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Kurt Bardella is not a guy you can easily root for. He activates your radar and not in a good way. He laughs too much and too loud. He hangs out in cigar bars. When he talks with you, you suspect you are being worked.
I liked him instantly.
By that I mean Bardella gave me a headache, but I liked that he flouted the norms of the smooth Washington hustler. In a city where even the most rabid striving must be cloaked in nonchalance, Bardella never pulled this off or even tried. He was not shy about sharing — on his Facebook page — his ultimate ambition: to become the White House press secretary. He was not reticent in acknowledging a danger of his brash style: "I'm never that far away from blowing myself up completely," he told me once. "It's all part and parcel of my inferiority complex." But generally, Bardella added, he was pretty good about channeling his demons in a way that benefited his boss, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California.
Bardella evinced a desperation that made him more honest than people in Washington typically are. Or maybe "transparent" is a better word, because he did seem to lie sometimes (or "spin" sometimes), at least to me. Even as he stuck out among earnest Hill deputies, something about Bardella wonderfully embodied the place. It's not that Washington hasn't forever been populated by high-reaching fireballs. But an economic and information boom in recent years has transformed the city in ways that go well beyond the standard profile of dysfunction. To say that today's Washington is too partisan and out of touch is to miss a much more important truth — that rather than being hopelessly divided, it is hopelessly interconnected. It misses the degree to which New Media has both democratized the political conversation and accentuated Washington's myopic, self-loving tendencies. And it misses, most of all, how an operator like Kurt Bardella can land in a culture of beautifully busy people and, by trading on all the self-interest and egomania that knows no political affiliation, rewrite the story of his own life.
I first met Bardella in May 2010, when he was really starting to make a name for himself. If Republicans won the majority in the House that November, Issa would become chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Good for Issa, and by the first law of Washington career gravity, good for Bardella.
The first surprise upon meeting Bardella was his appearance. His Italian name and blustery phone comportment suggested something other than a rail-thin 27-year-old Asian-American in pinstriped suit and tie and matching hanky in the breast pocket. He looked like a teenager playing grown-up.
Something about Bardella cried out for mothering, or fathering, which I suspected might be true even if each of his three fathers (one birth, one adopted, one step-) had not abandoned or alienated him on the way up. He said that the displacement of his youth, his lack of a college degree and his entry into the political work force at a very young age (17) engendered in him a fear that he had no business running with these bulls. So he was a jittery wreck, working long into the night, in the service of pleasing Darrell Issa, or else.
You hear the formulations "He's like a father to me" and "He's like a son to me" quite a bit in Washington. Politicians like to self-mythologize through their fathers: John Edwards was "the son of a millworker," John Boehner "the son of a barkeeper" and so on. "Every man is trying to either live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes," Barack Obama wrote. The dad thing makes a tidy device for any politician's story, but the prevailing social dynamic of Washington so often does mimic the quest for paternal love. It is, in many ways, a city of patrons and protégés. "Who do you work for?" is often the first thing people ask here.
But when Bardella said, "Darrell is like a dad to me," he sounded genuine. "Darrell cares," he'd say. "He fills a certain void."
Shortly after he was born, Bardella was abandoned at the door of a church in Seoul, South Korea. He was placed in an orphanage, where he hated to be set down in his crib. At 3 months he was adopted by a childless couple in Rochester. His new mother, Diane Bardella, was pursuing a degree in literature at the University of Rochester, while her husband, Alfred, worked as a security guard. They named the baby Kurt and divorced when he was 3.
Kurt lived with his mother and spent every other weekend with his father. He was enrolled in a Catholic school, where he was bullied and teased because he "looked Chinese." Diane Bardella remarried when Kurt was 5 and gave birth to two sons. Kurt would taunt his new brothers by telling them, "You were had, I was chosen." When Kurt was 10, the family moved west, separating him from Alfred. Bardella eventually became estranged from his stepfather after he and Kurt's mother divorced.
After graduating from high school in 2001, Bardella took a summer internship with a Republican state legislator, who offered him a job. He jumped at the chance, envisioning a political life as presented in the speedy chess game of NBC's "West Wing," which fascinated him. The lure was enough for Bardella to blow off college and spend two years doing clerical work in the legislator's office and attending meetings, dinners and events around town. He eventually took a job as an assignment editor for the local CBS affiliate, but his path to Washington presented itself in 2005, when the San Diego-area congressman Randy (Duke) Cunningham — best known in D.C. for flipping off a constituent, referring to gays as "homos" on the House floor and suggesting the Democratic leadership "be lined up and shot" — got hit with a sack of white-collar-criminal charges (conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, tax evasion). The Duke headed off to jail, and Bardella headed back into politics, working on the campaign of the Republican Brian Bilbray in the special election to fill Cunningham's seat. Bilbray won, and in July 2006, Bardella arrived in Washington.
Bardella was never going to be one of those civic-minded idealists who descend on the capital every year to "make a difference." When I first met him, he admitted that he was not much of a true believer in any political cause. The Republicans simply found him first. He told me that he was not so much an "R" or a "D" as he was an "O" — "an opportunist." His passions were ignited less by an inspirational candidate or officeholder — there were no posters of Ronald Reagan or J.F.K. — than they were by celebrity operatives on TV, fictional (Josh Lyman) or real (James Carville). They were the players in a thrilling screen game, and Bardella wanted in.
"When I first came here," he told me, "I was standing on the streetcorner with my suitcase, thinking: There's no way I belong here. This is crazy. I'm going to get eaten alive."
As a teenager, Bardella read the memoir of the celebrated Clinton aide turned TV star, George Stephanopoulos, "All Too Human: A Political Education." What struck Bardella was Stephanopoulos's description of his years as an altar boy in the Greek Orthodox church he attended in Rye, N.Y. It excited him, Stephanopoulos wrote, to be within the sanctum, an excitement he compared with the thrill he felt later as a political operative who penetrated the privileged circle where decisions are made.
"There is that place to get in Washington that everybody is striving for," Bardella told me. "Once you get to that place, that inside place, you kind of just know it. It's exciting," he said. "But you're never sure if that feeling is going to last, or if other people are seeing you as someone on the inside. It puts you on edge, constantly."
As a 22-year-old flack for Bilbray, Bardella sent Stephanopoulos a fan note. He wrote about how much he enjoyed "All Too Human" and how much he admired Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos wrote back and invited Bardella to drop by next time he was in the neighborhood of ABC News's Washington bureau near Dupont Circle. Bardella made a point of being in that neighborhood soon after.
A year later, Bardella was surprised to receive a call from Stephanopoulos, who wanted to know if a certain resolution on immigration was going to pass the House Republican Conference. Bardella told Stephanopoulos that he believed it would pass, which Stephanopoulos said on TV a few hours later, citing "Congressional sources." Bardella was a "Congressional source"! He described the experience to me as his "first time playing with live ammunition."
He later called Stephanopoulos, seeking career advice. He was thinking about taking a job in the Senate office of Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, and he asked Stephanopoulos what he thought, a query that also carried the unspoken message that Bardella was being sought after, that he was "in play."
In December 2007, Bardella did indeed jump to Snowe's office, but he lasted less than a year. He found the Senate boring, he said — too plodding, too gentlemanly, not his thing — and he returned to Bilbray's office and identified Darrell Issa as his next big game.
Issa happened to be one of the wealthiest men in Congress, thanks to his magnificently successful car-alarm company. Bardella appreciated that, and he admired — perhaps because he identified with it — Issa's willingness, even compulsion, to toot his own car horn. While Congress had no shortage of members who thought of themselves as the smartest guy in the room, Issa might have had a legitimate claim. He holds 35 patents, 16 of which hang on his office wall.
Issa's office was down the hall from Bilbray's, and Bardella began to camp out there, befriending Issa's staff and pestering them until they hired him as press secretary.
Issa made clear that he very much wanted to become better known among the political-media cabal, and Bardella took on the obsession as his own. "I am completely focused on making Darrell a household name," he told me. Before long, Issa was living in greenrooms, a heightened profile he owed largely to Bardella, who was simultaneously at work — a little too intensely — on getting himself noticed. He had what for a staff member was a dangerous knack for getting his name into print, and an even more dangerous craving for more. There's a fundamental rule on Capitol Hill that aides should stay in the background, but Bardella was too eager to show off how plugged in he was at all times not to violate it.
The emergence of Politico as Washington's company-town organ — and especially Playbook, its insider's tip sheet sent out each morning by Mike Allen, D.C.'s electronic town crier — served Bardella's needs well. Politico wasn't just a receptive outlet for the pro-Issa stories he was trying to "place"; it was also generous in bestowing a kind of fame on the traditionally innocuous staffer. In an October 2009 Politico story about whether excessive BlackBerry use could be a drag on a staffer's personal life, Bardella was quoted as saying he always apologizes to dates in advance "because I know I'm going to check my Berry at least eight times in the next 25 minutes."
Politico was exhaustive in covering the workaholic regimen of the city's aspiring Josh Lymans, whose stressed TV countenance has been copied and exaggerated as a D.C. pose. They are often crude and fluent in the cutting, sardonic tones characteristic of many of the young operators around town. Politico wrote a trend piece about this ("Washington Soaks Up the Snarkiness"), in which Bardella declared that Washington "is a city that has been built on false premises and false pretenses."
In 2009 he was named one of the "50 politicos to watch." "It is only 11:30 a.m., but Kurt Bardella is on his third Red Bull, and he's got a fourth on deck," Politico wrote in the profile of Bardella that accompanied his picture. And in another treatment, from January 2010, Bardella was quoted as saying, "I don't ever stop." The story was pegged to the sudden death of Boehner's chief of staff. (Issa later purchased a T-shirt for Bardella that said: "It's All About Me.")
Bardella had found love. Issa's, sure, but also the immediate gratification of the early-21st-century political-media experience. There was none of the slog of policy debates and committee hearings and constituent visits. Public relations is what most politicians care about most, and Bardella was as adept at it as anyone.
With the 2010 midterms approaching and the G.O.P. primed to reclaim the House majority for the first time since 2006, Bardella felt that he, too, was ascendant. He would send talking points over to Newt Gingrich, at his personal e-mail address, to help the former speaker prep for an appearance on "Meet the Press" — and "Newt" wrote back, thanking him. He had a huge whiteboard on which he listed all the media names he was warding off at that particular moment (David at "Meet the Press," Greta at Fox). They all wanted time with Issa, and Bardella would do his best to make it happen ("Greta has always been fair"), no guarantees, but first he has a call on the other line, and 200 e-mails from bookers to deal with, and the boss calling him on the cell. . . .
I first considered writing about Darrell Issa in the summer of 2010. He was showing up a lot in the press, the articles always saying that he could become a supreme nightmare for the White House if Republicans won the House majority in November. As head of House Oversight, Issa would gain the power to call investigations and issue subpoenas and do pretty much whatever he wanted to distract, embarrass and mess with the Obama mission. He called himself a Reagan Republican, but Issa's true compass in 2010 seemed to point toward whatever most got under the administration's skin and himself on television.
Democrats had begun circulating fat opposition files on the prospective chairman. Oppo about Issa always begins with a Los Angeles Times exposé published during his unsuccessful run for the Senate in 1998. The story details what Issa has described as his "colorful youth" — a period that apparently stretched well into his 20s. He pleaded guilty to carrying an unregistered pistol in 1972 and, with his brother William, was indicted on felony charges related to car thefts in 1972 and 1980. (The first case was eventually dismissed; prosecutors dropped the charges on the second.)
I had no idea of Issa's history until I got a call one summer afternoon from the White House, peddling oppo. Bill Burton, then the deputy press secretary at the White House, urged me (in the most sheepish and above-it-all tones) to spend some time "getting to know Darrell Issa." As an hors d'oeuvre, Burton mentioned the auto thefts. Interesting, I thought. And kind of funny, since Issa made his fortune selling car alarms.
Not long after, Issa sat for a long interview with me in his office. It was mostly unmemorable, though he twice launched into tangential assaults on Eric Lichtblau, who wrote the L.A. Times story and is now a colleague of mine at The Times. After I made a fact-checking inquiry with Bardella the next day about the old auto-theft charge, a very agitated Issa called minutes later, suggesting that I just have "that hatchet man Lichtblau" write the story for me.
In November, Republicans regained control of the House as expected. As the new chairman of a pivotal committee, Issa was now unquestionably one of the most visible Republicans in Washington. Bardella viewed himself — not just his boss — as a news driver. Reporters were coming to him, not the other way around. If Bardella decided, for instance, to "give" the story of Issa's first subpoena to Jake Sherman at Politico rather than to Alan Fram at The Associated Press, Sherman could boast of a nice little scoop for himself, while Fram might suffer an unpleasant "Why we no have?" from his editor. The cycle might reverse two hours later when Bardella was ready to award his next nugget.
A few weeks after Election Day, I visited Bardella on Capitol Hill and told him I might be interested in reporting on him for a book I was writing about this supercharged era in the capital. I found him to be an emblematic superstaffer who was making Washington work for him — a kind of will-to-power orphan who was devising his persona on the fly. I loved the sheer unabashedness, even jubilance, of Bardella's networking and ladder-climbing. Clearly enamored of his own narrative, Bardella was intrigued by my proposition. If I was reading his face right, he had already given some thought as to who would play him in the HBO treatment. He said he believed his was an important story to tell.
I told Bardella that I would visit with him periodically and encouraged him to send along updates and observations by e-mail. Even better, he said, he would copy me on occasional e-mail correspondence that he felt reflected his frenetic days. "My e-mails can basically be read as a diary of how I do my job in this crazy world," he told me. He didn't appear to think twice about sharing correspondence from people who did not know their e-mails were being shared — a group that included the occasional member of Congress. Bardella concluded our conversation with a favorite phrase among aggressive D.C. boundary-pushers: "I've always thought it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission," he said.
Bardella would be asking forgiveness soon enough. But the year started well. Issa spent Jan. 2 appearing on three Sunday interview shows, and Republicans formally assumed control of the House on Jan. 5. Bardella spent much of that afternoon moving into his new office, roughly the size of a small hotel room — a major expansion from the crowded cubicle he inhabited in the minority days.
That day, Robert Gibbs announced that he would be leaving as White House press secretary. Though they had never met, Gibbs's career trajectory was one Bardella dreamed of: he was a journeyman flack who struck gold with the right patron and wound up talking at the lectern at 1600 Pennsylvania. Gibbs's time at the White House had been a mixed bag, which included internal West Wing clashes, strained relationships with reporters and a few mishaps that resulted from excessive candor. But he was nonetheless set for life as a professional "former." That is, a former official who can easily score a seven-figure income as an out-of-office wise man, statesman or hired gun. "Formers" stick to Washington like melted cheese on a gold-plated toaster, and Gibbs would be no exception. He could move seamlessly into the news media (MSNBC) at a time when punditry replaced reporting as journalism's highest pursuit. (Since leaving the White House in 2011, Gibbs has made about $2 million in paid speeches alone.)
Absurdly, I asked Bardella that day what he would say if Obama called asking him to replace Gibbs. He actually seemed to consider the question for a second. "If the president calls, I would have to take it seriously," he said solemnly before catching himself. "But I don't think the president will be calling."
Bardella largely avoided the pomp and parties that rang in this latest "new era" in Washington, though I did accompany him to a B-list reception a few weeks earlier honoring the 112th Congress at L'Enfant Plaza Hotel. When we arrived, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, was addressing incoming members, reporters, lobbyists and various party crashers. "I hate her," Bardella muttered as he stared down into his BlackBerry. Wasserman Schultz then shared that when she first came to Congress, "I was able to pass substantive legislation about Jewish-American heritage." (Bardella, without looking up: "Give me a break.") Wasserman Schultz concluded by urging everyone in the room to avoid succumbing to the "temptations" of Washington.
Bardella's BlackBerry trance was broken by Karin Tanabe, a reporter then working for Politico who came over to introduce herself. Bardella's swoon was rather egregious. I listened as he told Tanabe that he "worked in oversight," which sounded like a surefire Washington pickup line to me ("Is that a subpoena in your pocket?") until Tanabe killed the mood by saying, "Oh, my boyfriend works in oversight," and the discussion ended soon after.
On Day 1 of the 112th Congress, Issa and Bardella headed down Pennsylvania Avenue for a scheduled appearance on Fox Business Network with Neil Cavuto. The interview was held at the Newseum, between the Capitol and the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the two went to the seventh floor to await their "hit." They were joined by a slate of usual suspects that included Trent Lott, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Paul Ryan and Mark Kirk, an Illinois congressman who had just been elected to the Senate. Issa swept in, joining his fellow greenroom perennials, and the scene devolved into a bipartisan blur of back-slappy banter.
Lott, approaching Kucinich and Nader: "All right, which one of y'all is going to run for president?"
Kirk, to Kucinich, his now former House colleague: "You need some makeup, Dennis. Heavily need it."
Kucinich was unamused.
Off to the side, Bardella stood spellbound by the privileged circle in front of him.
The spiral began for Bardella later that month, during a trip with Issa to Las Vegas, where the congressman was attending an electronics trade show. Bardella was ostensibly there to baby-sit Issa during an interview he was doing with Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, who was writing a profile of the new chairman. Bardella spent much of his time demonstrating for Lizza how smart he was, and Lizza, in turn, wrote a lot in the article about Bardella, whom Issa referred to as "my secret weapon."
"My goal is very simple," Bardella was quoted in The New Yorker. "I'm going to make Darrell Issa an actual political figure. I'm going to focus like a laser beam on the 500 people here who care about this crap, and that's it."
Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the new top Democrat on the committee, sent a letter to Issa. "A profile of you posted yesterday by The New Yorker reports that you are using committee staff and taxpayer funds in an effort to transform your public image 'from an obscure congressman to a fixture of the Washington media-political establishment.' . . . In addition to characterizing the committee's work as 'crap,' " Cummings continued, "your spokesman openly disparaged the media."
Yes, you could say that.
"Some people in the press, I think, are just lazy as hell," Bardella told Lizza. "There are times when I pitch a story, and they do it word for word. That's just embarrassing. They're adjusting to a time that demands less quality and more quantity."
Lizza also quoted Bardella saying there was a new development in his dealings with the media. Now, he said, "reporters e-mail me, saying: 'Hey, I'm writing this story on this thing. Do you think you guys might want to investigate it? If so, if you get some documents, can you give them to me?' I'm, like, 'You guys are going to write that we're the ones wanting to do all the investigating, but you guys are literally the ones trying to egg us on to do that!' "
In the bland landscape of On-Messageville, this was some earth-charring stuff. (And largely true, in many cases.) Bardella was in trouble. Sources in the House leadership office told me that top aides to Speaker Boehner and the Republican whip, Kevin McCarthy, wanted Bardella fired, but they left the final decision to Issa. "I felt like I had disappointed my dad," Bardella told me.
Dad was pretty understanding, all things considered. He knew Bardella could be immature and needlessly combative. He could be that way himself, especially when he was younger. He decided to keep Bardella. He might catch some heat for a few days, but Bardella was worth the trouble.
Bardella received plenty of reassuring e-mails, including one from Juleanna Glover, a longtime Republican flack, lobbyist and hostess known for the parties she holds for People Worth Knowing at her Kalorama mansion. In her note to Bardella, Glover assured him that Lizza's full airing of Issa's past in the disastrous New Yorker profile would inoculate the congressman from future examinations of his sordid history — "especially," Glover wrote, "since Issa did such a sublime job in answering all the questions." (Indeed, Issa was sublime in explaining away the auto-theft raps.) "The piece turned out being a real credit to your boss's intellect, insights and humanity," Glover went on. "Thanks for that, Juleanna," Bardella replied. "Appreciate your insight."
Between December 2010 and February 2011, Bardella would forward me seven or eight e-mails a day. For instance, Bardella did not think Representative Jason Chaffetz would mind his sharing an irate e-mail about an article in Yahoo! News that the congressman had stumbled upon. Chaffetz, who is chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, was not pleased that he was not informed about the article, which dealt with his area of jurisdiction:
"I would appreciate a review of how the committee and the subcommittee are going to work with our office. Did I ever get a heads up on this? I don't think so, but perhaps I am wrong. I believe I am the chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction on this matter. Somehow, some way we are going to have to be better coordinated on this stuff. I find it unacceptable and potentially embarrassing for all involved. Also, why is this not even on the list of potential items given to me by the subcommittee staff?"
Most were from reporters or television producers and bookers. It was, sure enough, a window into how Bardella spent his days. Nearly all of the e-mails were pro forma requests to have Issa come on such-and-such a show, or Bardella reaching out to so-and-so to offer "guidance." He was passing on, I sensed, the messages that best portrayed him as a P.R. stud not to be messed with.
For example, after receiving a request for Issa to appear on the liberal commentator Ed Schultz's MSNBC show, Bardella was happy to blind-copy me in his reply: "Given that Ed has been lambasting Darrell for months every day, he has no interest in going on a show with a host who already has his mind made up."
He also delighted in sending me an irritated e-mail from the office of Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Collins was upset because Issa's office had released the news that FEMA had improperly awarded a $450,000 grant to an affiliate of ACORN — the product of an investigation that Issa and Collins had worked on together. But only Issa was quoted in the story, which appeared in The New York Times.
"Hey, Kurt," wrote Collins's spokesman Kevin Kelley, "needless to say, my boss really wishes she had a shot at including a quote, along with your boss, in the stories that have come out since your office decided to leak a report that was jointly requested."
The next day, Bardella sent me a postscript under the heading "You'll Love This."
"Jen Burita, Sen. Collins' Deputy [chief of staff] who was the Comm Dir when I worked for Olympia, just called my Chief of Staff to complain that I had not apologized for scooping them." What did Issa's chief of staff say in response? He "hung up the phone and said, 'Did I sound indifferent enough?' "
One Friday night in late February 2011, I was at my office when Bardella called, sounding shaky. "Jake Sherman at Politico is working on a story about me," he said. He explained that Sherman and his colleague Marin Cogan had heard Bardella had been copying me on e-mails. I had wondered when this would become an issue.
I knew Bardella had been boasting about the e-mail-forwarding, because a few people had asked me about it in amused disbelief. It was only a matter of time before it got into the media bloodstream. At one point I mentioned to Bardella that he should perhaps be a little less vocal about this, and he claimed he had not told a soul. I didn't press the point. The truth was I didn't think most of the e-mails were that interesting.
On the phone, Bardella kept asking me what he should do. He was hushed and out of breath and sounded as if he were hiding in a stairwell. I told him he could say he was not at liberty to discuss his participation in the book — or some righteous stonewall like that. He said that that's what he did. Except what he actually told Sherman was: "Am I bcc'ing him on every e-mail I send out? Of course not." At which point it was clear that Bardella was nailed. Any idiot would know he was bcc'ing me on some e-mails.
Sherman called me a few minutes later. We had never met, but I knew he was a good young reporter who had been covering the House Republicans for about a year and a half. I had been reading his stories (and, yes, a few of his e-mails) because of my interest in Bardella. We spoke mostly off the record. I confirmed nothing, which made me feel like a jackass, because he clearly had picked up the true rumor and my first instinct was to tell him what was going on. But it was unclear if he had publishable goods, and I was not going to be his confirming source on the e-mails. I was in no position to be unless Bardella released me from our ground rules — that I would not reveal details of our arrangement until after the book was published.
To a normal population of news consumers, a Hill flack forwarding e-mails to a reporter writing a book could not be a less interesting story. Few people even know what flacks are or why they exist (much less that P.R. expenditures account for billions of dollars in the gold-rush economy of the nation's capital). But the news media is no normal population. It is an exceptional population: It cares deeply about itself and reports extensively on its doings. Washington puts the "me" in "media."
The next day, I received a call from John Harris, the founding editor of Politico and a former colleague at The Washington Post. He said he was particularly interested in getting to the bottom of this Bardella story. Our conversation mimicked the one I had had the day before with Sherman: John wanted to know what was going on, I told him nothing while trying to appear helpful.
The one difference is that I had known and worked with Harris for years. Now we were on different sides, though united by our shared participation in the esoteric game: two socks tumbling in the same dryer.
The next day, Harris wrote to Issa demanding that he look into the matter of whether his spokesman was forwarding e-mails from reporters to another reporter who was working on a book about people who found this kind of thing interesting.
"It's the start of what I'm sure will be a memorable week," Bardella wrote on his Facebook page on Monday, Feb. 28. Politico's Sherman and Cogan posted their first article on the e-mail-forwarding that evening. It began: "Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the powerful Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has launched an inquiry into whether spokesman Kurt Bardella improperly shared e-mails from other reporters with a New York Times reporter writing a book on Washington's political culture, Politico has learned."
Washington convention dictated that Issa must go through the all-important process of investigating this matter and then issue his findings. Part of this would include him seeking me out for questioning. I would not cooperate because 1) that would violate my ground rules with Bardella, 2) it would be partaking of a political exercise and 3) "refusing to cooperate" with the authority is the badass thing for a reporter do.
The next few days swirled. Roughly 150 stories were written about l'affaire Bardella in the 72 hours after the original "bombshell" was posted on Politico. (Politico would run seven news stories plus numerous blog posts on the subject in the first day and a half.) Everyone in the Washington media lined up to give their "take" on the story that came to dominate capital chatter during a week in which Republicans were otherwise threatening to shut down the government and a revolution was raging in Cairo.
Mike Allen devoted a large part of the next day's Playbook to the story. My employer, The New York Times, published an article on the Bardella matter, as did my former employer, The Washington Post. Many people I have known and worked and socialized with for years wrote columns and blog posts about the saga. The stories were all comically larded with "full disclosures" about how the authors were friends with this person or that person or, in many cases, me. In his Washington Post column, Dana Milbank (a friend) wrote, "If Washington's political culture gets any more incestuous, our children are going to be born with extra fingers."
The best distillation of the episode was on Twitter by John Dickerson, a political writer for Slate, talking head for CBS News and you-know-what of mine: "Instead of writing a book about how self-involved Washington is," Dickerson wrote, "Mark Leibovich has gotten people to act it out in real time."
Issa called me early on Tuesday morning. "Hey, we're in the news," I said to him, maybe too glibly. "I've had better weeks," he said. And then, in my hostage-video voice, I told him I would not help him in his investigation. Issa seemed to expect this and appeared to be just checking a box with his call anyway, a brief nonconversation that bought him the right to say he had talked to the reporter in his subsequent description of his inquiry. We spoke for about two or three minutes. I told Issa that I did not think Bardella was a bad guy or that his intentions were malicious. Later that morning, Issa called Bardella into his office and fired him.
New stories popped online. The Huffington Post's political tip sheet said the following: "A book about the incestuousness of Washington — written by a man everyone incestuously calls 'Leibo' — incestuously got someone fired."
People were talking to and about me as if I'd uncovered some amazing journalistic trove, as if getting a bunch of suck-uppy e-mails that reporters had sent to a Hill flack was like getting slipped the Pentagon Papers. Yes, reporters suck up, especially here, as Jack Shafer, then of Slate, pointed out: "If sucking up to important sources were a crime, 95 percent of all Washington journalists would be doing time right now." Colleagues kept egging me on to publish as many of their peers' e-mails as I could possibly fit into the book. "A book that looks at the D.C. media nexus and doesn't offer someone a measure of embarrassment would be like a film on the desert showing no sand," wrote Clint Hendler in The Columbia Journalism Review.
Chad Pergram declared on FoxNews.com that the Bardella story would "reverberate for a while in the halls of Congress" and would "stand as an iconic tale of someone who rose and fell in one of the most unforgiving arenas on the planet."
The iconic tale dazzled everyone like a snowflake, then quickly dissolved.
A few weeks after Bardella was fired, I kept running into people who said they'd seen my name mentioned somewhere but did not remember exactly why. Bardella was finding the same thing. The life cycle of public disgrace had been reduced to almost nothing, and what's left after it exhausts itself is just a neutral sheen of notoriety. Bardella received a call one day from a producer for CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°." They were interested in Bardella coming on as a "Republican strategist" to discuss how the so-called birthers were questioning whether President Obama was actually born in the United States. Bardella said the producer told him they were looking for "new voices" to put on the air. He said he would be interested. They did a pre-interview, he told me, but the birther spot fell through. They agreed to keep in touch.
Bardella and I got together at the end of May. He asked me to meet him at a cigar bar downtown called Shelly's Back Room. He shared a private humidor there. I agreed to meet him in the middle of the day. He told me he had talked to some people about jobs: one with a conservative policy group bankrolled by the billionaire Koch brothers, another with a P.R. shop in town. He had also talked to Jonathan Strong, then a reporter at The Daily Caller, a start-up Web site that was co-founded by the libertarian talking head Tucker Carlson. Strong had worked on the Hill as both a staff member and reporter, which is how he came to know Bardella — who had forwarded me some of Strong's e-mails over the months. One sequence in early February stuck out in my memory.
"Favor," Strong wrote in his subject line. He explained in his e-mail that The Daily Caller was compiling some promotional materials for advertisers. "I have been tasked with getting some quotes from Members about how they read and enjoy The Daily Caller," Strong wrote. "Is this something you could help me out with?" This struck me as cozy even by D.C. standards: a Congressional reporter asking a member of Congress to lend his name to his publication's promotional copy. Bardella was happy to help. He asked Strong what he wanted Issa to say. "Just like, I enjoy reading The Daily Caller with some kind of mild variation on that theme," Strong wrote. "I read it daily, my staff stays updated by reading etc." Strong added that "my bosses are on my case about it." He had his response from Bardella in minutes:
"Not only has The Daily Caller become one of Washington's must-reads of the day, but it has found its place in leading a daily news cycle that changes throughout the day. I can't tell you how many times my staff has sent me breaking news that originates with reporting from The Daily Caller — Representative Darrell Issa."
"Epic," Strong wrote back to Bardella two minutes later. "Thank you."
After his firing, Bardella spoke to Strong about the possibility of working at The Daily Caller. Strong put him in touch with Carlson.
Carlson has a special zest for goosing the self-righteous posture of official Washington. "This is such a judgmental city when it comes to people like Kurt," said Carlson, who had previously appeared as a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars." Carlson called me in April for my opinion on whether he should hire Bardella. I was hesitant to get involved further in Bardella's fate, but I figured it was the least I could do after getting the guy fired.
I told Carlson what he already knew: that Bardella was high-risk and high-reward, driven and talented and immature. He had a desperate edge and would have to be watched closely. Carlson invited Bardella in to talk about the job and hired him a week later.
Within a few weeks, Bardella was writing commentaries for The Daily Caller. His first was about Michele Bachmann's expected entry into the presidential race. "As long as her candidacy doesn't completely implode," Bardella opined, "her very presence in the Republican field creates dangers for the more established candidates regardless of whether she wins or loses." Bardella's op-ed was quoted in the morning e-mail roundups, including ABC's The Note and NBC's First Read. People were reading what he had to say, sending him notes.
And, for what it's worth, the communications director whom Bardella replaced at The Daily Caller, Becca Glover Watkins, had taken a job on Capitol Hill as deputy press secretary for a publicity-hungry Republican from California, Darrell Issa.
A few months after Bardella's firing, Washingtonian magazine published a long article on Bardella titled "The Comeback." From reading the story, it seemed inevitable that Bardella would be coming full circle soon enough. Issa was quoted saying that Bardella "always has a home with us." In early September 2011, six months after he was fired, Bardella returned to work for Issa.
In his new job as a senior adviser to the committee, Bardella would not have any official dealings with the press. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's communications director, Frederick Hill, told reporters that Issa believed Bardella deserved a second chance, even though he had acted improperly. I first learned the news from Mike Allen in Politico.
Bardella remains with Darrell Issa today. He declined to comment for this story.


text:
namespace ConsoleApplication4 { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var x = new Example(12); var y = new Example(34); var z = Example.Examples.One; } } class Example { public static class Examples { public static readonly Example Zero = new Example(0); public static readonly Example One = new Example(1); } public readonly Double Value; public Example(Double Value) { this.Value = Value; } public static Example Add(Example x, Example y) { return new Example(x.Value + y.Value); } } }
Option Strict On Module Module1 Sub Main() Dim x=New Example(12) Dim y = New Example(34) Dim z= Example.Examples.One End Sub End Module Public Class Example Public Class Examples Public Shared ReadOnly Zero As Example Public Shared ReadOnly One As Example Public Shared ReadOnly Two As Example Public Shared ReadOnly MinusOne As Example Shared Sub new() Zero=New Example(0) One= New Example(1) Two = New Example(2) MinusOne = New Example(-1) End Sub End Class Public ReadOnly Value As Double Public Sub New(Value As Double) Me.Value=Value End Sub Public Shared Function Add(x As Example,y As Example) As Example Return New Example(x.Value+y.Value) End Function End Class
So OK on to the issue I having.
var z = Example.Examples.One;
if I do a . after the One, I only get the instance methods.
Now if I do the following in VB.net
Dim z= Example.Examples.One.
I not only get the Instance methods but I also get the Examples
Now if this because it is Shared / Static you would also expect the .Add method to be there also but it isn't.
Ideally it should behave the same.
Just to rule out it is an issue with my code, I'll provide an example from .net framework that also has the same behavior. System.Drawing.Color
Where you can do Dim c = Color.Red.Black.Blue.Pink ? That's results in c = Color.Pink.
I've had some rather uninformative answers that it's for compatibility reasons with vb6, but trying find out what those actual reasons are (preferably code examples) is rather like trying to extract information out a Bureaucracy Agency.
- Do you know the reason?
- Can show examples?
- Know how to turn it off.
- Or is there an advantage? to the way VB.net does it?

subset: commoncrawl


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Harvard 11, BU 6
Audrey Todd netted three second-half goals (Gil Talbot).
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Audrey Todd scored a career-high four goals and had a career-best six points, while goalie Kelly Weis made seven saves as the Harvard women's lacrosse team topped local rival Boston University, 11-6, at Harvard Stadium Wednesday evening.
Marisa Romeo tacked on a hat trick, while Alexis Nicolia had three draw control and two points for the Crimson, who improves to 8-5 overall. Harvard, which clinches a winning record for the regular season, owned the edge in ground balls, 14-11, and draw controls, 10-9, against the Terriers (6-9).
Tory Waldstein paced the Crimson with five ground balls, as Harvard held BU to only two goals in the second half. Elizabeth Morse, Lindsay Weiner and Mallory Collins each netted two goals for the Terriers. Caroline Meegan stopped five shots in net for BU.
Harvard Highlights:
- Audrey Todd established new career-highs with four goals and six points.
- Tory Waldstein grabbed a career-best five ground balls.
- Marisa Romeo recorded the ninth hat trick of the season.
- Harvard was 14-of-15 on clear attempts and has had at least 10 successful clears in all 13 games.
- Four Harvard players caused turnovers.
- The Crimson led in ground balls, 14-11, and draw controls, 10-9, while shots were even, 22-22.
- Harvard scored six of the game's final eight goals.
- Kelly Weis held opponents under 10 goals for the ninth time this season.
Game Notes:
- Harvard improves to 5-2 at home and 5-3 in non-conference contests.
- The Crimson clinches its first winning regular season record since 2012.
- A freshman has led Harvard in scoring in 11 of the first 13 games.
- Marisa Romeo now leads Harvard with 42 goals and 48 points. Romeo has scored 28 of those goals in non-conference games.
- Romeo needs six goals to move into an 11th place tie for most tallies in a single season in school history.
- Romeo extended her point scoring streak to 13 games.
- Kelly Weis now boasts a 9.34 goals-against average and .480 save percentage for the year.
- Harvard improves to 13-11 all-time against Boston University.
Game Progression:
- After BU tied the game, 1-1, at 22:53 of the first half, the Crimson went on a 3-0 run, going up, 4-1, at the 12:22 mark.
- The Terriers got back within one goal twice, 4-3 (10:51) and 5-4 (5:44), but the Crimson scored the final goal of the first half (4:09) and first of the second stanza (27:30) to go up, 7-4.
- The Crimson netted four of the game's last six goals over the final 27:11.
Ties: One
Lead Changes: None
Largest Leads: Harvard – five (twice) – 2nd: 4:57, 0:22, Boston University - none
Up Next:
Harvard visits Columbia Saturday, April 19 at 1 p.m.


text:
conservative needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 10 designs submitted by 6 freelance designers.
This organization needs a professional logo to reflect the ideals of politics and Christianity.
Almighty Politics
Desired Color Scheme:
See description
Desired Style:
See description
Accepted File Formats:
Adobe Illustrator File
Almighty Politics is an organization dedicated to informing Christians of current political thought and how they can become involved in politics.
The organization needs a professional logo to reflect these ideals of politics and Christianity.
As a starting point, check out the link below;
This belongs to a sister-organization and should be used as a starting point. We would like the design to have a family resemblance to the existing logo .
One additional point - in adding a Christian element to this logo, the client is keen to avoid cliches, so please refrain from using any cross motifs. Other than that, we are open to suggestions about how this should be done.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


text:
World Fair Trade Day rolls around again on May 14 — and this international celebration makes for a great time to stock up on fair trade goodies! Yes, fair trade products can be pricier than their conventional counterparts — but the producers get a fairer deal for their work, while you get high quality products that don't make you worry about major labor abuses.
This month, lots of fair trade companies are offering discounts in celebration of World Fair Trade Day — so take advantage of them to get fair trade products at less than the price of conventional ones. Here are five deals to try:
1. Win $50 worth of fair trade chocolate. Enter the Fair Trade Week Giveaway @purecitizen for a chance to win an assortment of 12+ bars of fair trade chocolate from Equal Exchange, Divine, and Theo. Get your entry in by May 14.
2. Enjoy free fair trade treats at a fair trade event near you. Search Fair Trade Resource Network's list of many events happening throughout this month to find out what's happening near you. Many feature delicious treats, giveaways, and raffle prizes — all fair trade, of course.
3. Get free fair trade tweeting help. Ben & Jerry's has put together a cute little tweeting app called FairTweets — that'll automatically fill in whatever of the 140 characters remain in your tweet with a fair trade message.
4. Nab a coupon for Divine Chocolate. Like fair trade company Divine Chocolate's Facebook page for a coupon that will give you 10 to 20 percent off its web store.
5. Get 30% off fair trade organic lip balm. Eco Lips ONE WORLD lip balms — made with fair trade certified cocoa butter and organic ingredients — even come packaged in tubes made with 40 percent recycled material. Use the code FAIRTRADE2011 for your discount.
6. Win fair trade goodies by putting a "Wake Up the World" fair trade friendly sign (downloadable here) on your mug or banana, taking a photo of yourself, and sending it to email@example.com with your name, city and state. You'll then be entered into a drawing to win Fair Trade goodies from Fair Trade USA.
How will you celebrate World Fair Trade Day?


text:
Leading scientific experts in the field of coastal and marine biogeochemistry, carbon dynamics and ecology gathered in Paris (15-17 February 2011) to discuss the role of coastal and marine ecosystems in the global carbon cycle and for climate change mitigation. This 3-day workshop was organized by IUCN together with Conservation International and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, with additional financial support from NASA and UNEP.
Forests and other terrestrial ecosystems have long been accepted to play a vital role for the mitigation of increased anthropogenic- induced greenhouse-gases in the atmosphere. Initial efforts by IUCN have brought international attention to the role of mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes as important natural carbon sinks , and also identified a number of immediate coastal nature-based mitigation opportunities . Building on this, IUCN, IOC of UNESCO and CI established the international Blue Carbon Scientific Working Group to consider scientific research on the role of coastal vegetated ecosystems in carbon storage and sequestration.
At its first meeting in Paris, the working group sought to define a practically- applicable classification system for coastal carbon ecosystems, identify coastal carbon hotspots, and estimate possible emissions associated with the degradation of coastal ecosystems. The working group will, further develop recommendations for quantifying and monitoring carbon sequestration and loss in salt marshes, mangroves and seagrass beds, identifying indicators and methods, and prioritizing additional research.
Supported by Fondation Total, IUCN is also engaged in scientific research focusing on seagrass beds. While highly efficient in sequestering carbon, the actual amount of carbon stored in seagrass meadows is not known. Thus neither the ongoing nor the potential greenhouse gas emissions that may arise from further damage to these systems can be quantified reliably. At the same time the current global rate of seagrass loss is several times higher than loss of forests on land. In addition to supporting mitigation, this work aims to help secure the many other services seagrass meadows provide, by promoting sound management.
The working group will seek to inform coastal conservation and management guidelines that prioritize avoided loss as well as sequestration of coastal carbon deposits. Furthermore, the outcomes of this scientific working group will inform the ongoing climate change debate by providing scientific advice that can support the inclusion of coastal and marine systems into national carbon accounting and the use of conservation and restoration practices as a viable mitigation strategy under climate regulation policies.
A second workshop is planned for the third quarter 2011.


text:
Stories Reach Below The Surface Of China's Growth
Here at TELL ME MORE, of course, we try to stay up-to-date on the news of how countries and people are changing, but we also understand that sometimes fiction writers can tell those stories even better than journalists can. So this summer we decided to read through literature from countries that are rising on the global stage, the so-called BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Today, we turn to the C in the BRIC, China, with a collection of short stories called "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl." Author Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and immigrated to the United States in the 1990s. Her writing has earned her many awards, including the prestigious MacArthur so-called genius grant in 2010. That same year, The New Yorker magazine named her one of the top 20 writers under 40. And Yiyun Li is with us now.
Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us - and, of course, congratulations again.
YIYUN LI: Thank you and thank you for having me.
MARTIN: You actually came to the U.S. to get a degree in immunology. So how did you start writing fiction?
LI: Well, it was one of those stories that you fell in love with something. I came as a PhD student and I happened to land in Iowa City, Iowa. People said everybody in town was writing a novel so I thought I would try, and I just fell in love with writing.
MARTIN: Was China always your subject?
LI: China seemed a very natural topic for me. You know, it's the country I knew very well and the people I knew very well, so I started to write about China when I started writing.
MARTIN: So let's talk about the collection. It's a very haunting - do you mind if I use that word? It's haunting.
LI: Well, it's, it's a perfect, very apt description.
MARTIN: Talk to me, if you would, about how you - was, was there kind of a central organizing theme or idea around his collection?
LI: You know, one reason I write fiction is I'm curious about human beings, not about the surface. We all have secrets, you know, things unsaid are a major theme for me and so I think in writing fiction and in writing about these stories you are trying to push the characters to say those things that they don't want to say.
MARTIN: Let's talk about the title story, "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl." It's about a woman who tries setting up a marriage between her former student and her grown son. Could you just take it from there, if you would?
LI: So, "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl" translated from Chinese, it means, you know, the perfect match. The boy would be, you know, handsome and rich. The girl would be beautiful and chaste. Of course, in the story of former student of the professor and her grown-up son, they are the perfect mismatch. So the son is not interested in women. He's gay and he did not come out to his mother but she knew. And the student had been in love with this professor for 20 years, so in the end it's that perfect mismatch, you know, how the professor - why the professor wanted to bring these two together and why they agreed to her plan. These things are very interesting to me.
I think in China in the past, you know, 50 years, people have, you know, been in a situation either by political pressure, by cultural pressure, they would choose not to say how they feel and they would choose not to be who they really are to themselves. That is interesting to me because people simultaneously live more than one life. And it's always exciting when a character lives a double life.
MARTIN: If you're just joining us, this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We're continuing our BRICSion book series. We're looking at works of fiction from the so-called BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. We're focusing on the C in the BRIC today, China with Yiyun Li, author of the short story collection, "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl." She's also the author of previous well-reviewed books called "The Vagrants," for example, and "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers."
Let's turn to the biggest or longest story in this particular collection. It's titled "Kindness." Moyan, your protagonist in the story, leads a very isolated life - even at the point of China's opening, right?
LI: Yes.
MARTIN: Those days of being told where to go, what to study, what you're allowed to think about and not think about are over, but she's still very isolated. She's not married. She has no children. She says she doesn't even have any friends. Why did you want her to be that, that way?
LI: I think, you know, there's one thing that she holds on to is that's her way of rebellion is to be isolated. Even though all these people came to her when she was younger trying to make her, you know, open our eyes and love the world, she refused all the help, she refused to open up. In a way I think that's her best way of commenting her own life, that this is my choice.
You know, when we say, you know, your fate is determined by your personality, but your fate is - on the other hand - is determined by history too. And because of that emphasis on collective living, she rebels against that historical force on her. So I-I-I, yes, I do think, you know, in a way she is a hero in her way that she says no to all these external pressures.
MARTIN: Is writing your rebellion?
LI: Well, you could call that. I think writing really just makes me think a lot, which, you know, probably had a history of, you know, being forced into science, being not allowed to express a lot of feeling, a lot of thoughts.
MARTIN: Are your folks still alive, if you don't mind my asking?
LI: They are. They live in Beijing.
MARTIN: They live in Beijing. Do they know that you are as successful as you - as a writer as you have become?
MARTIN: What do they think about your being a writer, by the way? A fiction writer at that - a novelist?
LI: A fiction writer, I know. I hope they like it. I don't know. I think when I give up science my mother was very disappointed and she said oh, you wasted all the good education I give you.
MARTIN: You don't know? You haven't asked them?
LI: Well, I think - well.
MARTIN: Have you sent them your books?
LI: Yes. My mother doesn't read English. My father reads English. But in a way, I think it's, again, I mean to me choosing to write and choosing to, first choosing to come to America and then choosing to write in English, it's a way to, you know, to have a, have a different life than what they envisioned for me. So I try not to comment on my life. I try not to talk too much of my present situation or with them. We get along well, but my career or my writing part is, is a little private for me.
MARTIN: OK. I get that. But do they understand that one of the, MacArthur fellowships are among the most coveted honors that one can have in this country...
MARTIN: ...that you are a genius?
MARTIN: Those are - there's so-called genius grants? Would you like me to call them and tell them?
LI: Oh...
LI: Please, not.
LI: Don't do that.
LI: No. It's OK. I think they know. They are very proud of me.
MARTIN: One other story. Tell me one other story you might like to talk about in the book. Just choose. Those are the two that I chose were the ones that struck me.
LI: Right.
MARTIN: Is there one other that you'd like to tell us about.
LI: Yes.
MARTIN: And particularly one that you think really kind of opens a window into a culture and a time that many people are still - are fascinated by.
LI: There's one story it's called "House Fire." China, once the economy takes off, a man - especially, you know, rich people, started to keep mistresses and it's called second wives in China. And I read in the newspaper six retired women were indignant about betrayal in marriages. So what they did was they went on to start a private detective agency to specialize extramarital affair, which is a very interesting phenomenon for 21st century China. So I wrote a story about the private detective agency, you know, how they got together, how they solved their cases how, you know, when they went into the marketplace they would have walkie-talkies hidden under their vegetables and they would have, you know, balky earlier model cell phones under their scarves. In the end, it's not really about a private detective agency; it's really about the six women and what, you know, psychological state they were underneath that successful business.
MARTIN: But it is also about the fact that one of the - the backdrop of the story is you described was the, the fact that China is now a different place than it was 30 years ago, where people can now own private property, for example, and that some tremendous fortunes have been made, right...
LI: Yes.
MARTIN: ...in China in just recent decades. Not just in Hong Kong, but on the mainland, right?
LI: Yes. Exactly.
MARTIN: And so and what effect this is having on people's lives. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that? And do you think that'll be a subject of your future work?
LI: I do think, you know, my work is going to look at that change and look at what, you know, facing the new situations - what people do or fail to do.
MARTIN: There was one other thing I wanted to ask, I wasn't sure though, whether it made sense, is I just wondered if you have a sense just from readings and from your public readings and reaction that you get from - 'cause I don't know how engaged you are of social media and things like that, or how you hear from your readers - whether you get a very different reaction from your American readers or Western readers and from Chinese expatriates.
LI: Sometimes do. I would say, you know, my fellow Chinese living in America, oftentimes they suspect that I'm writing to please the Western audience, or writing to seek the favor. You know, like oftentimes they would question, you know, do you win these prize because you're good or do you win these prizes because you're writing about China? And it doesn't make sense? I, I sometimes try to explain. But in the end I stopped explaining.
MARTIN: That's very interesting? What is that about? Are people not proud of your success or, or do they feel that it's because you're being critical? Do they interpret your work as being critical of China and they don't appreciate that?
LI: Yes. I can give you an example, you know, two examples. One, I, I travel to Virginia once and I gave a reading in the college. And there was this young woman in her early 20s just coming from China for college. And afterwards, she said to me in Chinese, she said I know you're a good writer, you know, I read your book, but why do you have to write about these dark, lonely people? Why can't you write about, you know, the great Beijing Olympic in 2008? I explained to her that I don't write Olympic because I am not interested and I think it's going to be a propaganda story.
LI: So...
MARTIN: Interesting.
LI: Yeah. Another reader coming to my neighborhood bookstore and she said I experience everything you wrote about, but still I'm not approving of your writing because I want people to see China as a beautiful country. I want Chinese people to be looked upon as great people and you're not doing that service to us. I...
MARTIN: That is fascinating. Go ahead. Tell me more.
LI: I understand her feeling. I said I understand your feeling but, you know, I think one assumption that I try not to have people to have is, you know, I'm not a spokesperson for China. I'm not representing China in any way. Mostly I'm writing from my angle and my understanding of the world. And I explain that if I write about it America, America is not going to be that beautiful fairytale place either. You know, I look at life in the way that I want to know the real truths, you know, under the surface. And you write about anything under the surface you're going to make people feel a little uneasy.
MARTIN: Yiyun Li is the author of a short story collection, "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl." She's also a winner of a MacArthur fellowship, a so-called genius grant. And she was kind enough to join us from Berkeley, California.
Yiyun Li, thank you so much for speaking with us.
LI: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: And that's our program for today. I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Let's talk more tomorrow.
Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
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text:
I first heard about Banksy's film Exit Through the Gift Shop earlier this year, when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in February. I was really excited to watch it because I was sure it would provide a glimpse into the life and thought process of the incredible infamous and equally elusive British street artist Banksy, whose works have appeared everywhere from his native city of Bristol to the wall that divides Israel and Palestine. His repertoire does not just include stencils and spray but playful installations and elaborate hoaxes. In fact, in 2009, he gained additional notoriety by pirating the walls of a public Bristol museum, where he hung his own artworks and captions, as well as through his dolphin ride installation, which had been done in response to BP's oil spill. Most recently, he has even been credited with directing the opening sequence of the October 11, 2010 episode of The Simpsons.
But this is not a post about Banksy, nor is this a film about Banksy. "What?" you may ask, incredulously, "but it's A Banksy Film!" At first, I was a little disappointed too, but to be honest, viewers knew that this would be the case fairly early on, when a hooded Banksy with altered voice gave a brief introduction to the film. Think of this film more as a Banksy project, if that helps you wrap your head around the massive amounts of disappointment that I'm sure you're feeling right now. But take solace in the fact, dear reader, that although Banksy and his own art appear only sporadically throughout the film, Exit Through the Gift Shop still serves as a wonderful introduction into the world of street art, and its message makes this film a prime example of a Banksy project.
So yes, although this film was not what I had originally expected, it was still incredibly enjoyable and informative. Aptly termed "the world's first street art disaster movie," it definitely provides a rather candid glimpse into the nocturnal adventures (both failed and successful) of a variety of street artists. Aside from Banksy, big names such as Space Invader, Monsieur Andre, Zeus, Shepard Fairey, Neckface, Sweet Toof, Ron English, Dotmasters, Swoon, Borf, Buffmonster and their works all made appearances in the film. And although it was a movie originally intended to be about street art and Banksy, it soon becomes quite clear how and why it developed into a documentary about the eccentric man behind the camera.
Meet Thierry Guetta, a French ex-pat living in Los Angeles, who ran a vintage clothing store and developed the rather peculiar obsession of filming absolutely anything and everything on his camera. While on holiday in France, he began filming the work of his cousin, street artist Space Invader and was soon drawn into the burgeoning street art scene. Upon returning to L.A., he continued seeking out the rising stars of the street art scene, a process that was aided greatly by his cousin, then by Shepard Fairey, who though reluctant at first, accepts Guetta as first a tagalong who happens to have a camcorder and then lookout on his nighttime wanderings. Guetta dives into his role with enthusiastic incompetence and films everything with a blundering sense of awe. His filming, finally having been given the direction and focus that it had previously lacked, leads Guetta to inadvertently take up the task of documenting this ephemeral genre of contemporary art.
Eventually, Guetta develops a desire to meet the infamous Banksy, an artist who he believes will complete his comprehesive record of street artists. Fate somehow brings Banksy to the West Coast, and Shepard Fairey introduces him to Guetta, who has developed the reputation of the man for out-of-town street artists to contact to get everything from supplies to information on the best walls to a nighttime ride. Soon Guetta is faithfully shadowing the elusive Banksy, even traveling with him to England to record his workshop and capture his projects.
Spoiler alert!! For those of you who want to find out for yourselves how this movie unfolds, and are only interested in the critical review and analysis, please skip ahead to the paragraph after the Life is Beautiful wall picture!
Meanwhile, inspired by the works of the artists around him, and eager to take part in what looked like a good time, it is revealed that Guetta has started experimenting with the mass dissemination of images via stickers and wheat-pasting under the psuedonym Mister Brainwash (MBW) and it comes to light that Thierry Guetta had been accumulating thousands of hours of footage with no real intention of editing it together to create a comprehensive documentary. Meanwhile, Banksy is preparing for his big debut show in L.A., Barely Legal. After this monumental US show, the commercial market for street art in contemporary art collections started to boom. It was at this time that Banksy decided that the time was right to show the world that street art was a messy business and that it had never been about the money. Faced with Banksy's challenge to finally create a film, Thierry Guetta finally starts to edit his accumulated tapes.
Six months later, Guetta flies to London to show Banksy his almost-complete film, Life Remote Control. Banksy is absolutely flabbergasted and slightly terrified with the result, saying that the film was like someone with ADHD had gotten a hold of a remote control and was flipping through TV channels for 90 minutes. Keeping the tapes in an attempt to create a more complete and accurate documentary which would better portray the importance of street art as captured by Thierry Guetta, Banksy gives Guetta an assignment designed to distract: go home to L.A., create some art, and put on a show.
Thierry Guetta throws himself into this project, fully adopting the MBW persona, and invests in a production line of artists and assistants, working to churn out prints of altered pop culture icons in a thoroughly Warhol-esque manner (but with none of the Warhol irony). Eager to please Banksy, MBW excitedly prepares for his huge gallery debut, appropriating a huge studio for installations, prints, and other assorted projects. Meanwhile a change is occurring in this central character: the blundering but otherwise endearing Thierry Guetta slowly transforms into an art world douchbag. Constantly on his cell phone, he becomes concerned mostly with hype, and attempts to become the biggest and hottest commodity in L.A. He sells pieces ahead of the show with arbitrary price tags, most of which are dependent on the object's size, and often in the tens of thousands of dollars. Hours before the show he transforms into a control freak who is concerned with only interviews and handshakes. But despite the massive amounts of disorganization and procrastination, manages to pull off a critical success of a show that is attended by thousands of people. After the exhibition, he appears arrogant and self-satisfied, pleased to have finally established his place among the legendary street artists he had been filming for the past decade. Meanwhile, Banksy and Shepard Fairey show a certain amount of disdain for the pointlessness of MBW's art, and seem uncertain as to what to make of the public sensationalism surrounding MBW.
Directed and produced by a notorious and mysterious trickster, this film has been widely called nothing more than an elaborate hoax, and has even been classified as a "prankumentary" by New York Times film critic Jeanette Catsoulis. I personally disagree with her assessment because it's absolutely possible for someone to fall into a career over the course of a year and a half and create massive amounts of art when they've hired a production line of assistants. Some have even speculated that MBW was created for the purpose of the documentary. But the question as to whether or not Exit Through the Gift Shop is a case of life following art or art following life is irrelevant, because it's the introduction and message that's important.
The first act of Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary about street art, as seen through the exuberant eyes of Thierry Guetta, and the second act of this film becomes a documentary about Guetta as MBW. MBW becomes the perfect juxtaposition for street artists like Shepard Fairey, who has spent years finding his style, and Banksy, who is very thoughtful with his projects. While most artists spend their time developing their technique, finding their style, and thinking about the meaning of their works, MBW found his style quite quickly and almost accidentally, and uses repetition and gigantism without too much thought. Interviews taken during MBW's debut exhibition show viewers praising the work as revolutionary, and assigning value to objects that clearly have none.
So perhaps this film isn't so much a documentary, but more of an exposé. More than that, this film highlights the relationship between the world of street art and the world of contemporary/pop art in its second act. With a note of irony that only street artist can provide, this film raises questions regarding issues such as the monetary valuation of artwork, the commercialization of street art, and the appropriation of images. Perhaps most interestingly, Exit Through the Gift Shop underscores the pretentiousness of the contemporary art scene. So yes, this film makes you think. And, more than that, it successfully does what it was meant to do: provide the viewer with a glimpse into the chaotic world of street art and give them a good time while doing it.
Exit Through the Gift Shop will be digitally available for both rent and purchase on iTunes and Video on Demand channels beginning November 23, 2010 and available on DVD (with awesome extras, like a version of Life Remote Control) on December 14, 2010. I definitely suggest watching this film with some friends, not just because it raises a lot of quite interesting questions and topics that you'll most likely want someone to talk to, but because it's just that good of a ride. And the best part is that you don't need to be a street art buff to love this movie. For all my analysis, it's simply a great introduction into the world of street art, and just a lot of fun to watch.
For those of you who want more background on the film, here's a wonderful interview with the producer and editor of Exit Through the Gift Shop with Movie City News about the documentary that never really existed. And, here's an interesting interview with Shepard Fairey about the film as well.


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MEXICO, Mo. — Zenith Aircraft will host its 22nd Annual Open Hangar Day and Fly-In Sept. 21.
The event, which typically draws hundreds of people, is staged for the benefit of Zenith builders, owners and enthusiasts.
Scheduled activities begin on Friday, Sept. 20, when a series of seminars on powerplants, wiring, avionics, and issues like weight and balance are presented for current and prospective builders. A workshop will be busy all day with sample projects designed to show how easy and engaging it is to be involved in building a metal airplane.
Friday evening, the company hosts a dinner at the nearby Elks Club, which is open to all attendees. Then on Saturday, the company rolls out all of its aircraft, gives demo flights, factory tours and engages in serious hangar talk. Throughout the day there will be a series of short seminars about building and flying an aircraft. Factory personnel will demonstrate the procedures for fabricating and assembling components of various Zenith designs.
"The emphasis of our Hangar Day is on having fun and learning more about building and flying an airplane," said Sebastien Heinz, president of Zenith Aircraft. "A lot of our builders fly in for the day to renew old friendships and display their planes. We get a lot of people who are here to make a decision about purchasing a kit and it's our desire to make it obvious that building an airplane is fun."
For more information: ZenithAir.com


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Our current bookmobile is the latest in a long history of bookmobile service to the residents of Atlantic County. The space, skylights, air conditioning and separate enter and exit doors create a comfortable atmosphere. It's an invaluable service for those who are without transportation or access to a library branch.
The bookmobile maintains a collection of more than 2,800 items, including books, magazines, audiobooks (CD and tape), DVDs, CDs, and videos.
History of the Bookmobile
Our first bookmobile appeared in the 1920s!
In its beginnings, the library operated strictly as a bookmobile. The book truck often became stuck in the gravel filled or muddy roads of Atlantic County, and sometimes had to be pulled out by Franklin Roosevelt's Work Progress Administration (WPA) road workers.
By 1939, over 70 area schools were served by the Atlantic County Library bookmobile. At that time, the library's annual circulation of books was 32,000. Nearly every town maintained a collection as well, although often only a bookcase in a private home.


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Lawyers for Facebook say they will ask a judge to throw out a New York man's claim that he's entitled to majority ownership of the social networking site.
Paul Ceglia, of Wellsville, N.Y., says he has a 2003 contract signed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Ceglia says the contract shows that he hired Zuckerberg to develop a street-mapping website for him and at the same time invested $1,000 in the fledgling social networking site.
The lawsuit brought Facebook attorneys to federal court in Buffalo, where they told a judge Tuesday that they have questions about the contract and intend to file a motion to dismiss.
Facebook has not claimed the contract is a phony but has "serious questions" about its authenticity, Facebook lawyer Lisa Simpson told the judge.
Ceglia's lawyers say the contract is clear.
This is just one of many cases claiming ownership of the world's largest online social network, which, by some estimates, is worth up to $25 million. In 2008, the Palo Alto company settled with a group of Zuckerberg's former classmates who claimed he used code developed on a school project known as ConnectU to start Facebook.


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I'm sure you Lord of The Rings fans know who this face is. It is Frodo's right hand man Samwise and you are about to get schooled on "how to draw Samwise Gamgee", step by step. This face always makes me laugh whenever I see it. His innocence is strong, and even though Sam is considered to be a little on the dim side, he knew right away that Gollum was only after one thing and one thing only, the ring. What I liked about Samwise's character is how loyal and devoted to Frodo he was. Frodo and Sam where the closest of friends, and if they lived in our day they would've been considered BFFs. Drawing Samwise should be a breeze. I will be back soon with more fun for you all so stay tuned in. Adios amigos!
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Boundary conditions in multiphase, porous media, transport models of thermal processes with rapid evaporationA. Datta[1], and A. Halder[1]
[1]Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
In modeling of thermal processing of biological materials with rapid evaporation, it is critical to provide boundary conditions consistent with the phenomena happening at the surface to accurately predict spatial temperature and moisture content for quality and safety assurance. Boundary conditions in a mathematical model are as important as governing equations itself and describe how the heat and mass transfer takes place at the boundary. The developed model is solved in COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4 (Chemical Engineering Module)


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How to Change the Gas on a Troy-Bilt Walk Behind Mower
Length of Clip: 1:09
This video will show you how to change the gas on a Troy-Bilt walk behind mower. Depending on your model, the instructions in this video may vary slightly. Always be sure to check your operator's manual for detailed instructions.
- Step 1
Remove the spark plug ignition wire.
- Step 2
Unscrew the gas cap.
- Step 3
Using the Arnold Siphon Pump, place the orange tube into the gas tank on the engine, and the black tube into a proper container.
- Step 4
Prime the pump by pumping the handle three to four times. Once the liquid begins to flow, it will flow without further pumping.
- Step 5
Remove the orange tube and add new gas.
- Step 6
Replace the gas cap.
- Step 7
Replace the spark plug ignition wire.
- Step 8
Dispose of the gas properly.
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Step Up Forsyth! is a free communitywide program that aims to improve quality of life through increased physical activity. Participants may engage in physical activity on their own or form physical activity teams.
For more information, go to the Forsyth County Department of Public Health web site. This link will open in a new window; the linked web site is not part of the City of Winston-Salem.
Receive E-Mail Notification When New Information is Posted on this PageAs a member, enjoy the benefits of MyCityofWS, including your choice of newsletters, and notifications about events and site updates. Login and Manage Your Subscriptions Now.


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FAIRFIELD, CT – The Sacred Heart University Athletic Department will host Newtown Community Day on Saturday, February 23rd during the men's and women's basketball doubleheader at the William H. Pitt Center, as well as the men's hockey game that night at Milford Ice Pavilion.
All Newtown residents will get free admission with a valid ID for Sacred Heart's doubleheader with Northeast Conference rivals Quinnipiac University and Central Connecticut State University. The Pioneer women tip-off at 1:00 pm against the QU Bobcats and the men take on the CCSU Blue Devils at 3:30 pm. Residents can also get free admission to the Sacred Heart men's hockey game that night against Bentley at the Milford Ice Pavilion at 7 p.m.
The Sacred Heart Athletic Department will host a Kids Sports Clinic in the Pitt Center as part of the event. Pioneer student-athletes will lead drills and games in various sports. The sports clinic will take place prior to the tip-off the women's game, starting at 11:30 am through 1:00 pm.
In addition, the Sacred Heart cheerleaders, dance team and SHU mascot "Big Red" will be on hand for a meet and greet, face painting and to take pictures. The Sacred Heart men's basketball team will host an autograph session in the gym at 12:30 pm. The women's team will sign autographs for fans following their game at 3:00 pm.
A percentage of the proceeds from the two games will go to benefit The Newtown Scholarship Association's Sandy Hook Elementary School Memorial Scholarship Fund.


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Billie GLOVERALL 60s Mod Resin Coated Parka KHAKI
Warmth Rating
What is this?
When shopping for coats and jackets online, it can be difficult to determine which coats will be very heavy and warm and which jackets are light and more suitable for warmer weather. To help you pick the best coat or jacket for your needs, we have put together our 'Cosy Coat' Scale - to give you a better idea of the warmth of our coats, jackets, parkas and raincoats. All coats and jackets are marked out of five, with 1 being the lightest, summer or warm weather jackets and 5 being the heaviest, winter and cold weather coats and jackets.
Heavy and thick styles of coats, designed for wear in cold, wintery weather. These are the warmest jackets and coats, ideal for those freezing days and nights! Typical styles will include Parkas, heavy Overcoats and Duffle coats.
Heavier jackets and coats which will be suitable for colder weather, but not the coldest weather. No short length jackets. Raincoats and macs are included in this catagory unless quite heavy or light. Typical styles include Trench coats, Raincoats, Lighter Duffle coats and lighter or only partially lined Parkas.
Transitional jackets and coats which could be worn in Spring or Autumn. Everyday jackets and coats. Neither very light or very heavy. Good for mild weather.Typical styles include Harrington Jackets, Bomber Jackets, heavier Anoraks or windbreakers.
Lightweight Jacket designed for warmer weather wear. Usually lined, but still quite light. Typical styles include light anoraks and windbreakers, zipper jackets and blazers.
Very lightweight jackets or coats, designed for Summer or warmer weather wear. Unlined. Shirt-Jackets, overshirts and hoodie or track top style jackets are also in this catagory. Typical styles include overshirts, jersey hoodies and trackie tops.
Outerwear garments which aren't really outerwear at all - extremely light garments designed for hot weather wear. Typical styles include wraps, kimonos, cover-ups and boleros.
Please note: the Cosy Coat rating is intending for guidance only and is based on Atom Retro editors opinions of the suitability of each coat or jacket, estimating factors like fabric thickness and type, durability, features, length, padding and fastening.
Gloverall 'Billie' 1960s mod made in England resin coated parka jacket in traditional military khaki with a cool retro orange interior trim. A classic 60s mod parka silhouette with a contemporary lightweight feel... making it a cool indie parka for music festivals. Double-faced resin coated ripstop cotton shell ensures the Gloverall 'Billie' parka is showerproof, perfect for the unpredictable spring weather. A sublime vintage aesthetic and a truly stylish take on a mod outerwear staple - The Made in England Gloverall 'Billie' Parka.
Product ID: 34317
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The Ice Cream Truck goes where most other bikes can't. Snow, rocks, mud, sand — you name it, and chances are, someone has ridden it on an Ice Cream Truck. Don't let that terrain-crawling ability fool you into thinking the Ice Cream Truck is slow and sluggish, though. A long top tube (best paired with a short stem) and short stays make it trail-approved and ready to rip. And with 4.8" tires on 100mm rims, "trail" is relative. Show a snowman who's boss, ride through a sand castle — all while riding the perfect get-away vehicle. Or you can stick to riding terrain that won't ruin a child's day.
It all starts with Surly's proprietary ED-coated 4130 CroMoly steel. ED coating provides a solid foundation for paint externally while adding a layer of corrosion protection internally. The Ice Cream Truck's frame is symmetrically-spaced at 190mm and features Surly's MDS dropout system, so you have the option of running a 197mm thru-axle, 190mm geared or a single speed rear end. Each frameset comes with all three MDS chips so you can choose your own adventure. A 132mm wide PressFit 41 bottom bracket allowed Surly to play with the stays a bit more and move them a little further out, creating a much stiffer rear end. If you feel like swapping out the included suspension-corrected, straight blade fork, you'll have plenty of options thanks to the Ice Cream Truck's 44mm headtube.
In a world full of uncertainties, there's one thing you can count on: Ice Cream Truck will really take you places. At least when it comes to riding a bike — it can't do much to help you fix the rest of your life.
|Surly Ice Cream Truck, 100% Surly 4130 CroMoly steel. ED coated. Triple-butted main triangle. TIG-welded
|Surly Ice Cream Truck, 1-1/8" straight steerer with tapered straight blade, 4130 CroMoly. 483mm axle to crown, 47mm offset. 51mm IS front standard disc mount.
|Front: 150 x 15mm; Rear: 197 x 12mm thru-axles
|Accessories & Extras
|Stainless 33.1 seatpost collar, Black
* Subject to change without notice.
Part Numbers
|Store SKU
|Banana Candy Yellow / Medium


text: Works by a baker's dozen of Rochester printmakers were on view through January 2012 in the Auditorium Corridor. The exhibit, which includes intaglio, relief and planographic examples, includes works by such past masters as James Dexter Havens and Bolton Brown and such current notables as Kathy Calderwood and Robert Marx. Pictured: Mikazuki (2007), aquatint and chine collé on indigo washi paper, by contemporary artist Sarah Brayer.


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Egypt court sets May 11 for Mubarak retrial
Apr 17, 2013, 11:33 PM EDT
(AP Photo/Ahmed Gomaa)
CAIRO (AP) — The Cairo appellate court on Wednesday set May 11 for the resumption of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's retrial in the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the uprising that deposed him.
More than two years after Mubarak was forced from office, his fate remains a highly contentious issue. An order to transfer the 84-year-old ex-president back to a prison hospital from a military facility set off a noisy demonstration Wednesday.
Mubarak supporters blocked the road in front of the military hospital and forced a delay in his transfer, according to a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Mubarak remains in custody on new corruption charges, though a court ordered him released earlier this week before his retrial over the deaths of protesters.
The decision to transfer him back to Tora prison, where his two sons are being held before facing a corruption trial, came after the prosecutor ordered the formation of a medical committee to look into Mubarak's health.
Mubarak appeared in court Saturday for the first time since his conviction in June 2012. After he was wheeled into the courtroom on a hospital gurney, he sat upright, grinned and waved to supporters from inside the metal defendant's cage.
In January, an appeals court overturned a life sentence against Mubarak for failing to prevent the killing of nearly 900 protesters during the 18-day uprising in 2011. He was the first Arab leader to appear in a defendant's cage and stand trial by his own people.
The new date for the retrial was set after the judge in the case recused himself last weekend.
The judge had ordered acquittals in October for 25 Mubarak loyalists accused of organizing a deadly attack in which assailants on horses and camels stormed downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square during the uprising.
President Mohammed Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, criticized the judiciary for several recent acquittals.
"The acquittals of corrupt and criminal Mubarak-era figures confirms that the revolution is not complete," party spokesman Murad Ali said in a statement. He said the acquittals highlight "dysfunction in the judiciary system."
Morsi and his government have had several run-ins with the judiciary over powers and edicts.
In an effort to boost the nation's battered economy, some Brotherhood members have supported holding reconciliation talks with former officials toward return of stolen funds. The largely liberal and secular opposition has criticized such moves, saying Morsi has not taken needed steps to begin reforming the judiciary.
Activists and lawyers connected to Mubarak's retrial say there is no guarantee that new evidence will be submitted in the case. They complain about a lack of a comprehensive transitional justice program to hold Mubarak and former regime officials accountable for crimes committed during his rule, as well as the killing of protesters.
Late Wednesday, Egypt's prosecutor general ordered the arrest of 22 people suspected of forming and funding the so-called Black Bloc, masked young men who fought security forces during anti-Muslim Brotherhood protests over the past months.
The prosecution said in a statement that the suspects were accused of "forming a group with intention to commit terrorist crimes, violence, theft, murder" and a long list of other charges. No names were released.
The Muslim Brotherhood group has blamed Egypt's liberal opposition of fomenting street violence, saying they want to destabilize the country and show that Islamist rule is weak. The opposition denies this. Maintaining that violence is a normal and expected result of political chaos.
Also Wednesday, a lower court in Cairo ordered the country's prime minister to serve one year in prison and be removed from office for failing to implement a ruling on the privatization of a flax company. The court ruled that Prime Minister Hesham Kandil had not carried out a September 2011 court ruling invalidating the sale of Tanta Flax & Oil company to Saudi businessman Abdullah al-Kaaki.
The ruling can be appealed.
A separate case on the sale of the company, based in the city of Tanta north of Cairo, is to be reviewed by the country's Supreme Administrative Court in May.
A spokesman for the Cabinet could not be immediately reached for comment.
The sale was completed under the Mubarak regime in 2005, well before Kandil became prime minister.
Previously, company workers filed complaints to prosecutors against one of Kandil's predecessors for not enforcing the court's decision.
Workers have been protesting against privatization of the company, complaining that the government's policies had not changed despite the uprising. They also alleged that before the uprising, company administrators tried to bribe farmers not to grow flax in order to slow production, making the sale of the company cheaper for investors and easier for the government.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.


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I have a tutorial request up next and it's actually going to be on a character from the Final Fantasy series. I was asked to make a step by step lesson on "how to draw chibi Lightning". At first I didn't have a concept as to how to start the drawing from start to finished, but eventually I came up with a plan and the result is something epic. Drawing a chibi version of Lightning was really easy, but I knew it had to also be colorful, and a little challenging. Lightning is a popular figure in the Final Fantasy video game series and because of this I even made a regular tutorial on her which can be found in the Video Game section under the Pop Culture category. The coloring also ended up coming out pretty sweet too because the hues of purple and pink that I decided to go with really makes this chibi version of Lightning snap, crackle, and pop. If you choose to tackle this tutorial, and you follow each step that you see, you will end up with a drawing that has a lot of character, and pizazz. Final Fantasy blew up in a big way and I can still remember when I played the first release. There is nothing more exciting than learning how to draw your favorite character from the game in chibi form. So have fun guys with drawing chibi Lightning and be sure to let me know what you thought of the tutorial when you're done.
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Three Crimson were included among the preseason rankings of New England's top lacrosse players (Gil Talbot).
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The New England Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (NEILA) released its Preseason All-NEILA team Monday which included Daniel Eipp, Alex White and preseason rookie of the Year, Devin Dwyer.
Eipp, the 2011 NEILA Rookie of the Year and a two-time All-Ivy League selection, is coming off a year in which he ranked second on the team in points (42), goals (24) and assists (18). His 3.00 points per game were good for fourth in the Ivy League while he ranked seventh in both goals per game (1.71) and assists per game (1.29). The junior connected on 34.3 percent of his shots taken and this summer won a gold medal playing for the U.S. Under-19 Men's National Team at the Lacrosse World Championships in Finland.
White, a senior who has seen action in 41 of the Crimson's 42 games over the last three years, posted five goals and 19 ground balls a year ago while playing out of the midfield. The Summit, N.J. native set career-highs for points (14), goals (8) and assists (6) in his sophomore campaign after registering six goals and six assists for 12 points as a freshman.
Dwyer was ranked as the No. 4 recruit in the class of 2016 by Inside Lacrosse this summer after leading Garden City to an undefeated season, a No. 1 ranking by Inside Lacrosse and a Class B NYS Championship in 2012. Dwyer was chosen as the US Lacrosse National Player of the Year following the season and also earned All-America honors as a sophomore, junior and senior.
Harvard will open its 2013 campaign this Saturday, Feb. 23 when it hosts No. 7/5 UMass at 1 p.m. at Soldiers Field Lacrosse Stadium.