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27 July 2013
High Noon for a point of punctuation
"I say, the position of the full stop in relation to the closing quote mark depends on—"
"And I say the dang period always goes inside."
"Whether the reader actually notices the position of the final full stop is rather dubious. Editors shed blood, sweat and tears over the issue, wrestling with anomalies not covered by the various rules; and the wastage of editorial time suggests there's a lot to be said for a simple system. The American system (put it inside) is still easiest to apply in texts with a lot of dialogue . . . But for nonfiction writing, the practice of treating final punctuation for quote marks the same way as for parentheses has much to recommend it."
- Pam Peters, The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide, Cambridge University Press, 1995
I highly recommend this worldly guide as a reference for writers, editors, and an eye-opening tour of English's Babel, It is much more useful than a provincial tome like the Oxford Guide to or Chicago Manual of Style.
However, Peters would be useless at a shootout. I see her at High Noon sitting on the fence, yelling "Arbitrate!".
07 July 2013
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August 30th, 2010
We had a great turnout at our Lunch Line screening Saturday, where we hosted the Southeastern premiere of a documentary that shows "how you can impact children's health and work within the system."
We were lucky to have one of the filmmakers, Michael Graziano, drive down from Nashville. The film,produced by Graziano and his partner Ernie Park at Uji Films, was alternately hilarious, sobering, and poignant. It follows six kids from Detroit who are just trying to make their school food healthier. In the meantime, it offers a comprehensive look at the history of school lunch; the current state of the program, which feeds over 31 million children daily; and the future of school lunch.
We packed the house with over 60 attendees, who together donated over $500 to help mobilize Alabamians to end poverty in our home state. These donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar by theCommunity Foundation of Greater Birmingham. Thank you!
Most importantly, we started a discussion about the school lunch program, the food system, child nutrition, hunger, and childhood obesity – one we hope to continue during our Hunger Workshop tomorrow in Huntsville and the Food Summit on November 12-13 in Birmingham. We're planning further Lunch Line screenings in Montgomery and at UAB, UA and Auburn; details TBA! If you would like to host a screening with us, contact T.C. McLemore.
Our panel discussion included (above, left to right):
Amanda Storey, coordinator of Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Jefferson County
Scott Silver, the Farm-to-School Coordinator for Jones Valley Urban Farm
Sharon Boshell, Area director for the Child Nutrition Program in Shelby County
Jennifer Horton, parent and chair of the CPC Education Workgroup
Michael Graziano, co-producer of Lunch Line
Amanda, our moderator extraordinaire, sent us these resources about school lunch reform:
- www.onetray.org
- www.healthyschoolscampaign.org
- www.chefann.com
- www.lunchbox.org
- www.farmtoschool.org
- www.fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com
- www.scoolfood.org
- Birmingham News article on free and reduced school lunches in Alabama
- School Lunch: A Peculiar History – written by local Birmingham blogger Jason Horn.
To advocate for the Child Nutrition Act working its way through Congress, see Slow Food's Info on Child Nutrition Reauthorization.
Big thanks to Amanda, Jenn, Scott, Sharon, and Michael for bringing their knowledge, experience, and viewpoints to an excellent panel discussion!
Thanks also to our audience members, who asked great questions; Merrilee and Brad at the Bottletree Cafe, who generously gave us their space; and Greater Birmingham Community Food Partners,Jones Valley Urban Farm, Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, and Slow Food Birmingham who promoted this event all over the city.
Posted by Robyn Hyden

subset: commoncrawl


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Update: After a six year run, Gamejump has shut down. Mobile games and apps that were distributed with Gamejump's ad-supported wrapper no longer work, failing with the message "Connection Failure. Unable to connect. Please check to make sure your phone has service".
Gamejump's parent company Greystripe, posted the following message on their Facebook Page:
"Greystripe has discontinued all support for the Java AdWrap for Publishers and Catalog programs as of June 20, 2011. This only affects the Java AdWrap programs; we are discontinuing the AdWrap platform in order to focus all our resources on our iOS, Android, and mobile web platforms. Should you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]."
My original 2006 post covering GameJump is below.
GameJump is a mobile (wap.gamejump.com) and web (GameJump.com) site offering free downloadable ad-supported Java games. The site and service seems to be a raging success with 1.4 million downloads in it's first four months of operation. There are currently over 350 games available on GameJump. This success has not gone unnoticed with Greystripe, the company behind GameJump, winning Best in Show Overall at the Under the Radar Mobility Conference. In a comment to this MobileCrunch post, Andy Choi, Greystripe CTO, claims impressive 5-15% click through rates. Greystripe has also released some metrics where they report that the service is most popular in the US, UK, India, South Africa and Indonesia. It's pretty amazing that they can get that many off-portal downloads, particularly from US users who are notoriously reluctant leave the carrier deck. Also telling is the carrier breakdown. The largest US carrier, Cingular with a 39% share barely beating much smaller T-Mobile's 30%. Could that be because T-Mobile charges $6/month for unlimited data compared with Cingular's $20. Cheap unlimited data really does drive mobile data adoption.
I gave the service a try and liked what I saw. First I downloaded a couple of games to my old Nokia 3650 from GameJump's mobile site. There is no registration required. You don't have to give GameJump any personal information, especially not your phone number so there are no worries about Text SPAM or premium SMS scams. The whole process was very easy and smooth. GameJump correctly identified my phone but also allowed me to override that selection and pick a different device from a list. Both downloaded games looked and worked well with attractive full screen graphics and good game play. When I launched the games there was a message to the effect that the game would occasionally use the phone's data connection to download new ads and I had to agree to allow this before I could start playing. I have an unlimited data plan so I was fine with this but I do appreciate the disclosure.
Next I downloaded a game from GameJump's Web Portal for side loading onto my Boost Mobile Motorola i855. I was pleased to see that GameJump lists games for all the Java capable iDEN phones all the way back to the i85. Unlike some sites, GameJump has both the .jar and the .jar files available for download, both of which are required by iDEN handsets. The game I downloaded for the i855 installed with no issues and again looked and played well. As with the mobile site, no registration is required to download games. If you do register, all that's required is an e-mail address. Registration lets you review games and participate in GameJump's contests where you can win free phones.
You have probably never heard of most of the games on GameJump but the ones I downloaded were of commercial quality – much better than what you typically find on freeware game sites like GetJar.com and Midlet.org. GameJump has games in many genres like sports, action, adventure, casino, puzzle and retro. I'm not much of a gamer but I do like puzzle games and downloaded three, a well done version of the classic Same Game, BubbleTrouble which combines elements of Bejeweled and Same Game and Magic Crystals – a Tetris variant with particularly nice graphics. All three were easy to play, fun "casual" games with no run learning curve – ideal for killing a few minutes while waiting for a bus, ATM, meeting to begin, etc. .
About those ads, I was pleasantly surprised that the ads were not intrusive. GameJump says that they only display ads when you start or quit a game so as not to disrupt the playing experience. In over an hour of playing the three games I downloaded I only saw one ad. When I quit Same Game an ad appeared offering a $5.00 off coupon for an oil change if I entered an email address. The option to decline was a little hard to find (in a menu linked to the left soft key) but it was there and choosing it ended the game with no nagging. Overall, I was quite pleased with the GameJump experience. I think these guys will do well.
More on GameJump from:
For more free mobile game and app download sites like GameJump please visit the WapReview Directory's Mobile Downloads Page.
GameJump: xhtmp-mp
Content: Usability:


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Automated Assembly Lines from KUKA Systems Outfit Canada¹s Largest Solar Panel Plant
Sterling Heights, Michigan | Augsburg, Germany – KUKA Systems North America has made a successful entry into the burgeoning Canadian solar panel manufacturing sector, demonstrating in the process how it can adapt its extensive suite of automated production solutions to a panel maker's unique requirements. KUKA Systems provides photovoltaic panel manufacturers around the world with fully automated production lines or any level of automation short of that, from cell layout through all stages of module assembly and quality control, regardless of type or dimensions.
For its first Canadian customer, KUKA Systems is installing three partially automated, post-lamination framing lines for trimming, framing, testing and packout of photovoltaic panels, a $12 million contract. Each line consists of five robots, as well as applicators, conveyors and other handling and testing equipment. Installation began in the first quarter of 2011.
120MW of annual production – per line
This customer is building Canada's largest solar panel manufacturing plant, in southern Ontario. Each line will be capable of handling 120MW of annual production, making it North America's largest manufacturing site for crystalline silicon-type panels and one of the largest on the continent making any type panel. "This is a landmark contract, one of our largest in North America to date and our first solar-related installation in the small but rapidly growing Canadian solar manufacturing sector," says Robert Giaier, Vice President, Alternative Energy, KUKA Systems Corp North America. "We welcome the opportunity to contribute our solar technology and extensive experience as assembly line integrators to our customer's success."
A definite plus for solar customers
The post-lamination lines were built first at KUKA Systems North America, tested in-house, then disassembled and trucked to the customer's facility where they are being reassembled. "It's fair to say installing a piece of automation in Ontario is more involved than in many other North American jurisdictions," says Giaier. The technical requirements for electrical systems definitely are more stringent in a number of ways, covering transformers, special wiring and other safety considerations. "The fact KUKA Systems has installed complete automated assembly lines in Ontario for some of the world's leading automakers is a huge help," says Giaier. "We have a great deal of retained knowledge of the Ontario technical requirements and how to anticipate them in our planning and site preparation, a definite plus for our solar customers."
Solar power industry
With the growth of the modern solar power industry, KUKA Systems, a world leading systems integrator specializing in manufacturing flexible automatic production processes, has developed and installed proprietary solar automation solutions for both the crystalline silicon and thin film sectors of the industry. Those technologies cover wafer, cell and module production, helping the PV panel manufacturing sector improve their competitiveness. KUKA Systems' expertise in designing and building integrated assembly lines for the solar industry leverages decades of experience automating the assembly lines of some of the world's largest automakers. The Ontario facility targets the Ontario market because of strong interest in solar power development being stimulated by attractive feed-in tariffs offered by the government of Canada's most populous province.
About KUKA Systems:
KUKA Systems Corp North America, a Michigan-based company, is part of the KUKA Systems Group of Augsburg, Germany, a leading global supplier of flexible automation systems for the Automotive, Aerospace, Energy and Industrial Solutions sectors. Some 3,500 employees worldwide work on ideas, concepts and solutions for automated production and the provision of products and services for virtually all tasks in the industrial processing of metallic and non-metallic materials. The Energy Division offers engineering services, automated production modules and complete turnkey production lines for the photovoltaic, solar thermal and wind energy sectors.


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This article is more than 1 year old
Samsung steels itself for Twittering yoof touchphone release
Presenting the... er... Corby
Samsung will launch a new yoof-centric mobile phone later this month. The handset shares a moniker with a former Northamptonshire steel town.
Samsung said the Corby will sport a 2.8in, 320 x 240 touchscreen and provide access to users' Facebook, Twitter and MySpace accounts.
There's no HSDPA or even 3G: the Corby goes to the Edge but no further.
Samsung's Corby: designed for the Twittering yoof of Britain
The company claimed Corby is "notable for both its body design and colours – which mark a significant break from the way full touch phones are usually designed". It will be offered available in a selection of "bold" colour options such as "Jamaican Yellow", "Cupid Pink", "Minimal White" and "Festival Orange".
As to why Samsung decided the small town of Corby warranted memorialising through a mobile phone, we can only guess. But we can't wait to see what they do with Towcester...
Samsung said the Corby will go on sale across Europe around the middle of the month. It will retail for around €150 (£107/$221). ®


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The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Hudson River Park Trust announce the opening of Pier 25 - the newest section of Hudson River Park. The LMDC has allocated $70 million for the Tribeca section of Hudson River Park, through a Community Development Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"Hudson River Park is more evidence of the innovative ways New York is meeting the public's demand for parks and outdoor recreation spaces," said Governor David A. Paterson. "The transformation of Pier 25 into an urban park unlike any other will enhance the experiences of city dwellers and countless tourists visiting New York's waterfront. It is a wonderful example of the city, state and federal government working in partnership to revitalize Lower Manhattan."
"New York City's more than 500 miles of waterfront are an invaluable asset, and we're continuing to create new open space and revitalize underutilized sites on the waterfront in all five boroughs through our Waterfront Vision and Enhancement Strategy," said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "Hudson River Park has become one of the City's most valued and visited recreational spaces, and now Pier 25 and its upland areas will make it an even greater place for New Yorkers to enjoy."
Pier 25 and the adjacent upland area join the rest of the Tribeca section of Hudson River Park that was opened in 2008. The new pier includes an 18-hole miniature golf course and snack bar, beach volleyball courts, children's playground, town dock and small boat moorings, berthing areas for historic ships, a flexible artificial turf lawn for junior level sports and lounge-chair seating on the far western end of the pier with stunning views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. The adjoining upland section includes a basketball court, a street-course style skate park, lawns, tree bosques seating areas and public restrooms.
"Today marks an important milestone in LMDC's goal of re-opening the New York City waterfront to residents, workers and visitors of Lower Manhattan", said LMDC Chairman Avi Schick. "LMDC and our partner, the United State Department of Housing and Urban Development, are proud to have supported the Hudson River Park Trust in the reconstruction of Pier 25 and the creation of exciting new recreational opportunities, as well as the completion of a seamless pedestrian path along the west side of Manhattan. The Tribeca segment is not only an exciting addition to Hudson River Park, but it is one more piece of the renewed and rebuilt Lower Manhattan."
"HUD is proud to be an investor and partner in the transformation of Lower Manhattan into a 24/7 community that will offer all New Yorkers and visitors world class attractions, plus a dynamic art and cultural community," said Regional Administrator Adolfo Carrión. "The restoration of Pier 25 provides local residents and visitors exciting recreational and cultural activities. Hats-off! To Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Avi Schick, the Hudson River Park Trust, and all the local partners…you've created a wonderful place that strengthens and beautifies the neighborhood, but also creates sorely needed jobs."
"I am thrilled to join LMDC and the Lower Manhattan community to announce the opening of the newest section of Hudson River Park," said Congressmen Jerrold Nadler. "This new segment of the park will enrich the lives of children, locals and visitors alike and add greatly to TriBeCa's streetscape. I am proud that I was able to secure nearly $5 million to help realize this wonderful civic resource."
"It's so exciting to be opening another section of Hudson River Park. No other project has done so much to revitalize the west side and bring fun and imaginative community amenities to Tribeca and Lower Manhattan. We deeply appreciate the LMDC's and U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department's generosity and commitment to Hudson River Park and the people of New York City," said Diana Taylor, Chair of the Hudson River Park Trust Board of Directors."LMDC has funded the creation and revitalization of over 140 acres of parks and open spaces in Lower Manhattan. The Hudson River Park will offer further recreational and educational resources that will both embrace and reconnect New Yorkers to the scenic waterfront space. The entire Hudson River Park is being built by the Hudson River Park Trust, the state-city entity responsible for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the waterfront park that is revitalizing the west side of Manhattan.


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An official website of the United States government
News Release 2010-106 | September 7, 2010
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WASHINGTON — Stephen A. Lybarger has been named Deputy Comptroller for Licensing, succeeding Larry Beard, who plans to retire from the OCC on October 1, 2010.
"Larry is a true professional in every sense of the word and he will be greatly missed," said Chief Counsel Julie L. Williams. "However, I am very pleased that we were able to find someone as qualified as Stephen Lybarger to fill this void. Stephen has served the OCC very ably in a number of challenging positions and brings a wealth of experience in reviewing and analyzing licensing applications for the largest banks in the country."
In his new position, Mr. Lybarger will oversee the overall licensing function in OCC's Washington D.C. headquarters and its four district offices.
Mr. Lybarger is a commissioned national bank examiner and a 26-year OCC veteran. Among other positions, he has served as the Large Bank Licensing Lead Expert, where he was instrumental in the implementation of critical and complex licensing activities that arose as a result of the financial crisis, including many of the largest transactions to occur in connection with the crisis. He also streamlined the process for chartering bridge national banks for the FDIC as part of failed bank resolutions. Stephen is a graduate of Colorado State University, with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Economics.
Mr. Beard joined the OCC in 1974. He is a graduate of Rockhurst College in Kansas City, MO. Over his 36-year career, he served as the Deputy Comptroller for Licensing, the Assistant Deputy Comptroller for the St. Louis Field Office and Associate Director in Financial Management.
Kevin M. Mukri 202) 874-5770


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How Much Does it Cost?
Almost every time I sit to write a sales presentation for a new client, somebody wants to talk about their pricing. Rarely have I heard a convincing argument for cost being a value proposition. "We are cheap" I have two issues with this. The first is you have to be absolutely sure that you are the cheapest. If they have … Continue reading


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Saying goodbye to Polaroid instant film
Every once in a while we say goodbye to a technology that has been replaced by a demonstrably superior replacement, yet we still hold onto a bit of nostalgia for the old way.
Every once in a while we say goodbye to a technology that has been replaced by a demonstrably superior successor, yet we still hold onto a bit of nostagia for the old way. One of those about to go extinct is Polariod instant film. Even though I hadn't used it for years, I was sad to hear on NPR's All Things Considered that the film is going out of production.
Digital photography is our efficient, truly instantaneous modern standard, but there was something magical about a Polaroid picture. Even if the final prints were not as good as standard film, Polaroid had its own mystique.
The whole process had a satisfying, ritualized nature to it. You composed the photo, clicked the shutter and heard that distinctive whirr. The seemingly blank film shot out. You'd fight to see who got to grab it, shake it (for no real reason--it just seemed like it needed to be shaken like a mercury thermometer), and watch as the image teasingly developed before your eyes. The film was expensive; about a dollar a shot if I remember correctly. You'd have to carefully parcel out the ten shots in a pack to make it last through a whole party.
A few artists had clung to the medium for their work. They are mourning the end of the Polaroid era, saying that for some applications, nothing compares to the look they could get from this film.
For me, it is strange to see something that I remember as cutting-edge technology as a kid become so thoroughly obsolete. So while digital photography may be superior in almost every way, let's say one final "click, whirr" farewell to Polariod.


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The bank holiday means it's still the weekend here in the UK...bliss! Whether you're taking a long weekend or if you are back at work, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Here's a snapshot of mine...
1. I downloaded the latest free desktop wallpaper from Holley and Gill. Head over and do the same; the design is beautiful and don't get me started on the colour! P.S. You can chat with them on twitter, too.
2. IKEA purchase #1 Barometer Desk Lamp
3. IKEA purchase #2 Vilmie Ruta Cushion
4. IKEA purchase #3 Barbar Tray
5. I blame the gorgeous interiors from SATC2 for my IKEA spendings! (Sidenote: wasn't the film brilliant?! I love how it was a pure romp and that they didn't stretch out the storylines too much from SATC1.)
6. Love this outfit from Zara.
7. I watched A Good Year for about the 7th time and I still love it.
8. Saw the trailer for Letters To Juliet, which looks wonderful and beautifully shot.
9. Three day weekends really are something special.
10. This bouquet took my breath away.


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Shure SE535 Sound Isolating Earphones (Bronze)
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To purchase this item please
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to buy via our main website, The Custom IEM Company
Customer Reviews
by Dave on 31st May 2013
Leading up to purchasing these I deliberated over settling on either these or the Westone 4Rs. I spent hours reading reviews, gathering what essentially comes down to peoples subjective views on two excellent products.
I settled on the Shure SE525s in bronze, and so to add to that list of subjective views, mine is below.
A few things came through consistently in the reviews I read, and I would concur with wholeheartedly. These being;
- They are very well made
- Removable cables is a real plus at this price
- The mid-range on these is incredible
- They are secure and comfortable
- Base is deep and natural, but not over processed
- Burn them in 10hrs+ as they definitely loosen up
- Sound isolation is incredible. At low music volume, I cant even hear the phone ring two feet away from me!
Now I could talk about sound stage and separation, but you would expect that from earphones in this space, so instead I will say how they feel.
In particular, one thing I really get with these that I havent had with other earphones is a feeling of space. It doesnt feel like the music is being delivered into your ear, but rather surrounds you. No joke, but one track had a police siren on it, and I got up to look out the window to see if it was outside; it just sounded as if it wasnt coming from the earphone! I had to play it again to make sure it was :-)
I dont agree with some views describing a high end treble fall off. Maybe its just my hearing, but I dont hear this at all.
I have tested these with many different genres and they perform admirably. Tracks ranging from;
Dave Mathews Band - American Baby
Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time
Aphex Twin - We are the Music Makers
Ian Brown - F.E.A.R.
Propellerheads - OHMSS (This is a really good test track!)
Elmer Bernstein - Magnificent Seven
Gorecki - Symphony #3 Lento e Largo
Some slight negatives, and I mean slight;
- It takes a little time to put them in, not just to place them over the ear, but also to allow the foam (as I find these the best fit) plugs to expand. That can take 10-20 seconds all in all. This can be frustrating if someone keeps trying to talk to you. The plus side is once they are in, the sound isolation is superb.
- The supplied in-line volume control feels a little cheap.
As an aside I called around several retailers in the UK to discuss my Westone 4R vs Shure SE535 choice, and Paul at TheHeadphoneCompany was patient and superbly helpful.
Not only would I recommend the Shures, as I absolutely love them, but also buying from these guys without hesitation.
by J on 15th March 2013
Ive been thinking about In ear monitors for a long time but theres so many out there with so many different price options. I randomly found theheadphonecompany.co.uk through google and rang up for some advice.
I explained myself as a gigging musician and that it was needed as quickly as possible. I received the in ears next day luckily for my gig that night, they were Perfect and have booked to get impressions made through theheadphonecompany.co.uk so I have a completely perfect fit, I would highly recommend theheadphonecompany to anyone that needs pro equipment and quickly with an extremely helpful contact on the phone.
Big thanks to these guys.
by Paul on 5th January 2013
Just replaced an old set of E5C with these and have to say they are even better than the old pair. Different sound entirely, much brighter but the bass is still as strong as ever. Would highly recommend to anyone, fantastic piece of kit. Thanks again for the help and advice pre sales.
by Adam on 10th January 2012
The earphones are excellent, the sound is sublime. I am very pleased with them, thank you so much Headphone Company!
by Phil H on 26th April 2012
Forget the wife, forget the kids, forget the boss, forget whoever you like ....... Why I hear you say? Because you now have a new master the Shure SE535s. The only earache youll be getting from now on is if you have the Shures cranked up too high!
Currently listening to The Civils Wars at 320kbs on a Samsung Galaxy S2 with player pro, I detected the fellas voice at the beginning of a track "croak" until he hit the right note! I didnt get that with my old Senn CX300 2S ... but these Shures are almost £270 more than the Senns so hardly surprising.
Excellent service provided by Paul at mp3co. Im glad these guys are competing in the world market place .... other countries offer slightly cheaper prices but I wanted to keep my money flowing in the uk. As promised delivered pre 12pm.
Thanks Again.
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The 26th Annual TicketCity Cactus Bowl will be played on January 2nd, 2015 at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe Arizona. The 2015 matchup will be between the Washington Huskies from the Pac-12 and the Oklahoma State Cowboys from the Big 12. Kickoff is at 8:15 MT.
Dating back to 1989, the TicketCity Cactus Bowl has a long and rich history of delighting college football fans. Originally known as the Copper Bowl, the TicketCity Cactus Bowl has gone through a number of name changes over the years including the Insight Bowl, and Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. The Bowl features tie-in from the Pac-12 Conference and the Big 12 Conference, giving the TicketCity Cactus Bowl a matchup from two of the nation's top conferences in terms of success and attendance. A number of college football's most memorable players have played in the TicketCity Cactus Bowl, including, Aaron Rodgers, Marc Bulger, Ron Dayne, Le'Veon Bell, and Derek Anderson.
TicketCity is a ticket marketplace that specializes in sports events and has been a leading destination for sports tickets since being founded in 1990. TicketCity previously sponsored the TicketCity Bowl in 2010 and 2011 and returns as the title sponsor of a bowl game in 2015 at the TicketCity Cactus Bowl. TicketCity is reliable connection to more than 100,000 events and backs every order with TicketCity's 100% Guarantee. TicketCity has one of the largest networks of professional suppliers and major media, college and pro team partners including CBS Sports, Baylor Bears, Vanderbilt Commodores, and Houston Cougars. The TicketCity team has over 2 million hours of collective experience and has an on-site presence at major sporting events. TicketCity is committed to giving back and supports numerous community organizations including the American Cancer Society, Make a Wish Foundation, Capital Area Food Bank, Susan G. Komen and The Thinkery.
Address: 500 E Veterans Way, Tempe, Arizona, 85287
Sun Devil Stadium is located in Tempe, Arizona, and has been the home of the TicketCity Cactus Bowl since 2006. The stadium is on the campus of Arizona State University and is one of the most beloved venues in the State of Arizona. During the TicketCity Cactus Bowl, Sun Devil Stadium will have a capacity of over 65,000, giving the game an electric atmosphere. Sun Devil stadium has a long history of putting on premier college football events, including being the home of the Arizona State Sun Devils football team, the Fiesta Bowl from 1971-2006, and the TicketCity Cactus Bowl.


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CALGARY, Alberta, August 10, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 13-year-old boy is awaiting sentencing in Calgary after pleading guilty to raping a four-year-old boy in his foster home. The teen, identified as T, told police after his arrest on Jan. 3rd that the idea for the assaults, which occurred over the course of a year, came from watching "gay porn" on his foster parents' home computer.
T's assaults were discovered when he was caught in the midst of an attack by a neighbor who could see in the bedroom window from his office next door. The neighbour called 911, and when police arrived fifteen minutes later he pointed them to the window where the assault was still in progress.
The neighbor said the light in the bedroom went out as soon as the police knocked on the front door. T answered and admitted to the assault.
Judge Lynn Cook-Stanhope of Alberta's Youth Court found T guilty in March. She was supposed to have heard sentencing arguments on July 23rd, but delayed over concerns stemming from a psychiatric report that indicated T may not have been mentally fit to stand trial. She has sent him for another assessment.
T was released on bail in January and has been living in a group home under house arrest. He has been forbidden to be in contact with anyone under the age of 16.
The foster parents were also caring for a six-year-old and two-year-old, and all four have been removed from the home. T had been with them for ten years.
A spokeswoman for Alberta's Children and Youth Services, which administers the foster program, refused to comment to LifeSiteNews on what other action if any has been taken against the foster parents, citing privacy provisions.
Patrick A. Trueman, the former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, told LifeSiteNews that the growth in internet use has been accompanied by an increasing number of cases involving child-on-child sex abuse.
Click "like" if you want to defend true marriage.
"Children who view porn often act out and they do so on vulnerable children," explained Trueman, who serves as president of Morality in Media. Law enforcement officials, he said, "almost uniformly associate a link between pornography and sex abuse in child-on-child sexual abuse."
"I blame those in authority for not enforcing or not passing strict laws to curb the availability of pornography to children and adults," he said.
"Most children who get pornography get it in their own home, from a parent's collection or from an unblocked computer," he continued. "Also, the widespread availability of pornography teaches children that porn is good. Their immature minds believe that if adults enjoy it and have easy access to it, especially adult relatives or friends, then it is good for them to enjoy as well."


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Many fragrances from the 1950s helped women to express their erotic selves through carnal, animalic perfume notes, or as the Max Factor Primitif ad put it: to "say the things" that women "would not dare to."
But this is a familiar trope in perfume. Sniffing Caron's Poivre and thinking about all the metaphors of fire and explosives in its ads and descriptions, I got to thinking, how many perfumes express violence and danger in their notes, perfume signifiers not entirely subsumed by sexuality?
Well, Caron's Poivre, for one. Apparently, Caron creative director Félicie Wanpouille, who had collaborated with Caron perfumer Ernest Daltroff on the drop-dead sexy Narcisse Noir, wanted to buck the trend of 50s well-mannered, ladylike florals. So she asked Caron's then-perfumer Michel Morsetti to create something fierce and wild.
Caron's Poivre extrait starts off with a firey and earthy spark of crushed black pepper and sharp florals (you really smell the ylang ylang). Then, like a slow-motion olfactive explosion, it unfurls carnation's clovey facets, weaving together floral and spice, with sweet warmth from clove and opoponax.
To add fuel to the fire, so to speak, it turns out that pepper is not the only note that signifies darkness and danger in Poivre. Not only has the American carnation largely lost its characteristic spicy smell, it appears that we don't have the dark associations with carnations/cloves that Europeans do. In France, cloves have been considered bad luck for centuries. Carnations have long been associated with funerals and even repressive communist regimes. Grain de Musc blogger Denyse Beaulieu gives us an even bloodier association: in her post on Serge Lutens' modern carnation perfume Vitriol d'oeilette, we learn that "this was the flower that was carried by aristocrats as they went to the guillotine during the Terror in 1793." Yikes.
Notes: Red and black pepper, clove, carnation, ylang ylang, jasmine, opoponax, cedar, sandalwood, vetiver, oakmoss, musk (Notes and information on Félicie Wanpouille's hand in the creative side of Poivre thanks to Perfume Shrine; her image from Perfume Projects)
A heady mix of florals armed with explosives and spice, Poivre by Caron could easily be a niche scent today. It's hard to imagine the stereotypical 1950s woman warming up to it — until you remember that not everyone in the 50s was Sandra Dee and Doris Day. (Even Sandra Dee and Doris Day probably weren't Sandra Dee and Doris Day!)
Who could I imagine wearing Poivre? The other 1950s women: poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and photographer Diane Arbus — all three artists who came of age in the 50s who were fascinated with intensity, violence and dark eroticism. They were women who didn't need a perfume to say the things they would not dare to — all three dared to, and then some. And even though they got burned by the fires they got too close to, they at least tried to break free from the 50s trap that enclosed many women in that era.
* * * * * * * *
Some vintage perfumes are as hard to find as endangered animals in the wild. You know when you can't even find it on eBay, you're going to have to do some serious sleuthing — or begging, as the case may be. After falling in love with Roger & Gallet's Blue Carnation (a clove-splosion if there ever was), I needed to get a whiff of what I'd heard was one of the most beautiful renditions of carnation/clove: Caron's 1954 Poivre. It became a quest for a mythical beast as exotic and beautiful as the Chinese dragon in the above ad. (Incidentally: HAPPY YEAR OF THE DRAGON.)
When I read a comment on some long ago blog by Fragrantica writer and perfumista extraordinaire Ida Meister/Chaya Ruchama about owning vintage Poivre, I shamelessly (but gingerly?) approached her on Facebook and asked if I could buy a teensy sample. Although she didn't have much, she wouldn't let me pay and generously sent me enough for several whiffs and a review. (Thank you again, Ida! I even got a lovely note with a lipstick kiss on it. So sweet!)
I'm in love with clove/carnation notes, now, particularly in perfumes that don't play up the floral angle. (I want to love Caron's other carnation scent, Bellodgia, but its carnation/clove notes are overpowered, in my opinion, by too-sweet florals. Poivre does the opposite: it turns the bass up and turns down the higher notes.) Apparently, IFRA (the International Fragrance Association, otherwise known to perfumistas as The Enemy), has started clamping down on eugenol, the primary component of clove. I'm not sure if this means I'm going to have to stick to vintage and kiss modern clove notes goodbye, or not. I've heard varying reviews of the Poivre and Coup de Fouet (its EDT) reformulations. If they're not great, don't blame Caron; blame IFRA and its compulsion to mess with ingredients like eugenol. (The Grain de Musc writeup for Serge Lutens' Vitriol d'oeillete got me smacking my lips. I've ordered a sample, so we'll see if it holds up!)
I end with an electrifying recording of Sylvia Plath reading her poem Fever 103. Here's to women who play with fire and the perfume that they can smolder in.


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This text was first published in April-May 2014, in The Lifted Brow 22.
The Critic always saw theatre from the first-person point of view, because there was no other way. Perhaps because, as a woman, she never felt she was able to assume the universal point of view. The idea of it – that she could see the world unmarred by who she was – felt impossible. The Critic saw beautiful, young women on stage, often in various states of undress, and could see that these were erotic stage images, but not for her. She saw hysterical women, men who would sooner commit suicide than admit an error, she saw manly banter and regret, she saw many things the meaning of which she knew, but did not feel. Theatre being theatre, she also saw many extremely rich people treat servants or people of colour badly, while they themselves revelled in relatively trivial problems, and sometimes thought about how those servants or people of colour represented her ancestors more than the protagonists, how the story of her people was only ever told on the margins. The Critic, in other words, always knew that the theatre was not meant for her, that her eyes were not the bull's eye of the audience target, even when the message arrived. Even when she was greatly moved.
Why did the Critic like theatre, then? Why did she make it her life to see theatre three, four, five, sometimes even ten times a week, if she felt like an intruder? Because the Critic, like many – perhaps most – women, felt like an intruder in most discursive social situations already, and had become accustomed to feeling like she was sitting slightly to the left and down in the audience – a feeling that did not disappear in those prestigious, central seats. Sometimes she was elated, or crushed, sometimes her life changed while sitting in those seats; but it was an expected gift, because she had not been the target audience, because the magic that was done on her was done almost by accident.
It is said that privilege is marked by assuming that your views are representative of everyone's. Speaking with various male critics after shows, ready to judge always slightly faster, the Critic often asked: "Why are you so sure that your opinion is the right one?" It was a strange question to many. "I know what I like," they sometimes answered, tautology imperceptible to them.
"But you aren't everyone", the Critic might offer, uselessly, because in a certain sense they were everyone: they were the bull's eye, the eye that mattered, the eye to which the art was offered. Oh, the Critic was able to pontificate with the best, argue her opinions, be sometimes insistently praising, sometimes cruelly harsh, but it was qualified intellectual bravado, always aware of where fact ended and personal opinion began.
It was with great relief that the Critic found Nataša Govedić, European dramaturg and performance critic, writing: "I think that the critic-as-a-simple-observer has never existed. The critic is always biased, has always held values, ideology if you prefer – and there doesn't exist, not has ever existed, a neutral critic. Therefore, it is only fair to honestly admit which values we uphold, and why we believe in certain processes, and why we participiate in them."
It is paradoxical, then, that the Critic had studiously avoided having opinions on supposedly 'minority' arts, such as Melbourne's Midsumma Festival of LGBT arts, considering it and her mismatched. They were, of course, but less than feared. The queer audience arrived to the theatres with the same layered thinking, palpably so – everywhere around her the Critic could feel a suspicious, reserved energy of distantiation, of mistrust. 'Is this work going to hurt me, or will it finally say something I can agree with?' To the extent to which the audience mood can read, this is what the Midsumma audience seemed to be saying. Continue reading


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We rely on your support to remain on air and online. Your contribution helps us bring you interviews with great American artists and the carefully curated music mix that you've enjoyed over the years.
Grab some popcorn and take your seat. American Routes is going to the movies! Hear some of the best music ever put to film — soundtracks and scores from Coal Miner's Daughter to Standing in the Shadows of Motown, from Miles Davis to the Rolling Stones. We'll talk with director Spike Lee about the sonic textures used in his films – including his ode to New York, 25th Hour. Plus, a visit with legendary composer Elmer Bernstein, whose over 400 scores for film and television include The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Far From Heaven. Cajun filmmaker Glenn Pitre from the bayou town Cut Off, LA talks about Cajun music and culture in films from Evangeline (1929) and Louisiana Story (1946) to The Big Easy (1992) and his own recent film, The Scoundrel's Wife.
- Open Bed: Hooray for Hollywood Dick Powell, Francis Langford, Johnny 'Scat' Davis, Gene Krupa, and Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
Lullaby of Broadway: The Best of Busby Berkeley at Warner Bros., Rhino - I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song) Louis Prima
The Music of Disney: A Legacy in Song, Disney - When You Wish Upon A Star Little Jimmy Scott
The Savoy Years and More, Savoy - Au Bar du Petit Bac Miles Davis
Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud - Lift To The Scaffold soundtrack, Fontana - INTERVIEW: Spike Lee
CLIP:s & music from Do The Right Thing (Universal), Mo' Better Blues (Universal), Malcolm X (Warner Bros.) He Got Game (Touchstone), Bamboozled (New Line Cinema), 25th Hour, Touchstone
Listen - Instrumental: Dumbo and Timothy Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz
Stay Awake, A&M - Paris, Texas Ry Cooder
Paris, Texas soundtrack, Warner - Passing Thru Pasadena Bill Frisell
Go West: Music for the films of Buster Keaton, Elektra - Everybody's Talkin' Fred Neil
Everybody's Talkin': Theme from 'Midnight Cowboy', Creation - All My Tears Julie Miller
Songcatcher soundtrack, Vanguard - Things Have Changed Bob Dylan
Wonder Boys soundtrack, Sony - Instrumental: Taxi Driver Theme Bernard Herrmann
Taxi Driver soundtrack, Arista - In the Heat of the Night Ray Charles
In the Heat of the Night / They Call Me Mr. Tibbs soundtrack, Ryko - Anatomy of a Murder Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
Anatomy of a Murder, Sony - SEGMENT: Elmer Bernstein
CLIP:s & music from The Man with the Golden Arm (United Artists), Magnificent Seven (United Artists), The Great Escape (United Artists), Ghostbusters (Columbia), Far From Heaven (FocusFilm),
HOUR two
- James Bond Theme The John Barry Orchestra
Spy Magazine Presents, Vol.1: Spy Music, Rhino - 007 (Shanty Town) Desmond Dekker
The Harder They Come soundtrack, Island - Ain't Too Proud To Beg Ben Harper
Standing in the Shadows of Motown soundtrack, Hip-O - Since I Met You Baby Ivory Joe Hunter
Lone Star soundtrack, Daring - Coal Miner's Daughter Sissy Spacek
Coal Miner's Daughter soundtrack, MCA - Fisherman's Blues The Waterboys
Good Will Hunting soundtrack, Capitol - Love In Vain Rolling Stones
Gimme Shelter DVD, Criterion - La Bamba Los Lobos
La Bamba soundtrack, Slash - Instrumental: Roulette Rumba (from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) Lalo Schifrin
The Reel Lalo Schifrin, Hip-O - Never on a Sunday Joaquins
Live recording for Folk Masters, - Johnny Ain't No Goat Boozoo Chavis
J'ai Ete Au Bal Vol.2: I Went To The Dance, Arhoolie - SEGMENT: Glen Pitre
CLIP:s & music from Evangeline (Milestone), The Louisiana Story (Lopert), Big Easy (Columbia), Belizaire The Cajun (Cote Blanche), Scoundrel's Wife (Miracle),
Listen - Instrumental: The Entertainer Marvin Hamlisch
The Sting soundtrack, MCA - CLIP:
Manhattan, MGM - Martha Woody Allen Trio
Wild Man Blues soundtrack, BMG - Look For The Silver Lining Chet Baker
L.A. Confidential soundtrack, Regency - Chim Chim Cheree John Coltrane Quartet
The John Coltrane Quartet Plays, Impulse - End Bed: When You Wish Upon A Star Sonny Rollins
The Complete Sonny Rollins RCA Victor Recordings, RCA - When You Wish Upon A Star Cliff 'Uklele Ike' Edwards
The Music of Disney: A Legacy in Song, Disney


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How could it have faded so fast—the joyous delirium with which Republicans only last year took charge of the Congress and (they were certain) of the nation? It was announced that Peggy Noonan, the Reagan-Bush speech writer, would go back to Washington to do a book on the Revolution. The new Speaker of the House was sworn in with the trappings of a presidential installation. His first Hundred Days were finished with a prime-time address on network TV. First-timers in Congress, unlike their predecessors, came to instruct or to shove aside their elders. The President was reduced to claims that he was—not (like Al Haig) "in charge," not (like the Supreme Court) important, but (like the weather) "relevant." A president does not feel the need to inform us that he is not a crook, or not irrelevant, unless appearances are all to the contrary.
There was a nice blend of populism and pedagogy in the ascendancy of professors from out-of-the-way colleges—Dr. Gingrich, Dr. Armey. These were theorists of revolution, who liked to explain what they were doing. Gingrich held daily press conferences before opening House sessions, where he ticked off the items on his legislative agenda. He had brought with him his own chronicler, by the device of appointing the man's wife as House historian. Beyond merely studying history, these were people come to make it.
Pundits debated whether Gingrich would become president in 1996 or wait till 2000. Others seriously asked if that would not be a demotion, since the election had made Congress the center of government. Young "Newties" like Enid Waldholtz, the new member from Utah, were swept past senior representatives to key places on committees. Democrats looked cowed, because they were. Republicans looked invincible, because they thought they were:
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven…
Wordsworth's poem on the French Revolution might have been written for the heady opening days of the Gingrich Era, when all things seemed possible. The Republicans had
…helpers to their heart's desire,
And stuff at hand plastic as they could wish.
Hopes beyond hopes would defy the seasons of orderly change, to see
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
The Contract would be passed. The question was not whether, but how soon. The agencies would fall. The question was which ones would be cut, which killed. The President could do little to affect or deter what was happening. Even the veto must yield to the Will of the People, so resoundingly expressed in all the 1994 elections—for Senate, for House, for governors, for legislatures. Rarely, it seemed, had a movement united so large a constituency so unequivocally. Welfare, bureaucracy, regulations, career politicians—for all of these the End had come. Madame Noonan was knitting purple prose beside the guillotine.
The very giddiness, for those who know the gods' ways, was ominous. But who could have predicted the suddenness of the peripeteia? A year later, Clinton was not only relevant but regnant. Gingrich was not the leader of his party but a drag on it, his polls even lower than the sinking approval rate for Congress in general and the whole Republican party in particular. Instead of a rosebud over the blown rose, Gingrich was a millstone below the plummet lines. While some were talking of Hillary Clinton's "high negatives" (42 percent), Gingrich registered a whopping 52 percent disapproval.1 The man who taught other Republicans what to say in order to win was now being asked by his own creatures not to say anything, lest he make them lose. Revolutions are known to devour their own; but it seemed that this one barely had time to develop an appetite before it gulped down Gingrich.
What happened? Several books help us understand that the villain in the piece was, as is usual in such cases, also the hero. Gingrich was undone by his own devices. He had the genius to invent the "congressional mandate," and the gullibility to believe in his own invention. A master of destructive techniques, he did not suspect that mere destruction destroys itself. A quick-change artist, he thought he could change society with political tools, which is like changing the weather with a thermometer. Each of these things deserves our attention.
Congressional Mandate
It would be hard to overstate the audacity of the Contract With America. No one had ever before tried to create a national mandate from congressional elections. The president normally claimed to have a commission from all the people, derived from the larger turnout of a presidential year, when only the presidential ticket can be voted for by everyone. Congressional delegates, appealing to local constituents, are sent to represent their sectors of society—a scatter of interests, a babble of voices, a plethora of issues to be compromised.
Actually, even the presidential mandate is largely a fiction, as political scientists have long recognized. A president says, "I supported X and was elected by the people, so the people want X." Actually, many voters were uninterested in X or ignorant of the candidate's stand on it. Others were opposed to X, but willing to vote for the candidate because of his stands on Y and Z. Some voted for the candidate simply because he was not his opponent (exit polls showed that was a major reason people voted for Reagan over Carter). Some cast their ballots for John Kennedy because he was a Catholic, or good-looking, or sweated less in debate. Was that a "mandate" for being beautiful? Elections are clumsy tools for setting policy. All they determine is who will be carrying out policy for a while.
If a presidential mandate is shadowy at best, what can one expect of a congressional "mandate," assembled from so many different regional contests, embodied in no single spokesperson, reflecting agendas and urgencies not universally shared (or not shared with the same intensity)? Why, in fact, would that be desirable? The Constitution envisages local people committing their trust to a delegate who will represent their interests in deliberation with the delegates from other areas. It is one of the many ironies of Gingrich's movement that, while professing to return government to state and local levels, he urged candidates at those levels to run a national campaign, restricting their campaign themes to those dictated by his national brain trust, forgoing the luxury of response to the particular needs of particular constituents.
How could such a congressional agenda be put together? Two books give us a detailed description of the Contract's formulation—Showdown, by Elizabeth Drew, and Storming the Gates, by Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein. More important than the items included in the Contract were those excluded. Divisive issues were suppressed for the duration of the campaign—abortion, school prayer, gun ownership. The point was not to have a discussion of issues people feel deeply about, but to concentrate on areas of maximum agreement. The goal was to win. The Contract offered the strategy for a takeover. After getting control of the Senate and House, Gingrich assured the restive, Republicans could reward their friends, take care of the gun lobby, cut off funds for abortion, kill campaign reforms.
In the Contract, Gingrich assembled targets of opportunity—safe targets like taxes, crime, the deficit, government regulations, lawyers. Some items were not favored by some "contractees." Gingrich himself had no love for term limits. But individual preferences had to be sacrificed to the general effort.
Once the issues were chosen, and arranged in a canonic decade (Gingrich believes in the power of magic numbers—three and seven and ten), the pollster Frank Luntz was asked to find the most seductive ways of phrasing each point. He found that even the word "Republican" was too divisive for inclusion, so the Republican Contract became just the Contract With America. Since one aim of the 1994 campaign was to win back Perot voters to the Republicans, formulation of Contract items favored by Perot voters got privileged treatment by Luntz. Terminological sugarcoating would be important throughout the Revolution.
The problem with taking a presidential "mandate" as some hard commission on policy is increased five hundredfold with any congressional mandate. How many of those who won their congressional races neglected or downplayed the Contract? How many of those who lost had invoked it? Despite the Republican National Committee's expenditure ($265,000) to disseminate the Contract in TV Guide, only 17 percent of voters said they were aware of it. Those who knew about it were hazy on its contents. And did those aware of the Contract subscribe to all its items, or just a majority of them, or just one or two points important to them? Which points, and in which combinations? Did the sugarcoating, meant to distract from problems or to deter questioning, actually mislead? How many of the Republican victories reflected simply an anti-incumbent attitude grown abnormally strong in 1994?
There is no denying the effectiveness of the Contract as a campaign tool. It probably did sway a marginal portion of the voters, which is all that can be expected of a campaign ploy. But only those bemused by a metaphor can think that the American people entered into a binding compact to exact from signers of the Contract all the items mentioned in it. The Contract language was invented to please people tired of politics as usual. "See," it said, "we are not your normal politicians making promises; we are contracting with you to do what you want and if we fail to do it, throw us out" (this last phrase was a real winner with Perot voters surveyed by Luntz).
If voters fell for that hocus-pocus, well and good for the Republicans. But Gingrich was so in love with his own invention that he fell for it himself. There were some early signs that people were not as ardent for the Contract as he claimed they were. The elderly were quick to respond to attempts to limit their benefits (point seven of the Contract, sugarcoated as "fairness for senior citizens"). The Contract gimmick was meant to tell voters they could hold candidates to an enforceable pledge; but Gingrich now wanted to hold the American people to a contractual obligation they supposedly assumed when they voted Republican.
When, responding to such misgivings, some Republicans in the House were tempted to waver, Gingrich held them to the Contract—and, through them, required the people to "keep their bargain." The teacher of the freshmen Republicans became their taskmaster. He told Elizabeth Drew that his model was Sergeant Stryker, the John Wayne character in Sands of Iwo Jima who must be hard on his troops so they will perform well in battle.2 He made frequent use of the Engler Paradigm—citing the bad polls Governor John Engler of Michigan suffered when he cut benefits in Michigan, only to bounce back higher than ever when economic gains were registered. Gingrich said bad polls were expectable—he had predicted them. But the Contract was what mattered with people. If that were just passed, or most of it, the people would give their admiring support.
In fact, the suppression of individual maneuvers and local priorities, adopted as a ploy for winning the election, had to be continued after that victory in order to enact the Contract. Gingrich had not only toughness to use in the effort—his Sergeant Stryker snarl—but goodies to keep handing out. He had created a cash machine that would assuage the most basic cause of freshman anxiety, the need for reelection funds. Beneficiaries of an anti-incumbent mood could become its victims the next time out. Freshmen fear they have exhausted their local supporters' coffers in the great effort at a first win. While raising campaign money is a fatiguing labor for all campaigners, House members feel especially vulnerable because of the frequency of their campaigns. And those first elected in 1994 would have to compete again in 1996, a presidential year, with money going to the top of the party's ticket.
Gingrich allayed their fears by early and heavy support for individual PACs and record contributions from lobbyists. Those tempted to falter under the Gingrich discipline were lured back by the extraordinary access to money Gingrich was providing. Here is the second major irony of the Revolution. Term limits had to be included in the Contract, since they were especially popular with the key Perot voters. Perot had inveighed against incumbents who became tools of K Street, of the Gucci-shod lobbyists and money men, who forgot the concerns of "real people" outside the Beltway. Yet no one has done more to "maximize the incumbency" (as old Nixonites used to say), or to butter up the lobbies, than Gingrich and his fellows in the House leadership. Money raising by congressional officeholders has far surpassed all Democratic equivalents, giving members a big head start for their races in the presidential-election year.
Gingrich was helped by special urgency in the spending schedules of the major lobbies. Tobacco companies were panicking over setbacks in court, new revelations of internal knowledge that nicotine is addictive as well as carcinogenic, and the Clinton administration's threat to regulate cigarettes as a narcotic. A good deal of the tobacco money used to go to Democrats when the South was still at least partly Democratic. Besides, lobbies tend to spread the money around on the "cover all bases" principle. But in 1994 and 1995 there was a huge swing of this money to the Republicans, as the only hope to hold off serious action on the death rate caused by smoking.
Gun lobbyists, too, were smarting from setbacks like the Brady Bill and the ban on assault weapons, as well as the blows to their image caused by gun-toting extremists like the Freemen.3 Many Democrats had supported the NRA when the issue was hunting rifles or private handguns, but some were getting uneasy about assault weapons and militia caches. Money had to be directed to Republicans. With their need for right-wing constituents, Republicans could not afford to alienate gun lovers.
Insurers, pharmacists, and the medical lobbies had been given a good scare by the Hillary Clinton health plan. Health reform was still a major issue, and getting a plan that would protect the insurers' interests meant getting Congress out of the hands of Democrats.4 Other lobbies were frightened by the public's growing environmental concerns, which meant support for regulations on businesses exploiting natural resources.
Tom DeLay, the congressman from Texas, acting as unofficial treasurer for the Revolution, set up Project Relief to address the concerns of the principal lobbyists, with whom he had regular meetings. John Boehner, from Ohio, convened another group of powerful lobbyists, the Thursday Group. In return for record donations from these interested parties, the lobbyists were given a Capitol office to use as a "war room" for briefing congressional staffs on their requirements, offering model legislation, and actually helping to write bills. The proposed legislation for gutting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was widely known as "Dotty's draft," after the lobbyist Dorothy Strunk.
Two important new books document Gingrich's role in this unprecedented mobilization of money for politics. Dirty Little Secrets, by Larry Sabato and Glenn R. Simpson, though it criticizes the extortionate Democrats who had used incumbency to raise money from lobbyists, finds a quantum breakthrough in Gingrich's fund-raising strategies. From his earliest campaigns he was ingenious in finding new ways to trade influence for cash. It should have been no surprise when he turned legislating over to the special interests being regulated. He had given access to students in return for money when he set up his televised college seminar.
That operation was based on three devious arrangements. First, he found a sponsor for the course, Kennesaw State College, by getting USAID funds for the college dean's private consulting firm. Second, he took tax-exempt money for the course even though internal documents published by Sabato and Simpson show that the students were being recruited as Republican voters and activists—that, as Gingrich put it, he meant to capture "first their imagination and then their votes." Third, he sluiced money through the tax-exempt conduits by promising donors that they could help determine what would be taught.
Sabato and Glenn write:
According to one memo, contributors who put up $50,000 could "work directly with the leadership of the Renewing American Civilization project in the course development process." Those who put up $25,000 would also be "invited to participate in the course development process," while those who contributed lesser amounts would also be allowed input.
A fund-raiser in Gingrich's GOPAC said $20,000 to $25,000 could be procured if a certain journal article was included in the curriculum. Golden Rule Insurance, solicitude for which was traced in the Republicans' later health proposals, put up $117,000 for the Gingrich organization and was rewarded by having its own propaganda video shown in class time to Gingrich's students. Roger Milliken, the textile magnate whose donations changed Pat Buchanan's mind on protectionism, gave $300,000 to "Newt, Inc.," and was given twenty minutes of class time while Gingrich extolled his genius.
The second bit of essential reading about the new government-by-lobby is The System, by Haynes Johnson and David S. Broder. Its subject is the defeat of the Clinton health plan. Though the authors are clear about the Clintons' own failures in drawing up and presenting that plan, they indicate that it would have been doomed, no matter what, by the para-government mobilized, largely in secret, to defeat it. Gingrich had made it his mission to destroy whatever plan came up—among other things, as a way of organizing a money network among all the interests opposed to changing the status quo (a status quo that, in other situations, Gingrich liked to call the enemy). He would use what, with typical verbal flair, he called a strategy of "coagulation": "You want to clot everybody you can away from Clinton. I don't care what you clot onto, just don't let it be Clinton."
Strategy sessions were held by groups so stealthy that one was called the No Name Coalition. Groups that had no obvious connection with health reform came to meetings where the action was—notably representatives of Ralph Reed from the Christian Coalition, a group whose mendacious lobbying is also treated by Sabato and Simpson.5 Reed, behind his cherub's face, loved the backstairs power he experienced among the No Namers. He had come into the religion-wielding game with this profession:
I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel by night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night.
Johnson and Broder show that the lobbying interests forged as a strike unit for the health fight came out from under cover and blatantly moved onto Capitol Hill in the aftermath of the Republicans' 1994 victory. As usual, Gingrich was an exemplar as well as the inspiration of the process. He gave staff privileges in his office to a telecommunications entrepreneur, Donald Jones, who called from the Speaker's office when dealing with officials in New Zealand, where he was trying to set up a thirty-million-dollar fiber-optic cable deal of his own. Gingrich also broke House rules when he gave his freewheeling expediter, Joe Gaylord, a staff position.6 (Elizabeth Drew is very good at reporting Gaylord's shadowy activities.)
So, after years of attacking Democrats' corrupt use of incumbency to please lobbyists, Gingrich came not to destroy but to perfect that practice—and to carry it to new heights. His excuse was revolutionary necessity. If money was needed to pass the Contract, that was justified by the fact that the Contract was the people's will. The alleged mandate excused any tactics needed for its implementation. In this way, the Contract became a money-washing machine. Dirty cash, processed through it, came out clean. The Contract had been asked to perform a wide variety of tasks—but in this case it was being asked to work a miracle.
Build by Destroying
Gingrich likes to think of politics as war (or a war movie), comparing himself at various times to Generals Grant and Eisenhower, or to Napoleon. But his real motto is Danton's: Il faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace. Effrontery beyond effrontery, like the bud beyond the rose. Deciding early in his congressional career that the House structure was impeding his own rise and that of Republicans in general, Gingrich set out to bring down the Democratic leadership, calling it corrupt, self-protecting, self-perpetuating. It was a waste of time to talk of issues and policies if this malodorous crew was there to block all good policy. The first necessity was to crush them, écraser l'infâme. From his freshman year, he went after his seniors—calling for 1) the expulsion of Representative Charles Diggs of Michigan for payroll padding, 2) the censure rather than reprimand of Representative Gerry Studds of Massachusetts for having sexual relations with a male page ten years before, 3) the punishment of Representative Fernand St. Germain of California for not reporting all his assets, and 4) the investigation of Speaker Jim Wright of Texas for violating House rules on accepting gifts and earning outside income. Not content with demolition raids on the Democrats, Gingrich opposed the Republican President's budget when that seemed too accommodating. Weakness on one's own side had to be punished as well as evil on the other side. As he told a group of Young Republicans: "I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty." If anyone could nasty the troops up, it was Newt Stryker.
The obverse of sugarcoating one's own proposals was to drench the other side's acts or statements in the language of revulsion. Opponents were not just wrong but vicious, corrupt, grotesque, sick, or insane—favorite Gingrich adjectives. Every conceivable ill could be blamed on Democrats—Woody Allen's relations with Mia Farrow's teen-age daughter, a mother's drowning of her children in the South, the ripping of a baby from its murdered mother's womb in Chicago. This kind of guilt-by-fanciful-association became a kind of omnidirectional scapegoating with Gingrich. All the problems of the poor could be blamed on attempts to help the poor. "The Sixties" was a term invokable any time some nut shot another person, or TV got violent, or writers were more sexually explicit than Gingrich had been in his own mildly racy novel. The White House was a "McGovernik" den of drug users.
A "bomb thrower" when his party was in the minority, the Speaker for the majority was expected to become less a terminator and more a temporizer after his ascent to power. His inaugural address was eirenic. He claimed that he was interested in passing bills now, not destroying people. But the very speed with which he drove the Contract through the House began to look like an empty exercise as things bogged down in the Senate. Gingrich took to saying that he promised to bring the items to a vote, not to make them law. Representative Barney Frank paraphrased this, at the time, as a car salesman's comment: "I didn't promise to sell you a car, I promised to show you a car." Gingrich could bring pressure on Bob Dole, since the Senate leader would need the party's right wing in the primary season of 1996; but Dole, in turn, could say there was no point to offering legislation in a form satisfactory to Contract supporters if the bills would (for this very reason) be vetoed by the President.
Faced with this problem, Gingrich decided to go straight for the major obstacle. He would break the President's power entirely, make it impossible for him to offer a veto without bringing his own house down about his head. This was building by destroying in the most grandiose way. "Gridlock" would be broken by "train wreck." The government, Reagan had taught Republicans to believe, was the problem, not the solution. All right, then shut the government down.
The instrument Gingrich chose to shove his dynamite into the logjam was the balanced budget. This was not his own favorite part of the Contract, but his fellow revolutionaries were doctrinaire on it—Tom DeLay, John Kasich, Richard Armey. It was a Perot item. And it had the advantage of accomplishing other Republican goals by indirection. If the budget were to be balanced in seven years (another of Gingrich's magic numbers), programs obnoxious to Republicans would have to be cut back or closed down for sheer lack of funds.
Some were surprised that people who proclaimed their admiration for Ronald Reagan would take an approach to the economy so different from his. He blithely ran the deficit up to dizzy new heights. They were intent on chopping the budget down with a ruthless axe. But the virtue of the two approaches was the same. The high deficit had inhibited government expenditures in the wake of the Reagan years. Now the Republicans would take the next step, cutting the reduced spending even further by attempts to bring the deficit back down. Heads, the poor lose. Tails, the poor lose. Guess who, either way, wins?
In any true sense, the Constitution does not permit Congress to "shut down" the government. Precisely because Congress controls the purse, it is forbidden to abuse its powers by rewarding or punishing the president monetarily. It may not cut, increase, or suspend his pay during his tenure. Article Two, Section I, Clause 7 reads: "The president shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation which shall neither be increased or diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected." Since judges have life tenure and a no-raise policy would itself be punitive, the Congress is only forbidden to cut or suspend judges' pay. Article Three, Section I: "The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall… receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office." And Congress must, according to Article One, Section VI, Clause 1, pay its own salary. A real "shutdown" is therefore impossible. Besides, Congress would not dare to cut off certain funds within its power of the purse—for the armed sevices (including veterans' hospitals), or federal law-enforcement agencies. The "shutdown" had to suspend certain services, not government itself.
Even on such limited terms, this move was a maximum strike, stepping over calibrated measures of escalation. If it failed, there was no bigger weapon left in the arsenal. And it was important to make the President look responsible for the suspension of services—a difficult thing, since he has no power to cut off legislated funds. President Nixon lost in the courts his battle over impounding funds, and Congress had not yet given the President a line-item veto.
The congressional game was to package together the legislation for continued funding with a balanced-budget schedule unacceptable to Clinton. If he vetoed the bill on the latter grounds, he would automatically veto the funding part, too. This move was unconstitutional in spirit. It tried to forge veto-proof legislation. If a president uses his veto against a bill, and Congress does not have the vote to override, the normal solution envisaged by the Constitution is for the legislation to be dead until and unless the president is persuaded to give up his veto or the legislation is altered to meet his objections. The veto was designed to avoid giving the president laws that he considers it impossible, or imprudent, or wrong, to execute. Congress is given the final say, but only after a careful consideration of the difficulty raised by the executive—carefulness being registered in the higher margin required for an override.
If Congress had presented its seven-year plan as a separate matter, the President would have vetoed it, and Congress probably did not have the votes for an override. Matters had to be so contrived that if the law were vetoed, payment for selected services would stop. This would make the President's veto the chronological (though not legal) occasion for the suspended services. Gingrich was betting that the President would buckle, unwilling to take the step that would deprive some federal workers of their pay just as Christmas was approaching.
Gingrich was confident that Clinton "had no backbone." Once again he fell for his own rhetoric. He was so contemptuous and dismissive of the opposition that he underestimated it. Also, his own troops' anti-government rhetoric made light of the consequences of cutting off federal funds. If government is the problem, the nation might be better off if its offices went dark. But that blithe attitude would not survive any long siege. Leaving federal workers unpaid, week after week, put a human face on "the bureaucracy"—just as the blowing up of the federal office building in Oklahoma City had. Punishing actual people is not the same as making ideological jokes about the worthless government. Only belatedly did some Republicans begin to fear that the suicide rate at Christmas, high even in normal times, would suggest that one or more suicides occurred among suspended federal workers for lack of their government pay.
The President, while refusing to crumple at the first assault, had to show a sweet reasonableness in negotiation—a luxury Gingrich was not permitted. If Clinton were totally intransigent, he might look uncaring toward the workers—and that might bring enough votes for an override. If he just gave in, he would be deserting his own party's essential base. Temporizing on Clinton's part put the ball back in Gingrich's court, and he had inspired his troops with an intransigence to which he was now held hostage. Bob Dole, never an enthusiast for this extreme measure, was ready to back off; but that made some members of the House who had endorsed him for the presidential campaign threaten to disendorse him. Gingrich, spending hours with the President, his fellow policy wonk, was suspected of desertion from his own hard line, and others in the leadership deputed Richard Armey to go in with Gingrich and monitor his performance. Revolutionary leaders end, by the inevitable ratcheting-up of their situation, trying to out-radical each other—Danton and Marat are succeeded by Saint-Just and Robespierre. When Gingrich seemed to lose the revolutionary fire in his belly, Armey was pushed forward as the scowling Marat. Behind him stood Kasich as a baby-faced Saint-Just and DeLay as a pocket-calculator Robespierre.
Some have wondered why, when Clinton made his key concessions to a seven-year balancing plan based on stingy congressional numbers, the Republicans did not just declare victory and restore services. But this misses the point of the balanced budget's role in the Revolution. It was espoused not from a love for sound fiscal procedure, but for its instrumental value in cutting down government. Some of the demands in the Republican package were the ends toward which balancing the budget was merely one means—immediate tax cuts, direct assault on entitlements like Medicare. The fervor for these explained intransigent demands on the budget, not vice versa.
Because of Gingrich's accessibility and talkativeness during the first year of his Revolution, the accounts of his own reactions to events are particularly full and authentic. Elizabeth Drew traces extensively his faltering and dismay during the negotiations with the White House. He confessed to her that he totally misread Clinton. He also fooled himself with his own Engler Paradigm. Speaking to the Republican leadership on January 2, 1996, he admitted:
We made a mistake. We miscalculated the effect our pressure would have on Clinton in December…. One thing we didn't recognize that I should have seen is that I always believed in talking to you about Engler and [Massachusetts governor] Weld, that we could survive low poll numbers if we accomplished what we set out to do. Our polls would come back when the people saw that we kept our promises. The mistake was that we only read the poll numbers from our side. We expected that there would be a slump in our poll numbers, but we didn't calculate that a surge in Clinton's numbers would cause him to dig in even more.
The sentence I have italicized represents a fairly basic error. It has its psychological explanation in the fact that Gingrich accepted his own supporters' belief that he was now in control of the government. The Engler Paradigm compared his situation with that of a chief executive, not a mere legislator in the lower house. Engler had to work with the Michigan legislature to enact his cuts in welfare and the property tax, but he did not have in office a rival executive whose polls could be a factor. Gingrich, comparing himself to Engler, was acting like a chief executive, playing president even before running for president.
That key miscalculation shows how Gingrich conceived his role. He wanted his own chronicler to be on hand as he rose straight to the top. Even when his polls started their long decline, he did not discourage speculation that he would run for the White House in 1996. He hoped his ratings would dip and then soar, like Engler's. Various conservatives, unhappy at the prospect of a Dole candidacy, encouraged talk of Gingrich as the man of the hour. That was the message of Arianna Huffington, the would-be Madame de Staël of this Revolution, when she wrote her articles for The Wall Street Journal or The Weekly Standard.
David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf are especially good on the internal spats and hysteria as the Republican leadership came to recognize that its big gun had misfired. Gingrich, who had shown amazing stamina for most of the year—constantly "on," living from caucus to TV appearance to book tour to press conference—became snappish and weepy. On December 6, in the middle of the budget crisis, when he learned that a special counsel had been appointed to investigate his ethics, he broke down suddenly—in the words of Maraniss and Weisskopf, "sobbing like a child, heaving and shaking." Earlier, his petulance out of control, he had said that he had closed down the government because of a snub on Air Force One:
Even as he was talking, Gingrich realized that he was making a mistake. He could not control himself. He blurted out that his press secretary, Tony Blankley, who was pacing back and forth at the rear of the room, would certainly be uneasy about what he was saying and the way he was saying it.
Gingrich's sense of affront came from an assurance about his mandate. How could he, the new center of government, not be honored with more time with the President on Air Force One (a flying-carpet throne to which he meant to succeed)? "You just wonder," he told his wondering audience, "Where is their sense of manners? Where is their sense of courtesy?" There is something poignant about this "bomb thrower"—a man who disregarded pleas for comity when he was savaging fellow representatives in the House, and who told Young Republicans to take nasty lessons—now suffering the vapors over a lapse in politesse. Attila had morphed overnight into Miss Manners.
As polls showed that the longer the suspension of government went on, the more Republicans were blamed, Gingrich had to strike a deal without the full tax and Medicare cuts he had been insisting on. His gung-ho troops were against "surrender," so the disciplinarian who had earlier held them to their pledges now ordered the abandonment of them. Meeting with the Republican caucus, Gingrich first told one member to "sit down and shut up," then issued his personal fiat: "This is a team vote and we're going to do this as a team. We're all wearing the same jerseys today. Sometimes you don't agree with the plays that are called. But this is the way we're going."
What would happen if anyone did not vote with the team? Gingrich said he would not punish such a person, but he would keep a list, and "If any of you [on the list] come up and talk about how the team's got to help you out, I don't want to hear about it."
Gingrich had used his own supposed adamancy as a battering ram, but in the final rush on the wall, the battering ram had shattered, not the wall. People's perception of Gingrich as a purely negative force led to the reaction against him personally, making him the most unpopular politician on the national scene. Even those who disliked Gingrich had, heretofore, credited him with political shrewdness. Now they were wondering about that. Did he really think the public would not blame Republicans for the so-called shutdown, when he had promised it beforehand to intimidate Clinton? Were people too stupid to notice that some of the services shut down—like federal parks and museums—were ones Republicans opposed anyway?
The crowning irony is that Gingrich did more than anyone or anything else to make Clinton look good. It had been a hackneyed journalistic theme that these two men were eerily alike—self-indulgent baby boomers with no military service, better at "process" than on issues, good counterpunchers, glib, proud of their ability to talk themselves out of trouble. But when the two were brought together for protracted negotiations, though Clinton may not have grown, he seemed to have, so precipitately did Gingrich shrink. Clinton had the better feel for his adversary, as he does for people in general. Gingrich is the bright boy who has to show you all he knows at once. His air of certitude makes him brittle. He began to suspect what other Republicans were sure of, that Clinton was "playing him like an organ." He was uncertain of himself under all the bluster.
One of the things to be said of Clinton is that there is a full (if flawed) human being behind the façade. It is hard to feel confident about that in Gingrich's case. The contrast shows up in Clinton's almost comically large circle of real friends. Gingrich has a thousand allies and no friends, as the backbiting he suffered from his fellows in the budget fight demonstrated. There is no resonance from depths sounded in him, just the empty darkness where movie images flicker endlessly.
The weird thing is that Gingrich thought Clinton was a cardboard figure who could be brought down with a string of delegitimating adjectives. He was amazed to find in Clinton a real person, and that was intimidating. He also confided to Drew that Bob Dole awed him, that he felt compelled to ingratiate himself with Dole, as he had felt before with his stepfather. Clinton critics say that he seems at times to be arrested at an adolescent stage. If so, Gingrich would have to be seen as stuck in an even earlier stage, of childhood. Still, it must have been a shock for Peggy Noonan, still patient by the guillotine, when the head that plopped into the basket was Newt's.
This Issue
June 6, 1996
Ms. Clinton's approval rate was 38 percent, Gingrich's 22 percent. Bill Clinton's approval rate more than doubled Gingrich's (51 percent to 22). Data taken from three polls reported in USA Today, April 15, 1996. ↩
Gingrich told Drew that Sands of Iwo Jima was "the formative movie of my life"—an important accolade, given the man's tendency to do all his thinking in terms of movies. He regularly used films to teach history in his seminars, and discussed budget strategy with Bob Dole by saying President Clinton was acting like a character in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Everyone heard how Gingrich's policy for troubled children was formed out of Boys' Town. Ronald Reagan, who was often accused of confusing reality and cinema, was formed by church and sports activities before, as an adult, entering the world of movies. Movies entered Gingrich when he was a lonely and peripatetic child living vicariously in the plots of his favorite pictures. Even marrying his high-school teacher was a way of leaping directly into the adult world of the movie screen. ↩
Republicans responsive to the gun lobby were in the odd position of saying that the assault-weapons ban and Brady Bill were so minor that they did not affect violence but so major that they threatened us with a Gestapo government. ↩
James Fallows also blames the press for the failure of the health care debate. In his new book, Breaking the News: How the Media Undermines American Democracy (Pantheon, 1996), he shows how abjectly other journalists accepted the deeply flawed and misleading screed of Elizabeth McCaughey, published in The New Republic. ↩
Sabato and Simpson show how ready the Christian Coalition is to engage in hardball politics, playing fast and loose with the truth (and with the rules governing its tax-exempt status). In the "score cards" given out at churches, targeting Democrats, voting records are wildly distorted. A vote, for instance, against the amendment to make a three-fifths majority necessary for tax raises was listed simply as a vote against balancing the budget. And a vote against using federal funds for discussing homosexuality in the schools was counted as a vote for discussing homosexuality in schools—because the bill voted on was less stringent than another proposal, preferred by the Coalition, which never came to a vote. ↩
The House Committee on Standards of Conduct, chaired by Gingrich crony Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, decided that Jones should not have been given a staff position, though it took Gingrich's word for it that the position was not abused. Potential witnesses who volunteered information to the contrary were not summoned in the committee "investigation." Jones, a heavy contributor to Gingrich, promoted the interests of other donors in the telecommunications field (e.g., Campbell Lanier). See the letter of the Congressional Accountability Project to Chairwoman Johnson, April 22, 1996; and articles by the reporting team of Damon Chappie and Juliet Elperin in Roll Call, April 4 and April 22, 1996. ↩


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If you're getting overloaded with Google+ notifications, you can now tweak who's allowed to notify you in its settings.
Just head to your Google+ Settings page to tweak this preference. You'll see it under "Who can interact with you and your posts". Just change the "Who can send you notifications" preference to fit whatever group of people you want—it can be "anyone", a specific circle or group of circles, or individuals. Google's rolling this feature out slowly, so if you don't see it right now, check back soon to enable it. Hit the link to read more.
Now you can decide who can notify you on Google+! | Kathleen Ko
You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.


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So Rambo Ike asked me over at Birther Report (before I gave it up for Lent) just when was the earliest reference to Obama being born at Kapi'olani hospital. Of course I wasn't going to kick over a hornet's nest and mention the birth certificate, which in all fairness didn't see the light of day until 2011. I had to do a little digging, and here's my reply:
The earliest Kapi'olani reference is a really good challenge. Most of my interest started with the birthers, and my knowledge of pre-birther history is pretty light. But let's see what I can do.
The earliest Kapi'olani reference I know of without looking is the one in the Honolulu Advertiser from November 9, 2008, citing "family sources." You can read about that here:
That's the interview that contains Tong's comment;
"We don't have plans to do anything," said Kapiolani Medical Center spokeswoman, Claire Tong, when asked how the center plans to commemorate the soon-to-be 44th U.S. president, who, according to Obama's family and other sources, was born at that hospital on Aug. 4, 1961.
"We can't confirm or deny it — even though all the information out there says he was born at Kapiolani Hospital. And that's because of the HIPA (sic) law."
Tong acknowledged that the center has received daily inquiries from news agencies far and wide asking for confirmation of Obama's birthplace. Much as she wishes she could do it, Tong said it's not possible.
"Our hands are tied," she said.
David Maraniss, who would later write a Biography of Obama, wrote of Obama's birth at Kapiolani in an article in the Washington Post August 24, 2008. Maraniss doesn't give a source
The Honolulu Star Bulletin article: "Punahou left lasting impression on Obama" from February 8, 2007 says Kapiolani.
Another article from the Star Bulletin from March 21, 2004 also lists Kapiolani as Obama's place of birth. That article was copied, mentioning Kapiolani, at the Free Republic forum also in 2004, so we can be pretty sure it wasn't changed.
That's as far back as I can find.


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Yes, Colerain Township opened a dog park in 2018! One of the baseball fields at Heritage Park (11405 East Miami River Road) was converted into a dedicated dog park where dogs can run free without being on a leash.
Trees have been planted that will eventually provide shade to benches spread throughout the dog park. Agility equipment and water have been installed for the dogs to enjoy. We have a separate area for small and big dogs. The small dog park is located near the main dog park. In addition to our dog park, all Township parks are dog-friendly. All pets must remain on a leash (maximum six feet in length), kept under physical control at all times, and not be a nuisance or a danger to other park users.
Pet owners are required to remove their pet's fecal deposits from the park grounds and place their waste in a suitable receptacle. No pets are permitted in play equipment areas or on baseball fields. Colerain and Clippard Parks have dog watering stations along the walking trails. Most parks have mutt-mitt stations to use to pick up pet waste.
Show All Answers
Colerain Township has 10 parks for residents to enjoy. In addition to the 10 parks, we maintain 11 historical cemeteries, 7 public buildings, and various other properties in Colerain Township.
The Parks and Services Office is located in the Fire Headquarters at 4160 Springdale Road.
The Parks and Services Office is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
All Township parks are open year-round from dawn to dusk.
The parks are opened 365 days a year. Heritage Park, along the Great Miami River, occasionally experiences closures when the river floods and the banks overflow into the park.
No. We do not provide snow removal along the walking trails.
The restroom facilities are open April 1 through November 1 of each year. Because our restroom facilities are not climate controlled, we hire a plumber to winterize the restrooms so that the pipes do not burst.
The Parks and Services Department does not prohibit fishing on Township property as long as citizens follow all Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife rules and regulations and possess a valid fishing license.
For questions not covered in our frequently asked questions, please call the Parks and Services Office at 513-385-7503, Monday through Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.