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Monday, December 14, 2009
Hold on tightly....
I'm going to hold off on my Halladay post-mortem until such time as I can truly collect myself & my thoughts to do the thing justice. Suffice to say, until the deal is finalized, I'll be a ball of nerves, hoping the excitement can overcome the waves of nausea. I'm only slightly exaggerating.
So until then, we can only speculate whom among Drabek, Happ, Aumont, Taylor, Brown, D'Arnaud, Saunders, Triunifel, etc will join the fold.
(But I'm guessing it'll likely be one of Drabek/Aumont, one of Taylor/Brown, and one of D'Arnaud/Triunifel. With maybe Saunders thrown into the mix.)
In the meantime, as far as up to the minute coverage goes, the DJF and MLBTR have got your refresh button covered.
Oh, boy.
9 comments:
- eyebleaf said...
Tonight we drink for Doc.
- December 14, 2009 at 8:36 PM
- Jim Briggs said...
Already moving to my third pint.
- December 14, 2009 at 8:41 PM
- Jim Briggs said...
BTW Ack, every time I read your posts I feel like you're speaking my mind. Keep up the good work. The Jays haven't made it easy to be this dedicated...
- December 14, 2009 at 8:42 PM
- Mark said...
I'm sad that DOc is gone...
But if AA can pull out Drabek, Triunfel, and one of Brown/Taylor, than I'll feel pretty damn good about the future.
- December 14, 2009 at 8:52 PM
- The Ack said...
Thanks Jim.
Yeah, I was going to bust out a coke, but I think I'll balance it with a little Crown. Seems apropos.
- December 14, 2009 at 9:17 PM
At one point today, I read that the Jays are covering some of Doc's salary for next year. I find that a little irksome.
- December 14, 2009 at 9:46 PM
- Drew - LtB said...
I'd bet the Jays are paying the 6 mil or so difference between Lee and Roy for 2010.
The cost of doing business y'all. Think of it as signing bonus money for the quasi-draft picks.
- December 14, 2009 at 10:26 PM
- bkblades said...
I'll be sure to comeback so to gauge your reaction for Blue Jays land and fist pump accordingly as you capture my mood perfectly about this situation.
- December 14, 2009 at 11:14 PM
- Mauricio said...
Hello friend, I saw your blog and very well of information, greetings and welcome to you visit
- December 22, 2009 at 4:42 PM


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The latest chapter in the unlovely and endless story of Washington dysfunction was written last month, when much of the federal government was shut down for the first time in nearly two decades, and the country was once again brought to the brink of financial default. Among the feuds that gave rise to this disastrous turn, the ones that pitted Democrats against Republicans may well be those that tell us the least about our fractious politics. Instead, it was the close-quarters throwdown within the GOP—a fight in the House Republican Conference between the party's centrists and its vocal Tea Party activists—that illuminates both why the shutdown happened and what it will mean for a Republican Party at war with itself. It is a narrative best told Rashomon-style, as a story of wildly divergent tellings—and ultimately as an expression of the Republican Party's all-encompassing identity crisis.
It culminated in October, after nearly a year of plotting. Far-right Republicans—desperate to derail President Barack Obama's health care law just as it was set to take effect—first seized on the threat of a government shutdown in the hope that such a calamity would force the White House to roll back Obamacare, and next glimpsed opportunity in the fall's negotiations over raising the U.S. government debt ceiling. The more centrist members of the GOP considered the ploy a kamikaze mission—a predictable debacle that would underscore the party's inner turmoil.
Story Continued Below
Over hours of conversation amid the frantic negotiations to end the resulting standoff, I spoke with more than a dozen players on both sides of a party whose divide has never been wider. Without exception, they all described themselves to me as conservatives. Some of them are veteran legislators. Others belong to the Tea Party class of 2010, which ushered the House Republicans into power and then insisted on using that power in ways that challenged orthodox notions of governance. A few are freshmen who make their 2010 predecessors seem ideologically tame by comparison. And one of the storytellers—Michael Needham, of the advocacy group Heritage Action for America—is not a House member at all yet seemed at times to have far more control over the body's deliberations than even Speaker John Boehner did.
Can reasonable minds disagree about who's to blame for the shutdown? Perhaps. For the moment, however, the public has been amply polled and clearly faults the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But the Republicans who tell their stories here aren't so sure. In their accounts, the fingers are still being pointed, and the next chapters are yet to be written—though they may not produce a clear answer as to where the party is headed. As North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers recalled thinking during one contentious conference meeting, "I totally do not understand what is happening here."
The tale begins in January of this year. Following the disappointing November 2012 election and an unsuccessful attempt in December to leverage the "fiscal cliff" crisis into a deal to preserve Bush-era tax cuts, House Republicans met at their annual winter conference in Williamsburg, Va., to plot the way forward. Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy presented a strategy in which the Republican majority would seek to force fiscal concessions from the Democrats when the debt-ceiling deal was due to expire in late spring. (Owing to negotiations and to "extraordinary measures" taken by the Treasury Department, the debt-ceiling deadline would later be pushed to October.) The caucus's more conservative members felt that was too long to wait, however. They sought an earlier opportunity—such as the impending negotiations over a continuing resolution (CR) to fund government operations—to prevent the president's signature health care initiative from formally taking effect on Oct. 1.
Jeff Duncan: We always seemed to be kind of kicking the can to the next fight. And we felt like, "We've got two fights here, the CR and the debt ceiling—we're willing to have it sooner rather than later."
Raúl Labrador: Boehner is informed by his background. And his background is being a bartender—going into a negotiation thinking, you know, "My job is just to get both sides to like each other and pay the tab." And, at the end of the day, they're both going to be happy because they're going to be drinking, and they're going to leave me a big tip. That's not the way the negotiations happen here.
Randy Weber: I told the speaker, basically, "You have the reputation outside the Beltway of caving." And he pretty much told us, "I know it's out there, but look, here's the reality of the situation. There are 232 Republicans. So all the Democrats have to do is to peel off 15 Republicans from close districts to get above 218 [for a majority]."
Charlie Dent: There are 180 to 200 members of the House Republican Conference who have an affirmative sense of governance, who understand that we have responsibilities and obligations, and we have to fulfill them. And there are somewhere between two to three dozen members of the House Republican Conference who do not share that same sensibility. And you only need 17 to take down the bill.
Despite opposition from conservatives (who preferred to fight over the budget and address Obamacare at the first opportunity), House leaders continued with their strategy to use the debt ceiling to force the White House to negotiate. But events in July changed the dynamic.
Jim Jordan: The big thing that happened was July 2, when the president unilaterally announced, "I'm going to delay the mandate on employers." The day of that announcement, I called up the majority leader and said, "Look, it's a whole new world today. We have a chance to delay this thing."
Mark Meadows: In early July, it was really more about knowing that the people back home were starting to find out more about Obamacare, and how difficult it was for them to either keep their insurance or keep their job. So I went to a number of my colleagues and suggested we send a letter to leadership letting them know that we would encourage them not to bring appropriations forward that would fund Obamacare.
Michael Needham: The hope was that we'd all have the opportunity to spend all of August making the case against Obamacare—leadership, House, Senate, everybody out there making the case.
Adam Kinzinger: I didn't sign that letter because I thought that was gonna put us in a corner in terms of what we can negotiate. And, as you saw, the majority didn't sign.
The Meadows letter proved a galvanizing moment, however. Eighty House conservatives threw their weight behind it—and, more significantly, so did Heritage Action for America, the young but highly influential and aggressive advocacy wing of the Heritage Foundation think tank. The group funded a summerlong tour across America in an effort to drum up support for the defund-Obamacare movement, with backing from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. Not all of the movement's opponents were Democrats.
Devin Nunes: It was a lie, because even if you saw their strategy all the way to the end on defunding—meaning you could somehow get the [Democratic-controlled] Senate to pass it with enough votes to survive a presidential veto, the government is still on the hook for people who signed on to Obamacare. It was a deliberate lie to stir up the base.
Kevin McCarthy: Our biggest argument to our members was: Even if you shut down the government, 94 percent of Obamacare still goes forward. But Cruz said, "No, that's not true."
Needham: The fight was to delay the law for a year. Defund it so that the bureaucrats stand back and so the country can really have a true timeout to discuss the implications of a law that we had to pass in order to find out what's in it. And, you know, people are finding out what's in it, and workers [are] going from full time to part time and premiums [are] going up.
Dent: I said to our leadership, "Why don't we talk about entitlements, tax reform? Let's get some things that will unite Republicans and probably divide Democrats." The problem with the tactic employed by Senator Cruz was they essentially united Democrats and divided Republicans.
To gin up support for defunding Obamacare, Heritage Action and other outside groups prodded unsupportive Republicans throughout the August recess by running ads , sending volunteers to town halls with talking points and circulating warnings that a member's stance on Obamacare would be "scored"—that is, factored into Heritage Action's grading system measuring the conservatism of each member of Congress.
Renee Ellmers: I was not on the [Meadows] letter. I was not going to be on the letter. So then it became this situation where Heritage was scoring anybody who wasn't on the letter, plus this $550,000 ad buy against us. That's when I started speaking out: "Hey, why are they doing that? Why are you hating Republicans?"
Kinzinger: If you look at this Republican Party, we're almost the most monolithic in terms of what we believe. The vast majority of us are pro-life, all of us vote to repeal Obamacare, we all like smaller government. But what's happened is these outside groups that raise money on trying to say that they're the defender of liberty and purity—they don't spend any of that money really on anything but overhead and attacking Republicans. My voter ID says Illinois 16th district—it doesn't say Heritage Action on it. There are some people that are so eager to do what these groups say, you may as well just let all your staff go and just take your vote recommendations from Heritage Action. You could save the taxpayers some money.
Needham: Politicians in the past had a monopoly on communicating to their constituents. The fact of the matter is, today it is easier for constituents to become well-informed; it's easier for other people who have different perspectives to inform the constituents. And that may feel like bullying to a member of Congress, but it's the reality of the world that we live in.

subset: commoncrawl


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Photo: JUAN ZARZUELA / Associated Press
Actress Melanie Griffith has filed for divorce from Antonio Banderas.
The couple has been married for 18 years.
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It is not clear when the couple separated, but Banderas and Griffith have been dogged by split rumors for years.


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I've noticed that my gear score is less than other classes eventhough i have better gear than them. There are people on my server with all 359 gear and they have a better gearscore than me. This can't be right because I too have all 359 AND i have a couple pieces of Heroic Purple (372) gear.
I think the current gear score calculation gives more weight to haste and expertise if a melee character is past the yellow hit cap.
This can be true for warriors and other melee characters. But Hit is more valuable than haste, expertise, and mastery for rogues IF the rogue is below the spell hit cap. This is due to the fact that our poisons do most our damage and poisons require spell hit.
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Aston Martin, maker of the luxury British sports car favoured by James Bond, has revealed Investindustrial is pumping £150 million ($240.26 million) into the company.
The deal will see the Italian private equity fund take a 37.5 percent stake in Aston Martin, which said the investment would allow it to accelerate its product development and international expansion.
It values the company - which is 100 years old next year - at close to £800 million ($1.28 billion), and makes Investindustrial a shareholder alongside Aston Martin's Kuwaiti owners Investment Dar.
David Richards, Aston Martin's chairman, said: "It gives stability to the company and certainty of product planning for the next few years.
"Without it development plans would have been slower because with the market as it is at the moment, you have to be fairly cautious about investment."
He said the company plans to invest more than £500 million ($800.85 million) in new products and technology over the next five years.
About 70 percent of Aston Martin vehicles are exported and the company has been expanding in China over the last 18 months, the full benefit of which is yet to be felt.
Andrea Bonomi, senior principal at Investindustrial, described Warwickshire-based Aston Martin as an "iconic global, but quintessentially British brand."
He added: "We are looking forward to working with the management and Investment Dar to achieve a similar transformation and rejuvenation that we achieved with [Italian motorcycle company] Ducati, by expanding the model range and strengthening the dealership network, throughout the world."
The deal ends weeks of speculation about a sale of a stake in the car manufacturer. It is thought five serious bidders were circling Aston Martin, including Indian manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra which is thought to have pulled out.
Last week Moody's said it was reviewing Aston Martin's credit rating with the possibility that it might be downgraded deeper into "junk" territory because of a weaker than expected performance.
The company sold 2,520 cars in the year to the end of September, 20 percent fewer compared with a year earlier, and well below pre-recession levels of more than 7,000.
Revenue fell 19 percent to £305 million ($488.5 million).


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Comparison with Other Works: The Worm Ouroboros is often compared with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (which it predates by 32 years). Tolkien read The Worm Ouroboros, and praised it in print. C. S. Lewis wrote a short preface to an anthology of Eddison's works, including The Worm Ouroboros, concluding that "No writer can be said to remind us of Eddison."
LITTLE ELISA: "The Story of a Time Traveler Princess" "..There will always be a missing piece in life. It could be either something that is left undone or someone who you could not be able to come together with. Maybe the last piece has all the meaning of our lives and therefore it is always hidden" said Elisa, before she started her talk. It might be a specific moment that we have to spend the rest of our lives searching that missing diamond piece. Because, without that last piece, nothing will be complete.." "..Similar to this, what was the missing piece and the true meaning of Alice's life before she became Elisa? She had to discover it. But she would have to take a really long trip to discover this.." TRAVELER PILGRIM:
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"I am God's punishment. If you haven't committed great sins, God would not send me to punish you" -Genghis Khan I write this novel because of my wish and desire for Earth to be a more habitable place. Children of today will build the future. Life experiences of the past will surely guide them as they build it. We saw generations who respectfully wish each other a bright day when they see each other. Today, we see people who say "Why are you looking at me?" and fight each other. People don't have respect for one another, they look at each other wondering what harm can come from them. My beautiful children, my Eda and my Ela, will hopefully take part in this future to be built. I wish for them to be members of a fair and equitable world inhabited by people who respect each other. I dedicate this to my wife Meral, my two beautiful daughters and their future.
The Little Prince [Le Petit Prince], is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat, writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944). The novella is both the most-read and most-translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. After the outbreak of the Second World War Saint-Exupéry became exiled in North America. In the midst of personal upheavals and failing health, he produced almost half of the writings for which he would be remembered, including a tender tale of loneliness, friendship, love and loss, in the form of a young prince fallen to Earth. An earlier memoir by the author had recounted his aviation experiences in the Sahara Desert, and he is thought to have drawn on those same experiences in The Little Prince.
The Coming Revolution! The beginning story of the communism was like this: A ghost walks in Europe - the ghost of communism. All the forces of old Europe entered into a sacred alliance to defeat this ghost: the Pope and the Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police agents. Where is the opposition party not being accused of being communist by its opponents? Where is the opposition, which has not thrown this blightful communism accusation back to its reactionary adversaries as well as to the more progressive opposition parties?
Everyone in life is gonna hurt you, You just have to figure out which people are worth the pain. - Erica Baican - She Walks In Beauty like the night (Lord Byron) Everybody is looking for someone they belong to. Everybody is looking for the sense of their lives. But whatever you do, nothing makes sense without love in your heart. So, the question is "What can love do?" Love helps to live and to survive in the hardest moments of our lives. Love inspires you.
ELIZABETH was about three years old at the death of her mother. She was a princess, but she was left in a very forlorn and desolate condition. She was not, however, entirely abandoned. Her claims to inherit the crown had been set aside, but then she was, as all admitted, the daughter of the king, and she must, of course, be the object of a certain degree of consideration and ceremony. It would be entirely inconsistent with the notions of royal dignity which then prevailed to have her treated like an ordinary child.
IN the year 1719 an Englishman whose name was Daniel Defoe wrote a very long story, which he called "The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe." His story was not designed for children, and therefore it contained a great deal of hard reading. There was much in it, however, that was interesting to young people, and from that day to this, the marvelous tale of Robinson Crusoe has been a favorite with boys as well as men. I have rewritten the story in words easy for every child, and have shortened it by leaving out all the dull parts.
THIS BOOK, prepared as in included "Two volumes in ONE BOOK (Contains Vol. I & II) and Unabridged. Translation" by James Murphy. And This translation of the unexpurgated edition of "MEIN KAMPF" was first published on March 21st, 1939.. "MEIN KAMPF" not also say about the German People and livings in 1920-30's but also provides an explanation for the military conquests later attempted by Hitler and the Germans. Hitler states that since the Aryans are the master race, they are entitled simply by that fact to acquire more land for themselves. This Lebensraum, or living space, will be acquired by force, Hitler says, and includes the lands to the east of Germany, namely Russia. That land would be used to cultivate food and to provide room for the expanding Aryan population at the expense of the Slavic peoples, who were to be removed, eliminated, or enslaved or may be More Details You will find THIS BOOK..
ANDERSEN's FAIRY TALES, which have been translated into more than "125 languages", have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. Some of his most famous fairy tales include "THE EMPEROR's NEW CLOTHEs", "THE LITTLE MERMAID", "THE NIGHTINGALE", "THE SNOW QUEEN", "THE UGLY DUCKLING", "THUMBELINA", and many more. In this book, you will find "ALL STORIES" that writen by the Author Early and Later Stories as Fully Well illustrated "126 STORIEs"..
Far out in the ocean the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass. But it is very deep too. It goes down deeper than any anchor rope will go, and many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live.
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In days gone by there was a King who had three sons. When his sons came of age the King called them to him and said, "My dear lads, I want you to get married so that I may see your little ones, my grand-children, before I die." And his sons replied, "Very well, Father, give us your blessing. Who do you want us to marry?"
Elisa ile tanışmamızdan önce Müslümanların kitabında şöyle bir şey okumuştum: "Dünya yaşamı, bir nevi bir eğlence ve bir oyundan ibarettir." (Kur'an, İslam'ın temel kitabı) Bu nasıl mümkün olabilirdi ki? Veya hayatın esas (gerçek) anlamı bu mu? diye kendi kendime ilk başlarda bunu okuduğumdan beridir soruyordum. Unutmayın! Bu evrendeki her şeyin bir hayali bir de gerçek görüntüsü vardır.
What Does the Theory Tell? {Short Abstract and Philosophy of the Theory} The THEORY summarizes the general and simple mathematical description of the universe in the form of general conclusion items and forecasts the followings; Basic Projections of the Theory? – NEW MODEL OF AN ATOM, – NEW MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE, – CHANGE IN GALILEO Inertia Principle, – A FUNDEMENTAL CHANGE AND AN ADDITIONAL TERM IN THE STRUCTURE IF MAXWELL EQUATIONS, – A CHANGE IN STATIC FIELD EQUATIONS OF THE GRAVITY FIELD AND IN THE UNIVERSAL GRAVITY CONSTANT. – CHANGE IN POYNTING ENERGY THEOREM, – HOW CAN THE VELOCITY OF LIGHT BE EXCEEDED? and MUCH MORE..
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Monthly Archives: May 2017
Girls Clothing Make Yourself More Stylish
Girls are the one who can adopt and try many different types of clothing. Dresses are the only thing which makes any girl look different from each other. Any girl or a lady enjoys her shopping to a extent. Nothing … Continue reading
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The Best Prescription for Pre-Emption
Would you rather have a jury or medical experts judge drug safety?
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Mutual Pharmaceutical v. Bartlett, a case about the ability of consumers to bring lawsuits against the makers of generic drugs. A central issue is the Food and Drug Administration's doctrine of federal "pre-emption," meaning that state tort law cannot trump FDA regulation. In Bartlett, the manufacturer is being sued for selling an allegedly flawed drug that was nevertheless approved by the FDA, which also regulated the manufacturer's exact formula.
The pre-emption...


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Brennan Inches Closer to Being Next CIA Director
(WASHINGTON) -- John Brennan moved one step closer on Tuesday to being the next CIA director.
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12-3 to move Brennan's nomination out of the committee Tuesday afternoon. Brennan, the current chief counterterrorism adviser to President Obama, must now face a full Senate vote for his nomination to be confirmed for his new job as head of the CIA.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has indicated that he'd like the full Senate to vote on Brennan at some point this week.
Prompting the move in the Senate Intelligence Committee, where the Brennan nomination had been held up for numerous days, was an agreement with the White House to provide the committee access to all Office of Legal Counsel opinions related to the targeted killing of Americans by drones.
"I am pleased the administration has made this information available," Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement on the release of the White House information on drones to the committee. "It is important for the committee to do its work and will pave the way for the confirmation of John Brennan to be CIA director."
Brennan still faces an uphill climb in the full Senate where some Senate Republicans, like Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Kelly Ayotte R-N.H., have vowed to hold up his nomination until the administration answers questions on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of last year.
"John and I are hell-bent on making sure the American people understand this debacle called Benghazi," Graham said this weekend on CBS' Face the Nation.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio


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BELUK ICON PACK v3.7 [Patched]
BELUK ICON PACK v3.7 [Patched]
Minimum Requirements: 4.0.3+
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Direct Apply: L, Lucid, GO, Next, Apex, Action Pro, Nova, ADW, Holo, Holo HD, Aviate, Smart (read issue for this launcher below), Mini, KK, Solo, Epic, Inspire, Nine, Atom, Nemus, S, LG Home (read issue for this launcher below), CM Theme Engine
Support 28 or more major Launchers:
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Sponsor J'Kwon C
If you're interested in sponsoring J'Kwon C, please fill out the form below with your contact info.
Please note that we are hoping to have all the gifts collected by December 8th, as our annual Christmas party will be held on the Elks Aidmore Campus on December 16th. Ideally we would like to distribute the Christmas Gifts at that time however we will only distribute gifts on that day if all of the children's gifts are obtained by that day.
Address Not Required


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All three and four year old children are entitled to receive up to 15 hours of funded early education each week for a maximum of 38 weeks a year.
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James 'Whitey' Bulger's belongings to be sold at auction
BOSTON – Authorities are preparing to auction off Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger's belongings to raise money for his victims.
Some of Bulger's possessions will be sold to the highest bidders during a criminal forfeiture auction expected to be held over the next few months.
Any money raised will go to the families of people killed by Bulger. He was convicted in August of orchestrating or participating in 11 murders.
Approximately $822,000 in cash found hidden in the walls of Bulger's apartment will also go to victims.
A gold and diamond claddagh ring appraised at $48,000 is the most valuable item to be auctioned.
The 84-year-old Bulger fled Boston in 1994. He was captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., where he had been living with his longtime girlfriend.


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Browse over 100 articles to help you manage your child's symptoms.
Browse our library of information about various medical conditions.
We are currently seeing quite a bit of strep throat. If your child has a fever, sore throat, headache, or stomachache without any other viral symptoms like congestion or cough, it may be strep throat. Bacteria, called Group A strep, cause this type of sore throat. To diagnose strep throat, your physician will require a swab of your child's throat, and antibiotics will be needed if the strep test is positive.


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Home >> Course Descriptions >> College of Business Administration
Business Quantitative Methods
Three semester hours.
A study of mathematical and statistical methods and their application to business and economic decision making. Topical coverage includes: derivative and integral calculus, the logarithmic and exponential functions, descriptive statistics, probability, inferential statistics, and regression analysis. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
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Commissioner's Award of Excellence
- NOVEMBER 2012 WINNER - Diane Ness Kirchoff, Mental Health Program Manager
Community Mental Health Center;
Category - Productivity
Diane Ness Kirchoff, Mental Health Program Manager at the Community Mental Health Center, received the Commissioners Award of Excellence Award for November, 2012 at the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners meeting today. Ms. Kirchoff was nominated by Ron Sorensen in the category of Productivity.
In early 2012 the Community Mental Health Center began working on an initiative designed to improve their admissions process and reduce "no-shows". Diane began to track admissions in February. After analyzing the admissions information she made several changes that impacted the appointment process, and the results of those changes are clearly evident. Among those results are these: the number of days from first contact to the date an appointment is set have been reduced by 2.4 days; the number of days from first contact to the appointment date have been reduced by 8.1 days; and the "no-show" rate has been reduced by 27%.
In his nomination Ron Sorensen stated that from a programmatic point of view these changes have also impacted services in a positive way. Studies of services for persons with mental illness reveal that the quicker a person has access to services the more likely a successful outcome will result. Additionally, staff are more productive due to the reduced "no-show" rates, and increased productivity results in more revenue collected from state, federal, insurance and other sources.
Deb Schorr, Lancaster County Board of Commissioners Chair, stated "The Board is pleased to recognize Diane Ness Kirchoff for her initiative and leadership in improving the admissions process at the Community Mental Health Center. We applaud her and appreciate her efforts to help the Community Mental Health Center, their consumers, and Lancaster County as a whole as we constantly strive to improve services. On behalf of the Board I congratulate Diane on this award".
The Commissioners Award of Excellence award recognizes employees who consistently provide outstanding service and work that demonstrates exemplary personal commitment to Lancaster County.


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The Indifferent Stars Above (Paperback)
The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party
William Morrow Paperbacks, 9780061348112, 384pp.
Publication Date: September 22, 2015
Other Editions of This Title:
Paperback, Large Print (5/19/2009)
Hardcover (4/28/2009)
Compact Disc (10/29/2014)
June 2009 Indie Next List
— Maryjude Hoeffel, Bookin' It, Little Falls, MN
View the List
From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier
"An ideal pairing of talent and material.… Engrossing.… A deft and ambitious storyteller." — Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review
In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and fourteen others set out for California on snowshoes, and, over the next thirty-two days, endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.
In this gripping narrative, New York Times bestselling author Daniel James Brown sheds new light on one of the most legendary events in American history. Following every painful footstep of Sarah's journey with the Donner Party, Brown produces a tale both spellbinding and richly informative.
About the Author
Daniel James Brown is the author of The Boys in the Boat and Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894. He lives in the country east of Redmond, Washington, with his wife and two daughters.
Praise For The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party…
— Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review
"Daniel James Brown brings the myth to life, transforming faint history class memories into gripping reality."
— BookPage
"[Brown] tells the tale with a novelist's touch."
— Boston Globe
"A compelling retelling of the ghastly events surrounding the Donner party. Daniel James Brown, using one survivor's experience as his focus, moves beyond the cardboard figures depicted in previous accounts and shows how the lucky few endured and survived."
— Irvin Molotsky, author of The Flag, The Poet and the Song: The Story of the Star-Spangled Banner
"In this gripping narrative, Brown reveals the extremes of endurance that underlie the history of this nation, and more than that, of humanity in any part of the world, even today, surviving great peril in search of a better life."
— Nina Burleigh
"A skillful, suspenseful study of the Donner Party. ... Brown creates a thorough and unique narrative. A moving man-against-nature tragedy that still resonates today."
— Kirkus Reviews
"Remarkable. ... Hard to put down."
— Seattle Times


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When 30-year-old Steve Titus was arrested for the rape of a teen girl in 1980, he told Port of Seattle police they had the wrong man. They did. But the seafood-sales supervisor was convicted the following year and faced a sentence of up to life in prison. Months later, the actual rapist was arrested, and Titus was vindicated. The stressful ordeal would nonetheless mete out a punishment more severe than Titus could have received in court—his sudden death five years later.
Police, prosecutors—"They're actually able to sleep at night knowing they've convicted an innocent man," he says, voice rising to a bellow. "They rationalize it. They say 'I didn't convict him, the jury did!' They said that about Titus."
In March 1981, a King County Superior Court jury found Titus guilty of first-degree rape. While awaiting sentencing, Titus contacted Henderson, then a reporter for The Seattle Times, claiming to be innocent of the crime, the sexual assault of a 17-year-old hitchhiker near Sea-Tac Airport. Henderson was hooked by Titus' sincerity and the fact that police never explored any of his alibi details or interviewed his witnesses. But the reporter was wary, and told Titus he'd drop the story if he caught the sales exec in a lie.
The evidence against Titus seemed solid enough: The victim identified him in court, and Port police, acting on a tip, stitched together a series of events and eyewitness testimony that linked Titus and his car to the crime scene. Henderson began looking for the kind of details he would spend the next three decades seeking in such cases—contrary evidence and testimony that police and prosecutors had missed or ignored, sometimes purposely. Within weeks, he learned that the victim's memory of her attacker was hazy, and that she'd been steered by police to identify Titus as the perpetrator. Among other conflicts, there were clear differences between the victim's description of the rapist's car and Titus' vehicle. Henderson also learned a detective had adjusted event times on his report to counter Titus' alibi: Running his own stopwatch checks, the reporter discovered it was impossible for Titus to have been at the crime scene at the time of the rape. This was crucial evidence, there for the cops to find had they been seeking it.
Confronted with the discoveries, then–King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng dropped the charges against Titus in June 1981. Shortly after, the man who committed the crime, a serial rapist named Edward Lee King, was tracked down. Bearing only a slight resemblance to Titus, King was later convicted and sentenced to 30 years for four rapes, including that of the teen hitchhiker. Henderson, a bar-crawling crime reporter who kept a six-pack in his locker at the police press room where he sometimes slept under a pile of newspapers, won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. Bainbridge Island writer Jack Olsen ultimately captured the exoneration saga and King's sociopathic life in a 1992 best-seller, Predator.
Titus, though, was left medically stressed and financially devastated by the wrongful conviction. He sued the Port for damages, but a few months before the scheduled start of a 1986 civil trial, he died of a heart attack. He was 35. His parents later settled with the Port for $2 million in damages to be paid over 20 years. The year after Titus died, so did the Port detective who had helped wrongly convict him, Ronald Parker. He too suffered a heart attack. He was 43.
King County Deputy Prosecutor Christopher Washington, who had successfully prosecuted Titus, saw no need to apologize about getting it wrong. He was pleased that justice had prevailed, he said. "But I don't make the decision on guilt or innocence. The jury does that."
The jury does that mistakenly much too often, Henderson has since discovered. He quit the Times a month after Titus' death and became a highly sought private investigator with a low boiling point for injustice. Today, at 74 with two marriages and two careers behind him, the teetotaling PI is semi-retired after three decades of freeing wrongly convicted felons—at least 23 by his count—across the U.S. and Canada.
"In almost every case I worked on, those convictions could have been avoided," Henderson says in the gruff baritone that has persuaded a legion of confident eyewitnesses to change their tunes when confronted by the findings of his investigations. "There was a distinct absence of fair play."
Unfortunately, there's a demand for last-resort investigators like him, scouring the countryside for long-gone witnesses or accusers, knocking on the doors of old hotels in St. Louis, wandering through trailer courts outside Dallas, chasing down dead leads in a Spokane flophouse. Since 1985, Henderson has worked for New Jersey–based nonprofit Centurion Ministries, which receives 1,500 letters each year from U.S. prisoners claiming to have been falsely convicted. In three decades, the organization has freed 50 wrongly imprisoned men and women.
Henderson's last case before he retired from full-time sleuthing last year took him to 14 states. "I hate flying," he says. But he loves a mystery. He and Centurion's mission is to dig for new evidence in dust-covered case files. The sleuthing almost always requires shoe leather to round up hidden or undiscovered facts—a strategy different from that of another famed exoneration group, the New York–based Innocence Project, which focuses on retesting crime-scene DNA and has helped reverse more than 300 convictions nationally. A local arm of the project, Innocence Project Northwest, operates out of the University of Washington and has chalked up eight notable reversals.
Courts may overwhelmingly grind out fair verdicts, Henderson says, but some of those decisions are flawed or flat-out wrong, sending the legally not guilty and the plainly innocent to jail or prison. In Washington state alone, according to compilations by the National Registry of Exonerations and similar organizations, more than 50 people have been wrongly convicted of felonies over the past four decades. They include accused robbers, rapists, and child molesters who in fact did not commit the crimes (click here for a full list of Washington's absolved convicts). Released after new evidence was discovered or when advanced DNA-testing procedures confirmed they were innocent, some of the wrongly convicted have sued and received compensation for their imprisonment.
Others, such as Alan Northrop—who served 17 years after he and a second man were wrongly convicted of rape in 1993—received nothing. Northrop has testified for three years in a row in Olympia in favor of a bill that would allow exonerated prisoners to file for compensation—$50,000 for each year of imprisonment (same as the amount given wrongly convicted federal inmates) and up to $75,000 in legal fees.
The third time was the charm, however, when the bill was approved by the legislature last month and sent to Gov. Jay Inslee for his signature. Northrop could receive more than $900,000 in compensation, which can be approved by the state Attorney General or through a court hearing where petitioners must prove "actual innocence" of the crime. Money will come from a new state liability fund, which can also provide education aid and pay past child support for those who qualify. The state estimates that at least 15 wrongly convicted former inmates are likely to file claims in the first three years, and one to two each year thereafter. The bill, sponsored by Normandy Park Democrat Tina Orwall, requires taxpayers to "redress the lost years" of those "uniquely victimized" by wrongful prosecutions.
"About time!" says Henderson. Washington will be the 28th state to adopt a compensation law.
At least a dozen of Washington's wrongful-convictioncases resulted from the country-wide hysteria over alleged child-care abuses and child-molestation "rings" in the 1980s and '90s. Most memorably, in the mid-1990s, an investigation by Wenatchee police and state child-welfare workers resulted in the arrest of 43 adults on 29,726 charges of sexually abusing 60 children. Prosecutors had no physical evidence to support the charges, and their key witness was the 13-year-old foster daughter of a Wenatchee cop. The officer, Robert Perez, drove the girl around town and had her point out the homes where she claimed she and other children had been molested. Most suspects were falsely accused, and ended up being released. Eighteen went to prison, but all verdicts were overturned or the charges and sentences reduced. The Wenatchee Witch Hunt, as it became known, led to millions of dollars in wrongful-conviction damages against Wenatchee and Douglas County. Some of the accused are now expected to file for compensation under the new state law.
It was during that time that Ray Spencer joined the state's legion of the wrongfully convicted. Henderson worked on his remarkable case, and thinks Spencer is Exhibit A in the way the law can be manipulated to convict anyone of a crime he or she didn't commit. What makes his case stand out is that Spencer, in fact, wasthe law—a police officer in Vancouver, Wash. Today, 28 years after he was falsely imprisoned for raping his own children, and three years after all charges against him were officially dropped, he's still in court attempting to clear his name.
"I lived. They didn't count on that," Spencer tells Seattle Weekly. "The people who put me away assumed that being a police officer and 'child molester,' I would be killed in prison. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think was my last. But I managed to survive 20 years."
In the early 1980s, Clyde "Ray" Spencer was considered an arrogant, womanizing motorcycle cop in Vancouver. Spencer allows that he was a womanizer, at least. He was married with two young kids, but took advantage of his good looks to cheat on his wife, DeAnne. Married in 1971, the two divorced in 1981, and she moved to Sacramento with their children, Katie, 2, and Matt, 5. Two years later, Spencer remarried. New wife Shirley arrived with a 3-year-old son from an earlier marriage.
In 1984, while Katie was visiting her dad in Vancouver, Spencer recalls, the girl put her hands between her legs and told Shirley, "My brother does this, my mom does this, my dad does this." Spencer assumed Katie was being molested, and that "dad" was DeAnne's boyfriend. "Katie told me, 'Daddy does it to me,' " Spencer recalls.
Spencer, who lived just outside Vancouver, reported his suspicions to the local sheriff's office and to child-protection and police officials in Sacramento. He also told his Vancouver police superiors he'd reported the claim. California authorities found nothing to pursue, but Clark County did. Sheriff's Detective Sharon Krause flew to Sacramento, where she questioned the children. Eight-year-old Matt denied he was abused. But Krause reported that 5-year-old Katie gave lurid details of rape—none of which the detective recorded. Krause's most startling discovery, reported to her superiors, was that the "dad" Katie was referring to was her own dad, officer Spencer.
In January 1985, following an eight-month investigation, the man who reported the possible sexual assault of his daughter was charged with committing that assault. Spencer's department immediately fired him, and the charges broke up his marriage. Then, more charges: While he was staying at a motel, estranged wife Shirley asked if her son—Spencer's stepson—could spend the night with him. He obliged. Days later, Shirley told sheriff's detectives that her son had just been raped by Spencer. After an investigator met and interviewed the son 12 days after the stay, Spencer was charged with raping his stepson as well.
"It was a nightmare," Spencer says today, "and a lie." He lost it mentally and sought psychiatric counseling. He was facing altogether 11 counts of rape. Investigators alleged he forced the children to engage in sex acts with each other while he watched.
Two days before his sentencing, he underwent a "truth serum" test with a doctor in Portland—he made no admissions of assaulting his children, the doctor concluded. But Spencer says he was in a vulnerable state from the residual effects of the sodium amytal and the side effects from sedatives he was taking. Foggy-minded, and feeling that his attorney, James Rulli, had not prepared a viable defense—he had failed to interview the children until just a few weeks before the trial—Spencer opted to plead out, hoping for a lesser sentence. In court, the 37-year-old ex-cop entered an Alford Plea: In effect, he conceded the facts would convict him, but he was not admitting guilt.
Thomas Lodge, the sentencing judge, handed down the toughest term he could give—two life sentences plus 14 years. Spencer remembers almost fainting, and a guard helping him to remain standing. He went off to prison in 1985—unaware, it turned out, of many of the relevant facts of his own case.
Word traveled fast at the state Corrections Center outside Shelton. Days after arriving, Spencer woke up to hear dozens of inmates chanting "Kill the cop in Cell 4." Spencer spent most of his first year in isolation. Eventually, to distance him from his 14-year law-enforcement background—Spencer had also worked as a federal sky marshal and narcotics officer, and had a bachelor's degree in criminal justice—the Washington Department of Corrections transferred him to the Idaho State Correctional Institution outside Boise. There, for nearly two decades, Spencer witnessed inmate rapes, beatings, and suicides. He lost teeth in fights to avoid becoming other prisoners' sex punk. He read 3,000 books. And through a correspondence course he obtained a doctorate in clinical psychology. But his cop background stayed a secret.
"My story was, I was an air traffic controller, out on strike when Ronald Reagan fired us all [in 1981]," Spencer says. "I said I knew people in South America running drugs, and helped them smuggle drugs by boat. I got caught in a shootout and my partner shot a cop. I was convicted of being an accessory. I never wavered on details. It worked for 20 years."
It might have had to work longer if Spencer hadn't, after almost a decade in prison, contacted Seattle attorney Peter Camiel and convinced him to take on his appeal. Spencer's earlier appeal attempts had failed, making it clear he needed new evidence if he was to prove his innocence, or at least show he hadn't gotten a fair shake in the justice system.
Fortunately, Spencer had someone else who believed in him, a new wife. They had first met in 1968 on Guam when he was stationed there with the Air Force during the Vietnam War. She was a Navy nurse. They dated, but separated after returning to the States. In prison, Spencer found Norma Kohlscheen's address in Los Angeles and wrote to her. She wrote back. On Guam, he'd asked her to marry him. She'd turned him down. This time she didn't. They were wed in 1986 in the Idaho prison chapel. She continued to live in L.A.—Spencer's hometown—visiting and corresponding regularly. She also agreed to help pay Spencer's legal fees (which would eventually reach more than $250,000). "She worked 70 hours a week at two jobs," says Spencer. "She never doubted me."
Attorney Camiel called in the hound, Paul Henderson. In 1999, the private investigator was working for both private clients and Centurion. "Spencer's was a dig-up-whatever-you-can case," says Henderson. Over time, he dug up gold. For starters, Henderson learned medical reports existed, hidden from Spencer's defense, that showed no indications any of the children had ever been sexually abused. Clark County Det. Sharon Krause, he also discovered, had held unorthodox meetings with the Spencer children, interviewing them in unrecorded sessions in her Sacramento hotel room and buying them gifts and candy. She told the children their father was "sick" and that they could help heal him by accusing him of the sexual crimes. He learned that Spencer's son, who at first denied any abuse, had changed his story under months of questioning, coming up with a fantastic tale: Not only his father but a group of police officers had abused him. Henderson, suspicious about the night Spencer's second wife Shirley brought her son to his motel room, wondered if that was a setup. He found his answer: Shirley was having an affair with Vancouver Police Sgt. Mike Davidson—the supervising detective on her husband's case.
Camiel eventually took the new information to Gov. Gary Locke. In 2004, Locke, a onetime King County deputy prosecutor (and today Barack Obama's ambassador to China), was moved by the findings. His office made its own inquiries to confirm the details, and Locke then commuted Spencer's sentence. He ordered Spencer released immediately, although he placed him on community supervision for three years. It was a stunning reversal: Locke had freed the longest-ever-held sex offender in Washington state, and for good reason, as he outlined in his order:
Clark County authorities withheld the fact that, despite the allegations of severe, repeated sexual abuse of the children, medical reports showed no signs of physical abuse. While the children recounted that Mr. Spencer had taken photographs of the abuse, no photos were ever found . . . King County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Rebecca Roe, a renowned specialist in child sexual abuse cases, [advised Clark County officials of] significant problems with the case, including techniques used with Mr. Spencer's daughter and resulting inconsistencies in her testimony . . . While denying for eight months that anything had happened, Mr. Spencer's [son] began to say that his father abused him, after being threatened with a polygraph . . . another troubling fact in the case is that one of the lead detectives investigating Mr. Spencer's case began having an affair with his wife, Shirley Spencer, during the investigation. After Mr. Spencer's conviction, the detective left his own wife and moved in with Mr. Spencer's wife. This detective was also the supervisor of the primary detective [Krause] involved in interviewing the children.
Transferred back from Idaho,Spencer walked out the front gate of the Monroe Correctional Center on December 29, 2004, having spent 7,244 days behind bars (19 years, 10 months, and one day). Henderson was there to greet him, took him to a bank to cash his small prison-labor check, bought him a steak, and dropped him off at a motel on Aurora Avenue in Seattle. The next morning, Spencer recalls, he got up early, went out into the free world, and began to walk until he was exhausted.
As a registered sex offender, he still could not join his wife in California, though she quickly arrived to greet him, returning regularly as they continued their long-distance relationship.
Spencer eventually would reconcile with his two children, now grown and with families of their own. The siblings eventually told Spencer they'd been coached by police. As they grew, the children had trouble remembering Spencer's alleged abuse, but their mother had told them they were blocking the sordid memories. They now realized, they told Spencer during their meetings, there were no assaults to remember.
"In prison, I went before the parole board five times and told them I didn't do it," says Spencer. "They said if I didn't admit it, I'd die in prison. I told them, 'Then I'll die in prison.' Here was the opportunity for everyone to know the truth."
His life destroyed by the conviction, and unable to get viable work because of his record, Spencer pushed ahead with a new legal effort to overturn his conviction. At a 2009 hearing ordered by an appeals court, Katie, 30, and Matt, 33, recanted their testimony—or rather the claims of the Clark County Sheriff's investigators that they'd been assaulted. Under cross-examination, Matt said he, at age 9, had been pressured by his questioners to say he'd been abused. Katie said that as an adult she read over the police reports of the rape and found them untrue. Even as a child, "I would have remembered something that graphic, that violent." Spencer's grown stepson refused to change his story, although Katie and Matt testified they never saw him abused.
Relying on the hearing testimony, the state Court of Appeals ruled that Spencer could withdraw his guilty plea, citing the recantations and "significant irregularities" by prosecutors. The state Supreme Court upheld the decision, concluding, among other things, that the affair between Spencer's wife and the detective "casts a shadow over the entire case." Reluctantly, Clark County prosecutors, who still believed Spencer guilty, threw out the charges in 2010.
But Spencer wasn't done. "When this case was overturned," he says, "instead of the prosecutors saying this was a mistake, they stood down the hallway in the courthouse and gave out a press release, trying to say they didn't do anything wrong." At the time, Spencer says, "I told myself that someday, somebody is going to apologize."
Today, the 65-year-old Spencer is still seeking that apology, along with legal damages. The ex-cop, now head of security at a Los Angeles office complex, filed a lawsuit in 2011 on behalf of himself and his children against Clark County, his ex-wife Shirley, and several of the officials involved in his conviction. Among his claims, according to court records, is that Sheriff's Detective Krause had in fact videotaped an interview with one of the children, but it was not disclosed to the defense in 1985. Krause, in court papers, says she apparently took the tape home—mixed with other memorabilia—when she retired from the sheriff's office in 1995. She discovered it while cleaning her garage in 2009, and turned it over to prosecutors.
Spencer claims the video got "lost" because it suggests the child was coached. The 1984 tape shows little Katie, sitting in her mother's lap, being questioned by Clark County Deputy Prosecutor Jim Peters. In the first part of the video, Peters is unable to elicit any claims from Katie that she'd been sexually assaulted. He shows her anatomically correct dolls and tells her, "This is your daddy and this is Katie—show me what happened last summer, OK? And we can stop all this." Katie responds, repeatedly, "Nothing happened last summer." After an unexplained one-hour break in the video, the prosecutor and Katie are shown lying on the floor together, in a friendly face-to-face chat. She then begins to cooperate, taking the two dolls and putting them together in a sexual position.
In his lawsuit, Spencer alleges that ex-wife Shirley and Sgt. Davidson had a "sexual relationship [that] led them to attempt to frame Mr. Spencer." He also alleges that Clark County investigators altered records to hide the medical reports, and that they falsely advised his employer, Vancouver Police, that he'd failed a polygraph test when in fact the test had been inconclusive.
Ex-county prosecutor Peters, who went on to become a federal prosecutor in Idaho and who is being defended in the civil suit by the Washington State Attorney General's office, denies Spencer's accusations that he hid evidence. Peters is also immune from such civil claims, argues his attorney Patricia Fetterly, saying he "exercised reasonable judgment and discretion as an authorized public official." Shirley, Spencer's ex-wife, says his accusations of a frame-up are simply untrue; she and Davidson did not become involved until after her husband's case was concluded, she maintains. Ex-detectives Krause and Davidson deny the claims as well, insisting they acted in the best interest of the children and followed investigative procedures in use at the time. Clark County attorney E. Bronson Potter describes the investigation and prosecution as lawful and proper. A jury trial is currently set for next January.
Inside his Lake Union boat home, Paul Henderson is thumbing through more files—he has dozens of boxes and thousands of pages of documents stored in a closet and a nearby locker. "Wrongful confessions are one of the biggest problems in these cases, and the most difficult to overturn," he says, recalling Barry Beach of Montana. He was 21, still living with his parents, when he was arrested in 1983 for buying beer for a minor, a misdemeanor. He wound up doing 28 years in prison for confessing to a murder—the slaying of a teen girl—he did not commit, as Henderson's investigation helped prove. The case was one of many worked on by Henderson that were featured on national TV magazine shows, including 60 Minutes and 20/20. "He was put away by cops who talked him into it," says Henderson. "The first 48 Hoursreport on him—they did two—prompted new witnesses to come forward. That's how he got out."
Filmmaker Ken Burns, whose 2012 documentary The Central Park Five detailed the wrongful convictions of five Harlem youths coerced into confessing to the 1989 rape of a New York jogger, recently said in a C-SPAN interview that "Unfortunately, [the park rape case] is not unique . . . We read in our papers of someone who has just been released from jail after 40 years or 25 years. It's prosecutorial misconduct or 'over-enthusiasm' or something like that. This is happening too frequently . . . If there is not justice for all, there is notjustice for all."
But wrongful convictions will continue, Henderson says, as long as police and prosecutors are not punished for them. "They should be held criminally responsible, in my view," he says. "In the 23 exonerations I handled, some of them involved egregious misconduct, including police coercing witnesses into going along with a totally fabricated scenario of a murder. In a Pennsylvania case, the cops sat down like they were writing fiction and got three teenage kids to go along with the confession. But over the years not one cop or prosecutor in my cases who got caught red-handed making up stuff was ever charged with a crime. They were not even demoted.
"You remember what happened to the cop who made up evidence about Steve Titus, don't you? A few months later, the Port of Seattle named him Officer of the Year."
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Main Street Saturday Night events, presented by the Tri-County Car Club, will begin Saturday, April 7.
Hosted the first Saturday in each month from April to October, classic vehicles will be on display on Main Street from 3 to 7 p.m.
There will be live music, children's activities, fundraisers, live entertainment, door prizes, food and more.
Saturday, May 5 will be 1950s dress-up night. Gospel music night will be Saturday, June 2.
There will be no event on Saturday, July 7. The club will host its annual car show on July 4.
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It's 8 a.m. at the Fountain Valley Skating Center, and organ music reverberates from the nearly 40-year-old facility nudged up against southbound I-405.
Inside, a tangle of roller skaters circle around the rink, dancing to traditional waltzes and tangos. Some skate backward in long, swooping strides. Some reach their arms out in an open embrace.
Most of them are over 50 years old. And they're dance skating at one of the most competitive rinks in the country.
With the national artistic skating championships just weeks away, coach and competitive dance skater Dawn Cunko tells the regular speed skaters lacing up their skates that there may be more organ music playing, as opposed to Top 40 hits better fitted for the exercise for which they came.
Fullerton College math Professor Chuck McAbee is a dance skater of about 15 years and knows 70 dance styles. He competes among the nation's best – not that there are that many these days. Nationwide, McAbee estimated there are about 2,000 competitive artistic skaters. It's a waning art, the actual organs long ago replaced by speakers hooked up to digital playlists.
McAbee practices at the Fountain Valley center every Monday and Friday morning during an adult-only session called Koffee Klutch because coffee is served between laps. The session comes just after club practice for the more serious dancers. They will practice almost every day until nationals.
Dance skating is competitive in nature, but with so few skaters still involved, the competition isn't exactly fierce. McAbee is 65 years old. At the championships in Albuquerque, N.M., next month, he'll be up against dancers mostly between the ages of 25 and 30.
"I'll suck, but that's OK," he said. "I have the courage to suck."
McAbee and his peers on the rink are there to have fun. But coach and rink owner Bob LaBriola is there to win. At 82 years old, LaBriola still teaches the art to students who visit him from around the country. He has coached more national champions than he can count and is known around the rink as the "guru of American-style dance skating." He has a thick New York accent, and his cellphone's ringtone is Queen's "We Are the Champions."
LaBriola has owned the skating center since it was built in 1976. He saw it through the roller-skating boom of the 1980s, when commercial developers opened big skating rinks, putting mom-and-pop rinks out of business. The pastime became less popular in the '90s and into the millennium. Now, roller skating is far from trendy, but LaBriola has worked to keep prices down and volume up – even if it means giving away 60,000 passes to schoolchildren, which he did this year. About 6 percent of those children used the passes, which was better than he expected, he said.
"I don't drive a Rolls-Royce. I don't live in Newport. But I get a tremendous sense of accomplishment from running this center," LaBriola said.
The skating center is one of about seven or eight rinks from Bakersfield to San Diego that still trains competitive dance skaters. In the same region during the '80s and '90s, there were about 55, LaBriola said. The only other competitive artistic skate center in Orange County is the Holiday Skate Center in Orange.
LaBriola is saddened by the decline but understands why the next generation isn't keeping the art alive. Two of his sons were awarded scholarships to prestigious schools for playing basketball and football; there are no scholarships for dance skating. And with fewer rinks, there's bound to be fewer skaters.
Still, the Fountain Valley center is home to about 35 competitive skaters, 20 of whom will compete in the national championship at the end of this month. And there probably isn't a child in Fountain Valley who hasn't strapped on skates at the center. Within a 5-mile radius of the skating center, there are 100 schools. Ninety-two fundraise at the facility, LaBriola said.
"I love the sport of skating, and I love the business of skating," he said. "Even though the competitive part of skating is not as popular, the business is increasing. And for me, that's competitive."
Many of the adults who skate at Koffee Klutch and competitively are returning to a childhood passion. Cunko, 51, is a six-time national champion who recently won first place in the regional competition. She skated competitively when she was a girl but quit when she was 17. When she finally dusted off her skates after 26 years of pursuing her career and raising a family, she couldn't remember why she ever stopped.
"Adults forget how to play," Cunko said. "This is how we have fun."
Dawn Cunko
Age: 51
City: Costa Mesa
Day job: Human resources manager at Morning Sun Shirt Company
Why she skates: "I skated for 10 years when I was a kid and quit when I was 17. I came back here with my kids and recognized one of the coaches as someone I used to skate with. I hadn't seen her in 30 years, but she convinced me to pick it up again. I got sucked back into it!"
Claim to fame: Cunko is a six-time national champion who will be competing in nationals at the end of the month.
Battle wounds: Dislocated wrist and shoulder, torn rotator cuffs, rotated plantar fasciitis
Bill Okamura
Age: 72
City: Riverside (Okamura commutes nearly an hour to the gym several times a week)
Day job: Professor emeritus of chemistry at UC Riverside
Why he skates: "First and foremost, because I enjoy it. It's a hobby. But it's also good for your health and you're less prone to injury."
Claim to fame: In Okamura's nine years competing, he's placed first regionally three times and fourth nationally two times. "I'm 72 and I see no end in sight," he says of his career in dance skating.
Battle wounds: Okamura was out with a herniated disk last year but that was from years of wear and tear. He's stayed pretty safe so far.
Kim Bonanni
Age: 47
City: Huntington Beach
Day job: Mom of two accomplished sons
Why she skates: "As a child I skated freestyle but didn't compete because my family couldn't afford it. A couple years ago, my girlfriend and I came for fun and I got back into it. Competing is a childhood dream come true. Who would have thought at 47 years old I would be doing this?"
Claim to fame: Last year, Bonanni took first place in the national solo competition and second place in team dance skating. She won't be competing this year, since her son will be competing in the US junior world championships for water polo.
Battle wounds: "None yet – knock on wood!"
It's easy to miss them in the excitement of dance skate routines Monday and Friday mornings: a line of skaters in white shirts orbiting steadily around the perimeter of the rink of the Fountain Valley Skating Center.
"We're called 'rounders' because we don't dance; we just go round and round," said Jim Fleschner, a 69-year-old Fountain Valley resident and leader of the Wingnuts, a group of about eight speed skaters who skate about 6 miles on the Fountain Valley rink twice a week.
Fleschner has been speed skating for 26 years, the past seven of which he has spent at the Fountain Valley Skating Center.
He met his wife on a skating rink when he asked her to couples skate with him 16 years ago. They got married on a skate rink in Buena Park a cou-ple of years later – on roller skates, of course. When he shattered his wrist during a speed-skating crash, he was back on the rink just as soon as his doctor would let him. He adores the sport, and not just for the great cardio workout it gives him.
"I love that sound," he said. "When I started skating at rinks back in the '40s, everyone had wooden wheels, and when they all got on the rink, it was deafening but it was like music. You just couldn't wait to get out there and be part of the music."
On a good day, the Wingnuts skate 72 laps around the 176-foot rink, which totals out to about 6 miles, they figure. Because the workouts are during normal working hours, most of the participants are either retired or self-employed – they tend to be older, Fleschner said. But on their skates, they glide with all the athleticism of teenagers. The workouts build tone and provide solid cardiovascular exercise.
The Wingnuts have reached a record speed of 22 seconds per lap. The record has been reached only once, and it was about three years ago. Fleschner remembers because it was just before he was diagnosed with colon cancer.
He had to stop skating for nearly three years while he battled cancer, which had spread to his lungs by the time he found out.
"When you get caught up in sports, you think you're invincible," he said. "I thought if I skated hard, everything would be OK, nothing bad would ever happen. But it almost killed me."
Fleschner's teammates on the Wingnuts, including his wife, Carol, supported him through every step of his treatment. They brought food to his house and visited him in the hospital. He credits his recovery in part to the community and the health benefits of skating. Last week, his speed was the best it's been since before his diagnosis. The effects of chemo and radiation still make it difficult for him to skate sometimes, but he looks forward to Monday and Friday, when his team gathers.
"I got the best people on my team," Fleschner said.
The Wingnuts meet from 8 to 10 a.m. Mondays and Fridays at the Fountain Valley Skating Center, 9105 Recreation Circle. The cost to participate is $5, which includes a water bottle.
Contact the writer: 714-796-2227 or email@example.com


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TAG at Ten: The Year 2000
NIH workshops on long term effectiveness research, studies designed to look at "when to start" and switch HAART, and for long-term side effects.
TAG hires Yvette Delph as new Antiviral Project Director. Completion of TAG's AIDS Vaccine Research at the NIH: A Critical Review, by Gregg Gonsalves.
NIAID Council/ARAC discuss long-term effectiveness research. The Lancet commissions Mark Harrington to write on the "when to start" controversy.
Long-time activist Jon Ende dies in New York. TAG talks on "When to Start" at San Francisco AIDS Update, on STIs at European Community Advisory Board. First International HIV Pharmacology Workshop.
Journalist Mark Schoofs wins Pulitzer Prize for his Village Voice "AIDS in Africa" series. Gregg and Mark meet with Zackie Achmat from South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in New York City and start planning South African treatment literacy workshops. TAG/amfAR New Targets Workshop, Dedham (MA) -- designed by Gregg Gonsalves -- focuses on potential new HIV drug targets.
Philadelphia memorial service for long-time activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya.
HIV immunologist Janis Giorgi dies of ovarian cancer.
HHS Guidelines panel debates "When to start?" Moves reluctantly towards new, lower threshold of 350 CD4 cells/30,000 viral load. Publication of "Hit HIV-1 hard, but only when necessary," by TAG's Mark Harrington and Brown University's Charles Carpenter in The Lancet (vol. 355/no. 9221). TAG founding director Peter Staley honored at amfAR Ellis Island benefit. Michael Marco completes TAG's The Hepatitis Report.
TAG's Exploring the American Response to the Global AIDS Pandemic, by Derek Link.
Long-time activist Stephen Gendin dies of AIDS-related lymphoma.
Treatment Action Campaign/Médécins sans Frontières (MSF) workshop on access to antiretroviral treatment, Durban. March for Global Treatment Access. International AIDS Conference, Durban, South Africa. Treatment activism is global now. Nelson Mandela closes the conference.
FDA approves Abbott's lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra).
Second STI Workshop, Shaumburg (IL). Super-philanthropist Irene Diamond donates $50,000 for the TAC/TAG workshops. FDA approves Videx EC (enteric coated ddI).
Mark Harrington gives talk on "Brazil: What Went Right?" at 10th Annual Brazilian PWA conference, Rio de Janeiro. NATAF held in Dallas. United States Presidential election deadlock due to disputed Florida vote count.
FDA approves Glaxo's fixed-dose combo of abacavir, 3TC and AZT (Trizivir).
TAC/TAG workshops held in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, South Africa.
Fourth annual Research in Action Awards honor activist and TAG board member Lynda Dee, NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and Broadway Cares director Tom Viola.
U.S. Supreme Court halts Florida recount, selecting popular vote loser G. W. Bush as President. FDA issues safety alert on unapproved goat serum AIDS treatment.


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MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's unemployment rate soared to its highest level since measurements began in the 1970s as a prolonged recession and deep spending cuts left almost 6 million people out of work at the end of last year.
Spain's unemployment rate rose to 26 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, or 5.97 million people, the National Statistics Institute said on Thursday, up from 25 percent in the previous quarter and more than double the European Union average.
"We haven't seen the bottom yet and employment will continue falling in the first quarter," said Citigroup strategist Jose Luis Martinez.
Spain sank into its second recession since 2009 at the end of 2011 after a burst housing bubble left millions of low-skilled laborers out of work and sliding private and business sentiment gutted consumer spending and imports.
Efforts by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government to control one of the euro zone's largest deficits through billions of euros of spending cuts and tax hikes have fueled general malaise, further hampering demand.
When Rajoy took office in late 2011 there were 5.27 million jobless in Spain.
The economic downturn put an average of 1,900 out of work every day through 2012 and with the recession expected to last at least until the end of 2013, net job creation is unlikely this year.
Joblessness has been particularly acute for Spain's youth, with 60 percent of people under the age of 25 unemployed in the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the economy shrank at its fastest pace since the recession began, the Bank of Spain said on Wednesday, dragged down by a steep drop in private consumption due in part to a September VAT hike and public wage cuts.
Additional reporting by Manuel Maria Ruiz; Writing by Paul Day; Editing by Fiona Ortiz


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DHEA Restoration Therapy
The natural steroid hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) was first introduced to Life Extension supporters four decades ago at a time when the medical community was largely unaware of the scientific data supporting this hormone's multifaceted benefits. Fast forward to today, when more than 3700 papers have evaluated the scientific effects of DHEA upon many different cells and tissues of the body. This multifunctional hormone and its metabolite dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S) provide critical hormonal benefits in both men and women (Traish 2011; Savineau 2013). As a precursor to androgens (male hormones) and estrogens (female hormones), DHEA plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of hormonal balance and youthful vitality. It also modulates a variety of pathways throughout the body involved in various aspects of health and disease via direct actions independent of its role as a precursor to androgens and estrogens (Samaras 2013; Traish 2011; Savineau 2013).
Aging disrupts hormonal balance, with the levels of several critical hormones dramatically reduced in comparison with youthful levels, and DHEA is no exception. By age 80, levels of DHEA fall by as much as 80%–90% compared to what they were during young adulthood (Samaras 2013). The gravity of this becomes clear after understanding the roles DHEA plays in supporting healthy, youthful physiology across several body systems. Studies have shown that reduced levels of DHEA-S are linked with the pathophysiology underlying numerous age-associated disease states, including cognitive decline, cardiovascular disease, bone loss, cancer, depression, sexual dysfunction, and various inflammatory disorders (Samaras 2013; Traish 2011; Savineau 2013; Dong 2012; Zaluska 2009; Labrie 2009; Straub 2000; Krysiak 2008; Lopez-Marure 2011).
Restoring youthful DHEA levels provides a unique opportunity to mitigate the consequences of dwindling hormones. Unlike direct administration of androgens (ie, testosterone replacement therapy) or estrogens (ie, estrogen replacement therapy), bolstering DHEA levels provides a "reservoir" of this hormone precursor that various tissues can convert into androgens and estrogens (Traish 2011; Arlt 1998; Morales 1994; Aldred 2010; Samaras 2013; Panjari 2007). However, DHEA administration cannot supplant the need to measure and restore other hormones because the rate at which it is converted to androgens and estrogens varies among individuals and with gender (Samaras 2013; Arlt 1999; Schulze 2013; Fitzpatrick 2001; Miller 2004). Therefore, restoring DHEA levels should be viewed as an integral part of a comprehensive hormone restoration regimen rather than an alternative to testosterone replacement in men and estrogen replacement in women.
In addition to its role as a hormone precursor, DHEA also modulates inflammation, which is a driving force in many diseases. This multifunctional hormone also promotes the production of the cell-signaling molecule nitric oxide within the delicate lining of blood vessels by activating an enzyme called endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS). Nitric oxide is a pivotal regulator of blood flow via its ability to stimulate blood vessel dilation. Thus, it is not surprising that low DHEA levels have been linked to cardiovascular disease in the medical literature (Samaras 2013; Traish 2011).
Upon oral administration, DHEA is mostly converted to DHEA-S, which circulates in the blood far longer than DHEA. Circulating DHEA-S acts as a reserve upon which tissues can draw. Once taken up by tissues, DHEA-S is converted back to DHEA, which can then be locally converted to androgens and estrogens or exert direct action (Samaras 2013; Traish 2011).
Since DHEA-S is more abundant in the bloodstream than DHEA (Traish 2011; Savineau 2013), simple blood tests to measure DHEA-S concentrations can be integrated into any healthy aging strategy for both men and women. With regular monitoring of blood levels of DHEA-S and other hormones, individuals are provided with specific feedback about the state of their hormonal milieu (Traish 2011). This allows for development, implementation, and optimization of individualized regimens that can help maturing individuals lead full, active, healthy lives (Samaras 2013).
Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is a method of administering hormones that are structurally identical to those produced by the human body. Treatment with DHEA, which is also bioidentical, is an integral component of any comprehensive hormone restoration regimen. On the other hand, some forms of conventional hormone replacement therapy utilize hormones that are not identical to those produced by humans and are either derived from animals or synthesized. Evidence suggests that bioidentical hormone replacement therapy may be safer and associated with greater patient satisfaction than conventional hormone replacement therapy (Holtorf 2009). Life Extension's Male Hormone Restoration and Female Hormone Restoration protocols provide a thorough overview of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and should be referred to in conjunction with this protocol.


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The fast food industry has entered a chicken war, but there's at least one chicken chain that's not scared of the increased competition.
It's Popeyes.
We sat down with Cheryl Bachelder, CEO of Popeyes, to talk about her competitors' movement toward chicken and what she thinks of it.
Bachelder has overseen a mighty turnaround at the chicken chain, and she's far from worried about the bigger chains butting into her business.
"Everybody's going into chicken sandwiches and that is not our sweet spot," said Bachelder. "Bone-in chicken, portable chicken and seafood — that's where we differentiate."
" They can make chicken sandwiches all day long — they're mediocre," she continued. " There's nothing high-quality about them."
Bachelder mentioned the effectiveness of the Popeyes brand. It has a specific appeal to customer, and it's something that a chain like McDonald's wouldn't be able to replicate, she said.
"McDonald's doesn't marinate for 12 hours, and if they did, you wouldn't believe them anyway," she said "We want to use a lot of our food credibility."
Bachelder isn't afraid — at least outwardly — of any competitive pressure. To her, Popeyes' competition are the top five quick-serve brands, because she's fighting for the same occasion of lunch or dinner as them. So, Popeyes measures its market share and performance against all of the top chains.
"That's the way we want to think. We want to beat McDonald's — we don't want to beat just KFC," said Bachelder. "We do have to be ahead of them in our service experiences. We still have an opportunity for improvement to compete with the big guys."
"The problem we do have is to get next door to all of them," she said.
That's one big problem, of course. Popeyes is the second-largest fast food chicken chain, but its 1,800 stores are dwarfed by McDonald's 33,000. It just doesn't have the scale.
Now, if Popeyes is touting its quality, what about the rise of fast casual chains like Panera Bread, Chipotle and Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which have spent years building their brands around just that?
Bachelder said that it's one of the reasons why Popeyes is going through a re-imaging process, making its stores more upscale so you feel good about sitting there to enjoy your food.
"[Fast casual] focuses on food quality and it focuses on a quality environment to eat your food. I think they've changed the way you want to enjoy your fast food," she explained. "Superior food, superior experience and superior environment."
NOW SEE: 8 'Better Burger' Chains Poised To Conquer America >