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For the residents of Janesville, Wisconsin, Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate was a story of a local man becoming the biggest news in the country. But for the librarians of Janesville, it meant something else entirely, as NPR's Don Gonyea found out last week.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: When I'm on the road working on a story, and I find myself in a town I'm not very familiar with, my first stop is often the local public library. I walk in. I say that I don't live here, that I'm a reporter. I'm looking for local history. It all takes a bit of explanation. But when I broke into that routine in Janesville last week, I was greeted with a friendly look that said, Here comes another one.
SUE BRADEN: Well, you're not the first who's been here recently. But...
GONYEA: That's Sue Braden who's worked as a reference librarian for 20 years, the past 13 here at the Hedberg Public Library on Main Street in Janesville. At one point last week she says they had half a dozen out of town journalists at once. Usually when I drop in on a library I'm not working a story that every news organization is also chasing. But what struck me in Janesville was how prepared the library was for the moment.
BRADEN: Well, here we have Paul Ryan's high school yearbooks - 1986, 1987 and 1988.
GONYEA: Braden also puts a thick green binder on the counter with articles clipped from the local paper spanning Ryan's entire political career. That binder is also 100 percent viewable online. They've got a similarly fat collection of clips about another Janesville native, former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold. Braden then takes me to the library's local history database on the Web.
Could I have just put Paul Ryan/General Motors in the key...
BRADEN: Keyword search.
GONYEA: Keyword search.
BRADEN: Exactly. Yes. In fact, a lot of folks just start out that way to get something pulled up and then they can see what the subject...
GONYEA: Braden credits a longtime commitment to the library to build such an online resource.
BRADEN: What excited me and my colleagues when you come is in is that, oh great, here's an opportunity to show you what we have and to toot our horn a bit and share these fabulous resources that we're very proud of.
GONYEA: Then, just before I leave, she offers one last bit of local information. Come back in the spring, Braden says, because the tulips on the library grounds are beautiful. I may just do that.
Don Gonyea, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Penn: My hope this July 4th is that we focus as Americans on reviving our sport values — values that have made us great and can rekindle our optimism for the future as they have done many times before. From Jesse Owens's victories in the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the "Miracle on Ice" in Lake Placid in 1980, great athletic events have crystalized our faith in the country.
These days, sports are marred by scandals that go far beyond cheating, and it seems that every feel-good sports moment has its nefarious counterpart. Sports have always represented American values of fair competition, community, hard work, and the American Dream. But Americans believe our values are in decline, and while this is most clearly attributed to a lack of faith in political and economic institutions, perhaps our athletic institutions best demonstrate why we as a nation have become pessimistic about our values.
To take one example, in the same study, Americans found the use of performance enhancing drugs by athletes to be the least morally acceptable behavior in a list that included prostitution, underage drinking, human cloning, and illegal drug use. Every time a scandal hits the sports world, it shakes our trust in our athletic institutions and people who are seen as role models, especially by the Millennial generation. According to the values poll, 45% of Americans age 18–29 say that celebrities and professional athletes have a fair amount or a great deal of influence on developing their beliefs of right and wrong. This is higher than the 42% of the same group who say the same of political leaders, and only slightly lower than the 51% who say that religious leaders have the same amount of influence on their values. We need to hold athletes (as well as other public figures) to a higher moral standard if we are to reverse the pessimism and restore faith in values that American sports have in the past, and can once again, embody. The Olympics will provide our athletes a new opportunity to shine and rise above it all in our best tradition.
(MORE: Olympics News, Photos and Videos)
Hughes: In a fascinating survey of American values that Mark Penn conducted for The Atlantic/Aspen Institute, one stands out: Americans' steadfast belief in the existence of God. Eighty-nine percent — almost nine in ten Americans — answered yes when asked the straightforward question: Do you believe in God? And while that number is down from the 96% who responded affirmatively to a Gallup Poll in 1944, it is by far the strongest affirmation of any value in the entire survey.
The question highlighted some partisan and generational differences, with 92% of Republicans, 88% of Democrats, 84% of Independents, and 81% of younger voters ages 18–29 answering yes. Yet no matter how you slice or dice the numbers, our shared belief in an Almighty God remains a value that unites most Americans this Fourth of July holiday — even during these pessimistic and anxious times.
Faith in God was central to the framers of America's Declaration of Independence, which claimed rights for all men because those rights had been "endowed by our Creator." All people are equal and equally valuable — not because of a political or moral judgment, but because God created us that way.
(MORE: Have We Evolved To Be Religious?)
That core American belief in God acknowledges a higher purpose to the universe, an important recognition that our life is not just all about us. As Scripture counsels, the "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10)." And the core beliefs shared by God-fearing people of many different faiths spring from that understanding: we have a moral responsibility to care for ourselves and each other; it is wrong to murder, steal, lie or commit adultery; we should honor our parents and love God and our neighbors.
Yet the survey also contains warning signs about how Americans act on our stated foundational belief. When asked what values are most important in their lives, Americans place "family values" first with 41 percent and vague "moral values" second at 31%, with religious values trailing in a distant third at 17%. Only 48% of Americans today say religion is "very important" in their own life, compared to 75% in 1952. This question shows big generational differences, with majorities of those over age 45 saying religion is "very important," while only a third of Americans age 18–29 say religion is very important to them. And while 37% of Americans attend religious services almost every week, almost half — 49% — say they do so seldom or never.
(MORE: Why We're Still Catholics)
This survey is a wake-up call for America's churches, synagogues, mosques — and for Sunday school teachers like me — to make our teaching more relevant, to turn our shared national faith in God into action that makes a difference in all of our lives.

subset: commoncrawl


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Oct 1, 2017
Annette Pendergrass.
At Suntree United Methodist Church we have a vision to be followers of Jesus who love God, love each other and love our neighbors in extraordinary ways. We hope that by listening to these podcasts, you will be challenged to live out that vision in your everyday lives. For more information about our ministry check us out at www.SuntreeUMC.org.
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Young America's Foundation is committed to ensuring that increasing numbers of young Americans understand and are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values. As the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement, the Foundation introduces thousands of American youth to these principles. We accomplish our mission by providing essential conferences, seminars, educational materials, internships, and speakers to young people across the country.
Young America's Foundation
**Information taken from the official website of the aforementioned organization
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Bathroom installations can be difficult and should only be completed by someone with the relevant skills and tools to complete the work safely. Whether you need bathroom design, installation or repair, we can help. Whatever work you need done, you can rely on our highly qualified local bathroom fittters to carry out the work, with the utmost care and professionalism.
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Certified & Qualified Bathroom Installation Experts. If you require the best bathroom fitting service in the UK, Yolex will find you the local expert for the job.
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From showers to bathtubs to toilets and storage units, bathroom fitters install and repair almost aspects of a bathroom. Here is where you can find one in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7. One of the most functional places in our homes, bathrooms are used every day and thus have deal with a lot of wear and tear. Whether you are remodelling an old family bathroom or looking to install a luxury bathroom design, finding the right bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 is crucial to get the work done. So, what are bathroom fitters and where can you find one in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7? All this will be revealed below.
As mentioned above, bathroom fitters can install almost aspects of a bathroom. Trained professional, bathroom fitters take care of it all from planning and designing the bathroom to manufacturing, and installing it at the facility. Following are some of the responsibilities assumed by bathroom fitters or bathroom installers in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7:
Generally, a bathroom installation service employs people who have qualifications in jobs such as plumbing, joinery and electrical installation as well as in related trade such as plastering, tiling or cabinet making. This provides people with the surety that their bathroom is in safe and capable hands, allowing them to go on about their business without any worries or concerns while the bathroom is being installed or remodelled.
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So, you know the definition of bathroom fitters but what service can they provide you? Knowing this before you start your search for bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 will help you to shortlist the 'right candidates'. First, you need to understand that bathrooms are far from simple and while bathroom installation may appear easy on paper, it is anything but. This is the reason you need the help of a professional in both bathroom installation and bathroom design. Unless you have adequate experience, any savings that you make installing or designing the bathroom yourself will come at the cost of quality. And, this lack of quality will cost you in the long run—much more than what you saved with the DIY job. So really, hiring a bathroom fitter in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 for your bathroom installation and design needs is a no brainer. Taking help from bathroom fitters can not only ensure a professional bathroom installation, it can also help revive your bathroom or its inhabitants. So, what are things you can hire bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 for? You can hire them for the following jobs:
Installation is probably the most difficult part about bathrooms. You can try to arrange the bathroom fitting yourself, but you will need expertise of different trades to complete the job, something you are unlikely to have. So, what is the next best option? It is hiring a professional bathroom installation service. Through qualified bathroom fitters, the bathroom installation service will provide with a professional and thorough bathroom installation job. Generally, the process works like this. You agree a design and specification with the bathroom fitters and they quote you a price for the job. Next, a survey is carried out by the service at the installation site and then the complete installation specification which includes the terms of the contact is sent to you. Depending on the complexity of job, the bathroom installation and fitting can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to complete. From plumbing to carpentry to plastering and electrical work, all work is carried out by experts of the trade.
Bathroom fitters can help you transform your bathroom by performing a renovation or remodelling job on it. From installing new faucets to upgrading your flooring and bathtub, the professionals can do it all. They realize that even the smallest items can impact your project and thus offer services such as installation of bathroom fixtures and new mirrors, drywall repair and new paint job.
Are your bathroom fixtures needs attention? If yes, then you'd do well to call in a professional bathroom installation service right away. Bathroom fitters can fulfil your fixture installation and repair needs whether you want to upgrade your faucet and showerhead or want to add new light fixtures. The fitters can add the perfect touch to your bathroom, giving it that elegant, complete look that you always wanted. Often, it is possible to repair any fixtures that aren't working properly. The bathroom installation service will identify, and then repair the damaged fixtures.
Notice bad caulking in your tub? Is water dripping under or floors or behind your walls? If yes then you may be facing serious wood and wallboard damage. Not only that, you are also likely to witness leaking in your basement or downstairs ceiling. If that is the case, waste no time to call in professional bathroom fitters that offer caulking services. The professionals will stop water damage from occurring, protect your bathroom against mould and mildew and restore the look of your tub.
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Have a damaged shower door, or one that needs an upgrade? Then call in professional bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 right away. In no time at all, the professional bathroom installation service can successfully install a shower door or restore it to its hinges or track. Additionally, the professionals can take care of water leaking from your shower door onto the floor or around your bathroom.
Is your old toilet affecting your overall bathroom design? If yes, then it may be time for you to replace your toilet. To ensure it is functional and complements the look of your bathroom, bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 can install a new toilet in your bathroom in a professional way. Moreover, they are equipped to deal with minor toilet issues and provide effective repairs such as replacing a flush valve to adding a new wax ring.
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Bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 can inspect your drywall and address any repairs that may be required in your bathroom. A variety of factors including moisture, leaking water etc. can cause damage to your drywall. The professionals can deal with all problems for you. The drywall repairs and finishing provided by the bathroom installation service blend seamlessly with your space, giving your bathroom a fresh new look.
A simple bathroom fan can help prevent mould, mildew or other damage from spreading in your bathroom. Who can provide with that fan? Yes, you guessed right: professional bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7. With a new bathroom fan installation or by even getting your existing fan repaired, you can improve circulation in your bathroom, which will help prevent the build-up of mould or mildew in your bathroom.
Last but not the least, professional bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7 can provide you with vanity and bathroom mirror installation. While a DIY in this case is possible, installing a new vanity and mirror is best left to the professionals. This tricky installation will be handled expertly by a professional bathroom installation service. In addition to the installation of the vanity and bathroom mirror, the bathroom installers can expertly deal with the removal and disposal of your current vanity/mirror and prepare the space for new installations.
Need a Local Expert? Schedule an Appointment Today!
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So, you know how bathroom fitters can help you, but where can you find one in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7. You can find them on Yolex—a website that makes it easy to find local experts, who specialize in exactly the type of work you need done. One you complete the short form on the site, Yolex will find the best local bathroom installers and you can then choose the best expert depending on the quotes they give you. The service is totally free to consumers. With that clear, you may want to know how you can choose a reliable and experienced bathroom installation service in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7. If that is the case, then continue reading to get answers.
Using Yolex, you shortlist bathroom fitters in the area that match your criteria. Now what? How do you choose from them? You can make the process simple by using the following tips to choose a professional bathroom installation service:
Once Yolex provides you with best bathroom fitters in your area, do some research on your own to determine which among them is best for you. Taken into consideration your specific needs and most importantly, your budget. Once you do that, you'll find it easy to choose a suitable bathroom installation service.
As with any job, you will many bathroom fitters willing to take on your bathroom installation or bathroom design job.Part of your job is to distinguish the specialists from the rest. Look for bathroom fitters with experience in the specific bathroom installation/design job you want performed. Find out if the service has the necessary skills and tools required to perform the job. Also, talk to the bathroom installer themselves to find out if they have performed similar jobs to the one you have planned. Request pictures or other evidence of any similar work they have done in the past. Another important thing to look for is accreditations. It is important that the service choose has the required accreditations to perform the job you have planned. An accreditation that you should look for is The British Institute of Kitchen, Bedroom & Bathroom Installation accreditation.
This is important, especially if your bathroom installation involves electrical work such as changing lighting or installing a new power shower. To ensure the safety of your bathroom and home, ensure that the bathroom installer you choose is certified for safety by the building control department of your local authority and is registered with a body qualified to issue safety certificate for the job you want performed. This is in your own best interest. In addition to the above, look for follow up services and flexible working hours when choosing a bathroom installation service in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7. Experienced and professional bathroom fitters can install and repair almost aspects of a bathroom. If you're looking for bathroom fitters in Hemdean Bottom RG4 7, then visit us today! We often get people searching for Bathroom Fitters near me. Below are a few other areas that have installers, for you to try.
We often get people searching for Bathroom Fitters near me. Below are a few other areas that have auto locksmiths, for you to try.
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Apple, Microsoft, and others, a little over a month ago in a letter to the EU, warning that the EU's new proposed unified patent law could lead to more patent trolling:
To mitigate the potential for abuses of such power, courts should be guided by principles set forth in the rules of procedure to assess proportionality prior to granting injunctions. And PAEs should not be allowed to use injunctions for the sole purpose of extracting excessive royalties from operating companies that fear business disruption.
A new front opened today in the patent wars between large technology companies, as a consortium that owns thousands of patents from the Nortel bankruptcy auction filed suit against Google and other manufacturers alleging infringement. Rockstar, which is owned jointly by Apple, Blackberry, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony, filed suit in US District Court in Texas. In addition to Google, the consortium has alleged infringement by Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung, and ZTE.
They're not just scumbags – they are lying scumbags.


text: Cases involving individuals who have been injured in crashes and collisions involving commercial airlines, railroads, oceangoing vessels, and government-operated municipal bus and rail systems. Some of the most common mass transit accidents are caused by sudden starts and stops, speeding, intoxication of operators and slippery floors. Buses are often involved in accidents with other motor vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Trains sometimes come derailed or have toxic spills that affect many people. People who are injured in mass transit accidents may be compensated for their injury, lost income, and pain and suffering.


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Barack Obama will announce his candidacy for the Presidency in '08 tomorrow. I'm a huge politics junkie. I'm a huge Obama fan. This is big news.
I have formulated a theory, which is obviously imperfect, but nonetheless might be found interesting by those of you who enjoy following politics, as well as sports.
Barack Obama is the Gilbert Arenas of Presidential contenders.
Consider the similarities:
*Both are almost almost universally loved and respected. For Obama, this manifests itself most recently in his No. 1 book sales; for Arenas, this manifested itself most recently in his All-Star voting surge into "starter" status.
*Both deliver an aura of accessibility. For example, Obama announced his first Presidential-race news directly to the voters on his Web site, YouTube-style. Arenas regularly makes and breaks news directly to fans on his NBA.com blog.
(In a related similarity, Obama's move seemingly inspired his rivals to do something similar with their online-video announcements. Arenas' impromptu 3-point contest last week against teammate DeShawn Stevenson -- for $20,000 and captured on video and published on YouTube by a Wizards blogger -- was such an instant Internet sensation that it inspired at least one contrived copycat product by the Lakers.)
*Both seem to always say/do the things that make fans nod their head and shout: "Yes! I'm with you!" For Obama, this started with his Democratic National Convention speech in 2004 and has continued since, as he tours the country speaking to crowds. For Arenas, this includes so many things I can't recount them all. (I simply refer to Gilbert's Wikipedia entry.)
*Both are grassroots, blogosphere sensations. No explanation necessary.
*The "Black President" Factor: Obama would like to become the first black president. Arenas actually calls himself "The Black President." (I'm not kidding: It's the name of Gilbert's MySpace page.)
*And, yet, both are relatively untested at the "national" level. For Obama, that's a Presidential race; for Arenas, that's the NBA Playoffs/Finals. Their critics use this against them.
*And even though both are insanely popular, both are still not considered the frontrunner in their respective races. For Obama, that's winning the Democratic nomination; for Arenas, that's winning League MVP.
"Agent Zero" and Agent "O": I'm happy to be up-front about it: Obama is my favorite politician, and Arenas is my favorite athlete. Is it too much to ask for a "Obama/Arenas" Presidential ticket in '08? (Cripes, I'm kidding. Uh, wait: Can we get a Mothering Hut T-shirt of that?)
You don't have to agree with me in my support of either (or both) to recognize the fascinating similarities in their situations right now. (My only concern is that I have it flip-flopped: Maybe it should be "Arenas is the Obama of the NBA." Next stop: Around the Horn! Meet the Press!
Here's a coincidence: The Wall Street Journal just sent me an email with a URL to a free version of their article today on Gilbert. Needless to say, I imagine the WSJ isn't backing Obama.


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Fatherhood has made Better Half go all musical--he's constantly making up songs to sing to little Grover. I've been keeping track of some of the rhymes that he makes that wouldn't rhyme at all if I were to say them:
garden - Baden-BadenAll three of the so-called rhymes are scuppered by our different rhoticity (BH being non-rhotic and me rhotic), but we also have different vowels in banana and naughty. (We both approximate the German Baden-Baden in roughly the same way.) His banana has low, back vowels in both the last two syllables; mine has an [ae] (imagine that as a single symbol) in the middle. Thus, the middle syllable differs in much the same way as our pronunciations of bath differ--so check out bath on the Sound Comparisons website, if you'd like to hear that difference. The first vowel in naughty is much rounder in BH's dialect than in mine--see daughter on the Sound Comparisons site. In both cases on that site, my pronunciation is more like Ohio than 'Standard American' (the Standard American guy has a really annoying uptalk thing going on) and his is close enough to RP.
banana - James Garner
snorty - naughty
Incidentally, all this seems related to the reason [or one of the reasons] that Grover isn't named Frances, though we both like that name (that, and the fact that we like the name we gave her that much better). Our pronunciations of the 'a' make Frances sound like two different names, and we were afraid that would cause a personality disorder in our child. (Unfortunately, there are no 'a'+/ns/ words on Sound Comparisons, so again, you'll have to extrapolate from the difference in bath.) Somehow the fact that we've given her a name (yes, her real-life name, as well as her pseudonym) with a post-vocalic /r/ didn't seem like as much of a problem. I have no idea whether she's figured out yet that what Daddy says and what (BrE) Mummy says are both the same word, and her name. They say that a baby can recogni{s/z}e her/his name at four months old, but Grover doesn't particularly take notice when I call her name, so perhaps we've already done what Larkin said we'd do.
So, over to you, what rhymes have come between you and a speaker of another dialect?


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With the heat and humidity in full swing, this summer your air conditioner is putting in a greater amount of work. The best way to remain cool this summer is to stay on top of your unit's upkeep so you can be sure everything is working correctly. There are a few tips for you to ensure your air conditioner is working properly during the hotter season.
Keep the Area Around Unit Clear of Brush and Debris
Summer is prime time to mow your lawn, making it possible for grass clippings and other debris to accumulate outside of your air conditioner. This can cause a decline in system capacity and reduced airflow, resulting in your air conditioner working harder and ultimately wearing down faster. Be sure to frequently eliminate any debris around your unit so your air conditioner can last as long as possible.
Change or Clean the Air Filter
Frequently replacing or cleaning the air filters in your air conditioner will increase its efficiency. For any questions about which filter to purchase or how often you should change it, check the filter itself or feel free to contact the team at Temp Air System Inc. so we can advise based on your specific system. For certain filter sizes, we can check and replace them at your annual maintenance visit. It's important to know that if your air conditioner is in regular use, it's subject to dusty circumstances, or you have pets, your filter may need to be cleaned or changed more regularly.
Coil Care
Your air conditioner's coils collect dirt over time which eventually lowers airflow and insulates the coil making it challenging to absorb heat. The outdoor coils can become dirty if the surroundings are dusty or if there is nearby foliage. Coils can also bend, hindering airflow through the coil. Our team can check the coils at your annual maintenance visit to clean or straighten coils as appropriate.
Keep Up with Your Air Conditioner Maintenance
It is imperative to keep up with your regular air conditioner maintenance. The professionals at Temp Air System Inc. can look at your air conditioner to ensure everything is working correctly, keep coils and filters clean, and much more. Annual maintenance check-ups will help evade major breakdowns and keep your air conditioner operating as long as possible. Stay cool this summer by arranging your annual maintenance appointment so you can be confident that your air conditioner is working properly. Call us to schedule your maintenance visit today.


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Chromolithograph, from the book Aroideae Maximilianae, 1879
Stunning, unexpected and beautiful - Create a statement wall with real wow factor using ceramic tile wall murals. Fusing traditional ceramic techniques with the latest digital innovations, we 'high fire' your choice of image onto quality ceramic wall tiles. Ideal for introducing imagery and decoration to tiled areas to create unique feature walls, our ceramic tiles are suitable for both homes and public spaces.
Code: NYB0178
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Fortunately, the Bloomberg Administration isn't always clear on the concept when it comes to education (as opposed to crime). Bloomberg tends to appoint to education jobs people he and other billionaires consider world class (the guy who prosecuted Microsoft for antitrust, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines). Billionaires don't get together at Jackson Hole to talk about how to fight crime, so Bloomberg does a good job of that. But his billionaire pals have lots of bright ideas about fixing the public schools, so Bloomberg's more clueless education appointees frequently make illustrative mistakes by taking seriously the ideals they hear so much verbiage about, and fixing systems that aren't broken. Then, the upper crust parents who send their kids to public schools have to rebel, and arrangements that would otherwise remain quiet becomes local news.
A Policy Shift in Programs for the Gifted Is Abandoned
By AL BAKER
In a reversal, New York City school officials on Wednesday said they would continue their sibling-preference policy for gifted and talented programs that have more eligible students than seats.
Amid an explosion in the number of students who qualify for the seats, the city in October said it would end the policy as part of a raft of new changes to the program's admissions process. School officials at the time said their move would create a fairer system for its highest-performing pupils.
Silly school officials, thinking that "a fairer system" is what the people who matter in New York want for their kids.
But the idea is being abandoned until it can be analyzed more deeply, officials said, a reflection of just how combustible such tweaks can be for programs that serve just a sliver of the system's 1.1 million students but that are highly coveted by parents. ...
The announcement came three weeks before the start of admissions testing for the programs. Students must score in the 90th percentile on an admissions test to qualify for a district-level gifted program, and in the 97th percentile for one of the citywide programs, like the Anderson School or the Brooklyn School of Inquiry.
If there are more students who qualify for a gifted program than there are seats, students with a sibling in the program will be admitted first, as long as they obtain a qualifying score. Any remaining seats go to students without siblings in the program, based on who scores highest. The policy aims to keep young siblings together and avoid making parents take children to separate schools. But it also irked the many parents of students who, for example, scored in the 99th percentile, but lost out to other students who scored in the 97th percentile but had a sibling in the program.
So in the fall, the Education Department did away with the sibling preference "to make it fairer and more equitable for students scoring most high on these exams," Robert Sanft, the chief executive of the department's Office of Student Enrollment, said at the time.
The change drew equal parts praise and condemnation, as did the reversal on Wednesday.
... But Rachel Fremmer, who has a 7-year-old daughter in the gifted program at Public School 163, in Manhattan, and a 4-year-old daughter in preschool hoping to enroll there next year, was relieved. "It's great for us," she said. "A lot of families were desperate to have their children in the same school."


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Home > (SAMPLE HALF SHEET) Carrara Bianco Honed 3" Hexagon Bardiglio Strip Marble Mosaic Tile
"Amazing marble! Amazing packing! Not one piece of marble was broken in shipment. This is our second time ordering from The Builder Depot and both times have been a great experience. Other stores charge three times the price I paid for my bathroom tile. Cannot recommend highly enough!"


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Ceramic Head of Sicily h 40 mono blu male - Sofia Ceramiche artistic Ceramics
Rif: 12.MMN184c
Decor: Modellato Mono Blu
The product is available in the following sizes: 40 cm height.
Designed and decorated by hand.
Moorish Head
Made and decorated entirely by hand.
Ceramiche Sofia of brothers Intonato Nicola and Intonato Giuseppe is a company from Caltagirone (Sicily, ITALY) that produces art majolica. The manufacturing processes that lead to the creation of our ceramics are divided into six important phases: turning, drying, first firing, enamelling, decoration and aging.
For each of these phases we dedicate the utmost care to every detail so that the final product is the result of a unique work, inimitable and unchanged over time.
See the processing phases of our ceramics
The History of the Beautiful Sicilian Girl and the Legend of the Moor Head
The city most famous for making these heads is Caltagirone, near Catania. The legend of their origin comes from Palermo, though, in the district of Al Halisa (nowadays called La Kalsa).
A young lady, so the story goes, loved cultivating flowers on her balcony. One day a Moor passed below and became infatuated with her, declaring his undying love so beautifully that she, in turn, fell in love with him.
The story took a sinister twist when she found out he was married with children! Appalled at the deception and insult to her virtue, she cut his head off. Now, what to do with it? She decided it would make a perfect plant pot.
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Nuts are very healthy and have many essential minerals and nutrients that benefit your body. Many people eat them raw whereas, many people love to eat them roasted or cooked. You can eat them as a snack because it is ready to eat item. The best part is you can also use it to make various recipes such as Desserts, Biscuits, and Cakes etc. It is the fact that both raw and roasted nut have their own way to benefits the body, but it is the fact that roasted nut tends to be healthier than the raw one. Here is a difference between roasted vs. raw nuts that will help you to understand that which type is better for health.
- The Nutrients Value – Roasted nuts are usually being roasted in little oil and contain salt that can increase value of the sodium intake. It is the fact that roasted nuts are rich in calories as compared to raw nuts, so if you are looking for a weight gain then, roasted nuts can be your best choice.
- Taste Factor – Both types of nuts have their own different taste, but usually people like roasted nuts because it contains flavors. Raw nuts are simplistic in taste and sometimes a person gets bored by eating them. You can eat both of them as a snack as they both have their own unique taste and nutrition value.
- Bacteria – Raw nuts have the higher chances of bacterial attack whereas, bacteria cannot affect the roasted nuts easily. It is the fact that a huge amount or harmful bacteria get eliminate after the roasting process. The number of contaminates also get removed after the cleaning process of the nuts that makes them safe for our health.
- Chemical Process – Many manufacturers use the chemical method to roast the nuts, so it is very important to buy it from a trustworthy manufacturer to get the good quality product. Chemical harms the nutrition of the nuts and makes them tasteless because of which many people opt for raw nuts rather than the roasted one.
These are some differences between raw and roasted nuts. Both are good for health,so you can choose according to your taste and preferences. It is very important to buy the nuts from a good supplier to get fresh and premium products. Both roasted and raw nut are healthy in nature and they are available at a very affordable price, so one can easily buy them. Make sure to buy from a good manufacturer as a good one will always deliver you the fresh and pure products.


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Detached House
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Size: 1824 sq. ft.
Bedrooms: 3
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Biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803- April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, poet, and philosopher. Emerson is known as one of the leaders of the transcendentalist movement, which reached its height in mid-19th century New England. With its emphasis on the dignity of the individual, equality, hard work, and respect for nature, Emerson's work remains influential and pertinent to this day.
After studying at Harvard and teaching for a brief time, Emerson entered the ministry. He was appointed to the Old Second Church in his native city, but soon became an unwilling preacher. Unable in conscience to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after the death of his nineteen-year-old wife of tuberculosis, Emerson resigned his pastorate in 1831.
The following year, he sailed for Europe, visiting Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Carlyle, the Scottish-born English writer, was famous for his explosive attacks on hypocrisy and materialism, his distrust of democracy, and his highly romantic belief in the power of the individual. Emerson's friendship with Carlyle was both lasting and significant; the insights of the British thinker helped Emerson formulate his own philosophy.
On his return to New England, Emerson became known for challenging traditional thought. In 1835, he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson, and settled in Concord, Massachusetts. Known in the local literary circle as "The Sage of Concord," Emerson became the chief spokesman for Transcendentalism, the American philosophic and literary movement. Centered in New England during the 19th century, Transcendentalism was a reaction against scientific rationalism.
Emerson's first book, Nature (1836), is perhaps the best expression of his Transcendentalism, the belief that everything in our world—even a drop of dew—is a microcosm of the universe. His concept of the Over-Soul—a Supreme Mind that every man and woman share—allowed Transcendentalists to disregard external authority and to rely instead on direct experience. "Trust thyself," Emerson's motto, became the code of Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and W. E. Channing. From 1842 to 1844, Emerson edited the Transcendentalist journal, The Dial.
Emerson wrote a poetic prose, ordering his essays by recurring themes and images. His poetry, on the other hand, is often called harsh and didactic. Among Emerson's most well known works are Essays, First and Second Series (1841, 1844). The First Series includes Emerson's famous essay, "Self-Reliance," in which the writer instructs his listener to examine his relationship with Nature and God, and to trust his own judgment above all others.
Emerson's other volumes include Poems (1847), Representative Men (1850), The Conduct of Life (1860), and English Traits (1865). His best-known addresses are The American Scholar (1837) and The Divinity School Address, which he delivered before the graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, shocking Boston's conservative clergymen with his descriptions of the divinity of man and the humanity of Jesus.
Emerson's philosophy is characterized by its reliance on intuition as the only way to comprehend reality, and his concepts owe much to the works of Plotinus, Swedenborg, and Böhme. A believer in the "divine sufficiency of the individual," Emerson was a steady optimist. His refusal to grant the existence of evil caused Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry James, Sr., among others, to doubt his judgment. In spite of their skepticism, Emerson's beliefs are of central importance in the history of American culture.
Ralph Waldo Emerson died of pneumonia on April 27, 1882.
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Art
- Circles
- Divinity School Address
- Friendship
- Goethe; or, the Writer
- Heroism
- History
- Intellect
- Life of Emerson
- Literary Ethics
- Love
- Man the Reformer
- Prudence
- Self-Reliance
- Shakspeare; or, the Poet
- Spiritual Laws
- The American Scholar
- The Method of Nature


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A Daughter Remembers Her 'Entertainer' Father.
Margaret Talbot tells the story of her father, actor Lyle Talbot, in her memoir The Entertainer. He began his career as an assistant to a traveling hypnotist, and went on to star in movies with Shirley Temple and Humphrey Bogart — and played next-door neighbor Joe Randolph on Ozzie and Harriet.
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Other segments from the episode on November 21, 2012
November 21, 2012
Guest: Margaret Talbot
TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. If you look up Lyle Talbot on IMDB, you'll find dozens of films and TV shows he appeared in, starting with the 1931 short "The Nightingale" and ending with roles on "Newhart" and "Who's the Boss?" Talbot made a movie with Bogart before Bogart was a star. He worked with a sexed-up Mae West and the child star Shirley Temple, and he was featured in the cheesy Ed Wood cult classics "Plan Nine from Outer Space" and "Glen or Glenda?"
He played Lex Luther in Superman serials, and he had the recurring role in "Ozzie and Harriet" as Ozzie's friend and neighbor Joe Randolph. My guest is Lyle Talbot's daughter Margaret Talbot, a staff writer for the New Yorker. She's written a new book about her father called "The Entertainer" that's kind of a history of 20th-century entertainment told through his life.
Before he went to Hollywood, he was a carnival barker, a hypnotist's assistant and a performer in touring theater. Let's start with a scene from "Ozzie and Harriet." Talbot, playing the neighbor Joe, has just knocked on Ozzie's door.
OZZIE NELSON: (As Ozzie) Oh hi, Joe.
LYLE TALBOT: (As Joe) Hi, Oz. Close the door, will you?
NELSON: (As Ozzie) What's the matter?
TALBOT: (As Joe) Clara's on her way over here, and there's something I want to talk to you about before she gets here.
NELSON: (As Ozzie) You have nothing to worry about. I solemnly swear that you were with me at the bowling alley until 12 o'clock last night.
TALBOT: (As Joe) Ozzie, I was home in bed.
NELSON: (As Ozzie) Oh I'm sorry, I can't swear to that.
TALBOT: (As Joe) Listen to me, please. Clara's liable to be here any minute.
NELSON: (As Ozzie) OK, what's your problem?
TALBOT: (As Joe) Well, I just thought you might want to have a little talk with Ricky and sort of put him on his guard.
NELSON: (As Ozzie) On his guard against what? What's this all about?
TALBOT: (As Joe) If you'll stop interrupting me and let me finish a sentence, maybe you'll find out.
NELSON: (As Ozzie) I'm not interrupting you. You say something and stop, and I figure it's my turn.
TALBOT: (As Joe) Well, she wants to arrange a date with Ricky.
NELSON: (As Ozzie) Ricky and Clara?
TALBOT: (As Joe) (Unintelligible).
NELSON: (As Ozzie) You say something ridiculous, and then you stop.
TALBOT: (As Joe) Well, only to catch my breath. Now where was I?
NELSON: (As Ozzie) Have you been drinking?
TALBOT: (As Joe) No, do you want to hear this, or don't you?
NELSON: (As Ozzie) Of course I do, but get to the point, something about Ricky and Clara.
TALBOT: (As Joe) Yeah, well, anyway, Clara has this niece who's coming down to visit us for a few days. You know how women are. She wants to arrange a date between Ricky and the girl. Her name's Shirley(ph), maybe you remember her.
NELSON: (As Ozzie) Yeah, it seems to me I do. Yeah, last time I saw her, she was about this high. I think we've still got a couple of pictures of her wrestling around on the lawn with Rick.
TALBOT: (As Joe) Well, of course we're not allowing any of that this time.
GROSS: That's Lyle Talbot and Ozzie Nelson in a scene from "Ozzie and Harriet." Margaret Talbot, welcome to FRESH AIR. So one of the things that I found really surprising in your book was that you had family members in the two shows that a lot of people thought of as defining what the white, middle-class suburban family was like in the late '50s and early '60s.
Your father was the next-door neighbor in "Ozzie and Harriet," and your brother, Steve Talbot, played Beaver's friend Gilbert in "Leave it to Beaver." So did you watch these shows when you were young, and did they seem like that's what families were supposed to be?
MARGARET TALBOT: Yeah, I watched them later. I was born in 1961, so I watched them often in reruns, and they'd been on in reruns for many, many years. And it used to really surprise me, for one thing, that people would recognize my brother Steve, who went on to be a documentary filmmaker, was not an actor but would recognize him from his voice, I think, because those shows were such iconic shows for kids in the '50s and early '60s.
But yes, my brother and dad would, sort of, go off in the morning to work, you know, in the family station wagon, my dad wearing his requisite cardigan, which he did wear around the house, and, you know, Joe and Ozzie were always wearing at home. They spent a lot of time at home in those '50s television shows. They really never seemed to work.
But he did go off to work making these shows, and as you say, these kind of representations of ideal suburban families, and that kind of supported our suburban family in the '50s and '60s. And then my brother, yeah, was the sidekick on the "Beaver" show at the same time.
GROSS: And your brother, you say, went on to become a leader of SDS, the radical student group at Wesleyan University in the late '60s, pretty funny.
TALBOT: That's right, that's right, yeah, and it was a source of real embarrassment for him there. He was always trying to get, you know, fellow students to go out on strike against the war, and people would unfurl these big banners that said gee, Beav, I don't know, because that was one of his lines in the show.
TALBOT: Yeah, yeah, he played it pretty low-key for a long time.
GROSS: So I mean, your father - your family was automatically different from, you know, the sitcom families because your father was, you know, not only in show business, but he was much older than the other fathers that you grew up around. Your father was close to 60 when you were born and nearly 80 when you graduated from high school. That's maybe more common today than it was then, but even today that would be considered, you know, reasonably old for...
TALBOT: Yes.
GROSS: Yeah, so what impact did it have on you to have a father who was that much older than the other fathers?
TALBOT: You know, yeah, it did feel - you know, when you're a kid, difference embarrasses you sometimes. So I think there were times when I felt a little embarrassed when people would ask if he was my grandfather. And he was very vain and didn't like that question. But mostly it was actually a really positive thing for me because he had this kind of gallantry about him, which I associate with an earlier era and maybe with older men.
And it was quite lovely. I was his youngest, and he had a lifestyle at that point, where he was doing a lot of theater and going out on the road a lot, but when he was home, he was really a stay-at-home dad, very domestic in a way that was unusual for the '60s and '70s. He cooked my breakfasts and made me lunch and took me to school. So we spent a lot of time together, and he told me a lot of stories about showbiz, which, you know, eventually became the basis for this book.
So I actually really valued it and, kind of, after a while, as I became really fascinated by history, loved the fact that I had this very kind of vital living link to the past that I really, sort of, treasured, you know - that he would use terms like, you know, calling movies, well, pictures and talkies and that he - you know, and used terms to compliment my sister and I like you look very smart, you know, which I - which was to me a very sort of '30s, you know, kind of compliment.
So when I came to really value that as I came to value, you know, language and particular areas of language and history, as I say.
GROSS: Let's talk about show business as seen through your father's eyes and through the research you did in researching your father and his times. So your father starts off in show business at the Walter Savage Amusement Company, a job that his father and step-mother helped him get. What was this amusement company?
TALBOT: It was a touring carnival that toured, you know, really, primarily in Nebraska and had, you know, all kinds of sideshows of the kind that you can, you know, you can imagine and have read about. You know, the ape man and, you know, the fat lady. And then it also had - they put on theatrical productions, as well. They performed in a big tent, and, of course, since this was in tornado territory, the tent frequently blew down.
And they traveled from town to town. They had their own train, quite a splendid train, and they were, you know, a very, very big deal for the little towns that they went to because they were the primary form of entertainment, and they were looked forward to, year after year, you know, with great anticipation.
GROSS: What was your father's job at this amusement company?
TALBOT: Well, he had a couple of different jobs. Mainly he started off as a barker and worked at the Kewpie doll stand, and then he later picked up other work as a magician's assistant. And then, ultimately, his first, sort of, I guess you'd call it real break in showbiz was leaving that amusement company and being hired by a traveling hypnotist named McKnight(ph).
And he became kind of a shill in the audience for that guy. And his main role, and this was his big moment, was that he would rocks broken on his chest. He would volunteer from the audience, he would come up, he would lie between two chairs, and then McKnight would ask - would put him into a deep slumber, supposedly, although my father said actually he never was hypnotized and couldn't be. He wanted to be, he tried, but he couldn't be.
And McKnight would invite a guy, a man up from the audience who was a local strongman, you know, a blacksmith or something, and he would wield a mallet and break the rock on his chest and, you know, supposedly Lyle would be asleep through this entire thing.
GROSS: My God, what was it like for your father to actually have the rock broken on his chest?
TALBOT: Well, you know, he was very game, and he would always say, you know, well, you know, it's a matter of science. You know - I think this is what the hypnotist must have told him, you know, it's the principle of the thing. If I were lying flat on the floor, you know, then of course it would have been terrible, but, you know, because I was suspended between these two chairs, you know, my body would give, and it as resilient, and I was all right.
But actually when I did research on this book and on this kind of hypnotism craze that was sweeping the country at that time, I found that that was a pretty common trick, but that people, you know, not surprisingly were injured and even killed doing it. So it wasn't quite the, you know, lighthearted party trick that my father made it out to be.
GROSS: Yeah, there were a lot of traveling hypnotists then. You know, it was a fairly common act. Hey, I remember back in the Catskills, at the nightclubs in the Catskills, like in the '50s and early '60s, there were still hypnotists there.
TALBOT: Well yeah, and there was actually - in L.A. for many years there was this woman, I believe her name was Pat Collins, she was known as the Hip Hypnotist.
TALBOT: And it was - I think it was on Sunset, maybe on the Sunset Strip, and it was popular club that people went to. So yeah, hypnotists did continue to - you know, there continued to be stage hypnotists. But I got really fascinated when I was doing the book, looking into this era where my father was active, in the teens and '20s, that there was, yeah, this hypnotism craze so that there were all these, you know, worried headlines in the papers about how an army of itinerant Svengalis was sweeping the country.
And it became a big explanation for, basically, wayward youth. You know, so I think at the time, you know, people were running away to the cities, young people. And, you know, when you looked for an explanation, people would often attribute it to a hypnotist luring them away.
GROSS: There's a great headline that you reprint in your chapter on hypnotism. And a lot of hypnotists would travel with their wives, and they would do the whole I'm burying her alive bit, and then she'd be able to kind of survive being buried alive and come back out when he unburied her.
And there was one city that wanted to prevent this from happening, because they thought it was just, it was wrong and dangerous. But they couldn't find an ordinance that actually forbid such a thing. So the headline in the paper was hypnotist has right to bury wife alive.
TALBOT: Yeah, I love that, I love that.
GROSS: Yeah, that was really great. If you're just joining us, my guest is writer Margaret Talbot. She's a staff writer for The New Yorker. Now she has a new memoir about her father, Lyle Talbot, the actor, and the book is called "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's 20th Century." And it's about the world of show business as seen through her father's eyes. Let's take a short break here, then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Margaret Talbot. She's a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of a new memoir about her father, the actor Lyle Talbot. The book is called "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's 20th Century." And early in his career, Lyle Talbot worked in a carnival. He was a hypnotist's assistant. He was in theater. Then he was in the movies and towards the end of his career worked on "Ozzie and Harriet," as Ozzie's next-door neighbor.
Your father started his own theater company after a while, and this was a time when movies were starting to overtake theater. And then an agent suggested he should come to Hollywood and audition. And by this time it's the Depression, it's hard to work. And - so he goes to Hollywood in 1932. What was Hollywood like when he arrived?
TALBOT: Well, he used to describe it to me as being like a small town, and I really didn't understand this growing up in Los Angeles, but, you know, it is true. It was really isolated. You know, at a time before commercial jet travel, when you were, you know, would have to take a train to the East Coast and a journey of at least five days. And, you know, there was also just a feeling - it had always been called the movie colony, you know, when actors in the silent era first started coming out there.
And there was a small, actually rather, you know, religious agricultural community in Hollywood that had been founded by a couple called the Wilcox's, and again, a lot of disapproval of actors when they first came to Hollywood. And they would be referred to as the colony. So it had this feeling of being, kind of, unto itself, kind of isolated.
And so he remembers it as being - you know, Hollywood Boulevard was like the main street. You know, you went to the same barbershop, you went to the same tailor, you ran into everyone you knew. You know, you waited for Greta Garbo to leave the men's tailor shop where she was getting her pantsuit, you know, fitted before you went in.
And, you know, but it was a kind of an atmosphere that he, I think, loved and felt nostalgic for.
GROSS: So your father was signed to the Warner studio, and this was before the code. This was before the Hays Code that regulated what was moral in movies. So what could you do in the movies of your father's era, the era that he arrives in Hollywood, that you couldn't do just a few years later?
TALBOT: They call it the pre-code era, and it's the early '30s to 1934. And it - the code was actually in effect, but it was a period when the producers were just willfully ignoring it. And so the movies of that era tend to be a little racier, a little more cynical, less likely to have the good clearly triumphing, and more likely to have some sort of ethnic stereotypes but also more of a sense of ethnicity with some, you know, Yiddish words thrown in and that kind of thing.
GROSS: So one of your favorite films that your father was in from that period is the 1932 movie "Three on a Match," and this featured Bette Davis, Joan Blondell and Ann Dvorak. And they played, like, three young women who light their cigarettes using the same match, three on a match, and they discuss the superstition that this is going to bring them bad luck, which it does.
And Dvorak ends up leaving her husband for the character played by your father, Lyle Talbot, and then she becomes addicted to coke and throws herself out the window.
TALBOT: Yeah.
GROSS: So here's the scene where Ann Dvorak and your father meet.
TALBOT: (As Michael Loftus) You're a funny one. I can't figure you out.
ANN DVORAK: (As Vivian Revere) Why not? What's so funny?
TALBOT: (As Michael) I can tell you're a real woman, not one of those stuffed brassieres you see on Park Avenue. You've got all the works that make a woman want to go, and live and love, but you're only making passes that'll never get you anywhere.
DVORAK: (As Vivian) How do you know what I do?
TALBOT: (As Michael) I can tell. Say, you don't know what life is.
DVORAK: (As Vivian) But I suppose you could show me. I never met a man yet who didn't ask to try.
TALBOT: (As Michael) Yeah, well listen, you keep on stalling and backing away, and then someday they'll quit asking you.
DVORAK: (As Vivian) Oh, I'm getting too old, is that it?
TALBOT: (As Michael) Oh darling, I didn't say that. Why, to me you're the most marvelous girl in the world.
DVORAK: (As Vivian) But you don't know me. We've only met tonight.
TALBOT: (As Michael) Oh tonight, in an hour, 10 years, what's the difference? It's now that matters. Vivian, don't turn your back on life. Take it. Take it while you can.
GROSS: So that's Lyle Talbot and Ann Dvorak in the film "Three on a Match" from 1932. My guest Margaret Talbot has written a new memoir about her father and his era in show business, it's called "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's 20th Century."
So as we mentioned, that was a pre-code movie. After the code, would your father have been able to call certain women stuffed brassieres?
TALBOT: No.
TALBOT: No, definitely not. And also as you say, Ann Dvorak goes on to a pretty obvious drug addiction, and that's part of her downfall in the movie, and drug addiction was a theme - also kidnapping. There's child kidnapping in this movie, and even though it was quite soon after the Lindbergh kidnapping, and that was a theme you could not see in movies for many, many years, really probably until the '60s or '70s.
GROSS: So why is this one of your favorites that your father's in?
TALBOT: Well for one thing, it's just got everything in it. It's got that Warner Brothers, you know, timely, topical, torn-from-the-headlines kind of energy and verve to it. And, you know, it's got - it's got gangsters, it's got sex, it's got, you know, drugs. And the performances are really good.
I love Ann Dvorak. And I think for me it was - you know, I guess it was the height of my father's own attractions in a certain way. So it was kind of interesting to see he's a very seductive character in this movie, although he's also - and this I think was a role he played very well - he's also kind of a - he turns to crime, and he's a weak-willed kind of playboy character who has a conscience but is sucked into a life of crime.
And he did that kind of character quite well, I think, so I really enjoy him in this movie.
GROSS: Was your father weak-willed as a man?
TALBOT: I think he had certain weaknesses, yes. I mean, he had a long-term, major alcohol problem that he eventually resolved quite resoundingly and successfully when he started a family with my mother. But that was a long time coming. And, I don't know, I guess was it a weakness for women? He certainly loved women. He had many, many girlfriends.
And in the course of writing this book, I discovered he'd had four wives before my mother. We'd always been a little vague in my family about the number of times that he had been married.
TALBOT: So I was able to nail that down and was a little surprised by the number. So I think yeah, for a long time - he particularly liked really live-wire women, I think, some of whom were, you know, sort of tough, stubborn, mouthy types. And that got him into a certain amount of trouble. He finally found one in my mother who was also incredibly sweet and decent. So that worked, but before then, I think he had some - I guess we would call them hot messes today, but, sort of, very high-maintenance girlfriends and wives.
GROSS: Margaret Talbot will be back in the second half of the show. Her new book about her late father, the actor Lyle Talbot, is called "The Entertainer." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Margaret Talbot, a staff writer for The New Yorker. Her new book "The Entertainer," uses the life of her father, the actor Lyle Talbot, to tell the story of 20th century showbiz. He never became a star, but he made dozens of films, starting in the early '30s. He worked with Humphrey Bogart before Bogart was a star. He played Lex Luther in "Superman" serials. He costarred in Ed Wood's cult films "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and "Glen or Glenda," and on "Ozzie and Harriet," he was Ozzie's neighbor Joe Randolph.
So, you know, we heard your father in a scene from the 1932 film "Three On A Match," a film that, you know, had, you know, drugs and adultery and crime and so on; a pre-code film. Let's compare that to a 1935 film that your father made with Shirley Temple.
TALBOT: OK. Sure.
GROSS: The child star. And this is called "Our Little Girl." And what's the premise of this film, Margaret?
TALBOT: Well, in this movie actually there is a threatened affair because her - Shirley Temple's parents - her father is played by Joel McCrea, and Joel McCrea is a hardworking doctor, who's working on, of course, you know, a cure for something - we don't know what exactly- and spending a lot of time at the office. And so his wife is getting a little restless and she has a flirtation with a character played by my father, who is, you know, that he's a sort of a European playboy type because his name is Rolfe...
TALBOT: ...and he seems to have a lot of time to go horseback riding during the day. So he is kind of a ne'er-do-well. So there's a flirtation and it's really, the whole movie is about a threatened flirtation, or threatening flirtation, and Shirley Temple, their little girl, kind of thwarting it. So nothing really happens, unlike very much unlike "Three On A Match." Yeah.
GROSS: OK. So this is a scene where your father in the role of Rolfe.
GROSS: Drives up in his car, opens the gate and says hello to Shirley Temple, who is on the front lawn there.
TALBOT: And her name is Molly.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) Hello, Molly.
SHIRLEY TEMPLE: (as Molly Middleton) Hello.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) Well, what's wrong?
TEMPLE: (as Molly Middleton) I don't like (unintelligible) stuff, except for my dad.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) But he's not here just now, Molly. Won't I'd do?
TEMPLE: (as Molly Middleton) You don't know how a daddy does.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) Well, maybe I could learn.
TEMPLE: (as Molly Middleton) It's very hard to learn, sir.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) Well, look here. Let's have a try. Let's pretend that I'm the daddy and you're the little girl.
TEMPLE: (as Molly Middleton) I am the little girl.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) Well, all right. We're just pretending. Now here I come. Now there, young lady, you give me an account of yourself. Any cuts, pains, bumps?
TEMPLE: (as Molly Middleton) That's not like a daddy.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) No? Well, why not?
TEMPLE: As Molly Middleton) You were laughing. You're supposed to laugh inside. But if you laugh outside that spoils it.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) Oh, Molly. Why don't you like me, Molly? I like you. I like you and your mother and your daddy.
TEMPLE: (as Molly Middleton) I don't care. We don't like you. We wish you'd go away and never come back.
TALBOT: (as Rolfe Brent) Who is we, Molly? Your mother? Are you sure?
GROSS: That's Shirley Temple with Lyle Talbot, the late father of my guest, Margaret Talbot, who has just written a memoir about him and his show business career called, "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century."
How did your father like opposite, acting opposite Shirley Temple?
TALBOT: He actually really enjoyed it because he liked kids and he thought she was - as people always say about her - that she was a total pro. And she made one of her first, her first autographs that she wrote in cursive - she had just learned cursive - to him, to Uncle Lyle, which is a picture I have at home. I hated that particular scene when I was a little girl because I, I used to watch Shirley Temple movies and loved them, kind of at an age when you still don't quite get the difference between, you know, your father in acting in a movie and your father. So the idea that she would tell him that he didn't know how a daddy does it was very offensive to me. And I, 'cause actually, my dad was quite a doting dad. So the idea that, you know, his daddiness was being questioned was bothersome to me at that age.
GROSS: I like it when Shirley Temple says, I am the little girl.
TALBOT: Yeah, she's very good at it. She's very, she's quite believable.
GROSS: So we have to talk about your father's work with Ed Wood.
TALBOT: Mm-hmm.
GROSS: Ed Wood was considered maybe like the most inept filmmaker in Hollywood history. But, you know, it's a fascinating story. So fascinating that a movie was made based on his life...
TALBOT: Mm-hmm.
GROSS: ...with Johnny Depp playing Ed Wood.
TALBOT: Right. Mm-hmm.
GROSS: Who directed that?
TALBOT: Right. By Tim Burton. Tim Burton. Mm-hmm.
GROSS: Tim Burton. Right. Yeah. Of course. So he did "Plan 9 from Outer Space," a science-fiction film, considered to be among the worst science-fiction films. Because it's, the acting always is very stiff, everything about it is incredibly cheap, the writing and the stories are very, like kind of over-the-top. So your father was a...
TALBOT: And they don't make a lot of internal sense either. That's it.
GROSS: Yes. Thank you. Yes.
TALBOT: Yeah.
GROSS: So your father was in three of Ed Wood's films, "Plan 9 from Outer Space"...
TALBOT: Mm-hmm. "Glen or Glenda."
GROSS: "Glen or Glenda." Yes. And what was the third one? "Jailbait."
TALBOT: "Jailbait." Mm-hmm.
GROSS: So let's hear a clip from "Glen or Glenda." But first, I want you to set up the plot, which is a very surprising plot for the year the film was made, which was 1953.
TALBOT: Yes. Well, Ed Wood wanted to make a movie about the transsexual Christine Jorgensen, who had just, you know, had her sex change operation. And Christine Jorgensen didn't give him permission to tell her story, so he made another, he made a movie "Glen or Glenda," that kind of - well, it's about a cross-dresser. And it's kind of a plea for understanding of cross-dressers and people who have may be different, you know, gender identities. So in that sense it's, you know, although again, there are moments of it that make absolutely no sense, there is a consistent sympathy for her gender nonconforming people, I would say.
GROSS: so this is a scene in which her father, Lyle Talbot, is playing Inspector Warren. He's just handled the suicide of a transvestite, who has taken his life because he's been persecuted by society. So your father, Inspector Warren, goes to a psychiatrist to see if he could learn more about the mind of a transvestite. And the psychiatrist, Dr. Alton, is played by Timothy Farrell.
TALBOT: (as Inspector Warren) Doctor? I'm hoping to learn something from you, and with that knowledge, maybe save some human from a fate which I just witnessed a few days ago - a four-time loser. This type of case comes to me as well, as yourself, many times during the course of one month.
TIMOTHY FARRELL: (as Dr. Alton) The suicide?
TALBOT: (as Inspector Warren) The suicide.
FARRELL: (as Dr. Alton) Most of us have our idiosyncrasies.
TALBOT: (as Inspector Warren) This fellow's was quite pronounced.
FARRELL: (as Dr. Alton) Yes. But I wonder if it rated the death warrant it received.
TALBOT: (as Inspector Warren) Well, that's why I'm here today, doctor. What do we do about it?
FARRELL: (as Dr. Alton) I've always heard you to be a hardhearted policeman, Inspector.
TALBOT: (as Inspector Warren) Isn't that was thought up most policeman? The laws are written. A policeman is hired to see that those laws are enforced. We have a job to do. As in most jobs, there's always somebody who doesn't want that job to be done. In most factories today, the employer has put up suggestion boxes. Even the employer needs advice once in a while. I think in the case that we're referring to, I need advice. Maybe it shouldn't have happened as it did, but it did. Perhaps the next time we can prevent it.
FARRELL: (as Dr. Alton) Get our story straight. You're referring to the suicide of the transvestite?
TALBOT: (as Inspector Warren) If that's the word you men of medical science use for a man who wears women's clothing, yes.
GROSS: So Margaret Talbot, how did your father, Lyle Talbot, end up in "Glen or Glenda?"
TALBOT: Well, so this was kind of a low period in his career and he had - was having a lot of problems with drinking, and was not under contract anywhere at the time. Had met Ed Wood went Ed Wood was sort of a gopher on a Universal picture that my father had made some years before, and Ed would have said to him at the time, you know, you're my favorite actor and someday I'm going to make movies and I'm going to put you in them. So he called him up out of the blue, invited him to be in a couple of movies. My father decided to take him up on it. Ed Wood would pay him at the end of the day in crumpled up bills that he would draw out of his pocket, but he paid him everyday. They would film all over town, but never with any permission, so they were always being chased off of - chased out of, you know, alleys in Hollywood.
But my father always just described him as kind of a sweet, peppy guy - much as he's portrayed by Johnny Depp in the Tim Burton movie; a guy who really, really believed in what he was doing, had no sense of irony about it himself. Was quite sincere.
GROSS: So your father got a chance to see these movies before signing on to make more of them with Ed Wood?
TALBOT: I don't think he ever watched them, quite honestly.
GROSS: Oh, really? Oh, OK.
TALBOT: Yeah. We never watch them growing up and my father never talked about them. You know, when the Johnny Depp movie came out and there was this kind of resurgence of interest in Ed Wood, then my father, you know, sort of the ever the accommodating showman and interviewee, was sort of happy to talk to people about them. But a kind of wonderingly, I mean, couldn't, couldn't believe that these movies have been resurrected and that there was interest in them, but did have these recollections.
GROSS: My guest is Margaret Talbot. Her new book about her father, the actor Lyle Talbot, is called "The Entertainer."
More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: Let's get back to my interview with Margaret Talbot. Her new book, "The Entertainer," is about her late father, the actor Lyle Talbot. When we left off, we were talking about playing in inspector in the 1953 cult film about a transsexual, "Glen or Glenda," which was written and directed by Ed Wood.
You have a great story in your memoir about the night that Ed Wood stayed at your parent's home.
TALBOT: Yes. So, my father, you know, was really a very tolerant guy in many ways, but didn't kind of know a whole lot about cross-dressing and transvestism or transgender, I would say, and one night after a premiere of an Ed Wood movie - and you can imagine what kind of event that might have been - but I - he came home with my dad. They were driving together, but Ed Wood was drunk and couldn't remember where he lived, or couldn't tell my dad. So my dad said, well, you can sleep it off in the car outside. Went inside the apartment and my mother was there, who was, you know, 26 years younger, and a somewhat innocent person, I would say, at that point, and they had the two little boys, my two brothers. And my mother, who is very soft-hearted, said, oh don't leave him out there on the street; have him come in and he can sleep in here. He can take our room, and we'll sleep in the boys' room.
So in the morning, the family was sitting around having pancakes with the little boys, and out comes Ed Wood, and he's wearing my mother's negligee and a bra that he had found evidently, hanging on the back of the bathroom door. And that actually, that was it for my dad. He did order him to leave at that point. My mother I think was shocked, but knowing her, probably laughed a little, too. I mean, you know, so he actually never saw Ed Wood again after that.
GROSS: So the outre of "Glen and Glenda" was into cross-dressing himself?
TALBOT: Yes. That's right. He was. He used to say he had been a Marine and fought at Guadalcanal and he used to say that he wore, you know, satin undies, red satin or pink satin undies under his uniform. But, yes, he was a cross-dresser. He was particularly into Angora sweaters. And I guess my father had not realized that the movie was quite so autobiographical.
GROSS: Right. Your father is such a, was such an interesting mix of famous and not famous. He's in, like, lots of movies. Many are those movies are movies most people have never heard of. He was sometimes the leading man, but often one of the, you know, character actors, secondary actors. And then, you know, so after the war he's in serials. He's in "Batman and Robin" serials, playing Commissioner Gordon. In "Superman" serials, he's Lex Luther. So everybody seeing these serials, but they're not kind of walking out talking about Lyle Talbot.
TALBOT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
GROSS: So can you talk about that a little bit about that - his placed in Hollywood, you know, of having a lot of work, being kind of well known, I mean I grew up knowing that name but I wouldn't have been able to recognize him.
TALBOT: Right. Right. yeah. That was the kind of actor he was. And there are, you know, that's a group of people. And, you know, he, I think took actually a lot of pride in having been somebody who never have to take another kind of job, you know, never had to sell real estate or work as a waiter or whatever, you know, people do in Hollywood to make - teach yoga, they would do today, but whatever people do on the side to make it work. He was able to act, you know, to work in his chosen field which he loved all of his life.
And, you know, I think when you work in a system like that, that has such an obvious star hierarchy, hierarchy of stars, you know, a lot of people become very bitter, of course, if they have a moment where it seems like they might break through - he did have a moment in the very early '30s - and then they don't. They don't make it to the stratosphere or anywhere near it.
That can be, you know, that can really put some people off their life course and really ruin their lives. For my father, I think he took the attitude I am so lucky to be able to work in this field, in this creative field that I love, and do it and raise a family and have this kind of middle-class life as a working actor. So he, I think, came to feel that.
And I think he, you know, there are a certain number of points you get in acting or in Hollywood, in many fields, I think for just sticking around and he did. You know, he acted until he was in his 90s.
GROSS: So is there any one thing you'd most like to ask your father about his career that it's too late to ask?
TALBOT: No, there isn't, actually. I would've liked to ask about his feelings about some of his former wives, actually. And I sometimes dreamed that I was asking him that and he was answering me. But I feel like I was able to explore his film career pretty thoroughly, partly through these amazing scrapbooks that he left with so many reviews and clips that would be hard to find today, I think.
GROSS: Margaret Talbot, thank you so much for talking with us.
TALBOT: Thank you. My pleasure.
GROSS: And have a Happy Thanksgiving.
TALBOT: Thank you.
GROSS: Margaret Talbot's new book about her father Lyle Talbot is called "The Entertainer." You can read an excerpt on our website freshair.npr.org. Coming up, Kevin Whitehead reviews a new Bessie Smith box set. This is FRESH AIR.
TERRY GROSS, HOST: In the 1920s, journalists and press agents dubbed Bessie Smith The Empress of the Blues and no one contested the title. She was first among the era's great women blues shouters. Her demise in the late '30s inspired Edward Albee's historically dubious play "The Death of Bessie Smith." Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says her art always seemed larger than life size.
BESSIE SMITH: (Singing) When it rains five days and the sky turns dark as night, when it rains five days and the sky turns dark as night, then trouble's taking place in the low lands at night. I woke up this morning...
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Bessie Smith "Back Water Blues" recorded shortly before the 1927 floods that devastated the Mississippi River Valley. She'd written it in sympathy with flood victims she'd encountered near Cincinnati months earlier, whom, the story goes, asked her to bear witness to their pain. Even so, having a song ready for folks along the Mississippi just when they needed some empathy speaks to her mythic power - her ability to give voice to her listeners' tribulations and yearnings.
SMITH: (Singing) When it thunders and lightning and the wind begins to blow, when it thunders and lightning and the wind begins to blow, there's thousands of people ain't got no place to go. And I...
WHITEHEAD: James P. Johnson on piano. In the 1920s, Bessie Smith was a colossus who straddled jazz and blues. For all the acclaim she still gets, over time she's been marginalized a bit in either field - like she's too jazzy for blues people and vice versa.
But Smith played a decisive role in shaping early jazz. Horn players who worked with her learned a lot about bluesy feeling and inflections, a raspy vocalized sound and the economical statement. She helped brass players in particular to find their own individual styles, as personal as singing voices.
SMITH: (Singing) I went up on the mountain, as high as any gal could stand. And looked down on that engine that took away my love in May, and that's the reason I've got those weeping willow blues.
WHITEHEAD: Bessie Smith, 1924, with two favorite accompanists - cornetist Joe Smith and trombonist Charlie Green from pianist Fletcher Henderson's band. The horn players who answered her plaintive phrases might respond with sympathy, mockery or sarcastic sweetness; they stretched their own rhetorical range. She found Louis Armstrong a little too aggressive in support, more in it for himself. But he and Bessie sound great together on the "St. Louis Blues." Fred Longshaw's wheezy harmonium conjures up a little country church.
SMITH: (Singing) Feeling tomorrow like I feel today. Feeling tomorrow like I feel today. I'll pack my grip and make my getaway. St. Louis...
WHITEHEAD: This music is from a 10 CD box, "Bessie Smith: The Complete Columbia Recordings," which is to say all her recordings spanning 1923 to '33. There are many less daunting Smith compilations around, but the remastered sound here is mostly quiet and clear, and immersing yourself in her sides helps you get past the primitive recording to the music itself. Tracking her session by session, you hear her style evolve.
SMITH: (Singing) Don't care where he is. Don't care what he does. All my love is here. He's my only one. Ah, my slow and easy man.
WHITEHEAD: As a live performer, Smith was famous for bellowing to a theater's back rows and balcony. But by the later 1920s, she'd learned how to use the recording studio. She could lower the volume without diminishing her power. This is the Bessie Smith who influenced the young Billie Holiday, whose own early sides a few years later have a similar playful quality.
SMITH: (Singing) Miss him, yeah, in town. Miss him everywhere. He's the only man that can make me care. Ah, my slow and easy man.
WHITEHEAD: Even modernized a bit, Smith's blues began sounding old fashioned by the end of the 1920s. Her recording career was almost over. The Great Depression didn't help. But she left the music very different from when she began recording. She no longer had to coax musicians into bluesy expressionism, now they carried her.
Bessie Smith's last recordings from 1933 marked a changing of the guard, with newcomers like saxophonist Chu Berry and clarinetist Benny Goodman on board. Four years later, she died after a grisly road accident near Clarksdale, Mississippi - the cradle of the man-with-guitar country blues that had replaced her theatrical kind. Even her exit had its mythic sides.
SMITH: (Singing) I had a nightmare last night when I lay down. When I woke up this morning my sweet man couldn't be found. I'm going down to the river. Into it I'm going to jump. Can't keep from worrying 'cause I'm down in the dumps. Someone knocked on my door last night when I was asleep. I thought it was that sweet man of mine making his 'fore day creep. Was nothing but my landlord, a great big chump.
(Singing) Stay away from my door, Mr. Landlord, 'cause I'm down in the dumps.
GROSS: Kevin Whitehead writes for Point of Departure, Downbeat, and Emusic and is the author of "Why Jazz?" He reviewed "Bessie Smith: The Complete Columbia Recordings," a 10 CD collection spanning the years 1923 to '33. You can download podcasts of our show on our website freshair.npr.org and you can follow us on Twitter at nprfreshair and on Tumblr at nprfreshair.tumblr.com.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.


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Watermelon was pureed into juice. Some of the juice was warmed in a saucepan with sugar and a pinch of salt until the sugar dissolved. That mixture was combined with the rest of the watermelon juice and some lime juice. Vodka was optional, and I skipped it believe it or not. I quite like vodka with watermelon and lime, but I chose to keep the sorbetto alcohol-free. The watermelon juice mixture was chilled, and then it went into the ice cream maker after turning it on and letting it start spinning of course.
There was one special ingredient in this sorbetto. Rather than just freezing that watermelon juice mixture, a surprise in the form of mini chocolate chunks was stirred in at the end. The little chocolate pieces look like seeds, and they give the sorbetto bits of crunch and dark chocolate flavor. In the book, the sorbetto is shown frozen into popsicles. I don't have a popsicle mold, yet, so I froze mine as individual servings in ramekins instead. Individual servings are almost as fun as a popsicles aren't they? It often seems like frozen treats are just for summer, but there are ideas for all seasons throughout the book. I'm looking forward to creating all of these frozen treats for all kinds of occasions to come.


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5 Nights | CZM PLUS - WEST CAR
About Progreso, Mexico
You will visit the following 3 places:
Galveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2005 U.S. Census estimate, the city had a total population of 57,466 within an area of 208 square miles (540 km2). Much of Galveston's modern economy is centered in the tourism, health care, shipping and financial industries. The 84-acre (340,000 m2) University of Texas Medical Branch campus with an enrollment of more than 2,500 students is a major economic force of the city. Galveston is home to six historic districts containing one of the largest and historically significant collections of nineteenth-century buildings with over 60 structures listed in the National Register of Historic Places. $$https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P41OR0rxUE$$
San Miguel de Cozumel
Cozumel is an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen, and close to the Yucatán Channel. The island is covered with mangrove forest which has many endemic animal species. Cozumel is a flat island based on limestone, resulting in a karst topography. There are a number of visitors to the island's balnearios, scuba diving, and snorkeling. The main town on the island is San Miguel de Cozumel. The islands belongs to Cozumel Municipality of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Progreso Municipality
Progreso is a port city in the Mexican state of Yucatán, located on the Gulf of Mexico in the north-west of the state some 30 minutes north of state capital Mérida (the biggest city on the Yucatán Peninsula) by highway. Progreso is one of the newest ports for large cruise ships and an emerging balneario resort destination. Passengers disembark on a very long pier, the Terminal Remota opened in 1989 that juts out 6.5 km (4.0 mi) into the Gulf of Mexico. Passengers are taken to shore to visit Progreso, Mérida or the Maya civilization archaeological sites of Uxmal and Dzibilchaltun. During the months of July and August the beaches fill with thousands of mostly local tourists, as it is traditional in these months for well-to-do residents of Mérida to leave the city and spend the summer in the cooler seaside environment.


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As promised i finished the machining on the prototypes. Its amazing how much lighter my red smear rt is with the ULE body, X valve and ULE milling...It cut 11oz. off the weight of the gun!!!!!! I might sell some of the prototypes in my SUPER SALE i will be having on the 1st of January. I am currently crunching the numbers to figure out how much to charge. Watch the Dealers section for the preorder.......I only plan on doing one run of them.
Body Features:
-Vertical feed threaded for use with angel feednecks
-Dual angel detents
-Uses autococker barrels
-available body version and rail milling to adapt X valve to classic automag rt (11oz weight reduction)
I have developed a scratch free fixture to mill the rails on.
Note: some of you may notice that by cutting the slot in the back of the rail for the x valve milled through one of the NPT air holes....lucky for us AGD did not connect the back left two air fitting holes with the input for the valve! thought i would mention that to avoid the posts by people.
Classic RT ULE body (uses stock RT valve)
The above body on my red smear automag RT
Classic RT body for use with X valve...Shown on my red smear automag rt (This body will cut 11 oz. off your gun when used with an X valve and the ULE rail milling(shown below))
This body will work with all other automags except for the classic automag RT and the sydarm...Shown on my Acid Red Emag
ULE milling for classic RT rail....this milling is necessary to make the classic RT accept the X valve. reduces the weight of the rail by 30%