text:
If the Dad in your life likes eating popsicles, tinkering with gadgets and reading illustrated instructions manuals, then you've got to check out the Zoku™ Quick Pop™ Maker and the cool stuff Zoku sells to go along with it. The pop maker itself consists of three (2-ounce capacity) non-stick aluminum molds that are permanently built into the unit's base. As long as the base is frozen 24-hours in advance of using, the non-electrical unit will freeze ready-to-eat popsicles in as few as seven minutes. Equipped with six reusable pop sticks, drip guards and a special implement designed to help remove frozen pops from the molds, the unit can be filled up to two more times to make a total nine pops. After that, the unit will require another 24-hour stay in the freezer before it can be used again. Because the unit doesn't take up much freezer room, about the same size space as you'd need for a half-gallon carton of ice cream (remember those?), it's easy to keep the base frozen at all times for spur of the moment pop making. The pop maker makes sizeable pops equipped with long sticks, most likely too large for young children to handle, but any of Zoku's recipes will work in the plastic ice pop molds you may already have on hand and vice versa. With the summer season just beginning, the $49.95 price for the well-constructed Quick Pop Maker will pay for itself quickly. Zoku's eight-piece Quick Pop Maker Tools ($19.95) and "Quick Pops" specialty recipe book ($16.95) are nice add-ons and worth considering, if not for Father's Day, then maybe sometime down the road. For further information, including free recipes and how to order, visit the Zoku website at www.zokuhome.com.
Sue Ade is a syndicated food writer with broad experience and interest in the culinary arts. She has worked and resided in the Lowcountry of South Carolina since 1985 and may be reached at email@example.com.
Coffee Buzz
Recipe source: "Zuku Quick Pops," by Jackie Zorovich & Kristina Sacci; published by Zoku, LLC, www.zokuhome.com
1 1/3 cup (10 ½ ounces) 2 percent milk
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
1/3 cup (2½ ounces) heavy cream
Make the coffee base: In a medium saucepan over low heat, warm the milk (do not boil). Whisk in the expresso powder and sugar until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool slightly (about 10 minutes). Stir in the heavy cream. Refrigerate until cool, stirring occasionally to prevent skin from forming. Assemble the pops: Insert sticks into the pop maker molds and pour the cooled coffee base until you reach the fill line. Let freeze completely, then remove pops with the Super Tool and enjoy! Repeat with remaining pops. Yields 6. Kitchen Ade Note: To add coffee beans or chocolate chips to the pop molds, dip them in some of the coffee mixture, then affix them to the sides of the ice pop molds with tweezers.
Make Your Own Popsicles
(If using the Zoku Quick Pop Maker for these recipes follow the manufacturer's directions for freezing pops. Do not fill molds above fill line and allow extra time for freezing thick mixtures.)
Sugar-Free Creamy Orange Popsicles
1 (0.3-ounce) box sugar-free orange flavored Jell-O
1/3 cup Splenda
1½ cups boiling water
½ cup strained fresh orange juice
½ cup heavy cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon orange extract
In a medium-size bowl, combine Jell-O with Splenda. Add boiling water and stir until dissolved. Stir in orange juice, cream and extracts, mixing well. Pour mixture into 8 (½-cup) plastic popsicle molds and freeze until firm, about 6 hours or overnight. To loosen popsicles, run mold under warm water for a few seconds. Makes 8 pops, about 70 calories each.
Recipe source: "Zoku Quick Pops," by Jackie Zorovich & Kristina Sacci; published by Zoku, LLC, www.zokuhome.com.
1 cup (8 ounces) water
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
¼ cup (2 ounces) fresh lemon juice
¼ cup (2 ounces pure orange juice
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
Lemon slices, cut 1/8-inch thick (optional)*
Make the lemon base: Stir together the water and sugar until sugar has dissolved (1 to 2 minutes). Stir in the lemon juice, orange juice and vanilla. Assemble the pops: Using the Zoku fruit wand, or tweezers, apply the lemon slices to the walls of the pop maker molds. Insert sticks and pour the lemon base until you reach the fill line. Let freeze completely, then remove the pops with the Super Tool and enjoy. Repeat with remaining pops. Yields 6.
*Kitchen Ade Note: For the purposes of this recipe, I used orange slices to line the pop maker molds.
Coconut Cream Popsicles
1 can (13½ ounces) lite coconut milk
1 can (13½ ounces) sweetened condensed milk
½ cup milk
¼ cup heavy cream
¾ cup fresh or frozen grated unsweetened coconut
¼ teaspoon coconut extract
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon rum flavoring
Dash nutmeg, optional
Place ingredients in the container of an electric blender and pulse several times at high speed. Pour mixture into 8 (½-cup) plastic popsicle molds and freeze until firm (about 6 hours or overnight). To loosen popsicles, run mold under warm water for a few seconds. Yields 8.
Very Fudgy Fudgesicles
2 cups milk
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
2 tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
In a medium sized saucepan, over low heat, combine milk, heavy cream, sugar, cocoa and cornstarch and cook until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips, butter and vanilla, stirring until chocolate chips and butter have melted and mixture is smooth. Cool mixture to room temperature, then pour into 8 (½-cup) plastic popsicle molds and freeze until firm, about 6 or overnight. To loosen popsicles, run mold under warm water for a few seconds. (This mixture is very thick, so be sure to check one popsicle before loosening the others.) Yields 8.


text:
Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez has given his biggest hint yet that striker Romelu Lukaku will be allowed to spend the whole season on loan at West Bromwich Albion.
The 18-cap Belgian international has been in fine form for the Baggies this season, notching five goals for the Premier League surprise package.
That contracts with the poor form of Fernando Torres, who has netted just once in his last 11 appearances in all competition for the Blues.
Despite the lack of goals at Stamford Bridge, interim chief Benitez believes the 19-year-old will be better serves staying at the Hawthorns, with regular first-team football imperative to his continued development.
"We know Romelu has been doing very well for West Brom," Benitez told The Sun.
"But it's maybe best for him to stay there where he is playing games for now, as it will be better for his future development."
Lukaku has already made it clear that he hopes for a prolonged stay in the Midlands, after helping Steve Clark's side push towards the Champions League places.
Competition is fierce for a starting spot at West Brom, with Shane Long and Peter Odemwingie also in good form, and it appears to have brought the best out of the former Anderlecht starlet.
"I don't think about the option. I am very happy to be here for one year. Hopefully, this season will end very well and we will see what happens in the future," Lukaku told the Wolverhampton Express and Star recently.
Do YOU want to write for GiveMeSport? Get started today by signing-up and submitting an article HERE: https://www.givemesport.com/writeforgms

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Honorable Mention: NBA-Charlotte Bobcats @ Washington Wizards (Wednesday 7pm from Verizon Center live on Comcast SportsNet), Washington Wizards @ Orlando Magic (Friday 7pm from Orlando live on Comcast SportsNet), Brooklyn Nets @ Washington Wizards (Saturday 7pm from Verizon Center live on Comcast SportsNet); Women's College Basketball: CAA Tournament (Thursday-Sunday from Showplace Arena live on CAA.TV/Comcast SportsNet), Selection Monday (Monday 7pm ESPN); Golf: PGA Tour Valspar Championship (Thursday & Friday 3pm live on Golf Channel Saturday & Sunday 1pm live on Golf Channel 3pm live on NBC. All golf from Palm Harbor, FL), Champions Tour Toshiba Classic (Friday 6:30pm Saturday & Sunday 7pm from Newport Beach, CA live on Golf Channel); Harlem Globetrotters (Saturday 1pm Verizon Center Saturday 7:30pm Sunday 2pm Patriot Center)
10. Baltimore St. Patrick's Day Parade (Sunday 2pm Inner Harbor); Shamrock Shindig (Sunday 11am Pierce's Park); "Need For Speed" and "Veronica Mars" out in theaters (Friday); "Inside Llewyn Davis", "Homefront" and "The Book Thief" available on Blu-Ray/DVD (Tuesday)
Two very important things here. One, the appropriate St. Patty's Day meal is NOT Corned Beef and Cabbage. It's this.
Two-A reminder that after NFS star Aaron Paul (perhaps you've heard of him) finished his interview with us at the Super Bowl, he came back by the table to tell us it was his favorite one of the year. He personally thanked me. Because we're best friends.
9. Shamrocks & Shenanigans feat. Mighty Mighty Bosstones (Saturday 7pm Power Plant Live); Paul Simon & Sting (Thursday 8pm Verizon Center); Uncle Kracker (Thursday 8pm Baltimore Soundstage); Mac McAnally (Saturday 8pm Rams Head on Stage); Dr. Dog (Friday & Saturday 8pm 9:30 Club); Steve Earle (Thursday 7:30pm Birchmere); The Moody Blues (Tuesday 8pm Strathmore); The Head and The Heart (Saturday 10:45am Rock N Roll Marathon DC); Ellie Goulding (Sunday 7pm Echostage); 311 "Stereolithic" and Aloe Blacc "Lift Your Spirit" available in stores/on iTunes (Tuesday)
Mighty Mighty Bosstones were the band from Clueless. Also, you're 44. I understand how difficult this is. Just remember I love you.
I'm surprised Paul Simon has time to tour considering he's spending most of his time posing for the cover of Tiger Beat.
I'd like to see Sting in DC and I'd like to see him at WrestleMania.
Aloe Blacc is that guy whose song you've NEVER STOPPED HEARING.
(Continued on Page 2...)


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Theater-goers looking for a comedy to lift their spirits after the impact of Hurricane Isabel, need look no further than MetroStage on North Royal Street in Alexandria. This is where "Rough Crossing," Tom Stoppard's fast-paced farce about show folk on an ocean liner has opened a six-week run filled with laughs.
Stoppard, known as a playwright who constructs sharp dialogue and intricate plots, is in a particularly funny mode in this classic high-octane farce with six strongly etched characters.
There's the pair of playwrights trying to fix the script of their new show before the ship arrives in New York for its Broadway opening. There are the stars of the show that have their own romance to worry about. There is the composer of the show's songs who struggles with a speech impediment and, through it all, there is the ship's steward on his maiden voyage who gets tipsier and tipsier as the evening progresses.
The show is at its funniest when that steward is on stage. Not only has Stoppard written some of his funniest material for that character, but MetroStage has also cast Ian Gould in the role. Gould is a recent graduate of Michael Kahn's Academy of Classical Acting at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, and is making his MetroStage debut with this show.
He avoids the trap of overdoing the comedy of his character's lack of sea-legs early on so that his progressive inebriation gradually builds the running gag that he consumes most of the drinks he is supposed to be serving.
Running gags are the delight of many fans of farce and half of the fun is anticipating how many different versions of a gag the author can come up with. But an over emphasis from the actor can squelch the fun. Gould has just the right light touch to keep the fun going right up to the final bit.
WHETHER IT IS Gould's training or simply his innate ability, his quick thinking was notable on opening night when one wheel of a serving cart didn't make it onto the stage, leaving him with a tipping tray of breakfast to serve. Gould simply uncovered the dish of kippers and eggs and, with aplomb, placed the cover under the short leg of the cart, earning a round of applause from an appreciative audience and allowing the scene to continue unabated.
The team of actors portraying the team of authors is a delight as well. Michael Russotto has more of the on-stage time between the two of them but Jack Vernon makes the most of his briefer time, while each brightens the pace and keeps the fun moving right along. Their collaboration with Steven Tipton as the speech impaired composer works, but not quite as well, as the script doesn't really give Tipton the opportunity to set up his impairment as clearly as it should. Still, there are many laughs built on the delays in his speech that are in no way pandering but, rather, lively constructions that create non-sequiturs out of interlocking conversations.
Nicole Mestress McDonnell is the star of the show-within-a-show and she handles the broad humor well. Carl Randolph is less satisfying as her lecherous co-star who is called upon to sing and dance which Randolph doesn't do quite as well as one would like.
The show they all are working on is a musical but this farce does not attempt to be one. There are three songs built into the farce which were written by Stoppard [lyrics] and André Previn [music]. Previn and Stoppard had worked together before on "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" which had been billed as "a play for actors and orchestra" and had a full orchestra on stage. There were no such pretensions for this piece, which simply has a piano for the character of the composer to play. The cast rehearses the songs which are light and lovely in the mode of Ivor Novello, the British songwriter known as The English Jerome Kern.
MetroStage's design team has done a great job on this production. Jos. B. Musumeci Jr.'s set is a two-deck exterior for the first act which rotates to reveal the ship's piano bar where the cast rehearses their show in the second. Michele Reisch's costumes are as bright and colorful as that set and both combine to emphasize the 1930's period and the upper class luxury of the ship.


text:
Review Group Week 241 - NEMESIS #3
Hey you! Reader! Want to be a part of the GREATEST COMIC BOOK AND GEEK COMMUNITY on the web?! Well, they're not accepting new members, but we'll take anyone here, so why not sign up for a free acount? It's fast and it's easy, like your mom! Sign up today! Membership spots are limited!*
*Membership spots not really limited!
Hey you! Reader! Want to be a part of the GREATEST COMIC BOOK AND GEEK COMMUNITY on the web?! Well, they're not accepting new members, but we'll take anyone here, so why not sign up for a free acount? It's fast and it's easy, like your mom! Sign up today! Membership spots are limited!*
*Membership spots not really limited!
by Punchy » Wed Sep 29, 2010 5:36 am
Not a fan of Jazz?
by ****** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 8:08 am
I never go out of my way to listen to Jazz, but in the context of the show the music in Treme is great.
by thefourthman » Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:24 pmNemesis #3
I have no aspirations that this is a great comic. It's not.
It is entertaining as hell though. Even when it does something completely silly like have Blake pronounce that he knew who Nemesis was the whole time (and keep the reader in the dark till next issue – well played on the serialization Millar, well played).
There is a lot of talk about Millar writing story boards for movies and whatever. Hog wash. The man writes big popcorn action filled comics. Sometimes - they are keen satire (see Kick-Ass), sometimes - they are brilliant reflections on an icon (Red Son), sometimes – they are mindless fun. That's what this one is. What if Batman weren't just a dick? What if he were a bad guy? What if he could kill anyone given enough time?
Blake couldn't have thought it would be that easy. (And as to aspirations that background checks on security guards would solve the problem presented here, did you miss the part where one of his crew is a master identity thief? They did do a background check and it cleared. DUM DUM DUM… see that is the genius of Millar, he knows your objection even before you do.) So now Nemesis is set free and he's brought two thousand of his best inmate buddies to create further chaos for Blake. Awesome.
Of course, Nemesis is really after the kids. And in this comes the SHOCK factor. The difference between Millar in shock mode and Ennis, is that Millar knows how to straddle the line. The kids aren't murdered, the kids don't commit incest – but Millar uses all that taboo to create a false shock. Nothing is really as shocking as it appears, he has merely twisted standard soap opera mechanics a little. I love him for it.
As to character work - Blake is the only guy getting any in this series and it's deft and subtle. Blake has been taken from super cop to prick with a family he can barely maintain – he's a politician, imagine that. He has actually almost become the bad guy and you almost start to route for Nemesis in this issue – that's a neat trick, if you ask me.
McNiven is not turning in the trademark clean work that he is known for. If you ask me, that is a good thing, this is a dirty book, clean lines would be out of place. Come on the cars racing from the prison, awesome! Splatter of blood everywhere, he's having fun.
Millar is a master manipulator. It's what he does best. He appears to have manipulated a bunch of people into a frothy mess of complaint. He's written a comic book equivalent of The Expendables to me. It's not high art. It's not the acme of its genre. What it is is a big bold action romp befitting of Michael Bay and while the rest of you haters cry foul, I just like to see some blood splatter every once in a while.
Story 3
Art 4
Overall 7
by thefourthman » Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:25 pmWhat the fuck is Treme?
by thefourthman » Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:25 pmHey, everybody, there is no way I am fucking navigating this thread for reviews, I will respond in kind after Amlah does his thing!
by Eli Katz » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:01 pm
David Simon's new series.
by thefourthman » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:05 pm
That told me nothing, know I feel extra dumb.
by Eli Katz » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:13 pm
The creator of The Wire, the best TV show ever made, is David Simon. His new show is called Treme.
If you have not seen The Wire, prepare to have your mind fucking blown.
by thefourthman » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:21 pmI have seen neither. What the hell channel does this Treme come on?
by Eli Katz » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:23 pm
by Eli Katz » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:24 pmIn the Life of 'The Wire'
October 14, 2010
by Lorrie Moore
The New York Review of Books
The Wire
a television series created by David Simon
HBO, 23 DVDs, $249.99
The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television
edited by Tiffany Potter and C.W. Marshall
Continuum, 254 pp., $75.00; $24.95 (paper)
The Wire: Truth Be Told
by Rafael Alvarez, with an introduction by David Simon
Grove, 581 pp., $19.95 (paper)
Set in post–September 11 Baltimore, the HBO series The Wire—whose
sixty episodes were originally broadcast between June 2002 and March
2008 and are now available on DVD—has many things on its rich and
roaming mind, but one of those things is Baltimore itself, home of
Edgar Allan Poe, H.L. Mencken, Babe Ruth, and Billie Holiday.
Baltimore is not just a stand-in for Western civilization or
globalized urban rot or the American inner city now given the cold
federal shoulder in the folly-filled war on terror, though it is
certainly all these things. Baltimore is also just plain itself, with
a very specific cast of characters, dead and alive. Eminences are
pointedly referenced in the course of the series: the camera passes
over a sign to Babe Ruth's birthplace, tightens on a Mencken quote
sculpted into the office wall of The Baltimore Sun; "Poe" is not just
street pronunciation for "poor" (to the delight of one of The Wire's
screenwriters) but implicitly printed onto one horror-story element of
the script; a phrase of Lady Day wafts in as ambient recorded music in
a narrative that is scoreless except when the credits are rolling or
in the occasional end-of-season montage.
But there are less famous Baltimoreans throughout (local filmmaker
John Waters is given an ambiguous shout-out in the final season, and
he shouts ambiguously back in the DVD's bonus features) and all are
part of the texture and mythology that The Wire's producers are
putting on display both with anger and with love. The dartboard in a
union boss's office in the series's second season features a photo of
the former owner of the Baltimore Colts, who moved the team to
Indianapolis in 1984; scenes shot in Baltimore churches use the actual
congregations; real-life hot dog joints (Pollock Johnny's!) now reside
in The Wire's televised amber; actual purple-walled soup kitchens and
cemeteries and neighborhood corners have acquired mythic status.
More than one former reporter from The Baltimore Sun has written for
the show. Baltimore heroin kingpins have cameo appearances, and one,
Melvin Williams, who was arrested by producer Ed Burns when Burns was
"a po-lice" (as it's said in Baltimore), is given the role of the
Deacon, which he performs arrestingly with lines such as "A good
churchman is always up in everybody's shit. That's how we do." The
list goes on. Baltimoreans name their pets after the show's
characters. Some former members of the cast still roam the streets,
now as celebrities. Young people use characters' pictures from the
show for their own profile photos on Facebook. British tourists come
to Baltimore for Wire bus tours. This array of consuming
response—domesticating ownership, emotional identification, and
devoted pilgrimage—is only part of the very many personal reactions to
the show.
The use of Baltimore as a millennial tapestry, in fact, might be seen
as a quiet rebuke to its own great living novelists, Anne Tyler and
John Barth, both of whose exquisitely styled prose could be accused of
having turned its back on the deep inner workings of the city that
executive producer David Simon, a former Baltimore reporter, and
producer Ed Burns, a former Baltimore schoolteacher and cop, have
excavated with such daring and success. ("Where in
Leave-It-to-Beaver-Land are you taking me?" asks The Wire's homeless
police informant Bubbles, when driven out to a leafy, upscale
neighborhood; the words are novelist and screenwriter Richard Price's
and never mind that this aging cultural reference is unlikely to have
actually spilled forth from this character; the remark does nicely).
So confident are Simon and Burns in their enterprise that they have
with much justification called the program "not television" but a
"novel." Certainly the series's creators know what novelists know:
that it takes time to transform a social type into a human being,
demography into dramaturgy, whether time comes in the form of pages or
hours. With time as a medium rather than a constraint one can show a
profound and unexpected aspect of a character, and discover what that
character might decide to do because of it. With time one can show the
surprising interconnections within a chaotic, patchworked metropolis.
It is sometimes difficult to sing the praises of this premier example
of a new art form, not just because enthusiastic viewers and cultural
studies graduate students have gotten there first—"Heroism,
Institutions, and the Police Procedural" or "Stringer Bell's Lament:
Violence and Legitimacy in Contemporary Capitalism" (chapters in The
Wire: Urban Decay and American Television)—but also because David
Simon himself, not trusting an audience, and not waiting for
posterity, in his own often stirring remarks about the show in print
interviews, in public appearances, and in audio commentary on the DVD
version, has not just explicated the text to near muteness but jacked
the critical rhetoric up very high. He is the show's most garrulous
promoter. In comment after comment, even the word "novel" is not
always enough and Simon and his colleagues have compared his
five-season series to a Greek tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes
are all named), Homer's Iliad, a Shakespearean drama, a serialized
narrative by Dickens, an historical document that will be read in
fifty years, a book by Tolstoy, and Melville's Moby-Dick. This leaves
only journalist Joe Klein to raise the ante further: "The Wire never
won an Emmy?" Klein is shown exclaiming in the DVD features on the
final episode. "The Wire should win the Nobel Prize for literature!"
"It could have—if we'd done everything wrong—been a cop show," Simon
has said. And in its admirable and unblinking look at a cursed
people—America's largely black and brown urban underclass—it is
arguably biblical, Dantesque, and (Masterpiece Theatre be damned) more
downstairs than upstairs. Despite Simon's assertions, however, the
series has some origins in legal and police shows such as L.A. Law and
Hill Street Blues—not to mention Burns and Simon's own Emmy-winning
The Corner (2000), a rather shapeless precursor (a faux documentary
about poverty and drugs in the mostly black neighborhood of West
Baltimore, filmed with a handheld camera and a blues soundtrack), as
well as Homicide, based on Simon's own book about the Baltimore Police
Department, which ran from 1993 to 1999. The Wire is the polished
mature version of efforts begun before; it is not entirely sui generis
but it is beautifully evolved. Nor is the force of the conventional
medium entirely absent. Although there are no breaks for commercials,
one feels the pressure and shape of an hour imposing itself on each
episode, even if the plot of each remains unresolved and the pacing
broodingly languorous despite sharp-edged cutting.
The Sopranos helped prepare the way for this format as well, though
the nature and mood of The Sopranos is essentially comedic, a family
drama laced with amusing and operatic artifice, as is the current AMC
series Mad Men. Recognizable authenticity, new and trenchant social
commentary, and tragic class warfare have not really been high on the
agenda of any other cable series, and it is a source of some
bitterness for The Wire's creators that it never had the wide audience
that these other series have had.
Simon uses an analogy of white flight to explain it: white people will
tolerate up to 8 percent of the neighborhood being black before they
begin to leave, turning the neighborhood into a black one. The Wire's
cast is over 60 percent black and the white viewer flight was almost
immediate. A teenaged actor who plays one of the middle-schoolers of
the show's fourth season and who was not privy at the time to Simon's
analysis remarks of the show's lost viewers, "The messed-up thing is
they can't handle the truth."
The Wire, of course, is a deliberately far cry from Adam-12 and
Dragnet, the cop shows of Simon's childhood. Its newness as a
narrative art form is underscored most convincingly by its power on
DVD, where it can be watched all at once, over sixty hours: this
particular manner of viewing makes the literary accolades and the
comparisons to a novel more justified and true. On the other hand, so
engrossing, heart-tugging, and uncertain are the various story arcs
that watching in this manner one becomes filled with a kind of
mesmerized dread. In this new motion picture format the standard,
consoling boundaries and storytelling rhythms are dispensed
with—mostly. One is allowed a wider, deeper portrait, a panorama, of
entrepreneurial crime, government corruption, a harassed underclass,
and faulty institutions of every sort—sprawling portraiture that aims
at inclusivity.
Even though its city hall has been mum, Baltimore's Police Department
has given The Wire its endorsement, as have the kids of East and West
Baltimore. Moreover, the show's themes can seem reiterated everywhere
in the world, from out-of-work shrimpers and autoworkers, to the meth
cookers of the Ozarks, to the poppy growers of war-torn Afghanistan
(oddly, Hamid Karzai has two brothers who live in the Baltimore area).
It is sometimes hard to think about the world's troubles without
thinking: "This is just like The Wire."
In exposing the nerves, fallout, and sealed fates caused by a
remorseless breed of capitalism and its writing-off of whole swathes
of the populace, and by insisting on its universality as a subject,
The Wire has much in common with great political drama everywhere; the
plays of George Bernard Shaw (in which rich and poor are both given
language) come to mind. The newly elected mayor of Reykjavik will not
allow anyone in his political party unless they have watched all five
seasons. The mayor of Newark is also a fan. So is Barack Obama, whose
favorite character is the gay, drug dealer–robbing gunslinger Omar
Little—a new hero in queer studies, one of the few characters in the
show who honors "a code," and the only one whose ongoing motivation is
love for another person.
In the intricate network of The Wire the story lines derive from the
worlds of street-corner drug dealers and big-time traffickers, the
police of homicide and drug enforcement and "special crimes," the
in-office brass, the dockworkers who knowingly and unknowingly unload
the drug shipments, the union leaders, the foreign suppliers, the
public schools, the newspaper, the mayor's office, the city council,
the lawyers and judges of the criminal justice system, the prisons,
the soup kitchens, the rehab facilities, and the group homes with
their revolving doors. This is the metaphorical "wire" that connects
all the various institutions and habitats of the city. It also refers
to the high-wire act of brave policing and honest work—difficult and
More literally, the title signifies the wiretap that narcotics
detectives are constantly trying to get judicial consent for and then
set up before the dealers—drug lords, "hoppers" (the lowest-level drug
dealers), lieutenants, and other "soldiers"—get wind of it and switch
to a different system. At one point, with their cell phone codes
cracked, and with the detectives successfully up on the wire, the
players in "the game," as the drug business is called, are either not
using phones at all or else tossing them away after every use. The
wire not only demonstrates the ingenuity of dealers and detectives as
they elude each other, but surveillance itself becomes the show's
metaphor for what drama does in listening in on the world. It also
embraces the Wildean sense of art's cleverness as well as its
uselessness. Utility versus futility is everywhere at the center of
David Simon's own view of the show. The great waste of human spirit
and endeavor is dramatized, ironically, with great human spirit and
Season One introduces us to the Barksdale drug operation headed up by
Avon Barksdale, his sister Brianna, and his right-hand man, the
wannabe businessman Stringer Bell. The syndicate is operated out of a
nightclub and then a funeral parlor, and when Avon is incarcerated,
Bell attempts to hold meetings using Robert's Rules of Order. (The
result is a kind of skit.) The business has as its primary territory
housing project towers that are subsequently exploded in Season Two,
an image deliberately designed to recall September 11. (Baltimore
early on got rid of its old housing projects; other American cities
followed.) This detonation is mostly viewed through the eyes of kids
who are watching everything they've known reduced to rubble—and not
Stringer Bell, played by the African-British actor Idris Elba, is the
enigmatic Gatsby figure, yearning for legitimacy, sporting wire-rimmed
glasses, and attending economics classes at the local community
college. He aims to become a legitimate businessman, a fate that is
finally handed over to Marlo Stanfield at series end, though Marlo
(played with eerie but prideful injuriousness by Jamie Hector) doesn't
want it. Brianna Barksdale is one of several mother characters who
give the lie to lip service paid to family values in a drug war–torn
family by forcing their reluctant kids onto the streets to sell dope.
In a white male–written show with few women, and, yes, a stripper or
two with the requisite heart of gold, these "Dragon Ladies," as one of
the kids calls them, are part of a Wire subset of women marred if not
mutilated by ambition.
Still, these portrayals seem complex: emotionally ugly and specific
enough to be convincing. They are eyepopping to watch, especially
Michael Hyatt as Brianna, who demands of her son that he do hard
prison time for the organization, and Sandi McCree as De'Londa, who
exclaims loudly that her son should be put in "baby booking" where he
might learn to be a man. These women, not drug-addled themselves, eat
up the screen, even when they are quiet and must merely flash a look.
Women who pimp their children are breathtaking in their
monstrousness—absent from The Wire are any wise, reassuring
matriarchs—and these bleak characters succeed in taking the viewer's
breath away. Simon is not interested in viewer comfort; the
conventions of prescriptive political fiction do not capture his
imagination very deeply; he is far more interested in the unholy
bargains everyone makes in the maelstrom of societal injustices. For a
feminist heroine the show has only the quite imperfect Detective Kima
Greggs, and only because in her strength, humor, passion for work, and
apparently secure hold on her biracial identity and lesbianism, she is
slightly better than almost anyone else.
Each season explores an institution that has gone hollow with
gamesmanship. Most of Season Two focuses on Baltimore's dockworkers,
particularly Frank Sobotka (played with a smolder and a fat suit by
baby-faced Chris Bauer), a union head who stares out at Baltimore's
abandoned mills and grain piers and notes that they are now condos.
His torment and lament—that this country once made things—is the
nation's own. His particular fate is a tragic one, Shakespearean in
its emotional mix of small onstage relatives and large offstage
forces, and his relationship with his nephew is one of several
uncle–nephew relationships in The Wire (Avon and D'Angelo; Proposition
Joe and Cheese) that wordlessly announce the gaping holes left in
families hit by law enforcement and hard economic times. Season Three
introduces the politicians and Season Four the school system and the
children it fails. Season Five concentrates on the diminished and
compromised role of journalists.
The most intriguing phrase Simon has used regarding The Wire is to say
that it is about "the death of work." By this he means not just the
loss of jobs, though there certainly is that, but the loss of
integrity within our systems of work, the "juking of stats," the
speaking of truth to power having been replaced with speaking what is
most self-serving and pleasing to the higher-ups. In a poker game with
the mayor, one folds on a flush to allow the mayor to win. (As opposed
to the freelance stickup man Omar, who, beholden to no one, shows up
at at a kingpin's poker night with two pistols and the Dennis Lehane
line "I believe these four 5s beat your full house.") Police
departments manipulate their stats for the politicians; schools do the
same; newspapers fake stories with their eye on prizes and
stockholders. Moreover, in the world of The Wire almost everyone who
tries to buck the system and do right is punished, often severely and
grotesquely and heartbreakingly. Accommodation is survival at the most
basic level, although it is also lethal to the soul.
Ideas are no good without stories. Stories are no good without
characters. In drama, characters are no good without actors. If the
integrity of The Wire derives from the integrity of its creators, its
power lies, in an old-fashioned way, in the brilliant acting of a
varied and charismatic cast. Not to diminish the quality of the
writing or the careful cinematography, but little of Simon's agenda
would convince without the series's acting: this is how the humanity
of various people is given its indelible life. The Wire's producers
claim it contains the most diverse cast ever on television, and it is
hard to doubt it.
What depth of acting talent we have in our contemporary world, even if
so much of it is not in Hollywood. Some of The Wire's standout
performances are from British or Irish actors who mimic American
accents so impressively that their real voices in the commentaries are
startling. Of course the Baltimore gloss is less convincing and
sometimes even absent, but the rest of America is fooled: Dominic
West, as the "true police" Jimmy McNulty, is from Britain; Idris Elba
as Stringer Bell, also British, is of Ghanaian and Sierra Leonean
parentage; Aiden Gillen, who plays Tommy Carcetti, the calculating
politician who on occasion gets passionately if momentarily swept up
in his own rhetoric, is from Ireland.
Some of the actors in The Wire are amateurs and some are pros educated
at Juilliard and Yale. Gbenga Akinnagbe and Felicia Pearson, who play
Chris and Snoop of the Marlo Stanfield gang, are a prime example.
Akinnagbe is a professional actor and Bucknell graduate, and Pearson
is a Baltimore rapper and quite literally an ex-con, having done time
at the Maryland Women's Correctional facility for a homicide committed
when she was fourteen. She had never acted on screen before but was
brought to the set by Michael Williams (Omar), himself a former
dancer, then placed prominently and without a name change in Seasons
Four and Five: her real-life nickname is Snoop.
Together Snoop and Chris form a duo that according to Stephen King are
two of the scariest assassins ever put on the screen. Snoop bears a
pretty mime's pale impassivity; Chris's starburst hair gives him a
clown's silhouette though his face remains stonily dour. Together,
dour clown and mime, they are assassins in an escapee circus act,
caught in a zombie script that would terrify not just Baltimore's
finest but Baltimore's finest horror writer. They open Season Four
using a nail gun—a nod, perhaps, to Cormac McCarthy's cattle bolt—to
kill young black men (number one males, in police terminology) who
have in some way disrespected their boss, Marlo. Snoop and Chris fill
up abandoned row houses with bodies, creating a charnel house straight
out of Poe.
No one is really looking for these victims—oh, for a missing blond
cheerleader, think the cops, whose budgets have been slashed (reduced
wages, no witness protection funds, flat tires on their cars, DNA
samples going bad in broken refrigerators)—and by the time the bodies
are found there are well over a dozen. "My number in the office pool
is twenty-three," says Detective Bunk, cigar in mouth, so convincingly
played by Wendell Pierce.
In the Barksdale gang, the hopper, the lieutenant, and the deputy
kingpin who are killed for going their own way (Wallace, D'Angelo,
Stringer Bell) are portrayed by actors possessed of especially
beautiful and sensitive faces. Their deaths play viscerally and haunt
the show; Seasons One and Three are largely built around them. (Almost
everyone a viewer might quixotically root for is eventually killed;
even if the killing is not lingered over, the show pulls no punches.)
Avon Barksdale initially seems green and weak next to the handsome and
charismatic Stringer, but the several layers of Avon's manipulations
are put forth with fluid skill by Wood Harris, and when we see him
again in Season Five his performance has solidified into a nuanced
affability made sinister by power. One of the series's most telling
scenes is in Season Three, when Harris and Elba stand on a terrace
overlooking the city, anxiously disguising their characters' mutual
betrayals with sentimental memories of a shared boyhood. Here Avon's
extra layer of artifice, his hardened street-soldier smarts, triumph
over the man who would like drugs to be a business rather than a war.
There is not a feeble performance in the entire show. While David
Simon is achieving remarkable verisimilitude, supplying the scripts
with a glossary, and making sure the writing is both on message and
real ("bitch" is used mostly to describe men; only black actors use
the N-word and often affectionately), the actors sometimes improvise
imaginatively (often with the prop and costume people), reaching for
the curious displacements of art. Lance Reddick plays Lieutenant
Daniels as a princely African-American Spock aboard the starship
Baltimore. Robert Chew plays the drug lord Proposition Joe, whose
wistfulness for the old days is expressed in his tender repairing of
broken clocks. One defiant and suspended policeman, Herc—played by
Domenick Lombardozzi, whose Bronx accent is already a conspicuous and
pleasingly unexplained dislocation (try not to think of Tony Curtis in
Spartacus)—defiantly opens his front door wearing a Wisconsin T-shirt
with the logo "Smell the Dairy Air." Omar sports a long, waxed duster
to accompany his shotgun and bulletproof vest, making him seem very
much an urban Jesse James, and the lighting, editing, and quite
self-conscious cinematography in various showdowns assist in this
motif. (In the one episode where Omar is on a Caribbean isle, he seems
so out of place the story line quickly summons him back to cowboy
J.D. Williams as terminal corner boy Bodie emerges as a tremendous
actor with or without his white do-rag, filched from a production of
The Crucible. And the middle school quartet in Season Four—Michael,
Namond, Randy, and Dukie—are a gut-wrenching ensemble, but Julito
McCullum's performance as Namond, replete with ponytail and earrings,
seems singular in its range. His character is given more to do, but as
an actor he is there for every moment of it. His tears before his
mother, his fury at the universe, his jokes with his pals—"Yo, you
must be one of those at-risk kids!" he says self-satirically to Dukie
when his friend orders the turkey grease at a Chinese restaurant—all
this makes Namond's successful if narrow escape from the neighborhood
one of the few bear- able outcomes in The Wire's many stories. (And
one of the only times when reaching out to a cop doesn't result in
It is a small statistic, as with the ex-con Cutty's successful boxing
club, but one of human escape amid hopelessness. As the ill-fated
Dukie says, "How do you get from here to the rest of the world?"
Tolstoy was wrong about happy families—it is more likely hell, or
hellishness, that is of a predictable sameness. Heaven will take one
by surprise, as surprise is perhaps essential to it. "Sometimes life
just gives you a moment," says Lester Freamon, played by the
deep-voiced, bowlegged Clarke Peters, the gifted actor who has
accompanied David Simon on his journey through The Corner, The Wire,
and Treme. But with this much already under Simon's (and Peters's)
belt, beyond, as they might say shruggingly in Baltimore, ain't no
thing. The series's final words are "Let's go home," not unlike the
last words spoken by the last man on the moon.
Copyright © 1963-2010 NYREV, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... life-wire/
by thefourthman » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:25 pmThat's a whole lot of words about a television show.
My top three shows all time are:
1. Lost (haven't finished season six yet, stupid life)
3. Rockford Files
by thefourthman » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:26 pmI don't get the HBO. I will buy it when it is cheap on DVD or bluray or whatever.
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Class::MOP::Mixin - Base class for mixin classes
This class provides a single method shared by all mixins
This class provides a few methods which are useful in all metaclasses.
This returns a Class::MOP::Class object for the mixin class.
Dave Rolsky <email@example.com>
Copyright 2006-2010 by Infinity Interactive, Inc.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.


text:
That makes me feel so much better about being beaten up.
I stopped doing that when I started banging your mother.
Time you stopped doing that, Sis.
Lisa needs braces!
So basically, if you can't develop social skills you do what every other animal does: Become a predator. And if you fail at that, you're dinner.
So basically, if you can't develop social skills you do what every other animal does: Become a predator. And if you fail at that, you're dinner.
Victims share much of same, negative attitude, conflict in the family.
It looks as though the victims are the other side of the same coin.
And what's not mentioned in the article is how the ramifications of bullying stick with someone for the rest of their life - there the "mousy ones", the ones without "self confidence", the ones that "don't fit in", etc....
It wouldn't surprise me the least if many of the permanently unemployed are part of this group. So, I think it costs society too.
So basically, if you can't develop social skills you do what every other animal does: Become a predator. And if you fail at that, you learn to write code.
Or you're just so freaky you scare them.
No Berzerking necessary...
This is actually interesting from an anthropological perspective. Most pack mammals use a form of mock combat to establish position with the pack. They fight until one individual is defeated, then the winner takes the higher position in the pack hierarchy. This same behaviour is common among children (and some adults, although the 'combat' is typically less physical - adolescents typically do it by trading insults), and is incorrectly diagnosed as bullying.
When two animals from different pack meet, the combat is more serious. The loser must be completely defeated, rather than just back off. When you see this behaviour in humans, it is real bullying. The aim is not to establish dominance within the pack, because the aggressor does not see themselves as being in the same pack as the victim, so does not have the evolved responses to avoid permanently damaging members of the same pack.
I only ever encountered the first kind of conflict at school, but I responded as if it were the second kind, which is probably why I never had a problem with bullying. It sounds like you had a similar reaction.
Work out. A lot. Throughout middle school and high school, I was a huge geek (and dressed like one)...but I was also huge. In high school, at only 5'6", I weighed around 200 pounds, and could lift what the varsity football team lifted in the weightroom (and, in some cases, even more.)
I was a dork, but no one dared fuck with me. A good thing, too...I had no idea how to fight
Oh yeah? Well my dad could beat up your dad!
I remember getting into one of those kinds of arguments in kindergarden, and my response was "my dad would turn your dad inside-out!"...which grossed out both of us, lol
Playing the borderline psycho route is also good. (Although these days you'll probably end up on some watch lists.) I can't really point to any single thing I did nor do I remember why they actually thought I was. (I guess critiquing what previous school shooters did wrong in an English paper was one thing...)
But when I skipped the senior photo in the gym, I guess one of my friends told me some people were joking I was in the rafters with a rifle.
Top of my class, BSME, going back for my MSME. I think >90% of my class is still at home drinking at the one bar in town and partying like they're still seniors. It's sad, but if they're happy, what ever.
You both completely failed at learning jack, and resorted to the threat of violence. NERD FAIL.
Learn social skills. THAT'S the lesson. They aren't hard and a handful of social cues makes all the difference.
You both completely failed at learning jack, and resorted to the threat of violence. NERD FAIL.
Learn social skills. THAT'S the lesson. They aren't hard and a handful of social cues makes all the difference.
Wouldn't this also apply to the bullies?
I didn't resort to anything. While ACs method would work. I didn't wear all black. I didn't talk about visions. I didn't get my fists bloody. I just had one paper on a topic and I liked to blow things up on my farm. (Who doesn't?).
Most people have no clue how to debate or what a "devil's advocate" is. The second I state a fact or a side on a subject. They instantly that must be my position on the subject. My back to back papers in one class one Pro-Abortion and one Pro-Life confused the hell out of some of
I was a dork, but no one dared fuck with me
I'm confused. Is this good or bad?
I have to admit, it was great to know that I could walk around the halls nerd-snorting about something with impunity. Since I hung out with both the "popular" nerds as well as the "reject" nerds, many of them were protected simply by proximity, which they appreciated.
I found the whole thing to be amusing, personally.
You weren't the only big geek. I was 5' tall in 5th grade and was around 6' by the time I was 14. Still, I was picked on until, that is until the time I flipped open a locker door into someone's face. Best of all was the fact that they got in trouble for starting the fight. Nothing happened to me because I was the one being picked on.
After that no one hassled me or my immediate friends, they knew that I wouldn't start anything but I would finish it.
At least it wasn't like when a "bean pole" (MAYBE 120lbs
My buddy Mike used a similar tactic. 6 foot by the time he hit 9th grade, had horrible acne (ironically, he now has model-like good looks)...basically, a punching bag for a lot of people. He got tired of it one day, and as a kid was pointing and laughing at him, he grabbed the kid's finger, bent it back (obviously breaking it), then hit the kid in his face with his own hand, breaking his nose.
People left him alone after that.
It's just like prison...either you mess someone up, or you become a bitch. The c
You're lucky you didn't try that today. You'd be expelled and probably have criminal charges brought against you. Kids today aren't allowed to defend themselves thanks to zero-tolerance crap.
We never really had the "nerds get beat" up thing going in our high school anyways. Maybe it's an inner city thing. Who knows. I went to a rural high school, where just about everyone's free time (even the nerds) involved some form of outdoor activities. I was probably the biggest Star Trek fan at our school. I played Magic the Gathering. I was 2nd in our class at graduation. I had the highest SAT score of our graduating class. I attended various academic competitions for the school.
I also hunted, f
In our school, the jocks were actually really cool people (as evidenced by the fact that a short dork who was as strong or stronger than them was still allowed to work out in the same weightroom at the same time). The people that did most of the bullying were the true outsiders...the "cool" rejects didn't want them because they were assholes, and the popular kids didn't want them because they weren't popular.
Work out. A lot. Throughout middle school and high school, I was a huge geek (and dressed like one)...but I was also huge. In high school, at only 5'6", I weighed around 200 pounds, and could lift what the varsity football team lifted in the weightroom (and, in some cases, even more.)
I was a dork, but no one dared fuck with me. A good thing, too...I had no idea how to fight
Sometimes working out can have the opposite effect. I was quiet, tall and muscular in school and was attacked a lot because of it, the bullies figured I'd be a fun challenge. It wasn't until I literally threw the biggest one over one desk and into another that I was left alone.
I've never been in a fight since and I hope I never am again but I don't regret my actions in those moments. And honestly, I think if you're getting beat up for no good reason (i.e. didn't instigate) and you're going to get in trou
TFA said
We might think that bullies are quite different from the victims of bullying. But those who become either a bully or a victim actually share similar outlooks and have similar difficulties dealing with their environments.
Typical bullies have negative attitudes toward others, feel badly about themselves, and most likely grew up in a home with conflict. Victims share much of same, negative attitude, conflict in the family.
But the dividing characteristic: bullies dislike school and tend to perform w
Did that link utterly break, or were you meaning to link back to this article?
Nerds are still more likely to have a better job.
Hey, they call us software pirates, right? Give the nerds flintlock pistols. This solves several problems:
a. They can defend themselves from jocks
b. They can't go on a rampage and massacre the school
c. They will have a realistic accessory for their pirate cosplay!
Somebody give fffungus a metal! And a handgun!
Yes. Let's make jokes about bullied kids bringing guns to school.
Because things have turned out so well when *that's* happened.
Um... what about NerdBullies?
I think they call them "channel ops" or "moderators" depending on the context.
They're usually just hyper, put them on Ritalin and they'll be fine.
That the problem is that people are so hard-wired to find social ineptitude a problem.
There are times where I wouldn't want to hang out with people because I didn't like the people. At one point (it was between grade 8 and 9) I realized that I could be whoever I really wanted to be, and was not relegated to any kind of social outcast or nerdy clique for the rest of my days. I went out, bought some clothes, got a haircut, and emailed someone I didn't usually hang out with, and asked if they wanted to go Skateboarding. I - however - had never been great at skateboarding. However, this new friend of mine took my motion as a kind gesture and proceeded to teach me a bit so that I could hang out with him and his friends more. He understood that I had wanted to get out of any antisocial tendancies I might have had and wanted to have fun with more friends. Obviously, he was not the bullying type.
However, after a year or so of this, I began to miss the old things. Playing LAN Starcraft till 5 am, reading Fantasy Novels, and programming. Things I never had time for when there was a party that weekend, movie night at a friends house, or hanging out after class. Eventually, I went back to my old tendancies, and I really didn't care if I was labelled a nerd because I liked being alone a bit more.
That the problem is that people are so hard-wired to find social ineptitude a problem.
Social ineptitude is a problem. You are confusing being an introvert (preferring not to spend time with other people) with being socially inept. Not all introverts are socially inept. Sometimes people are labeled "nerds" because they choose to be socially uninvolved. However, the term originally (and in this context) referred to people who wish to be socially involved but are outcasts because they do things that are socially viewed opposite of the way they intend.
First step, don't over think it. Be an emotional creature. Indulge in being an animal for just a bit.
poor problem-solving skills within social situations
What does this mean, bullies not knowing how to interact are pent up with rage, and take it out on others. There's one problem with this bullies are very good at reading people. Quite often they can bully under every bodies nose without arousing suspicion. They even have good mechanisms to handle tense situations (like being investigated), they can even lie effectively under these tense situations. How do you think they can get away with it.
very good at reading people.
no, they are good at recognizing a stereotype. No better the chipmunks, really.
"How do you think they can get away with it."
parents and teacher don't want to address the issue. That's how they get away with it.
parents and teacher don't want to address the issue. That's how they get away with it.
More strictly(at least in my experience), parents and teachers, and admins are actually very interested, with occasional exceptions, in addressing the issue(When I was in school, they were constantly emitting pious anti-bullying PSAs, having observed administrators in an occupational context, their bookshelves and seminar schedules are packed with mentions of the issue, written by assorted well-meaning education Ph.Ds).
The problem, though, is that they generally aren't willing to face the reality of the issue. They cling to the illusion that, with the right magic words and social niceties and apologies and shit, everyone will just be able to get along and be nice to each other. The fact that "X is a bully" implies "X is a sadistic bastard who derives pleasure from inflicting pain on those weaker than him" was just too unpleasant to enter their analysis of the situation. Oh, no, if we just call in one of X's victims and have them talk over their differences(nice way to let X know who squealed on him, assholes, that isn't going to go badly), we can all come together and sing "kumbaya" in joyous harmony. This basic failure made all their well meaning efforts utterly futile, and not infrequently counterproductive.
The trouble is, the sort of well-meaning softies who care the most about bullying are the ones who have the greatest difficulty wrapping their minds around the fact that they are dealing with genuinely crafty, vicious people. A bully/victim dynamic is not a "misunderstanding". There is no "talking over" to be done. It is an application of power and violence, just because they can, and because they enjoy it. The sort of person who is all empathic and becomes a guidance counselor or whatever just isn't very well equipped to understand that. They have such a long(and vicerally immediate) history of caring, and feeling other people's pain, that they have difficulty imagining the inner lives of people who don't care, and who enjoy others' pain. Even if told, the abstract model is so alien to their emotional experience that they just can't take it seriously and grapple with its implications to a useful degree....
I'm amazed that this got modded up so highly. I guess people on
To me this represents a huge leap forward in understanding nerd psychology.
Really? Bullies don't attack the "cool" people, so they bully those that don't manage to turn popular opinion against them. Well doh of course neither bully nor victim have huge social skills...
That's not the whole story though, because there's definitively people that were not smart, not popular and not bullying. Being a bully is a choice all of its own.
I was the typical introverted high school nerd (5'4 at the time), and had a 6'5" upper-class psychopath following me around and finding new ways to harass me.
I talked to my principal over it (God bless you Roger Hood!). He told me next time it happened, kick his ass and he (the principal) wouldn't punish me.
A few days later at PE we were playing soccer, and whenever I had the ball he would "accidentally" kick me in the leg as hard as he could. For days, it felt like a knife every time I put weight on that foot. Hurt so bad it took my breath away.
Two days later I spotted him in the hall. I kicked him in the jewels, and laid him flat on the ground. I proceeded to spend the next 3 minutes kicking and punching him in the balls, the sides, the head, anything I could hit. I didn't feel any pain in my foot at all during this. Eventually he was bawling so loud that the girls in a nearby classroom came out and rescued him (and had the gaul to ask why I was picking on the poor psychopath and being such a mean person).
Two things happened: the psychopath transferred out of the school a week later, and *no one* ever messed with me again.
I wish we could all get along. But some whack jobs only understand the language of violence, and you have to be willing to speak their language to teach them a lesson.
I don't know how our dutch schools compare to high schools, but for this story, it is comparable enough.
I was in my 2nd year and for the first 6 months a group of kids kept teasing, annoying, harassing me, etc. It was horrible.
I remember being in shop class reaching out for a tool that I needed to continue my work. One of the kids grabbed it after I did and tried to pull it out of my hand, I told that person that I was using it, then the kid spit on my hand.
That was the moment something snapped in my head, everything went dark, I was smart enough to drop the tool and I said one little thing: "Run."
The kid knew I was serious and started running, as did I. I jumped over chairs and desks while in pursuit only having one goal, to destroy that person.
It took 6 people to grab me and hold me against a wall until I calmed down.
That experience made sure that they didn't bother me anymore but it scared the fuck out of me.
I have learned more patience, more forgiveness and more understanding since then since I do not want to repeat an episode like that.
You are correct when some people only understand violence, I wish that was different.
When I was a kid, I was somewhat socially inept*. Quite definitely a nerd from a science, math and other geek pursuits. But I didn't like getting pushed around. Get in my face and you'd get your head pushed through the wall. But I never sought out victims.
* I think it comes down to the school social structure attempting to pigeon-hole everyone into some sort of pecking order. In their eyes you either rank high or low. But that sort of tribal culture has a problem dealing with people who just don't want to p
Interesting interview on NPR a few weeks back on a woman (who had been raped as a teen) who had studied middle eastern terrorists and came up with the thesis that many had been seriously sexually abused as children in the training camps. Pointing out that the common thread with terrorists and other people who went postal or Columbine was that they had been subjected to some form of grave humiliation and didn't really have a support group or other form of outlet.
Not excusing their means of retaliation, but it was interesting to draw the connection between humiliation and people who eventually snap violently. If the world had less humiliation going around and bystanders who are complicit with it, we'd all probably be better off, bullies and nerds alike.
Investigate Columbine and you'll find Eric and Dylan were badly bullied, including specifically by some kid who went by, I think the name was, "Rocky".
Humiliation can be a big part of it. More fundamentally the issue is feeling devalued. Ruin someone's sense of self-worth and they become a serious danger.
Of course, that's because I spent most of my high school years stuffed in my locker...
Who goeth a-borrowing goeth a-sorrowing. -- Thomas Tusser


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Verbal abuse and lewd conduct by Captain
This isn't gonna be easy to share, but I really would like some advice on a past experience this summer with a really rude captain. I hope this post doesn't get deleted for the sake of awareness and prevention. I tend to put Joe Biden to shame with my "longwindedness". I'll try to cut to the chase. I worked on a yacht this summer which overall was a good freelance gig, nice owners/guests. Most of the crew were pretty cool and good to get along with. But the captain is another story. The captain was usually "nice" to me but sometimes acted favorable and too close for comfort towards me and to the assistant to the owner. I've "grown" used to it, but the rule has always been to never work for a captain like that again. No problem there.
There were times when I heard this captain mouthing off in a profane manner, whether he was talking about certain crew or nationalities in the biz..or women...or his libido. He was embarrassing to listen to, but apparently the guests and crew seemed fine with it. Now, I am not a prude, and I've had my fair share of swearing, hopefully not too many people have heard me in my life time, but I tend to shy away from those who say certain things in a very crass manner. Profanity and exploiting personal information among crew and guest should NEVER be accepted or tolerated.
The last day we all had dinner together. Some of us were discussing doing the water park rides again in Atlantis. I know--fun, fun, fun...I have yet to do the vertical one. Okay, here's the icky part. As I was mentioning the vertical slide at Atlantis, the captain, while sitting three feet away from me, in front of six crew members, flat out told me that I would be alright and that I should just take out my [he used the T-word] out and let the rush of water clean "everything" out. My jaw probably didn't eve drop. I wasn't really surprised..which is something I kind of feel guilty about in itself. I was embarrassed, yes. I tried to play it cool by saying something like "The cap is feeling gitty tonight". I really didn't know what to tell this pathetic man. Southerners tend to be good, wholesome people, not this guy. I'm fully aware that this is about a lack of intelligence along with some sort of "retribution" and nothing more. But I still think of this incident today. I don't even know why this pathetic man would say such to me or any other woman for that matter.
Some of you may not understand what I just conveyed here, and I'm not going to say verbatim what he actually said. Some of you may think, "ah big deal, you're being prudent". I even told another stew this, someone who I was pretty kind to and helped get a job, before I found out she was "illegal" where I almost got in serious trouble, she casually replied tome that it "wasn't a big deal" but finally said that the "guy was a jerk" for doing so. I feel like I shouldn't bring this up [in face] to anyone after telling this stew about any of this. So- here it is on Dockwalk.
While I have been around captains and crew who can be just as crass and profane [one guy even spoke so bad about the owner's daughter, it actually made me nauseous] and while I've pretended with a nervous laugh to be entertained by these fools, I still remember this very incident with captain in the Bahamas. I can not seem to forget this incident. To be honest, if I saw him I would want to cuss him out and put him to shame.
I want to tell the owner at this point. And I've been through something similar a couple of years ago where I finally conjured up the nerve to tell management and a high profile megayacht owner. But I got no response. I know I will lose this reference as soon as I do. Any advice? Do I have any legal remedies over this? Should I bother?
My take is that using lawyers and raising a stink only hurts you and wastes your time and thoughts. Many captains are crude, don't work for them. Notify the agent that you thought the captain was crude so others are protected. The number one rule on the sea is to deal directly with malcontents.. With experience you can develop literally hundreds of fun and satisfying ways to get even. Try this next time.......
If your operating in a sea area with Portuguese man o war jellyfish around, carefully scoop one up and put it into a bucket of water. With a pair of gloves gently pull a few feet of tentacle off and save it in a cool wet towel. Just before the captain jumps into the yacht tender for his beer run, take a few tentacles and spread them on the driving seat or tube sides. Those Portuguese man o war's sting like a bee and are very durable. He sits on the seat....soon feels that " ring of fire" building and begins dancing like John Travolta in Saturday night fever. Works great and you can laugh at him for the next ten years. Life is to short...have fun, laugh,......For more advice...feel free to contact us.... IBNA , we are many
wow. these are som pretty pathetic responses to a serious post discussing a matter that many yachties (including guys) have gone through.
JESUS, pretty sad and creepy responses to a serious post.
is this the "new" quality of crew of the industry? where are all the mature, quality crew????
Always remember that there are good programs and bad ones. Makes no sense to compain. The bad ones fold very fast, dont even go near them. I never abuse or belittle my gang. Many times the little buggers get away with murder. We have all had crazy experiences in the past..., jobs that end after many years with a phone call from the secratary, rubber checks, abusive owners who tried to deduct pay from my most loyal senior crewmember for taking a monday and tuesday off to go to his sisters wedding. Try to go after one of these jerks with a lawyer and you will be frustrated.
The sexual harasment...I ran a yacht once as a new captain, a week into the first cruise Im sleeping in my bunk and the owner tried to climb in bed with me...Im a guy, he was a guy. I got the hell out and found a better job. All the bad experiences make you smart and professional. Ive been at it for 35 years, plenty wise.
Thanks for finally raising the question.
I am a cheif stew with 7 years of yachting experience, I am also licensed psychologist. There are many sorts of prejudiece and ethical aspects which can appear in different situations. In this case, it is clearly a matter of sexism, something that most corporations, nations or organisations are against as it is against equal rights among humans. I have also worked for captains like this in the past and I keep wondering why the yachting industry "allows" this kind of behaviour to occur when other industries does not? How come, things that are, not OK in "the real world", are OK in yachting? And why is it that we actually allow and accept this to happen. It is us, that is to blame as we do not react por take this any further than to quietly accept the behavior of in this case the cpatian. By not acting against this, we actually say its OK to discriminate and to be a sexist. I truly believe that if this happens to any woman/man in the yachting indutry again in the future, the right thing is to stand up (just like u just did) and speak your mind. Ignor that you might loose your job over it, cus it is not the right place to be anyway! There are many yachts out there without badmouthing captains that makes your life a mess....
Verbal abuse is not to be tolerated. Find a new boat. Not all yachts are run by Trog's. I can stand a crewmember down in private, even make you cry, but I would never use verbal abuse and I would never use profanity. Remember, yachts are not like a shoreside job. You live very close together in a small box and unfortunately many crew respond to this pressure with less than correct behaviour. Other crew or the captain may try to put you in your place and confirm their status with foul language. Dont fall for it..and dont pick up this bad habit when dealing with your crew.
As far as being captain and getting to friendly with a girl crew...its a tough call. I try to never socialize, hang out with and many times even talk to the stewardess's. Its the life in a small box problem. I do it to avoid conflict, Im to old for hassle. Many of the girls think Im a Monster and that I hate, reject them !!!!! I hang out with the boys , watch football and drink beer all the time. Oh Well......
More important issues on the court docket? Are you serious? This is not an important issue? Sorry, but some of here seem to be giving some pretty dumb advice. It's a bit mental for any poster to reply to a post like that and say that there may be "deep" mental issues over sincere concerns over this experience? Perhaps that captain should tell the same to that poster's girlfriend, no? Since it's no big deal.
It's harassment and lewd conduct that should not be tolerated. Period. I live in America, where we were brought up not to tolerate crap like that. Perhaps some are willing to tolerate this kind of behavior based upon where they're from or what they're used to, and perhaps some as men could careless what women go through over experiences like that. Geez... sometimes I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone reading some of these rediculous comments on here.
ahh, the yachting industry. yum
It's obvious that there isn't a lot that you can do about the situation now, but a great way to feel better about what occurred, is to know what you're going to do next time something like this occurs. This way you'll stop feeling like a victim now and you won't feel like a victim the next time either.
Whenever someone is out of line with what they say, the best thing to do is to call them on it. You have to be quick, you can't back down on your retort, you have to address then directly, and you should remain as emotionally neutral as possible.
I would even practice this with a friend. (This technique is commonly taught; it's easy to learn and prevents you from feeling like a victim or a prude.)
Step 1. Your Response.
When he says something like, "… and let the rush of water clean everything out." Look him straight in the eye and say, "That was rude." Or "That was offensive." Or, "Do you talk to all your Stews like this?" or "What you just said was out of line." Then don't say anything else. Don't feel the need to defend your position. Whatever you do, be sure to:
1) Address the person directly, not the group.
2) Don't get upset, don't argue, don't get hysterical or even angry and don't say it in a laughing or kidding manner. Be as emotionally neutral as possible.
3) Don't keep talking. Don't say another word until they, or someone else says something.
Step 2. Your Follow Up.
If he does say something back, it will be in one of the three forms. An attempt to brush it off, (Avoidance) or an attempt to dump it onto you (Attack), or he may even apologize. (Assertive).
It could be something like, "Oh, I was just kidding." Then put on a smile and say, "I was just kidding too." Or, "Good." Or, "I'm glad you were kidding, because, that would have been a very rude thing to say."
The Attack
It could be something like this, "Don't be such a pussy." Or, "Oh, don't twist it out of perspective. For god sake, don't sue me. Can't you take a joke?" In this case, the response is always the same, and at first, it may seem illogical, but it will work every time. You have to agree with whatever they say. For example. "I can see why you would think I'm being a pussy." Or "I understand why you would think I'm twisting it out of perspective, will sue you, and why you would say I can't take a joke." Or, "I can see why you would say that." Or, "You're right, I can't take a joke!" Once you practice this a few times, it will make a lot more sense. Most people are amazed at how well it works.
The Apology.
Accept their apology.
Step 3: Follow-up.
Here are the rules to follow up with:
1. Continue to remain as emotionally neutral as possible. DO NOT yell, cry, back down or become angry.
2. DO NOT take back what you said earlier.
3. DO NOT say anything else after your response.
4. Let it drop when it's over with. Don't even talk about it with others later.
5. Don't harbor ill feelings. It's over.
"Whenever someone is out of line with what they say, the best thing to do is to call them on it. "
This is VERY GOOD advice. Im the captain and several times a year, when its 40 degrees in the shade and the owner is riding my ass, I have been known to crack up and blow out at my crew. If the crew instantly responds ...knock it off ! or chill out. !! relax under control........ it puts me in my place and I reconsider my words. . I respect it. It must be on the spot. No need to carry a grudge back into the grew galley and spoil a whole week because of my 5 second outburst. .Oh and remember this works both ways...crew boil over and explode also.
That''s yachting..
At some point we all have to come to terms that this business is completely overwhelmed by complete idiots and other fools. Heavy drinking, egotistical behaviour, false resumes and references, crooked captains, drugged out crews, evil owners, sexist behaviour and crassness is the norm. There are good programs out there but only really a handfull. It speaks volumes that in this business you need to to invest heavily in yourself (qualifications) only to be spat out again when the (economic) tide turns, leaving you unemployed. Meanwhile, all the captains/brokers and other whingers sing out in choir: THERE IS JUST NO GOOD CREW OUT THERE ANYMORE!
Nope, they all left...and so should you.
This is one sick industry...leave it for what it is.
Well, maybe that's good advice....mkay.
I can agree that there are problems in this biz with respect to crew and cpts, sure. But I also believe where there is a will, there is a way. I don't believe yachting is a bad industry all in all. And even I've, myself, done some "complaining" while donning a bad profile on one or two boats...maybe three [ahem] for "doing so", I have hope..like Obama says [not a big fan, but hey, good point].
Anyway, I sincerely hope that this Cpt gets what he deserves whether I can take his butt to his boss or to court or not...and btw, I'm not ashamed about being American and wanting to do so.
As I've said before on here, I love how others claim that Americans are suit-happy. I mean some of you got to be kidding yourselves when you try to a lump a majority of Americans as if most actually file claims...and if many have in this industry...Go Figure...it's Yachting where there's all kinds of crap that people pull on eachother. Many of us in the States don't even have time to "neutralize" or defend ourselves when dealing with various issues of adversity.
The US has a depth of great things and, yes, bad ones....I've dealt with a multitude of adversarial issues since I was born and since I stepped in this sometimes sad industry. Do you actually think an average American would even have time to focus on a court cases upon court cases while trying to find a lawyer for representation....do you know how expensive [in dollars] cases would cost to pursue?
I belive most people throughout the world DO face much adversity that could qualify as a "claim". Most of us anywhere deal with it while having to move on. But not all should be tolerated including this type of behavior from a 65 year trashy, ignorant man who acts all dignified among guests/owners...this is a man who likes to don you guys/gals from Europe as EuroTrash...which is such a trashy word..I even hate the word White Trash. America may have some more people who are willing to file claims whether they are being fair in doing so or not... that's America and that's one more thing I love about this country...we got more options baby even with losers like him. For now anyway...
Well, it certainly looks like you have been given a broad spectrum of advice here! As a fellow yacht stew with experience of all types of crew - mentality is different with each nationality and also class and upbringing come into play, the best thing you can do to protect youself is never take anything personally because that comment could easily be directed at any stew and he was probably just trying to amuse the crew in his very own charming neanderthal way.
You can never tell if a captain/crew is going to be professional until you board the boat and even then, to be a professional 100% of the time when you are living with a crew 24/7 for months at a time is not an easy thing. That is why the yachting industry is different - because work is home too. Perhaps his comment derided you because he was hurt that you rejected his advances, perhaps he just doesn't know any better. Either way, pity him for it and move on - why let someone like that even get to you? Sexism is always an issue as there are two different species on this planet and you know the girls also have to take some of the blame - how many fresh faced and bouncy young stews have you seen make a play to bag a Captain - perhaps even this Captain?
You are always going to be faced with difficult people wearing many different hats in this life - you can't change them so change yourself, your reactions, your feelings, don't let things get to you, choose not to play the 'hurt' game, stay firmly centred in your strength and tell him, 'Thanks for that, you're a real gentleman, Captain!' Roll your eyes and move on...
When you learn how to deal with these asses, you will find you don't encounter them, they will have ceased to exist because your attitude will not invite that kind of attention. He wanted to insult you, he wanted to get to you, and you gave up your power and let him. Now be strong and move on and forget about taking action as the little people like us generally get screwed. Good Luck!
Do as I say & not as I do
Captains need to practice what they preach, lead by example and not bend the rules when they are having a tough time coping with pressure.
Going out on drinking binge failing to work on the following day is no way to gain respect from your crew.


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Questions are swirling around the death of a 21-year-old Arkansas man who died in police custody in July. An autopsy report lists Chavis Carter's death as a suicide. But his family is asking how he could have shot himself in the head while handcuffed in a police car. Guest host Viviana Hurtado speaks with Associated Press reporter Jeannie Nuss.
Cop Car Death Ruled Suicide, But Doubts Remain
By editor • Aug 23, 2012


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The annual Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, set in an unusual subtropical setting, is establishing itself as a major tournament. The 2013 affair had more than 400 entries in six sections. Vassily Ivanchuk, Gata Kamsky and Michael Adams were the top seeds. Here is a fairly short but choice win by a Chinese grandmaster Yangyi Yu, 18, as White, against former American women's champion Anna Zatonskih, who finds that castling by hand is dangerous.
Tradewise Gibraltar Masters
Yangyi Yu (2688) vs. Anna Zatonskih (2491)
Jan. 24, 2013
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Qb6 5. Nf3 Bd7 The Wade defense to the Advance French. Wade was Bob Wade, an English/New Zealand player for many years. Black's idea is to exchange off his perennial bad bishop with Bb5. 6. Bd3 cxd4 If now, 6. ... Bb5 then 7. dxc Bxc5 8. b4! gives White a plus in most of the lines. And if 8... Bxf2+ then 9. Ke2 will trap the bishop. 7. Nxd4 To stop Bb5. 7. … Nc6 8. Nxc6 bxc6 If 8. .. Bxc6 then either 9. a4 or 9. Qe2 (both preventing Bb5) gives White a good edge. 9. O-O c5 10. c4 This whole line since 8... bxc6 is rare. I can find only one other game with this move. 10. … dxc4 A new move? The only other game with this line goes 10. ...d4. Not sure that this "destruction" of Black's pawn structure is right. 11. Be4! Saving c4 for the knight. Now, if 11. ...Bc6 12. Nd2, with both the idea of 13. Nxc4 and if 12. ... BxB 13. NxB aiming at d6, making it very hard for Black to develop and White should have no trouble getting back the c-pawn. 11. … Rd8 12. Nd2 Qa6 13. b3 Despite what the computer thinks, I, the human, thinks that 13. Qc2 is better. 13. … Bb5 14. a4 And so begins an energetic exchange sacrifice (a rook for either bishop or knight.) This is speculative but given practical considerations, a good choice 14... c3 15. axb5 (see diagram)15. … Qxa1 16. Bc6+ Ke7 17.Qc2 Now, if 17. … cxN, then 18. Qxc5+ leads to mate. Black also has to be careful not to lose his queen as there are ideas about of Nc4 and Bg5+ winning his queen. 17. … Qa5 18. Nc4 Qc7 19. Qxc3 The dust has settled and White has considerable compensation for the exchange: a great knight, great bishops, pressure on the Black's weak pawns, Black's exposed king. And in addition to Black's lack of development, she has real problems in getting the rest of her pieces out. Sad to say, that my chess playing program still sees Black as doing OK. Now, if 19... Nh6 then 20. Bg5! + wins. 19. … f6 20. Bf4 Kf7 21. g3 f5 22. Ra1 Kg6 23. Nd6 After this move, the computer finally comes to its senses and gives White a big advantage. Black's c-pawn is going away and then probably also his a-pawn, which would leave White's b-pawn as a very dangerous passed pawn. 23. … Rxd6?? A terrible oversight in a very difficult position. Necessary to keep playing is either 23. … BxN or 23. … a5 but in each case White is much better. This is further proof that you should always check the checks! 24. Be8+!1-0 Winning Black's queen. So, Black gave up. A very energetic game by another very talented and young Chinese GM.