text:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The weakest quarter for the U.S. economy in nearly two years may end up being a temporary lull. Economists think growth has begun to pick up on the strength of a sustained housing recovery and a better job market.
The economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.1 percent from October from December, a government report Thursday showed. That's only slightly better than the Commerce Department's previous estimate that the economy shrank at a rate of 0.1 percent. And it's down from the 3.1 percent annual growth rate in the July-September quarter.
Economists said the weakness last quarter was caused by steep defense cuts and slower company restocking, which are volatile. Residential construction, consumer spending and business investment — core drivers of growth — all improved. Steady job growth will likely keep consumers spending, despite higher Social Security taxes that have cut into take-home pay.
Analysts think growth is picking up in the January-March quarter to a roughly 2 percent annual rate. The only impediment may be the across-the-board government spending cuts that kick in Friday — especially if those cuts remain in place for months.
"I continue to have some optimism about the economy despite the efforts of Washington to kill it, because the labor market continues to improve," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisers
The latest indication of the job market's strength came Thursday in a government report that the number of Americans seeking weekly unemployment benefits fell 22,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 344,000.
Applications for unemployment have fallen steadily in recent months. The four-week average has declined nearly 11 percent since November. At the same time, employers added an average of 200,000 jobs a month from November through January. That was up from about 150,000 in the previous three months.
Naroff thinks the economy could grow at an annual rate of around 2 percent in the first quarter of 2013 and an even better rate of 4 percent in the April-June quarter. But he and other economists warn that lawmakers will slow growth if they fail to reach a budget agreement indefinitely. If the spending cuts last two weeks or longer, Naroff said they could shave a half-percentage point off first-quarter growth and a full percentage point off second-quarter growth.
Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, predicts growth could be as high as 2 percent in the current quarter. Alan Levenson, chief economist for T. Rowe Price, said growth could be as high as 2.5 percent.
Ashworth noted that a sharp decline in defense spending and slower business restocking subtracted 2.9 percentage points from growth in the fourth quarter. At the same time, consumer spending and business investment — two key drivers of growth — accelerated at the end of last year.
"We still believe that the fourth-quarter GDP figures were a lot better than the headline stagnation suggests," said Ashworth.
More jobs and ultra-low mortgage rates are helping the once-battered housing market recover. New-home sales jumped 16 percent to their highest level in 4½ years in January.
At the same time, the number of new homes available for sale remains near record lows. That means builders will likely have to start construction on more homes and apartments to keep up with demand. That should create more construction jobs.
Home prices also rose in December compared with the same month a year ago by the most in more than six years. Rising home values contribute to the housing recovery and the broader economy. They encourage more people to buy before prices rise further. Higher prices also build homeowners' wealth, which can spur more spending and economic growth.
Businesses and consumers are also showing greater confidence despite automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect on Friday. A measure of consumer confidence rebounded in February after a sharp fall the previous month that likely was a result of the tax increase.
Companies, meanwhile, sharply increased orders in January for a category of long-lasting manufactured goods that reflect their investment plans. That suggests they are confident about their business prospects.


text:
Hidden History: 400th anniversary of the first African landing in English North America
HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) – In 2019, Virginia commemorated the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans brought to English North America.
In 1619, about 20 Africans were brought against their will to Point Comfort, where Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia is located today. A historical marker now stands there.
Calvin Pearson says he started Project 1619 to tell the true story about their arrival.
"What was going through their minds arriving at a place they didn't know where they were? Arriving at a destination where they didn't know where their future would be?" Pearson asked.
This commemoration was not just about the arrival, but 400 years of black history, inventions, and achievement.
"The commemoration is about education, understanding, healing, and reconciliation. We need everyone to understand that 400 years ago, our ancestors were brought here in chains and against their will. But, their sacrifice over the past 245 years of free bondage created a country that's one of the greatest in the world," he said.
Fort Monroe honored the commemoration through a number of programs, activities and ceremonies throughout the year.
Park Superintendent Terry Brown hoped that everyone would come out and learn from it.
"What I'm really aiming for is for someone to come into this space and be proud of where they came from. Yes, it's been a tough journey but I want them to walk away from this saying 'Wow, look at how far we've come,'" he said.
Brown says it's not just an African American story but an American story for everyone.
Pearson says it's one that should be told.
"It's a story we should not be ashamed of. It's a story of our ancestors, our descendants. One everyone should recognize the transgressions of one people. One that should not be repeated," he said.
And on a hot August day in 2019, relatives of the first enslaved Africans came together to remember all that transpired.
A ceremony was led by the descendants of William Tucker, the first documented African child born in the Virginia Colony.
"It's not just about us. It's American history," said Verrandall Tucker, a descendant and member of the William Tucker 1624 Society.
More than a hundred people attended the event held at the Tucker family cemetery in Hampton.
Tucker says he was at a loss for words seeing so many people turn out to honor not only their family's lineage but all those who went unrecognized for centuries.
"We know our ancestors are proud of us because we're standing on their shoulders. For years, we worked to put this together. It was worth every bit of it," he said.
Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, who gave remarks, says it's a day he'll never really forget.
He spoke to the crowd about being able to represent so many who worked and died throughout American history at the Jamestown 1619 General Assembly commemoration.
Fairfax, who carried a copy of his own ancestor's freedom papers at his inauguration, believes the events, along with the General Assembly commemoration, can be a catalyst of change for our country with Virginia spearheading it.
"At the crossroads of history, we get to chose what the future looks like and the people are speaking. I think they're rising up and saying we want something better. We want hope and more opportunity for all. That really is an inspiring message," he said.
The Tuckers also wanted guests to leave with a message, an understanding of the "true" American story that had its roots with the first Africans arrival.
"They feel the story has to continue. The fight has to continue. We have to continue to love and embrace each other and the world. This has to go out to the world so they'll see what took place today," Tucker said.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text:
But the Little White Princess refused to sleep. Wearing her white cap and her shining white silk dress, she stood at her small window all night, wailing bitterly: I am not whole, I am not whole, what shall I do, what shall I do. In vain did her parents try to prove her wrong.
Thousands of doctors were brought in, they counted every pore of her skin and every hair on her head and every bone and every cell of her body, look, you are whole, Little Princess, stop crying, go to bed, sleep tight.
Thousands of wizards were called in the middle of the night, they looked at every corner of her soul with silver mirrors and checked her every movement and every path of her young thoughts with silver maginfying glasses, look, you are whole, White Princess, stop lamenting, go to sleep, dream beautifully of all the round and full things of this world. But the Princess wouldn't listen. Every night her sorrowful song resounded over the country I am not whole, I am not whole, what shall I do, what shall I do.
One day, the king and the queen open the castle gate wide and cried bitter tears: Little White Princess, go out and try your luck and may the stars help you find those missing parts you keep talking about.
And so the Princess went. She travelled through spring forests and golden wheat fields and autumn clouds and heavy snows, singing her everlasting song, and the animals of the earth and the birds of the sky were shaking their heads and talking to one another in their strange languages tsk tsk little girl, don't be foolish, go home, don't you know your kind is never whole, tsk tsk what a stupid child, this White Princess after all...
On a summer morning, she stopped and stood in the fresh air and just looked. She saw the valley before her opening towards the rising sun, and still the light had a milky quality in its dampness and still there was a strange softness in the flowers with their bent heads of white.
She entered the valley full of joy.
There, in the middle of countless flowers, she felt a strange numbness in her limbs and fell asleep.
She dreamt of one red flower, glowing with unknown passion in a sea of gold. Oh, she cried in her dream, if I could see that flower, that only flower, and kneel before it, I would be whole.
And then what, the Little Princess asked.
Then you go in, the horse laughed, turned around and left.
Little girl, he started. The Princess frowned.
I am a Princess, you know.
Oh, I am sorry, said the old man in his sweetest tone, with this funny suit you have over there and this white cap, I thought you might be a little g... but wait, no you can't be a princess, you are a chef, aren't you?
The Princess looked at him incredulously. Pride and desire fought on her face.
Well, I suppose I could bake a cake for you, if you would just open that gate for me. A huuuuuge chocolate cake, what do you say?
The Gatekeeper laughed. Ay, White Princess, your cakes are of no use to me, look here, look what I have for you. And he opened his arms and unfolded his hands and all the sweets of the world started to flow and dance and circle round the White Princess, rainbows of melted chocolate and almond biscuits and tartes aux fruits and turkish delight and ginger bread and baklava and fluffy, transparent cakes with rose water and raisin breads and sorbets and cinnamon apple pies and colourful icecreams like sweet music. You can have all of this if you leave now, he said and winked as if suddenly amused. But the Little Princess stood there still and smiled and sang her sad song in a little soft voice. The old man bowed his head. The gate opened.
She took a step closer. It was not a tree, just bright tufts of white grass and long waving plants reaching towards the sky like branches, and on those frail, tangled branches myriads of small yellow flowers glowed with a pale light and danced in the summer breeze.
What is this? the girl asked slowly, where are we?
The Gatekeeper put his hand on her shoulder. Little Princess, he said almost inaudibly, the yellow flowers... and when he said this the small flowers rose in the air like yellow butterflies and she didn't know anymore whether they were flowers or butterflies with gold powdered wings which kept turning in circles about their heads, they are you.
Me? the startled Princess stared at him in disbelief.
Yes, your selves, the possible ones, the ones you lost, gathered here for ever, dancing their endless dance.
The breeze was now cold.
You mean...
Yes, White Princess, every time you make a decision, every time you choose a road and take one step on it, the inevitable, irreversible one, a Little Princess dies in you and her self turns to a yellow butterfly and comes fluttering to live here with the others. They are all here, all your selves, countless Little Princesses who might have been.
Oh, whispered the girl and took a long breath. She stared for a moment, an endless silence, at her tiny white shoes. And if I don't choose but am forced to go one way or another? If I stand still and still the road unfolds me?
But old man, the girl raised her voice suddenly, how can those little 'me' be here already, if I am small and still to grow and still to choose and still to walk, countless times and countless roads?
The Gatekeeper shook his head smiling. Well, my dear, this is a big question for big learned men and philosophers, not a little one for little girls errr sorry, little princesses.
She turned to stare at him again. Did they come here also, to look at their selves like me, those big learned men, did they open the gate too?
The old men laughed and shook his head as before, now you got me, Little Princess, no, they didn't, not one of them.
Why, did they go for the ginger bread?
Her face was serious but he knew she had made a Little Princess joke.
He wanted to say something but at that moment a butterfly came down and sat on her forehead. You see, he said and stroked her hair gently, this little soul here is the one that died when you chose to ride the purple horse.
She felt something like tears in her eyes.
Would I have known the answer then, to my big question, if I had ridden the white horse and my white dress had become one with his white heart?
The Gatekeeper smiled and kissed her on her cheek, where another butterfly had settled, flapping its golden wings. He disappeared.
The girl stood still whilst the night was lighting up around her. Another butterfly came, a deeper shade of yellow, and then another one and another one, saffron and lemon and peach and amber yellow and their hues flowed into one another and their veil of gold was floating around her, wrapping her tightly as the veil a priest would wrap around a sacred corpse. They sat in her glowing hair, they covered her radiant skin, their silken beating of wings devouring the silk of her white dress, her white little chef cap, they burned on her arms like thousands of cold fires, they closed her eyes and filled her mouth.


text:
The U.S. stock market fell out of bed Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 250 points in its first hour of trading, and was muddling along down 170 points midday. The main culprit? Poor earnings reports and chastened outlooks delivered by large, multinational firms, like 3M, the large manufacturer, and UPS, the global delivery service.
The action on Wall Street Tuesday highlights a larger truth about the U.S. economy and its markets at this moment in time. As we've noted before, these days it seems that American consumers are from Mars, while global business is from Venus.
That represents a 180-degree from the state of affairs in 2009 and 2010. Then, companies whose fortunes were tied to the U.S. consumer were getting the tar beaten out of them. Consumers, traumatized by crushing declines in the housing and stock markets and massive job losses, began saving, hoarding, and generally spending less. At the same time, regions that had escaped the subprime crisis—Latin America, China, India, sub-Saharan Africa—continued to power ahead. So as small businesses that catered primarily to U.S. consumers suffered, multinationals that got most of their business from overseas found a steady source of orders, demand, and markets materializing out of nowhere.
But a few years later, the shoe is increasingly on the other foot. American Consumers may not be partying like its 2006, but things have been moving steadily in the right direction. The job market is improving, with more than 4 million jobs added since early 2010. Consumer confidence, as measured by the University of Michigan, is at a five-year high. Financial failure is down across the board, as consumers are generally doing a better job keeping up with financial obligations. And as regular readers of this space should know by now, housing is back. Sales, construction activity, and prices are all higher through the first nine months of 2012 than they were in the first nine months of 2011. So it's no surprise that retail sales continue to rise and that the National Retail Federation expects holiday sales to rise a healthy 4.6 percent in 2012. (Amazon.com's stock was up on Tuesday.)
As for global business, that's another story. The giant companies with operations around the globe that are now finding their dependence on overseas markets for growth is problematic. Even though the worst of the sovereign debt crisis seems to have passed, the euro zone—the wealthiest single entity outside the U.S.—is in recession and doesn't have much prospect of growth. China, the motor of the world's economy, is showing signs of slowing down. In the third quarter, China grew at a 7.4 percent annual rate—the lowest such number it has posted since early 2009. India is shifting into a lower gear. Simply put, the volume of goods, services, and people whizzing around the globe is still rising—but at a slower rate than previously thought. The IMF in September reduced its estimate for trade growth in 2012 from 3.7 percent to a mere 2.5 percent. (In 2011, global trade grew 5 percent.)
And so the news from large corporations has been generally dispiriting for the last few months. IHS iSuppli earlier this month reported that global PC shipments are expected to fall in 2012 for the first time since 2001. That's bad news for companies like Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell. Equipment maker Caterpillar on Monday reported a solid quarter(PDF) but dialed down expectations for 2012 revenues and profits due to "global economic conditions that are weaker than we had previously expected." Chemical giant DuPont on Tuesday morning reported disappointing earnings.
All of which means the U.S. domestic economy is now doing better on a relative and absolute basis than many of its global peers and rivals. UPS's earnings report was one of the reasons the stock market fell early Tuesday. But look closely inside the company's earnings. It shows the dichotomy. The company's U.S. business revenues rose a bit from the year-ago quarter, and average daily volumes rose nearly 4 percent. In international operations, by contrast, revenues fell nearly 4 percent and daily volumes were flat.


text: The tuners at Kicherer have announced a Supercharged GT package for the Mercedes SLS AMG. With the performance modifications to the 6.3-liter V8 engine, a new power output of about 700 BHP to go along with 840 Nm of torque was achieved. This comes from the new supercharger and allows the sports car to sprint from 0 to 100 km/h in just 3.4 seconds while reaching a top speed of 300 km/h or 186 mph.


text:
'Godfather of Punk' Iggy Pop's upcoming album is a jazz record aimed at the French...
'Preliminaires' due in stores 18 May, is "a quieter album, with some jazz overtones," he explains in a video posted on his website to announce the project.
"At one point I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music and I've started listening to a lot of New Orleans-era (...) jazz," he says. "And I've always loved quieter ballads as well."
The album themes and texts have been inspired by Iggy's reading of controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq.
"[The book] is about death, sex, the end of the human race, and some other pretty funny stuff."
'Preliminaires´ means foreplay in French, and Iggy Pop explains that the album indeed has been done especially for France and French-speaking people.


text:
July 24, 2012
High-temperature stress is usually associated with drought. Heat stress and drought intensify damage to corn and soybeans but either may cause major crop injury alone. The recent high temperatures, i.e., record numbers of days above 90° F, and in some locales 100° F, have generated questions about the impact of high temperatures on corn and soybeans. How much heat stress can these crops withstand without incurring major yield losses even when adequate soil moisture is available?
Corn originated as a tropical grass and can tolerate exposuresto adverse temperatures as high as 112° F for brief periods. Optimal daytime temperatures for corn typically range between 77° F and 91° F. Growth decreases when temperatures exceed 95° F. Fortunately, the high temperatures during the past week have been associated with some much needed rains across the state.
How high is too high for corn? Emerson Nafziger, University of Illinois agronomist notes that "afternoon temperatures in the mid-90s are not a problem for corn … if they have enough soil water available. Plant temperatures have been raised to 110 or higher without doing direct damage to photosynthetic capacity. The level required to damage leaves depends on the temperature the leaf has experienced before, but it generally takes temperatures above 100° F in field-grown plants."
According to Iowa State University Agronomist Roger Elmore and Climatologist Elwynn Taylor, high temperatures may have a double impact on corn.
"The first is the increase in rolling of corn leaves in response to moisture deficiency," they say. "By rule-of-thumb, the yield is diminished by 1% for every 12 hours of leaf rolling – except during the week of silking when the yield is cut 1%/4 hours of leaf rolling. The second impact is less obvious initially. When soil moisture is sufficient, as it is for the most part this July, the crop does not have a measurable yield response to one day of temperatures between 93° F and 98° F. However, the fourth consecutive day with a maximum temperature of 93° F or above results in a 1% yield loss in addition to that computed from the leaf rolling. The fifth day there is an additional 2% loss; the sixth day an additional 4% loss. Data are not sufficient to make generalizations for a heat wave of more than six days, however firing of leaves then becomes likely and very large yield losses are incurred. Generally a six-day heat wave at silking time is sufficient to assure a yield not to exceed trend (Iowa trend yield is near 174 bu./acre). Should warmer-than-usual nights continue for a six-week period the state is assured a below trend harvest."
What is the ideal temperature for soybeans? Soybeans are a temperate leguminous plant with an ideal daytime temperature of 85° F. When air temperatures exceed 85° F, soybeans can experience heat stress regardless of reproductive stage. When soybeans experience heat stress, yield reductions can begin to occur, especially when soil moisture is limiting. Heat stress during flowering can result in pollen sterility and reduced seed set. Temperatures exceeding 85° F can result in a decreased number of pods while temperatures above 99° F severely limit pod formation. Heat stress at the R5 growth stage (beginning seed), has the greatest impact on soybean yield. During seed fill, daytime temperatures of 91-96° F result in fewer seeds per plant. Daytime temperatures greater than 85° F during seed fill can result in decreased soybean weight.
How do high nighttime temperatures affect corn and soybean production?
High nighttime temperatures (in the 70s or 80s) can result in wasteful respiration and a lower net amount of dry matter accumulation in plants. The rate of respiration of plants increases rapidly as the temperature increases, approximately doubling for each 13° F increase. With high night temperatures more of the sugars produced by photosynthesis during the day are lost; less is available to fill developing kernels or seeds, thereby lowering potential grain yield. High night time temperatures result in faster heat unit (GDD) accumulation that can lead to earlier corn maturation, whereas cool night temperatures result in slower GDD accumulation that can lengthen grain filling and promote greater dry matter accumulation and grain yields.
Past research at the University of Illinois indicates that corn grown at night temperatures in the mid-60s out-yields corn grown at temperatures in the mid-80s. Corn yields are often higher with irrigation in western states, which have low humidity and limited rainfall. While these areas are characterized by hot sunny days, night temperatures are often cooler than in the eastern Corn Belt. Low night temperatures during grain fill have been associated with some of Ohio's highest corn yields in past years. In 2009, when the highest corn average yield to date was achieved, 174 bu./acre, Ohio experienced one of its coolest Julys on record. The cool night temperatures may have reduced respiration losses during early grain fill and lengthened the grain fill period.
Compared to corn, soybeans are less sensitive to high nighttime temperatures. Warm night temperatures do not appear to increase respiration in soybean plants as much as corn. During the day, soybean plants accumulate starch in their leaves. At night, the starch is broken down and exported from their leaves. When nights are cool, the amount of starch exported is reduced resulting in high leaf starch the following day, which can disrupt photosynthesis. Nighttime temperatures have to exceed 85° F before any noticeable reduction in soybean yield is experienced. In an experiment conducted by the USDA, soybean plants subjected to a night temperature of 85° F resulted in a 10% yield loss. Corn subjected to 85° F at night experienced grain yield reductions of 40%.
How is soybean nodulation affected by high temperatures?
Soybean nodulation is influenced by temperature. Greatest nodule weight and nitrogen (N) fixation (the conversion of gaseous nitrogen to plant-available N) has been found to occur when soil temperature is 75° F. When soil temperature exceeds 86° F, nodule initiation and growth decreases. According to the OARDC Weather System, maximum soil temperatures ranging from 79° to 89°F in the top four inches of soil have been recorded for July. Under a soybean canopy, soil temperatures may be lower. However, in fields where canopy closure has not yet occurred, high soil temperatures may result in decreased nodulation and nitrogen fixation. Applying nitrogen fertilizer to nitrogen-stressed soybeans can increase yield in some cases, but this practice is not without risks (see this source (pdf)). Applying urea forms of N to warm, damp soils results in N loss as a gas (volatilization). Additionally, if dry weather persists, the N may not be moved down into the soil and be accessible to the soybean roots.
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text:
The piles of awards handed to The Virginia Quarterly Review since Ted Genoways took the helm in 2003—as well as all the press—and, most importantly, the singular experiences provided by each new issue of VQR are very nearly unprecedented in literary publishing. Truly: it's a marvel. Ted was kind enough to lend me his time this week to discuss the changes he's already made at VQR—but also some of the bigger shifts that are coming as blogs and broadband become more popular and the entire magazine industry is starting to wonder: what's next?
JT: The Virginia Quarterly Review might best have been described as "venerable" when you took it over: you've kept the best of the old seriousness, but added a lot to the new mix: photos, comics, even pull-out posters and art. You even garnered a Best American Comics award for Art Spiegelman's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@#*!" this year. Is this new look and feel something you did because things like photography and comics and other visual arts are essential to our culture—or was it also an attempt to make each VQR into something more than just the traditional "book" of quarterly journalism: something as strong as an event and artifact as it in in words and ideas? Is this something print quarterlies are going to have to do to survive?
TG: The short answer on why the magazine is so (comparatively) heavily designed is that we're a bunch of booklovers, typophiles, and out-and-out design nerds. We love what a beautiful design can do. Gideon Mendel's photographs of people living with AIDS in Africa, for example, were amazing when paired the testimonies of their subjects—they were no longer just words on a page; they had faces. In this way, the physical object is more than just a vessel or delivery device for the ideas it contains, but it's also clear that more and more of our audience is finding us online. So we have to have an equally compelling and attractive web presence. Our site has to be as rich and complex as the print issue, and it has to burst with interesting content—and not just words, but also video, audio, additional photos. Like I said, we all love print—and champion it—but we always realize that things change and new possibilities emerge. I won't be surprised if my son only reads in electronic media when he's an adult. If that happens, I won't be as sad as a lot of book people. To me, the magic is in the words, the way they leap from the page. You know, I'm a Whitman guy, and old Walt was a printer himself but hated the obstacles of printing. "I was chilled with the cold types, cylinder, wet paper between us," he wrote. "I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls." If the web allows us to be in contact with more readers—more souls—then how could we not be thrilled by its infinite promise? I think any magazine that doesn't recognize these new possiblities—or willfully ignores them—does so at its peril.
JT: I don't know that I've paid that close attention to it, but it seems like more and more of your content is online for free—in addition to an increasing amount of online-only content. You used a Google map as an alternate Table of Contents for your latest issue, on South America in the 21st Century. How important is Web traffic to VQR? It seems like the Internet and, specifically, blog conversation is a huge opportunity for the old print quarterlies—most of whom only have a circulation of four or five figures. Do you get a lot of incoming links from online articles and blogs? Has it changed what you see as your mission? Let's talk possibilities here.
TG: Web traffic is paramount—even more important than it was a few years ago—and for exactly the reasons you suggest. For a print magazine with a total press run of 7,000 copies, the only way to be part of the larger discussion is by using other media. In some cases that has meant getting our authors on NPR or partnering with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to produce news segments for PBS. But people who consume the news through those other media often aren't big readers, so they're not likely VQR subscribers. But the people on the Web are still primarily readers, so a recent brief mention on kottke.org of an article that we published in our current issue brought in 25,000 visits, whereas a full hour on NPR's Fresh Air for another author hardly generated any traffic at all.
So the Web affects the way we do things—we've recently hired a full-time Web developer, for example, a real rarity among journals of this kind—but I don't think it's changed our mission per se, because it hasn't changed what we publish. But it has certainly changed the way we approach promoting our material. It's encouraged us to be a little more expansive, a little less buttoned-down. The Google map adds a little wow factor to our content and hopefully encourages younger readers to tackle our long pieces. This sort of thing gives us the chance to show that our material is serious, but at heart we're just a bunch of lit nerds who still geek out over new technology.
JT: The New York Times, I've noticed, is offering more and better interactive content with its articles—especially their series pieces. For your South America in the 21st Century issue, you've put up a fantastic feature on the Urban Virgin paintings of Ana de Orbegoso, accompanied by Odi Gonzales' poems, each of which is translated into and read in English, Spanish, and Quechua. Can we expect more of this?
TG: This is a direction that I'm anxious to move in, to see the Web as a world of possibilities for expanding our content, rather than just a different way of delivering the print edition. The Odi Gonzales poems are a great example, because we couldn't find a good way to present those poems in all three versions in the print magazine without seriously compromising the design. But we could do that easily with a bit of JavaScript on the website. From there, I started to wonder: Since Quechua is an oral language, shouldn't we hear these poems? And I'm so glad we did. You don't have to be a linguist to hear the amazing internal rhymes, refrains, and rhythms of Gonzales's poems in Quechua. That's something that no print magazine could ever convey.
Likewise, we see the videos as opportunities to tell our stories in different ways for different audiences. It's also another perspective, a slightly different angle that adds to and often enriches the print version. In that way, the audio and video is no different than adding photographs.
JT: OK, this last one is a bit tricky, but let's run with it: is there any possibility for art to crop up on blogs? Have you ever read a blogger and said, "I want that guy!"? I was talking to a friend the other day and she said, "Oh, I don't want to read blogs for essays and fiction—I just want them to point out the good stuff." Jason Kottke is a great curator of what's fascinating: is that the best-suited mission of blogs? Or are there as many ways of blogging, to paraphrase Thoreau, as there are radii in a circle? Pound's Cantos were pretty ranty—would they have worked as a blog?
TG: This is a fascinating question—and I think the answer is: yes, art is cropping up on blogs. I especially feel this way about bloggers from other parts of the world. It has provided a venue for writers who normally would never have found an American audience. The Iraq war showed us that bloggers like Salam Pax and Riverbend could produce vital records of events as they happened. Riverbend, for example, wrote about meeting someone who had been abused in Abu Ghraib weeks before the story broke in The New Yorker. That blog will be an important record of this war. Does that rise to the level of art? Only time will tell for sure, but I can tell you that there are blogs—from Africa and India, in particular—that have made me aware of writers I never would have found otherwise, and some of that work (fiction primarily) is absolutely outstanding.
But I also continue to be amazed by the incredible small publications around the world. It's not just Granta anymore. It's also places like Etiqueta Negra and Caribbean Writing Today. The Web makes those publications readily accessible to anyone with the interest.


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I'm generating a module which transforms numbers into reading in Spanish.
I found a similar question and read the answer, so I know 0,25 is read like below "cero coma veinticinco"
In addition, I got a tip about how the role of comma(,) and dot(.) is switched when writing a number, compared with English.
Here are my questions:
- If I want to write "one thousand dot two" by number in Spanish, do I have to write like
in all case? Never1,000.2
? - Secondly, Decimal part is read like reading an integer?
For example,
needs to be read "cero coma veinticinco"? And not "cero coma dos cinco"? If so, how to read this?3.1415926535
"tres coma mil cuatrocientos quince millones novecientos veintiséis mil quinientos treinta y cinco"??? - Finally, if a number less than 0, how to read the "minus" character?
If I just put "menos" before read a number part, is that right?
For example,
is "menos cero coma veinticinco?"


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Pakistan's Malala leaves UK hospital
Pakistani 15-year-old, shot in the head by Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, will return for more surgery.
The Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban as punishment for campaigning for girls' education has been discharged from the British hospital treating her, but will return soon for more surgery, the hospital has said.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, said on Friday that 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai would continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary English home before undergoing major reconstructive surgery in a few weeks.
"Malala Yousufzai was discharged from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham [QEHB] as an inpatient yesterday [January 3, 2012] to continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary home in the West Midlands," its statement said.
"The 15-year-old, who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, is well enough to be treated by the hospital as an outpatient for the next few weeks."
Malala was shot on her school bus by a Taliban gunman in October, in an attack that shocked the world.
The bullet grazed her brain, coming within centimetres of killing her, and she was airlifted from Pakistan to the specialist Queen Elizabeth Hospital days after the attack.
"She is still due to be re-admitted in late January or early February to undergo cranial reconstructive surgery as part of her long-term recovery and in the meantime she will visit the hospital regularly to attend clinical appointments," the hospital said.


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Casio has come up with a more traditional and less ambitious answer to high-tech smartwatches like the WIMM One, Sony SmartWatch and Pebble.
It's called the G-Shock GB6900AA, and it uses Bluetooth to connect with an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5. It doesn't have an E-Ink display or a touch screen like some other smart watches, but it can notify the user of incoming calls and e-mails with a beep or a vibration.
The G-Shock can also locate your phone by remotely triggering a ringtone, and it can prevent you from losing your phone by vibrating when the Bluetooth connection drops out of range. For world travelers, the G-Shock uses its smartphone connection to keep time information up date with no need for manual adjustment. The watch is shock resistant and water resistant up to 200 meters, and its battery should last two years with 12 hours of connectivity per day.
As far as smartwatches go, it's certainly a low-IQ device. Users won't be able to use the watch to control the iPhone's music playback, read their e-mail, track their exercise routines or check the weather. While some smartwatches can expand their capabilities through additional apps, Casio hasn't announced any such functionality. The G-Shock also can't tell you who's calling or alert you to incoming text messages, but that's due to Apple's restrictions on access to that information rather than any technical limitation of the watch itself. (The watch does at least tell you the sender of any incoming e-mails.)
But unlike the Kickstarter-funded Pebble, which can do many of those things, the G-Shock is supposed to ship this year, albeit in limited quantities. (Pebble's backers were supposed to get their watches in September, but production issues have pushed the launch into next year.) The G-Shock costs $180, and is available through select Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Tourneau stores. Casio says it will sell the watch on its website as well, but it doesn't appear to be available online yet.


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For medical records requests and billing information requests, please visit here.
Show All Answers
A statement is sent out to every patient transported by Trauma Star along with an application for the Monroe County Resident Trauma Star Fee Waiver (PDF). This must be completed and returned to us to write off any out-of-pocket expenses for qualifying Monroe County residents.
A qualifying resident is either a property owner (or member of their immediate household) who is current in paying property taxes in Monroe County, including the Trauma Star tax, or a person (or member of their immediate household) who rents property subject to the Trauma Star tax. We also require a copy of your Florida drivers license showing your address in Monroe County, valid for the date of transportation.
Please send your Monroe County Resident Trauma Star Fee Waiver Application Form (PDF) and proof of your Monroe County residency in the form of copies of property taxes for property owners or, for renters, copies of your long-term lease and/or utility bills plus a copy of your Monroe County drivers license to the address on the bottom of the application form.
No, you only need to apply for the Trauma Star Fee Waiver after you have been transported by Trauma Star and have received a billing statement. An application form should be included with your statement or you can download the Trauma Star Fee Waiver Application (PDF).
There is a base rate of $12,000 for a Trauma Star transport, with an additional $100 per mile calculated from origin to destination. The average billed amount is about $20,000 to $23,000 per trip -- which is less than half of the amount usually charged by the previous private air transport company that operated in the Keys prior to 2017.


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Crossroads Charter Schools prepare and inspire students to build a better tomorrow by providing an academically rigorous K-12 education in a creative, collaborative, community-focused environment.
Crossroads Charter Schools will be the premier school system in Kansas City and a destination for other educators seeking inspiration and best practices. Graduates of Crossroads Charter Schools will be scholarly, culturally literate and service-oriented individuals who will pursue their dreams relentlessly and have a positive impact on their family, their community and the world.


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Yes on 37? No on 37? Everyone's a loser…
The horse has bolted on genetic modification. It's out of the barn. Heck, it's off the ranch, and crops from GM seeds account for 94% of all soy, over 90% of sugar beet and canola, and 88% of corn now grown in the United States. But the GMO labeling issue should serve as a wake-up call to industry, encouraging it to engage in respectful debate with consumers, rather than facing off against a resentful public.
In light of potential labeling, food manufacturers using ingredients from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are likely to be concerned about consumer perception. They are right to be.
As spokesperson for the No on 37 campaign Kathy Fairbanks told this publication, "Any time you put a label on anything, it's seen as a warning."
However, if you're a consumer who, for whatever reason, would like to know which foods on the market contain GMOs, Prop 37 won't help you very much either.
Intention is everything
If GMO labeling is enacted in California, companies making foods without the GMO label will only have to show that their intention was to exclude genetically modified material, and prove their suppliers' intention. There are no thresholds for accidental GMO content, there's no testing required – and until 2019 up to 5% of a food product could be made with known GMO ingredients as well.
Even the media director for the California Right to Know campaign Stacy Malkan says that basing GMO labeling requirements on intention is important because "unfortunately contamination is a huge problem."
If you want to avoid GMOs completely, start by moving another country – and then become a vegan.
Under Prop 37, meat and milk from animals that have been raised on GM feed are exempt from labeling, as long as the animals themselves have been bred naturally (as is also the case in Europe).
What about organic?
Think organic foods are GMO-free? Think again. There are no thresholds for the amount of genetically modified material that can be accidentally present in organic food either – as long as foods are produced using organic methods. So despite measures like creating buffer zones around organic farms, it is inevitable that some GM material winds up in organic fields, which is why many organic producers are opting into the Non-GMO Project Verification program, which fastidiously tests for GMOs at key points in the supply chain – although it doesn't test finished products.
This seems like an extreme situation to me, but with or without GMO labeling, the Non-GMO Project's label may be the only one that gives consumers information about content, rather than intent.
One of the options for food manufacturers under Prop 37 would be to include the statement "May be Partially Produced with Genetic Engineering". If companies are concerned that their product may potentially contain GMOs, even if they are making efforts to avoid them, they could opt to include this statement on-pack.
This would result in consumers having just as much knowledge about the GMO content of their foods as they do now – which is to say they should assume it's in everything. And such labels would provide about as much information about GMOs as Prop 65 warnings provide about cancer risk.
Now what?
It may be too late for a balanced discussion on GMOs, but the food industry needs to take the lead in communicating with consumers, on their own terms, about how new technologies can benefit individuals rather than – and as well as – corporations. If it doesn't, the sector may become the only part of the economy in which all advancements are shunned – and slapped with quasi warning labels.


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A "something old, something new" styled shoot in Eagleville, TN
Kristi and Bill are a real Nashville couple who first met on their morning bus commute and bonded over a fantasy novel. Bill gave Kristi his card that morning before she got off at her stop, but the two didn't talk for two years. A picture of Kristi in a satin bridesmaid dress happened to catch Bill's attention, and the two instantly reconnected. While Kristi kept dating others, she constantly found herself going back to the man that proclaimed he hated three things in life: Southerners, lawyers and people with dogs. Bill now lives in Tennessee, married to an attorney and living with a Yorkshire terrier named Scrappy. Fate is a funny thing!
A group of amazing Tennessee vendors, including Allan Williams Photography, Southern Soiree and Wedding 101 Nashville, worked together to create a "Something Old, Something New"-inspired wedding at Samary Plantation – a mix of modern, colorful details against a rustic backdrop. By using all white linens, a martini bar, colorful hors d'oeuvres and brilliant blooms in fuchsia, orange and purple, the barn was transformed into a fascinating blend of modern and rustic.
- Photographer: Allan Williams Photography
- Other Location: Wedding 101 Nashville
- Paper Props: A Little Something Detailed
- Transportation: Grand Avenue
- Etsy Designer: HOUSEofLOVELY
- Makeup Artist: Katie Russo Beauty
- Reception Venue: Samary Plantation
- Floral Design and Draping: Savoir Faire Nashville
- Rentals: Southern Events Party Rental
- Planning and Design: Southern Soiree
- Dress Store: The Spoiled Lady
- Groom's Attire: Street Tuxedo
- Caterer: Vintage Cakes & Catering


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Right-wing media attack Michelle Obama for fighting childhood obesity
Written by Shauna Theel
Conservative media figures are attacking Michelle Obama over her efforts to encourage healthy eating and reduce childhood obesity, baselessly claiming that Americans "will be reported" or be "jail[ed]" for eating french fries.
Fox News figures attack Michelle Obama's efforts to reduce childhood obesity
Beck fearmongers that philosophy behind offering children healthy food choices will lead to riots, imprisonment, and global government. On the September 14 edition of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck suggested that Michelle Obama's initiative would lead to imprisonment for eating french fries:
You're going to have to tax, you're going to have to make it more and more difficult. But when those options don't work, how do you get people to stop eating french fries, because french fries still beat carrots. What's left? Well, now you have to start thinking about punishments -- maybe a fine, maybe even jail. But it always starts with a nudge.
Beck also suggested that the initiative would lead to global government, claiming, "The media's not going to give you the truth on this nudge towards bigger government, and eventually global government, but I will. We've taken it now from french fries to global government." He subsequently theorized that the government would "become a little forceful," saying:
[W]e've just been shown another example this week of nudging with Michelle Obama. It starts with carrots and french fries, over apples, and then it moves into butter, and soon it becomes a shove. Because if you won't do the right thing when you're being gently prodded, they, of course, will -- well, they'll have to become a little forceful. It's for your own good. There's more. We're not to the "friots" yet.
Limbaugh claims that the White House will monitor his show to "report" callers that are "part of the obesity problem." On the September 15 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh responded to a caller who discussed her own diet and claimed that "it won't be long, after that call -- she talked about what food she's going to fix and how she's going to prepare it and where she's going to get it -- that woman will be reported to Michelle Obama. In the not-too-distant future, monitors assigned by the White House to listen to this show will have to report that woman because she is going to be considered a part of the obesity problem in the United States."
Hannity: First lady is "taking the nanny state to a new level." On the September 14 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity said that Michelle Obama was "taking the nanny state to a new level" by "tell[ing] us what to eat" and claimed that we will soon have the government "fining us if we use salt."
Stossel: Healthy food initiative may lead to "the government ... deciding who we'll marry." In a September 14 blog post titled "Michelle Obama and the Food Police," Fox Business Network host John Stossel wrote, "In her latest speech, [Obama] talks about helping grocery stores 'locate in underserved areas...getting healthier food into schools...helping our kids become more active, not just in school but at home.' Sounds like big government to me." Stossel later added, "If the government is allowed to dictate our diet, what's next? Do they start deciding who we'll marry, where we'll work?"
Savage: "'Let them eat carrot sticks,' she says." From the September 13 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
"Eat as I say, not as I eat," says Michelle Obama. Perhaps the most hypocritical couple in the history of the presidency. Every time we see her, she's on vacation slurping an ice cream cone or eating fries, and then she's lecturing us on healthy choices and eating -- and grow a victory garden. Now, she says she's a fry lover, but for the peons out there, give them carrot sticks. Let them eat carrot sticks, she says. Not the biggest problem on Earth, just indicative of what we're facing in America. First lady, I love french fries.
Mr. Imam in New York -- Mr. Mosque, the imam guy, good imam, bad imam. Good imam, bad imam. Says one thing to us in English with Mr. Meek, Mr. Nice, Mr. Good, Mr. Interfaith Community Dialogue, and then he goes over and speaks in Arabic and says the exact opposite. Mr. Nice, Mr. Bad, Mr. Good Mosque, Mr. Bad Mosque.
I am so sick of this double-talking crap. I wish to God we had leadership.
Fox Nation: "First lady targets freedom fries." On September 14, Fox Nation linked to a CNS News article under the headline "First Lady Targets Freedom Fries."
Media conservatives previously attacked the healthy eating initiative as "cutting into our diets and our rights." When the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity first released its voluntary recommendations, several media conservatives attacked the report. A Fox News teaser for Hannity's May 12 show stated, "No soda. No snacks. No choice? How the first lady's task force on childhood obesity is cutting into our diets and rights." Only a month after the recommendations were released, The Fox Nation ran a June 29 article titled "First Lady's War on Obesity Off to a Bad Start." Michelle Malkin wrote a May 11 blog post titled "Here come Michelle's Obama's food marketing police." Malkin has written several other pieces attacking Michelle Obama over the Let's Move initiative.
Even conservatives have advocated for combating obesity
Hannity himself previously called Michelle Obama's initiative a "great cause" and "a great position for her to take." Discussing Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative with Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee on the February 19 edition of Hannity, Hannity said, "I might actually -- I think -- no, I know for a fact -- I agree with Michelle Obama." Hannity went on to praise Michelle Obama's cause, saying that it was "a great position for her to take" and calling the initiative "a great cause, to call attention to such a problem." Hannity added, "We've got to get our kids in shape," and said, "I agree we need to fix the problem."
O'Reilly: "[W]ho's going to oppose it?" During the January 11 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly said (from Nexis): "Look, Laura Bush was literacy and childhood reading, all of that. You know, great. Hillary was health care, went down the drain. Not so great. But childhood obesity? I mean, that's -- who's going to oppose trying to have chubby kids slim down? I mean, who's going to oppose it?"
Wash. Post op-ed calls out Malkin and Beck for their "childish" comments attacking anti-obesity initiative. In a February 20 op-ed for The Washington Post, Kevin Huffman wrote:
Michelle Malkin accused the first lady of "playing the national security card" by pointing out that one-third of our military's potential recruits are too fat and out of shape to qualify. (You can imagine how appalled Malkin must have been, since Republicans are so cautious with the national security card.)
Glenn Beck weighed in, too: "This is torn from the pages of the progressive playbook. You're too stupid. You need the government to fix your life . . . They're coming and they are slowly but surely taking away your freedom under the guise of helping you."
Sorry, guys, but someone needs to spell it out: Our kids don't eat well, they don't exercise and, just like their parents, they're getting fat.


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Please note that the Prairie Schooner blog has moved, and is now hosted on our website.
You can follow the new blog at prairieschooner.unl.edu/?q=blog.
The flyer at your right contains all the particulars, but, just for fun, here are the main events:
(Interviewed by Theodore Wheeler.)
Karen Brown received the 2011 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction for her book Little Sinners and Other Stories, which is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press. Her first collection of short stories, Pins and Needles, received AWP's Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and, in 2007, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Her work has appeared twice in the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, in Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and in many standout literary journals, including Epoch, The Georgia Review, American Short Fiction, TriQuarterly, and Five Points. Currently, Brown lives in Tampa, Florida and teaches creative writing at the University of South Florida. You can learn more about her work at her website.
Do you have a specific criteria of things you're looking for in a story when putting together a collection? That is, are you writing from the beginning toward something central thematically, or in the content, and the stories come together because of a common focus, or is it just a matter of allowing the book to coagulate on its own, of writing stories without a collection in mind, and seeing what themes and styles emerge? Did the process change with Little Sinners and Other Stories from how you did Pins and Needles?
I don't write stories with the intention of putting them together as a book, but I've found that I go through thematic phases, so that batches of stories seem to deal with similar themes, or have a similar tone. This was the case with Pins and Needles. I was writing a lot of stories very quickly, and they all seemed to have women exploring their own sexuality. The trouble was how to organize them so that "married woman having an affair in kitschy motels" came next to "pregnant teen seducing guy at work" and not "married woman having an affair in a vacant 1950s ranch." With the new collection, I did do more selecting from stories past and present, so there's an older story—one of the first I ever published, and a brand new one I added in the editing process with U of Nebraska Press. There are stories in the new collection that were written at the same time the Pins and Needles stories were, but didn't fit in that book ("married woman having an affair with suburban neighbor").
Is there a secret strategy you can (or are willing to) reveal about how to win a book contest? The Prairie Schooner Book Prize is the second you've won in the last few years, with Pins and Needles taking the 2006 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction of the AWP Award Series. Winning two prizes is pretty good, and your work bears this out. Is there a secret?
Before I won the Grace Paley Prize I'd submitted manuscripts for several years to AWP and the other short fiction prizes as well—Prairie Schooner, Drue Heinz, Flannery O'Connor, Mary McCarthy. I was a semi-finalist years ago for Sarabande Books' Mary McCarthy Prize, and last year Leaf House was listed as a semi-finalist. I, too, thought there must be a strategy, but looking back the only strategy I can see is that I kept writing new stories, that the stories seemed to get better, and that I kept changing the manuscripts to include the newer, better stories. Pins and Needles was the result of my putting together the last fourteen stories I'd written.
The studio MFA seems to be more and more popular these days—and MFAs more ubiquitous in general. As someone who took a creative PhD track, do you think there is something missing in a purely studio curriculum, as opposed to a writer's formal education that is heavy on literary study?
Writers don't need to learn how literary theorists approach creative works, unless they are interested in practicing in that field themselves. I enjoyed the exposure to literature I might not have normally read, but I think writers at the graduate level can pursue this intensive reading without having to study critical works and come up with paper topics. Most writers I know read widely. No two writers will derive the same thing from what they read, and I think it's better to cultivate reading as a writer, than undergo a formal study of literary works.
Rituals play a prominent role in Little Sinners and Other Stories, particularly sexual rituals, the rituals of birth, and those of friendship. The stories have such power because of the ways in which the characters violate their society's sense of propriety while at the same time participating in quasi-sanctioned rituals. Often these are people either at the end of adolescence or the beginning of middle-age, vulnerable people who are willing to transgress. Is there something you look for when writing a new character that places them in this kind of moral limbo? Or do your characters find their way to these sorts of trouble on their own?
I think the goal is to create a character with a problem, and for many of my characters lately these problems arise when they clash with the unspoken rules of the world they come from—the pastoral landscape of the suburb, with its sense of safety, and carefully maintained landscaping—a world I grew up in. It's a place I understand, one that relies on continuity and tradition, and where rituals are often used to mask transgression. Regardless of what happens, or what the characters do, the lawn is still cut on Fridays, the Memorial Day tradition continues.
In some of the stories, it's like you start writing about the crowd in the beginning of the narrative and wait until the last moment before narrowing in on the character who takes center stage. Is this something you have contrived as an author, or is your process a little more by the seat of your pants? I guess, by the end of the story (in your writing process) is it important that you be surprised by the story as well? And not just by what happens, but even who the story is about?
I do like being surprised by a story. It wouldn't interest me to write it if there wasn't the promise of something I didn't expect waiting for me at the end. Sometimes, though, mid-way through, I realize the ending. Then it's just a careful, sort of picking-my-way-over-stones to get there.
If it were possible to do so, what advice about writing would you give yourself five years ago?
I think I might tell myself to listen to my instincts about when a piece is really finished, and not rush to be done with it. The process of revision is just as important as the first draft.
What are you working on now?
I'm revising a novel, an expanded version of the short story "Little Sinners" that appears in the new collection.
The 2012 Prairie Schooner Book Prize is currently accepting submissions through March 15. More information can be found on our website.
Prairie Schooner is pleased to announce its new Publicity Associate, Trey Moody!
Moody, a San Antonio native and third-year Ph.D. student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, earned a B.A. and M.F.A. from Texas State University-San Marcos, where he taught and served as Poetry Editor of Front Porch. The author of the chapbooks Climate Reply (New Michigan Press) and Once Was a Weather (Greying Ghost Press), Moody's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Best New Poets 2009, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, Washington Square, and elsewhere. With Jeff Alessandrelli, he co-curates The Clean Part Reading Series in Lincoln.
As Publicity Associate, Moody will work with relevant media outlets to promote Prairie Schooner's public events and web initiatives, ensuring that the journal's cultural presence is felt locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
Welcome, Trey, to the Prairie Schooner team!
We're a little late announcing it here, but Mary O'Donnell's poem "Sea Life in St. Mark's Square" was just yesterday the featured poem on Poetry Daily. You can still find the piece, which is from our current issue, of course, at this link.
It is a great poem from a deserving poet, and one we're proud to have it recognized like this.
[Dear Readers, this is the first installment of an ongoing series written for the blog by Peter Rorvik. Further dispatches will soon include the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam and the Dubai International Film Festival. Peter is the Director of the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, as well as Director of the Durban International Film Festival.]
Dispatch 1: Doha Tribeca Film Festival (Oct 25-29, 2011)
by Peter Rorvik
Riding into Doha there is a huge signboard saying ACHIEVE. Nothing else, no apparent context, just the word ACHIEVE, emblazoned in huge letters. This is an appropriate signifier for Doha, it could be the country's slogan, so evident is the aspiration for success in Qatar. Magnificent tall buildings seem to compete for architectural design awards, and cranes are everywhere hoisting up new edifices--come back here in five years time and this place will look like Manhattan. It must surely be the fastest-developing city in the world, and with the Soccer World Cup taking place here in 2020 there will be no slowing down. How did this small desert country get awarded the prestigious World Cup anyway, and why is there a film festival here? You can make up your own mind on the first, but as to the second question, the daughter of the Emir of Qatar studied film in the US where she interned with the Tribeca film festival. Endorsement at the highest level for a film industry thrust in Qatar resulted in the founding of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival in 2009 and the Doha Film Institute in 2010, and there were certainly royal trappings to drool over. A veritable film village has been constructed in the Valley of Cultures, although it is not an actual valley, everything is flat in Doha. Many of the principal events, including the opening film, take place within a massive outdoor structure, hung with screens that from a distance give the appearance of stone walls. Dutch infrastructure was specially imported to house some of the activities, including four compact portable cinemas, well-kitted out and comfortable, and so air-conditioned that you have to layer up when stepping in from the 35degrees desert heat. It's all highly professional and fit for sheiks, kings and queens.
The opening film heralds Qatar's foray into cinema production. Lavishly supported by the Qatari government, Black Gold pulled in big names such as Antonio Banderas and Freida Pinto. Set against the discovery of oil some 80 years ago, and directed by French helmer Jean-Jacques Annaud, this desert epic is a colourful splurge of tribal rivalries, battle scenes, family honour, honourable and dishonourable men, and enslaved women. A tad long, the film benefited from the injection of humour supplied in the mid and latter sections by British actor Riz Ahmed. Filmed in Qatar and Tunisia at the very time when revolutions were sweeping the region, the struggles for freedom within the film take on new mirrored importance, but whether the film holds together enough to project that point is questionable. Credibility aside, a Jordanian filmmaker complained bitterly that the $55m budget could have supported the production of 50 Arabian films, not just one. Banderas wasn't on hand for the opening but he and the legendary Omar Sharif were a star act during the award ceremony. Generally the awards teetered on shambolic, with one of the jury members crying out in exasperation, "Please tell us, what award are we supposed to be presenting now?" All went off in good spirit, however. Everyone seems to understand this is a film festival in development. Development was also the motivation in using 1100 volunteers, and out of these will, in time, hopefully come a new organizational cadre of the future and answer charges that too much attention, and money, goes on international glitz and glamour, and not enough on upskilling locals.
"Swan's Home" originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Prairie Schooner. Below is an excerpt of the story--the full version can be found here.
For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. -Psalm 88
The call comes at high noon, with the sun bright on the rocks and sage, not in the dark midnight hours like Ferrell Swan always expected. On her cell from his old Ohio home, his ex-wife Rilla asks if he's sitting down.
"You bet," Ferrell says, standing at the porch rail. He looks across the high desert country, knowing the news is about Levon, Rilla's child from her first marriage. Ferrell helped raise the boy preschool to high school, the most strife and turmoil ever seen. Though Levon's now thirty-one, not a whole lot has changed.
"What this time?" he says when she doesn't volunteer the words.
"He crashed his car."
The quiet on the line puts Ferrell's knees to trembling. He hopes for anything but Levon being dead, anything else but that. He tries to steer his thoughts from the tragic, but that never helps when it comes to a child, whatever the age.
"Real bad." Rilla goes silent again, leaving Ferrell to feel every mile between his beloved Idaho and the charming brick house from his past, where Rilla now huddles alone.
"I'll get a flight," Ferrell says, already planning the eighty-mile drive to the airport in Boise. "I'll try to be there tomorrow."
"Try very hard," Rilla says and hangs up.
Ferrell pockets his own cell phone in disgust, high-tech messenger of bad news. He studies the colossal smoke columns above Oregon, a half million acres, the radio reports, burning out of control. It has been the worst fire season in a century, months of no rain and hundred-degree days, the air itself ready to burst into flames. Over the summer, Ferrell has seen wildfire in every direction from his isolated cabin, nights lit in garish orange and red, the horizon aglow like the fires of hell have broken through. In daylight hours, the smoke pouring from behind the Owyhees seems a sign of distant war, the bombing of far-off cities.
Last night, Ferrell recalls, the full moon had risen so deeply crimson it scared him, a horrible sunset, he imagined, run backward in the smoky haze. Watching the smoldering moon, Ferrell heard his long dead mother quoting Scripture, something about the moon running the color of blood, a signal terrible events were about to begin.
(Learn more about Mitch Wieland's work at his web site.)
in which Prairie Schooner contributors give us a glimpse into their writing spaces and sensibilities.
Micheal O'Siadhail's thirteen collections of poetry include Tongues, Globe, Love Life, The Gossamer Wall: Poems in Witness to the Holocaust, and Poems 1975-1995. He has been awarded an Irish American Cultural Institute Prize and a Toonder Prize, and he was shortlisted for the Wingate Jewish Quarterly Prize. He has been a lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, and a professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. His poem "Conversation with Goethe" appears in our current issue.
Name three things of particular significance on your writing desk at the moment.
I have on my desk a book which traces the origin of Japanese characters and how pictographs combine in various ways to form complex ideographs. These signs fascinate me and in my latest book Tongues I devoted a whole section to meditating on them.
I also have here a lead pencil and a pencil sharpener. I have written all my books in pencil. I know the playwright Brian Friel wrote all his work with a '2B' pencil. When we exchange postcards, I like to ask him if he is still pushing his 2B!
A third item is a picture of my wife Bríd, who has Parkinson's disease, and sadly had to go into care early this year. I need to sense her presence here.
Name one classic you've long been wanting to read.
For years I've wanted to read Thomas Mann's great four part novel Joseph und seine Brüder (Joseph and His Brothers). I know that Mann regarded this placing of these great biblical stories against the background of Egyptian history as his best work. I so want to steep myself in it.
Why haven't you read it?
I have tried to put the time aside but have never succeeded.
Is there any particular music or musician that puts you in the mood to write?
I find I can't listen to music either while working or before I work. Music affects me deeply and could change the dominant mood of the piece I'm working on. Yet music is immensely significant for me. I love classical music and jazz. Looking back on my poetry over the years, I realise how much jazz has been a core metaphor for me.
Name a favorite book in your possession: a favorite not just for content but for its actual physical qualities.
One of the great delights of working with my publishers Bloodaxe Books is how they serve their authors so well with eye-catching covers, often with a striking painting suggesting a book's theme. I took particular pleasure in the beautiful painting Blue Dusk by Christopher Gilvan-Cartwright on the cover of This Great Unknowing: Last Poems by Denise Levertov. This is book where both the visual impact and feel of the book add to those superb poems.
Learn more about Micheal O'Siadhail at his web site.
Nuala Ní Chonchúir, as interviewed by Theodore Wheeler.
Born in Dublin in 1970, Nuala Ní Chonchúir lives in Galway county. Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called 'a heart-warmer' by The Irish Times and 'a gem' by The Irish Examiner. Her third short story collection Nude (Salt, 2009)) was shortlisted for the UK's Edge Hill Prize. Her second short story collection To The World of Men, Welcome has just been re-issued by Arlen House in an expanded paperback edition. Nuala's third full poetry collection The Juno Charm was published by Salmon Poetry in November 2011. Her story "Peach" in the current Prairie Schooner has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
You can find more about Nuala on her web site and her blog.
"Peach" begins with such a powerful and irresistible hook—"A pregnant woman was getting drunk in the back lounge; I could see her through the hatch, from where I sat at the bar. She was drinking and crying, sitting on the red velveteen couch alone." Did you have these lines when you started writing, or did they come later?
I had those lines at the start. My stories usually begin with a collision of a first line, a vague feeling about a character or two, and an even vaguer notion of a situation. Originally the story was about stillbirth. That morphed into surrogacy and damaged lovers and, the classic short story theme, loneliness and what it makes people do.
Do you think having the lines at the start made the story easier or more difficult to write? That is, during the process of orchestrating a story, do you feel like strong images like this one can overpower the rest of the setting and tone, or are they instrumental in opening up the rest of the story?
I find all stories difficult to write in the sense that I don't have a clue what's going on for a while and I just push on to see. I write, essentially, to tell stories to myself. So I never know what is coming next until it happens. I love that point in the writing when it all becomes clear and I can forge ahead with confidence. Every story I write feels like a complete dud at the start, then some go well and some don't.
I love a good strong opening sentence as both reader and writer. Too much preamble bores me – I like to get a sense of the characters very early on. The opening is so important – it has to set everything up and give the reader the impetus to continue on. I find openings come to me readily, it's the rest of it I have to work hard on.
"Peach" seems to be about Dominic's state of mind more than anything. He's a character who sees himself as "a slow-walker on ice." The tone and setting play perfectly into his internal sense of apprehension too. I'm wondering, then, do you think it's something about the city that makes Dominic this way, or is it just his character, essentially?
There's a place in Dublin called the North Circular Road – a street of Georgian houses that are mostly converted into flats. When I lived near there I used to see a lot of single men on that road (separated men, ex-prisoners, men estranged from their families) and they just reeked with loneliness. Dominic is one of those men – his wife is gone, he doesn't have close friends, he doesn't drink because it messes with his head. There are enclaves in every city, I'm sure, where men are a forgotten tribe.
So Dominic is a combination of circumstances, his own downbeat personality – he says in the story that dread is his 'default position' – and the fairly grim place he is living in. He loves Dublin but nowhere is kind if you are lonely.
What external environmental factors influence your work and writing process the most? Are you a person who likes to be out in the world while writing? Is writing more of a pure reflective task? Do you find yourself being more productive in one season more than the others?
Cities influence me; I am crazy about cities: Dublin, London, Berlin, Paris, New York; smaller cities too like Bremen in Germany and Nantes in France. I have a very low boredom threshold so I find the buzz of city life exciting. I love buildings; I love all the people teeming around and the art galleries stuffed with mad and great artworks. I also love trees, the sea, birds.
I like to go out into the world to soak it up but I retreat to my peaceful house in the small market town I live in to write. If there are too many distractions, it's hard to write, so it suits me to live in a quiet place.
It's challenging to write when the three kids are off school in the summer – they keep interrupting me, demanding food etc. Autumn is a good time to start a new project – the children back at school gives me that fresh feeling of wanting to begin something.
The most unproductive time is when a new book comes out because I spend so much time tearing up and down the country doing promotional stuff. It's fun but maddening too because my desk calls to me.
Also, as a multi-form author, do you find that outside factors influence your poetry different than your prose? Is there a difference in how you process information between your long- and short-form prose too? Do you find that you experience life with a different mind when writing in one form or the other, or is it all just writing/creating in the end?
Like all writers I have my obsessions so I tend to cover a lot of the same ground in poetry, novels and short stories: sex, the breakdown of love, art, strong women, troubled children. I'm a feminist and that will always come through too.
I've written both poems and stories on the exact same topics – Joan of Arc, for example; and also pregnancy loss and fertility issues; marriage breakdown. My poetry tends to be more personal while the fiction is generally not based on my life but on situations that interest me.
I love the long haul of the novel because it takes over your head and you start to process the world through the eyes of the novel, if that makes sense. Because you spend a long time writing it (in my case about a year per novel) it soaks into your life and your life also soaks into it. It's a very joyous thing, to be in the thick of a long piece of work.
What is one book written in the past five years that you wish you had written? Why?
Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan. It is a fabulous, understated, strange story of revenge, beautifully written. It's set in Maine in winter and I felt perished reading it. Honestly – this is top notch literary fiction by an under-praised Irish writer, so if you haven't read it, do!
Who are some of the young talented writers in Ireland that most people haven't heard of yet? Who is an older writer that doesn't get enough recognition for their body of work?
There's a young writer called Eimear Ryan who is winning lots of literary prizes and whom I published in Horizon Review when I was fiction editor there. Eimear has it: she is not only talented, she has oomph.
I am also a big fan of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, who writes wonderful short fiction. She is recognised here, to an extent, but she is on a par with any of our so-called top writers and I don't understand why everyone is not raving about her work.
Nuala Ní Chonchúir will be on campus in Lincoln on February 9 & 10, 2012, for a public performance of her work at the Sheldon Museum of Art, among other events promoting the launch of our current Ireland themed issue. More specific information will be posted on this blog as it becomes available.
The printed issue has arrived in the Prairie Schooner office this week and should be out to subscribers, if not now then soon. (If you'd like to subscribe, the Ireland issue could be yours soon too!) The issue is an exciting one for us. Stephen C. Behrendt (Interim Senior Editor) explains it well in his introductory note.
In recent years we have published special issues featuring contemporary writing from various regions and nations, including China and Australia, as part of our commitment to reflect in our pages not simply a national but indeed an international sense of the contemporary literary community. But this issue featuring Irish writing today involves a ''specialness'' that is both distinct and different from any other. America has long cherished a special relationship with Ireland, a relationship most immediately and characteristically visible when St. Patrick's Day arrives, but one that is in reality far more deeply woven into the cultural fabric of America and that embraces regions and families, time and space, in ways that are particularly unique. Perhaps more so than any other nation, Ireland claims an enduring hold on the American imagination, maybe because the Irish culture, transplanted to America, remains so uniquely and unshakably Irish despite its geographical displacement.
The issue features work by Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Philip Casey, Theodore Deppe, William Wall, Ann Egan, Jean O'Brien, Michael O'Dea, Mary O'Donnell, Gréagóir Ó Dúill, Micheal O'Siadhail, and Thomas Lynch, among many other wonderful contributors.
There will be an official issue launch on February 9 & 10, 2012, on campus in Lincoln, featuring public performances at the Sheldon Museum of Art by Nuala Ní Chonchúir and Deanie Rowan Blank, and an Irish-themed reception on that Friday evening. I'm told the Sheldon is putting together a slideshow of Irish-themed art for the event. It should be a good one. We'll have more information on this forthcoming.
Also, I'd like to bring attention to a note contributor Michael O'Dea sent along in regards to our cover image. (It was posted in the comments of our cover preview.)
The cover photograph of the Irish number is very familiar to many Irish but might not be to some of your readers. It is the waterfront at Cobh (pronounced Cove),County Cork. It is particularly appropriate since it is the port from which over a third of the Irish emigrated to North America. Part of the symmetry Stephen C.Behrendt refers to in his introduction; next stop New York Harbour. It was also the last port of call for RMS Titanic in 1912. And in 1915 it received the received the survivors and victims off RMS Lusitania which was sunk by a German U-Boat off the Cork coast. There were 1198 casualties, of which over a hundred are buried in a local graveyard.
Thanks, Michael, for sending that note along.
And thanks to all of our contributors, editors, readers, and production staff for helping to make the Ireland Issue possible. Particular gratitude needs to go out to Stephen C. Behrendt and Timothy Schaffert for their editorial work and leadership during out recent transition period. They navigated admirably. Their hard work, leadership, and sense of community is very much appreciated.
By the way, check out this great interview of Editor Kwame Dawes in Guernica for an idea of what's to come with Prairie Schooner, plus the multitude of other projects he's involved with. The man stays busy.


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Solidarity in Seoul
In a letter from jail, John Lee Young-chan, a Korean Jesuit priest, decried increasing military tensions in Northeast Asia and asked South Korea and other nations to "join in solidarity, not inciting war but in ameliorating the situation and in leading toward a reduction in weapons." Father Lee Young-chan was arrested in October while protesting the use of excessive force against a female activist who had attempted—with more than 300 others in recent months, including several Jesuit priests—to protest nonviolently the construction of a Korean naval base on Jeju Island. He is currently imprisoned without bail as he awaits trial. "I pray that Jeju may avoid becoming a shrimp caught in a whale fight" between China and the United States, "but rather prevent the whale fight and become a place brimming with life and peace," he wrote.
The Jeju naval base is proposed to become home to a fleet of 20 South Korean warships, set to patrol the sea between China and Japan. The justice and peace committee of the South Korean bishops' conference has released a statement opposing construction of the new base and demanding the immediate release of Father Lee Young-chan. The naval base "can only increase the sense of military tension…and thereby instigate a crisis," wrote Bishop Matthias Ri Iong-hoon, who also expressed concern that "construction is destroying the coastal ecosystem."
The United States, which operates more than a dozen military bases in Japan and South Korea, is partly responsible for this pattern of military aggression in the region, in which North Korea is also complicit. All sides must take meaningful steps to reduce the tension. "Why must there be more battleships and aircraft carriers?" asked Francis Mun-su Park, S.J., director of the Jesuit Research Center for Advocacy and Solidarity in Seoul. "There should be more cultural exchange and efforts for peace." As a first step, the South Korean government should immediately release Father Lee Young-chan and stop base construction.
The Pope's New Book
Pope Benedict XVI's new book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, has already been translated into nine languages, with 11 more translations planned. This is the final book of a trilogy. The first volume focused on Jesus' life and ministry, the second on his passion, death and resurrection. The books evince not only the pope's deep personal love for Jesus Christ but also his flair for what might be called theological spirituality, combining exegesis of the Gospels with applications for the everyday Christian.
At the outset of this multiyear project, not everyone was convinced that it was a good idea for the pope to spend, as the papal spokesman Federico Lombardi, S.J., put it, "every free minute" of his spare time writing a book. Given the recent upheavals in the Roman Curia, including the "papal butler" scandal, some thought the pope might have better spent more of his time on church governance. Others were concerned that Catholics might be confused about the level of authority the books carry. Does what Benedict write about Jesus carry the full weight of papal authority?
Both critiques seem beside the point. In addition to the roles of governing and sanctifying, a bishop also assumes the role of teacher. And Joseph Ratzinger (this name appears on the book cover above "Pope Benedict XVI") excels at theology. Why should he not share his reflections on the person who is the heart of our faith? As for the book's authority, the author states clearly in the first volume, "It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium.... Everyone is free, then, to contradict me." A few Scripture scholars have already done so; more will no doubt follow. Many other readers, however, will profit from the pope's lifelong quest to understand the man whose vicar he is.
On Being 'Had'
A priest set out on the road from Manhattan to Jersey City. As he was about to descend to the commuter rail, he saw a man sprawled out, still as if in death, face down on the sidewalk, his head pressed against a grate and the wire of his iPod entangled. The priest was used to seeing shabby, smelly, homeless men crumpled up asleep in doorways or sprawled under bushes in Central Park.
This was different. Five bystanders stood staring. None approached. The priest, knowing he could never again preach on the Gospel of Luke if he passed this man by, came up and took his hand. With a vacant stare, the man looked up. The priest pulled up, but the man pulled down. The priest tried to reposition the man's legs, take both hands and heave back.
"Leave him be," said a young man who stepped out of a restaurant. "He does this all the time."
It was a con. The man amused himself by embarrassing gullible people of good will.
The priest had been "had."
Fooled, he turned back to the subway stairs. As the priest glanced south, the fallen man was up and walking away; he had pulled off his trick again. The voice of the man from the restaurant followed the priest down the stairs: "Thank you. You were nice." Better to be had than to pass by.


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Don't think you are Nothing,
Don't think you are Everything,
Just think you are Something,
Who can achieve Anything.
Good Night!
Good Night!
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There was a little something extra in Uma's face tonight in London for the premiere of The Accidental Husband co-starring Colin Firth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Uma and Colin – great onscreen pairing, non? Me likey.
Unfortunately he probably won't get the girl. The Accidental Husband is about a power woman in her safe power relationship with her safe Steady Man (Colin) who has to choose between her boring life and the exhilarating but unpredictable possibilities with The Wild Card (Morgan).
Click here for the trailer.
Formula, formula, formula. Ugh.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan over Colin Firth???
Is this still because of Denny? Must still be because of Denny. The MiniVan Majority LOVED Denny. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is Denny over and over again. Except with a healthy heart. Like the male equivalent of Rachel Green/Jennifer Aniston.
Or maybe Uma in the end of the movie will end up with a gay fireman? Gay firemen are the best. Look at them! Beefy and preening on the red carpet, lean and popping from a chicken and rice only diet for the last 2 weeks in preparation for this big moment.
I stayed at the W in San Francisco once. Every day on the hour I'd grab a latte and stand at the corner watching the gay firetruck go by. Totally made my life.
What would Tom Cruise give to put his ethics into the brown-haired fellow on the right?
Photos from Wenn.com


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A little more pushing, a little bit of progress
Despite some skepticism and pre-Christmas pessimism, I have to admit I am a little energized by our school's new attempt to use a wiki. It's a step we needed to take.
The purpose of the wiki is to gather some of the professional "voices" in the building as we move our curriculum and our instruction into the 21st Century. Right now, we're using it to share ideas and build consensus on the definition of several different student learning behaviors. We use these learning behaviors as points of focus for learning walks by the administration and leadership team. Conversations about how to define these behaviors have been a valuable part of our professional discussion recently. Now part of that conversation can be done with the help of a collaborative wiki.
In this case, we needed to use the technology for the sake of using the technology. Only then will we begin to see just what potential the technology holds and how we can best use it. If, along the way, we extend the conversation beyond our regular meetings, then that's gravy.
What makes a wiki such an appealing tool is that it can help promote such a conversation in a different venue. But more important, the process becomes part of the product. That can be powerful. That needs to be explored.
We'll see.


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What's your favorite pet names you came up with?
All of mine still have their default names, but it's about time I change that.
I have no idea what to name them though, any suggestions?
I at least need to find names for these guys:
- Magical Crawdad
- Molten Hatchling
- Fel Flame
- Terrible Turnip
- Flayer Hatchling
- Celestial Dragon
- Soul of the Aspects
- Personal World Destroyer
- Clockwork Gnome
- Singing Sunflower