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Samuel L. Jackson says 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' deserves Oscars recognition
If you're seeking an actor eminently qualified to give their opinion on what movies deserve to be recognized by critics, audiences, and awards bodies, then look no further than Samuel L. Jackson.
After all, the screen legend isn't just a 40+ year veteran of the business, he also happens to be the highest-grossing actor in history, one that's appeared in countless blockbuster franchises and award-winning prestige pictures on his way to racking up a cumulative box office haul north of $27 billion.
By: Scott Campbell
Title: Samuel L. Jackson says 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' deserves Oscars recognition
Sourced From: wegotthiscovered.com/movies/samuel-l-jackson-says-spider-man-no-way-home-deserves-oscars-recognition/
Published Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2022 08:27:20 +0000
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Did you miss our previous article…
Baller Awards
5th Annual Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards Announces Nominees in Film, TV, and Visual Media
The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) announced today the nominees for the 2024 SCL Awards. Many of the contenders reflect the Oscar shortlist that was also announced today. The nominees include songwriters Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Lenny Kravitz, Diane Warren, and Jon Batiste who earned spots on the Oscar shortlist for Best Original Song. […]
By: Clarence Moye
Title: 5th Annual Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards Announces Nominees in Film, TV, and Visual Media
Sourced From: www.awardsdaily.com/2023/12/22/5th-annual-society-of-composers-lyricists-awards-announces-nominees-in-film-tv-and-visual-media/
Published Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2023 13:45:13 +0000
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Baller Awards
2024 Oscars: Best Original Song Predictions
With the 2024 Oscars shortlists now out, it's clear that "Barbie" will have a significant presence in the Best Original Song category.
Title: 2024 Oscars: Best Original Song Predictions
Sourced From: www.indiewire.com/awards/predictions/2024-oscars-best-original-song-predictions-1234910982/
Published Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2023 22:30:00 +0000
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Did you miss our previous article…
Baller Awards
Deontay Wilder Net Worth: Career Earnings, Biggest Fight Purse & Endorsement Deals Of 'The Bronze Bomber'
Deontay Wilder Net Worth: Career Earnings, Biggest Fight Purse & Endorsement Deals Of 'The Bronze Bomber' – originally posted on Sportslens.com
Here is everything you need to know about the single hardest puncher in boxing and the former world heavyweight champion, Deontay Wilder. This includes his net worth, career earnings and endorsement deals.
Deontay Wilder Net Worth
Deontay Wilder has been a professional boxer since his debut back in November 2008. He has been boxing consistently for over 15 years straight now in the pro ranks, earning more and more money as his career has progressed up to world level.
The 1985-born boxing superstar is one of the most fearsome punchers the sport of boxing has ever seen. Deontay Wilder's boxing record consists of 43 wins – 42 of which have come via knockout. The only man to go the distance with 'The Bronze Bomber' was Bermane Stiverne, who Wilder then knocked out in a round in their rematch.
As of December 2023, it is reported that Deontay Wilder's net worth is somewhere in the region of $30 million (source: Celebrity Net Worth).
Of course, given the fact the Alabama man is supremely wealthy, he likes his fair share of luxury items too. Wilder has acquired real estate, expensive jewelry, flashy cars and various other assets that have contributed to his riches.
Wilder reportedly has eight kids in total from various relationships, including one with his current girlfriend Telli Swift. Evidently a fair amount of Wilder's earnings in the ring is used on providing for his big family and loved ones. Be sure to see Deontay Wilder's net worth continue to grow for the remainder of his career, as long as that lasts.
Deontay Wilder Career Earnings
After 46 professional boxing fights, Deontay Wilder's biggest fight purse is reported to have been around $28 million (source: Forbes). This was reportedly how much 'The Bronze Bomber' earned for his rematch bout with Tyson Fury back in February 2020.
Wilder went into the fight as the marginal favorite with the best offshore sportsbooks, given that he was still the reigning champion following his draw with Fury 14 months prior. Despite getting conclusively knocked out in Round 7 of the fight, this still remains the biggest purse of Wilder's career to date.
Deontay Wilder has reportedly earned a total sum of around $95 million in his professional boxing career from his debut up to now. This is right up there with the likes of heavyweight rivals Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, and is more than the likes of Ryan Garcia, Gervonta Davis and Terence Crawford.
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Bronze Medallist has been earnings even figure purses ever since he became world heavyweight champion back in January 2015. Of his last 10 fights, just one has been less than seven figures (Washington – $900k). In fact, Wilder has earned around $80 million just from his last five fights.
See the full table below for a detailed breakdown of the purses Deontay Wilder has received for his last 10 fights. All in all, it is fair to say that the 38-year-old isn't short of a dollar or two. His net worth, salary and fight purses will continue to rise as his career rolls on at world level.
Deontay Wilder Fight Purses (Last 10):
Fight | Fight Purse |
Deontay Wilder vs Robert Helenius | $10 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury 3 | $12 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury 2 | $28 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Luis Ortiz 2 | $20 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Dominic Breazeale | $10 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury | $10 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Luis Ortiz | $2 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Bermane Stiverne 2 | $1.4 million |
Deontay Wilder vs Gerald Washington | $900,000 |
Deontay Wilder vs Chris Arreola | $1.4 million |
Deontay Wilder purse info per Sports Payouts & Sporting News
Deontay Wilder Endorsements & Sponsorship
Although the vast majority of Deontay Wilder's earnings comes from prize fighting, he also earns an extremely lucrative sum of money outside of the ring. These vast endorsement deals from outside of the ring are a big player in boosting Wilder's net worth and salary.
The 1985-born boxing phenom's biggest endorsement deal as of today is his partnership with Everlast. Wilder has shown great loyalty to Everlast for several years during his boxing career, and still sports their boxing gear to this day. He also regularly uses Everlast boxing gloves in the ring for his world title fights, as well as during training camps.
Some of Deontay Wilder's other endorsements include his partnerships with PureKana CBD, Raising Cane's and IHC Crypto. There is not much else known about Wilder's endorsements and sponsors outside of his career as a boxer.
All in all, Deontay Wilder's various sponsorships certainly help boost his net worth. Per Forbes, he reportedly earns an estimated $500,000 per annum through endorsements. Ultimately though it is punching people in the face for a living that pays 'The Bronze Bomber' the most money.
Be sure to claim the various sports betting apps bonuses and boxing free bets available on the SportsLens site ahead of Deontay Wilder's next fight.
From Sportslens.com – NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB News, Rumors & Betting Picks
By: Paul Kelly
Title: Deontay Wilder Net Worth: Career Earnings, Biggest Fight Purse & Endorsement Deals Of 'The Bronze Bomber'
Sourced From: sportslens.com/news/deontay-wilder-net-worth-career-earnings-endorsements/
Published Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 10:59:17 +0000
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Sheffield Wednesday (away) – Div 1 1989
The following article is the first in a new series I'm launching called The Awful Truth. The aim of this series is to take key games from Middlesbrough's history but rather than tell Boro fans what they already know (or think they remember), I wanted to get the oppositions view […]
Archive for 2014 / March / 22
Could not authenticate you.Testimonials
- Jeff Livingstone – Founder"He is as close to Picasso as football will ever get."In Bed With Maradona
- Rob Alderson – Editor"There is a huge group of football supporters who are creatively aware and crying out for a different kind of engagement with the game. If you are one of the many who buy into the game on a spiritual level, then you'll love Steve's 'Homesick' project".It's Nice That
- Edgar DavidsThroughout my career I managed to pick up a lot of yellow cards. I am not proud of it but it does represent my character. Steve Welsh aka miniboro has transformed this trait into four pieces of sweet artwork which depict my playing style.Dutch Midfield Legend
- Paul French – Senior Editor"The days of making do with tasteless footy posters from Woolworths or prising them out of Match and Shoot centrefolds are long gone!"FHM Magazine
- Aaron Lavery – Digital Content Manager"A website that mixes words and visuals to terrific effect, it's a gem of a site for fans of any club. The first thing you'll notice is the cracking creative visuals of footballers both classic and modern, but there's also some great interviews. The chat with Bob Mortimer in particular is a great read."UMBRO
- Gary Parkinson – Editor"We recommend a good trawl round Steve's website. Whether it's Dennis Bergkamp as a Top Gun-style Ice Man, a clever diagram about the Cruyff turn or simple, striking images of John Barnes and Mario Balotelli, his art is packed with wit and imagination. Intelligent, fun and highly original."Four Four Two Magazine
- Alan McGarrie – Global PR Manager"Steve Welsh is the artist behind miniboro.com his work is well known and very popular among football fans and influencers alike."Adidas Football

subset: commoncrawl


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If modern distributists would like to identify themselves as agrarians, they may, and line up behind John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, and the rest of the contributors to I'll Take My Stand. Then they would be making a super-catechetical argument and we should not take issue with them on this blog. Their claim, however, is to offer the only modern economic theory which is fully in line with Church teaching, and that we cannot allow to go unchallenged.
The central claim of modern distributism, as articulated in this recent essay, is that when economists left off considerations other than the calculus of markets, their discipline ceased to be a human science, and so lost much of its value as an explainer of human action. Thus distributists attack capitalism, which according to their thinking became dehumanized:
Labor was no longer the source of all human values and its sustenance the purpose of all human production. Rather, it was just another "raw material," like pig iron or hog fat, to be purchased at the lowest possible price. The question of justice was reduced to the question of "freedom": so long as there was no coercion in the labor contract, the price was to be considered "just." In the long run, so it was believed, all economic actors, acting in their own "self-interest," would produce the best possible outcomes.
Distributists are right to say that the science of economics lost a part of its essence when it abandoned questions of human nature, but capitalism was around before that abandonment, and it will exist unaltered should the economic establishment come to its senses. And a distributist may commodify his hired hand just as a faithful husband may objectify his wife.
The history of industrialization is a gradual one: there was no paradigm shift at which all wage earners were thenceforth thought of as pig iron or hot fat, because that injustice is a personal sin.
Capitalism has given us the Twinkie, the deep fried Twinkie, and the ogre green Twinkie. It has not, in the end, given us an unwanted issue of Sports Illustrated each year, a multibillion dollar pornography industry, or a meaningless common culture. Richard Weaver isolated that culprit in his 1948 book Ideas Have Consequences when he said,
The average man of the present age has a metaphysic in the form of a conception known as "progress."
According to Weaver, modern man has no metaphysic at all: he has become a materialist and an egotist. That is why too many companies treat their employees as "resources" and why too many banks thoughtlessly loan money to people who won't be able to pay it back. It is why the business pages of newspapers routinely report that companies lie about their accounts, or that struggling firms have been bought up and liquidated without any thought for their employees' lives. But "The Man" doesn't treat employees as raw materials—individual men and women do that, and it is they who are guilty of injustice, not the system of capitalism. "The Man" and the distributist picture of our economy are largely a fiction.
Even if a switch in economic systems might reduce the incentive for unjust commerce, we can't switch to distributism. Beyond a Spanish commune 0.17% the size of theU.S.economy, no one has ever effected a distributist economy—it's certainly never been done politically.
The United States is not an agrarian country; it is, for better or worse, a fully industrialized one. Dreams of a network of pastoral communities dotting the rolling Kentucky hills, the Texas plains, and the California valleys must remain dreams—images of the citizen-soldiers of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall…
Thanks to PewSitter, the Catholic Drudge Report, for the link!


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I have heard it said, "Carp is a poor man's bonefish."
I want you to know that becoming addicted to fly-fishing for carp can turn a wealthy man into a poor man. Recently, I started my quest to catch carp on my fly rod, and I am hooked.
One needs only to look as far as Google to see how popular this trend has become. There are sites for flies for carp, tackle, cooking and eating carp, books on how to fly-fish for carp, DVDs on fly-fishing for carp — you name it, it's on the Internet.
All of these helpful sites are designed to make you both a successful carp fly-fisherman, and a lot poorer. Your high-country, 3-weight rod just won't make it in the carp world.
If you've never fly-fished for carp, the first two questions you most likely have are where can one catch this really ugly fish, and why would you want to. The answer to the first question is basically wherever there is water above 32 degrees.
In this area, I have found carp in stock tanks, Navajo Lake, the San Juan River, and Lake Powell. I am told there is a lake by Alamosa that has a large population of carp. I plan on personally verifying that. I believe those locations are just the tip of the iceberg.
Next, why go after them at all? When's the last time you caught a 20-pound fresh water fish on a dry fly, with your fly rod? That about sums it up.
So, how does one go about catching a carp using his or her fly rod? The first thing you should know is that once you start down this road, your use of the English language will change. You will arrange certain nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives in a manner that would make a Marine drill sergeant proud.
Carp are extremely fickle eaters. While they will eat most anything, it's usually something other than what you're casting. The last carp I caught was on a fly that resembled a piece of dead, moldy lettuce. That happened to be about the 10th pattern I tied on.
I believe they'll eat anything in the water, as long as they're hungry. That said, deciding which fly to use can be really difficult. While I haven't caught a carp on a dry fly, don't be afraid to use them. Any dry that looks like a bug is a good prospect.
Just remember: Carp have a small, soft mouth, so a size-4 hopper will pose a problem. The other side of that coin is trying to thread a 20-pound test leader through the eye of a size-18 fly. For sub-surface flies, I use wooly buggers or something resembling cold, green vegetables.
When casting flies at carp, the first thing you'll notice is that they're not particularly leader shy. Nor will they move out of a feeding lane for the most scrumptious fly in your box. If you are not able to put the fly 12 inches in front of them, forget catching them. They won't move for the fly.
For gear, this is your chance to bring the saltwater gear out of the closet — or better yet, go buy new stuff. A 7- or 8-weight rod works best.
I suggest using nothing less than 20-pound test leader. I also prefer a floating line. If I need to get deep, split shot works just fine.
Since the carp I have been chasing seem to like shallow water, they're reachable from the shore, float tubes or boats. I also believe you will find more carp in big pods, feeding on the surface, in the mornings. But a single in the afternoon is as good as a pod in the mornings.
Give this fish a try. I bet you'll become as consumed as my friends and I have.


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What's your opinion on this article?
New report calls for justice for U.S. political prisoners and takes human rights case to the United Nations(This is part one of an occasional series that will run in The Final Call newspaper.)
But a recent report filed with the world body raises the ugly issue of political prisoners and repression in America and her human rights violations.
"The United States is very, very concerned when its citizens begin to raise questions in these international forums, because the United States still prefers to posture itself, including the Obama administration, as still the leader of the free world and that they don't have any human rights violations and they certainly don't have any political prisoners, and we have to dispel that notion in the international community," said Stan Willis, of the National Conference of Black Lawyers.
Atty. Willis filed the report April 14 as part of a process in which the United Nations reviews the status of each country and its human rights record. The U.S. is currently under review and will respond in November during a gathering in Geneva, Switzerland.
The United Nations' Universal Period Review process was introduced in 2006 and community-based, non-governmental and other organizations are allowed to point out human rights issues within their countries and where they feel violations of international law or UN treaties have been committed.
For Black America, the process is another way to hold the U.S. government accountable and to demand the release of Black Power era leaders and members of organizations whose political views are objectionable, said Mr. Willis, in an interview.
Beyond freeing an aging population of some 100 former Black Panthers, members of the MOVE organization and other revolutionary-oriented groups, taking the issue to the United Nations puts America and her dirty laundry on front street, said the longtime activist and lawyer.
"They (American officials) do not want to have these issues reach the world's people. How do you go into Iraq or Afghanistan telling people about their democracy when you got Black people that are locked down in prison for 30-40 years as political prisoners?"
Whether the problem was leftist ideology, nationalists and those calling for a Black homeland, demands for a new economic order or Native American rights and anti-Vietnam War efforts, government security agencies infiltrated dissident groups.
The security activity went hand-in-hand with crackdowns on Black, Latino, Native American and even some White groups demanding a more just and peaceful society—and greater demands for respect for rights and opposition to police violence.
The continued incarceration and mistreatment of these prisoners violates UN treaties and conventions that guarantee human rights, forbid torture and outlaw racial and political targeting by government, the report charges.
Surveillance and destroying organizationsThe plight of political prisoners is largely rooted in the 1960s-1970s era surveillance against Black groups, which included respected civil rights organizations as well as so-called Black radicals, according to Mr. Willis. About two-thirds of the jailed dissidents are Black, he said.
The FBI teamed with local law enforcement to attack, disrupt and destroy groups like the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was admitted during congressional hearings in 1976 empanelled to probe these secret domestic wars.
The covert Counterintelligence Program run by then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and approved by the White House, focused in specially on the Black Panther Party, and most political prisoners are either former Panthers or from MOVE, a radical "back-to-nature" group whose homes were bombed by the Philadelphia Police Department in 1985.
"U.S. political prisoners have languished in U.S. prisons for decades under cruel and inhumane conditions. Several have died in prison; others have endured years of solitary confinement, poor medical health care, various other forms of abuse, and perfunctory parole hearings resulting in routine denial of human rights," the report noted.
The report calls for the unconditional release of political prisoners jailed as a result of the government's Counterintelligence Program, an executive review of all cases related to the covert operation, a murder probe into the deaths of Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and actions to repair and redress harm done and to prevent similar acts in the future.
While Atty. Willis is pushing the plight of political prisoners, he said the impact of the government wrongdoing went beyond the heavy price young activists paid at the time.
"Movements move forward with masses of people but they move forward with a certain kind of leadership," said Mr. Willis.
During the revolutionary times of the 1960s and 1970s, youth and students were influenced by the efforts of the Nation of Islam, Congress of Racial Equality, and NAACP as well as the African liberation movement on the continent and Cuba's revolution, he continued.
A type of leadership was developing that America had never seen before and the government moved to crush that leadership, Mr. Willis said.
The Panthers and SNCC were wiped out and law enforcement and government sent clear signals that if others persisted in demanding progressive action they would also be destroyed, he said.
"Our community suffered. Our community deserves reparations just on that issue because it set us back in the 1960s and we see where we are now, we haven't recovered from that," he said. "It's not just those in prison that suffered, and they certainly suffered mightily because they have been locked down and some of them are dying in prison. Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were murdered. But the community suffered," he said. Young leaders Hampton and Clark headed the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. They were shot and killed in a police raid on a west side home in 1969.
U.S. power vs. the power of the peopleWhile the U.S. wields considerable power at the United Nations, in particular with its veto power on the Security Council, Atty. Willis rejects the notion that holding the superpower to international standards is a futile effort.
The General Assembly is largely made up of delegates from around the world, and public opinion and moral authority is bigger than U.S. power, he said.
The lawyer pointed to fighting in Chicago for two decades for Blacks tortured in a police precinct and officers under former police commander John Burge. It was only after the case, which involved hundreds of suspects coerced into making confessions because of torture, was put before international bodies that U.S. law enforcement officials moved against Mr. Burge. He will go on trial May 10 in federal court and is accused of obstruction of justice and perjury.
"It was only after the United Nations mentioned torture in the context of Abu Grahaib, Guantanamo Bay and Chicago, in the same paragraph, that John Burge was indicted within months of that," Mr. Willis said. The Justice Dept. reached out about the case after the world body noted the violations, he said.
International forums and broader remediesMore involvement is needed in international forums, where violations of basic rights to education, health, employment, housing, and abuses of discrimination and police brutality can be brought out, Mr. Willis argued.
Essentially the forums provide a way to call attention to government failures or misdeeds and ask that the UN or other bodies where the U.S. holds membership to investigate and demand America comply with international law or treaties. The forums can also be highly embarrassing for the world's greatest democracy.
"We can have a mighty voice because when we speak in the international context it resonates with African people all over the world, unlike anybody else, and they look for us to speak because they know we are in the lion's den," said Atty. Willis.
The U.S. civil rights laws also say what government can't do, while the international standards stress what countries must do, Mr. Willis explained. Under the United Nations standards, countries must educate children and localities could not argue that because of a lower tax base Black children get a lesser quality or failing education, he explained.
Remedies are much broader in the international context, which include reparations as a common remedy, but civil rights laws don't provide for reparations, Mr. Willis added.
It's not just going to Geneva but confronting local entities, like school districts, and being able to redefine education and press districts to come in line with international standards, he said. Blacks have also tried to take their struggle to the United Nations in the past, Mr. Willis said.
"We have a history of trying to get there, but we haven't got there because I think we got so focused on civil rights we forgot there is a remedy out there and we can draw on the collective sentiments of the world community by trying to take our case into a more international forum," he said. "We don't have to rely on who is the president, we can force the president because the president and the administration is very, very sensitive to world opinion. There is no question about that," he said.
Concerns about the arrest and targeting of Arab and Palestinian communities and Muslims after 9-11 and 23-hour-a-day lockdowns make government abuses relevant today, Atty. Willis said.
Political prisoners have traditionally been locked down, not because they violated prison policy or disrupted prison but because officials don't want disruption based on ideas, he said.
The Obama administration, unlike its predecessors, has taken the position that they support human rights and the U.S. has a member on the Human Rights Council, said Mr. Willis.
His goal is to get the political prisoners on the agenda, but filing a report isn't enough, he said.
It will take more awareness and education of the Black community, activism and lobbying for political prisoners at the United Nations, town hall meetings to explain where the issues are, and getting the academic and faith communities to weigh in on the problem, he said.
"It's a way of organizing our people and encouraging them to take these international forums seriously and adding that to their tools of raising issues related to various problems we have in the United States. It doesn't mean you stop doing anything else.
"The fact that I am trying to raise issues in the international forum doesn't mean I am stopping suing police," he said.
"It just means this is an additional weapon that we have to try to get this country in compliance with international human rights laws."


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Human Chain Saves Family From Drowning
By Eryn Dion, Panama City News Herald, July 11, 2017
PANAMA CITY BEACH, FLA. — It was supposed to just be a quick trip to the beach, but the Saturday afternoon diversion to the water almost ended in unspeakable tragedy for Roberta Ursrey and her family.
Ursrey and her husband, mother, nephews and sons were enjoying the sun and yellow-flag conditions near the M.B. Miller County Pier. Ursrey herself had just left the water, but when she turned around to look for her sons, she noticed they were much farther from shore than she remembered. Concerned, she started walking down the beach.
And then she heard their screams.
"They were screaming and crying that they were stuck," Ursrey recalled in an interview Monday. "People were saying, 'Don't go out there.' "
Unwilling to watch them drown, Ursrey and her family swam out to them, but the rip current was much stronger than they realized and despite her best efforts to escape, they were trapped as well. All in all, Ursrey said, nine people were stuck in about 15 feet of water, including her mother, who suffered a massive heart attack during the ordeal and very nearly died.
"I honestly thought I was going to lose my family that day," Ursrey said. "It was like, 'Oh God, this is how I'm going.' "
It might have been, had Jessica Simmons and her husband not decided on a last minute, beach-side dinner that afternoon. Or if she hadn't stopped to pick up leftover trash and happened to grab a discarded boogie board, intending to keep it for when her godchildren visited. But sitting on the sandbar after a quick dip in the water, Simmons realized everyone on the beach was facing a different direction and pointing.
"I automatically thought they had seen a shark," Simmons said. "I ran back to shore and my husband ran over to them. … That's when I knew someone was drowning."
Simmons isn't the type of person to stand by and watch someone in distress. Back in Alabama, where she's from, Simmons said she once walked 11 miles after a tornado to help people clean up their mess and get their lives back together. So when she saw Ursrey's family in trouble, she grabbed the boogie board and started toward them while her husband and a few other men started a human chain to bring the swimmers back to shore.
"These people are not drowning today," Simmons remembered telling herself. "It's not happening. We're going to get them out."
As Simmons paddled, the human chain grew, with 80 people stretching over 100 yards out to the distressed swimmers. Some of them couldn't swim, Simmons said, but wanted to help and stayed in the shallows. Others stood in water up to their necks, waiting for Simmons and her husband to cover the last few feet so they could pass the swimmers to shore.
"I got to the end, and I know I'm a really good swimmer," Simmons said. "I practically lived in a pool. I knew I could get out there and get to them."
What Simmons found at the end of the human chain, she said, was shocking. Ursrey's mother was exhausted, her eyes were rolling back and Simmons remembered her "drinking so much water" and "telling us to just let her go and save us." Everyone was exhausted, the waves knocking them under. One by one, starting with the children, Simmons and her husband, along with a few other rescuers, towed the swimmers to the human chain, who then pulled them all to shore.
"It was the most remarkable thing to see," Simmons said. "These people who don't even know each other and they trust each other that much to get them to safety."
Ursrey doesn't remember being rescued, just waking up on shore after she passed out. Her mother, she said, ended up coding in the ambulance, but was was brought back to life and is still in the hospital. Her family has set up a GoFundMe to help cover those expenses. Her nephew had a broken hand, but otherwise everyone is recuperating after their ordeal.
"I am so grateful," Ursrey said. "These people were God's angels that were in the right place at the right time. I owe my life and my family's life to them. Without them, we wouldn't be here."
Looking back, Simmons said it wasn't so much about what she did to help rescue the family, but everyone dropping what they were doing to help.
"It's so cool to see how we have our own lives and we're constantly at a fast pace, but when somebody needs help, everybody drops everything and helps," Simmons said. "That was really inspiring to see that we still have that.
"With everything going on in the world, we still have humanity," she added.
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Om man inte är svensk så kan traditionen att se Disney på julaftonseftermiddag te sig lätt bisarr. Så här skriver Jeremy Stahl om sina upplevelser av detta när han besökte Sverige sin första jul med flickvän. (Senare i kväll så publicerar jag bilden på en annan bisarr företeelse; Elsasskrubban)
Nordic Quack
Sweden's bizarre tradition of watching Donald Duck cartoons on Christmas Eve.
By Jeremy Stahl
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009, at 7:01 AM ET
Update, Dec. 22, 2010: While Americans tend to spend Christmas Eve feasting, caroling, and/or leaving cookies and milk out for Santa, the Swedes' tradition includes the annual viewing of the Kalle Anke Donald Duck cartoon. In 2009, Jeremy Stahl shed some light on this bizarre custom. The article is reprinted below.
Three years ago, I went to Sweden with my then-girlfriend (now-wife), to meet her family and celebrate my first Christmas. As an only partially lapsed Jew, I was not well-versed in Christmas traditions, and I was completely ignorant of Swedish customs and culture. So I was prepared for surprises. I was not prepared for this: Every year on Dec. 24 at 3 p.m., half of Sweden sits down in front of the television for a family viewing of the 1958 Walt Disney Presents Christmas special, "From All of Us to All of You." Or as it is known in Sverige, Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul: "Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas."
Kalle Anka and the Aracuan BirdKalle Anka, for short, has been airing without commercial interruption at the same time on Sweden's main public-television channel, TV1, on Christmas Eve (when Swedes traditionally celebrate the holiday) since 1959. The show consists of Jiminy Cricket presenting about a dozen Disney cartoons from the '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s, only a couple of which have anything to do with Christmas. There are "Silly Symphonies" shorts and clips from films like Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and The Jungle Book. The special is pretty much the same every year, except for the live introduction by a host (who plays the role of Walt Disney from the original Walt Disney Presents series) and the annual addition of one new snippet from the latest Disney-produced movie, which TV1's parent network, SVT, is contractually obligated by Disney to air.
Kalle Anka is typically one of the three most popular television events of the year, with between 40 and 50 percent of the country tuning in to watch. In 2008, the show had its lowest ratings in more than 15 years but was still taken in by 36 percent of the viewing public, some 3,213,000 people. Lines of dialogue from the cartoons have entered common Swedish parlance. Stockholm's Nordic Museum has a display in honor of the show in an exhibit titled "Traditions." Each time the network has attempted to cancel or alter the show, public backlash has been swift and fierce.
Kalle Anka (pronounced kah-lay ahn-kah) gets its name from the star of the show's second animated short, a 1944 cartoon called "Clown of the Jungle," in which Donald Duck is tormented by a demented Aracuan Bird during a luckless ornithological expedition. The short is typical of the random violence of many early Disney cartoons. The sadistic Aracuan (regularly mistaken in Sweden for Hacke Hackspett, or Woody Woodpecker) sprays Kalle with seltzer, bashes his head in with a mallet, blows him up with an exploding cigar, threatens to kill himself simultaneously by hanging and gunshot, and ultimately drives the infuriated Kalle insane.
Watching Kalle Anka for the first time, I was taken aback not only by the datedness of the clips (and the somewhat random dubbing) but also by how seriously my adoptive Swedish family took the show. Nobody talked, except to recite favorite lines along with the characters. My soon-to-be father-in-law, a burly man built like a Scandinavian spruce, laughed at jokes he had obviously heard scores of times before. Nobody blinked at the antiquated animation, the cheesiness of the stories, or even the good-old-fashioned '30s-era Disney-style racism. (In the 1932 "Silly Symphonies" short "Santa's Workshop," there is a scene involving a black doll who yells "Mammy" at the sight of Santa Claus then moons the screen. It was eventually censored from the American version of the cartoon but remains in Kalle Anka.)
The show's cultural significance cannot be understated. You do not tape or DVR Kalle Anka for later viewing. You do not eat or prepare dinner while watching Kalle Anka. Age does not matter—every member of the family is expected to sit quietly together and watch a program that generations of Swedes have been watching for 50 years. Most families plan their entire Christmas around Kalle Anka, from the Smörgåsbord at lunch to the post-Kalle visit from Jultomten. "At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you can't to do anything else, because Sweden is closed," Lena Kättström Höök, a curator at the Nordic Museum who manages the "Traditions" exhibit, told me. "So even if you don't want to watch it yourself, you can't call anyone else or do anything else, because no one will do it with you."
To Kättström Höök, Sweden's affection for Kalle Anka is tied up with older holiday traditions. "It's the dream of the old peasant village before people moved to towns," she said. "Kalle Anka is almost like gathering around the fire in old times and listening to fairy tales."
In 2005, Jude Stewart analyzed the German tradition of watching the obscure British comedy sketch Dinner for One on New Year's Eve. In 2002, Virginia Heffernan explored the history of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. In 1999, Matt Alsdorf explained why It's a Wonderful Life comes but once a year. In 2009, Torie Bosch deconstructed television's adherence to boilerplate Christmas plots.But how did these tales become part of Sweden's folklore? It was largely an accident of history, specifically the history of television in Sweden. The show first aired in 1959, when Swedes were just starting to own televisions. "You couldn't have done this in 1970," said Charlotte Hagström, an ethnology professor at Lund University and archivist of the university's Folk Life Archives. "It had to be 1960 when television was new." The fact that there was only one channel in Sweden until 1969 and only two—both public-service stations run by Sweden's equivalent of the BBC—until 1987 helped, too. As did the fact that, for years, Christmas was the only time when Swedes could see Disney animation—or any American cartoons—on television.
Over the last half-century, the characters and sketches have become as much a part of the holiday as the Christmas tree, so much so that each time TV1 has suggested modifying the schedule, public outcry has forced the network to back down. In the 1970s, Helena Sandblad, then head of children's programming, attempted to pull the show off of the air because broadcasting a Disney program didn't jibe with the prevailing political ethos. "Everything was pretty serious in the '70s and anything that was commercial, or considered commercial, was not good, was considered an ugly word," said SVT publicity officer Ursula Haegerström. After newspapers got wind of the plans to cancel the show, the station was bombarded with letters, phone calls, and negative press. Sandblad received personal threats. "That was one of the worst audience storms in our history," Haegerström told me.
SVT ultimately gave in, and Kalle was saved. In 1982, the network made the seemingly innocuous decision to replace one of the special's most beloved cartoons, the 1938 Oscar-winning short "Ferdinand the Bull," with "The Ugly Duckling." Again newspapers picked up the story and public outcry ensued. Munro Leaf's famous tale of a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight in a Spanish coliseum was touted by leftists during the Spanish Civil War and World War II as a parable of pacifism. That the message resonates with a nation defined by a centuries-long policy of neutrality shouldn't come as a big surprise. Since 1983, when Ferdinand was returned to its rightful place in the lineup, the program has remained largely unaltered.
Kalle Anke and Friends has made national icons out of its cartoon characters—Kalle, Ferdinand, Piff och Puff (Chip and Dale), Musse Pigg (Mickey Mouse), Långben (Goofy), Pluto—but also its Swedish stars. Arne Weise, who hosted the show live from 1972 to 2002, personified Christmas to two generations of Swedes. In 1992, when he attempted to get the network to record his portion of the program in advance so that he could spend Christmas with his family, newspapers got a hold of the story and helped scuttle the change. "We had recorded everything, but no way," SVT's Haegerström said. "[The] host was supposed to sit there in some sort of vigil over Christmas."
Weise claims that Sweden's stubborn insistence that he record live every year destroyed his personal life, blaming the show for his three divorces. "I wasn't easy to live with—I was in a bad mood out of nervousness before going on air, and tired afterwards. That doesn't help to make you a good father or lover," he told the newspaper Aftonbladet in 2007. During his final taping of the show, in 2002, Weise—whose history of alcohol problems is well-known to Swedes—claimed to have been "high as a kite" on the morphine pills he was taking at the time for psoriasis. The other popular national figure to emerge from the program is Bengt Feldreich, the Swedish voice of Jiminy Cricket and narrator of much of the program. Feldreich, a Swedish television reporter who built his name interviewing Nobel Laureates for SVT's news division, is now most famous for his impromptu rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" during the original taping of the show.
Lund University's Hagström faced her own Kalle Anka backlash in 2004 when she gave an interview to the Swedish news agency TT, suggesting that the widespread popularity of DVDs and cable television had changed the meaning of Kalle Anka for younger Swedes. The Swedish media sensationalized the story. The headline in the popular tabloid Expressen read "Is Kalle Anka on His Way out of Christmas?" Critical comments soon flooded online messageboards. But the next generation of Swedes may not quite have the same dedication to the special. Despite the consistently strong ratings, SVT's Haegerström could not predict how much longer Kalle Anka will last as a national institution. "I think that we will probably hang in there for a few more years at least. I see my grandchildren, you know, they're not as attached to it as their parents," she told me.
For the time being, though, Kalle Anka is safe. Sweden's staunch defense of Kalle against all attackers, perceived and real, suggests an affection that has long since transcended the circumstances that first made it popular. For many Swedes, there is something comforting about knowing that every year there is one hour, on one day, when you sit down with everyone in your family and just be together. "People always want to change everything, and make everything new," Feldreich, Sweden's Jiminy Cricket, told the Swedish newspaper Länstidningen in 2008. "And then, like in a fairy tale from when we were kids, there's something familiar." Kalle Anka, he said, "offers security in a confusing world."
Under den här länken ses scener som klippts bort ur Disney på julaftonen. Man har på svt ibland varslat för att ändra eller ta bort Disney, men det går inte. Reaktionerna från svenska folket blir starka. Vi tål en restriktiv alkoholpolitik, att luras av banker, svindlas av välgörenhetsorganisationer, vänta på tåg som aldrig kommer, sova på flygplatser när alla flyg är inställda, men inte att rubba Kalle på julafton, så nära revolution har nog aldrig svenska folket varit som inför hotet från svt att ta bort Kalle helt. Då uppreser sig hela folket i landet "Lagom" som en man och protesterar. Så nu har vi Kalle Anka för evigt. Visst är de gamla avsnitten bäst! Den med rutig färg kan jag inte se mig mätt på! Jag hoppades verkligen länge att det skulle funka att måla med rutig färg. Man kostade verkligen på sig mödan med en mängd detaljer. Filmdialogerna och uttrycken i de här filmsnuttarna har blivit klassiker i vårt land, en gemensam referensram som vi hämtar skämt och ironier ur.
HärhemmA tittade vi inte på Disney. Ingen hade lust. Men udner alla såbansår och ytterligare år såg vi detta. Minns under 90 talet då såg vi också 3:ans Disney, under annnan tid. Mycket disney blev det.
Fast vi (dotter rättare sagt, de unga tar INTE detta på allvar) konstaterade att under leksakernas parad in i tomtesäcken så är det samma bakgrund som hackar sig fram, gång på gång...
Jag tittar men min jul står och faller inte med Kalle.


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Getty ImagesWe all have our reasons for not working out. Some are legit—we're working late or nursing an injury—but often we're just talking ourselves out of exercising. "We make excuses to reduce what's called cognitive dissonance," says Dan Kirschenbaum, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Medical School. "If we are committed to exercise and yet don't do it, the excuse allows us to feel less dissonance, or discomfort."
That's not to say you're lazy; it's a normal response. The secret to countering it? Get into the habit of working out. When you do that, your brain flips a switch and develops a "healthy obsession," which makes you want to get moving, Kirschenbaum explains. Until then, here's how to overcome your top four gym deterrents (as revealed in a Health.com poll). No matter what your psyche throws at you, we have you covered.
The excuse: I'm too pooped.
The reality: It's the number-one reason you blow off workouts. Know this, though: Studies have shown that regular physical activity can improve energy. If you don't believe it, commit to a week of exercise and see if you notice a difference.
Of course, for many of us who work out in the morning, simply getting ourselves out of bed is the issue. If that's you, download the Sleep Cycle alarm clock app. Then place your phone on an upper corner of your mattress and set the app's alarm for a 30-minute window; your iPhone's built-in accelerometer measures your subtle movements, and the app wakes you when you're in your lightest sleep phase, when you're most rested and ready to get active.
Prefer working out at the end of the day (when your circadian rhythms want you to chill)? Enlist an exercise buddy—it'll make it harder to skip the gym.
The excuse: There aren't enough hours in the day.
The reality: You're busy, for sure. But the time is there, insists Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. "If you work 50 hours a week and sleep eight hours a night, that leaves 62 hours for other things," she says. And the American Heart Association says 75 minutes of vigorous exercise is all you need to squeeze in each week to improve your health.
To find pockets of unused time, keep a 24-hour log of one weekday and one weekend day. You'll quickly see where you can slip in mini chunks of exercise. "Most people find they could take a 30-minute walk over their lunch hour," Vanderkam says.
The excuse: I don't want to redo my hair and makeup.
The reality: You can take care of post-workout primping in five minutes flat with this regimen from Paige Padgett, green beauty expert and Jillian Michaels's makeup artist. Give your sweaty spots a once-over with an antibacterial wipe, and do the same on your face, using an all-in-one cleansing pad. Next, apply a beauty balm, which is similar to a tinted moisturizer, but with the added benefits of a primer and blemish control ointment. Touch up mascara and use a three-in-one color stick to add shimmer to eyes, cheeks, and lips. Finally, apply a little dry shampoo to the crown of your head to freshen up your hair, and you're done.
The excuse: Exercise makes me eat more.
The reality: Actually, if you work out at a moderate-to-vigorous level (think a brisk walk), a shift in hormones may help suppress your appetite immediately post-workout. In a recent study, researchers at Brigham Young University showed images of food to women who had just finished a 45-minute morning workout. Their neural response to the food was less than it was on non-exercise days. The researchers also found that women did not eat more on the workout day to make up for calories burned.
The key? Eat a snack right after your workout, says Stella L. Volpe, PhD, chair of the department of nutrition sciences at Drexel University. Aim for a 150- to 200-calorie mix of protein, carbs, and healthy fats. It'll keep you feeling full so you don't eat back all those calories you just burned off.


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64. 1. That which is at rest is easily kept hold of; before a thing has given indications of its presence, it is easy to take measures against it; that which is brittle is easily broken; that which is very small is easily dispersed. Action should be taken before a thing has made its appearance; order should be secured before disorder has begun.
2. The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a
(small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand lî commenced with a single step.
3. He who acts (with an ulterior purpose) does harm; he who takes hold of a thing (in the same way) loses his hold. The sage does not act (so), and therefore does no harm; he does not lay hold (so), and therefore does not lose his hold. (But) people in their conduct of affairs are constantly ruining them when they are on the eve of success. If they were careful at the end, as (they should be) at the beginning, they would not so ruin them.
4. Therefore the sage desires what (other men) do not desire, and does not prize things difficult to get; he learns what (other men) do not learn, and turns back to what the multitude of men have passed by. Thus he helps the natural development of all things, and does not dare to act (with an ulterior purpose of his own).
, 'Guarding the Minute.' The chapter is a continuation and enlargement of the last. Wû Khäng, indeed, unites the two, blending them together with some ingenious transpositions and omissions, which it is not necessary to discuss. Compare the first part of par. 3 with the last part of par. 1, ch. 29.


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Virtual research institute needed to unlock RNA's promise
A Europe-wide network of labs focusing on RNA research is needed to make the most of RNA's high potential for treating a wide range of diseases. The recommendation for this virtual research institute comes from a panel of biologists at the European Science Foundation in a report published today, 'RNA World: a new frontier in biomedical research'.
Ten years on from the human genome project, RNA (ribonucleic acid) has stolen some of DNA's limelight. The basic ingredient of our genes, DNA long outshone the other form of genetic material in our cells, RNA. RNA was seen as a simple stepping stone in the cell's gene-reading activities.
Research over the last decade has shown RNA to be a remarkable molecule and a multi-talented actor in heredity. It is thought to be a major participant in the chemical reactions that led to the origins of life on Earth - the 'RNA World' hypothesis. RNA also controls genes in a way that was only recently discovered: a process called RNA interference, or RNAi. Medical researchers are currently testing new types of RNAi-based drugs for treating conditions such as macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness, and various infections, including those caused by HIV and the herpes virus.
"RNA could bring significant advances to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of many human diseases," said Professor Jörg Vogel from the University of Würzburg, Germany, who co-chaired the report. "In the global context, it's surprising that Europe doesn't have many centres specifically funded for and dedicated to it, particularly in comparison to the US. We strongly recommend creating a network of RNA centres, linked together as a Europe-wide 'virtual institute'. A first step could involve calls through the European Commission and national funders. "
The virtual RNA institute would be made up of locally-funded, multidisciplinary centres with a critical mass of strong research groups in disciplines such as biology, biochemistry, chemistry, genetics, bioinformatics, biophysics, structural analysis, microbiology, plant sciences and clinical medicine. This environment could be well-suited to promoting superior training of a generation of young scientists, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. They could also help deliver dedicated education programmes for RNA research, which are currently lacking.
A particular area where an increasing demand in the future can be foreseen is, as in almost all other areas of life science, bioinformatics. "A new generation of bioinformaticians needs to be trained to meet future demand, in RNA research and in many other areas of the life sciences," continues Professor Vogel.
New models for public funding of infrastructure and resources for promising compounds to be used in the clinic should be developed. The financial burden for taking basic compounds and developing them into drugs could be shared by academic-industrial partnerships.
'RNA World: a new frontier in biomedical research' reviews the high pace of discovery in RNA research and gives a 5-10 year outlook of how both basic RNA research and its use in clinical practice should develop. Nine thematic priority areas were identified to address new and promising opportunities for biomedical, biotechnological, pharmaceutical and clinical RNA research.


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The wool Studio
Thai Curry
You will need to wash and dry any bolt wool. Unless you order it washed, in that case you will receive it all washed and fulled ready to use. You can also order it washed and cut, ready to hook! Most of our wools are best suited for #6 and up.


text: Includes issues #45-59!Classic TRANSFORMERS tales from the UK continuity continues here! Re-mastered and re-colored, these vintage TF stories are presented in order, many published for the first time in the United States! Writer and life-long TF fan James Roberts provides in-depth historical perspective front matter in each volume, and TF UK artist Andrew Wildman provides new covers!


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Northern Beef Packers, a long-delayed beef-processing plant in Aberdeen has paid off all but one of the 39 liens filed against it, reports the Associated Press.
The American News reports (http://bit.ly/R2PxgP) the paid-off liens total just under $14 million and include some filed before Korean investors took over in 2009. The remaining lien was filed by a Huron excavation company seeking $2.1 million. It is still tied up in the courts.
The liens are among numerous problems that have pushed back the opening date for the $109 million plant that started construction in 2007. City officials this fall issued Northern Beef Packers a temporary certificate of occupancy, allowing it to slaughter up to five cattle to test equipment.
The plant eventually is to process up to 1,500 cattle per day from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.
Source: Associated Press


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Bill Bryson
American author
William "Bill" McGuire Bryson, OBE (born December 8, 1951) is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on scientific subjects.
Quotes edit
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989) edit
- I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.
- Opening line.
- When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a girl called Bobbi and get a job in the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't wait to get out and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job in the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever.
- My father liked Iowa. He lived his whole life in the state, and is even now working his way through eternity there, in Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines.
- I had to calm down because a state trooper pulled up alongside me at a traffic light and began looking at me with that sort of casual disdain you often get when you give a dangerously stupid person a gun and a squad car.
- I assume he was descended from apes like all the rest of us, but clearly in his case it had been a fairly gentle slope.
- I watched a rerun on television of a 1960s comedy programme called "Mr Ed", which was about a talking horse. Judging by the quality of the jokes, I would guess that Mr Ed wrote his own material.
- Just down the road stood a little town, which I shall call Dullard lest the people recognize themselves and take me to court or come to my house and batter me with baseball bats.
- A sign in the yard of a church next door said CHRIST IS THE ANSWER. (The question, of course, is: What do you say when you strike your thumb with a hammer?)
- I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored. But then it occurred to me that musing is a pointless waste of anyone's time, and instead I went off to see if I could find a Baby Ruth candy bar, a far more profitable exercise.
- For forty years or so this was the world headquarters of conspicuous consumption.
- about Newport, Rhode Island (RI)
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe (1991) edit
- Much of the tablecloth was a series of grey smudges outlined in a large, irregular patch of yellow that looked distressingly like a urine stain.
- We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls.
- The best that can be said for Norwegian television is that it gives you the sensation of a coma without the worry and inconvenience.
- Bryson. You've got three kinds of chromosomes: X, Y and fuck-head. - Katz
- I don't care how paranoid and irrational this makes me sound, but I know for a fact that the people of Paris want me dead.
- We couldn't place their accents but we thought the smaller one might be Australian since he seemed so at home down under.
Notes from a Small Island (1995) edit
- Why, it's a perfect little city. If you have never been to Durham, go there at once. Take my car. It's wonderful.
- Bill Bryson was later awarded an honorary doctorate and appointed to the position of Chancellor of the University of Durham [1].
- Blackpool's illuminations are nothing if not splendid, and they are not splendid.
- I know this goes without saying, but Stonehenge really was the most incredible accomplishment. It took five hundred men just to pull each sarsen, plus a hundred more to dash around positioning the rollers. Just think about it for a minute. Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, "Right, lads! Another twenty like that, plus some lintels and maybe a couple of dozen nice bluestones from Wales, and we can party!" Whoever was the person behind Stonehenge was one dickens of a motivator, I'll tell you that.
A Walk in the Woods (1997) edit
- All page numbers are from the first trade paperback edition, published by Broadway Books ISBN 978-0-7679-0252-6 in 1999
- I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth, and Mary Ellen was proof that even in the Appalachian woods I would not be spared. It became evident from the first moment that she was a rarity.
- Chapter 4 (p. 51)
- If the mattress stains were anything to go by, a previous user had not so much suffered from incontinence as rejoiced in it. He had evidently included the pillow in his celebrations.
- Chapter 6 (p. 81)
- The Smokies seem to be in the process of losing most of their mussels. The National Park Service actually has something of a tradition of making things extinct. Bryce Canyon National Park is perhaps the most interesting—certainly the most striking—example. It was founded in 1923 and in less than half a century under the Park Service's stewardship lost seven species of mammal—the white-tailed jackrabbit, prairie dog, pronghorn antelope, flying squirrel, beaver, red fox, and spotted skunk. Quite an achievement when you consider that these animals had survived in Bryce Canyon for tens of millions of years before the Park Service took an interest in them. Altogether, forty-two species of mammal have disappeared from America's national parks this century.
- Chapter 7 (p. 92)
- In the Smokies, over 90 percent of Fraser firs—a noble tree, unique to the southern Appalachian highlands—are sick or dying, from a combination of acid rain and the depredations of a moth called the balsam woolly adelgid. Ask a park official what they are doing about it and he will say, "We are monitoring the situation closely." For this, read: "We are watching them die."
- Chapter 7 (p. 93)
- Let's not lose our perspective here. The Smokies achieved their natural splendor without the guidance of a national park service and don't actually need it now.
- Chapter 7 (p. 94)
- Excuse me, but I just have to say this. You are more stupid than a paramecium.
- Chapter 8 (p. 106)
- I bought a copy of the Nashville Tennessean out of a metal box, just to see what was happening in the world. The principal story indicated that the state legislature, in one of those moments of enlightenment with which the southern states often strive to distinguish themselves, was in the process of passing a law forbidding schools from teaching evolution. Instead they were to be required to instruct that that the earth was created by God, in seven days, sometime, oh, before the turn of the century. The article reminded us that this was not a new issue in Tennessee. The little town of Dayton—not far from where Katz and I now sat, as it happened—was the scene of the famous Scopes trial in 1925, when the state prosecuted a schoolteacher named John Thomas Scopes for rashly promulgating Darwinian hogwash. As nearly everyone knows, Clarence Darrow, for the defense, roundly humiliated William Jennings Bryan, for the prosecution, but what most people don't realize is that Darrow lost the case. Scopes was convicted, and the law wasn't overturned in Tennessee until 1967. And now the state was about to bring the law back, proving conclusively that the danger for Tennesseans isn't so much that they may be descended from apes as overtaken by them.
- Chapter 8 (pp. 107-108)
- "Virginia?" he said, as if I had asked him if there was anywhere local we could get a dose of syphilis.
- Chapter 8 (p. 108)
- Now here's a thought to consider. Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American does in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days—that's walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls—adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day. That's ridiculous.
- Chapter 11 (p. 128)
- Now Stonewall Jackson is a man worth taking an interest in. Few people in history have achieved greater fame in a shorter period with less useful activity in the brainbox than Gen. Thomas J. Jackson. (long list of character deficiencies elided)...
His ineradicable fame rests almost entirely on the fact that he had a couple of small but inspiring victories when elsewhere Southern troops were being slaughtered and routed and by dint of having the best nickname any soldier has ever enjoyed.- Chapter 13 (p. 171)
- "Tell me, did they specify 'asshole' on the job description, or did you take a course?"
- Chapter 14 (p. 187)
- The thing about the Army Corps of Engineers is that they don't build things very well.
- Chapter 15 (p. 198)
- America was entering the age not just of the automobile but of the retarded attention span.
- Chapter 18 (p. 234)
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (US) / Notes From a Big Country (UK) (1998) edit
- For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.
- By almost universal agreement, the most vague and ineffectual of all [Presidents] was Millard Fillmore, who succeeded to the office in 1850 upon the death of Zachary Taylor, and spent the next three years demonstrating how the country would have been run if they had just propped Taylor up in a chair with cushions.
- America is an outstandingly dangerous place. Consider this: every year in New Hampshire a dozen or more people are killed crashing their cars into moose. Now correct me if I am wrong, but this is not something that is likely to happen to you on the way home from Sainsbury's.
- Three things alone are certain when you venture into a loft: that you will crack your head on a beam at least twice, that you will get cobwebs draped over your face, and that you will not find what you went looking for.
- Normally, your wife can hear things that no one else on earth can hear. She can hear a dab of jam fall onto a carpet two rooms away. She can hear spilled coffee being furtively mopped up with a good bathtowel. She can hear dirt being tracked across a clean floor. She can hear you just thinking about doing something you shouldn't do. But get yourself stuck in a loft hatch and suddenly it is as if she has been placed in a soundproof chamber.
- My wife [...] recently put me on a diet after suggesting (a little unkindly, if you ask me), that I was beginning to look like something Richard Branson would try to get airborne.
- [I relaxed] my customary aversion to consulting a book by anyone so immensely pratty as to put "Ph.D." after his name (I don't put Ph.D. after my name on my books, after all — and not just because I don't have one).
- Bryson was later awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Durham
- According to an opinion poll, 13 per cent of women in the United States cannot say whether they wear their tights under their knickers or over them. That's something like 12 million women walking around in a state of chronic foundation garment uncertainty. Perhaps because I so seldom wear ladies' clothing I don't fully appreciate the challenge involved, but I am almost certain that if I did wear tights with knickers I would know which was on top. More to the point, if a stranger with a clipboard came up to me in the street and asked me how my underwear was configured, I don't believe I would tell him that I didn't know.
- There is always a little more toothpaste in the tube. Think about it.
- It would be a great abuse of my position to write that it was Northwest Airlines that treated us in this shoddy and inexcusable way, so I won't.
In a Sunburned Country (US) / Down Under (UK) (2000) edit
- Every dog on the face of the earth wants me dead.
- After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind), I have decided that there is nothing wrong with the game that the introduction of golf carts wouldn't fix in a hurry.
- It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game.
- Above all, what is oddest to the outsider is that Aborigines just aren't there.
- So without an original or helpful thought in my head, I just sat for some minutes and watched these poor disconnected people shuffle past. Then I did what most white Australians do. I read my newspaper and drank my coffee and didn't see them anymore.
- It was impossible to determine what he was saying, but I imagined he was telling all those present that they were nongs and maggots. I decided I quite liked watching the news with the sound off.
- "I'd turn on the lights, but they're blown. I'd offer you a seat, but there isn't one. I'd offer you a drink from the minibar, but there doesn't appear to be one." "It certainly is basic." "Basic? It's a bloody cell!"
- The Opera House is a splendid edifice, and I wish to take nothing away from it, but my heart belongs to the Harbour Bridge. It's not as festive, but it is far more dominant – you can see it from every corner of the city, creeping into frame from the oddest angles, like an uncle who wants to get into every snapshot. From a distance it has a kind of gallant restraint, majestic but not assertive, but up close it is all might. It soars above you, so high that you could pass a ten-storey building beneath it, and looks like the heaviest thing on earth. Everything that is in it – the stone blocks in its four towers, the latticework of girders, the metal plates, the six-million rivets (with heads like halved apples) – is the biggest of its type you have ever seen. This is a bridge built by people who have had an Industrial Revolution, people with mountains of coal and ovens in which you could melt down a battleship. The arch alone weighs 30,000 tons. This is a great bridge.
- Pages 80-81
Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001) edit
- There was a lot more joking going on when I was a kid. My dad, for instance, specialised in puns and I remember once we were on vacation in California and we were driving along the San Andreas Fault and he threw a quarter out of the window into the Fault because he said "he had always wanted to be generous to a fault".
- I really was more intent on getting out of Iowa than everybody else. I just felt I didn't quite fit in exactly, the way other people did. Then I came here and discovered by living in Britain that being a foreigner is really a treat. It is such a great position to be in. When things are going well you can step forward and take part in the ceremonies and everything is great. And when things are not going well, being entirely hypothetical here, if for example your national football team got beat by Germany, you can stand back and say what a shame.
- I had also got used to the idea that here [in the UK] you can make quips all the time and in America that can be very dangerous. I wrote about it in one of the books. Once I was going through customs and immigration in Boston, and the guy said as I went past "Any fruit or vegetables?" and I said "OK, I'll have four pounds of potatoes if they are fresh" and it was like he was going to take me off and pin me to the floor.
- Well, I didn't ever think about Australia much. To me Australia had never been very interesting, it was just something that happened in the background. It was Neighbours and Crocodile Dundee movies and things that never really registered with me and I didn't pay any attention to it at all. I went out there in 1992, as I was invited to the Melbourne Writers Festival, and I got there and realised almost immediately that this was a really really interesting country and I knew absolutely nothing about it. As I say in the book, the thing that really struck me was that they had this prime minister who disappeared in 1967, Harold Holt and I had never heard about this. I should perhaps tell you because a lot of other people haven't either. In 1967 Harold Holt was prime minister and he was walking along a beach in Victoria just before Christmas and decided impulsively to go for a swim and dove into the water and swam about 100 feet out and vanished underneath the waves, presumably pulled under by the ferocious undertow or rips as they are called, that are a feature of so much of the Australian coastline. In any case, his body was never found. Two things about that amazed me. The first is that a country could just lose a prime minister — that struck me as a really quite special thing to do — and the second was that I had never heard of this. I could not recall ever having heard of this. I was sixteen years old in 1967. I should have known about it and I just realised that there were all these things about Australia that I had never heard about that were actually very very interesting. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that it is a fascinating place. The thing that really endeared Australia to me about Harold Holt's disappearance was not his tragic drowning, but when I learned that about a year after he disappeared the City of Melbourne, his home town, decided to commemorate him in some appropriate way and named a municipal swimming pool after him. I just thought: this is a great country.
- The pool was under construction before he disappeared and is located in the electorate he represented.
- I went round to all these minority sports and I couldn't really appreciate them. Fencing, for example, is just "click, click, click" and it is over. Then they retire. Then they go again "On guard — click, click, click" and it is over again. You just think, "what is this sport?" I thought this is really boring and then I went to Judo and it was just the same thing. These two guys just endlessly circling each other, acting as if what they are trying to do is take the others shirt off without him realising this is what they are trying to do. I just thought "what is this? I don't understand this at all". Then I went to table tennis, which obviously I could identify with because I had played it myself — not quite at Olympic standard — but I could understand it. It suddenly became clear to me that these people really are so far beyond anything I could ever dream of becoming. I felt really terrible because I hadn't appreciated the fencers. The reason I couldn't follow them was because they were so damn good. Their hands were so quick that I couldn't see what was going on.
- … I had some suggestions [about fencing]. I thought that you could encourage surprise attacks. I thought that would be very good. I kind of liked the idea of arming one guy with a conventional sword but giving the other a pikestaff. My favourite was the idea of blindfolding one of the competitors or blindfolding them both and spinning them around a bit so they were a little bit unstable and then just pushing them towards each other. It would make each match go on a bit longer.
- A friend Alan and I ended up in an Outback pub in a place called Daly Waters and apparently, he says, in the course of this very lively evening we spent there I offered to do a house swap with a family from Korea. We weren't sure whether they were from North Korea or South Korea.
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) edit
Bryson, Bill (2003). A Short History of Nearly Everything (1st edition ed.). Broadway Books. pp. 544 pp.. ISBN 0-7679-0817-1.
- It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.
- Pages 1-2
- Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.
- Page 3
- All that can really be said is that at some indeterminate point in the very distant past, for reasons unknown, there came the moment known to science as t = 0. We were on our way.
- On the moment of creation; page 10
- As Edward P. Tryon of Columbia University once put it: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time." To which adds Guth: "Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, Tryon emphasized that no one had counted the failed attempts."
- On the Big Bang
- In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a stroke that hydrogen is indeed explosively combustible and that eyebrows are not necessarily a permanent feature of one's face.
- Page 53
- Despite declining catches, New England fishermen continue to receive state and federal tax incentives that encourage them — in some cases all but compel them — to acquire bigger boats and to harvest the seas more intensively. Today the fishermen of Massachusetts are reduced to fishing the hideous hagfish, for which there is a slight market in the Far East, but even their numbers are now falling.
- Page 285
- It is natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards largeness and complexity — in a word, towards us. We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes — an interesting side branch.
- Page 311
- But what is life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours — arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on.
- Page 336
- Disassemble the cells of a sponge (by passing them through a sieve, for instance), then dump them into a solution, and they will find their way back together and build themselves into a sponge again. You can do this to them over and over, and they will doggedly reassemble because, like you and me and every other living thing, they have one overwhelming impulse: to continue to be.
- Page 380
- Absolute brain size does not tell you everything — or possibly sometimes even much. Elephants and whales both have brains larger than ours, but you wouldn't have much trouble outwitting them in contract negotiations.
- Pages 446-447, footnote
Bill Bryson: The accidental chancellor (November 15, 2005) edit
John Crace, The Guardian [2]
- ...Our guide announces that he's going to take us to the coldest place on Earth, where particles are cooled to within a fraction of a Kelvin. "Ah," says Bryson. "That must be Donald Rumsfeld's heart."
- One of my duties, this week, is to open the new Ustinov college," he confesses, "and while I'm delighted that Durham should honour its former chancellor this way — and I sincerely hope it continues this tradition for me — I can't help feeling that an American university would only have done so had the chancellor also handed over a substantial amount of dosh.
- They [the American authorities] can't actually believe that anyone would want to not be an American," he says. "It's not enough to send them a letter and tell them you've become British; you've got to go to the embassy to formally renounce your US citizenship. I'm a little worried that when I do this they'll pack me off to Guantanamo.
- It would be lovely to think I had become a genius," he smiles, "but the fact is that I've forgotten most of it. Occasionally I can be watching University Challenge and a stray fact emerges from the recesses of my subconscious that I didn't know I knew, but for the most part I'm as vague on the details as I ever was.
The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006) edit
- The makers of sneakers also thoughtfully pocked the soles with numberless crevices, craters, chevrons, mazes, crop circles, and other rubbery hieroglyphs, so that when you stepped in a moist pile of dog shit, as you most assuredly did within three bounds of leaving the house, they provided additional absorbing hours of pastime while you cleaned them out with a stick, gagging quietly but oddly content.
- p. 34
- I knew more things in the first ten years of my life than I believe I have known at any time since. I knew everything there was to know about our house for a start. I knew what was written on the undersides of tables and what the view was like from the tops of bookcases and wardrobes. I knew what was to be found at the back of every closet, which beds had the most dust balls beneath them, which ceilings the most interesting stains, where exactly the patterns in wallpaper repeated. I knew how to cross every room in the house without touching the floor, where my father kept his spare change and how much you could safely take without his noticing (one-seventh of the quarters, one-fifth of the nickels and dimes, as many of the pennies as you could carry). I knew how to relax in an armchair in more than one hundred positions and on the floor in approximately seventy- five more. I knew what the world looked like when viewed through a Jell-O lens. I knew how things tasted—damp washcloths, pencil ferrules, coins and buttons, almost anything made of plastic that was smaller than, say, a clock radio, mucus of every variety of course—in a way that I have more or less forgotten now. I knew and could take you at once to any illustration of naked women anywhere in our house, from a Rubens painting of fleshy chubbos in Masterpieces of World Painting to a cartoon by Peter Arno in the latest issue of The New Yorker to my father's small private library of girlie magazines in a secret place known only to him, me, and 111 of my closest friends in his bedroom.
- p. 36
- On April 3, 1956, according to news reports, a Mrs. Julia Chase of Hagerstown, Maryland, while on a tour of the White House, slipped away from her tour group and vanished into the heart of the building. For four and a half hours, Mrs. Chase, who was described later as "dishevelled, vague and not quite lucid," wandered through the White House, setting small fires—five in all. That's how tight security was in those days: a not-quite-lucid woman was able to roam unnoticed through the executive mansion for more than half a working day.
- p. 62
- He hit the water—impacted really is the word for it—at over six hundred miles an hour, with a report so loud that it made birds fly out of trees up to three miles away. At such a speed water effectively becomes a solid. I don't believe Mr. Milton penetrated it at all, but just bounced off it about fifteen feet, limbs suddenly very loose, and then lay on top of it, still, like an autumn leaf, spinning gently.
- p. 78
- Making models was reputed to be hugely enjoyable... But when you got the kit home and opened the box the contents turned out to be of a uniform leaden gray or olive green, consisting of perhaps sixty thousand tiny parts, some no larger than a proton, all attached in some organic, inseparable way to plastic stalks like swizzle sticks. The tubes of glue by contrast were the size of large pastry tubes. No matter how gently you depressed them they would blurp out a pint or so of a clear viscous goo whose one instinct was to attach itself to some foreign object—a human finger, the living-room drapes, the fur of a passing animal—and become an infinitely long string. Any attempt to break the string resulted in the creation of more strings. Within moments you would be attached to hundreds of sagging strands, all connected to something that had nothing to do with model airplanes or World War II. The only thing the glue wouldn't stick to, interestingly, was a piece of plastic model; then it just became a slippery lubricant that allowed any two pieces of model to glide endlessly over each other, never drying. The upshot was that after about forty minutes of intensive but troubled endeavor you and your immediate surroundings were covered in a glistening spiderweb of glue at the heart of which was a gray fuselage with one wing on upside down and a pilot accidentally but irremediably attached by his flying cap to the cockpit ceiling. Happily by this point you were so high on the glue that you didn't give a shit about the pilot, the model, or anything else.
- p. 81
- I remember being profoundly amazed that anyone would suppose that a little wooden desk would provide a safe haven in the event of an atomic bomb being dropped on Des Moines. But evidently they all took the matter seriously, for even the teacher, Miss Squat Little Fat Thing, was inserted under her desk, too—or at least as much of her as she could get under, which was perhaps 40 percent. Once I realized that no one was watching, I elected not to take part. I already knew how to get under a desk and was confident that this was not a skill that would ever need refreshing.
- p. 117
- And then suddenly I would realize that I couldn't remember, hadn't actually consciously experienced, any of the last forty-seven properties I had visited, and didn't know if I had left a paper or just walked up to the door, stood for a moment like an underfunctioning automaton, and turned around and walked away again. It is not easy to describe the sense of self-disappointment that comes with reaching the end of your route and finding that there are sixteen undelivered papers in your bag and you don't have the least idea—not the least idea—to whom they should have gone. I spent much of my prepubescent years first walking an enormous newspaper route, then revisiting large parts of it. Sometimes twice.
- p. 122
- So to sleep on the sleeping porch required preparation. First, you put on long underwear, pajamas, jeans, a sweatshirt, your grandfather's old cardigan and bathrobe, two pairs of woolen socks on your feet and another on your hands, and a hat with earflaps tied beneath the chin.Then you climbed into bed and were immediately covered with a dozen bed blankets, three horse blankets, all the household overcoats, a canvas tarpaulin, and a piece of old carpet. I'm not sure that they didn't lay an old wardrobe on top of that, just to hold everything down. It was like sleeping under a dead horse. For the first minute or so it was unimaginably cold, shockingly cold, but gradually your body heat seeped in and you became warm and happy in a way you would not have believed possible only a minute or two before. It was bliss. Or at least it was until you moved a muscle. The warmth, you discovered, extended only to the edge of your skin and not a micron farther. There wasn't any possibility of shifting positions. If you so much as flexed a finger or bent a knee, it was like plunging them into liquid nitrogen.
- p. 140
- In those days kitchen matches were heavy-duty implements—more like signal flares than the weedy sticks we get today. You could strike them on any hard surface and fling them at least fifteen feet and they wouldn't go out. Indeed, even when being beaten vigorously with two hands, as when lodged on the front of one's sweater, they seemed positively determined not to fail.
- p. 170
- "Wow, look at all the places you can park," he said, as if for all these years he had been cruising endlessly, unable to terminate a journey. For about a year the most dangerous place to drive in Des Moines was the parking lot of Merle Hay Mall because of all the cars speeding at joyous random angles across its boundless blacktop without reflecting that other happy souls might be doing likewise.
- p. 182
- Nearly a quarter of American men were in the Armed forces [in 1968]. The rest were in school, in prison, or were George W. Bush.
- p. 193
The Body (2006) edit
- Your brain is marvellously efficient. It requires only about 400 calories of energy a day — about the same as you get in a blueberry muffin. Try running your laptop for 24 hours on a muffin and see how far you get.
- Promotional advert
External links edit
- Encyclopedic article on Bill Bryson on Wikipedia
- Media related to Bill Bryson on Wikimedia Commons
- Bill Bryson — official website


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Pootles Advent Countdown #3 Christmas Wreath Tutorial
I had to do it didn't I….. Remake a beautiful wreath that I've made not once but twice before!
I absolutely love these and they genuinely live in my house all year around. The butterfly one has taken a little hit when I took it to a craft event, but otherwise, they're in situ and look rather lovely I think!
It's difficult to show how lovely these are when it's dark and the lights are glowing, but hopefully this photo will give you a vague idea….
However…. I can't find the original wreaths that I bought, so if you do an Amazon search for Light Wicker Wreath you'll find a whole variety of them. Mine are 9″, but there are lots of 8 and 10″ versions. The battery operated fairy lights are however easily available. These are the ones I bought.
And to finish up, this is my list of supplies that I used.
Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog
I hope you enjoyed this project, please do use the hostess code to get free product! (hostess code shown in the top right of my blog for the current one!) Learn more HERE. If your order is over £150, please do not use this code as You become the hostess and get the Rewards!
Sam Donald
Stampin' Up! UK Independent Demonstrator
You can buy Stampin' Up! online easily through my Stampin' Up! shop link on the right hand side, or within this blog post.
You can also join Stampin' Up! through similar links too! I have various FAQ and joining Stampin' Up! pages on the blog, so do click around!
And of course, you can find me on facebook, instagram, pinterest and on YouTube as a Guru with my account name as PootlesPapercraft, however, I'm scattered everywhere as Pootles!


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Fair Housing is Your Right
The Fair Housing Act protects people from discrimination when they are renting, buying, or securing financing for any housing. Landlords, home sellers, and lenders are prohibited from discriminating against anyone because they belong to one of the protected classes. The protected classes are race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability and the presence of children.
An example of discrimination is if someone refuses to rent you a home, sell you a home, or provide financing for a home because you are in one of the protected classes.
If you feel you have been discriminated against because you are in one of the protected classes, you can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). To file a complaint, you will need to complete the Housing Discrimination Complaint Form either on line (Click Here) or through the mail. You may also write HUD a letter, or call the HUD Office nearest you. You have one year after an alleged violation to file a complaint with HUD, but you should file it as soon as possible.
The HUD office nearest to Wyoming is the Denver Regional Office of FHEO, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1670 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202-4801
(303) 672-5437
(800) 347-3739
Step 1: What to tell HUD:
- Your name and address
- The name and address of the person your complaint is against (the respondent)
- The address or other identification of the housing involved
- A short description to the alleged violation (the event that caused you to believe your rights were violated)
- The date(s) to the alleged violation
Step 2: Where to write or call:
Send the Housing Discrimination Complaint Form or a letter to the Denver HUD Office or call that office directly.
If you are disabled:
HUD also provides:
- A toll-free TTY phone for the hearing impaired: 1-800-927-9275
- Interpreters
- Tapes and braille materials
- Assistance in reading and completing forms
What happens when you file a complaint?
HUD will notify you when it receives your complaint. Normally, HUD also will:
- Notify the alleged violator of your complaint and permit that person to submit an answer
- Investigate your complaint and determine whether there is reasonable cause to believe that the Fair Housing Act has been violated.
- Notify you if it cannot complete an investigation within 100 days of receiving your complaint.
HUD will try to reach an agreement with the person your complaint is against (the respondent). A conciliation agreement must protect both you and the public interest. If an agreement is signed, HUD will take no further action on your complaint. However, if HUD has reasonable cause to believe that a conciliation agreement is breached, HUD will recommend that the Attorney General file suit.
Complaint Referrals
If HUD has determined that your State or local agency has the same fair housing powers as HUD, HUD will refer your complaint to that agency for investigation and notify you of the referral. That agency must befin work on your complaint within 30 days or HUD may take it back.
What if you need help quickly?
If you need immediate help to stop a serious problem that is being caused by a Fair Housing Act violation, HUD may be able to assist you as soon as you file a complaint. HUD may authorize the Attorney General to go to court to seek temporary or preliminary relief, pending the outcome of our complaint, if:
- irreparable harm is likely to occur without HUD's intervention
- There is substantial evidence that a violation of the Fair Housing Act occurred.
Example: A builder agrees to sell a house but, after learning the buyer is black, fails to keep the agreement. The buyer files a complaint with HUD. HUD may outhorize the Attorney General to go to court to prevent a sale to any other buyer until HUD investigates the complaint.
What happens after a complaint investigation?
If, after investigating your complaint, HUD finds reasonable cause to believe that discrimination occurred, it will inform you. Your case will be heard in an administrative hearing within 120 days, unless you or the respondent want the case to be heard in Federal District Court. Either way, there is no cost to you.
The Administrative Hearing
If your case goes to an administrative hearing HUD attorneys will litigate the case on your behalf. You may intervene in the case and be represented by your own attorney if you wish. An Administrative Law Judge (ALA) will consider evidence from you and the respondent. If the ALA decides that the discrimination occurred, the respoindent can be ordered:
- to compensate your for actual damages, including humiliation, pain and suffering.
- To provide injunctive or other equitable relief, for example to make the housing available to you.
- To pay the Federal Government a civil penalty to vindicate the public interest. The maximum penalties are $16,000 for a first violation and $70,000 for a third violation within seven years.
- To pay reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
Federal District Court
If you or the respondent choose to have your case decided in Federal District Court, the Attorney General will file a suit and litigate it on your behalf. Like the ALA, the District Court can order relief, and award actual damages, attorney's fees and costs. In addition, the court can award punitive damages.
You may file suit.
You may file suit, at your expense, in Federal District Court or State Court within two years of an alleged violation. If you cannot afford an attorney, the Court may appoint one for you. You may bring suit even after filing a complaint, if you have not signed a conciliation agreement and an Administrative Law Judge has not started a hearing. A court may award actual and punitive damages and attorney's fees and costs.
Other tools to combat housing discrimination:
If there is noncompliance with the order of an Administrative Law Judge, HUD may seek temporary relief, enforcement of the order or a restraining order in the U.S. Court of Appeals.
The Attorney General may file a suit in a Federal District Curt if there is reasonable cause to believe a pattern or practice of housing discrimination ijs occurring.
For further information:
The Fair Housing Act and Hud's regulations contain more detail and technical information. If you need a copy of the law or regulations contact the HUD Office nearest you (see address above).
This information is from HUD's website, www.HUD.gov


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Intimate Earth Flavored Lube
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Ingredients: Glycerin, Propylene Glycol, Aroma, Aqua, Alcohol, Lycium Barbarum Fruit Extract, Cymbopogon Schoenanthus Extract, Aloe, Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Sodium Saccharin