its materials are both age-old and contemporary, its design is as new as a cottage in the woods. It is a memory bank, a treasure chest of the essence of Finnish culture without the triteness of stereotypes. The embassy has been embraced by the Washington DC community not only as a Finnish cultural center, but also as a host and venue of choice for functions and events that benefit the entire community and widen the contacts between the embassy and American society. In 2008, the building was the first embassy in the United States to receive the Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR for superior energy efficiency. In January 2010, the building became the first embassy in the United States to be awarded the U.S. Green Building Council's prestigious Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certificate for green buildings. The architects created a multi-purpose space for both large and small receptions, for sit-down dinners and buffets, for concerts and art exhibitions. The building is equipped with perfect acoustics, needed when recording music performances, and state-of- the-art audiovisual facilities for showing movies, and connecting with Finland live on video conferences. Modest, reserved and quiet, the building is a lot like the people it represents: underneath its polite exterior is a sophisticated and passionate soul. The embassy is a refreshing exercise in understatement with a combination of boldness, self-confidence and simplicity. In the center of the building the 60-foot high Grand Canyon draws light down into the multipurpose Finland Hall, reached down a curved stairway following the contour of the sloped site. A row of stars from the night, an arc of bright, tiny lights suspended form above, echoes the gracious curve of the stairs. In the ceiling above, lights, supported only by their wiring, from an elegant Constructivist composition. This industrial aesthetic of exposed wires and suspension cables is reinforced by large stainless steel towers for services at either end of the Grand Canyon. The two other giant cubes, sheathed in copper and serving as conference rooms, are suspended from the roof. By the simplest of means, the architects have accomplished a breathtaking result: a combination of modern industrial power with the dazzling splendor of a gilded ceiling in a Baroque palace of three hundred years ago. Beyond the Grand Canyon, the other half of the Finland Hall is calmer: its white concrete columns are like metaphorical birch trees. An apparently seamless glass wall gives us a living mural of the woods, and the building assumes a supporting role to mother nature.
Before the genius of Valadier moulded the isolated buildings and waste spaces of the Piazza del Popolo into a noble symmetry, the Navona was considered the finest and most important piazza in Rome. In length and breadth it is a reproduction of the stadium of Domitian, for the houses, churches, and palaces which line the Piazza Navona are based squarely upon the seats and corridors of that old Roman playground. This part of the city, not far from the Pantheon or old Baths of Agrippa, is low, and it has always been easy to flood it with water. The ancient Romans were so keen for shows of every kind that when the great Flavian amphitheatre (the Coliseum) was closed for repairs, Domitian found it necessary to provide a second place of amusement where the gladiatorial combats and the naumachiae or sea fights could go on It was a rule strictly enforced under the empire that no one could open new baths in the city without providing a fresh supply of water. Something more than a century after Domitian, Alexander Severus – having brought the Acqua Alessandrina to Rome – was able to repair Domitian’s old stadium and to use it once more for the naumachise. In modern times there does not appear to have been any fountain here until the pontificate of Gregory XIII, and at that time the passion for fountain-building in modern Rome really began. Pius IV, the Pope last but one preceding Gregory XIII, had repaired the old aqueduct of the Acqua Virgo, originally brought to the city by Marcus Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, so that that water, which for a long time had been running only intermittently in the fountain of Trevi, could now be obtained in a continuous stream. It is impossible to throw Virgo Water to any great height, and the fountains of the Piazza Navona have had to be constructed with reference to this limitation. The two end fountains, designed for Gregory XIII by Giacomo della Porta, are simply great basins of Porta Santa marble standing in still larger Carrara basins of exactly the same shape and sunk into the ground. The beauty of these fountains consists in their elegant shape, the fineness of the marble, and in their air of simple distinction. The great basins hold the limpid Trevi Water as a Venetian goblet holds wine: the receptacle and that which it contains enhance each other’s beauty, and any further decoration seems superfluous and unfortunate. This, however, was not the taste of the seventeenth century, at which time there were added the various figures now crowding the upper basin of the south fountain.
Convincing parents is not an easy task. December 27, 2010 BEIJING, Dec. 27, 2010 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ — ChinaCast Education Corporation (the “Company” or “ChinaCast”) (Nasdaq: CAST), a leading for-profit, post-secondary and e-learning services provider in China, today announced that Ned Sherwood, Non-Executive Director, increased his ownership of the Company through the purchase of 400,000 shares of common stock valued at $2.84 million in the open market on December 22, 2010. Cumulatively, the management team and board of directors of ChinaCast have purchased 1.34 million shares of common stock during the past twelve months, with a total value of $9.54 million. Hubble Space Telescope — Astronomers analyzing debris from a comet that broke apart last summer spied pieces as small as smoke-sized particles and as large as football-field-sized fragments. But it’s the material they didn’t see that has aroused their curiosity. Tracking the doomed comet, named C/1999 S4 (LINEAR), NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 found tiny particles that made up the 62,000-mile-long (100,000-kilometer-long) dust tail and 16 large fragments, some as wide as 330 feet (100 meters). Hubble detected the small particles in the dust tail because, together, they occupy a large surface area, which makes them stand out in reflected sunlight. However, the estimated mass of the observed debris doesn’t match up to the comet’s bulk before it cracked up. The Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Network (KCAAEN) recognizes individuals, schools, and organizations that demonstrate outstanding support for the arts. Partnering with other national education organizations in the evaluation process and recognition events, KCAAEN recognition programs encourage outstanding work that makes the arts an essential part of a student's education. Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network and National School Boards Association Award Program (KCAAEN and NSBA Award) We are not currently accepting applications. Hypermedia is as vast as the oceans are deep. It touches us each and every day. The condition or experience that we know of as hypermedia can be favorabley compared to that of water. Vastness of Internet In this paper the hypermedia paradigm is discussed from the viewpoint of user interfaces. The problems of interacting with vast hypermedia structures are presented. First, the attention is drawn to the presentation of the information structures in multi and hypermedia application interfaces. Searching for information on the Internet is fast, easy and comprehensive -- and maddeningly frustrating when a simple query yields literally millions of responses. Look for "Canada" on the Lycos.com site, for example, and you'll get slightly more than 15 million Web links. Google.com will give you 33 million links. Ugh. One thing that is certain that in addition to lots of things that are going right with our education system the things that are going wrong get way more attention. Leaders lead, followers follow and the people in the middle make sure that things get done. With the ebb and flow of education being a constant, the resignation, removal of Michelle Rhee illustrates that education policies are whimsical. PrincessLeia (New Scientist) Michael Bove’s group at the MIT Media Lab has recreated the famous holographic projection of Princess Leia from Star Wars by hacking the camera sensor from a Kinect gesture-recognition system for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and crunching data with standard graphics chips. The frame rate for their system has also jumped a factor of 30, from one frame every two seconds to an impressive 15 frames per second. I'm constantly amazed at what I find on the internet. A conceptual microwave-propelled lightcraft receives microwave beams from an array of microwave sources on the ground. (Kevin Parkin) Mary Gallagher recently received an e-mail from the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau offering “hot deals.” But there was a catch: In order to receive them, she had to follow Tucson’s tourist authority on Twitter and friend it on Facebook. That didn’t sit well with Gallagher, a travel writer, who said she receives enough deals each day. “How much Facebook and Twitter drivel could you spend each day reading?”
I taught myself how to play golf, but it wasn't until several years later that I actually learned how to swing a golf club correctly when I finally took lessons from a pro. Well, it was deja vu all over again when I took up discus launch gliders this year. Having nobody around to teach me, I ended up just teaching myself how to discus launch a glider. But just as it was with golf, it wasn't until I watched Radio Carbon Art's Handlaunch Pro Clinic video that I actually learned how to discus launch a glider. The Handlaunch Pro Clinic is the lastest video released by Paul Naton and Radio Carbon Art. Radio Carbon Art has a whole set of superb videos for the silent flight enthusiast that cover various meets and events. The Pro Clinic video is the second instructional video. The first is the Secrets of Thermal Soaring which I highly recommend as a great companion to the Pro Clinic video. The Handlaunch Pro Clinic video comes as a two disc set. The first disc takes place in Paul's workshop and covers everything from transmitter selection through balancing and setting up a plane. The second disc takes place in the field and includes both a well narrated launch and flight by Paul as well as segments in which we see the pros fly and talk about their planes. The DVDs are very professionally produced but maintain a homey style. Watching the DVD, you feel like you are hanging out with Paul and he's just talking to you as a fellow flyer and sharing his years of experience with you. The workshop session starts with a good survey of equipment for RC flying in general and DLG in particular. It then ends with a thorough discussion of finishing your plane for best performance. Disc 1 is helpful even for non-HLG fliers. Paul gives a good overview of transmitters and what to look for in terms of transmitter ergonomics and features for HLG. I liked the fact that he didn't insist on needing a high end computer radio but saw simpler radios as having certain advantages for HLG. As with the transmitter section, Paul gives a good overview of receivers - including a short history lesson and some insight into the future of receiver technology. It should be noted that although Paul suggests staying away from single conversion receivers and sticking with dual conversion receivers, he does tout the capabilities and size of signal-processing receivers such as the Berg receiver which are actually single conversion receivers. The point is well made that not all single conversion servos are created equal. The main message in this section is buy cheap = buy twice. Paul also addresses minimal torque requirements and points out that you want to put the best servo on the elevator, since that's the workhorse. Paul provides a good overview that covers NiCad, NiMH and Lithium battery types. He also discusses the value of having a battery checker and looks at a couple of chargers one can use. This section of the DVD is chock full of helpful hints and tips for optimizing the performance of your plane. Paul addresses setting dihedral in the wing, how best to place the launch peg, and setting up the servos and control linkages. Then, he shows a process for squaring the wing to the fuselage, and drilling and tapping the wing hold down screw holes. This is a section of the DVD I will revisit in the future when I need to finish and square up a wing for a model. This section addresses installing the tail feathers and stresses the need to attach the tail feathers straight to avoid trim drag. In the past, I was generally willing to speed through these steps during a build and "fix" any problems with trim. After viewing this section, I have a whole new respect for the need to avoid introducing any drag caused by such lax practices - especially in HLG. In this section, Paul also discusses various ways to set up the tail feather pushrods and the radio equipment. Some neat ideas with regards to saving weight by replacing the receiver antenna with thinner wire or even using a pushrod are presented. This section discusses everything from CG to decelage and setting up control throws on your radio. This includes a very useful tutorial on setting the CG. Disc 2 takes you to the flying field with Paul and the pros. Paul provides a list of essential items to take along to the field. Then he shows how to do a thorough pre-flight check. As mentioned above, I taught myself how to discus launch and, although I have only been discus launching for a short time, after watching Pro Clinic, I realized I had already started establishing some bad habits. Besides explaining the launch in detail, Paul also provides a list of common mistakes, including an example of a bad launch, which I found very useful. Though not essential for "sport" flying, catching the plane is a fun part of the hobby, and it is important for competition flying. Paul includes tips on how to catch the plane both by the nose and by the launch peg. Paul discusses presets and how they might be useful in certain circumstances - for example to counter yaw on launch. He also reviews the dive test for checking the plane's CG. Paul covers a plethora of ideas and ways to help improve your performance and skill level. Everything from ballasting to using talking timers and wind streamers is described. If you ask me, the flight session alone makes this video worth it's price! To see someone of Paul's skill level work the thermals was not only inspiring but also very educational. As he's flying, he uses terminology from the Secrets of Thermal Soaring. Although it's not necessary to have seen the Secrets video, having seen it beforehand really helped me get the big picture as I watched the flight session. The Pro Sessions are kind of hidden on the DVD. When you watch disc 2, it appears to end with Paul's sessions and you're left wondering where are the pro sessions that were advertised? To find them, you need to go to the "more sessions" menu item on disc 2. Although I didn't find these sessions as useful as the ones with Paul, they were still interesting. The lesson with Bruce Davidson was enlightening. Similarly, watching the different pros' styles was helpful. The above video includes both pre-clinic and post-clinic launches. The first couple of launches are from my Wright Brothers RC Gambler+ review, along with a couple of more recent launches where I try to emulate my pre-clinic style. But, then I execute launches based on what I had learned from the video. You may not notice any great increase in launch heights, but hopefully you'll see what I was feeling. I could feel that the launches were more consistent and had more power. And, I feel that I am rotating better. So, I think that increased launch height will come with time. This is much like a golf swing. Once you have a decent swing, distance comes as you get more experience. Finally, I also felt that my ability to identify and work thermals was improved and I can directly attribute that improvement to the flying session with Paul as well. Obviously I like the Handlaunch Pro Clinic video. Given my situation where I have no readily accessible experts to guide and tutor me, this video has become indispensible. But, I think even "old pros" would find this video useful since it provides such a thorough coverage of this part of the hobby.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may be linked to a decreased risk for heart problems, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark. For the study researchers follow about 1000 women over ten years, half of whom were on HRT. The researchers explained that those women using HRT "had significantly reduced risk of mortality, heart failure, or heart attack, without any apparent increase of cancer, deep vein thrombosis or stroke." Thirty-three women in the study who not using HRT suffered deadly heart conditions over the course of ten years compared to just eleven who were using the treatment. The study adds support to the theory that HRT can help deflect heart problems if started shortly after menopause begins. "It really confirms the timing hypothesis and hopefully will change the way we look at hormone therapy, so it will change the quality of life for many women," said study author Dr. Louise Schierbeck. The data appears in the current edition of the British Medical Journal.
Question 1) How can we best prevent such a catastrophe? 1. Urgently begin reducing our use of fossil fuels 2. Move key facilites and communities away from the sea 3. Form global committees to set future targets for someone else to meet Question 1a) Given the nature of the problem, who should we seek to advise us 1. A panel of atmospheric scientists and climatologists 2. Leading scientists and creative thinkers from around the world 3. An economist Question 1c) To assure the best environmental protection should you rely on… 1. An environmental scientist? 2. A wholistic ecologist? 3. A rock singer? Question 2) If fuel and food prices rise and taxpayers are under financial stress, do you… 1. Improve government efficiency and cut taxes? 2. Find ways to reduce taxpayers expenses? 3. Keep increasing charges (e.g. rates, power) to cover the rising costs of fuel? Question 2a) If fuel prices continue to increase carrying other prices with them do you… 1. Urgently find ways to reduce fuel dependency? 2. Cut government expenses to return money to taxpayers? 3. Increase interest rates? Question 3) You are elected Prime Minister. Should you… 1. Staff your office with competent professionals to help you increase your effectiveness? 2. Outsource your office staffing to a competent private sector customer management centre? 3. Hire a couple of inexperienced 28 year olds to run everything? Question 4) Payment schedules for the public service should be… 1. based on the achievement of goals valued by the community? 2. based on helping politicians to fulfill their electoral promises? 3. based on size of department budgets and staff numbers? Question 4a) Merit payments for public servants should be based on… 1. increasing business and taxpayer productivity 2. improving services and value for taxes 3. increasing government income and/or reducing services Question 5) From a public service perspective, quality of service to the public is… 1. an important way of maintaining political support. 2. vital to help keep taxation levels as low as possible 3. hardly a serious issue. Question 6) Public policy should be shaped by…. 1. Real world requirements and results 2. The needs and aspirations of taxpayers 3. Party political donors first and foremost, within electable limits. Question 7) Public transport should be… 1. improved to assist taxpayer and freight transportation 2. measured by its capacity and efficiency 3. privately owned. Question 8) How should governments plan for the future? 1. In conjunction with taxpayers 2. On the basis of informed and scientific information 3. Leave it to market forces Question 9) Clear goals… 1. are necessary to focus efforts and achieve substantial outcomes 2. are a valuable means of assessing performance 3. just invite disappointment Question 10) Government’s key role is to manage… 1. essential services for life and civil society 2. the critical resources without which we cannot survive 3. the media and voter perceptions. Preamble. We are on a huge ball of rock hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour, being bombarded by rays from a nearby star. We live in a thin envelope of air that miraculously clings to the surface as the ball spins at 1,000 m.p.h. Organic materials, stored underground for millenia, have successfully kept the carbon dioxide in the air pretty low but now that we’re burning it and using it for fuel, our atmosphere is heating up. As a result a number of threats are developing including the possibility that the Greenland icecap will slip off into the sea, causing a mammoth tidal wave and sea level changes of up to 10 metres that could destroy our economies and much of our society. In addition, the warming of the arctic could stop the Gulf Stream current and induce a new ice age in the Northern Hemisphere.
- Besides, the longer employees work, the more productive they are, right? Why no sleep = super bad.A lack of sleep kills your employees in three ways: Productivity decreases dramatically.Employee brains work much harder for way smaller results. It's as if you're dragging your feet trying to run a 100-mile marathon. A study explained the phenomenon: WhatResearchers expected to find only sluggish activity in the brains of healthy young people who took a simple word test after staying awake for 35 hours. ResultsThey found instead that while parts of the sleep-deprived brains churned with activity during the test, another part of the brain -- the language center -- shut down. You ruin employee creativity.Have you tried working 10-hours hours straight on some project? Chances are: after the first two hours, your creativity pummeled. When you force employee brains to work continuously without sufficient breaks, they'll use up their brain-tanks. If you don't let them refill those tanks with sleep, you'll exhaust their brainpower to be creative. Says Harvard Med's Dr. Charles A. Czeisler: If they average four hours of sleep a night for four or five days, they develop the same level of cognitive impairment as if they'd been awake for 24 hours—equivalent to legal drunkenness. Within ten days, the level of impairment is the same as you'd have going 48 hours without sleep. This greatly lengthens reaction time, impedes judgment, and interferes with problem solving. You cause quick burnout.The annual turnover rate at a typical investment firm hovers around 25%. We'd safely assume you could double that number for the Silicon Valley start-up community. Lack of sleep serves as the prime ingredient to business burnout. The Kenyans can't run never-ending marathons; what makes you think your employees can? "So what do I do?"Use our "radical" one-rule approach: Rule #1: Turn off the office lights before 7p.m.Sure, your company might start its work day at 2 p.m.; if that's the case adjust the 7 p.m. time accordingly. Bottom line: Your business doesn't exist between a chunk of time in a day (e.g. 7 p.m. -- 9 a.m.). And no, that's not confined to just the office. - Close access to corporate systems. - No Blackberrys. - No emails. - No "business dinner meetings." - And whatever else: ___________________. This "lights-out-at-7" approach forces your employees to work frantically within the time they're allowed; equally important: it allows them the all-too-important 8 hours of sleep. Why Rule #1 WorksSay you're a super hot teacher (since you're already hot), and you assign your class a 10-page paper -- then you tell your bad self: "Should I make the due date 7-months or 7-days?" - Scenario 1: With a 7-month assignment, your students won't start working productively until that last week. - Scenario 2: A 7-day assignment on the other hand forces your students to work like a crazy, productive mother $#@%#%@ -- or they'll get a bad grade. 8-hours-chock-full-of-sleep employees rock the world, like it ain't no thang but a chicken wing on a string.
Downtown Westport was transformed Wednesday into a varicolored totem of multinationalism as the flags of dozens of member states of the United Nations lined the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Memorial Bridge across the Saugatuck River. The display of those national standards marked the town's recognition of UN Day, commemorating the enactment of the UN's charter on Oct. 24, 1945, which facilitated the official establishment of the international organization. Less than a mile away, on the front steps of Town Hall, First Selectman Gordon Joseloff gathered with several UN representatives for a ceremony to observe the charter's 67th anniversary. "It's a year that I'm very fond of because I was born then," Joseloff said of the UN's founding year. "The importance of the UN grows with each passing year." Joseloff then read a proclamation highlighting some of the United Nations' top goals, which include maintaining international peace and security, developing "friendly relations" among nations and promoting "social progress, better living standards and human rights." Westport has longstanding ties to the UN. Each June, it welcomes UN staff and delegates to the town for jUNe Day, which commemorates the signing of the UN charter on June 26, 1945. The jUNe Day event was founded in 1965 by the late Steinkraus-Cohen. Bill Hass, president of the southwestern Connecticut chapter of the United Nations Association, read a UN Day message from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, which outlined the organization's major challenges. "We are living through a period of profound turmoil, transition and transformation," Ban said in the message. "Insecurity, inequality and intolerance are spreading. Global and national institutions are being put to the test. With so much at stake, the United Nations must keep pace across the spectrum of its activities -- peace, development, human rights, the rule of law, the empowerment of the world's women and youth." Hass also emphasized the importance of local support for the United Nations. "For the UN to be successful as an international organization, it depends on its member states for support and political commitment," he said. "Unless they hear from the citizens, your congressmen and your senators' support isn't as strong as it needs to be in these endeavors." "Often, without a lot of attention, the UN works behind the scenes to resolve conflicts," she said. "It doesn't always get credit for it, but sometimes that's the best way to get things done. In this increasingly interconnected world, we need to have an organization where every single country in the world can come together and talk to one another and try to resolve these issues."
See Saudi Arabia in American Heritage Dictionary 4 A country occupying most of the Arabian Peninsula. Inhabited since ancient times by nomadic Semitic tribes, the region was consolidated under Muhammed, who established a theocratic state at Medina and gained control of all Arabia by 630. After the caliphate was moved from Medina to Damascus in 661, the peninsula remained fragmented until most of it was united in the 18th century under the Saud family, who adopted the Wahhabi form of Islam. Crushed by Egyptian and Ottoman opposition in the 19th century, Saudi forces reconquered the peninsula in the early 20th century. The unified kingdom of Saudi Arabia was created in 1932 as an absolute monarchy under Wahhabi law. Oil was discovered in 1932 and soon became the mainstay of the economy. Riyadh is the capital and the largest city. Population: 27,600,000.
It is a common plant of many regions, including disturbed habitat. It is an annual herb growing erect in form, with hairless herbage. The leaves are made up of toothed oval leaflets and have bristle-tipped stipules. The inflorescence is a head of flowers 1 or 2 centimeters wide, the flowers often spreading out or drooping. The flower has a calyx of bristle-like sepals lined with hairs and a pinkish or purplish corolla.
Dr. Eisenstein the Pirate See's Vaccine Damage Ahead Please click on the image to go to the special Don't Vaccinate Before You Educate! Don't Vaccinate Before You Educate! is a result of Dr. Eisenstein's lectures on vaccinations. Dr. Eisenstein brings his knowledge as a physician, public health doctor and attorney to help educate you on this very important subject. Dr. Eisenstein presents scientific literature both pro and con vaccine. He comes to the conclusion that scientific studies alone will not be enough to decide the benefit vs. the risks of vaccine programs. Therefore, he concludes that personal religious convictions, not scientific studies, are the main reasons, upon which to base your vaccination decision. Unlike most other physicians, he feels parents have a right to be involved in the final decision about vaccinating their children. He discusses vaccine law, religious exemptions with a heavy emphasis on the Illinois law. Don't Vaccinate Before You Educate! will be the beginning of a path to educate families with regard to childhood vaccines. This book is not meant to convince you to vaccinate or not vaccinate your children but to open your eyes to the ongoing debate. Education as defined by Webster's College Dictionary: To impart knowledge to; provide with information; to educate consumers To educate means to widen one's horizons. I hope that this book will be educational with regard to the vaccine issues and inspire you to become more educated with regard to the risk vs. benefits of vaccine programs. I have included just a few of the many pro and con scientific vaccine studies. Many more can be obtained by going on the internet to the multiple vaccine sites as well as to the on-line versions of some of the most prestigious medical journals (BMJ, AMA, Pediatrics, Lancet, Journal of Disease of Children). I hope this book leads you to do more research as well as think about your religious and spiritual convictions. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve so many families. God bless.
Raya Dunayevskaya 1971 “Life itself becomes too dear, So vast are one's dreams.” – Louise Michel “A work is never beautiful, unless it in some way escapes its author.” – D.H. Lawrence We have reached a turning point in our work which can by no means restrict itself only to Luxemburg and Marx. We must go both backwards and forwards in history and cover the globe. I dare say, since life itself began, woman has had to struggle; and in order to see the dialectic of development, both of our age and other historic periods, we will need to gather disparate strands that may, at first, look quite disconnected. I trust, however, that at the end a direction will manifest itself. The phrases referring to "since life itself began" and "global" may seem too pompous but what I have in mind is quite simple. I'm referring to the never-ending rebellion whether we begin in 1647 with the first Maid's Petition to Parliament for "liberty every second Tuesday"; or whether we jump to 1831 when, in the very year Nat Turner led the greatest slave revolt in the U.S., a Black woman named Maria Stewart – the first woman to [do so] publicly, white or Black – spoke out in Boston: "O ye daughters of Africa, awake! awake! arise! no longer sleep nor slumber but distinguish yourselves. Show forth to the world that ye are endowed with noble and exalted faculties...How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles?...How long shall a mean set of men flatter us with their smiles, and enrich themselves with our hard earnings: their wives' fingers sparkling with rings and they themselves laughing at our folly?" Other "firsts" crowd into mind, whether we are referring to Flora Tristan who was the first to call for an International of working women and working men in 1844, the year that Marx discovered a whole new continent of thought; or whether we look at the 1848 revolutions in Europe and see that what looked of much lesser importance, the First Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, actually opened up a whole new force for revolution. That women did hear that call became clear in 1851, when Jeanne Deroin and Pauline Roland sent greetings to the Second National Woman's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts from the St. Lazare prison in Paris, to which they had been sentenced for their activities in and after 1848. On behalf of the Convention, Ernestine Rose declared: "After having heard the letter read from our poor incarcerated sisters of France, well might we exclaim, Alas, poor France! where is thy glory? where the glory of the Revolution of 1848?" The Black dimension is the most exciting of all. Not only did it inspire the creation of the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention, but it did so through its own activity; that is to say, when the white middle-class women in the antislavery societies saw the Sojourner Truths and Harriet Tubmans as orators and travelers and thinkers, while their own work was reduced to auxiliary tasks, they recognized what it means to be Reason as well as Force. This became especially crucial in 1867 after the Civil War in the U.S., when even the most revolutionary Abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass and Wendell Phillips, refused to help collaborate with the women's fight for suffrage on the grounds that this was the Negro year. Sojourner Truth hit back at her own leader, Frederick Douglass, calling him "short-minded." Not only did she separate from her Black male colleagues and align with the white women, but it became clear that "short-minded" was more than an epithet. Rather, it was a new language – the language of thought – against those who would put any limitations to freedom. In four years, the world had, indeed, become witness to the greatest revolution of men and women for a totally new, classless society – the Paris Commune. Why, may we ask, did it take nearly a century to learn all the facts of the breadth of women's actions, and why, even then, did it take a woman to write THE WOMEN INCENDIARIES? Nor should we forget...that the American labor struggles, with very active participation by women, had been continuous since the very first National Labor Union was established in the U.S. and affiliated with the First International. However, it was not until 1908, when the infamous Triangle [Shirtwaist] Fire took the lives of 143 women working in that sweat shop, and Rose Schneiderman organized no less than 120,000 in the funeral march – not just to mourn but to declare solidarity with all unorganized women workers – that it first reverberated to Europe. By 1911, Clara Zetkin's proposal to the Second International for an International Woman's Day became reality. Rosa Luxemburg becomes central here, but if we try to begin at some alleged high point on what was considered to be the "Woman Question," we will blind ourselves both to Luxemburg's multi-dimensionality and the newness that our age brought to the concept of women's liberation. Let's, instead, see what ground she laid in a letter that was, in the main, devoted to the anti-war work from which the revisionists stayed far, far away. In this letter [from prison] to Mathilde Wurm, seemingly out of nowhere, there suddenly appears a reference to the queen of the Amazons (and evidently, not as she is known in Greek legend as the one who was killed [by Achilles, but as] told by the famous German playwright, Heinrich Von Kleist, who had Penthesilea not only kill Achilles, but eat him). All this appears in a letter where she is so furious at her friend's defense of the revisionists' position on the war that she writes: "I'm telling you that as soon as I can stick my nose out again I will hunt and harry your society of frogs with trumpet blasts, whip crackings, and bloodhounds – like Penthesilea I wanted to say, but by God, you people are no Achilles. Have you had enough of a New Year's greeting now? Then see to it that you stay HUMAN... Being human means joyfully throwing your whole life "on the scales of destiny" when need be, but all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud. Ach, I know of no formula to write you for being human..." It's this need to throw your whole life on the scales of destiny, it's this passion for revolution, it's the urgency to get out of prison confinement and open entirely new vistas, it's this need "to be human" that has characterized the whole of Luxemburg's vision, in the struggle for a new society. It has put the stamp on all she ever did, and ever longed to make real. And it is this which put so totally different a mark on her concept of women's liberation which was called the Woman Question in her day, that it makes it possible for our age to first understand it fully; in a great measure, more fully than she herself was conscious of... When the 1907 Congress [of Russian Marxists]a referred back to the 1848 revolution, it was naturally mainly for purposes of debating the question of Marx's analysis of a revolution he participated in, as well as the theory of revolution that preceded the actual [revolution] – the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. Peculiarly enough, it did not extend to the concept of permanent revolution that Marx projected in his 1850 Address to the [Communist League] after the defeat of the 1848 revolution. This is the more curious because Trotsky had projected his own theory of permanent revolution and Lenin referred at one point disparagingly to it in 1907. What none talked about was what was "in the air," be it 1848 or 1907, that is to say, the ramifications of an ongoing revolution into countries not experiencing it. And yet, that is precisely the point that is of the essence to us today. Take the ramifications of the 1848 revolution, not as discussed in 1907, but in the period it happened. The very first women's liberation movement took place in the U.S. in Seneca Falls in 1848. Though none there, either, discussed a European proletarian revolution, revolution was in the air in the deepest possible manner in the U.S. both as a struggle for freedom against slavery, and as the beginning of a women's liberation movement. And there is no doubt that the inspiration for it came precisely from the Black dimension towards the middle-class women who were working in the anti-slavery movement, and moved to extend that towards their own very different type of liberation. And because [the] Black dimension was so crucial to any freedom struggle in the U.S., no matter what struggle you were engaged in, the Black dimension was the inspiration force, be it in the Abolitionist movement, in women's rights, or for that matter in the great literature of the day. By 1860 when John Brown attacked Harper's Ferry, Marx considered it a WORLD signal for freedom, and, indeed, began leaving the library for actual activities which led to the establishment of the First Workingman's International. The point is that everything, most especially the theory of revolution, so deepened that whether it was his greatest theoretical work itself, CAPITAL, the organizational work of the First International, or woman as Reason as well as force, in the participation in his organization, it became a multifaceted total philosophy of revolution. In a way, an important way, this was prefiguredb in the Taiping Revolution in the 1850s. That is to say, from Eurocentrism, Marx's world view was extending to Asian society, both Indian and Chinese. Even more important than global extension, as if that were narrowed to geography, was the concept of the forces of revolution, whether that be what he called a "second edition of the peasant revolution" as against the misused and most popular phrase, "rural idiocy"; a greater appreciation of artisans, or pre-capitalist society[;] and a greater hatred for capitalism as against playing up in the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO the revolutionary features of capitalism when it overthrew feudalism. It is fantastic, for example, for the [Women's Liberation Movement] today to so soon forget that not only the inspiration but the actual tactics of revolt for the activist '60s came from the Black dimension. And while not that direct a relationship to the development of the Marxist movement in Europe in the 1907 period, it is a fact that both the Black dimension and the [Women's Liberation Movement] that had begun as early as Marx's day and had come to a tragic climax in the famous Triangle fire, was made an international holiday by the first German socialist movement under the direction of Clara Zetkin. And yet we find no hint of any of this in either the discussions in the 1907 Congress or in the further development of Rosa Luxemburg. It is not as unconnected as it would appear to be, with the fact that she had what to this writer is a fantastically wrong position on the National Question. We will see this reappear again in 1917 when, though she hails the [Russian Revolution] as the greatest daring act, chooses to criticize the Bolsheviks [who were] actually carrying out instead of just believing in the principle of self-determination of nations. On the other hand, she herself turned to great new activity in women's liberation both during the suffrage campaign and in getting the greatest support for her anti-war activity among the women revolutionaries. The reason that it is important before we get to the greatest period of [Luxemburg's] self-development, theoretically, organizationally, practically, and in the development and rejection of friendships – 1910-1918 – is that it's no abstract matter to talk about what is "in the air." There is, in fact, no other way to listen both to the voices from below, to anticipate both the subjective and objective developments, rooted in the economic and political crises of the day... 1. Sheila Rowbotham, WOMEN, RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION (New York: Pantheon, 1972), p. 15. 2. BLACK WOMEN IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICAN LIFE, edited by Bert James Loewenberg and Ruth Bogin (University Park, Pa.: Penn State University Press, 1967). 3. FEMINISM, edited by Miriam Schneir (New York: Random House, 1972). 4. See especially Earl Conrad, HARRIET TUBMAN (New York: Paul S. Erikson, 1943), and NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH, an Ebony Classic (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., 1970). 5. Edith Thomas' THE WOMEN INCENDIARIES was published in France in 1963 and in the U.S. in 1966 (New York: George Braziller) but is long out of print; and there never was a paperback edition. 6. Union WAGE (Berkeley, California) issued two pamphlets in 1974 by Joyce Maupin-Working Women and Their Organizations, 150 Years of Struggle and Labor Heroines, Ten Women Who Led The Struggle. 7. This letter, written Dec. 28, 1916, is included in Briefe an Freunde, edited by Benedikt and Kautsky, (Hamburg: Europische Verlagsanstalt, 1950), pp. 44-6. a. In 1907, all the Marxist tendencies convened the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party to discuss the then-ongoing, first Russian Revolution of 1905. b. A "?" appears above "prefigured" in the original text. WORKING WOMEN AND THEIR ORGANIZATIONS, 150 YEARS OF STRUGGLE and LABOR HEROINES, TEN WOMEN WHO LED THE STRUGGLE.
The South Lake Lancer reports middle school students visited the high school to race cardboard boats. South Lake student Cassandra Kury recently held a a successful sock drive for those in need. Cassandra Kury, a South Lake Middle School student, collected over 185 pairs of socks through her "Warm Hearts/Cold Feet" campaign. According to a post on the St. Clair Shores Patch Facebook page, the eighth grade student held a sock drive to coincide with a sock drive held by her church. Through the generosity of her friends and family from as far away as Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania, she was able to give the socks she collected to her church. The socks will be donated to those in need in the community. Shelly Voss Kury wrote, "Proud to say that Cassie is a Cavalier!" Tuesday, December 25, 2012 Your Patch editor showed off a hidden obsession this holiday season - Christmas ties! Daily on Facebook a new tie was posted. Here they are in one video set to a performance by the South Lake Middle School choir. Thursday, November 29, 2012 Caffe Far Bella is hosting nearly 30 pieces of student artwork created by students at South Lake Middle School. Paintings, drawings and paper mache figures created by South Lake Middle School students are among the nearly 30 pieces of art on display at Caffe Far Bella. The cafe hosts art work from students and local artists throughout the year. Tuesday, September 25, 2012 Students from China arrived Monday for their first day of a two-week exchange program with South Lake Middle School. Students from Xian Gaoxin Greenwich School were in the air nearly 30-hours for their flight from China to Detroit, but looked no worse for the wear Monday morning as they met their peers at South Lake Middle School. The 21 students, and two teachers, landed ealry Monday morning at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and were transported to St. Clair Shores for a welcome breakfast to kick off the two week exchange program. "They are coming to experience life in St. Clair Shores and South Lake," said Fang MacCallumMhor, South Lake Middle School Mandarin teacher. The students from China will stay with host families during their stay, and attend classes at the middle school. Their families, and the district, will also take the students on field trips… Monday, June 11, 2012 South Lake Middle School staff honored students Monday for their extracurricular activities. South Lake Middle School students and staff gathered Monday in the school's nature area to celebrate their achievements during the past year. Students were recognized for their work in a variety activities including Mandarin, Science Olympiad, tutoring elementary school students and mentoring their fellow classmates. Members of the school's Green Team, and the student body, also were recognized for being named an Evergreen School by the Michigan Green Schools Program. The Evergreen designation is the highest award given to schools. Monday, October 10, 2011 After weeks of study and preparation, schools across St. Clair Shores held pep rallies to motivate and support students as they take the assessment test. Music, skits and personalized notes are just some of the events schools across the Shores held for students as they prepared to take the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP). Testing for for students in grades 3-9 begin Tuesday, and run through Oct. 28. Students at Greenwood Elementary School gathered Friday for a school-wide assembly Friday where students received words of support, test-taking strategies and a performance by teachers who modified the words of "Beat It" to "MEAP It." "(We want) to motivate them and show them we believe in them," said Katie Jaeger, a fourth-grade teacher who organized the assembly. Students taking the tests will also receive notes the morning of the tests from their teachers, parents and principal… Friday, July 15, 2011 School reaches highest status in Michigan Green Schools program. South Lake Middle School ended this school year on a high note with a school-wide celebration of a significant “green” achievement. The school earned the title of Evergreen School, which is the highest status in the Michigan Green Schools program. Michigan Green Schools is a nonprofit agency dedicated to assisting all state schools to achieve environmental goals, which include protecting the state’s resources and animals, promoting good ecological practices, and teaching educational stewardship. There are three attainable levels in the Green Schools program: Green, Emerald and Evergreen. Each designation indicates a school’s level of dedication to environmental practices. The Green Schools program provides 20 points that schools need to … Thursday, July 7, 2011 It is not often that you get a second chance at witnessing history. Record-breaking home runs—better be in your seat at the ballpark. The birth of your first child—there is no pause button in the birthing process. Witnessing a final space shuttle flight—hopefully I will get that second chance. I returned to Florida on Thursday to see the final launch of the space shuttle program. For the past 30 years of the shuttle program, I have been a bit of a space geek. Watching shuttle launches, gazing into the night sky waiting for the International Space Station to fly overhead and always dreaming of standing next to the countdown clock at the Kennedy Space Center and experiencing a launch only three miles from the launch pad. If Mother Nature and… Salturelli Preschool celebrates year’s end at park In celebration of the end of the school year, Salturelli Preschool teachers, students and their families recently enjoyed a picnic at Veterans Memorial Park . Preschoolers played in the splash zone and had fun on the playground. Families brought a dish to pass and everyone had a celebratory lunch with preschool teachers Janet Brady and Michelle Gorajczyk. South Lake recognizes Teachers of the Year The South Lake Board of Education recently honored the district’s 2010-11 Teachers of the Year. The teachers each received a certificate of recognition as well as a bouquet of flowers from the district. This year’s Teachers of the Year are: In addition to their acknowledgement by the district, …
Every now and then I run across a book worthy of being re-read on a regular basis, maybe every year. Hints for Parents is just such a book. This little 80-page hardback book was written by a Presbyterian pastor during the early 1800s. It is divided into four chapters: "Important Truths to Teach Our Children," "Measures to Take in Teaching Our Children," "Motivations for Faithful Parenting," and "Courage! Take Courage!" At the back of the book is a nine-page article by Archibald Alexander, D.D., entitled "The Duty of Catechetical Instruction," written in 1837. The text is interspersed with "Gospel Encouragements" in the form of scripture references, encouragement, and validation for the present time period. Tedd Tripp offers his comments here, just as a wise teacher would in a classroom setting. The entire book is written with a heartfelt spirit of loving concern, and throughout Hints for Parents the family is honored as God's institution and instrument. The first topic in the first chapter is Subjection to Authority, which is framed in a positive light: "The God of nature has assigned the years of childhood and youth to parental control. This wise and generous arrangement simply cannot be upended without jeopardizing the best interests of our children for time and eternity. It is an arrangement that will preserve a child from a thousand evils." Subsequent topics are generally what one would expect in a parenting book, but there are some uncommon (albeit Biblical) areas emphasized as well: truthfulness, work habits, temperance (used here to mean restraint or self-control), choosing friends, remembering the Sabbath Day, "Proper Estimation of the World and its Culture," and generosity. I was convicted often while reading Hints for Parents. "Are you regularly teaching your children to read God's holy word? (Do you read it?) Are you instructing them in the great, eternal truths of Christianity? Do you pray with them, for them, and teach them how to pray? (Do you pray?)" The book is astoundingly timely, despite when it was written. Here is a quote from the topic of industriousness: "Many a child has been lost to himself, to his family, to the world, and to God, because he had little else to do but indulge himself. But many have been rescued from disgrace and ruin--and pointed toward industry, accomplishment and happiness--simply because they had little time for entertainment." And in the section on instruction: "Who disagrees today that the great bulk of literature and entertainment exerts a destructive influence, both on the intellectual and moral character?" I know my husband and I will be re-reading this book often. Hints for Parents is a goldmine!
I don’t mean to be a raw meat pusher but I’ve had a whole lot of questions since the last raw meat article – how I stopped being afraid of it, how to start eating it, whether it is really safe, etc. – so I thought I’d offer a little more insight as to why some of us can get away with eating tons of raw meat and never seem to get sick. Parasitic infestation is not just a numbers game as many like to suggest. Contact with parasites, bacteria, and viruses is common and should not be feared by healthy people. Where Parasites Are Found It’s not that in all these years I haven’t encountered a parasite. Who knows how many times I have, really. I’ve eaten pounds upon pounds upon pounds of raw meat and seafood over the years and the chances that I’ve run into some living creature are actually pretty high. Parasites are everywhere. We bump heads with them all the time. Parasites can infect us through: - the bites of blood sucking insects - water from streams and even from surface water treatment plants - walking barefoot on infected dirt - eating improperly washed vegetables which had traveled from farms using fecal contaminated fertilizer - shaking someones hand who has bad bathroom hand washing habits - eating food from a restaurant where employees had bad hand washing habits With all the places we come into contact with parasites, it’s a wonder that people blame raw food for all instances of parasitic infection. Raw meat simply isn’t the only contact we have with them. Some parasites such as the tapeworm Taenia solium infect us through human feces. The worms we eat in undercooked pork are much less of a problem than the eggs we might ingest from contaminated food. Feces contaminated vegetables or restaurant meals can invite the brain eating worm into our bloodstream. As weird as it might sound this can easily happen – someone is in too much of a hurry to wash his hands after wiping, some microscopic eggs get on his hands, he shakes your hand at lunch, and you lick the butter off your fingers, or maybe he’s a cook who heads back to the kitchen and prepares somebodies sandwich. This kind of thing isn’t too common in our culture, but it does happen and when it does those eggs get into the blood stream, hatch, and head off to the brain to gorge on yummy brain tissue. Realizing that parasites, viruses, and bacteria are out there no matter what you eat or what you do is the first step to getting comfortable with eating raw meat. Parasites Are Only Doing Their Job Every animal on the planet including grass eating, free roaming cows can get parasites. Even healthy, primitive humans get parasites. It’s a good thing too because parasites help clean up filth. They are like tiny little, ugly garbage men. We need them as much as they need us. The problem isn’t that we come into contact with parasites (and bacteria and viruses) but that we are just so filthy they have a whole lot to feed on when they get here. And the more we steer clear of parasites and feed our fear of bugs the more of a “problem” they will be. Parasites and bacteria are an important part of our ecosystem. Nature doesn’t intend for us to run from them (it’s not possible anyway). In fact, the more we try to avoid them, the more trash they’ll have to take out in the end, and that will mean some major symptoms of disease (which most people in this country experience pretty regularly). With a clean terrain those parasites won’t cause you much pain. If they don’t find a toxic blood supply and dead tissues to feast on, they will simply be flushed out of the body to go find another host. That is an amazing and kind of scary thought at first. It took me a year or more to really trust the idea but as my body got healthier it started to make sense. If my digestive system is not full of impacted feces, if my cells are healthy, parasites have very little to feed on and what they do feed on will only make me cleaner in the end. The Symptoms of Parasitic Infestation Are Just Toxins Flushing Out Aajonus Vonderplanitz, the leader of the raw Primal diet, claims it is this truth about parasites which saved him from cancer. Nasty bugs eat nasty stuff. If we allow them to do their job and clean up the garbage, our health will improve. The problem with parasites is that if we are really unhealthy, we are essentially a playground for them and we will experience, what he calls, detoxification. The dirtier our body, the more severe our symptoms. Flushing parasites out of the body with herbs and fasting should not be our strategy either. In the beginning this could be helpful, but the overall strategy is flawed. Our goal should not be to avoid them but rather to clean up our bodies so that they will not be able to make a long term home in us. If they do find us a hospitable host, we may experience symptoms of parasitic infestation. These can include: - Bloody stools - Foul smelling stools - Gas and cramping - Itching around the anus - Flu-like symptoms - Weight loss - Ravenous appetite These symptoms, however, are not symptoms of the parasite itself but of the detoxification that the parasite is causing. Absolutely, eliminating the parasite would stop the detox and would make you feel a little better, but it wouldn’t remove the risk of further infestation, i.e. it wouldn’t mean that you are now clean and healthy. Quite the contrary. Such severe symptoms are only evidence of the toxic material your body contains. “Parasites are not the problem. Parasites live on decaying tissue. Blaming parasites is the same as blaming vultures, crows and worms for the dead and decaying carcass that they find and eat. They eat the dead and decaying creature to prevent the atmosphere from becoming a toxic cesspool.” – From an interview with Aajonus Aajonus maintains that we should not eat cooked meat at all because it creates toxicity in the body and sets us up for disease. It’s an interesting position. He may be right I don’t really know. Our bodies may be best suited for raw food. Every other animal on the planet thrives on it. And just because we can eat cooked food doesn’t mean we should. And just because cooked food might be responsible for the increasing size of our big smart brains, doesn’t mean big smart are a good thing. Hell, look where we are today. What got us here? The right path? No! We’ve been doing something wrong for milenia. Maybe we started going downhill when we harnessed fire. Maybe not. I don’t know for sure. It’s all interesting theories. Undoubtedly, raw foods heal and raw foods are good for you. Traditional people all over the world eat them, some of them even exclusively. Many people recovering from disease eat them, including myself, and witness a dramatic shift in health. A person should, as usual, try out many things and do what feels right. Personally, I tend to flip back and forth between raw and cooked Paleo diets. I don’t know why really. I’m just following my nose. Raw Primal Diet Resources There are quite a few resources these days on the net about raw Paleo dieting. Many of these people have been doing this for even longer than I have. The Raw Paleo Guy, for example, has been eating raw meat for twice as long as I have and he’s been more serious about it than I have been. He offers a wealth of knowledge on his website. From the RawPaleoGuy “The guru, Aajonus Vonderplanitz’s take on this is that so-called “parasites” are really symbionts which help to clean up dead, toxic matter within the body, and that since cooked-food-eaters have more toxic material in the body, they are more likely to suffer from side-effects. That said, I have come across just two references to parasites among RPDers (raw Paleo Dieters). These two incidents occurred after the two had been to the tropics, where food can be more easily contaminated. In both cases, the bouts were minor and very temporary, compared to what cooked-food-eaters usually experience. Last I checked, even the stools of people who eat a lot of cooked-food are full of various unicellular or multicellular parasites, as they exist everywhere in our environment. What rawpalaeodieters find out in the end is that all the things such as bacteria/parasites etc. that they were taught to be afraid of, do in fact contribute to human health. Ultimately the only way one can discover for oneself that that is fact, is to eat raw-meat for long enough, so as to see the results. If you want further confirmation, you can always ask the raw, paleolithic diet groups on Yahoo and elsewhere. I will admit that, initially, I too was scared of parasites and went in for all sorts of deworming herbal remedies such as wormwood, but I quickly realised there was no danger, so I stopped using such supplements, and have never had cause to regret my decision.”
Arne Herbs supplies plants for garden designers. We have specialist knowledge of historic Medieval and early Renaissance gardens and supply plants for Mediterranean gardens. Arne Herbs is frequently asked to supply plants for Mediterranean garden designs, which are traditionally said to enjoy hot dry Summers and warm wet winters. However, it should be remembered that "Mediterranean" is a generalisation for a wide range of habitats so that on the lee side of mountains, for instance, the Winters are both cold and dry and plants from this environment may not survive warm damp winters. Arne Herbs is happy to advise you on the best Mediterranean garden plants for your conditions. Although lists of plantings of Medieval and early Renaissance gardens are occasionally available in bookshops, Arne Herbs maintains a comprehensive library of classical and medieval texts to guarantee the authenticity of your planting. We back theory with practice by providing the true species referred to in the original texts. This information is free to re-creators of historic plantings, but journalists and television producers are welcome to use our database on payment of a consultancy fee. The nursery tries to maintain all the non-tropical plants mentioned by Dioscorides and Pliny, by Medieval writers including Macer, Crescenzi and Rufinus as well as the great but anonymous compilations of the "Tractatus" (Egerton 747) and "Agnus Castus". Our more modern sources include Braccio's survey of the Carreggi garden c1480, Caterina Sforza's "Esperimenti" and of course William Turner and PierAndrea Mattioli. Garden Design Tips If you are planning a garden, here are some of our tips for success with our plants. - Remember that modern "Garden Centre" varieties of flowers have been bred more for colour and duration of flowering than for environmental friendliness. When given the choice, always go for a true species than a named variety.Formal gardens are high maintenance so leave plenty of room to get your machinery in and out - A water feature is essential, the bigger the better, we will advise on the planting - "Wagon wheel" garden designs are an anathema, plants never keep within their boundaries, the ones in the centre will be squashed up and harvesting/weeding will be impossible without treading on something precious. The rule is that if you haven't got room to build yourself a socking great arbour in the middle, don't bother, - it's a waste of time. - Forget those television pundits who endlessly tell you to "dig in lots of organic compost". You will do your back in and, more importantly, most Mediterranean plants hate it. It will ruin their flavour, encourage them to put on lots of soft, rank growth and rot their stems in winter. Use white Cornish grit instead, it will reflect the light on to the leaves, improve drainage, suppress weeds, keep the roots cool and look good. This of course doesn't apply to the northern herbs mentioned in the "cooking herbs" paragraph. - Living in a Scottish peat bog? Don't despair, just because your taragon will surely die, there are plenty of interesting herbs that will thrive in such conditions (just ask!), or failing that, build a courtyard garden with your favourite culinaries flourishing in pots. - Herbs are welcoming when planted by the front door which normally faces the sun. Put them by the back door along with the dustbins and they will never thrive. - Always garden in three dimensions, make sure you have lots of climbers or raised beds so that you have nice smells at nose level, after all you don't smell with your feet do you? Here is a list of our climbing plants chosen for scent, medicinal and environmental properties - Some climbers denied anything to climb, make quite effective ground cover, however be warned, many of these have interestingly toxic properties Planting a Herb Garden A helpful generalisation about planting is that your kitchen herbs can be divided into two: - Mediterraneans -Taragon for instance, that enjoy full sun, minimal water and fertilizer, and alkaline soil . - North European - These prefer shadier damper conditions with richer soil such as Horse radish, chives and lovage. Intermediates such as Fennel, Mint etc. which are more adaptable. The golden rule is not to mix the categories; if you do, the happiest plants will choke out the rest. This is particularly important if you are making a sink or trough garden so always use at least two troughs.
He knows that it’s not scientific. That’s all he needs to know. Aren’t you making a classic logical error? Setting up Glashow as the authority, and only authority on string theory due to his nobel status? I could/would counter with: David Gross shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics and is the director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Gross: The big bang theory is the idea that if we go back early enough in the history of the universe—and we can do this, of course, by looking at starlight coming to us from billions of years ago—we will see a very hot and dense period where the universe was much smaller, denser, and hotter. And that explosion or hot state left remnants that we can observe today in the microwave background. So we know that that aspect of the theory is true. If we push back even farther, that hotter or denser state becomes even hotter and denser. And if we extrapolate using Einstein’s theory of general relativity, we find total disaster. That is, we find a singularity, in which the forces that act on particles become infinitely strong. Things break down completely, and the theory no longer makes sense. Our conclusion is not that the universe doesn’t make sense, but that the equations are wrong. They’re applicable maybe at later times, but they’re not applicable at the beginning of the universe. So we desperately need something like string theory appears to be—a theory that is consistent. NOVA: Basically you need a theory that’s going to work under those conditions. Gross: Yes, and one that can provide an answer to questions that with our present theories we can’t dream of answering, such as: How does the universe begin? What starts it off? What is the state of the universe at the beginning? Is that unique or arbitrary? Who fixes the initial conditions? There are questions that can’t be answered within the standard theory. We’re not sure that string theory, or any theory, could provide answers to the beginning of the universe, but it’s a goal that many of us are desperate to try to reach. NOVA: And string theory can help provide these answers? Gross: String theory is the best hope at the present. And the questions are some of the most interesting questions that we can ask. All of us would like to know: Is the universe arbitrary? Could it have been otherwise than it is? Could there have been different laws, different constants of nature? Has it begun only once, or is it cyclic? Was there beginning to time? Does time have any meaning before it began? These are wonderful questions, and we’re now in a position to address them. We have no guarantee that we will find the answers, of course, but the effort is as important as finding the answer.
Microfiber Maintained With Proper Use, Laundering By Gabriel Phillips MIMA by Golden Star Quality you can trust, Durability you can count on. Microfiber cloths and mop heads are becoming popular amongst building service contractors. But before a BSC jumps in to purchase them in bulk, the company should first educate managers and front-line workers about the proper use and care of microfiber as well as develop a maintenance program. Having a microfiber maintenance program saves a BSC money in a number of ways. A good program will preserve the microfiber material, will keep the microfiber fabric performing at its highest potential and allows a BSC to purchase the most cost-effective microfiber heads available. Minimize Costly Mistakes Microfiber towels are made of a tough material. It’s considered to be a very high-performance product, but one of the major downsides is that the material is easily damaged by heat. Heat is the biggest enemy of microfiber. It can destroy the fabric instantly or it can break it down over time. Microfiber is made up of a blend of 80 percent polyester and 20 percent nylon. The chemical properties of nylon make the material a thermoplastic, so it can melt in hot temperatures. Once the nylon melts down, the fabric is useless. Any microfiber maintenance program includes a laundry regimen. BSCs that use outside laundry services need to ask them if they have worked with microfiber before. Also, make them aware that all microfiber heads and cloths are launderable, so they’ll have to launder a variety of sizes and shapes. It is equally important to stress that all microfiber can melt in a hot washer and dryer cycle. “Make sure to wash it in at least 140 degrees Fahrenheit,” says Jim Thompson, president of A-1 Building Services, Byron Center, Mich. “We are washing them at 160 degrees. The higher the heat the more it has an effect on the longevity of it.” More importantly, the microfiber must then be dried on a low heat setting to prevent shrinkage or melting damage. If a BSC’s cloths are damaged in the dryer cycle, they are irreparably harmed. Be sure to adjust dryer temperature to 140 degrees or lower. Once a microfiber thread is disfigured, it loses its ability to absorb. Microfiber’s absorbing power comes from the v-shaped channels that run through each thread lengthwise. Soil, germs and all sorts of other debris and liquids get trapped in those channels. Those channels also allow microfiber to absorb seven times its weight in water. However, the channels can slowly melt shut during the laundry cycles. If microfiber is laundered properly, then it should survive 400 or more cycles before they become unusable, says Mons Larson, director of operations, JaniKing of Phoenix. Microfiber can’t get laundered with other materials that produce lint. The foreign lint wedges into the v-shaped channels of the microfiber threads. That causes the material to shed the excess lint as a custodian cleans with it. Janitors will also notice the microfiber isn’t performing as well due to lint build-up. A well-oiled laundry routine isn’t the only thing a BSC should know about for microfiber maintenance purposes. Gritty surfaces such as stone and grout will tear microfiber fabric, so if a BSC must use the cloths on these surfaces, it can extend the life of the microfiber by trimming any snags with scissors. When performing specialty jobs such as waxing with microfiber, the mop heads should be rinsed with hot water immediately, Thompson says. Otherwise, the wax will dry and be nearly impossible to remove and the product have to be thrown away. “We do use cheap heads for retail services (on the) wood floor, marble, granite, so after we wax the floor we can just throw the head away for a convenience factor,” Thompson says. While microfiber is strong enough to resist harsh chemicals, some chemicals do, however, fade the color of the fabric. Not that a cleaning towel’s appearance necessarily affects its utility, but fading may occur after much laundering, impacting color-coded microfiber cleaning programs. Taking care of microfiber involves an understanding of its makeup and a commitment to the life of the cloth. A comprehensive maintenance program must focus on laundering, with special attention given to drying the products on low heat, as well as training employees proper uses that preserve the longevity of the product. BSCs should discuss these issues, and any other microfiber-related concerns, with their distributors, who can help answer questions about specific products. As green cleaning and cleaning for health programs become more popular, knowledge of microfiber maintenance is going to be a valuable asset for those who want to protect their cleaning tool investments.
HP has taken the lead over Dell and Nokia for sustainable operations in Greenpeace’s updated version of its Guide to Greener Electronics, released today. Apple comes in at number four. The guide rates 15 top manufacturers of mobile phones, personal computers, smart devices, and televisions on the sustainability of their products and operations. Electronics are ubiquitous in our lives, but they are resource and energy intensive to produce. They also contain toxic materials and are often disposed of in developing countries where they sicken local people and taint their water and environment. This new edition of the guide — the 17th since the first version was released in 2006 — adds new criteria to evaluate companies based on their carbon footprint, use of renewable energy, sourcing of paper fiber and conflict minerals, and product life cycle analysis. Greenpeace asks companies to measure and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions throughout the life cycle of their products: supply chain, manufacturing, distribution, customer use, and end-of-life, using a combination of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy policy advocacy. Life-cycle analysis goes beyond just energy use, however. Greenpeace wants to see companies eliminate the use of hazardous substances such as polyvinyl chloride, brominated flame retardants, antimony, beryllium, and phthalates. And it wants them to source paper and conflict minerals from purveyors who manage the resources responsibly. The advocacy organization also wants companies to consider energy efficiency, durability, streamlining of devices, re-usability, and ease of repair when designing products. And when products finally become obsolete, Greenpeace wants companies to provide free, convenient tack-back programs in all countries where their products are sold. As for the actual recycling, doing that responsibly at this point generally means taking it to plants in the United States or Europe, not the streets of China or Africa. “Right now, HP takes the top spot because it is scoring strongly by measuring and reducing carbon emissions from its supply chain, reducing its own emissions, and advocating for strong climate legislation,” said Greenpeace International campaigner Tom Dowdall. Still, the advocacy organization sees much room for improvement: Even leader HP scored just a 5.9 out of 10. Computer manufacturer Dell came in second with a 5.1 out of 10, rising dramatically from its 10th place position in the previous report. Dell now has the most ambitious climate target of the rated companies, with plans to reduce its emissions by 40 percent by 2020. It also has a strong policy on sustainable paper sourcing. Nokia has spent the last three years at the top of the list but has now slipped to third, with 4.9 out of 10, mainly due to weaker performance on energy. While Apple has taken heat recently from Chinese NGOs for supply chain issues, including water pollution and workers’ rights, it came in fourth in Greenpeace’s rankings with 4.6 out of 10, thanks to big strides on e-waste management. The advocacy organization gave Apple kudos for self-reporting that its global recycling in 2010 exceeded its 70 percent goal. Greenpeace lauded Apple’s policies and practices for sourcing conflict minerals and for publishing its suppliers. The latter success seems to be a response to two years of pressure from the coalition of 37 Beijing-based nonprofits, the Green Choice Alliance. However, Greenpeace said that Apple still needs to work on greater supply chain transparency, both in reporting greenhouse gas emissions and disclosing communications about chemicals management.
Monmouth, Welsh Trefynwy, town (1981 pop. 7,379), Monmouthshire, SE Wales, at the junction of the Monnow and Wye rivers. The town is a popular tourist and agricultural center with flourishing cattle and produce markets. Industries include food processing and paper manufacture. Fishing is also an activity. Remains of a 12th-century castle (in which Henry V was born), a Norman church, and an old bridge (1272) over the Monnow are there. Monmouth School for boys was founded in 1614. A local museum commemorates Admiral Horatio Nelson's numerous connections with the town.
An Apple patent (number 20100119634) for a carbon composite mold design has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates generally to the formation of carbon composite based components, and, more particularly, to the use of molds to form such carbon composite based components. A mold assembly or system includes a moldbase that holds mold inserts and has embedded fluid lines to facilitate cooling during part formation. Mold inserts combine to form mold cavities that receive carbon fiber and resin components to form a carbon composite based part. A permanent release coating along a mold component surface that contacts the carbon fiber and resin components facilitates the release of the finished part from the mold component. Guide pins and guide pin receiving holes facilitate accurate alignment of mold components. Ejector pins within respective ejector pin shafts help eject a finished part from a respective mold component. An ejector pin shaft cover transfers force from an ejector pin to eject a finished part and also prevents substantial passage of resin into the ejector pin shaft. A fluid actuated ejection system provides fluid based mechanical forces to the ejector pins to facilitate finished part ejection. The inventors are Paul Choiniere, Glenn Aune, John Difonzo, Daniel Hong and Kevin Kenney. Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "There are currently a wide number of known ways to form aesthetically pleasing parts and components for items made from various materials across many industries. For example, general part formation can be had by way of machining, casting, stamping, extrusion, cold drawing and injection molding, among numerous other alternatives. Where particularly strong parts or components are desired, another common part formation process can involve composite molding. "Composite molding generally involves molding a combination of different materials, each having a particular mechanical strength in a different direction, to form a final product that has mechanical strengths in multiple directions. Many popular forms of composite molding involve the use of carbon fibers or another similar component and a resin material, the molded combination of which results in a relatively strong part or component, particularly with respect to the weight of the part. Generally, fibers and resin are placed over or into a mold and are then cured under increased heat and pressure. Fibers typically come in sheet form, which can include "prepreg" or resin impregnated sheets, and are often layered into the mold sheet by sheet. Such a layering process is often performed manually by an operator, as are other steps in a typical composite molding of a part. "Because resins tend to stick to mold surfaces, removal of a finished part from a mold can be a tricky process that often also involves manual intervention by an operator. Despite the application of a temporary release coating to inner mold surfaces prior to placing in the composite materials, the removal of a finished part from a composite mold still can involve prying and peeling the part away from the inner mold surfaces. Surface defects and blemishes on composite molded parts often occur as a part of the molding and mold removal process, which results in many parts having unique defects or appearances. "Further, temperature discrepancies from molded part to molded part using traditional composite molding processes can also result in blemishes or defects that are different for each part. Due to these particular examples and other concerns that relate to composite molding, many composite molding processes are highly manual labor intensive by nature, and often result in the formation of parts that are not fully consistent from part to part. "This is unfortunate in that many manufacturers might desire the mass production of consistent parts that have the strength of carbon composite components. As but one example, it would be particularly helpful if portable electronic device housings and components could be stronger and more durable than what is now typically provided in plastic parts that are formed via ordinary plastic injection molding processes. In particular, it would be beneficial if laptops, notebook computers, and other relatively large and heavy portable computing devices could have outer housings that are better able to protect the entire device from drops and other mechanical shocks. "Although a material having the toughness of a good carbon composite would be useful, the ability to mass produce laptop housings that are consistent in appearance and performance from such a material would be difficult. Of course, there are a myriad of other examples of parts where it would be desirable to form them from a stronger material such as a carbon composite. "While many designs and methods of manufacture for providing composite molded parts and components have generally worked well in the past, there is always a desire to provide new and improved designs and processes that result in functional and aesthetically pleasing composite parts that can be mass produced. In particular, it is desirable to provide a carbon composite molding apparatus and process that allows for a more automated mass production of consistent carbon composite parts, such as for computer housings and the like. "The present invention provides systems and methods that facilitate the mass production of consistent and aesthetically pleasing composite molded parts, such as carbon fiber and resin based composite parts. Such parts can be used for a variety of applications, such as to form outer housings for a laptop computer or other similar device. This can be accomplished by providing a variety of manufacturing techniques and features to traditional composite mold processes, so as to streamline the manufacturing process and to result in the mass manufacture of consistent parts. "In various embodiments, the invention can include an apparatus adapted to form carbon composite based parts, with the apparatus having a first mold portion including a first mold cavity, a second mold portion adapted to mate with the first mold portion so that composite parts can be formed therebetween, a plurality of ejector pins located within a plurality of respective ejector pin shafts that are formed within one of the mold portions, and an ejector pin shaft stopper fitted within at least one of the plurality of ejector pin shafts. "The plurality of ejector pins can be adapted to aid in the ejection of a carbon composite based part from one or both of the mold portions, while the ejector pin shaft stopper can be adapted to transfer a mechanical force from a respective ejector pin to the actual carbon composite part for ejection of the part from a respective mold portion. Also, the ejector pin shaft stopper can be further adapted to prevent the substantial passage of any resin component into its respective ejector pin shaft during the formation of the carbon composite based part. "In various detailed embodiments, a mold assembly for forming carbon composite parts can further include a variety of items. A moldbase can be adapted to hold one or more mold inserts, with the moldbase having one or more internal fluid lines embedded therein to facilitate a fluid based cooling of components during the formation of a carbon composite based part. A plurality of mold inserts, at least one of which is held by the moldbase, can combine to form one or more mold cavities there between while held by the moldbase such that one or more materials including a carbon fiber component and a resin component can be placed therein for the formation of the carbon composite based part. "At least one of the mold inserts can include a permanent release coating along a surface that contacts the carbon fiber and resin materials to facilitate the release of the carbon composite based part therefrom. One or more guide pins and guide pin receiving holes can be located on at least one of the moldbase and/or plurality of mold inserts, with the one or more guide pins and guide receiving holes being adapted to facilitate the accurate alignment of mold inserts with each other for the formation of the carbon composite based part. Again, a plurality of ejector pins located within a plurality of respective ejector pin shafts having an ejector pin shaft stopper fitted therewithin can be used. "Also, a fluid actuated ejection system adapted to provide fluid based mechanical forces to the plurality of ejector pins to facilitate the ejection of the carbon composite based part from a respective mold insert can be incorporated into the system. In some embodiments, the fluid actuated ejection system can operate using a gas to provide gas based mechanical forces to the ejector pins. "In various embodiments, a removable film can be positioned proximate to the permanent release coating, wherein the removable film is adapted to facilitate the release of a carbon composite based part from its respective mold insert, and wherein the removable film can be readily removed from both its respective mold insert and the carbon composite based part. Such a removable film can also serve as an ejector pin shaft cover or stopper by covering the top of one or more of the ejector pin shafts during the formation of a carbon composite based part. In some embodiments, the removable film can be used in addition to or in lieu of the ejector pin shaft stoppers placed within the ejector pin shafts. In some embodiments, the removable film has a thickness of about 10 to 20 microns. "In various embodiments, the permanent release coating or layer can be formed from nickel-teflon, titantium-nitride, an amorphous carbon/diamond like material, chrome or chrome alloy, or NEDOX. The permanent release coating can have a thickness of about 1 to 5 microns, although other suitable thicknesses may also be used. The permanent release coating or layer can be situated on one mold insert or component or multiple mold components."
This is a 10:05 p.m. update of a story originally filed at 9:33 p.m. HOLYOKE – Citing concerns about having the highest teenage birth rate in the state, the School Committee voted to adopt a new sex education curriculum that will expand the education for high school freshmen Monday night. The 7-3 vote will supplement the existing health education curriculum, which runs from elementary school through high school. Now freshmen receive three to four lessons in sexuality; under the new program they will receive about three weeks of classes, school officials said. “This data we have here is serious,” said School Committee member Dennis W. Birks Jr. “This curriculum is ... a good curriculum. It opens up dialogue.” In the state Department of Public Health report released last week, Holyoke ranked first in the state for teen pregnancy with 115.3 births for every 1,000 females ages 15 to 19. The state average was 20.1 births for females of the same age. City educators have been working with the Massachusetts Alliance of Teen Pregnancy and a city task force developed more than a year ago by Mayor Elaine A. Pluta, who was then a city councilor, to select one of a number of recommended science-based programs. The study was funded with a $9,000 state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education grant, said Kimberly A. Wells, director of curriculum for Holyoke. Representatives from all three, including some students, attended the meeting to lobby for the program. “We want sex education so we can get accurate information instead of getting information from friends,” said Kieshabell Ibarra, a Holyoke High School sophomore. While the curriculum is not completely finished, Wells submitted different parts of the programs that will be used to committee members. The program does discuss birth control, abstinence, unhealthy relationships and sexual transmitted diseases, she said. Parents who feel their values do not fit with the classes can ask that their children be removed, Wells said. School Committee members agreed sex education has to be expanded. Those who were opposed said they are concerned they were adopting an incomplete curriculum and wanted parental input. After hearing how the Springfield School Committee posted its sex education curriculum on its Web site, Member Michael J. Moriarty proposed the Holyoke School Committee do the same. That was approved unanimously.
2001 Grant Awards: Leadership Initiative Grants Some details of the projects listed below are subject to change, contingent upon prior Endowment approval. Adaptive Environments Center, Inc. To support phase two of Access to Design Professionals, a first-time effort to increase the number of and support for people with disabilities in design professions. This project builds on the experience that Adaptive Environments has had in implementing the Universal Design Education Project in 25 schools of design. (Multi-state) To support planning and artists fees for The Deaf Way II, Gallaudet University's second international festival on the arts, language, culture, technology and human rights. The Deaf Way II will take place July 8-13, 2002 at Gallaudet University, District of Columbia art galleries, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Society for the Arts in Healthcare To support the second phase of the first-ever national technical assistance project that trains arts administrators and artists as consultants to healthcare institutions across the country. The project is establishing comprehensive, professional arts programming within these institutions. (Multi-state) New England Foundation for the Arts To support the sixth year of the National Dance Project, which supports the creation and touring of dance. The program provides presenters, dance companies and audiences across the country with access to contemporary dance. (Multi-state) FOLK AND TRADITIONAL ARTS INFRASTRUCTURE City Lore, Inc. New York, NY DISCIPLINE/FIELD: Folk & Traditional Arts To support a national folk arts-in-education initiative to foster the inclusion of folk arts and artists as a basic element of K 12 arts education. This effort will integrate folk arts and folk artists into school curricula through a variety of efforts, including teachers' institutes distributed regionally around the country, the establishment of regional teachers' networks to share resources and models, the development of educational materials, and the continuation of an award-winning Web site link to folk educational resources. (Multistate) Dance Heritage Coalition, Inc. To support a touring exhibition across the United States in conjunction with Dance Heritage Coalition's recent initiative, America's Irreplaceable Treasures: the First 100. The exhibition will consist of traditional, vernacular and theatrical American dance, documenting its achievements and innovations. (Multistate) George Washington University (on behalf of Center onAging, Humanities and Research) To support a three-year study on the Impact of the Arts on Older Americans to measure and evaluate the effects that professional arts programming has on the quality of life for older adults. Heritage Preservation, Inc. DISCIPLINE/FIELD: Visual Arts To support conservation assessments for public art supported by the National Endowment for the Arts' Art in Public Places Program. Over 461 sculptures commissioned by organizations and communities in 44 states and the District of Columbia between 1967 and 1992 are eligible for such conservation. (Multistate) National Performance Network, Inc. New Orleans, LA To support the second year of the National Arts Administration Mentorship Program, a program to explore leadership development through mentorship. The project will extend five existing six month mentoring relationships to full one-year placements, analyze case studies, and share information with the arts field through presentations and publications. (Multistate) Folk Arts Infrastructure Initiative Arizona Commission on the Arts To support a Basketweavers Gathering. The two-day event is structured with both public and private technical assistance workshops and will culminate with a public market. Davis & Elkins College To support the creation of an on-line folk arts gallery and educational CD-ROMs. These activities will honor and make accessible the work of many of the best traditional artists in the state. Florida Division of Historical Resources To support the Folkife in the Parks, Folklife Apprenticeship and Folklife Days Initiatives. The programs will result in greater institutionalization of folklife throughout the state. Indiana Arts Commission To support a program manager under the Traditional Arts Indiana Initiative. The program manager responsibilities include programming at the Indiana State Fair, development of a craft marketing program, and a state arts apprenticeship program. Institute for Community Research To support the basic costs of the statewide folk arts program, including partial salary of the program director. Core activities will be maintained and special projects in archiving, education and fieldwork are planned. Iowa Arts Council Des Moines, IA To support the re-establishment of the Iowa Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program and other related costs. The apprenticeship program is a time-honored way for master artists to pass their skills on to apprentices within their community. Kentucky Arts Council To support a folklorist position and other related costs. The additional position will result in stronger state-wide outreach programs that will help communities realize the potential of folklife programs. Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, Division of the Arts Baton Rouge, LA To support Phase IV of the Louisiana Voices Folklife in Education Project. The project offers a blend of high tech and low tech resources that, in addition to providing lessons in folklife, offers teachers strategies to meet social studies and English language arts content standards using technology enhancements. Maine Arts Commission To support the Community Folklorist-in-Residence and the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. These programs are designed to bring recognition to local traditions and to honor and support the artists that continue to practice these traditions. Maryland State Arts Council To support year one of Maryland Traditions. Recognizing the need to coordinate and expand folklife activities in Maryland, folklorists will be placed in three central institutions that serve rural and underserved regions presently challenged by demographic and cultural shifts. Massachusetts Cultural Council To support the expansion of the Folk Arts & Heritage Program. Expansion of the program will include the launching of traditional arts apprenticeships and artists fellowships. Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation To support an audio tape tour, a public gathering and a series of workshops for presenters on the Delmarva Peninsula. These activities are designed to promote and preserve the traditional cultural resources of Delmarva heritage and tourism. (Multistate) Minnesota State Arts Board St. Paul, MN To support professional development workshops for performing folk artists and presenters. All training will be provided by American Traditions, a program of the Southern Arts Federation. New Hampshire State Council on the Arts To support the Outreach to Rural Communities Program. The project will consist of the development of an educational Web site, technical assistance programs for agricultural fairs, and fieldwork for a statewide exhibit exploring domestic crafts and interiors. New Mexico Arts Division Santa Fe, NM To support the Folk Arts Apprenticeship and Community Fieldworker Network Programs. The agency's folk arts coordinator seeks practitioners along with other applicants to the apprenticeship program with the assistance of the Community Fieldworker Network. New York Folklore Society To support the director of services position and other related costs. The inclusion of this position has allowed the New York Folklore Society to provide direct services to geographical areas and underserved cultural groups that would not normally have access to folk arts programming. North Dakota Council on the Arts To support the North Dakota Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program and other related costs. The apprenticeship program allows master traditional artists to pass their knowledge and skills to apprentices in an intensive one-to-one teaching/learning situation. Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association To support the administrative capacity of the Basketweavers Association. Funding will provide the Association with operational support in their transition from a start-up to a more mature organization and will nurture a stable, long-term financial support base. (Multistate) Ohio Arts Council To support the establishment of an Ohio Heritage Fellows Program. These activities will help to assure that folk and traditional arts will hold a vital place in the artistic and cultural endeavors of the Arts Council, as well as those carried out by other organizations in the state. Oklahoma Historical Society Oklahoma City, OK To support a folklife director position and other related costs. The folklife director will be responsible for creating and maintaining a database of folk and traditional artists and overseeing efforts to identify those people through fieldwork. Oregon Historical Society To support the Oregon Folklife Program Director position and other related costs. The director will maintain the Society's ongoing programming and will develop and expand efforts in the areas of community outreach, technical assistance and arts education. Rhode Island State Council on the Arts To support the Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program and other related costs. This program will provide apprenticeship participants with promotional and educational materials and will showcase them at local and regional festivals. South Carolina Arts Commission To support the continuation of the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Initiative, the Institute for Community Scholars Program, the Heritage Corridor fieldwork coordinator position and other related costs. The continuation of these programs will strengthen the increasing interest in traditional arts programming across the state. South Dakota Arts Council To support the redevelopment of the Folk Arts Program. Activities will include the State Arts Apprenticeship Progam, fieldwork and an exhibit. Southern Arts Federation, Inc. To support Series II training for graduates of the American Traditions: Professional Development for Touring Artists and Performing Arts Presenters Program. Completion of Series II training will broaden graduates self-management, content interpretation, performing, and marketing skills and techniques. (Multistate) Tennessee Arts Commission To support a folklife program assistant position and other related costs. The folklife program assistant will be involved in archival reorganization and database development. Texas Folklife Resources To support the reinvigoration of the Texas Folklife Resources Apprenticeship in the Folk Arts Program. Apprenticeships will be awarded to master artists and apprentices in major urban centers and in rural or underserved communities throughout Texas. Utah Arts Council Salt Lake City, UT To support a series of concerts and virtual and audio tours at the Chase Home Museum of Folk Arts. This project is designed to strengthen Chase Home programs by providing the kind of expanded and higher-profile programming opportunities for artists to present their work. Vermont Folklife Center To support the New England Folklore Fieldwork Initiative. This initiative consists of a two-day symposium which will offer professional development opportunities for regional cultural specialists and people outside the field who are interested in the documentation of local culture. (Multistate) Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy To support a Virginia folklife program director and other related costs. The folklife program director will rebuild the folklife program by creating a program that will serve the cultural and artistic needs of Virginia's diverse communities, drawing on the rich resources of the Commonwealth. Washington State Arts Commission To support a Gathering of Northwest Native American Wood Carvers. The workshops will focus on issues relating to the protection, promotion and preservation of wood-carving traditions. Wisconsin Arts Board To support Wisconsin Folks: Traditional Artists and Their Cultures. An on-line curriculum/directory of traditional and ethnic artists will be written for a fourth and fifth grade audience of students and teachers. Wyoming Arts Council To support a series of regional meetings for professional folklorists to assess needs and prospects for the support and celebration of folk arts in Wyoming. The meetings will result in the development of a priority list of constituent needs, systematic strategies and legislative support for a state-supported folklorist position. American Composers Forum St. Paul, MN To support the continuation of Continental Harmony, a commissioning and composer residency program in geographically diverse, rural and urban, underserved areas of the country. The program celebrates each site's sense of community through musical creativity. (Multi-state) Meet the Composer, Inc. New York, NY To support the fifth year of the Commissioning Music/USA program. This landmark program engages consortia of music organizations in the commissioning of new American works, provides creative opportunities for emerging composers, promotes wider knowledge and appreciation of contemporary American works, and encourages organizations to work together to strengthen the American musical repertoire. (Multi-state) National Symphony Orchestra Association To support the continuation of the NSO American Residencies program that will involve performances by the full orchestra, small ensembles and individual musicians working in tandem with local arts organizations throughout the state of Oklahoma in March 2001. NEA/DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION To support the continuation of JazzNet, a jointly funded initiative with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation designed to strengthen the field of jazz by providing the country's leading jazz presenters with multiyear artistic and administrative resources to increase commissioning, residencies, and educational and community-based programming. American Jazz Museum Kansas City, MO Contemporary Arts Center (consortium) New Orleans, LA Manchester Craftsmen's Guild Newark Public Radio/WBGO Painted Bride Art Center (consortium) San Francisco Jazz Organization San Francisco, CA Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20506
\|Syntactic Confectionery Delight\| The question of how to use CGI scripts to generate HTML comes up frequently. Consistently, people try to embed the HTML directly in the CGI script. While for simple scripts, this may be useful, it quickly becomes a maintenance nightmare for large sites. Imagine even a relatively small site that has 5 CGI scripts that each generate 5 Web pages. Since we want a common look and feel, those Web pages often have duplicate elements that get repeated throughout the code. Sometimes, the programmer realizes that common elements should be stuffed in a single location and then added to each page as appropriate. This is useful because it makes updating the pages easier, but it still faces the "mixing HTML and code" problem. Typically, an organization has relatively few programmers, so updating these Web pages require having relatively high-priced programmers doing HTML maintenance. The programmers often hate this and the company suffers. Another annoying problem with this is a problem that Perl has with "here" documents. Imagine a 100 line here document beginning on line 219 of a script. If one of the values embedded in a document is undefined, you often get an error message like the following: Perl reports the first line that begins the here document as the one containing the unitialized value. Often, this can be a difficult bug to track down! While there are many reasons to consider alternatives to embedding HTML in your CGI scripts, I'll just leave it at that and suggest that you consider a template scheme. Many recommend using Template Toolkit for this. However, for a light-weight, easy to implement system, consider using HTML::Template. Here's a simple example. We'll create a small Web page that will print out all of your environment variables. We'll show four basic functions of HTML::Template: embedded values, looping, branching, and including external HTML files in the main HTML document. Create the above document and save it as "template.tmpl". You'll notice some new tags in there. Here's what they do: The TMPL_VAR tag allows you to assign a value to a name (in this case, HEADING will be assigned a scalar value in the CGI script. This tells HTML::Template that we want to start a loop named ENV_VARS. While it's iterating through the loop, it will look for TMPL_VAR tags and assign them scalar values that the CGI script creates. The following tags are used in the HTML template: To populate them, an array of anonymous hash references will be created. Each hash reference will look like the following: As HTML::Template iterates over the array, it will take the name/value pairs in the hash reference and use them to duplicate the items in the loop with the name/value pairs filled in appropriately. The TMPL_INCLUDE tag tells HTML::Template to take the contents of the filename specified and insert them into the HTML document where the tag is found. Note that, as of this writing, you cannot include HTML::Template tags in the included document. For now, just create a file named footer.tmpl and add the following line to it: Simple branching is also possible: This is a simple branch. It tests the value of the BOOL scalar that gets passed to the template object. If it evaluates as true... well, you get the idea. Finally, here's the script that gets this to work: It's the $template->param() call that actually sets up the template. Note that HEADING and BOOL are simply scalar values, while ENV_VARS is the array of hash references that is used for the loop. Try playing around with some of these values to get a feel for how this works. HTML::Template actually has quite a bit of functionality beyond what I have described here, so be sure to read the documentation. Further, there are a variety of ways to get the output that I did above. Incidentally, I did not describe the use of "loop context vars." They can be handy to control the behavior of loops, but they've been noted to be buggy in the past and I have found them to still have some issues. Handle with care.
Heavy trucks that are stopping, turning, accelerating, or climbing expose pavements to high levels of stress. The Asphalt Pavement Alliance's High-Performance Intersections provides useful guidelines to pavement designers who deal with intersections and other high-stress pavements. The free download is available at www.asphaltroads.org. “Engineers know that heavy, slow-moving traffic found at intersections, toll booths, and other such locations can expose pavements to the highest stress levels possible,” says co-author Wayne Jones of the Asphalt Institute. “But a well-designed, well-constructed pavement can deliver the same outstanding performance as all other pavements.” The publication lays out a four-point strategy to ensure good performance for intersections and other high-stress applications. It chronicles two head-to-head competitions between asphalt and concrete intersections. It also discusses the “World's Strongest Intersection,” located next to a quarry in Illinois.
How to Shoot Advertising Photography Advertising photography produces expressive and persuasive visual representations used to sell and promote products. While advertisements may be accompanied by text, the photograph of the product is usually what draws the eye first. This field can be lucrative for any photographer. Tools and Materials - Camera and camera equipment - Back-up batteries and battery charger - Lighting and backdrops (optional, depending on location) - Photograph editing software Step 1 - Create and Imagine The first thing in this process is to sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and begin to craft different layouts and photo shoot elements for your advertisement. It helps to sit down with the client and understand what their needs are. For example, if the client is looking to represent a whimsical side of the product, you will not want to create a serious backdrop and storyline. Most failed advertisement photographs are the result of lack of understanding what the client needs and wants are. If you can master this gift, you will do well in the world of advertising photography. Step 2 - Build Your Team A good advertising photographer knows that the pieces of art are not developed in a vacuum or with one person. Before you begin your shoot, you need to be sure you know who your team is. First, select an art director. This person will help you develop your artistic layouts. Second, develop a couple individuals that are great advertising and marketing minds. They will help you to brainstorm and put together a great photographic shoot. Last, develop your team of crew that will help you setup for the photograph shoot. Step 3 - Setup the Backdrop On the day of the shoot, set the back drop based on your layout or your designs. This may include the setup of different props, or models. It may also include preparing an exterior photograph shoot location such as a park or forest. Step 4 - Setup Lighting An important part of your photograph shoot is in the lighting. Again, you need to refer back to what type of mood and attitude you are looking to convey with your photographs. Are you looking to setup the light so that it has an intense effect on the photographs or are you looking for a soft light? During your photograph shoot, switch out your lenses. Take photos that are close up as well as far away. Gaining different perspectives sometimes helps to develop and outline your eventual advertising layout. Work with your team. Solicit their feedback and their comments.Popular Cameras for High Quality Photos:
Anatomy of FANWALL TECHNOLOGY A FANWALL® system is an array of smaller, quieter, and more energy-efficient fans, typically driven with a variable speed drive, and designed to deliver the required airflow in an air handler or built-up fan system. A fan array enables designers to optimize more closely the fan-wheel geometry and motor horsepower for a specific application. The result is smaller fans and motors, running closer to peak efficiencies, thus reducing energy costs. The redundancy of the fan components adds to the unit’s reliability. If one motor fails, only that portion of the airflow is lost, unlike single-fan air-handlers. FANWALL TECHNOLOGY® is ideal for fan retrofit applications as each FANWALL cell is easily moved through a standard width door or elevator, and stacked like building blocks to fit the profile of the air tunnel. Benefits of FANWALL TECHNOLOGY - Reduce energy bill with higher fan efficiencies - Lower connected load reduces electrical demand and backup generator size - Increase uptime with fan redundancy - Reduce maintenance expense with no belts or bearings to maintain plus commonality of parts between fan cells - Lower your sound levels and eliminate sound traps, also eliminating associated energy loss - Eliminate expensive fan isolation or pads - Gain back valuable real estate with smaller fan footprint - Avoid demolition/cranes during upgrade - Minimize system downtime during retrofit - Technology supports the LEED® initiative for creating sustainable buildings Continuous and uninterrupted airflow is the lifeblood of any healthcare facility, making under-performing or unreliable fans unacceptable. In addition to concerns about reliability, these inefficient fans can be the biggest consumer of energy in a building—skyrocketing energy costs. In today’s economic environment, and during a time when sustainable building design is increasingly important, healthcare facilities must select a HVAC fan which will not only provide the necessary reliability, but also optimum efficiency and environmental benefits as well. FANWALL TECHNOLOGY by HUNTAIR® provides this solution. The over half billion dollars of FANWALL arrays installed today is a testimonial to their superior performance. Reliability Through Redundancy FANWALL provides superior reliability as a result of its built-in redundancy. If one fan fails, only that portion of the airflow is lost, unlike single fan systems where the entire air handler goes offline. Moreover, the loss of airflow from one fan can be offset by increasing the speed on the remaining fans. Small Size Makes Upgrades Possible A FANWALL array of any capacity or pressure requires a maximum airway length of 36 inches, compared to three or four times that amount for traditional fan systems. Each cell can fit through a standard width door and may be stacked in whatever geometry to match the air tunnel size. FANWALL systems provide significant energy savings through a variety of means. Smaller motor hp increments and partial width fan wheels more closely match application hp needs without excessive motor oversizing. In addition, FANWALL motors run closer to their peak motor efficiency at part-load conditions than larger single motor fans. Further, FANWALL arrays eliminate sound traps and produce less system effects for lower static pressure loss and reduced hp needs. Finally, FANWALL arrays offer the option to shut off part of the array during part load operation, while remaining fans operate near full load—meaning more efficient operating and energy savings. Lower Sound Levels and Vibration Increase occupant satisfaction with lower sound levels. Unhoused fans operating at higher speeds produce less low frequency sound. Reduce sound levels even more with FANWALL’s unique Coplanar Silencer® and inlet screen options; which also reduces, or even eliminates the need for expensive acoustical attenuation materials and devices. FANWALL arrays are made of direct drive arrangement four fans and utilize maintenance-free bearings, so there are no belts to replace or bearings to grease. The small size of the motors and fans allow them to be easily changed out without expensive rigging equipment.

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.