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Illinois Budget 10.27.08
Here are the top Illinois stories coming today from GateHouse News Service. Stories are available at www.gatehousenewsservice.com. Please check www.gatehousenewsservice.com/regional_news/midwest/illinois/news in the evening for changes to story lineup, including breaking news.
If your paper has a story, digest item, opinion piece or standalone photo to share, please e-mail it to email@example.com.
Casey Laughman: (217) 816-3343, firstname.lastname@example.com
Jean Hodges: Dropdown menus added to News Service Web site.
Monday's page of the day: The State Journal-Register.
Partial paralysis doesn't keep teen from football, racing
PEKIN – Chaz Gregory was born with mild paralysis of his right side, but his parents never allowed him to say he couldn't do something because of his disability. That can-do attitude has pushed the Pekin resident to compete as a linebacker on his high school football team and as an open-wheel race car driver who cruises around the track in a 1,200 cc outlaw sprint car in the Mid-American Outlaw Sprint Series. By Kevin Sampier of the Peoria Journal Star.
STATE BRIEFS: News from around the state. POSTED.
LOTTERY LIMBO: A new opinion from the U.S. Department of Justice puts in doubt the key source of funding for Illinois' long-debated capital construction program by saying long-term leases of state lotteries violate federal law requiring state control of the lotteries. By Doug Finke of the State Capitol bureau. POSTED.
PONTIAC PRISON: The state workers union plans Nov. 19 rally in Springfield to express opposition to Gov. Blagojevich's plan to close Pontiac Correctional Center by the end of the year. By Adriana Colindres of the State Capitol bureau. Early version posted; will be updated.
One year later, search for Stacy continues with no end in sight
BOLINGBROOK – As the one-year anniversary of Stacy Peterson's disappearance nears, a mountain of failing hope and fruitless efforts dwarf the hill of optimism that once surrounded her friends and family. It's a milestone with no merit. A tacit cue that closure should begin, where no closure is in sight. By Danya Hooker of Suburban Life Publications.
18th Congressional District:
Callahan says she's not seeking political career
PEORIA – When Democrat Colleen Callahan decided to seek the congressional seat being vacated by Ray LaHood, the political newcomer realized she would be viewed as the underdog against two-term Republican state lawmaker Aaron Schock. By Adriana Colindres of the State Capitol bureau.
Schock: Energy, defense, taxes the big issues
PEORIA – Since winning a seat on the Peoria School Board at age 19, Aaron Schock has never lost an election — and he doesn't plan to start now. Schock, now serving his second term in the Illinois House of Representatives, wants to take over the 18th Congressional District seat held by U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, who is retiring.
Sheldon Schafer on the issues
Where Green Party candidate Sheldon Schafer stands on the issues.
Broken turbine blade raises questions about wind power
WYANET – What property owner Richard Schertz described as the thunderous sound of a wind turbine blade crashing down into his cornfield apparently echoed around the world. The stock price of the company that manufactures the turbines, India-based Suzlon Energy, tumbled more than 39 percent on the Bombay Stock Exchange after it notified the exchange of the failure. And the accident has wind-power opponents questioning its value. By Matt Buedel of the Peoria Journal Star.
WiMax technology part of plans for higher-speed Internet
SPRINGFIELD – One of Springfield's original dial-up companies has begun the transition to WiMax, a high-speed wireless technology an industry analyst calls "an evolution, not a revolution" in broadband competition. The step by Springnet1 is part of continuing improvements in broadband technology, both wired and wireless, that continue to remake the market for Internet service. By Tim Landis of the State Journal-Register.
Small-business owners lean red
ROCKFORD – If nothing else, Joe the Plumber helped focus the final few weeks of the presidential race on the plight of the small-business owner. No one in the U.S. believes John McCain can win Illinois — Barack Obama's home state, with heavily Democratic Chicago dominating the landscape — so the state's 21 electoral votes almost certainly will go to the Illinois senator. But if a very unscientific small-business owner poll conducted by the Rockford Register Star was to decide it, it would be a different story. McCain was favored by 50 percent of the respondents, with 33 percent for Obama and 17 percent undecided. By Alex Gary of the Rockford Register Star.
Curator works to keep smallest library in the state alive
ELLISVILLE – Hidden away in the tiny town of Ellisville, population 86, is one great big treasure: 3,500 books packed into 336 square feet, the smallest library in the state of Illinois. By Lainie Steelman of the Macomb Journal.
Down syndrome center calendar features children living with disorder
ROSCOE – On Tuesday afternoons, 4-year-old Faith Kosak spends time in the living room singing songs and dancing the motions to "Head, shoulders, knees and toes." She's just like most other 4-year-olds, except she has Trisomy 21 — the triplication of the 21st chromosome, called Down syndrome. Faith is one of three Rock River Valley girls featured in the 2009 calendar Inspire, produced by GiGi's Playhouse. By Cathy Bayer of the Rockford Register Star.
Funeral home celebrates 80th birthday with the King
BARTONVILLE – Dave Stovall danced around a replica of Elvis Presley's casket. Hail to the King. A facsimile of the 650-pound copper casket in which Presley was buried, complete with French bisquit-tufted velvet, was on display Saturday at Endsley Funeral Home. Stovall performed some signature Elvis songs during an open house at the funeral home, which is celebrating 80 years of service in the Tri-County Area. By Kevin Sampier of the Peoria Journal Star.
Artist embraces an orange medium
MOUNT PULASKI – Rene Hubal has loved Halloween since she was a child. "After my son was born," she said, "I got into it a lot more." Hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins more. One of Hubal's pumpkin carvings took first place in the 2007 Pumpkin Masters contest. By Nancy Rollings Saul of the Lincoln Courier.
BRITT: Toons on Joe Biden's gaffes and Sarah Palin's $150,000 wardrobe. POSTED.
Jeff Vrabel: Horse makes international painting debut
Horses, if we're being honest, are terrible at most things. They can't kick a field goal to save their lives, they can't drive a tractor, and they are completely useless when you ask them for help with your BlackBerry. Yet I received word this week that though they still can't help me decide what to do with my 401(k), horses are getting better at one thing: art.
Chuck Sweeny: Follow the money
Raising the most money doesn't always determine the winner in politics, but a candidate does have to have enough money to get his name out there and be taken seriously by the voters. And I don't recall meeting too many candidates who wouldn't like to have more money than their opponent. So, with just over a week to go in this exhaustive election year, it's a good time to take a look at the cash ledgers.
Editorial: Politicians' opposition means constitutional convention a good idea
One could wallow for days in the minutiae of why Illinois needs a constitutional convention to fix our state's dysfunctional government. We'll immerse you in those details shortly. But if you don't want to get caught up in all of that, there is one fact that is particularly persuasive in favor of the convention: Almost every entrenched interest and elected official at the Statehouse, regardless of their spot on the ideological spectrum, doesn't want it to happen. An editorial from the State Journal-Register.
Editorial: Fiscal fears, foreign policy worries still endure
Sixty-eight years ago, America had suffered through a decade of the Great Depression and Adolf Hitler was blitzkrieging his way through Europe. Americans were fearful and insecure - sound familiar? - and that was reflected in the pages of a Journal Star predecessor, the Peoria Journal-Transcript. An editorial from the Peoria Journal Star.
MIKE NADEL: Best of The Baldest Truth (featuring items on Illinois football and basketball, the Bears, etc.). POSTED.
ILLINI: WITH THE ILLINI: Notebook column likely led with interview with Illini quarterback Juice Williams. Will also include men's and women's basketball. By John Supinie. Will be posted this evening.
NFL Quick Shots: Draft mistakes don't have to hold teams hostage
Recent bad drafts, conventional wisdoms says, gives Mike Singletary little chance in San Francisco. The Chicago Tribune wrote that taking Alex Smith No. 1 overall in 2005 set the 49ers back five years. If that's true, how come Tennessee went into Monday night as the NFL's only unbeaten team? By Matt Trowbridge of the Rockford Register Star.


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subset: commoncrawl


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These "UP" converters produce 24 volts from 12 volt systems and are ideal for managing dual voltage applications on marine vessels without having to install a 24 volt battery and dedicated charging system. Choose from two types depending on your application:
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Announcing the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize 2013 short list…
August 27th, 2013
Today, four extraordinary international photographers were selected as finalists for the 2013 Aimia | AGO Photography Prize, Canada's leading award for contemporary photography and the first major art prize in the world whose winner is chosen entirely by public vote. Voting opens today at AimiaAGOPhotographyPrize.com and, for the first time, on Facebook.
The finalists, selected by jury from a long list of 14 artists, are: Edgardo Aragón (Mexico), LaToya Ruby Frazier (U.S.), Chino Otsuka (Japan/U.K.) and Erin Shirreff (Canada). As a group, these four artists represent a snapshot of current directions in photography and video in which images are used to build powerful, complex and often personal narratives.
- Edgardo Aragón was born in Mexico, and his work invites reflection on the history of violence in his homeland. Deeply engaged with political and social histories of Oaxaca, the province where he was born and still lives, his video and photography often document performance and sculptural interventions against landscapes that appear at once serene and foreboding.
- LaToya Ruby Frazier was born and raised in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Her work is informed by late 19th- and early 20th-century modes of representation in documentary practice. She uses the conventions of social documentary and portraiture to expose untold stories of post-industrial decline in the United States, filtered through the experiences of her own family and community in Braddock.
- Chino Otsuka was born in Tokyo and moved to the U.K. at age 10 to attend school. Often mining her own autobiography, Otsuka uses photography and video to explore the fluid relationship between memory, time and photography.
- Erin Shirreff was born in 1975 in Kelowna, B.C., and now lives and works in New York. Her work interweaves photography, video and sculpture to extend and explore the act of looking, asking questions about the often paradoxical relationship between time and space and the image, and the impact of perception on the location of meaning.
A jury of three — comprising lead juror Elizabeth Smith, former AGO executive director of curatorial affairs and current executive director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in New York; Urs Stahel, director, curator, and editor of Fotomuseum Winterthur; and artist Kader Attia — selected the four finalists from the long list.
"The jurors were delighted with the strength and diversity of the long-listed artists," said Smith. "In choosing the four finalists, we responded most to qualities that made the work fresh, powerful and original in some way. We looked for strength, coherence and consistency in the interplay of imagery and content and selected the artists whose work made the most pronounced impact on all of us."
An exhibition of works by the four short-listed artists, curated by Smith, opens at the AGO on Sept. 11, 2013. We're also hosting a free public launch party that night, with presentations by nominators and members of the jury about each of the four artists.
The following evening, Sept. 12, 2013, at 7 p.m., the four artists will speak at a special panel event at the AGO alongside Smith; AGO associate curator of photography Sophie Hackett; and nominators Jennifer Blessing, senior curator of photography at The Guggenheim; and Helga Pakasaar, curator at Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver. Tickets to the event are available now.
Updates on the Prize, further details on the shortlisted artists and additional information are available via AimiaAGOPhotographyPrize.com, the Prize's Facebook page and @AimiaAGOPrize on Twitter.


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Visit marthastewart.com | marthastewartweddings.com
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Floats: come in spinner
A few big winners can distort the overall picture of how well new listings have performed. We dissect the statistics.
Catalyst Recruitment Systems Limited(CRU)
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When we last looked at the state of play in new floats back in issue 47, we found that floats in the previous 12 months had turned in a 14.6% return overall. We got that figure by taking, in each case, the close on the first trading day as the base, and weighting the result towards those stocks that had been listed longer. The return compared well to the general market, but investors had to be in the right stocks to benefit - of the 138 new floats covered, the balance between those that were ahead and those that had fallen behind was about even. In essence, investment in floats between...


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Moderators: Three Stars, dagny, pfim, netwolf
mac5155 wrote:Hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
Letang Is The Truth wrote:Limas Sweed
BurghersAndDogsSports wrote:I would actually be somewhat optimistic if our line was:
Starks. Colon. Pouncey. Decastro. Gilbert.
that's where we are going to lose it, I think our wide outs will run pretty open today and even with a jelly armed QB we have a chance to make plays, the ravens will be putting 9 in the box.
But with that crap we are proposing as a line it could get very ugly and very quickly.
ajh2298 wrote:3-Steelers
ville5 wrote:2-0 stillers in OT
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Photo: jdlasica
Because there is a new CEO at Yahoo, ex-Googler Marissa Mayer, most Yahoo senior executives who got their jobs under prior CEOs assume that they are going to find themselves replaced in the next 18 months.It's a normal part of the deal when a new CEO comes on to a company in need of a turnaround.
But that doesn't mean these people aren't sometimes surprised when it's their turn on the chopping block.
Take Mollie Spillman, for example. On Monday morning, she woke up as Yahoo's CMO, put into the position by interim CEO Ross Levinsohn. She was enjoying a typical August vacation at the beach, we hear.
Then, in the afternoon, the news broke: Yahoo had hired a new CMO – one of Mayer's friends in the industry, Kathy Savitt, the CEO of a startup called Lockerz.
A source close to the situation tells us Mayer informed the vacationing Spillman of the news only 10 minutes before it broke.
"She was blindsided," said this source. Mayer and Spillman have worked closely together in the weeks since she became CEO, and the fact that Mayer was looking for her replacement never came up.
Again: Nobody senior at Yahoo is going to be shocked when they find themselves replaced by Mayer. These people are pros. But a few Yahoo watchers did find the way this story shook out odd.
The kicker: Our source close to the situation tells us that, after explaining to Spillman that she was no longer CMO, Mayer asked Spillman to please stay at Yahoo. We don't know if she's going to.
Despite lots of effort, we have been unable to reach Yahoo PR for quite some time.
We're obviously paying very close attention to Yahoo these days, and would love to hear from more sources. You can reach me at [email protected] or text/call 727 507 1699.
Business Insider Emails & Alerts
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Early one recent morning, while the San Francisco fog was lifting from the surrounding hills, Charlie Wilson performed his two thousand nine hundred and eighty-seventh transsphenoidal resection of a pituitary tumor. The patient was a man in his sixties who had complained of impotence and obscured vision. Diagnostic imaging revealed a growth, eighteen millimetres in diameter, that had enveloped his pituitary gland and was compressing his optic nerve. He was anesthetized and covered in blue surgical drapes, and one of Wilson's neurosurgery residents—a tall, slender woman in her final year of training—"opened" the case, making a small incision in his upper gum, directly underneath his nose. She then tunnelled back through his nasal passages until she reached the pituitary, creating a cavity several inches deep and about one and a half centimetres in diameter.
Wilson entered the operating room quickly, walking stiffly, bent slightly at the waist. He is sixty-nine—a small, wiry man with heavily muscled arms. His hair is cut very close to his scalp, so that, as residents over the years have joked, he might better empathize with the shaved heads of his patients. He is part Cherokee Indian and has high, broad cheekbones and large ears, which stick out at almost forty-five-degree angles. He was wearing Nike cross-trainers, and surgical scrubs marked with the logo of the medical center he has dominated for the past thirty years—Moffitt Hospital, at the University of California, San Francisco. When he was busiest, in the nineteen-eighties, he would routinely do seven or eight brain surgeries in a row, starting at dawn and ending at dusk, lining up patients in adjoining operating rooms and striding from one to the other like a conquering general. On this particular day, he would do five, of which the transsphenoidal was the first, but the rituals would be the same. Wilson believes that neurosurgery is best conducted in silence, with a scrub nurse who can anticipate his every step, and a resident who does not have to be told what to do, only shown. There was no music in the O.R. To guard against unanticipated disturbances, the door was locked. Pagers were set to "buzz," not beep. The phone was put on "Do Not Disturb."
Wilson sat by the patient in what looked like a barber's chair, manipulating a surgical microscope with a foot pedal. In his left hand he wielded a tiny suction tube, which removed excess blood. In his right he held a series of instruments in steady alternation: Cloward elevator, Penfield No. 2, Cloward rongeur, Fulton rongeur, conchatome, Hardy dissector, Kurze scissors, and so on. He worked quickly, with no wasted motion. Through the microscope, the tumor looked like a piece of lobster flesh, white and fibrous. He removed the middle of it, exposing the pituitary underneath. Then he took a ring curette—a long instrument with a circular scalpel perpendicular to the handle—and ran it lightly across the surface of the gland, peeling the tumor away as he did so.
It was, he would say later, like running a squeegee across a windshield, except that in this case the windshield was a surgical field one centimetre in diameter, flanked on either side by the carotid arteries, the principal sources of blood to the brain. If Wilson were to wander too far to the right or to the left and nick either artery, the patient might, in the neurosurgical shorthand, "stroke." If he were to push too far to the rear, he might damage any number of critical nerves. If he were not to probe aggressively, though, he might miss a bit of tumor and defeat the purpose of the procedure entirely. It was a delicate operation, which called for caution and confidence and the ability to distinguish between what was supposed to be there and what wasn't. Wilson never wavered. At one point, there was bleeding from the right side of the pituitary, which signalled to Wilson that a small piece of tumor was still just outside his field of vision, and so he gently slid the ring curette over, feeling with the instrument as if by his fingertips, navigating around the carotid, lifting out the remaining bit of tumor. In the hands of an ordinary neurosurgeon, the operation—down to that last bit of blindfolded acrobatics—might have taken several hours. It took Charlie Wilson twenty-five minutes.
Neurosurgery is generally thought to attract the most gifted and driven of medical-school graduates. Even in that rarefied world, however, there are surgeons who are superstars and surgeons who are merely very good. Charlie Wilson is one of the superstars. Those who have trained with him say that if you showed them a dozen videotapes of different neurosurgeons in action—with the camera focussed just on the hands of the surgeon and the movements of the instruments—they could pick Wilson out in an instant, the same way an old baseball hand could look at a dozen batters in silhouette and tell you which one was Willie Mays. Wilson has a distinctive fluidity and grace.
One of the most difficult of all neurosurgical procedures is aneurysm repair, where the surgeon sets out to seal, with a tiny titanium clip, a bulge in the side of an artery caused by the weakening of its wall. If the aneurysm bursts in the process—because the clip is applied incorrectly, or the surgeon inadvertently punctures one of the tributary vessels or doesn't see something critical on the underside of the aneurysm—the patient stands a good chance of dying. Aneurysm repair is bomb disposal. Wilson made it look easy. "After he'd dissected the whole aneurysm out, and when he had control of all the feeding vessels, I'd see him grasp it and flip it back and forth, because he somehow knew that if it popped he would still be able to clip it," says Michon Morita, who trained with Wilson at U.C.S.F. in the early nineties and now practices in Honolulu. "Most people are afraid of aneurysms. He wasn't afraid of them at all. He was like a cat playing with a mouse."
There are thousands of people who have played in the National Hockey League over the years, but there has been only one Wayne Gretzky. Thousands of cellists play professionally all over the world, but very few will ever earn comparison with Yo-Yo Ma. People like Gretzky or Ma or Charlie Wilson all have an affinity for translating thought into action.They're what we might call physical geniuses. But what makes them so good at what they do?
The temptation is to treat physical genius in the same way that we treat intellectual genius—to think of it as something that can be ascribed to a single factor, a physical version of I.Q. When professional football coaches assess the year's crop of college prospects, they put them through drills designed to measure what they regard as athleticism: How high can you jump? How many pounds can you bench press? How fast can you sprint? The sum of the scores on these tests is considered predictive of athletic performance, and every year some college player's stock shoots up before draft day because it is suddenly discovered that he can run, say, 4.4 seconds in the forty-yard dash as opposed to 4.6 seconds. This much seems like common sense. The puzzling thing about physical genius, however, is that the closer you look at it the less it can be described by such cut-and-dried measures of athleticism.
Consider, for example, Tony Gwynn, who has been one of the best hitters in baseball over the past fifteen years. We would call him extraordinarily coördinated, by which we mean that in the course of several hundred milliseconds he can execute a series of perfectly synchronized muscular actions—the rotation of the shoulder, the movement of the arms, the shift of the hips—and can regulate the outcome of those actions so that his bat hits the ball with exactly the desired degree of force. These are abilities governed by specific neurological mechanisms. Timing, for example, appears to be controlled by the cerebellum. Richard Ivry, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, has looked at patients who suffered cerebellar damage as a result of a stroke. He had them pronounce the sounds "bah," "pah," and "dah." The difference between the "b" sound and the "p" sound is primarily a matter of timing. "To make the 'b' sound, you put your lips together and as you open them you immediately vibrate the vocal chords," Ivry said. "For 'p' you open the lips thirty to forty milliseconds before the vocal cords vibrate." Stroke patients with cerebellar damage, Ivry found, make lots of "b"-"p" mistakes: "baby" comes out "paby." Their timing is off. But they don't have trouble with "p" and "d," because the timing of lips and vocal cords for those two sounds is exactly the same. The difference is simply in the configuration of your tongue. "You never hear them say 'dady' instead of 'baby,' " Ivry said.
Force regulation appears to be controlled by another area of the brain entirely, the basal ganglia. "I like to think of the basal ganglia as a gate to the motor system," Ivry said, although he cautioned that the work on force regulation is still a good deal more speculative than the work on timing. "At any point in time, I have a few actions that I'm thinking about, and the basal ganglia are monitoring all the potential ones, then choosing one. The question is: How quickly does that gate open up?" He devised a study in which subjects were asked to press on a lever with their index finger over and over again, with the same degree of force each time. Patients with Parkinson's disease, which is a degenerative condition affecting the basal ganglia, had relatively little trouble with the timing of that movement, but they had terrible difficulty controlling the force of the tapping. At one moment they were pressing too hard, and the next they weren't pressing hard enough. Their "gate" wasn't working properly.
Stroke victims and Parkinson's patients, of course, are people who have actually suffered neurological impairment. But Ivry and Steven Keele, of the University of Oregon, suggest that in healthy people, too, there is probably a natural variation in the efficiency of these motor-control functions. They have done work on clumsy children, for example, that shows that what looks like a general lack of coördination can, in some cases, be broken down into either a basal-ganglia problem or a cerebellum problem. Clumsy kids are at one end of the coördination bell curve. "Maybe their neural connections or their branching isn't as well developed, or they don't have as many synaptic connections," Ivry suggests. And at the other end of the curve? That's where you find people like Tony Gwynn.
But being wonderfully coördinated isn't all there is to hitting. A ball thrown at eighty-nine miles per hour (which is a typical speed in the major leagues) takes roughly four hundred and sixty milliseconds to go from the pitcher's hand to home plate. Someone like Tony Gywnn, with all his finely tuned physiological hardware, takes about a hundred and sixty milliseconds to swing a bat. The decision about how to swing the bat, however, will take Gwynn between a hundred and ninety and four hundred and fifty milliseconds, depending on what the situation is and what he intends to do with the pitch. "Very good hitters base their decisions on past experience with certain pitchers, with the count, with the probabilities of certain types of pitches, with their own skills, and use very early cues in the pitcher's delivery to begin the swing," Janet Starkes, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, in Ontario, says.
What sets physical geniuses apart from other people, then, is not merely being able to do something but knowing what to do—their capacity to pick up on subtle patterns that others generally miss. This is what we mean when we say that great athletes have a "feel" for the game, or that they "see" the court or the field or the ice in a special way. Wayne Gretzky, in a 1981 game against the St. Louis Blues, stood behind the St. Louis goal, laid the puck across the blade of his stick, then bounced it off the back of the goalie in front of him and into the net. Gretzky's genius at that moment lay in seeing a scoring possibility where no one had seen one before. "People talk about skating, puck-handling, and shooting," Gretzky told an interviewer some years later, "but the whole sport is angles and caroms, forgetting the straight direction the puck is going, calculating where it will be diverted, factoring in all the interruptions." Neurosurgeons say that when the very best surgeons operate they always know where they are going, and they mean that the Charlie Wilsons of this world possess that same special feel—an ability to calculate the diversions and to factor in the interruptions when faced with a confusing mass of blood and tissue.
When Charlie Wilson came to U.C. San Francisco, in July of 1968, his first case concerned a woman who had just had a pituitary operation. The previous surgeon had done the one thing that surgeons are not supposed to do in pituitary surgery—tear one of the carotid arteries. Wilson was so dismayed by the outcome that he resolved he would teach himself how to do the transsphenoidal, which was then a relatively uncommon procedure. He carefully read the medical literature. He practiced on a few cadavers. He called a friend in Los Angeles who was an expert at the procedure, and had him come to San Francisco and perform two operations while Wilson watched. He flew to Paris to observe Gerard Guiot, who was one of the great transsphenoidal surgeons at the time. Then he flew home. It was the equivalent of someone preparing for a major-league tryout by watching the Yankees on television and hitting balls in an amusement-arcade batting cage. "Charlie went slowly," recalls Ernest Bates, a Bay-area neurosurgeon who scrubbed with Wilson on his first transsphenoidal, "but he knew the anatomy and, boom, he was there. I thought, My God, this was the first? You'd have thought he had done a hundred. Charlie has a skill that the rest of us just don't have."
This is the hard part about understanding physical genius, because the source of that special skill—that "feel"—is still something of a mystery. "Sometimes during the course of an operation, there'll be several possible ways of doing something, and I'll size them up and, without having any conscious reason, I'll just do one of them," Wilson told me. He speaks with a soft, slow drawl, a remnant of Neosho, Missouri, the little town where he grew up, and where his father was a pharmacist, who kept his store open from 7 A.M. to 11 P.M., seven days a week. Wilson has a plainspoken, unpretentious quality. When he talks about his extraordinary success as a surgeon, he gives the impression that he is talking about some abstract trait that he is neither responsible for nor completely able to understand. "It's sort of an invisible hand," he went on. "It begins almost to seem mystical. Sometimes a resident asks, 'Why did you do that?' and I say"—here Wilson gave a little shrug—" 'Well, it just seemed like the right thing.' "
There is a neurosurgeon at Columbia Presbyterian Center, in Manhattan, by the name of Don Quest, who served two tours in Vietnam flying A-1s off the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. Quest sounds like the kind of person who bungee jumps on the weekend and has personalized license plates that read "Ace." In fact, he is a thoughtful, dapper man with a carefully trimmed mustache, who plays the trombone in his spare time and quite cheerfully describes himself as compulsive. "When I read the New York Times, I don't speed-read it," Quest told me. "I read it carefully. I read everything. It drives my wife crazy." He was wearing a spotless physician's coat and a bow tie. "When I'm reading a novel—and there are so many novels I want to read—even if it's not very good I can't throw it away. I stick with it. It's quite frustrating, because I don't really have time for garbage." Quest talked about what it was like to repair a particularly tricky aneurysm compared to what it was like to land at night in rough seas and a heavy fog when you are running out of fuel and the lights are off on the carrier's landing strip, because the skies are full of enemy aircraft. "I think they are similar," he said, after some thought, and what he meant was that they were both exercises in a certain kind of exhaustive and meticulous preparation. "There is a checklist, before you take off, and this was drilled into us," Quest said. "It's on the dashboard with all the things you need to do. People forget to put the hook down, and you can't land on an aircraft carrier if the hook isn't down. Or they don't put the wheels down. One of my friends, my roommate, landed at night on the aircraft carrier with the wheels up. Thank God, the hook caught, because his engine stopped. He would have gone in the water." Quest did not seem like the kind of person who would forget to put the wheels down. "Some people are much more compulsive than others, and it shows," he went on to say. "It shows in how well they do their landing on the aircraft carrier, how many times they screw up, or are on the wrong radio frequency, or get lost, or their ordinances aren't accurate in terms of dropping a bomb. The ones who are the best are the ones who are always very careful."
Quest isn't saying that fine motor ability is irrelevant. One would expect him to perform extremely well on tests of the sort Ivry and Keele might devise. And, like Tony Gwynn, he's probably an adept and swift decision maker. But these abilities, Quest is saying, are of little use if you don't have the right sort of personality. Charles Bosk, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, once conducted a set of interviews with young doctors who had either resigned or been fired from neurosurgery-training programs, in an effort to figure out what separated the unsuccessful surgeons from their successful counterparts. He concluded that, far more than technical skills or intelligence, what was necessary for success was the sort of attitude that Quest has—a practical-minded obsession with the possibility and the consequences of failure. "When I interviewed the surgeons who were fired, I used to leave the interview shaking," Bosk said. "I would hear these horrible stories about what they did wrong, but the thing was that they didn't know that what they did was wrong. In my interviewing, I began to develop what I thought was an indicator of whether someone was going to be a good surgeon or not. It was a couple of simple questions: Have you ever made a mistake? And, if so, what was your worst mistake? The people who said, 'Gee, I haven't really had one,' or, 'I've had a couple of bad outcomes but they were due to things outside my control'—invariably those were the worst candidates. And the residents who said, 'I make mistakes all the time. There was this horrible thing that happened just yesterday and here's what it was.' They were the best. They had the ability to rethink everything that they'd done and imagine how they might have done it differently."
What this attitude drives you to do is practice over and over again, until even the smallest imperfections are ironed out. After doing poorly in a tournament just prior to this year's Wimbledon, Greg Rusedski, who is one of the top tennis players in the world, told reporters that he was going home to hit a thousand practice serves. One of the things that set Rusedski apart from lesser players, in other words, is that he is the kind of person who is willing to stand out in the summer sun, repeating the same physical movement again and again, in single-minded pursuit of some fractional improvement in his performance. Wayne Gretzky was the same way. He would frequently stay behind after practice, long after everyone had left, flipping pucks to a specific spot in the crease, or aiming shot after shot at the crossbar or the goal post.
And Charlie Wilson? In his first few years as a professor at U.C.S.F., he would disappear at the end of the day into a special laboratory to practice his craft on rats: isolating, cutting, and then sewing up their tiny blood vessels, and sometimes operating on a single rat two or three times. He would construct an artificial aneurysm using a vein graft on the side of a rat artery, then manipulate the aneurysm the same way he would in a human being, toughening its base with a gentle coagulating current—and return two or three days later to see how successful his work had been. Wilson sees surgery as akin to a military campaign. Training with him is like boot camp. He goes to bed somewhere around eleven at night and rises at 4:30 A.M. For years, he ran upward of eighty miles a week, competing in marathons and hundred-mile ultra-marathons. He quit only after he had a hip replacement and two knee surgeries and found himself operating in a cast. Then he took up rowing. On his days in the operating room, at the height of his career, Wilson would run his morning ten or twelve miles, conduct medical rounds, operate steadily until six or seven in the evening, and, in between, see patients, attend meetings, and work on what now totals six hundred academic articles. One of his former residents says, with a laugh, that when he was on Wilson's rotation he developed a persistent spasm of his upper eyelid and it did not go away until he moved on to train with someone else. Julian Hoff, the chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Michigan and a longtime friend of Wilson's, says, "The way he would communicate with people in the office is that he would have a little piece of paper and he would put your name with an arrow next to it, and two words saying what he wanted you to do." Once, when a new head of nursing at U.C.S.F. wanted to start rotating nursing teams in neurosurgery, instead of letting Wilson work with the same team every day, he stopped operating for a week in protest. New nurses, he explained, would mean more mistakes—not fatal mistakes but irregularities in the flow of his operating room, such as someone's handing him the wrong instrument, or handing him an instrument with the blade up instead of down, or even just a certain hesitation, because to Wilson the perfect operation requires a particular grace and rhythm. "In every way, it is analogous to the routine of a concert pianist," he says. "If you were going to do a concert and you didn't practice for a week, someone would notice that, just as I notice if one of my scrub nurses has been off for a week. There is that fraction-of-a-second difference in the way she reacts."
"Wilson has a certain way of positioning the arm of the retractor blade"—an instrument used to hold brain tissue in place—"so that the back end of the retractor doesn't stick up at all and he won't accidentally bump into it," Michon Morita told me. "Every once in a while, though, I'd see him when he didn't quite put it in the position he wanted to, and bumped it, which caused a little bit of hemorrhage on the brain surface. It wasn't harming the patient, and it was nothing he couldn't handle. But I'd hear 'That was stupid,' and I'd immediately ask myself, What did I do wrong? Then I'd realize he was chastising himself. Most people would say that if there was no harm done to the patient it was no big deal. But he wants to be perfect in everything, and when that perfection is broken he gets frustrated."
This kind of obsessive preparation does two things. It creates consistency. Practice is what enables Greg Rusedski to hit a serve at a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour again and again. It's what enables a pianist to play Chopin's double-thirds Étude at full speed, striking every key with precisely calibrated force. More important, practice changes the way a task is perceived. A chess master, for example,can look at a game in progress for a few seconds and then perfectly reconstruct that same position on a blank chessboard. That's not because chess masters have great memories (they don't have the same knack when faced with a random arrangement of pieces) but because hours and hours of chess playing have enabled them to do what psychologists call "chunking." Chunking is based on the fact that we store familiar sequences—like our telephone number or our bank-machine password—in long-term memory as a single unit, or chunk. If I told you a number you'd never heard before, though, you would be able to store it only in short-term memory, one digit at a time, and if I asked you to repeat it back to me you might be able to remember only a few of those digits—maybe the first two or the last three. By contrast, when the chess masters see the board from a real game, they are able to break the board down into a handful of chunks—two or three clusters of pieces in positions that they have encountered before.
In "The Game of Our Lives," a classic account of the 1980-81 season of the Edmonton Oilers hockey team, Peter Gzowski argues that one of the principal explanations for the particular genius of Wayne Gretzky was that he was hockey's greatest chunker. Gretzky, who holds nearly every scoring record in professional hockey, baffled many observers because he seemed to reverse the normal laws of hockey. Most great offensive players prefer to keep the rest of the action on the ice behind them—to try to make the act of scoring be just about themselves and the goalie. Gretzky liked to keep the action in front of him. He would set up by the side of the rink, or behind the opposing team's net, so that the eleven other players on the ice were in full view, and then slide the perfect pass to the perfect spot. He made hockey look easy, even as he was playing in a way that made it more complicated. Gzowski says that Gretzky could do that because, like master chess players, he wasn't seeing all eleven other players individually; he was seeing only chunks. Here is Gzowski's conclusion after talking to Gretzky about a game he once played against the Montreal Canadiens. It could as easily serve as an explanation for Charlie Wilson's twenty-five-minute transsphenoidal resection:
What Gretzky perceives on a hockey rink is, in a curious way, more simple than what a less accomplished player perceives. He sees not so much a set of moving players as a number of situations. . . . Moving in on the Montreal blueline, as he was able to recall while he watched a videotape of himself, he was aware of the position of all the other players on the ice. The pattern they formed was, to him, one fact, and he reacted to that fact. When he sends a pass to what to the rest of us appears an empty space on the ice, and when a teammate magically appears in that space to collect the puck, he has in reality simply summoned up from his bank account of knowledge the fact that in a particular situation, someone is likely to be in a particular spot, and if he is not there now he will be there presently.
For a time, early in his career, Charlie Wilson became obsessed with tennis. He took lessons from Rod Laver. He joined three tennis clubs, so he could be absolutely assured of having court time whenever he wanted it. He had his own ball machine, and would go out early in the morning, before anyone else was on the court, and hit bucket after bucket of balls. He was in great shape. He could play any number of sets. He had a serve that he says was a beauty, a great backhand, and—as he put it—"a very expensive" forehand. But Wilson never turned into the kind of tennis player he wanted to be. Julian Hoff recalls, "There was this guy in the neurosurgery department, John Adams, who was a former tennis champion. An older guy. Arthritic. Rickety. Looked terrible. Charlie decided that he had to beat John Adams. But he never could. It drove him crazy."
It is easy to understand Wilson's frustration. He was a superb athlete—as a teen-ager he had been an excellent basketball player, and he attended college on a football scholarship—and a surgeon who could make life-or-death decisions in a split second. And yet, for all his focus and determination, he could not respond effectively to an old man shuffling toward the ball twenty feet across the net from him. "A good player knows where the ball is going," Wilson says. "He anticipates it. He is there. I just wasn't." What Wilson is describing is a failure not of skill or of resolve but of the least understood element of physical genius—imagination. For some reason, he could not make the game come alive in his mind.
When psychologists study people who are expert at motor tasks, they find that almost all of them use their imaginations in a very particular and sophisticated way. Jack Nicklaus, for instance, has said that he has never taken a swing that he didn't first mentally rehearse, frame by frame. Yo-Yo Ma told me that he remembers riding on a bus, at the age of seven, and solving a difficult musical problem by visualizing himself playing the piece on the cello. Robert Spetzler, who trained with Wilson and is widely considered to be the heir to Wilson's mantle, says that when he gets into uncharted territory in an operation he feels himself transferring his mental image of what ought to happen onto the surgical field. Charlie Wilson talks about going running in the morning and reviewing each of the day's operations in his head—visualizing the entire procedure and each potential outcome in advance. "It was a virtual rehearsal," he says, "so when I was actually doing the operation, it was as if I were doing it for the second time." Once, he says, he had finished a case and taken off his gloves and was walking down the hall away from the operating room when he suddenly stopped, because he realized that the tape he had been playing in his head didn't match the operation that had unfolded before his eyes. "I was correlating everything—what I saw, what I expected, what the X-rays said. And I just realized that I had not pursued one particular thing. So I turned around, scrubbed, and went back in, and, sure enough, there was a little remnant of tumor that was just around the corner. It would have been a disaster."
The Harvard University psychologist Stephen Kosslyn has shown that this power to visualize consists of at least four separate abilities, working in combination. The first is the ability to generate an image—to take something out of long-term memory and reconstruct it on demand. The second is what he calls "image inspection," which is the ability to take that mental picture and draw inferences from it. The third is "image maintenance," the ability to hold that picture steady. And the fourth is "image transformation," which is the ability to take that image and manipulate it. If I asked you whether a frog had a tail, for example, you would summon up a picture of a frog from your long-term memory (image generation), hold it steady in your mind (image maintenance), rotate the frog around until you see his backside (image transformation), and then look to see if there was a tail there (image inspection). These four abilities are highly variable. Kosslyn once gave a group of people a list of thirteen tasks, each designed to test a different aspect of visualization, and the results were all over the map. You could be very good at generation and maintenance, for example, without being good at transformation, or you could be good at transformation without necessarily being adept at inspection and maintenance. Some of the correlations, in fact, were negative, meaning that sometimes being good at one of those four things meant that you were likely to be bad at another. Bennett Stein, a former chairman of neurosurgery at Columbia Presbyterian Center, says that one of the reasons some neurosurgery residents fail in their training is that they are incapable of making the transition between the way a particular problem is depicted in an X-ray or an M.R.I., and how the problem looks when they encounter it in real life. These are people whose capacities for mental imaging simply do not match what's required for dealing with the complexities of brain surgery. Perhaps these people can generate an image but are unable to transform it in precisely the way that is necessary to be a great surgeon; or perhaps they can transform the image but they cannot maintain it. The same may have been true for Charlie Wilson and tennis. Somehow, his particular configuration of imaging abilities did not fit with the demands of the sport. When he stopped playing the game, he says, he didn't miss it, and that's not surprising. Tennis never quite got inside his head. Neurosurgery, of course, is another matter.
"Certain aneurysms at the base of the brain are surrounded by very important blood vessels and nerves, and the typical neurosurgeon will make that dissection with a set of micro-instruments that are curved, each with a blunt end," Craig Yorke, who trained with Wilson and now practices neurosurgery in Topeka, recalls. "The neurosurgeon will sneak up on them. Charlie would call for a No. 11 blade, which is a thin, very low-profile scalpel, and would just cut down to where the aneurysm was. He would be there in a quarter of the time." The speed and the audacity of Wilson's maneuvers, Yorke said, would sometimes leave him breathless. "Do you know about Gestalt psychology?" he continued. "If I look at a particular field—tumor or aneurysm—I will see the gestalt after I've worked on it for a little while. He would just glance at it and see it. It's a conceptual, a spatial thing. His use of the No. 11 blade depended on his ability to construct a gestalt of the surgical field first. If just anybody had held up the eleven blade in that way it might have been a catastrophe. He could do it because he had the picture of the whole anatomy in his head when he picked up the instrument."
If you think of physical genius as a pyramid, with, at the bottom, the raw components of coördination, and, above that, the practice that perfects those particular movements, then this faculty of imagination is the top layer. This is what separates the physical genius from those who are merely very good. Michael Jordan and Karl Malone, his longtime rival, did not differ so much in their athletic ability or in how obsessively they practiced. The difference between them is that Jordan could always generate a million different scenarios by which his team could win, some of which were chunks stored in long-term memory, others of which were flights of fancy that came to him, figuratively and literally, in midair. Jordan twice won championships in the face of unexpected adversity: once, a case of the flu, and, the second time, a back injury to his teammate Scottie Pippen, and he seemed to thrive on these obstacles, in a way Karl Malone never could.
Yo-Yo Ma says that only once, early in his career, did he try for a technically perfect performance. "I was seventeen," he told me. "I spent a year working on it. I was playing a Brahms sonata at the 92nd Street Y. I remember working really hard at it, and in the middle of the performance I thought, I'm bored. It would have been nothing for me to get up from the stage and walk away. That's when I decided I would always opt for expression over perfection." It isn't that Ma doesn't achieve perfection; it's that he finds striving for perfection to be banal. He says that he sometimes welcomes it when he breaks a string, because that is precisely the kind of thing (like illness or an injury to a teammate) that you cannot prepare for—that you haven't chunked and, like some robot, stored neatly in long-term memory. The most successful performers improvise. They create, in Ma's words, "something living." Ma says he spends ninety per cent of his time "looking at the score, figuring it out—who's saying this, who wrote this and why," letting his mind wander, and only ten per cent on the instrument itself. Like Jordan, his genius originates principally in his imagination. If he spent less time dreaming and more time playing, he would be Karl Malone.
Here is the source of the physical genius's motivation. After all, what is this sensation—this feeling of having what you do fit perfectly into the dimensions of your imagination—but the purest form of pleasure? Tony Gwynn and Wayne Gretzky and Charlie Wilson and all the other physical geniuses are driven to greatness because they have found something so compelling that they cannot put it aside. Perhaps this explains why a great many top neurosurgeons are also highly musical. Robert Spetzler, Wilson's protégé, seriously considered a career as a concert pianist. Craig Yorke made his début as a violinist at sixteen with the Boston Pops. Quest, of course, plays the trombone. As for Wilson, he is a cellist and, when he was a student in New Orleans, he would play jazz piano at Pat O'Brien's, in the French Quarter. Music is one of the few vocations that offer a kind of sensory and cognitive immersion similar to surgery: the engagement of hand and eye, the challenge of sustained performance, the combination of mind and motion—all of it animated by the full force of the imagination. Once, in an E-mail describing his special training sessions on rats, Wilson wrote that he worked on them for two years and "then trailed off when I finally figured that I was doing it for fun, not for practice." For fun! When someone chooses to end a twelve-hour day alone in a laboratory, inducing aneurysms in the arteries of rats, we might call that behavior obsessive. But that is an uncharitable word. A better explanation is that, for some mysterious and wonderful reason, Wilson finds the act of surgery irresistible, in the way that musicians find pleasure in the sounds they produce on their instruments, or in the way Tony Gwynn gets a thrill every time he strokes a ball cleanly through the infield. Before he was two years old, it is said, Wayne Gretzky watched hockey games on television, enraptured, and slid his stockinged feet on the linoleum in imitation of the players, then cried when the game was over, because he could not understand how something so sublime should have to come to an end. This was long before Gretzky was any good at the game itself, or was skilled in any of its aspects, or could create even the smallest of chunks. But what he had was what the physical genius must have before any of the other layers of expertise fall into place: he had stumbled onto the one thing that, on some profound aesthetic level, made him happy.
Charlie Wilson says that only once in his career has he allowed himself to become emotionally attached to a patient—attached to the point where the patient's death felt like that of a family member. "It was this beautiful girl who had a spinal tumor," he told me. "She was always bringing me cookies. It was a malignant tumor. She became a paraplegic, and then she got married." Wilson was talking softly and slowly. "It just tore me up. I couldn't help myself. I remember operating on her and crying, right there in the O.R." Charlie Wilson is a man who, when he operates, does not permit music or extraneous talking or the noise of beepers or phones, who is attuned to even the slightest hesitation on the part of his scrub nurse, who admits, in his entire life, to just one day of depression, and who has the audacity and the control to take a No. 11 blade and slice down—just like that—to the basilar artery. But she was young, and it was tragic, and there was nothing he could do, and he has a daughter, too, so perhaps it touched a chord. He was sitting, as he talked, in his office at Moffitt Hospital with his Nike cross-trainers and surgical scrubs, thinking back to a moment when all certitude and composure escaped him. His performance on the day he operated on the girl's spinal tumor must have been compromised by his grief, he admitted. But what did it matter? This was not a procedure that required great judgment or technical mastery. "It was an ugly operation," he said, pronouncing the word "ugly" with a special distaste. "Maybe that was part of it." Of course, it was. Charlie Wilson is one of the world's great neurosurgeons because he can find some beauty in what he does—even in the midst of terrible illness. There was nothing beautiful there. "This lovely, lovely girl." He looked away. "Such a heart." ♦


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Betty Waynne Allison
Prize-winning soprano Betty Waynne Allison first came to prominence as a member of the Canadian Opera Company's Ensemble Studio. Leading assignments in Ensemble productions include Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte,Donna Elvira in Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, and Mona in the world premiere of James Rolfe's Swoon. On the mainstage, she has covered and performed a wide range of roles, demonstrating her natural ability and talent. Included among these are the High Priestess (Aïda), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Annina (La Traviata), Luisa Miller (Luisa Miller), Turnspit (Rusalka), Freia (Das Rheingold), Marguerite (Faust), Countess (Le Nozze Di Figaro) Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), and Amelia (Simon Boccanegra). The British Columbia native looks forward to a return to the COC stage as the First Lady in a new production of Die Zauberflöte during the 2010-2011 season. In concert she will be heard with Ottawa's Chorale Society and in the New Discoveries Showcase.
A well-rounded young artist, Ms. Allison is comfortable on the concert stage in such works as Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Dvořák's Te Deumand Vivaldi's Gloria.
She recently returned from Europe as the Canadian representative to the first ever Stella Maris Vocal Competition, hosted and adjudicated by world-renowned tenor Michael Schade, placing first in the Oratorio class and fourth overall. Other recent competition successes have included selection as a regional finalist at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in Pittsburgh, a Silver Medal in the Czech Slovak International Competition, Grand Prizes at the Ottawa Choral Society New Discovery and West Palm Beach Opera competitions and a top prize from Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques (2009).
Applauded by Opera Canada for her "convincingly sexy movements, her sly vocal style and her well-rounded characterization" of the Vixen in Janácek'sCunning Little Vixen, further credits include the Banff Centre for the Arts, Pacific Opera Victoria, the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (Cosi), Highlands Opera Studio, and the Concert Opera Group. Ms. Allison completed Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees at the University of Victoria in Music and Education.


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With time winding down in the fourth quarter, Holland boys basketball coach Paul Chapman leaned over to opposing guard Twan Polman as he stood�to�inbound the ball�and told him, "stop scoring all the points."
It was said in jest as Polman�s Olympic Stars team from the Netherlands nursed a lead late in a Saturday afternoon friendly at the Dutch Dome. Holland tied the game at 64 with five minutes left, but the Olympic Stars went on a 12-4 run to win 76-68.
"It�s really fun to have them over here and see their style of play," Holland guard�Kyler Beal said. "Maybe we�ll get to see that again in the future."
The mix of 14, 15 and 16 year-olds from the Netherlands held�a great advantage in height as it featured three players taller than 6-foot-6. Holland was without 6-foot-10 forward Kyle Bartholomew, who was competing in an AAU tournament in Las Vegas, and Anders Northuis, who recently had his wisdom teeth removed.
But Holland did have rising offensive star Demetrius Lake, who led all scorers with 34 points, and�was�used to a more physical style of play.
"They are much tougher on defense and they are much harder in the lanes," Polman, 16, said. "You have to do it back. If they play physical you have to play physical, too. If you don�t play physical you will get injured."
Holland, who�finished in a tie�first in the OK Green last season, had trouble penetrating into the lane against the size of the Netherlands team. The Dutch instead settled for perimeter shots, but was hot and cold throughout the game.
"They play physical and they play smart at times, too," Lake, a sophomore, said, "but they are all so long and they used that to their advantage against us."
Lake was a consistent threat with his jump shot and created a mismatch with his speed the entire game. He scored 11 of his team�s 17 points in the third quarter.
"He was a really good player," Polman said of Lake. "He was a really good shooter and had good handles."
From the outset both teams had to make adjustments to each other, and to the game itself. The Olympic Stars were called for traveling numerous times and even a goaltending call as they adjusted to the rules.
But mostly they had to adjust to the quicker players on Holland�s team and trying to contain Lake.
"It was fine and then they would do some type of move and it was weird," Lake said.
Aside from Lake�s 34 points, Eric Brooks added 14 and Beal had 12. Naigel Onuoka, 15, led the Netherlands team with 22 points, Fritz-John Jarvis had 18 and Polman had 17.
The Olympic Stars came to Holland with coach Sid Bruinsma, a graduate of�Holland Christian and Grand Valley State who went on to play professionally in the Netherlands and resides there now. The stop in Holland�is the third of seven games the team plans on playing in Michigan.
"I�ve known these guys for a long time and I just try and keep them in line and keep them ambitious," Bruinsma said. "We�ve played in Barcelona and Belgium and now we�re in America. Hopefully this will give them an impulse to do even more."
Holland boys basketball loses to Netherlands team 76-68
With time winding down in the fourth quarter, Holland boys basketball coach Paul Chapman leaned over to opposing guard Twan Polman as he stood�to�inbound the ball�and told him, "stop scoring all the points."


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Breast Cancer Survivor Launches Clothing Line for Women with Mastectomies
(NEW YORK) -- They say necessity is the mother of invention, and in Laurel Kamen's case, it certainly was.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2011, Kamen underwent a mastectomy. On the eve of her surgery, after trying and failing to find clothes that would be both comfortable and fashionable during her post-operation recovery period, Kamen noticed a gaping hole in the fashion market and decided to fill the niche herself.
Thirteen months later, Kamen is debuting the Alloro Collection, a fashion friendly line of clothing suited for post-op recovery.
"I didn't want to have to step out of the world of fashion just because I had breast cancer," Kamen said. "I wanted to stay in the world of fashion, still be able to buy a nice dress to go out to dinner, or a nice blouse to go to a Bat Mitzvah or a wedding. I just felt that women with all of these sensitivities need to be addressed, and they could still look gorgeous."
The Alloro line is part of a growing movement to accommodate breast cancer survivors. Just last month, Victoria's Secret responded to a Change.org petition asking for a line of "survivor" mastectomy bras. Nordstrom department stores offer a service that will convert any basic bra or camisole into a mastectomy bra.
Kamen and her business partner and best friend Christine Irvin considered the effects of breast cancer treatment on a woman's body, taking into account the change in neckline, color pallor and sensitivity.
"We started looking at what we could do to really help a woman get beautiful back in her life and recapturing the color that cancer had drained from her life," Irvin said.
Their debut collection is made up of 14 original pieces, all of which will be sold online and through trunk shows.
For Kamen, a former American Express executive, and Irvin, a Wall Street veteran, this is quite the change of pace.
"We can both laugh. We can both say that we've been fashion followers," explained Irvin. "We've switched from reading the Wall Street Journal first to reading Vogue first."
When asked what's next for this dynamic duo, Kamen was quick to point out that this is just the beginning for Alloro. "This is all new to us and we just want to go slowly and get it right and connect with women," she said.
One thing's for sure, the clothes don't make the woman. The woman makes the clothes.
Twenty-five percent of all proceeds from the Alloro Collection will be donated to the Breast Cancer Foundation.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio


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Over the past few years, I have registered several domains with GoDaddy. There, I said it. I'm sure most of you are familiar with GoDaddy's extremely obnoxious commercials. I have thought to myself on several occasions, "I should transfer my domains from them.", but I have just been too lazy to actually do it. On one hand, they are very smart in their marketing. They advertise like crazy on a consistent basis, as well as take advantage of multiple advertising platforms. Whether you like them or not, most people probably think of GoDaddy when they think of registering a domain because they have been so consistent. Photographers, and freelance artists take note of the power of consistent advertising. There is a reason so many people use GoDaddy, however insulting their ads may be.
Recently, Bob Parsons, the GoDaddy CEO did something I could't ignore. He traveled to Africa to kill elephants, and made a video of it. He dresses up the whole thing by claiming he is helping farmers who's crops are eaten by the elephants. Needless to say, this has become a hot topic since the video came out, and Bob has since promised to kill more elephants in 2012. I have serious issues with Bob as a person, as well as GoDaddy and the way he run's it.
I started the process of transferring my domains from GoDaddy and if you also feel this is not a business you want to support, I would encourage you to do the same. It's a pretty easy switch and it doesn't effect your website at all. You just need to login to your account and go to the Domain Manager tab. From there, click on your domain, and click the "Authorization Code: Send by Email" link. This will email you a code which you will need to give to your new registrar when you sign up. And that is it.
I have had several people message me asking where I switched to. There are obviously many good options out there, but I chose Network Solutions. They even have a discount right now for people transferring from GoDaddy if you use the code "ELEPHANT" when you sign up. You may have to call in to use the code, but it is $6.99 per transfer and you keep whatever time is left on your domain plus one year for free.
*4/14/11 – Update* Do not go with Network Solutions! They do have a great introductory offer for transfers, but after that they are ridiculously expensive! I am not going to make a recommendation for another place because I think there are many good ones out there, but on the basis of price alone, I am not going to recommend NS.
I understand not everyone is going to see this the same way as I do, but I just want to present the information and you can make whatever decision is best for you. Thanks.


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Two New Design [sic] in Class IV, Sprite Flower Vase.
A monthly round-up of news, blogs, offers and events.
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A lot of brainpower has gone into dissecting whether Miley Cyrus is sexually empowered or not.
Wow, she's really getting, er, intimate with that wrecking ball. Yeah, but that's her choice as a liberated woman! Nuh-uh *finger wags*. The male puppeteers controlling showbiz know sex sells. Oh puh-lease -- she's totally giving the foam finger to patriarchy!
As Miley herself sings, round and round and away we go.
Sorry to be a buzzkill, but there's only one person who can decide whether Miley has a healthy relationship with sexuality: the woman herself. And though she certainly is vocal about being in control, the 20-year-old who grew up in the spotlight is still probably figuring that one out: on her shrink's chair, between the sheets, over phone calls with friends and yes, on the world stage.
When she's older, Miley might regret an outfit or two and wish she could take back a few licks (please tell me that sledgehammer was sterilized). Or maybe she will see herself as someone who always performed with self-respect and sexual confidence. As the saying should go: time, not more blog posts, will tell.
Most feminists unfortunately don't have the patience. The movement has a nasty habit of acting like a doctor with a prescription for sexual empowerment (thanks Sinead, but I'm opting for alternative medicine). To apply one set of rules all women should follow is to treat us as a homogeneous group and ignores feminism's top accomplishment: choice.
What constitutes sexual empowerment, feeling good about sex without having it define you entirely, is a spectrum, not a math formula. Our job, our hard-earned right, is to find out where we fit. What's empowering for Miley Cyrus -- a woman who has chosen to perform in front of millions of people for a living -- is different from what's empowering for me -- a woman who has chosen to sit behind a computer screen for a living. Yet people still insist on categorizing our behaviour by the same standards of right or wrong.
As a result, the conversation about female empowerment is turning into a virtual, and sometimes literal, yelling match. First-wave feminists chide their successors for confusing objectification with liberation (hi, mom). Women turn their own sexual hang-ups into doctrines others should follow. But by insisting there's a band-aid solution to healthy sexuality, we simply cover up our individual wounds rather than trying to heal them. The trouble is, judging others is always easier than judging ourselves.
Though we're comfortable watching sex on screens and hearing about it in songs, we're not so comfortable making it personal. Despite studies that show communication is key to a fulfilling sex life, many of us are reluctant to say what we want. Our children don't want to talk either: A recent Planned Parenthood survey found only 50 per cent of teens felt comfortable speaking with mom or dad about sex, even though sexual self-esteem issues crop up in girls as early as age 10. Not even our doctors provide a safe space. A University of Chicago Medicine study found less than 14 per cent of the surveyed gynecologists broached the topic of sexual pleasure with their patients. Yet we have plenty to discuss.
Almost 100 per cent of women admit to having at least one "I hate my body" moment each day. More than 30 per cent of women struggle with sexual dysfunction. More than half of women under 60 have a low sex drive. A quarter of those women are unable to orgasm. Feeling empowered yet?
The idea that we're all supposed to enjoy a certain kind of sexuality isn't helping women or men to speak up. Science has shown some people are biologically more sexual than others, and that many stereotypes we've always believed about women, such as that they need an emotional connection for arousal and want only one partner, are not true. Among my own group of friends there is variance. Some of us feel empowered in monogamous relationships. Some of us like the excitement of a one-night stand or an online hook-up. Some of us prefer traditional sex positions. Others enjoy group sex, kink, role-playing.
So while we can agree on the immorality of rape, female genital mutilation and forced prostitution, are any of us qualified to judge what constitutes sexual empowerment for another woman? And given how much diversity exists within my own social circle, a group of mostly white, middle-class women and men, there's no way I could speak to the sexuality of those from different demographics. Women who choose sex work. Women who are low-income. Women from other cultures. Yet privileged feminists often talk down to these people without understanding the nuances of their experiences.
The most sobering piece I read amid Miley-palooza was by a woman named Kelly Rose Pflug-Back who had been sexually assaulted as a young girl, and had gone on to abuse her body by snorting pills and cutting her arms. For Pflug-Back "sex-positive" feminism, the kind that claims Miley should be able to lick and hump whatever she wants, is offensive because it speaks primarily to "middle-class, mostly white, liberal, cis-women for whom liberation may indeed be a simple matter of achieving greater sexual satisfaction ..."
While Pflug-Back's perspective is invaluable, she also falls victim to the same mentality the feminism she abhors is guilty of. She writes that we should all "begin with the assumption that all female-bodied partners we have ... are survivors." Instead, we should begin with the assumption that we are all different.
Because for some women, Miley's abrasive sexuality might be extremely empowering, and they should not be robbed of a role model who speaks to their experience because others disapprove. The only person that should fail you on a sexual empowerment exam is yourself. So let's stop grading others for once, and put our bums -- naked or not -- back in the student's seat.
This article previously appeared in the Ottawa Citizen.


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March 18, 2017, 5:09 pm
Kyle Korver will remain sidelined through the weekend with his troublesome foot.
That would make it seven straight games out of uniform for Korver. He can be dropped, as he's just a three point specialist at best. With J.R. Smith back and in the starting lineup, Korver is losing appeal by the second.
Fantasy News
September 23, 2019, 2:16 pmMilton DoyleG, Chicago Bulls
Milton Doyle, formerly of the Nets and Spanish club UCAM Murcia, has agreed to a partially-guaranteed deal with the Bulls.
Doyle played 10 games with the Nets in 2017-18. He's facing an uphill battle but will try to earn a roster spot in training camp.
Source: Shams Charania on Twitter
September 23, 2019, 1:31 pmJoakim NoahC, Memphis Grizzlies
Joakim Noah plans to join workouts with the Clippers this week, per Shams Charania.
Noah hasn't been in the news since he was up for consideration with the Lakers, but he would be a nice bench pickup for the Clippers. They could use a big-bodied center to crash and bang in certain matchups, and Noah would fit in as a strong defender. We'll see if anything comes of this week's workouts.
Source: The Athletic
September 23, 2019, 1:27 pmCarmelo AnthonyPF, Free Agent
As of right now, the Nets are "very unlikely" to sign Carmelo Anthony, according to a report from Shams Charania.
Brooklyn is more likely to sign players that they have worked out recently, with Charania naming Lance Thomas and C.J. Williams as possibilities. At least more people can complain about Melo being unsigned now.
Source: The Athletic
September 23, 2019, 1:20 pmChuma OkekePF, Orlando Magic
According to Shams Charania, the Magic plan to redshirt rookie Chuma Okeke, who is recovering from a torn left ACL.
Earlier in the summer Magic POBO Jeff Weltman said that he believed Okeke could return this season, but there's no rush for him to get back on the court. The 16th overall pick will be able to focus on rehab this season, and he's off the board in all redraft formats.
Source: Shams Charania on Twitter
September 23, 2019, 1:17 pmChris PaulPG, Oklahoma City Thunder
Though the Thunder are prepared to open the season with Chris Paul as a "veteran star and leader," Shams Charania is reporting that the Heat have "a level of interest" in CP3.
The Heat and Paul were said to have mutual interest back when CP3 was first traded to Oklahoma City but the teams couldn't work out a deal. It is now expected that Miami will play out the start of the season and see how things are going before they make a big play for Paul, as acquiring his three years and $124 million would require a trade of major contracts. A deal would certainly improve Paul's fantasy outlook but as it stands he figures to stay on the cusp of early-round production as long as he's on the court, even for a Thunder team that's looking to the future.
Source: The Athletic
September 23, 2019, 1:07 pmAntonio BlakeneySG, Chicago Bulls
Antonio Blakeney has agreed to a deal with Jiangsu in the CBA.
Blakeney was let go by the Bulls a couple weeks ago. A strong scorer at the G-League level, he should be able to drop some huge games in China. We'd expect to hear his name on the mid-season free agency market if all goes well overseas.
Source: Sportando
September 22, 2019, 9:20 pmFurkan KorkmazSG, Philadelphia Sixers
After an injury-plagued sophomore campaign for the Sixers, Furkan Korkmaz knows this season will be crucial for his future and he is hoping to make big strides this year.
The one thing Korkmaz has going for him is his shooting ability and that is something the Sixers could surely utilize on this roster. It did not click last season, but Korkmaz will get another chance to prove his worth at some point this season. Still, it is hard to picture him coming out of the gate with a big role on opening night.
Source: Sixers.com
September 22, 2019, 9:08 pmNikola MiroticPF, Milwaukee Bucks
On Sunday, Nikola Mirotic dropped 14 points on 6-of-14 shooting for Barcelona.
Mirotic's opening appearance for his new EuroLeague club, Barcelona, resulted in a victory, and he did not have to work too hard for most of his buckets at the Supercopa Endesa versus Valencia. Mirotic should find quick success during his return to European basketball, but NBA fantasy players will surely be missing his presence stateside.
Source: Eurohoops
September 22, 2019, 8:56 pmBruce BrownSG, Detroit Pistons
Coach Dwane Casey spoke highly of Bruce Brown's defensive play, calling him an 'elite defender.'
Brown remains in contention for a starting spot with the Pistons, but he is not a high-usage player, and the Pistons have stocked up with offensive threats such as Derrick Rose and the immortal Joe Johnson. It will be tough for Brown to rack up enough touches or minutes this season.
Source: Pistons.com
September 22, 2019, 8:41 pmKevin DurantSF, Brooklyn Nets
There is some optimism in league circles about Kevin Durant's (Achilles) chances of playing this season, according to Brian Lewis of the New York Post.
Looking back on Durant's decision to return during the Finals, the Nets may want to exude caution when considering KD's return to action. However, Durant is pursuing his rehab with a sense of purpose, and it would be great to see him get back on the court this season. We'll keep you posted when a real timeline on Durant's rehab emerges. This news does not make him a target on draft day for standard leagues.
Source: New York Post


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Site Max needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 123 designs submitted by 24 freelance designers.
To create and design the company logo for use on all promotional items including: Web Site, Business Cards, Postcards, Posters, Trade Show Booth Signage, Magazines, etc. Include the tagline "Beautiful Party People".
Rosewood Models
We need a logo designed that will convey class, beauty and elegance. We are an agency dealing in models and talent. The choice of an icon and colours and font will immediately help people to visualize an image of Grace Kelly or Dita Von Tesse or Audrey Hepburn.
"Rosewood" is used in the production of the finest furniture designs because of its unique characteristics of colour, graining, finish, etc.
We represent male and female models specifically for events such as Dinner Parties, Charity Fundraisers, Weddings, etc., NOT for Runway or Editorial or Photoshoots (although they typically will have done that kind of modelling as well).
- Include logo or icon, along with name, that can represent the brand.
- We want to focus on the word "Rose" in Rosewood as far as an icon goes but not something predictable or common like a complete rosebud or rose
- Intend for the logo to be used on various promotional pieces such as business cards, postcards, tradeshow booths, posters
- Design should be sophisticated and classy
- We represent male and female models so it should not lean too much either way as far as masculine or feminine
- Artwork needs to be in a vector format
- Preference is for a black background with either one of silver/platinum/gold and a third colour
- We would like to see the "R" in a much larger font separate from the word "Rosewood Models"
- Use this tagline "Beautiful Party People"
Anything that looks cartoonish or animated
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — Luke Hancock hit a 3-pointer from the corner to break a tie with 99 seconds left, and No. 10 Louisville beat No. 12 Syracuse 58-53 on Saturday, exacting a measure of revenge for a loss to the Orange earlier this season.
It was the third straight loss for Syracuse (22-7, 10-6 Big East), which was humbled 57-46 in a loss to No. 7 Georgetown a week ago before a record Carrier Dome crowd of 35,012. That snapped the Orange's 38-game home winning streak, and they were beaten again, 74-71, at No. 22 Marquette on Monday night to drop into a tie with Notre Dame behind the league-leading Hoyas, Louisville and Marquette.
The Irish were at Marquette later Saturday as the race to get a double-bye into the Big East tournament heated up.
Louisville (24-5, 12-4) snapped a three-game losing streak against Syracuse, and the Cardinals did it before a stunned crowd of 31,173.
Russ Smith led Louisville with 18 points, Hancock had 12, all on 3s, and Gorgui Dieng finished with 11 points and 14 rebounds.
C.J. Fair had 19 points to lead the Orange, James Southerland added 13 and Michael Carter-Williams 11. Syracuse outrebounded Louisville 41-36 but was victimized by eight 3-pointers and shot poorly again (20 of 56 for 35.7 percent). Louisville held a 16-9 edge on points off turnovers and a 14-8 edge at the free throw line.
After Hancock swished a straight-on 3 for Louisville, Fair hit a spinning layup as Dieng fouled him but missed the free throw and Syracuse trailed 41-40 with 7:34 to go.
Louisville began to press and the strategy paid off with two straight turnovers. Southerland lost the ball off the dribble and Triche mishandled an inbounds pass. The Cardinals took advantage as Dieng sank two free throws and Hancock hit a 3 from the wing for a 47-40 lead at 5:35.
Carter-Williams scored six straight points in a span of just over a minute to rally the Orange, hitting four free throws and a shot off the glass as Syracuse trailed 47-46 with 4:27 left. Fair's baseline jumper gave Syracuse the lead and Smith's free throw tied it at 48-all with 1:39 to go.
After Triche missed a baseline layup against Dieng, Hancock stole Triche's ensuing inbounds pass and Hancock drained his fourth 3 to break the tie. Smith then hit two free throws and Triche's turnover sealed the Orange's fate as the Cardinals hit 7 of 8 free throws in the final minute.
Syracuse beat Louisville 70-68 in mid-January in the final seconds when Carter-Williams stole a pass at the top of the key and raced the length of the court, slamming home a two-hander that Dieng couldn't contest and landing hard on his back underneath the backboard. A record crowd of 22,814 at the KFC Yum! Center saw Syracuse beat a No. 1 team for fourth time, and the Cardinals are still the only top-ranked team to lose at home this season.
Syracuse, which trailed 23-19 after a poor first half, found a way to foil Dieng, Louisville's shot-blocking defensive ace, early in the second half. Carter-Williams fed Rakeem Christmas for a slam dunk and less than a minute later Southerland slammed another home to complete a three-way passing play in the lane with Christmas and Triche to move Syracuse within 28-27.
With Dieng on the bench, Southerland, who had just one basket in the first half, then drained a 3 from the top of the arc to give Syracuse just its second lead of the game. It was short-lived as Kevin Ware hit a 3 from the top of the key 24 seconds later.
Carter-Williams tried to electrify the crowd, but his driving two-handed dunk try caromed off the back of the rim. Carter-Williams then stole the ball and fed Southerland for a deep 3 and a 35-33 Orange lead nearing the midpoint of the second half.
It was Southerland's third straight make after an awful first half and he wasn't finished. Triche fed him for another 3 as he curled off a screen in the corner.
Fair's follow with 88 seconds left were the final points of the first half as the Orange trailed 23-19, their fewest points in a first half this season.
No. 10 Louisville beats No. 12 Syracuse 58-53
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I meant for this to be my dinner appetizer, but I spooned so much into my bowl that it became a meal.
Hot and sour soup didn't appear in my childhood of Cantonese home dinners. It did, however, appear in my Chinese-American childhood, as a Sichuan/Northern Chinese dish that became bastardized for the greasy take-out joints of suburban America. I have had one too many versions that were so thick and rubbery I could stretch them with my hands like Silly Putty. Here is some advice to the aforementioned Chinese restaurants in the US: Cornstarch is never a main ingredient; just use sparingly.
(From upper left: Wood ear, lily buds, fresh bamboo, shiitake mushrooms. Bowl: fresh firm tofu.)
In the US, hot and sour soup also tends to lack the lily buds, shiitake mushrooms, and bamboo shoots that make it a nutrient-rich, even somewhat refined, dish. (This is the Chinese version, not to be confused with Vietnamese, Filipino, or Thai hot and sour soups.) I also like to add wood ear and tofu for texture variation. Today I also used fresh instead of canned bamboo shoots, which I couldn't find when I went food shopping this morning.
The amount of pepper and vinegar here is enough to make the soup sufficiently, and respectively, "hot" and "sour", without being overwhelming. But if you like more bite and tang, feel free to add a tiny bit more. And remember to drizzle in the egg after adding the vinegar, or else the egg will just disperse and give the soup a cloudy appearance.
And finally, a tablespoon of cornstarch goes a long, long way.
Chinese Hot and Sour Soup
Serves 2 as a meal, or 4 to 6 as an appetizer
- 6 or 7 dried shiitake mushrooms
- 1/2 cup dried lily buds
- 1/2 cup dried wood ear (also called cloud ear or black tree fugus)
- 1/2 cup bamboo shoots, sliced, fresh or canned
- 6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 cup firm or extra firm tofu, sliced into strips
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 3 tablespoons vinegar (I used dark, but white or cider vinegar also fine)
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch, dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
1. Soak the mushrooms, lily buds, and wood ear in room temperature water for 20 to 30 minutes. Squeeze out excess water. Thinly slice mushrooms and wood ear. Slice rough black ends off lily buds and cut them in half. Rinse bamboo shoots and thinly slice.
2. Bring water to boil. Toss in mushrooms, lily buds, wood ear, and bamboo. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add tofu and soy sauce and simmer for another 5 minutes.
3. Add the vinegar, sesame oil, and pepper. Drizzle egg into the pot while stirring so that egg rivulets form. Stir in cornstarch mixture to thicken. Simmer for another 5 minutes, then reduce heat. Salt to taste. Spoon into individual bowls and serve.


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Tired of relying on a dealership for maintenance and repairs? Tired of the poor service and high prices? If you're looking for a reliable independent RV repair shop near Houston, TX, we're your dealership alternative.
As an independent, family-owned recreational vehicle repair shop in Houston, TX, we take care of our customers like family. We are committed to honest service at fair prices, and you will always be greeted with a smile when you walk in our shop.
With trained and certified technicians ready to inspect and service your car, you can trust us at RV Masters Inc. to get your RV running great in no time!
What qualities are you looking for in an recreational vehicle service center? If integrity, professionalism, and superior customer service fit the bill, then stop by RV Masters Inc. near Houston, TX! There is simply no substitute for the level of care and customer service you'll get at RV Masters Inc.. Over the years, we have built a reputation for excellent RV care that our customers turn to time and time again.
From basic maintenance services, like oil changes and flushes, to larger repairs, such as engine overhauls and transmission rebuilds, we've got the experience and equipment to fix your recreational vehicle to our high standards.
Some of the RV repair services you need on a routine basis include:
Let us become your recreational vehicle repair facility of choice. Give us a call at (713) 461-2300 or fill out our contact form, and we'll get back to you immediately. We look forward to seeing you at the shop!


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Bella-s my old buddy!!! Great to hear from you. I can't believe Miss Lucy is already 2!!! Holly is 15 months! I read that you had just done a FET -goodluck!!!! I went back to Sydney IVF and did another cycle and I am now 18 weeks pregnant (am still in shock!) I have everything crossed for you. Let me know how it all goes.
Take care


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EXCLUSIVE! Alex McCord Slams Michaele Salahi: 'I Was Sorry That They Included' Her On 'Real Housewives Of DC!'
Alex McCord does not like Michaele Salahi! BFFs — what do you think? Do you hate or love this new D.C Housewife?
Poor Michaele Salahi — she just isn't getting any love from the other Housewives. "I was sorry that they included Michaele [on the Real Housewives of Washington D.C.]," NYC housewife Alex McCord told HollywoodLife.com exclusively Aug. 26 at the 11th Annual BNP Paribas Taste of Tennis Charity Event at the W Hotel in NYC. "I didn't want see that happen!"
"At the same time, jury is out" on the other new D.C. Housewives," Alex said to us. "I see the other girls — the first season is hard because they didn't know what to expect. I think they're all being a little careful with each other. … I want to see what happens next."
BFFs, do you agree with Alex that Michaele should not be a housewife, or do you think she makes a fabulous star on Bravo's new hit show? Vote below!