text:
Americans were fed the story of Timothy McVeigh's trial and execution as a simple, unquestionable narrative: he was guilty, he was evil, and he acted largely alone. Gore Vidal's 1998 Vanity Fair essay on the erosion of the U.S. Bill of Rights caused McVeigh to begin a three-year correspondence with Vidal, prompting an examination of certain evidence that points to darker truths—a conspiracy willfully ignored by F.B.I. investigators, and a possible cover-up by a government waging a secret war on the liberty of its citizens.
How about that indeed, I thought, as I made my way toward a corner of those fabled gardens, where ABC-TV's Good Morning America and CBS's Early Show had set up their cameras so that I could appear "live" to viewers back home in God's country.
This was last May. In a week's time "the Oklahoma City Bomber," a decorated hero of the Gulf War, one of Nature's Eagle Scouts, Timothy McVeigh, was due to be executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, for being, as he himself insisted, the sole maker and detonator of a bomb that blew up a federal building in which died 168 men, women, and children. This was the greatest massacre of Americans by an American since two years earlier, when the federal government decided to take out the compound of a Seventh-Day Adventist cult near Waco, Texas. The Branch Davidians, as the cultists called themselves, were a peaceful group of men, women, and children living and praying together in anticipation of the end of the world, which started to come their way on February 28, 1993. The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, exercising its mandate to "regulate" firearms, refused all invitations from cult leader David Koresh to inspect his licensed firearms. The A.T.F. instead opted for fun. More than 100 A.T.F. agents, without proper warrants, attacked the church's compound while, overhead, at least one A.T.F. helicopter fired at the roof of the main building. Six Branch Davidians were killed that day. Four A.T.F. agents were shot dead, by friendly fire, it was thought.
It wasn't until May 14, 1995, that Janet Reno, on 60 Minutes, confessed to second thoughts. "I saw what happened, and knowing what happened, I would not do it again." Plainly, a learning experience for the Florida daughter of a champion lady alligator rassler.
The April 19, 1993, show at Waco proved to be the largest massacre of Americans by their own government since 1890, when a number of Native Americans were slaughtered at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Thus the ante keeps upping.
Although McVeigh was soon to indicate that he had acted in retaliation for what had happened at Waco (he had even picked the second anniversary of the slaughter, April 19, for his act of retribution), our government's secret police, together with its allies in the Media, put, as it were, a heavy fist upon the scales. There was to be only one story: one man of incredible innate evil wanted to destroy innocent lives for no reason other than a spontaneous joy in evildoing. From the beginning, it was ordained that McVeigh was to have no coherent motive for what he had done other than a Shakespearean motiveless malignity. Iago is now back in town, with a bomb, not a handkerchief. More to the point, he and the prosecution agreed that he had no serious accomplices.
I sat on an uncomfortable chair, facing a camera. Generators hummed amid the delphiniums. Good Morning America was first. I had been told that Diane Sawyer would be questioning me from New York, but ABC has a McVeigh "expert," one Charles Gibson, and he would do the honors. Our interview would be something like four minutes. Yes, I was to be interviewed In Depth. This means that only every other question starts with "Now, tell us, briefly … " Dutifully, I told, briefly, how it was that McVeigh, whom I had never met, happened to invite me to be one of the five chosen witnesses to his execution.
Briefly, it all began in the November 1998 issue of Vanity Fair. I had written a piece about "the shredding of our Bill of Rights." I cited examples of I.R.S. seizures of property without due process of law, warrantless raids and murders committed against innocent people by various drug-enforcement groups, government collusion with agribusiness's successful attempts to drive small farmers out of business, and so on. (For those who would like further evidence of a government running amok, turn to page 397 of my The Last Empire.) Then, as a coda, I discussed the illegal but unpunished murders at Ruby Ridge, Idaho (a mother and child and dog had been killed in cold blood by the F.B.I.); then, the next year, Waco. The Media expressed little outrage in either case. Apparently, the trigger words had not been spoken. Trigger words? Remember The Manchurian Candidate? George Axelrod's splendid 1962 film, where the brainwashed (by North Koreans) protagonist can only be set in murderous motion when the gracious garden-club lady, played by Angela Lansbury, says, "Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?"
Since we had been told for weeks that the Branch Davidian leader, David Koresh, was not only a drug dealer but the sexual abuser of the 27 children in his compound, the maternal Ms. Reno in essence decreed: Better that they all be dead than defiled. Hence, the attack. Later, 11 members of the Branch Davidian Church were put on trial for the "conspiracy to commit murder" of the federal agents who had attacked them. The jury found all 11 innocent on that charge. But after stating that the defendants were guilty of attempted murder—the very charge of which they had just been acquitted—the judge sentenced eight innocent church members up to 40 years on lesser charges. One disgusted juror said, "The wrong people were on trial." Show Time!
Personally, I was sufficiently outraged to describe in detail what had actually happened. Meanwhile, the card players of 1998 were busy shuffling and dealing. Since McVeigh had been revealed as evil itself, no one was interested in why he had done what he had done. But then "why" is a question the Media are trained to shy away from. Too dangerous. One might actually learn why something had happened and become thoughtful. I wrote in these pages:
For Timothy McVeigh, [Waco and Ruby Ridge] became the symbol of [federal] oppression and murder. Since he was now suffering from an exaggerated sense of justice, not a common American trait, he went to war pretty much on his own and ended up slaughtering more innocents than the Feds had at Waco. Did he know what he was doing when he blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City because it contained the hated [Feds]? McVeigh remained silent throughout his trial. Finally, as he was about to be sentenced, the court asked him if he would like to speak. He did. He rose and said, "I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote, 'Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.'" Then McVeigh was sentenced to death by the government.
Those present were deeply confused by McVeigh's quotation. How could the Devil quote so saintly a justice? I suspect that he did it in the same spirit that Iago answered Othello when asked why he had done what he had done: "Demand me nothing, what you know you know, from this time forth I never will speak word." Now we know, too: or as my grandfather used to say back in Oklahoma, "Every pancake has two sides."
When McVeigh, on appeal in a Colorado prison, read what I had written he wrote me a letter and …
Why? Like so many of his interchangeable TV colleagues, he is in place to tell the viewers that former senator John Danforth had just concluded a 14-month investigation of the F.B.I. that cleared the bureau of any wrongdoing at Waco. Danforth did admit that "it was like pulling teeth to get all this paper from the F.B.I."
In March 1993, McVeigh drove from Arizona to Waco, Texas, in order to observe firsthand the federal siege. Along with other protesters, he was duly photographed by the F.B.I. During the siege the cultists were entertained with 24-hour ear-shattering tapes (Nancy Sinatra: "These boots are made for walkin' / And that's just what they'll do, / One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you") as well as the recorded shrieks of dying rabbits, reminiscent of the first George Bush's undeclared war on Panama, which after several similar concerts outside the Vatican Embassy yielded up the master drug criminal (and former C.I.A. agent) Noriega, who had taken refuge there. Like the TV networks, once our government has a hit it will be repeated over and over again. Oswald? Conspiracy? Studio laughter.
TV-watchers have no doubt noted so often that they are no longer aware of how often the interchangeable TV hosts handle anyone who tries to explain why something happened. "Are you suggesting that there was a conspiracy?" A twinkle starts in a pair of bright contact lenses. No matter what the answer, there is a wriggling of the body, followed by a tiny snort and a significant glance into the camera to show that the guest has just been delivered to the studio by flying saucer. This is one way for the public never to understand what actual conspirators—whether in the F.B.I. or on the Supreme Court or toiling for Big Tobacco—are up to. It is also a sure way of keeping information from the public. The function, alas, of Corporate Media.
In fact, at one point, former senator Danforth threatened the recalcitrant F.B.I. director Louis Freeh with a search warrant. It is a pity that he did not get one. He might, in the process, have discovered a bit more about Freeh's membership in Opus Dei (meaning "God's work"), a secretive international Roman Catholic order dedicated to getting its membership into high political, corporate, and religious offices (and perhaps even Heaven too) in various lands to various ends. Lately, reluctant Medialight was cast on the order when it was discovered that Robert Hanssen, an F.B.I. agent, had been a Russian spy for 22 years but also that he and his director, Louis Freeh, in the words of their fellow traveler William Rusher (The Washington Times, March 15, 2001), "not only [were] both members of the same Roman Catholic Church in suburban Virginia but … also belonged to the local chapter of Opus Dei." Mr. Rusher, once of the devil-may-care National Review, found this "piquant." Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by Jose-Maria Escrivá. Its lay godfather, in early years, was the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. One of its latest paladins was the corrupt Peruvian president Alberto Fujimoro, still in absentia. Although Opus Dei tends to Fascism, the current Pope has beatified Escrivá, disregarding the caveat of the Spanish theologian Juan Martin Velasco: "We cannot portray as a model of Christian living someone who has served the power of the state [the Fascist Franco] and who used that power to launch his Opus, which he ran with obscure criteria—like a Mafia shrouded in white—not accepting papal magisterium when it failed to coincide with his way of thinking."
Once, when the mysterious Mr. Freeh was asked whether or not he was a member of Opus Dei, he declined to respond, obliging an F.B.I. special agent to reply in his stead. Special Agent John E. Collingwood said, "While I cannot answer your specific questions, I note that you have been 'informed' incorrectly."
It is most disturbing that in the secular United States, a nation whose Constitution is based upon the perpetual separation of church and state, an absolutist religious order not only has placed one of its members at the head of our secret (and largely unaccountable) police but also can now count on the good offices of at least two members of the Supreme Court.
From Newsweek, March 9, 2001:
[Justice Antonin] Scalia is regarded as the embodiment of the Catholic conservatives.… While he is not a member of Opus Dei, his wife Maureen has attended Opus Dei's spiritual functions … [while their son], Father Paul Scalia, helped convert Clarence Thomas to Catholicism four years ago. Last month, Thomas gave a fiery speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, to an audience full of Bush Administration officials. In the speech Thomas praised Pope John Paul II for taking unpopular stands.
And to think that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams opposed the presence of the relatively benign Jesuit order in our land of laws if not of God. President Bush has said that Scalia and Thomas are the models for the sort of justices that he would like to appoint in his term of office. Lately, in atonement for his wooing during the election of the fundamentalist Protestants at Bob Jones University, Bush has been "reaching out" to the Roman Catholic far right. He is already solid with fundamentalist Protestants. In fact, his attorney general, J. D. Ashcroft, is a Pentecostal Christian who starts each day at eight with a prayer meeting attended by Justice Department employees eager to be drenched in the blood of the lamb. In 1999, Ashcroft told Bob Jones University graduates that America was founded on religious principles (news to Jefferson et al.) and "we have no king but Jesus."
I have already noted a number of conspiracies that are beginning to register as McVeigh's highly manipulated story moves toward that ghastly word "closure," which, in this case, will simply mark a new beginning. The Opus Dei conspiracy is—was?—central to the Justice Department. Then the F.B.I. conspired to withhold documents from the McVeigh defense as well as from the department's alleged master: We the People in Congress Assembled as embodied by former senator Danforth. Finally, the ongoing spontaneous Media conspiracy to demonize McVeigh, who acted alone, despite contrary evidence.
Freeh himself seems addicted to dull sharp practices. In 1996 he was the relentless Javert who came down so hard on an Atlanta security guard, Richard Jewell, over the Olympic Games bombing. Jewell was innocent. Even as he sent out for a new hair shirt (Opus Dei members mortify the flesh) and gave the order to build a new guillotine, the F.B.I. lab was found to have routinely bungled investigations (read Tainting Evidence, by J. F. Kelly and P. K. Wearne). Later, Freeh led the battle to prove Wen Ho Lee a Communist spy. Freeh's deranged charges against the blameless Los Alamos scientist were thrown out of court by an enraged federal judge who felt that the F.B.I. had "embarrassed the whole nation." Well, it's always risky, God's work.
Even so, the more one learns about the F.B.I., the more one realizes that it is a very dangerous place indeed. Kelly and Wearne, in their investigation of its lab work, literally a life-and-death matter for those under investigation, quote two English forensic experts on the subject of the Oklahoma City bombing. Professor Brian Caddy, after a study of the lab's findings: "If these reports are the ones to be presented to the courts as evidence then I am appalled by their structure and information content. The structure of the reports seems designed to confuse the reader rather than help him." Dr. John Lloyd noted, "The reports are purely conclusory in nature. It is impossible to determine from them the chain of custody, on precisely what work has been done on each item." Plainly, the time has come to replace this vast inept and largely unaccountable secret police with a more modest and more efficient bureau to be called "the United States Bureau of Investigation."
I asked about his last hours. He had been searching for a movie on television and all he could find was Fargo, for which he was in no mood. Certainly he died in character; that is, in control. The first shot, of sodium pentothal, knocks you out. But he kept his eyes open. The second shot, of pancuronium bromide, collapsed his lungs. Always the survivalist, he seemed to ration his remaining breaths. When, after four minutes, he was officially dead, his eyes were still open, staring into the ceiling camera that was recording him "live" for his Oklahoma City audience.
McVeigh made no final statement, but he had copied out, it appeared from memory, "Invictus," a poem by W. E. Henley (1849–1903). Among Henley's numerous writings was a popular anthology called Lyra Heroica (1892), about those who had done selfless heroic deeds. I doubt if McVeigh ever came across it, but he would, no doubt, have identified with a group of young writers, among them Kipling, who were known as "Henley's young men," forever standing on burning decks, each a master of his fate, captain of his soul.
Characteristically, no talking head mentioned Henley's name, because no one knew who he was. Many thought this famous poem was McVeigh's work. One irritable woman described Henley as "a 19th-century cripple." I fiercely E-mailed her network: the one-legged Henley was "extremities challenged."
The stoic serenity of McVeigh's last days certainly qualified him as a Henley-style hero. He did not complain about his fate; took responsibility for what he was thought to have done; did not beg for mercy as our always sadistic Media require. Meanwhile, conflicting details about him accumulate—a bewildering mosaic, in fact—and he seems more and more to have stumbled into the wrong American era. Plainly, he needed a self-consuming cause to define him. The abolition of slavery or the preservation of the Union would have been more worthy of his life than anger at the excesses of our corrupt secret police. But he was stuck where he was and so he declared war on a government that he felt had declared war on its own people.
One poetic moment in what was largely an orchestrated hymn of hatred. Outside the prison, a group of anti-death-penalty people prayed together in the dawn's early light. Suddenly, a bird appeared and settled on the left forearm of a woman, who continued her prayers. When, at last, she rose to her feet the bird remained on her arm—consolation? Ora pro nobis.
CNN gave us bits and pieces of McVeigh's last morning. Asked why he had not at least said that he was sorry for the murder of innocents, he said that he could say it but he would not have meant it. He was a soldier in a war, not of his making. This was Henleyesque. One biographer described him as honest to a fault. McVeigh had also noted that Harry Truman had never said that he was sorry about dropping two atomic bombs on an already defeated Japan, killing around 200,000 people, mostly collateral women and children. Media howled that that was wartime. But McVeigh considered himself, rightly or wrongly, at war, too. Incidentally, the inexorable beatification of Harry Truman is now an important aspect of our evolving imperial system. It is widely believed that the bombs were dropped to save American lives. This is not true. The bombs were dropped to frighten our new enemy, Stalin. To a man, our leading World War II commanders, including Eisenhower, C. W. Nimitz, and even Curtis LeMay (played so well by George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove), were opposed to Truman's use of the bombs against a defeated enemy trying to surrender. A friend from live television, the late Robert Alan Aurthur, made a documentary about Truman. I asked him what he thought of him. "He just gives you all these canned answers. The only time I got a rise out of him was when I suggested that he tell us about his decision to drop the atomic bombs in the actual ruins of Hiroshima. Truman looked at me for the first time. 'O.K.,' he said, 'but I won't kiss their asses.'" Plainly another Henley hero, with far more collateral damage to his credit than McVeigh. Was it Chaplin's M. Verdoux who said that when it comes to calibrating liability for murder it is all, finally, a matter of scale?
After my adventures in the Ravello gardens (CBS's Bryant Gumbel was his usual low-key, courteous self and did not pull the cord), I headed for Terre Haute by way of Manhattan. I did several programs where I was cut off at the word "Waco." Only CNN's Greta Van Susteren got the point. "Two wrongs," she said, sensibly, "don't make a right." I quite agreed with her. But then, since I am against the death penalty, I noted that three wrongs are hardly an improvement.
Then came the stay of execution. I went back to Ravello. The Media were now gazing at me. Time and again I would hear or read that I had written McVeigh first, congratulating him, presumably, on his killings. I kept explaining, patiently, how, after he had read me in Vanity Fair, it was he who wrote me, starting an off-and-on three-year correspondence. As it turned out, I could not go so I was not able to see with my own eyes the bird of dawning alight upon the woman's arm.
The second letter from his Colorado prison is dated "28 Feb 99." "Mr. Vidal, thank you for your letter. I received your book United States last week and have since finished most of Part 2—your political musings." I should say that spelling and grammar are perfect throughout, while the handwriting is oddly even and slants to the left, as if one were looking at it in a mirror. "I think you'd be surprised at how much of that material I agree with.…
As to your letter, I fully recognize that "the general rebellion against what our gov't has become is the most interesting (and I think important) story in our history this century." This is why I have been mostly disappointed at previous stories attributing the OKC bombing to a simple act of "revenge" for Waco—and why I was most pleased to read your Nov. article in Vanity Fair. In the 4 years since the bombing, your work is the first to really explore the underlying motivations for such a strike against the U.S. Government—and for that, I thank you. I believe that such in-depth reflections are vital if one truly wishes to understand the events of April 1995.
Although I have many observations that I'd like to throw at you, I must keep this letter to a practical length—so I will mention just one: if federal agents are like "so many Jacobins at war" with the citizens of this country, and if federal agencies "daily wage war" against those citizens, then should not the OKC bombing be considered a "counter-attack" rather than a self-declared war? Would it not be more akin to Hiroshima than Pearl Harbor? (I'm sure the Japanese were just as shocked and surprised at Hiroshima—in fact, was that anticipated effect not part and parcel of the overall strategy of that bombing?)
Back to your letter, I had never considered your age as an impediment [here he riots in tact!] until I received that letter—and noted that it was typed on amanual typewriter? Not to worry, recent medical studies tell us that Italy's taste for canola oil, olive oil and wine helps extend the average lifespan and helps prevent heart disease in Italians—so you picked the right place to retire to.
Again, thank you for dropping me a line—and as far as any concern over what or how to write someone "in my situation," I think you'd find that many of us are still just "regular Joes"—regardless of public perception—so there need be no special consideration(s) given to whatever you wish to write. Until next time, then …
Under this line he has put in quotes "'Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.' —H. L. Mencken. Take good care."
He signed off with scribbled initials. Needless to say, this letter did not conform to any notion that I had had of him from reading the rabid U.S. press led, as always, by The New York Times, whose clumsy attempts at Freudian analysis (e.g., he was a broken blossom because his mother left his father in his 16th year—actually he seemed relieved). Later, there was a year or so when I did not hear from him. Two reporters from a Buffalo newspaper (he was born and raised near Buffalo) were at work interviewing him for their book, American Terrorist. I do think I wrote him that Mencken often resorted to Swiftian hyperbole and was not to be taken too literally. Could the same be said of McVeigh? There is always the interesting possibility—prepare for the grandest conspiracy of all—that he neither made nor set off the bomb outside the Murrah building: it was only later, when facing either death or life imprisonment, that he saw to it that he would be given sole credit for hoisting the black flag and slitting throats, to the rising fury of various "militias" across the land who are currently outraged that he is getting sole credit for a revolutionary act organized, some say, by many others. At the end, if this scenario is correct, he and the detested Feds were of a single mind.
Moderator: You say that Timothy McVeigh "was not deranged" and that he has "no major mental illness". So why, in your view, would he commit such a terrible crime?
Dr. John Smith: Well, I don't think he committed it because he was deranged or misinterpreting reality.… He was overly sensitive, to the point of being a little paranoid, about the actions of the government. But he committed the act mostly out of revenge because of the Waco assault, but he also wanted to make a political statement about the role of the federal government and protest the use of force against the citizens. So to answer your original question, it was a conscious choice on his part, not because he was deranged, but because he was serious.
Grandiose but, I think, in character for those rebels who like to call themselves Patriots and see themselves as similar to the American colonists who separated from England. They are said to number from two to four million, of whom some 400,000 are activists in the militias. Although McVeigh never formally joined any group, for three years he drove all around the country, networking with like-minded gun-lovers and federal-government-haters; he also learned, according to American Terrorist, "that the government was planning a massive raid on gun owners and members of the Patriot community in the spring of 1995." This was all the trigger that McVeigh needed for what he would do—shuffle the deck, as it were.
The Turner Diaries is a racist daydream by a former physics teacher writing under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. Although McVeigh has no hang-ups about blacks, Jews, and all the other enemies of the various "Aryan" white nations to be found in the Patriots' ranks, he shares the Diaries' obsession with guns and explosives and a final all-out war against the "System." Much has been made, rightly, of a description in the book of how to build a bomb like the one he used at Oklahoma City. When asked if McVeigh acknowledged copying this section from the novel, Dr. Smith said, "Well, sort of. Tim wanted it made clear that, unlike The Turner Diaries, he was not a racist. He made that very clear. He did not hate homosexuals. He made that very clear." As for the book as an influence, "he's not going to share credit with anyone." Asked to sum up, the good doctor said, simply, "I have always said to myself that if there had not been a Waco, there would not have been an Oklahoma City."
McVeigh also sent me a 1998 piece he had written for Media Bypass. He calls it "Essay on Hypocrisy."
The administration has said that Iraq has no right to stockpile chemical or biological weapons … mainly because they have used them in the past. Well, if that's the standard by which these matters are decided, then the U.S. is the nation that set the precedent. The U.S. has stockpiled these same weapons (and more) for over 40 years. The U.S. claims that this was done for the deterrent purposes during its "Cold War" with the Soviet Union. Why, then, is it invalid for Iraq to claim the same reason (deterrence)—with respect to Iraq's (real) war with, and the continued threat of, its neighbor Iran?…
Yet when discussion shifts to Iraq, any day-care center in a government building instantly becomes "a shield." Think about it. (Actually, there is a difference here. The administration has admitted to knowledge of the presence of children in or near Iraqi government buildings, yet they still proceed with their plans to bomb—saying that they cannot be held responsible if children die. There is no such proof, however, that knowledge of the presence of children existed in relation to the Oklahoma City bombing.)
Thus, he denies any foreknowledge of the presence of children in the Murrah building, unlike the F.B.I., which knew that there were children in the Davidian compound, and managed to kill 27 of them.
McVeigh quotes again from Justice Brandeis: "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example." He stops there. But Brandeis goes on to write in his dissent, "Crime is contagious. If the government becomes the law breaker, it breeds contempt for laws; it invites every man to become a law unto himself." Thus the straight-arrow model soldier unleashed his terrible swift sword and the innocent died. But then a lawless government, Brandeis writes, "invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means—to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal—would bring terrible retribution."
One wonders if the Opus Dei plurality of the present Supreme Court's five-to-four majority has ever pondered these words so different from, let us say, one of its essential thinkers, Machiavelli, who insisted that, above all, the Prince must be feared.
Finally, McVeigh sent me three pages of longhand notes dated April 4, 2001, a few weeks before he was first scheduled to die. It is addressed to "C.J."(?), whose initials he has struck out.
I explain herein why I bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. I explain this not for publicity, nor seeking to win an argument of right or wrong, I explain so that the record is clear as to my thinking and motivations in bombing a government installation.
I chose to bomb a Federal Building because such an action served more purposes than other options. Foremost, the bombing was a retaliatory strike: a counter-attack, for the cumulative raids (and subsequent violence and damage) that federal agents had participated in over the preceding years (including, but not limited to, Waco). From the formation of such units as the FBI's "Hostage Rescue" and other assault teams amongst federal agencies during the 80s, culminating in the Waco incident, federal actions grew increasingly militaristic and violent, to the point where at Waco, our government—like the Chinese—was deploying tanks against its own citizens.
… For all intents and purposes, federal agents had become "soldiers" (using military training, tactics, techniques, equipment, language, dress, organization and mindset) and they were escalating their behavior. Therefore, this bombing was also meant as a pre-emptive (or pro-active) strike against those forces and their command and control centers within the federal building. When an aggressor force continually launches attacks from a particular base of operations, it is sound military strategy to take the fight to the enemy. Additionally, borrowing a page from U.S. foreign policy, I decided to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile, by bombing a government building and the government employees within that building who represent that government. Bombing the Murrah Federal Building was morally and strategically equivalent to the U.S. hitting a government building in Serbia, Iraq, or other nations. Based on observations of the policies of my own government, I viewed this action as an acceptable option. From this perspective what occurred in Oklahoma City was no different than what Americans rain on the heads of others all the time, and, subsequently, my mindset was and is one of clinical detachment. (The bombing of the Murrah Building was not personal no more than when Air Force, Army, Navy or Marine personnel bomb or launch cruise missiles against (foreign) government installations and their personnel.)
I hope this clarification amply addresses your question.
Sincerely, T.M., USP Terre Haute (In.)
There were many outraged press notes and letters when I said that McVeigh suffered from "an exaggerated sense of justice." I did not really need the adjective except that I knew that few Americans seriously believe that anyone is capable of doing anything except out of personal self-interest, while anyone who deliberately risks—and gives—his life to alert his fellow citizens to an onerous government is truly crazy. But the good Dr. Smith put that one in perspective: McVeigh is not deranged. He is serious.
Another lead not followed up: McVeigh's sister read a letter he wrote her to the grand jury stating that he had become a member of a "Special Forces Group involved in criminal activity."
As for "the purposes of state police power," after the bombing, Clinton signed into law orders allowing the police to commit all sorts of crimes against the Constitution in the interest of combating terrorism. On April 20, 1996 (Hitler's birthday of golden memory, at least for the producers of The Producers), President Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism Act ("for the protection of the people and the state"—the emphasis, of course, is on the second noun), while, a month earlier, the mysterious Louis Freeh had informed Congress of his plans for expanded wiretapping by his secret police. Clinton described his Anti-Terrorism Act in familiar language (March 1, 1993, USA Today): "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans." A year later (April 19, 1994, on MTV): "A lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it." On that plangent note he graduated cum laude from the Newt Gingrich Academy.
In essence, Clinton's Anti-Terrorism Act would set up a national police force, over the long-dead bodies of the founders. Details are supplied by H.R. 97, a chimera born of Clinton, Reno, and the mysterious Mr. Freeh. A 2,500-man Rapid Deployment Strike Force would be organized, under the attorney general, with dictatorial powers. The chief of police of Windsor, Missouri, Joe Hendricks, spoke out against this supra-Constitutional police force. Under this legislation, Hendricks said, "an agent of the F.B.I. could walk into my office and commandeer this police department. If you don't believe that, read the crime bill that Clinton signed into law in 1995. There is talk of the Feds taking over the Washington, D.C., police department. To me this sets a dangerous precedent." But after a half-century of the Russians are coming, followed by terrorists from proliferating rogue states as well as the ongoing horrors of drug-related crime, there is little respite for a people so routinely—so fiercely—disinformed. Yet there is a native suspicion that seems to be a part of the individual American psyche—as demonstrated in polls, anyway. According to a Scripps Howard News Service poll, 40 percent of Americans think it quite likely that the F.B.I. set the fires at Waco. Fifty-one percent believe federal officials killed Jack Kennedy (Oh, Oliver what hast thou wrought!). Eighty percent believe that the military is withholding evidence that Iraq used nerve gas or something as deadly in the Gulf. Unfortunately, the other side of this coin is troubling. After Oklahoma City, 58 percent of Americans, according to the L.A. Times, were willing to surrender some of their liberties to stop terrorism—including, one wonders, the sacred right to be misinformed by government?
Shortly after McVeigh's conviction, Director Freeh soothed the Senate Judiciary Committee: "Most of the militia organizations around the country are not, in our view, threatening or dangerous." But earlier, before the Senate Appropriations Committee, he had "confessed" that his bureau was troubled by "various individuals, as well as organizations, some having an ideology which suspects government of world-order conspiracies—individuals who have organized themselves against the United States." In sum, this bureaucrat who does God's Work regards as a threat those "individuals who espouse ideologies inconsistent with principles of Federal Government." Oddly, for a former judge, Freeh seems not to recognize how chilling this last phrase is.
The C.I.A.'s former director William Colby is also made nervous by the disaffected. In a chat with Nebraska state senator John DeCamp (shortly before the Oklahoma City bombing), he mused, "I watched as the Anti-War movement rendered it impossible for this country to conduct or win the Viet Nam War.… This Militia and Patriot movement … is far more significant and far more dangerous for Americans than the Anti-War movement ever was, if it is not intelligently dealt with.… It is not because these people are armed that America need be concerned." Colby continues, "They are dangerous because there are so many of them. It is one thing to have a few nuts or dissidents. They can be dealt with, justly or otherwise [my emphasis] so that they do not pose a danger to the system. It is quite another situation when you have a true movement—millions of citizens believing something, particularly when the movement is made up of society's average, successful citizens." Presumably one "otherwise" way of handling such a movement is—when it elects a president by a half-million votes—to call in a like-minded Supreme Court majority to stop a state's recounts, create arbitrary deadlines, and invent delays until our ancient electoral system, by default, must give the presidency to the "system's" candidate as opposed to the one the people voted for.
Evidence, however, is overwhelming that there was a plot involving militia types and government infiltrators—who knows?—as prime movers to create panic in order to get Clinton to sign that infamous Anti-Terrorism Act. But if, as it now appears, there were many interested parties involved, a sort of unified-field theory is never apt to be found, but should there be one, Joel Dyer may be its Einstein. (Einstein, of course, never got his field quite together, either.) In 1998, I discussed Dyer's Harvest of Rage in these pages. Dyer was editor of the Boulder Weekly. He writes on the crisis of rural America due to the decline of the family farm, which also coincided with the formation of various militias and religious cults, some dangerous, some merely sad. In Harvest of Rage, Dyer made the case that McVeigh and Terry Nichols could not have acted alone in the Oklahoma City bombing. Now he has, after long investigation, written an epilogue to the trials of the two co-conspirators. Herewith, some of his startling findings.
The prosecution did a good job of skirting some of its case's weaker points, such as the fact that some explosive experts questioned whether a single fertilizer bomb could account for the extensive damage done to the Murrah building, and that no fewer than 10 witnesses claimed to have seen a Ryder truck parked at Geary Lake in Kansas—the location where, the goverment argued, the bomb was assembled—prior to the time McVeigh actually rented the truck used in the bombing. The most damaging testimony against McVeigh came from a former army buddy and his wife, Michael and Lori Fortier. The Fortiers turned State's evidence, Michael testifying that McVeigh had planned to destroy the Murrah building because he believed that the orders to raid the Branch Davidian compound had originated there. Michael also told the jury that he had helped McVeigh case the Murrah building before the bombing. Despite the evidence to the contrary, the Fortiers claimed that they had not been involved in the bombing plot. Michael was sentenced to 12 years.
Stephen Jones continually pointed out that the Fortiers were liars and methamphetamine users, and so not reliable. But the jury was unmoved. The presentation of McVeigh's defense was scarcely a week long. Jones often left the jury more confused and bored than convinced of his client's innocence. Even when he succeeded in his attempts to demonstrate that a large conspiracy was behind the bombing, he did little to show that McVeigh was not at the center of the conspiracy. Jones's case led some reporters to speculate that McVeigh himself was limiting his own defense in order to prevent evidence that might implicate others in the bombing from entering the record.
Both Playboy and The Dallas Morning News published what they purported to be confessions by McVeigh to his defense team. In both articles, McVeigh admitted to the bombing. In many circles, the confessions have been viewed as proof that only McVeigh and Nichols were directly involved in the bombing. After all, that's what McVeigh was reported to have claimed. But there is reason for skepticism. I believe that by confessing McVeigh was, once again, playing the soldier, attempting to protect his co-conspirators.
Did the government blow it? Terry Nichols was tried in the fall of 1997. From the beginning, the government's case against Nichols was more difficult to prove than that against McVeigh. Biggest difference: Nichols was in Kansas at the time of the bombing. Also, Nichols had a good lawyer in Michael Tigar. The jury found Nichols innocent of murder but guilty of planning to bomb the Murrah building and guilty of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter. Next, the jury deadlocked during sentencing, which ruled out the death penalty. After two days of deliberation, the forewoman, Niki Deutchman, informed Judge Richard P. Matsch that the jury was hung. On June 4, 1998, Matsch stepped in and sentenced Terry Nichols to life, but the judge's decision was not without controversy. Deutchman told the press, "Decisions were probably made very early on that McVeigh and Nichols were who they were looking for, and the same sort of resources were not used to try to find out who else might be involved.… The government really dropped the ball." Some of the jurors thought that there may have been others involved who are still at large. Shortly after her news conference, Deutchman reportedly received bomb threats.
And then the government responded.
Attorney General Janet Reno blasted Deutchman's criticism. Reno assured the nation that the F.B.I. had followed every lead in its effort to find those responsible for the blast. She denied a larger conspiracy and said that McVeigh and Nichols were the sole perpetrators of the crime.
Unfortunately, Janet Reno is likely wrong. During my investigation, which included an examination of all the McVeigh discovery materials, I unearthed evidence that the F.B.I. did not follow up on solid leads, or, if they did, failed to turn those over to the defense. I uncovered information provided to the F.B.I. by Kansas law enforcement, and by very reliable eyewitnesses who were apparently disregarded. More important, I found evidence that the F.B.I. may have withheld certain information from the defense teams during discovery, potentially tainting the verdicts against both McVeigh and Nichols.
Subject No. 1. The first time Charles Farley was shown a picture of the man he repeatedly tried to get the F.B.I. to investigate was December 10, 1997. Farley was seated on the witness stand in a federal courtroom in Denver, and the man showing him the photo did not work for the government. He worked for Terry Nichols. "Mr. Farley, … do you recognize the individual depicted in this picture?" asked Adam Thurschwell, one of Nichols's defense attorneys. "Yes, sir," answered Farley. "That was the individual that was standing at the door of the truck, the individual that gave me a dirty look," he said.
Farley was testifying for the defense about his experience a few days before the bombing. Farley, an employee of the Fort Riley Outdoor Recreation Center, near Geary Lake, had already told the F.B.I. that on April 17 or 18, 1995, he had gone to the lake to scout out the fishing potential. After inspecting the lake, Farley drove down the road that led back to the highway, but his departure was slowed by a number of vehicles parked close to the exit—a pickup, a large stakebed truck, a brown car, and a Ryder truck—and standing near the vehicles were several men. The large truck was burdened with what he believed were bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. "It looked like it was completely weighted down," Farley told the jury. He thought the truck was stuck due to the weight of the fertilizer, and decided to offer assistance. He quickly changed his mind when one of the men—the same man, he believed, he was identifying more than two and a half years later in court—shot him a nasty glare. The man was standing practically next to Farley's car, and he had a number of distinguishing features, including a beard with no mustache. A few days later, after the bombing, Farley claims, he saw the man again. This time on TV, being interviewed about militia issues. By then it was known that the bomb had been detonated in the back of a Ryder truck that had allegedly been rented in Junction City, Kansas, close to Geary Lake. The bomb was said to have been made from ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Thinking that he may have had eyewitness information about the men who built the bomb, Farley called an F.B.I. tip line. Two weeks later an agent appeared at his workplace for an interview, but apparently that visit was as far as the government went in following this important lead, despite the fact that Farley's information seemed to confirm the government's suspicions regarding the location where the bomb was constructed. The F.B.I. apparently did not try to identify the individual Farley had seen up close. According to sources close to the defense, Nichols's attorneys, believing they had learned the identity of the man Farley had seen, asked the F.B.I. during the trial for all of its information on the individual. They were given a file containing nothing more than newspaper clippings. There was nothing in the file to indicate that the F.B.I. had ever attempted to contact the man or to place him in a lineup for Farley to identify. They hadn't even bothered to contact the Topeka television station to review the footage of Farley's suspect.
I found this lack of investigation curious. In mid-1997, I decided to attempt to identify the mystery man, based solely on Farley's description. Within 20 minutes of placing the first phone call to my militia contacts in Kansas, I was able to identify the man in the photo Farley had been shown in the courtroom. Subject No. 1 was hardly low-profile within the anti-government movement.
In addition to appearing on television, the man was quoted in a Kansas City newspaper article after the bombing, bragging that he was using Freemen tactics to pass off bogus liens and checks in Kansas. Several Kansas law-enforcement sources told me that, at the time these quotes were published, there was a massive federal investigation into Freemen-sponsored bank fraud in Kansas—an investigation that included Farley's man. I have confirmed the existence of this investigation through several sources. Since Subject No. 1 was under investigation, there should have been more in his file than newspaper clippings. Information, it appears, was withheld from the defense team. Why didn't the F.B.I. pursue Farley's lead? The best explanation is that it posed a serious problem to the government's cases against McVeigh and Nichols. You see, Farley saw five people, not two, with ammonium nitrate and a Ryder truck.
Subject No. 2. The day after the bombing, two police sketches were faxed to media organizations and law-enforcement offices across the country. They depicted two men who were believed to have detonated the bomb, John Doe No. 1 and John Doe No. 2. McVeigh, taken into custody 90 minutes after the bombing for driving without a license plate and carrying a concealed weapon, was quickly identified as John Doe No 1. John Doe No. 2 has never been identified by the F.B.I.
Shawnee County, Kansas, sheriff's deputy Jake Mauck says he nearly fell out of his chair when, shortly after the bombing, he compared the John Doe No. 2 sketch to the photo of a known anti-government activist in his area. Shawnee County is about 50 miles east of Junction City, where the Ryder truck was rented and where McVeigh stayed overnight at the Dreamland Motel with another man, who has never been identified. Mauck says he quickly alerted the F.B.I. about his suspicions concerning Subject No. 2. For reasons that will likely never be known, the F.B.I. apparently failed to respond to Mauck's information. Nor did it heed similar tips from Suzanne James, an employee of the Shawnee County D.A.'s office. The F.B.I. told her that agents had already investigated Mauck's John Doe look-alike. So had they? Apparently not. One person who did investigate the man Mauck and James suspected is Mike Tharp, a reporter for U.S. News & World Report. Mauck talked to Tharp after his frustration with the Feds became unbearable. Tharp obtained a photo of Subject No. 2 and started showing it to people known to have seen a man other than Terry Nichols with McVeigh in the days leading up to the bombing. When he showed the photo to Barbara Whittenberg, the owner of the Santa Fe Trail Diner in Herington, who claims she saw John Doe No. 2 with McVeigh, she said, "I'd almost swear that was the guy." Others to whom Tharp showed the photo believed it was the man they had seen with McVeigh. When Tharp inquired to the F.B.I. about the individual, he was given the line that is becoming all too familiar: "We'll follow any lead." There is no evidence the F.B.I. has even bothered to follow a lead regarding Subject No. 2.
Subject No. 3. Within days of the bombing, Russell Roe, an assistant county attorney for Geary County, Kansas, sat down with F.B.I. agents and told them about a man in his area known to be involved in anti-government activities. Roe said that the individual resembled John Doe No. 2, and also that this man was said to have been exploding fertilizer bombs on his eastern-Kansas farm prior to the Murrah-building explosion. Suzanne James, the woman in the Shawnee County D.A.'s office, told the Feds about the same individual. James says that the government was uninterested in her information. After placing approximately five phone calls to the F.B.I., she gave up. Pottawatomie County sheriff Tony Metcalf gave Subject No. 3's name to the F.B.I. Further, in the fall of 1997, I interviewed Cliff Hall, the owner of The Topeka Metro News. He told me that Subject No. 3 had taken out public notices in his publication. The ads were Freemen-style concoctions dealing with renouncement of citizenship and lien notices. Hall says a Secret Service agent came to his paper to obtain copies of the notices as part of their investigation into Subject No. 3.
Subject No. 3 was also named in a document pertaining to a federal bank-fraud investigation in Texas. The Texas case resulted in federal fraud charges' being filed against several anti-government Republic of Texas (R.O.T.) members, including the group's leader, Richard McLaren. As part of its evidence against R.O.T., the government entered videotapes of the group preparing the fraudulent bank warrants. The videos also revealed a surprise. They clearly showed that the person teaching the R.O.T. how to create the bogus documents was none other than Subject No. 3. What McLaren's defense team couldn't understand was why their client and virtually every other person on the tape was arrested and charged, whereas Subject No. 3 was never charged in this investigation. The defense team began to suspect a sting operation. According to court documents in the McLaren case, Tom Mills, McLaren's attorney, asked the government for all of its files pertaining to Subject No. 3. The prosecutors, in a move explained only to the judge, filed a motion to keep Subject No. 3's files from the McLaren defense team. The government would turn over the files only if they would be held "in camera." In other words, the F.B.I. would make them available to the judge but not to the defense.
Undaunted by the "in camera" setback, McLaren's defense team tried a new approach. If they couldn't see the files, they would subpoena the man. Mills hired an investigator, who quickly located Subject No. 3 in Oregon. Mills asked the court for money to fly the investigator to Oregon to serve the subpoena. The judge agreed, but then the government did something even more unusual than suppressing files. It arrested Subject No. 3 in the middle of the night, just five hours before the subpoena would have been served. Mills spent several hours interviewing Subject No. 3 in a Dallas jail. Afterward, Mills filed yet another motion, which stated that he was more convinced than ever that the man had cooperated with authorities on some level in the past, and therefore the attorney should be allowed to view the "in camera" files. His request was again denied. Subject No. 3 eventually took the stand while the jury was sequestered. The conventional wisdom said that if he was a government agent or informer he would have to take the Fifth. But he didn't. When asked by the judge if he was the man named in the subpoena, the subject gave a standard Freemen defense. He asked the judge to spell his name and confirm which letters were capitalized. The judge did so and the man said that the judge had spelled his name incorrectly. At that point, the government prosecutors, who had worked so hard to keep Subject No. 3 from testifying, told the judge that the man was in need of psychiatric evaluation. The judge agreed, and Subject No. 3 was never forced to explain his apparent immunity to prosecution. In April 1998, McLaren was found guilty on 27 federal counts. His defense team was never allowed access to Subject No. 3's files.
Despite the F.B.I.'s continuing denial, what we do know is that the government inexplicably failed to investigate solid leads pertaining to Subjects No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and, I suspect, still others in their organization.
Thus far, David Hoffman's The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror is the most thorough of a dozen or two accounts of what did and did not happen on that day in April. Hoffman begins his investigation with retired air-force brigadier general Benton K. Partin's May 17, 1995, letter delivered to each member of the Senate and House of Representatives: "When I first saw the pictures of the truck-bomb's asymmetrical damage to the Federal Building, my immediate reaction was that the pattern of damage would have been technically impossible without supplementing demolition charges at some of the reinforcing concrete column bases.… For a simplistic blast truck-bomb, of the size and composition reported, to be able to reach out in the order of 60 feet and collapse a reinforced column base the size of column A-7 is beyond credulity." In separate agreement was Samuel Cohen, father of the neutron bomb and formerly of the Manhattan Project, who wrote an Oklahoma state legislator, "It would have been absolutely impossible and against the laws of nature for a truck full of fertilizer and fuel oil … no matter how much was used … to bring the building down." One would think that McVeigh's defense lawyer, restlessly looking for a Middle East connection, could certainly have called these acknowledged experts to testify, but a search of Jones's account of the case, Others Unknown, reveals neither name.
In the March 20, 1996, issue of Strategic Investment newsletter, it was reported that Pentagon analysts tended to agree with General Partin. "A classified report prepared by two independent Pentagon experts has concluded that the destruction of the Federal building in Oklahoma City last April was caused by five separate bombs.… Sources close to the study say Timothy McVeigh did play a role in the bombing but 'peripherally,' as a 'useful idiot.'" Finally, inevitably—this is wartime, after all—"the multiple bombings have a Middle Eastern 'signature,' pointing to either Iraqi or Syrian involvement."
As it turned out, Partin's and Cohen's pro bono efforts to examine the ruins were in vain. Sixteen days after the bombing, the search for victims stopped. In another letter to Congress, Partin stated that the building should not be destroyed until an independent forensic team was brought in to investigate the damage. "It is also easy to cover up crucial evidence as was apparently done in Waco.… Why rush to destroy the evidence?" Trigger words: the Feds demolished the ruins six days later. They offered the same excuse that they had used at Waco, "health hazards." Partin: "It's a classic cover-up."
Partin suspected a Communist plot. Well, nobody's perfect.
"So what's the take-away?" was the question often asked by TV producers in the so-called golden age of live television plays. This meant: what is the audience supposed to think when the play is over? The McVeigh story presents us with several take-aways. If McVeigh is simply a "useful idiot," a tool of what might be a very large conspiracy, involving various homegrown militias working, some think, with Middle Eastern helpers, then the F.B.I.'s refusal to follow up so many promising leads goes quite beyond its ordinary incompetence and smacks of treason. If McVeigh was the unlikely sole mover and begetter of the bombing, then his "inhumane" (the Unabomber's adjective) destruction of so many lives will have served no purpose at all unless we take it seriously as what it is, a wake-up call to a federal government deeply hated, it would seem, by millions. (Remember that the popular Ronald Reagan always ran against the federal government, though often for the wrong reasons.) Final far-fetched take-away: McVeigh did not make nor deliver nor detonate the bomb but, once arrested on another charge, seized all "glory" for himself and so gave up his life. That's not a story for W. E. Henley so much as for one of his young men, Rudyard Kipling, author of The Man Who Would Be King.
Finally, the fact that the McVeigh-Nichols scenario makes no sense at all suggests that yet again, we are confronted with a "perfect" crime—thus far.
One of America's pre-eminent historians and novelists, Gore Vidal is the author of Lincoln: A Novel, among many other titles.


text: Artist: delftwareDescriptionPainted in blue on a bluish white ground with a bird perched on a tree beside a large peony in an Oriental garden in the well. Diaper band with reserves on the rim, reddish brown edge. Gallery InformationAccession Number: 1980.014.084Credit: From the collection of J.E. Horvath with Financial Assistance from B.C. Lotteries and the Ann & Joseph Pearson Purchase Fund.Paris Number: 21904 Historical InformationPeriod: 18th centuryCulture: British (English)Date: 1770 C Artwork DetailsObject Type: plateSubject: bird;tree;flower;Oriental;gardenMedium: Material: tin glaze; earthenwareSupport: Dimensions: Overall: 2.3 x 21.7 cm

subset: commoncrawl


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ECOOP 2015 (series) / Julian Arni
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Name: Julian Arni
Bio: Julian Arni studied philosophy at Harvard and the University of Pittsburgh before becoming obsessed with Haskell. He is currently a Haskell consultant for Zalora.
Country: Germany
Affiliation: Zalora
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Cardinal Newman Society. Apparently, a Missouri federal court dismissed in its entirety a suit against the HHS mandate brought by a Catholic businessman. Here is the reasoning, directly from the court order (emphasis mine).
Plaintiffs allege that the preventive services coverage regulations impose a similar ultimatum, and therefore substantially burden their free exercise of religion "by coercing Plaintiffs to choose between conducting their business in accordance with their religious beliefs or paying substantial penalties to the government." Am. Compl. ¶ 40 [Doc. #19]. However, the challenged regulations do not demand that plaintiffs alter their behavior in a manner that will directly and inevitably prevent plaintiffs from acting in accordance with their religious beliefs. Frank O'Brien is not prevented from keeping the Sabbath, from providing a religious upbringing for his children, or from participating in a religious ritual such as communion.So the First Amendment has been reduced from freedom of religion to, literally, freedom of worship. Hey, we'll still let you go to Church, so stop whining.


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Some people believe that having a healthy amount of self-esteem depends on how good they are at performing tasks, such as being competent at their job, for example.
However, self-worth should not depend how good you are at tasks.
Take my grandfather as an example. He was an intelligent man. But he couldn't pitch a tent. He was so uncoordinated.
But the fact that he wasn't good at certain tasks such as pitching a tent didn't make everyone else as well as myself love him any less. And it didn't make me dislike him more either.
Hence, I don't think anyone should feel low about themselves just because they may not be as good as others at certain tasks. There is more to a person than how competent he or she is at performing tasks.


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Charlie Hunnam stars as Percy Fawcett in "The Lost City of Z." (Aidan Monaghan/Amazon Studios & Bleecker Street)
Movies about real life are not real life. We all know that. And it's no different with "The Lost City of Z," which follows British explorer Percy Fawcett — or a version of him, anyway. …See the original posting at 'Lost City of Z' alters history for the sake of modern audiences. Are we okay with that?


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There's a very unique story behind the creation of the Fat Burning Furnace weight loss program. It has it's modest starts with Michigan native Rob Poulos. As a child he was a bit on the chubby side. He sported huskier and frumpier sized clothes than his schoolmates did, and he continued to be obese throughout teenage years.
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A 23-year-old Los Banos man has been arrested in connection with the death of an Army Reservist in a hit and run, police said.
On Wednesday Jesse Ryan Fuentes was arrested at his home on suspicion of felony hit and run and driving with a suspended license.Fuentes is accused of killing Fernando Buenrostro Jr., 18, in a hit and run near Cardinal Street and Fairmont Drive at 7:41 p.m. Saturday.
Cmdr. Ray Reyna Jr. said when authorities arrived on the scene they found Buenrostro lying on the ground with major head injuries. He hadbeen hit by a truck while driving a motorized scooter, police said.
Buenrostro was airlifted to Doctor's Medical Center in Modesto. He died the next morning.
Witnesses told authorities the truck that hit Buenrostro was a white Chevrolet or Ford. On Wednesday police spotted a white 2001 Ford F-150 driving in the area of Mercey Springs Road and Santa Cruz Way. The truck had damage to the front driver side hood and grill. Policestopped the driver, who identified his son as being in possession of the truck on the evening of the fatal collision.
Detectives arrested Fuentes at his residence in the 1400 block of Mission Drive. Fuentes is in custody at the Los Banos PoliceDepartment Jail.
The victim's family members were encouraged by news of the suspect's arrest. "I'm glad we don't have that uncertainty anymore, we're not trying to guess," said Lionel Buenrostro, the victim's uncle .
"If he wants to get a jury or whatever, it's going to be up to them. We're not pushing for anything harsh. Basically like my brother said on the TV, 'do the right thing, turn yourself in and let justice do the rest."
Fernando Buenrostro Sr., the victim's father, said earlier this week his son had only recently moved away from home. "He had barely been a week out on his own," Buenrostro's father said. "He said he wanted to move out and take that step to be grown."
Fernando Buenrostro Jr. graduated from Los Banos High School last year and entered the National Guard. His uncle is a veteran and Buenrostro wanted to follow in his footsteps, according to the elder Fernando.
He described his son as a quiet and shy person. Lupe Castillo, the Buenrostros' cousin, said the family is in a state of shock. He said he always felt close to his young relative.
"He was almost like everybody's son. He was the first born grandchild so basically we treated him like he was the first son in the wholefamily," Castillo said.
Funeral services for Fernando Buenrostro Jr. will be held Sunday at 5 p.m. at Whitehurst Funeral Chapel, 1840 Center Ave.Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the Los Banos Police Department at 827-7070.
Enterprise reporter Corey Pride can be reached at (209) 388-6563 or by email at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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December 18, 2009
Cookie Making Today!!
So this afternoon my friends and family are coming over for our annual cookie bake!! I provide all the cookie basics (flour sugar, etc.) and they bring the extras for a cookie of their choice. Then we bake away until we have piles and piles of delicious treats to share with everyone!! I can't wait to see what we make this year :) The picture is the cookie I am going to attempt to make called a Caramel Macchiato Thumbprint. I'll post the recipe and pictures of my finish product after today :)
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The latest Hipstamatic instalment…I'm supposed to be in Hawaii at the moment, but the snow you see in these photos, and the snowy photos in this post kept me in this cold icy country. Not impressed doesn't quite cut it, but we have a rescheduled flight to catch tomorrow, the snow and ice is starting to thaw out, and Heathrow has been getting flights out on schedule, so here's hoping…
1. Easyjet flight from Gatwick to Glasgow International 2. Foil balloon for my dads 60th 3. Sixty cake, baked by my mum 4. Wandering up a mountain in Scotland 5. Book worm 6. US Dollars, that I haven't had the chance to spend yet! 7. Temperature in my friends car – it dropped to -8.5°c before we got home 8. Snowy tram lines at Ampere Way 9. Drinking wine to drown my sorrows the night we found out our flight was cancelled 10. Drinking more wine…to drown my sorrows 11. Carr Lodge Park, just outside Wakefield 12. Pink champagne on Christmas morning
// Hipstamatic (III)26 12 2010
The latest Hipstamatic instalment…I'm supposed to be in Hawaii at the moment, but the snow you see in these photos, and the snowy photos in this post kept me in this cold icy country. Not impressed doesn't quite cut it, but we have a rescheduled flight to catch tomorrow, the snow and ice is starting to thaw out, and Heathrow has been getting flights out on schedule, so here's hoping…
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Tags: hipstamatic, kate powell, photography, xkonstantine
Categories : hipstamatic, kate powell, photography
// New discovery: Path12 12 2010
This morning I managed to stumble across Path when browsing the iPhone app store.
It's described as "The best way to capture and share photos of your life with close friends and family". As it stands, I have no friends or family following my Path (Username: ka-pow), but I'm currently loving the wonderful Path for iPhone interface irrespective of the fact nobody is aware I'm posting!
There were some negative comments within the reviews about the fact that Path now allows you to browse to your iPhone library to import older photos, rather than simply forcing you to use a photo taken through the app in the exact moment, but I have to disagree; I've enjoyed importing photos from the past couple of months (and it labels them as older photos, so there's no confusion as to what's current and what isn't), and I also fully support the fact that this allows you to include photos taken through third party apps such as Hipstamatic, which as you all know, I'm a huge fan of!
Anyway, to give you a little look at the interface I've raved about, I've taken some screengrabs of my own path in action…
The idea is to upload photographs as "moments" on your path, which other users can follow. When you upload an image you have the option to assign tags for People, Places and Things, and this is how it labels your photograph! For example, in the aeroplane image above, "Easyjet" is the Thing, and "Gatwick Airport" is the place.
I love how you can see a snippet of your photos in a scrollable list, it shows you the tags and also how old the image is within the timeline. When you click into the image you can see where the photo was taken on a map, or (I presume) see which of your friends and family have viewed your picture. It seems like such a cool little tool, and potentially the next thing in the Photo Blogging world.
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Tags: kate powell, path.com, photo sharing, photoblogging, photography, xkonstantine
Categories : hipstamatic, kate powell, photography, review
// Hipstamatic (II)4 12 2010
I doubt the amount of snow we've had in the UK over the past few days has escaped anyone's notice, and it's a definite testament to the fact that Christmas is most definitely coming, and winter is in full swing; the temperatures are sub zero, Starbucks has never tasted better, trains are cancelled and the country grinds to a near halt. And now, it's Hipstamatic time:
1. "Christmas music will start…" in the Starbucks in Reigate 2. Starbucks tastes so much better when it's bitterly cold outside. FACT! 3. My beautiful pink Converse pretty much hate me after I wore them in the snow. They are not waterproof and my toes were numb! 4. Snow covered tram line 5. The husband and I had our new couches delivered through several inches of snow. Good work DFS! 6. Spot the car! Good job we didn't need to go anywhere, or we would've had to dig her out!
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Tags: hipstamatic, kate powell, xkonstantine
Categories : hipstamatic, kate powell, photography
// Things I love (VI)28 11 2010
Loving the muted, pastel shades of these photos, and the warmth they omit. I've linked them all back to weheartit so that any users of that site can heart any of these images they like. Enjoy ♥
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Tags: color, colour, photography, things i love, weheartit, xkonstantine
Categories : colour, fashion, kate powell, photography, things i love
// Hipstamatic (I)23 11 2010
Oh, how I have missed blogging. I have a colourful array of excuses for why I've been away…getting married, never having the time, moving house and not having the internet all fall under that category. I'm happy to say I'm now a wife, have a fair bit more free time, am living in our new house AND have the internet installed again. Happy Kate!
This post is inspired by my lovely friend Lauren, who is also a bit of a Hipstamatic fan (and who undoubtedly has more in-app lenses/film than me)! I'd love to know if you have any favourites amongst this first batch of Hipstamatic photos.
1. UP! My pink Converse and jeggings 2. Starbucks addiction 3. John Lewis phone 4. Waitrose cupcake 5. Old shoes I had to part ways with 6. Starbucks Christmas cups have arrived! 7. We moved out of Flat B 8. Rainbow over Croydon 9. My best friends brothers birthday cake – his parents took him to Las Vegas for his 21st (not at all jealous!) 10. The husband with a signed Grant Holt shirt (stained with blood, sweat and er, grass) 11. FL Office dog 12. Drinks in the office during a particularly harrowing final push to hit deadline.
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Tags: hipstamatic, kate powell, xkonstantine
Categories : hipstamatic, kate powell, photography
// Numbers26 01 2010
I get weekly emails from both Typography Served & Photography Served. This week, rather than the typography, it was actually some of the showcased photography which caught my eye – in particular the series below.
When they're reduced to small scale as below, they aren't instantly recognisable for what they are; the naked human form (all female), artfully arranged into numerical forms. Whilst this series of number is entirely female, there is also a set of male numbers on the creators website (featured below). I love how fluid the numbers appear, and see no reason why the sequence couldn't be expanded in the future to also include letterforms.
I feel like this concept is the kind of thing which could work really well within a Sanex / Vaseline ad campaign; their television adverts lean heavily towards imagery of nude models, so in my opinion this would align perfectly as a headline typeface or similar. They're eye-catching to say the least!
Sequence of numbers created by Arjan Benning | Credit to Kimberley Chan for reminding me what the naked-adverts were when I'd come up against a total mind block.
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Tags: body, creative, fantastic concepts, fascinating, general, human, inspiring, kate hines, naked form, numbers, photography, typography, xkonstantine
Categories : creative, inspirational, kate hines, photography
// Things I Love (II)5 12 2009
Following on from this 'things I love' entry, I promised to make it a regular thing, and here is my second posting. Not strictly design related this week, but just images which made me stop, and look again, or look more closely. Basically images which have something about them, from fake clouds and macaroons, to birdcages and rubber ducks. Enjoy!
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Tags: kate hines, photography, things i love, xkonstantine
Categories : kate hines, photography, things i love


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Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by Cindy Kraft at 5:48 AM
Labels: hayden, jackson, wordless wednesday
2 comments:
- Shannon said...
Looks like they're having a blast. I know you're enjoying the relaxation, huh?
- July 23, 2008 at 6:57 PM
- Breanne Vasquez said...
So cute. Are those sparklers? I loved those when I was little.
- July 25, 2008 at 7:43 AM
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Sorry for the delay on updating the blog - it has been such a busy few days!
Zoe's Grand Opening took place beginning Friday, April 29 through Sunday, May 1. We could not have been blessed with better weather on Friday and Saturday. Definitely the best Saturday weather that we've had since Zoe opened!
I was very delighted with the results of the Grand Opening. A significant number of people visited the store and signed up for the mailing list. We had record sales on Saturday and Sunday. We had started the initial advertising for the store on Thursday in the Alexandria Times and followed up with ads in the Alexandria Gazette Packet and the Mt. Vernon Gazette. A number of people mentioned reading the articles and seeing the advertisements! Print newspapers are not dead!
As part of the Grand Opening Promotion, patrons had the opportunity to draw at the time of checkout to see what level of discount they would receive on their purchase. Everyone was guaranteed a minimum of 10% with the possibility of drawing 20% or 30%! The people who drew the 20s and 30s were thrilled! It was fun to give people the opportunity to do that!
As with the other days, I love all of the people that I get to meet in the course of business. Mothers and daughters shopping together, friends shopping together, ladies treating themselves to new spring/summer clothing and jewelry, people shopping for gifts, husbands and wives looking for a special item. Each person had a specific reason for walking into the store whether they purchased something or not.
I was visited by a number of friends over the weekend, including Jamie, Sally, Tina, Jessica, Carly, Amy, Renee, Kathryn and Brian. It is always such a delight for me to see a familiar face. And Karen and Janice stopped by to bring the completed curtain (for the wheelchair lift) - now just waiting for Jim to put up the curtain rod! And Janice was a huge help to me on Thursday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. I love having her visit/help me!
Tomorrow - Monday's trip to the NY Apparel Market!


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Robots and dinosaurs
After giving up the idea of cloning dinosaurus, Clive Palmer built a Jurassic Pak with 117 animatronic dinosaurs at the Palmer Coolum Resort at north of Brisbane.
Palmer started his collection by putting two animatronic behemoths. Those are Tyrannosaurus rex called Jeff and an Omeisaurus named Bones.
The creatures in the park will soar up to 6m and have a weight over a ton. That's not all, they'll be able to move their tails and blink.
Is the innovation in technology for everyone?
The evolution of the technology is very fast! Lots of new robotic things have been found, that can make you life easer. But the question is, is this innovation applicable to everybody?! Has 'every man' in the world an advantage of it? Or moreover, has 'every man' in the world the possibility to use the new invented/innovated machines?
To explain my point of view, I'll give you an example.
Here you can see 'a grasrobot'. The robot is equipped with a lithium-ion battery, a rain sensor and a star shaped blade. It's a user friendly robot and easy to program. The cutting height of the robot can be set, depending on the hight of the grass. In addition, due to auto programming, it is possible only to mow the grass if it is necessary.
Well, that sounds great!
If I ask you the question, would you buy a grasrobot? Then probably your answer will be; 'yes, why not!'
Only until the moment you become aware of the price!
The price of a grasrobot is around 1250 Euro.
If I ask you now the same question, you will be less satisfied to say yes.
My point of view is that the engineers and the scientist should also be aware of this. Yes, a rich man has the possibility to buy every new thing, doesn't matter how expensive it is. But what about the middle class people? Do you think that he'll buy this grasmachine? He also wants to try it, but maybe has no possibility to buy it. In this way, in my point of view, rich people will become richer and the middle class people will become 'arm'.
What is your opinion about it?
The three laws of robotics
Isaac Asimov, a writer invented "The three laws of robotics" to write some science fiction stories.
The three laws of robotics are;
1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;
3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;
The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Do you think that these laws are all true nowadays? What is your opinion about them?
The nanorobot
Robots are not only present at centimeter or millimeter scale, they are also present at nano scale!
Havard medical school in Boston developed cancer-killing nanorobots. The nanorobot is made of DNA and it seeks out for cancer cells in your body. After detecting a cancer cell it injects its payload of DNA-altering molecules,wherby the cancer is self-destruct.
It is called 'nanorobot' because it is capable of doing some robotic tasks. The robot has a barrel shape, each barrel is about 35 nanometers in diameter. It contains different sites at the inside for attaching some molecules. On the outer site it has two aptamers, short nucleotide strands with special sequences for recognizing molecules on the target cell. Once the correct target is reached, the aptamers spring open, to release the payload.
For an illustrated explanation of how nanorobots(in general) work, see the video below.
However, the nanorobots are not ready to enter the human body, because the researchers are not sure about how the robot itself will be cleaned after doing his tasks. If this kind of problems are solved, then it is possible that this kind of robots become real in therapeutics.
Now the researchers are beginning to thing to test such kind of robots on mice. Do you think that this is a good idea? Suppose that the mouse body react on a negative way on it, can they then sacrifice mice lives?
Havard develops cancer killing nanorobots
dna robot could kill cancer cells
The Telenoid
Do you sometimes have the feeling of missing someone? Well,
Osaka university and ATR developped a robot, called Telenoid. It's a portable teleoperated android robot, that can transfer people's presence.
The robot owns appearances similar to actual persons and can transfer to presences of actual persons.
But this is not all! The Telenoid also behaves like a human. It can appear as both, male and female and as both old and young. Thanks to his design, soft and pleasant skin texture, it allows people to feel as if an acquaintance in the distance is next to you.
What do you think about such kind of robots?
New technology, new life – Can we handle it?
New day, new technology, new world!
With this growing world in technology, there are a lots of upcoming positive and negative consequences.
Nowadays quadrotors are mostly used on workplaces, disaster areas, … But what if they enter in the normal daily life of a human being? Can you imagine that a father sends a quadrotor after his child to bring him/her to school or to the busstation?
If this forecasting becomes true, will you then use a quadrotor in you daily life for this kind of applications?
A world record by choreographed quadrotors
The AscTec Hummingbird a quadrotor specially designed for aggressive and fast flying manoeuvres. Due to the flexibility in the propellers, harder landings are possible.
A world record is created by the use of 49 AscTec Hummingbird quadrotors in Austria. Electronica Futurelab and Acsending technologies choreographed those quadrotors for a visual display to lit up the Austrian town of Linz.
This diplay was a part of an art festival consulting of quadrotors with pulsating LED-lights.


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Adam Simon Rumors
As assistant general manager Justin Zanik is preparing the franchise for the NBA draft, the Milwaukee Bucks continue to reach out to potential general manager candidates and plan to begin formal interviews on Monday, league sources told The Vertical. The Bucks were granted permission to speak with several more GM candidates late this week, including Portland Trail Blazers assistant GM Bill Branch, Miami Heat assistant GM Adam Simon and Detroit Pistons assistant GM Pat Garrity, league sources told The Vertical.
Manny Navarro: Can confirm two Woj reports: Willie Reed has told #Heat he will decline option for next season; Adam Simon will interview for #Bucks GM job
Adrian Wojnarowski: Sources: Milwaukee has received permission to talk to two more GM candidates: Miami's Adam Simon and Detroit's Pat Garrity.
When it comes to what Adam Simon, 44, has become, Heat President Pat Riley made that clear at his season-ending media session. "I can't think of any other person in scouting or personnel that has put in the time that Adam has put in," Riley said.
The resume, however, is real. He had pushed for the Heat to go for emerging Houston Rockets center Clint Capela when the Heat instead drafted Shabazz Napier in the first round of the 2014 draft. And he was among those instrumental in bringing Tyler Johnson to the Heat's attention after the scrappy guard went undrafted in 2014 out of Fresno State.
Adam Simon: "I've been in cars traveling around Europe with Jerry West. I've sat and scouted games next to Larry Bird. Michael Jordan, I've sat with him. And, of course, the first time I met Pat in 1995, I was in awe. My colleagues, my peers, the people that I work with, it blows my mind that I'm in this position. I don't take it for granted, but I feel comfortable in my ability to work with those gentlemen because of the time and the work I put in."


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Earlier this fall, after The Boss took her first journey down the stairs all by her lonesome and attempted to do it again, I whipped out my video camera. Her stair-to-stair butt bounce and the smack of her lips as she tasted the freedom of bi-level living were too adorable not to record for posterity.
As situations are wont to do when I try to get posterity involved, they quickly went awry.
Exhibit A:
I know it should be easy to berate myself for being a bad mother (on more than one level) as I watch this and double over in laughter, squishing up on my 16-weeks-pregnant midsection. But I can't muster too much guilt. It's the idea of it all: her glee; my pride; the click of the "record" button; and the downward spiral.
I can laugh because she was unscathed. I can laugh—and believe me, if I didn't, I'd cry--at this subtle clue as to just how very bad I am in a crisis. I can laugh because she seems to be saying "boobie" instead of "boo boo."
I can laugh—and maybe you'll think me insensitive for saying so— because sometimes motherhood is a real trip, even when it's not just mama taking the fall.


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Does anyone know where I can shop for a nice gently used digital cam for not a lot of money? I have failed to protect my current one from my children, and have recently missed out on many kodak moments like Ryan running around with her shirt over her head yelling, "I'm a crazy scarecrow!"
And while we're at it, how the hell do I save my dvd movies to the computer so I can upload them for you good people to see?
Yes, I am that nerd who's not even cool enough to know the cool nerd stuff.
Sunday, November 5, 2006
And no, I don't care.
Posted by Amy York at 6:42 PM
1 comment:
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Getting My Resistive Touch Screen To Work
The opportunity to properly position over the screen alone can also be advancing With all the rising graphics tablet/screen hybrids. PVDF plays A serious job Within this innovation thanks its high piezoelectric Qualities.[38]
Flexible touch screen devices applying versatile substrates and circuitry are referenced in the artwork and described, for example in WO99/63792 entitled "Adaptable Circuit Assembly" printed Dec. nine, 1999. This disclosure describes a totally versatile circuit including a versatile substrate possessing a conductive coating deposited on it. The adaptable circuit also includes a plurality of components fixedly connected for the adaptable substrate and electrically interconnected With all the conductive material.
Touchscreens wouldn't be commonly used for online video games right up until the discharge of the Nintendo DS in 2004.[29] Till not long ago, most consumer touchscreens could only sense one particular issue of Get in touch with at any given time, and several have had the capability to feeling how tricky 1 is touching. This has modified Along with the commercialization of multi-touch technology.
So far as cost, the resistive system is The most cost effective; its clarity is the bottom from the a few, and its layers may be ruined by sharp objects. The surface area acoustic wave set up is usually the most expensive.
The modify during the electrical discipline is mentioned and also the coordinates of The purpose of Speak to are calculated by the pc. Once the coordinates are regarded, a Unique driver interprets the touch into something that the functioning technique can understand, Substantially as a computer mouse driver interprets a mouse's actions into a simply click or possibly a drag.
In A further embodiment in the creation, the integral compressible spacer dots are hemispheres. The hemisphere provides a precision gap together with high mild transmission. The hemisphere also delivers excellent compression and tiredness features. In another embodiment in the creation, the integral compressible spacer dots are cylinders obtaining rectangular cross sections.
An early attempt at a handheld activity console with touchscreen controls was Sega's meant successor to the sport Equipment, even though the machine was eventually shelved and hardly ever launched mainly because of the high-priced expense of touchscreen engineering during the early 1990's.
A capacitive touchscreen panel consists of an insulator which include glass, coated that has a transparent conductor which include indium tin oxide (ITO).[32] As being the human physique is usually an electrical conductor, touching the surface area in the screen brings about a distortion in the screen's electrostatic industry, measurable like a change in capacitance.
This can be a frequent PCT strategy, which makes utilization our website of The reality that most conductive objects have the ability to maintain a cost When they are incredibly shut alongside one another. In mutual capacitive sensors, a capacitor is inherently fashioned via the row trace and column trace at each intersection from the grid. A 16-by-14 array, by way of example, might have 224 impartial capacitors. A voltage is placed on the rows or columns.
Ethoxylated alcohols are Learn More a class of nonionic surfactants derived from very long chain, linear, synthetic alcohols. Full Article These alcohols are produced as purposeful derivatives of lower molecular weight ethylene homopolymers.
As the technological innovation is dependent on the conductive mother nature of human entire body, it doesn't work If your consumer is wearing gloves
The circuit in Determine 6 involves the differential amplifiers for being shielded in opposition to shorts to VDD. Throughout the to start with semi-cycle, the output in the lower amplifier is shorted to VDD.
One layer has conductive connections along its sides, another alongside top and bottom. A voltage is applied to 1 layer, and sensed by another. When an object, like a fingertip or stylus suggestion, presses down on to the outer floor, The 2 levels touch to be related at that point: The panel then behaves as being a pair of voltage dividers, one particular axis at any given time. By swiftly switching amongst Just about every layer, the posture of a stress within the screen might be study.
A touchscreen is undoubtedly an enter and output system Ordinarily layered on the best of the Digital Visible Screen of the facts processing technique. A person may give input or Management the data processing method by means of straightforward or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with a Specific stylus and/or one or more fingers.


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I normally read 4 food magazines every month (delicious, GoodFood, Olive and Fresh) which are published in the UK and only directed to the UK market. There are some Irish based magazines but I am not the greatest fan of these. Anyhow, a couple of days ago I went to Easons and et voila found a new Irish magazine called The Restaurant and it is based on the RTE production with the same name. I watched this show a couple of times and was quite impressed with some of the celebs and their cooking skills. You find the recipes of the show in there as well as stories about producers etc. of course, you can also get the recipes on the RTE website but the magazine is a lovely alternative to the website. Throughout the magazine you find 'food heroes' with contact details etc. Foodie news and restaurant reviews can be found as well as upcoming events (since I only saw the magazine a couple of days ago, most of the events have already passed). The food trail page covers also Cork (which is rarely covered in any Irish food magazine) and it shows the usual suspects like Cafe Paradiso, Fishy Fishy Cafe etc. so nothing new on the Cork front (and I am sure that there is more to Cork than Ballymaloe and the Farmgate.
A Masterclass is also included and starts of with sauces. I personally love a good sauce/gravy and avoid any packaged powdered sauces at all costs so I hope that this encourages people to try it the old fashioned way.
With €4.95 the magazine is reasonably priced. I couldn't find out how often it is published (the side of the magazine states annual) but I hope it will get out regularly. Let me know what you think about the magazine when you read it.


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Injury Forces Ben Bishop From Eastern Conference Final Game One
The high from making the Eastern Conference final for the second straight season had barely worn off for Tampa Bay Lightning fans before they were dealt a heavy blow on Friday night.
In the first period of the round three series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ben Bishop took an awkward fall in his crease and appeared to injure his left leg. He was in a considerable amount of pain, and was unable to regain his feet. A stretcher was brought onto the ice to carry him off.
Up to this point, Bishop was 8-2-0 in the playoffs, with a .939 save percentage – even better than the .926 he posted in the regular season. It's a major loss for the Lightning, even with the highly-touted Andrei Vasilevskiy coming in as his replacement.
If there is a bright side to the story, Vasilevskiy stepped into the crease and turned aside 25 shots, en route to the 3-1 victory. His playoff debut came during a surprisingly similar incident in last year's Stanley Cup final, when Bishop was trying to play through a groin injury. The last goaltender to win his first two playoff games in relief appearances was Olaf Kolzig of the Washington Capitals.
Stat from @NHLNetwork Vasilevskiy 1st goalie since Olie Kolzig in 95&96 to earn first 2 career playoff in relief
— Erik Erlendsson (@Erik_Erlendsson) May 14, 2016
You never want to see a goalie go down like Bishop did, but the Lightning are lucky to have an extremely capable backup. Vasilevskiy even joked with reporters after the game that coming into an Eastern Conference final game is nothing compared to the Stanley Cup final.
Vasilevskiy was asked if he feels he's ready for this moment. "That's why I'm here," he answered with a smile. #TBLightning
— Bryan Burns (@BBurnsNHL) May 14, 2016
While info about the type of injury that Bishop suffered was scarce, the Lightning did receive a bit of good news after the game.
Ben Bishop had X-rays that came back negative, per Jon Cooper.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) May 14, 2016
More tests will still need to be done, but here's hoping that we see Bishop back on the ice sooner rather than later. In the meantime, Tampa Bay will have to ride the play of their goaltender of the future – Andrei Vasilevskiy.
To watch a video of the entire play in which Bishop was injured, see below:
(You may have to disable any ad-blocking software for the video to work)