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Silver Creek makes changes to sewer resolutions
SILVER CREEK – This past week's meeting of the Silver Creek Village Board was very similar to its last regular meeting earlier this month.
Mayor Kurt Lindstrom read through several lengthy resolutions pertaining to the village's upcoming sewer improvement project.
These resolutions were very similar to those read at the Jan. 7 meeting, with a few amendments.
"We had to make some changes to the resolutions we passed at the last meeting," Trustee Nick Piccolo explained later in a phone interview. "They were the same resolutions but there were amendments or corrections. One of those was the project cost, it went from like $5 million to like $4 million."
The resolution read the cost of the project would not exceed $4,872,000. The previous figure was $5,030,000.
Piccolo said the reason for the decrease in the projected price is because the village qualified for a lower interest rate on loans for the project.
He said the other amendments had to do with the wording of the State Environmental Quality Review Resolutions.
"There was a misprint in one of the guidelines," he explained.
The SEQR resolutions passed included changes in the language in explaining the process is required by DEC consent order and adding a resolution to include SEQR language for the water meter replacement portion of the project. Both resolutions were labeled Type II actions, meaning it is not subject to SEQR.
Trustee Thomas Harmon explained the changes in language were made to accommodate Environmental Facilities Corporation guidelines.
The next village board meeting will be held Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. in the village hall.


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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In cooperation with the U.S. Product Safety Commission, the Wisconsin Toy Company, Inc. of New York is voluntarily recalling its "Sweet Home Shoe House Playset" and "Ice Cream Doll" because they have small parts and may present a choking hazard to young children. Consumers should take the items away from children and return them to the retailer where purchased for a full refund.The "Sweet Home Shoe House Playset" is a plastic house in the shape of a workboot, measuring 11 by 7 by 6 inches, containing is pieces of dolls and doll furniture. The playsets are labeled "1984 JUMBOS INTERNATIONAL (HONG KONG) CO. NO. 698", and 6,500 were sold nationally for about $5.00."Ice Cream Doll" is a soft doll about 12 inches tall, with a plastic ice cream cone suspended from a string around the neck of the doll, with a sewn-in label marked "ICE CREAM DOLL, MADE IN HONG KONG." $3.00.CPSC and Wisconsin Toy said they know of no injuries involved with the toys. U.S. Customs agents and CPSC inspectors discovered the small parts violation of the Ice Cream Doll during "Operation Toyland" import surveillance at Newark, New Jersey last fall.Anyone wishing additional information may call Wisconsin at (201) 279-9718.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of
thousands of types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the
nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical or
mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to help ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household
chemicals -– contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 40 years.
Federal law bars any person from selling products subject to a publicly-announced voluntary recall by a manufacturer or a mandatory recall ordered by the
To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury go online to www.SaferProducts.gov or call CPSC's Hotline at 800-638-2772 or teletypewriter at
301-595-7054 for the hearing impaired. Consumers can obtain news release and recall information at www.cpsc.gov, on Twitter @USCPSC or by subscribing
to CPSC's free e-mail newsletters.
Times: 8 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. ET; Messages can be left anytime
Call to get product safety and other agency information and to report unsafe products.
Please use the below phone number for all media requests.
Phone: (301) 504-7908
Spanish: (301) 504-7800
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subset: commoncrawl


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With spring on the horizon, you're not going to be able to hide your face underneath a scarf much longer, so it may be time to pay particular attention to your skin quality. According to GalTime.com, using a combination of concealer and moisturizing primer with your tube mascara and liquid eyeliner can create a dynamic look for the office or a night on the town.
Skin imperfections can begin to arise in your middle age, as well as the increased appearance of dark circles. Before you apply eye makeup, make sure to use a moisturizing solution like blinc eyeshadow primer. This product can help reduce the appearance of wrinkles, moisturize your skin and prevent your cosmetics from running or smudging.
Foundation is another go-to for middle-aged ladies, but be sure to consult a makeup expert to find the ideal match for your skin tone. You want your skin to have a natural glow that suits your complexion, so do your research when looking for the right product.
Your skin quality is just as important as that new shade of eyeshadow or lip color, so make sure your regimen is up to speed to give your skin a revitalized look.


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Car Goes Over Embankment On Galice Road
A woman is being treated for life threatening injuries she sustained in a one car accident this morning in the 7500 block of Galice Road this morning. The vehicle went over the embankment and into the Rogue River.
A male occupant of the vehicle was found walking around the accident scene at the time rescue personnel arrived. He was transported to Three Rivers Hospital. The woman was found lying on the ground 15-feet from the water's edge. She had been apparently ejected from the vehicle. The woman is in Rogue Valley Medical Center after being transported by helicopter by Mercy Flights.


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The A to Z Blog Challenge is officially over...we've reached the end and I can't believe I made it and stuck to it. You Plonkers have been amazing to put up with my drivel for the last 26 days.
The final letter and usually one of the most difficult. The Letter Z
My theme of Mottos versus Insults also comes to an end.
My last Motto is
Happy Monday, Plonkers
No theme for Monday Music Moves Me today - its a Freebie so I thought I'd stick with the letter Z and feature those rocking dudes with the bangin beards.
A different kinda twist on a song that is EVERYWHERE at the moment. I love when artists do this. They take a popular song and make it their own. It shows true artistry and originality. I'm crushing on the dude with the beard.


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Businesses negotiate the auto-enrolment maze
Financial News talks to those on the frontline, employers and their advisers, and asks them two questions about their auto-enrolment experience so far.
Twenty companies, including the UK's biggest retailers, several public sector employers and a bank, began auto-enrolling their staff into a pension last month. Hundreds more will do so in the course of the next year.
The move marks the first stages of the most far-reaching pensions reform in a generation, with around 10 million workers – many low-paid, though not all – set to begin saving for retirement for the first time. By the time the reform is fully rolled out in 2018, 1.3 million companies, mostly small and micro-employers, will have fallen into its scope.
To cope with their new legal duties, finance directors and pensions departments are designing new schemes or altering old ones to cope. IT, human resources and payroll departments will have to conduct assessments of whether staff are eligible to be auto-enrolled, and keep track of them even if they opt out. The amount of work for companies and their pensions consultants will be immense – and this is especially true among the smaller firms, who will auto-enrol staff between 2015 and 2018.
Many are expected to pick the National Employment Savings Trust, the government's not-for-profit pensions provider. Roy Porter, assistant director for distribution at Nest, said: "At the moment, the number of employers is relatively small, so we can provide a lot of support. We have plenty of capacity and the advisory market has plenty of capacity too.
"But this capacity will be quite short-lived. Between August and October 2013, the number of employers per stage will increase to levels where it's not practical anymore to engage with employers on an individual basis. Employers with fewer than 100 staff will still be expecting support, but as much as we would like to provide it, we won't be able to – and nor will any other provider."
Advisers are urging companies of all kinds to begin plans and preparations about 12-18 months before the auto-enrolment obligation begins.
But what lessons can the industry learn from the few employers who have already been through the process, and from those who are putting plans in place for 2013?
Financial News' Mark Cobley talks to those on the frontline, employers and their advisers, and asks them two questions about their auto-enrolment experience so far.
Q1: What has been the biggest challenge, or the thing most underestimated, when preparing for auto-enrolment?
Q2: What single piece of advice would you give other employers embarking on auto-enrolment?
Gary Dewin
Director of group pensions, The Co-operative Group
Biggest challenge: The biggest challenge was designing and delivering a solution to the auto-enrolment legislation that meets the needs of our employees and the business, while the regulation became clearer and the economic backdrop altered. We began thinking about our solution almost four years ago, moved from the design to the delivery stage 18 months ago and we won't take our first contribution for another couple of months. While I think the pensions industry and payroll providers are learning, businesses will need 18 months to two years to move from initial scheme design to functional solution.
We most underestimated the initial uncertainty around who would perform the actual assessment of employees. Is it a payroll provider's task? A pension provider's task? Or will there be a new solution to auto-enrolment? We took the decision to integrate the assessment into the calculation of pay, so we configured the assessment in our payroll system. I don't think our approach would be right for all businesses, although I understand most early stagers have configured the payroll system. I'll be interested to see how solutions develop as tranche two and tranche three businesses auto-enrol.
Advice for employers: Compliance with auto-enrolment can be complex and costly, potentially affecting significantly current policy and operational practice. Therefore use the regulation as a framework but retain focus on the key objective which is really quite simple – to ensure employees who meet the criteria are put into a pension scheme. The decisions you make about pension scheme design can help to significantly reduce operational complexity and simplify the message for employees.
Stephen Gambles
Senior reward manager, Santander UK
Biggest challenge: Probably communication. We communicated it as part of a wider package of pension changes in 2009, using all available channels, which included roadshows and DVDs, as well as written communications (postal and on our intranet). Despite that, there were still some employees who were surprised to see a pension deduction in their payslip when it went live.
It's helpful if employees have some understanding of their current pension position before communicating changes, otherwise the communication task is made harder because you are trying to explain changes to an arrangement that employees really don't understand in the first place.
Advice for employers: I can't stress enough the need to start in good time. The new statutory auto-enrolment is rather more complex than the auto-enrolment we have in place. We already auto-enrol all employees, unless they opt out, so the changes will be less significant than for many employers. We got all key decisions made a full year before our staging date, to allow ourselves plenty of time to engage all relevant internal and external stakeholders and come up with the systems changes and communication plans to achieve a smooth and successful implementation.
Steven Robson
Head of pensions, United Utilities Group
Biggest challenge: We have an auto-enrolment date of April 2013, and as such it is a topic that is constantly on our minds at the moment. The biggest challenge, and one that we underestimated most, was the complexity within the detail of the legislation that has to be complied with. We wanted to use our current generous DC arrangement and simply auto enrol non-members into it at the start, and then again every three years.
Unfortunately the process is far more complicated and compliance is not at all straightforward, adding cost and administrative complexity for companies, which is a shame.
Advice for employers: Set up an all-encompassing project group to consider the communications, payroll and administration processes before making any decision on the right approach for the company. This group will also ensure that material costs are not paid to advisers as much of the work can be done internally without the need for material specialist advice.
Jan Burke
Partner, Aon Hewitt
Biggest challenge: Some organisations have underestimated the resources needed for a compliant auto-enrolment solution. Many of our clients initially felt that the administration challenges were simply the business of the pension team, as auto-enrolment is a pensions-driven initiative. In fact, pensions are a small part of the solution – resources are needed for HR processes and record-keeping – especially for new joiners and payroll processes. They need to pick up employee information, evaluate employees' pension positions and transfer data to pension administrators.
Advice for employers: My advice would be to establish a project framework which covers four key areas: fact-finding current pension schemes, suppliers and workforce demographics; developing 'straw man' approaches on the cost and implications of the pension design solution for auto-enrolment – including the cost of contributions for non-joiners, the pensions vehicle used as the qualifying auto-enrolment scheme and implementation costs; an evaluation and strategy for special cases, for example contractors and expats; and finally, compliance strategy and delivery.
Andy Seed
Co-head of DC advisory practice, KPMG
Biggest challenge: There are two big challenges, actually. Firstly, companies underestimate the scale of the IT systems and processes change that they will need to implement auto-enrolment. What tends to happen is that the payroll department rules the roost; but under auto-enrolment all staff will need to be regularly assessed for eligibility, earnings and age – and then there is the physical process of auto-enrolment too. This will all depend on data held separately, in HR systems. The systems need to talk to one another.
At KPMG, we are using our existing, comparatively generous stakeholder-based pension scheme for auto-enrolment. We are a professional services organisation so we have quite high levels of participation, but we will need to make some changes to cope with enrolling graduates and administrative staff. I think most companies in the first wave are in this position; having to tweak an existing scheme rather than set up a new one.
The second challenge is around communications. The complexity is vastly underestimated, for example if you have different groups of staff in different locations. People need to understand why they are being auto-enrolled, hopefully before they see the difference in their take-home pay.
Advice for employers: My biggest piece of advice is to start early. Everyone is advising firms to take 12-18 months to prepare, but we know some people are leaving it until just three months from their staging date. The more time you leave to plan it the better. KPMG is quite a large employer, with about 10,000 UK staff. Our staging date is February or March next year, and we started planning over a year ago.
Hayley Aylward
Finance manager, employer compliance regime, The Pensions Regulator
Biggest challenge: Despite being a small employer, we have implemented the auto-enrolment reform early for our staff. With most of our automatic-enrolment project team normally operating in HR or finance functions, this has been a genuine learning curve just like it will be for any other organisation. Our lesson has been not underestimating how long it will take to be ready. Even if you are a public sector employer like ourselves, and pensions policy is managed centrally, there are still duties you as the employer need to carry out – so don't be lulled into a false sense of security.
Advice for employers: Get all the relevant parties involved. In our case, assessing the workforce was relatively straightforward. However, the assessment of earnings can be complex when assessing workers whose earnings fluctuate and risk crossing the qualifying earnings threshold, or the earnings trigger for auto-enrolment. Our experience has shown the importance of setting up a cross-functional project team to deliver compliance. Payroll, finance and HR colleagues working together helps ensure as smooth a process as possible.


text: Newly acquired right back Lovel Palmer talks about his training camp experience, participating in the Desert Diamond Cup, and his pride for the Jamaican bobsled team. Want to see more from the Chicago Fire? Subscribe to our channel at http://www.youtube.com/officialfiresoccer. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chicagofire Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chicagofire Want to get to a game? Visit http://www.chicago-fire.com to view upcoming matches and purchase tickets!


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Topic: Question about ActionScript 3 with buttons in Flash
Ok, got a question about AS3 syntax in use with Flash button symbols. I thought I'd take the time to complete some more of my personal site, justinbrinkerhoff.info, which I thought I would entirely in Flash, which I am second guessing myself on now, as it is seeming to be more of a pain than anything. I suppose if all else fails, I can use Flash for the menu and maybe a couple other things, script it with Rails, and automate it with AJAX.
Anyway, before I get way too ahead of myself, my question is, what is the proper way to call a button and use a Mouse Event to take the user to another frame?
I posted this question on FlashKit also, but thought I'd see if anyone on here knew at all as well. AS3 isn't too bad as its a spitting image of Java 6 SE, but its the some of the minor specifics of of AS3 that totally throws me through a loop.


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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has levied some $160,000 in fines against a Rochester-area roofing firm.
A.M Stern Inc. earned fines totaling $140,000 for allegedly allowing workers to be exposed to fall hazards and failing to properly position a safety monitor, OSHA officials said Monday. The agency counts the second charge, which is similar to a violation committed by the roofing firm in 2008 as a repeat offense.
In addition to charging the firm with letting its workers be unnecessarily exposed to fall hazards, OSHA inspectors cited the Anderson Avenue roofing company for another $19,250 of fines for violations including:
The alleged violations were spotted by OSHA officials working out of the agency's Buffalo office during on-site inspections that began last July at a Fairport job site, OSHA said.
A.M. Stern has 15 business days to cure the alleged violations or contest the charges. It can also schedule an informal meeting with OSHA officials.
Company officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
(c) 2013 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese
Recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson
- Nigella Express
This has many strings to its bow: it serves as a vegetarian alternative to the Christmas/Thanksgiving turkey; it gussies up a plate of cold[ leftover turkey; it adds the right balance of mellow warmth and tang to any plain wintry dish; and it is a good whole meal on days when you just feel fleshed-out.]
- 4 -pounds 8-ounces butternut squash
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 6 stalks fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 cup pecans
- 1 cup crumbled Roquefort or other blue cheese
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Halve the squash, leaving the skin on, and scoop out the seeds, then cut into 1-inch cubes; you don't need to be precise just keep the pieces uniformly small.
Put into a roasting tin with the oil and strip about 4 stalks thyme of their leaves, sprinkling over the butternut squash. If you can't get any fresh thyme, sprinkle over dried.
Roast in the oven for about 30 to 45 minutes or until tender.
Once out of the oven, remove the squash to a bowl and scatter over the pecans and crumble over the cheese tossing everything together gently. Check the seasoning and add the last couple of stalks of thyme torn into small sprigs to decorate.
Recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson
(Copyright 2007, Nigella Express, Hyperion, All Rights Reserved)
CATEGORIES:View All
Cooking Tips
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Butternut Squash and Watercress Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette
Recipe courtesy of Marcela Valladolid
Butternut Squash Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter and Bittersweet Chocolate
Recipe courtesy of Michael Chiarello
Butternut Squash Mostarda
Recipe courtesy of Anne Burrell


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19 CFR 12.121 - Reporting requirements.
(a)Chemical substances in bulk or mixtures -
(1)Certification required. The importer of a chemical substance imported in bulk or as part of a mixture, or the authorized agent of such an importer, must certify either that the chemical shipment is subject to TSCA and complies with all applicable rules and orders thereunder, or that the chemical shipment is not subject to TSCA, by signing and filing with Customs one of the following statements:
I certify that all chemical substances in this shipment comply with all applicable rules or orders under TSCA and that I am not offering a chemical substance for entry in violation of TSCA or any applicable rule or order thereunder.
I certify that all chemical substances in this shipment are not subject to TSCA.
(2)Filing of certification -
(i)General. The appropriate certification required under paragraph (a)(1) of this section must be filed with the director of the port of entry before release of the shipment and, except when a blanket certification is on file as provided for in paragraph (a)(2)(ii) of this section, must appear as a typed or stamped statement:
(A) On an appropriate entry document or commercial invoice or on an attachment to that entry document or invoice; or
(B) In the event of release under a special permit for an immediate delivery as provided for in § 142.21 of this chapter or in the case of an entry as provided for in § 142.3 of this chapter, on the commercial invoice or on an attachment to that invoice.
(ii)Blanket certifications. A port director may, in his discretion, approve an importer's use of a "blanket" certification, in lieu of filing a separate certification for each chemical shipment, for any chemical shipment that conforms to a product description provided to Customs pursuant to paragraph (a)(2)(ii)(A) of this section. In approving the use of a "blanket" certification, the port director should consider the reliability of the importer and Customs broker. Approval and use of a "blanket" certification will be subject to the following conditions:
(A) A "blanket" certification must be filed with the port director on the letterhead of the certifying firm, must list the products covered by name and Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States subheading number, must identify the foreign supplier by name and address, and must be signed by an authorized person;
(B) A "blanket" certification will remain valid, and may be used, for 1 year from the date of approval unless the approval is revoked earlier for cause by the port director. Separate "blanket" certifications must be approved and used for chemical substances that are subject to TSCA and for chemical substances that are not subject to TSCA; and
(C) An importer for whom the use of a "blanket" certification has been approved must include, on the invoice used in connection with the entry and entry summary procedures for each shipment covered by the "blanket" certification, a statement referring to the "blanket" certification and incorporating it by reference. This statement need not be signed.
(b)Chemical substances or mixtures as parts of articles. Each importer of a chemical substance or mixture as part of an article must comply with the certification requirements set forth in paragraph (a) of this section only if required to do so by a rule or order issued under TSCA.
(c)Facsimile signatures. The certification statements required under paragraph (a)(1) of this section may be signed by means of an authorized facsimile signature.
Title 19 published on 2015-11-19
The following are ALL rules, proposed rules, and notices (chronologically) published in the Federal Register relating to 19 CFR Part 12 after this date.
Title 19 published on 2015-11-19.
The following are only the Rules published in the Federal Register after the published date of Title 19.
For a complete list of all Rules, Proposed Rules, and Notices view the Rulemaking tab.


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'Les Miserables'
On Christmas Day, Hollywood opened a blockbuster film based upon one of the finest works of literature in history.
When that happens, arts lovers with sense wave a small flag and cry "Yippee." They never surrender their critical faculties, of course, but in today's world, even small victories for intellect over "cool" must be celebrated.
The film, of course, is "Les Miserables." It's playing in the public theaters as I write, and I hope it's still there when you read this, because you'll surely want to judge for yourself what you're going to read about the film.
I thought the film version was great. The film is filled with messages about the contrast between law and grace, for example, and about the history of France. But it also teaches a strong message about the state of the contemporary American mind.
The world has grown much faster in the present day. In the past 50 years, we've developed devices which can cook in seconds what was once cooked in hours. Poor Superman must have to change his clothes somewhere else, because phone booths have virtually vanished, while we all pretty much have telephones in our pockets or purses, where even he would have a hard time taking off a business suit.
The point of this rambling is that the film runs nearly three hours in length, and many of us have trained our brains to focus very quickly, but for only a very short period of time. I've heard people suggesting that they should have made two or three much shorter films out of the story. To me, at least, that's terribly sad. It's true that life is very short, but I only hope it lasts so much longer than three hours – that the ability to progress from thought to thought for a short while without drifting into brain death is an important skill.
I'd like to tell you some things about the original book on which the film was based. Then, I'd like to share some observations about the Broadway evocation of the story and then the recent film.
French writer Victor Hugo published his epic novel "Les Miserables" in 1862, while the Civil War was raging here in the United States. The critics were not impressed, but the public went wild for the book, despite its having well more than 1,200 pages. French language editions typically run to 1,900 pages.
The title has been translated many different ways, including "The Suffering Poor," "The Victims" and "The Miserable Ones." Even in English-speaking areas, however, the book is usually called by its own, French-language title.
Hugo himself insisted that the book's enormous length was necessary to demonstrate the characters' passage from evil to good, from falsehood to truth, from injustice to justice, from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. Obviously, the film has to leave out large areas of the novel, but it does a reasonably good job of maintaining those arcs, which are described in the previous sentence.
Among the areas which can be examined in connection to the novel are French History, the effect of architecture and urban design on cultural history, politics, moral philosophy, monarchialism and anti-monarchialism, what constitutes justice, the appropriate purpose of religion, and the appropriate roles of familial love and friendship. Although all those thoughts and ideas are sprinkled throughout the novel, an astonishing number of people finish reading the book and think it is about the French Revolution, which began in 1789.
To me, the film does a better job of explaining the plot's historical roots than the book itself. They both begin in 1815, the year when Napoleon was finally defeated definitively and sent into exile in the South Atlantic. The plot runs through 1832 and does deal with a violent uprising in Paris – once people learn to rebel, they tend to do it repeatedly – but it was a conflict which came to nothing in terms of advancement of the rights of mankind.
The central character is a man named Jean Valjean. He is based on an actual reformed prisoner who was known to Hugo, whose name was Eugene Francois Vidocq. Before the book begins, he has been arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, which was needed to rescue his sister's child from starving to death. He has been sentenced to hard labor and served 19 years. The book tells us, which the film does not, that the original sentence has been lengthened several times because Valjean believes his sentence to be unjust, so he has made numerous attempts to escape.
The prisoner is released on parole, although he has been branded on his head with a hot iron, so that everyone he encounters can see he is a convict. This makes it impossible for him to find a job. He finds himself sleeping on the front steps of a church, with only the recessed doorway for shelter. The kindly bishop of the city, Bishop Myriel, takes the convict in and treats him as a guest, instead of a pauper. During the night, Valjean steals a number of sacred vessels belonging to the church, which are made of silver, and flees. Myriel is based on an actual 19th century bishop, named de Miollis, who was famed for his genuine devotion to Christian goodness.
He is arrested, but the bishop insists that he be released, claiming that he had given the silver to the convict as a gift. He even adds a pair of silver candlesticks to the convict's pack, claiming the man had left so hurriedly that he had forgotten part of his gift. When the police leave, the bishop tells the criminal that his soul has been purchased for God, and he now owes it to God to devote his body and his mind to doing good.
Valjean journeys to another city and uses the bishop's silver to purchase a business. The business succeeds, and Valjean becomes so respected in the new town that he is elected mayor. Sadly, moving to the new town is a violation of his parole, and he becomes the fixation of a policeman named Javert, who dogs him relentlessly throughout the plot.
The action now switches to a young woman named Fantine. We learn that she was seduced, while still a young girl, by a handsome young man who has fled, leaving her with an illegitimate daughter named Cosette. As an unwed mother, she has difficulty finding a job, so finally, she pays an innkeeper and his wife to look after her daughter and journeys to another city, where her history isn't known.
She gets a job in Valjean's business, but the grossly immoral innkeepers continually send her false messages that her daughter is ill and her medical bills are rising. She goes to her boss for help, but Valjean has just then been recognized as the parole breaker which he is, and he turns her problem over to his foreman, who fires her and throws her out on the street.
Desperate for the money which she thinks can save her daughter's life, she turns to prostitution and is beaten so badly she dies. When Valjean finds out about her situation and his role in it, he determines to rescue the daughter, who has been virtually enslaved by the innkeepers, and to personally raise the child so that she can be loved and sheltered.
When the girl grows to adulthood, she falls in love with a young nobleman, who has journeyed away from his palace and learned about the living conditions of the poor people. He learns that there are many bad people among the poor, but there are also many good people, and those are made to suffer by the laws and customs of their country. He joins the uprising.
The end of the book is one of heavenly justice and earthly injustice. Optimists often wish that the fates of some of the characters could be reversed, while cynics doubt that people who are so obviously flawed can so surely make their way directly into heaven.
The book is still much respected in France, especially, and indeed, around the western world. I have been told by contemporary Frenchmen that everyone in France is familiar with the book and its plot and characters. In our modern world of scorners of the beautiful and the intellectual, it has come into its share of snarling ridicule, but it often appears on lists of the greatest books ever written.
In 1980, Claude-Michel Schonberg, Alain Boubil and Jean-Marc Natel created a musical show based on Hugo's novel. They first presented their show as a record album, which sold so enthusiastically that they created a staging of the plot, which they opened that same year in Paris, where critics were no more enthusiastic for it than they had been to the original novel. Fortunately, popular opinion was wildly positive, and they convinced Trevor Nunn and John Caird to adapt the show for an English-speaking audience.
The English version opened in London in 1985 and on Broadway in 1987. The show has been in production ever since, winning Tony awards for Best Book, Best Score, and Best Musical and setting records in both England and America for the longest run of a musical show. The show's recorded score has won Grammy awards, both as a complete score and in individual singers' and various groups' covering of one or more individual works from the score. Scottish singer Susan Boyle set all kinds of sales records for her version of the individual song, "I Dreamed a Dream."
The creators of the show went on to create another very successful musical show, by adapting Puccini's opera, "Madama Butterfly," into a modern tale by moving the setting to Vietnam during the 1970s, and giving the music a rock 'n' roll beat. Their second major effort is called "Miss Saigon," and although critics have constantly complained that the songs are essentially adaptations of the songs from "Les Mis," the second show has also been popular.
Later efforts by the creative team, such as "Martin Guerre" and "The Pirate Queen," have proved unsuccessful, and the team has only had the two successful vehicles.
A revival of "Les Mis" is scheduled to open on Broadway in 2014.
Other popular songs from the show, in addition to "I Dreamed a Dream," have been "Castle on a Cloud," "On My Own," "Master of the House," "Red and Black" and "Do You Hear the People Sing?" It is common for composers to write an additional song for successful shows which have been made into commercial films, because music which was composed for another medium – in this case for the theater – is not eligible for Oscars. The new song in this film is titled "Suddenly," and it is sung by Jean Valjean, when he finally fully realizes that he has been released on parole, and while he will have to hide from the police, he can begin a life in which he is in charge of his own destiny.
Sadly, people often sit through the musical show and emerge still not clearly knowing the plot.
The musical has turned from arch villains to zany comics, the Thenardiers, the cruel innkeepers who have beaten and kept Cosette prisoner while falsely reporting her medical condition to her mother, Fantine, in order to extort money from her for their own profit. The song "Master of the House" is sung while the couple prance around, robbing their guests, the diners and drinkers in their tavern, and anyone else whose pockets they can pick, or who they can sell on any of their phoney schemes.
Probably the actor who has won the most acclaim for portraying Valjean on the stage has been Canadian actor/singer Colm Wilkinson. Wilkinson plays a short role in the recent film, playing the kindly bishop who gives Valjean the silver with which he finances his new life.
As I said earlier, the film opened across the U.S. on Christmas Day. Costing $61 million to make, the film earned nearly half of its budget back, during its first weekend, and it has earned many times that by now.
The film won a 71 percent positive rating from the Rotten Tomatoes website, which compares the reviews of various critics. Members of the public who agreed to fill out opinion polls gave it an 84 percent positive rating. The chief complaint about the film, according to those polls, was its length.
Playing the lead role of Jean Valjean was popular singer and actor Hugh Jackman. Jackman gives a powerful portrayal of the character. We believe he could do the things he does in the film, and he easily dominates our attention and our focus. His singing is pretty good, although the songs are set uncomfortably high in his vocal range, and he occasionally allows his native Australian pronunciations to slip in, giving something of a nasal quality.
Russell Crowe, who has never been known as a singer, has a similar problem as the relentless policeman, Javert. He sings credibly, but is asked to go higher in pitch than his voice is prepared to go. The original novel casts Javert as a man who believes in the law and who genuinely believes that by enforcing every comma and exclamation point of the law, he is bettering society. So many directors have gone the easy way out, making him either a stubborn fool or a hate-filled villain, and that weakness is not present in the film.
Anne Hathaway is a bit young for the role of Fantine, but she embodies the character beautifully and gives her descent and death a poignancy which was truly moving. Amanda Seyfried was lovely as Cosette, but her singing voice is thin and lacks color. Eddie Redmayne as her lover, Marius, successfully combines the spoiled rich boy with the committed revolutionary, an ability many actors have failed to accomplish.
Sascha Baron Cohen, best known for the Borat films, and Helena Bonham-Carter, who debuted in delicate roles in films such as "Lady Jane" and "The Wings of the Dove," but has now become better known for gritty perversion, such as Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeny Todd," bring their comic accomplishment to the ribald innkeepers. The two are so funny, the fear which their characters are supposed to evoke in the lead characters falls a bit short, but the enjoyment of their antics is probably worth it.


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Klobuchar visits AURI, talks food, energy
MARSHALL – U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar stopped at the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI) facilities at Southwest Minnesota State University on Monday for a tour of the laboratories.
Klobuchar, D-Minn., was wrapping up a two-day listening and discussion tour about the importance of renewable energy production for the state's economy and national security.
AURI is a non-profit corporation that works with businesses and entrepreneurs to develop new ideas in agriculture focused on four key areas: food, renewable energy, bio-based products, and co-products.
Klobuchar toured three labs at SMSU dedicated to biomass and renewables, analytical chemistry, and meat science.
"AURI has four missions and one of them is renewable energy," said Douglas Root, senior scientist of biomass and renewable products technologies. "This is our chance to show her what we do here. I deal with co-products such as distillers grain feed, soy wax, what used to be called 'waste.'"
Analytical chemist Ranae Jorgenson led a tour of her lab and showed some of the equipment she uses to determine the fat, moisture, and nutritional content of biomass and food products.
"I can also take fat I've extracted and analyze how much is saturated fat, unsaturated, or Omega 3 fatty acids."
Jorgenson explained her lab also serves small food producers by analyzing their products' nutritional content for commercial labeling.
Meat scientist Carissa Nath show Klobuchar and her staff some of the work the meat lab is currently doing with turkey products.
"Poultry is a lot of fun to work with because it has a milder taste than beef," Nath said. "So you can do things with spices and they're not overwhelmed.
The tour ended with a brief discussion of educational, agricultural, and ag-based business issues, and a briefing by Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes on the state of the local economy.
"I'm really impressed," Klobuchar said. "This is such a great place for southwest Minnesota, being able to match where the business and the jobs are with the research."


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Lindsey Quilted Bedding
- Overview
Our Lindsey collection brings classic motifs and intricate handiwork to the bedroom.
- Pure cotton percale.
- 200-thread count.
- Hand-quilted butterflies float over a dotted lavender ground.
- Pure cotton batting.
- Reverses to a green percale printed with white dots.
- Contrast filled piping around quilt and sham edges.
- Machine wash.
- Internet only.
- Imported.
- Dimensions & Care
- Made of 100% cotton percale. A percale weave is noticeably denser and wears well over time.
- 270-gram-weight cotton batting.
- Twin: 68 x 86"
- Full/Queen: 86 x 86"
- Standard: 20 x 26"
- Euro: 26" square
- Wash before first use.
- Machine wash in warm water; gentle cycle.
- Use only nonchlorine bleach, if needed.
- Tumble dry on low heat.
- Warm iron as needed.
- Shipping & Return Info
This is a general shipping item.
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At Pottery Barn Kids, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction is our priority. We carefully inspect your order prior to shipment; upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage. We will arrange for a prompt replacement. If, within 7 days for Quick Ship upholstery and 30 days for all other products, you are dissatisfied for any reason, you may return your purchase for a refund of the merchandise value.
If your return for Merchandise Credit Cards is greater than $10,000, we will issue $10,000 in Merchandise Credit Cards to you that day, and then mail additional Merchandise Credit Card(s) for the amount in excess of $10,000 to you.
We cannot accept returns on monogrammed, personalized, special-order items, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. We also cannot accept returns of final-sale items, which are identified by a price that ends in $0.99.
For returns of items purchased from your Pottery Barn Kids registry, we will gladly provide a refund or exchange for the merchandise within 90 days of your event or within 90 days of purchase, whichever date is later.
For assistance, please contact Customer Service at 800.993.4923
International Returns: Online returns are available only for items that were shipped to the United States. If you would like to return items that were shipped outside the US, please see International Returns and Exceptions.


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Are you on Pinterest yet? If not, then you are missing out on an amazing opportunity to waste hours and hours of precious time. Recently, I came across a pin that many of my friends had added to their pin boards (confused by this Pinterest lingo? Go here for a brief explanation). I also added the pin and promptly received many inquiries about it. Did I agree? Disagree? What would I add? So here, my lovely friends, is my take on "The Best of MAC."
Jest: A really great basic peach with lots of shimmer. Great by itself or with other shadows. My personal pick for this purpose would be All That Glitters, which is a little more gold and can go with many more skin tones.
Sable: Really pretty on the bottom half of the lid for a brown smokey eye. I don't love it in the crease because it is very frosty and doesn't give much definition.
Blanc Type: A perfect cream that goes on like butta (forgive the pun). It's very matte so it works well in all capacities. However, since it is a little light, I tend to go more for Orb instead.
Carbon: If you want a basic matte black, this is for you. You can blend it out for more of a grey look or layer it on for to be blacker than black. For me, black is harsh for everyday, so I prefer to do a dark smokey brown. My choice is Handwritten.
Cream Color Base in Pearl is an easy way to get a subtle glow on the high planes of your face (cheekbones, forehead, bridge of the nose, cupid's bow). You can also use it for an eyeshadow base so it's really versatile.
MAC Mineralized Skin Finish Natural is definitely my pick for MAC powder. If you are going to get a MAC powder, go for one in the mineral collection. You won't be disappointed.
Blush in Fleur Power may not be my absolute favorite blush, but it is definitely in the top 5. This matte peachy pink blush gives just the right amount of color for perfectly flushed cheeks.
Underage Lipglass is a classic. If you are looking for a pale pink, this will be your everyday go-to. If you don't like the sticky feel of Lipglass, try the Cremesheen in Fashion Scoop.
Pro Longwear Concealer is MAC's newest concealer and I will NEVER use anything else. This stuff is amazing. It's lightweight, dries quickly and doesn't crease under the eyes. It also has a 14 hour wear so it literally lasts all day.
MAC Face & Body Foundation is a cult favorite, but I have to admit, I never really got into the trend. They only sell this foundation at free standing MAC stores so I never wore it. However, it is water resistant and surprisingly lightweight, so it definitely has great components. My favorite MAC foundation is Studio Moisture Tint.
Lipstick in Creme d'Nude is extremely popular. We never had it in stock so I didn't get to play with it much. If you are looking for a very pale lip (think concealer-light), this will do the trick. I prefer a little more color, so I would suggest Hue because it is a little less chalky and has more of a pink tint to it.
Products they left out of the list that should be there:
Blacktrack eyeliner
Lingering eyebrow pencil
There you have it, kids! My professional (hehe) opinion on some of MAC's most popular products.
What's YOUR favorite MAC product??
Want to follow H and I on Pinterest? Here's our personalized links:


text: These Riggs Workwear utility Wrangler jeans sit comfortably at natural waist. Button waist with brass zipper fly. Heavy-duty belt loops. 13" deep front pockets. Patented leather tape measure reinforcement on right front pocket. Cordura, a durable abrasion and tear resistant material, lines the back pockets. Oversized watch pocket. Reinforced front panels on legs and stress areas for added durability. Triple needle stitching. Riggs Workwear label on back left pocket. Imported.


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Northwest Chicago Bears Commemorative Blanket
Product Information:
Take your team fandom to new heights with this Northwest® Chicago Bears Commemorative Blanket. Featuring graphics for each Super Bowl victory, honor the success of the Bears with this woven tapestry. Put this blanket over a piece of furniture or hang it up on the wall and show your pride in the team with the woven Bears logo and wordmark on the front. Measuring at 48" x 60", this collectible boldly shows your support for the team.
- Northwest® Chicago Bears commemorative tapestry
- Features woven Bears wordmark and logo
- Woven Super Bowl Champions wordmark and logos for every Super Bowl victory
- Full-color graphics and fringe on all sides
- Can be hung up on your wall or used as a throw
- Measures approximately 48" x 60"
- Officially licensed by the NFL
- Northwest
Country of Origin: United StatesWeb ID: 42265026


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For the U.S. Mission to South Africa, Mandela Day began at 8:00 a.m. on the chancery lawn with a resounding chorus of Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela, who turned 94 on Wednesday.
Like no other world leader alive today, the former South African president and anti-apartheid icon is revered and adored by his fellow citizens, and the anniversary of his birth date inspires countless tributes at home and from abroad.
"By any measure, Nelson Mandela has changed the arc of history, transforming his country, continent, and the world," said President and Michelle Obama in a statement of congratulations.
Hoping to set a record for the most people singing Happy Birthday in unison, several South African institutions, including the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Department of Basic Education, issued an early call to well-wishers to sing the song at exactly 8:00 a.m. Approximately 12 million schoolchildren joined in the singing.
The great man celebrated the day privately and quietly, with family in his tribal village of Qunu, while millions of South Africans honored him by engaging in community service -- 67 minutes for the 67 years that Madiba, as he is affectionately known, spent active in politics.
Ambassador Donald Gips and his family joined more than 150 U.S. and South African staff in heading out to disadvantaged communities, where they engaged in a range of projects, from painting and picking up litter to playing with children. Although participation is voluntary at the Mission, American officers relish the opportunity to join their host country in paying tribute to the living legend, who for Americans, would be like having George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr., in one individual.
At a primary school in the Mamelodi Township outside Pretoria, Mission staff painted the entrance of the school library and stocked the library with books. Elizabeth Gips, the Ambassador's wife, read President Obama's book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, to a group of young students, signing the book and presenting it to the school librarian.
In Soweto, more than 40 staff from the embassy and Johannesburg consulate pitched in to clean up school grounds and paint a fence surrounding one primary school. South African broadcaster, Radio 702, also brought volunteers and interviewed Mission staff, while Ronald McDonald showed up to distribute Happy Meals to the children.
In the coastal city of Durban, staff created a garden at a local secondary school, while in Cape Town, a consulate crew headed to the poverty-stricken Lavender Hill neighborhood, where they worked alongside a local community group to collect plastic bottles for recycling, pick up trash, and assemble donated furniture.


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PRAccess Fall/Winter 2007(Volume 6, No. 2):
Spotlight On
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Norma,I saw the cake pans you referenced but I think that the largest size is 10".Peter
Norma,They ain't cheap, are they?Peter
Norma,FYI, Lloyd Pans sells the square pans with loose bottoms, in bare aluminum or with Dura-Kote: http://www.lloydpans.com/standard-pans/bakeware/cake-pans/square-loose-bottom-pans. I thought that they might have the counterpart round pans with loose bottoms but that does not appear to be the case.Peter


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Nicely furnished double room in beautiful Oberkassel
Size25 m²
Floor No.
- Kitchen
- Washer/dryer
- Parking available
- Suitable for events
- Lockable room
- Balcony/terrace
- Towels
Accommodation summary
|Niederkasseler Kirchweg, 40547 Düsseldorf, Germany
|Property type
|Private room
|Property ID
|Acceptance rate
|Response time
|A few hours
|Calendar updated
|3 days ago
• Popular location in the district Oberkassel (bakery, snack shop, paper shops, pharmacy and dry cleaner's in the immediate vicinity)
• Public transport about 3 minutes away by foot (metro station " Heerdter Sandberg " and bus stop " Niederkasseler Kirchweg " )
• City center about 10 minutes away by public transport
• ESPRIT arena and exhibition center about 20 minutes away by public transport
• River Rhine about 14 minutes away by foot
• Very bright double bedroom with small balcony on the first floor of a quiet apartment building
• Large 2,00 m x 2,00 m luxurious Duxiana double bed
• View to a large beautifully landscaped garden
• Private toilet with washbasin
• Shared large marble bathroom with bathtub and shower
• Shared large terrace and garden
• Bed linen and towels are provided - free of charge
House rules :
• This room is a nonsmoking room
• I have a cat
• Breakfast can be booked
House rulesnot smoking
|Price for > 1 guests
|$ 132 HKD per guest/night extra
|Maximum nights
|2 weeks
|Check-in after
|On arrangement
|Check-in before
|On arrangement
|Check-out before
|On arrangement
|Cancellation Policy
Reviews of this property
Manuela's house was so big and nice, and the room we stayed was full of light and nice and fresh with the lovely garden view!
She also has outstanding bathroom! The room itself, and the bath tub was so big, 2 people can easily have a bath together. It was good for me and my husband to save time to have a bath together.
Everything was even better than the photos and we fuly enjoy staying there!
Manuela is kind, friendly and relaxed person, and she is really a lovely person! We enjoyed talking with her even though it was a short time. I am sure I would like to come back to see her in our next trip.
Manuela, thank you very much! We very much enjoyed our stay!
Everything worked out wonderfully. Great room and very nice hostess!
Es hat alles wunderbar geklappt. Top Zimmer und sehr nette Gastgeberin!
Very good stay, Manuela is very welcoming and helpful. For us who do not speak German, she speaks English perfectly. Our next stay in Germany will certainly take place in her home if she has room at the time.
Très bon séjour, Manuela est très accueillante et serviable. Pour nous qui ne parlons pas allemand, elle parle anglais à merveille. Notre prochain séjour en Allemagne se déroulera certainement chez elle si elle a de la place à ce moment là.
Wonderful apartment, very quiet, clean, large room. Very nice hostess!
Wunderschöne Wohnung, sehr ruhig, sauber, grosses Zimmer. Sehr nette Gastgeberin!
everything is very good! Many Thanks!
Alles sehr gut! Vielen Dank!
Good Day,
I stayed for three nights, during the Medica exhibition, and was more surprised than positive.
The hostess is polite, kind and sympathetic.
The room was clean, large and bright with a nice view.
The entire apartment was clean and pleasant.
The area is quiet and mostly. Although it is not in the immediate vicinity of the Medica, but the subway station is not 3 minutes away.
Good infrastructure "Bakery almost on the doorstep" supermarket "8-minute walk or 1 stop from the apartment."
All in all, highly recommended with a good price-performance ratio.
Guten Tag,
ich war für drei Nächte, während der Medica-Ausstellung, und war mehr als positiv überrascht.
Die Gastgeberin ist höflich, nett und sympathisch.
Das Zimmer war sauber, groß und hell mit einem sehr schönen Ausblick.
Die gesamte Wohnung war sauber und angenehm.
Die Gegend ist ruhig und vornehmlich. Sie ist zwar nicht in unmittelbarer Nähe der Medica, dafür ist die U-Bahn Haltestelle keine 3 Minuten entfernt.
Gute Infrastruktur "Bäckerei fast vor der Tür" Supermarkt "8 Gehminuten oder 1 Haltestelle von der Wohnung".
Alles in allem sehr empfehlenswert mit einem guten Preis-Leistungsverhältnis.
Very nice service and nice room in a good location in Dusseldorf.
Sehr netter Service und schönes Zimmer bei guter Lage in Düsseldorf.
We were zufrieden.Gerne we are the friendly hostess and her little cat besuchen.Gruß back to Dusseldorf.
Wir waren zufrieden.Gerne werden wir die freundliche Gastgeberin und ihre kleine Katze wieder besuchen.Gruß nach Düsseldorf.
Alles Super, very nice clean and very friendly hostess
Alles Super, sehr schon sauber und sehr freundliche Gastgeberin
Thanks for the service.
Ms. Manuela thunissen and was very helpful and very bela home and comfortable.
I hope that I will find you through other such examples.
One note: It is proposed bad & brakfast, but breakfast, it seems to me not to nesun.
Important to know first.
see you soon
Gjergj Gjinaj
Grazie per servizio.
Signora Manuela thunissen e stata molto disponibile e casa sua molto bela e comoda.
Spero che trovero tramite voi anche altri esempi tali.
Una nota: Si propone bad& brakfast, ma colazione, mi sembra che nesuno non da.
Importante sapere prima.
A presto
Gjergj Gjinaj
- Quality assured accommodation
- Every host is verified by telephone
- Secure payment via SSL encryption


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With what seemed like a very long winter, cold Easter and late spring, we are finally getting some better and warmer weather. The last few weeks we have had some stunning sunny days.
The new season is starting to get busier, I took the chance to pop out with the camera to capture the glorious St Ives and it's amazing choice of beaches!!
Here's a taster of what St Ives has to offer:
Closest to Gekko Lodge is the famous surfing beach Porthmeor (Unfortunately not much surf yesterday!)
The next beach is just the other side of the Island, Porthgwidden, cute little cove with views across the bay.
Bamaluz often goes unnoticed, between Porthgwidden and the Harbour, is only accessible at low tide but generally quiter! At low tide a beach also appears around the back of Smeatons Pier (2nd photo)
Around a little further is the Harbour, often more sheltered and with a great choice of cafe's and restaurants to admire the views and boats, don't forget to look out for the seals too!
Lastly there's Porthminster beach, a great family beach and home to the award winning Porthminster Beach cafe.
If thats not enough and for those who like a good walk, follow the coast path from Porthminster, firstly you'll arrive at Carbis Bay and around a bit further there's the stunning Porth Kidney sands!!


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Take a trip to New York City with traveling photographer David Hobby, as he explains how to take iconic photos of the Big Apple.
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Strobist.com founder David Hobby offers a city-specific vignette that makes a trip to London much more accessible, productive, and enjoyable to the first-time photo traveler.
Explore the best of what Paris has to offer, from Montparnasse to the Eiffel Tower, and make sure your trip is full of great photographs and even better memories.
Photographer and Strobist publisher David Hobby explores what to see, eat, and shoot in Dubai, the ultramodern crown jewel of the United Arab Emirates.
Learn how to photograph your journey like a professional, without dispelling any of the magic of the experience, with Strobist.com founder David Hobby.
Strobist.com founder David Hobby offers a city-specific vignette that makes a trip to Hong Kong much more accessible, productive, and enjoyable to the first-time photo traveler.
David Hobby talks about his experiences running a photography business that's rooted in photojournalism and the community where he lives.
Photographer David Hobby uses compact strobes to shoot an environmental portrait of a beekeeper and his bees.
Photographer David Hobby employs multiple strobes to capture young soccer players in action and in portraits.
Photographer David Hobby captures the strength and grace of a dancer in motion, lighting her against a blow-away white background.
Photographer David Hobby visits a conservation center and lights close-ups and portraits using a variety of strobes and light modifiers.
In a photo shoot with a model, photographer and Strobist blog publisher David Hobby demonstrates the basics of lighting with compact flash units.
"You guys have helped change my life forever. I'm so very grateful." —Donni R.
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CAC approved
David Akers (1975/88): The 1925-D is the most common issue of the series in all Mint State grades except MS-65 or better. At that level, the 1908 is more obtainable. Up to MS64, the 1925-D can be obtained with no difficulty but strict MS-65 specimens, although available, are not really all that plentiful. Superb specimens(better than MS-65) are practically non-existent but, of course, this is true of virtually every issue of the Pratt-designed quarter eagle and half eagle series.
The 1925-D almost always has very good to excellent mint lustre but the striking quality varies greatly; some are very unevenly struck while others are well struck. Dies seem to have been a problem with this issue, and many specimens were clearly struck from buckled or deteriorated dies. The mint mark is usually a little weak but well defined. There are some specimens, however, where the mintmark is so weak that it is nearly invisible. The color is typically a rose tinted gold but there are also coppery colored specimens as well as ones with green and yellow gold shades. The surfaces are frosty with little or no granularity. This is a candidate with another Denver Mint issue, the 1914-D, for having the generally poorest minting quality in the series. Both issues are partially redeemed, however, by especially fine lustre and color.


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Conservation Status
So far, Zonotrichia leucophrys has not required any management. While practices as logging seem to disturb many species of birds, this practice actually has provided the white-crowned sparrow with new habitats (bare ground and grasslands for easy foraging) (Chilton et al. 1995). Cattle grazing has proven to be the only deterrent of this species' habitat requirements (Knopf et al. 1988).


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Keep in mind we don't always restock. This is just for popular items that may come back due to high demand! Customer care can't provide any information about items that are sold out.
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A beautiful floral black lace overlay lends a gorgeous textured detailing on this midnight blue skater dress. Featuring faux leather panels at sides with intricate crossed straps. Zip closure at back. By Nasty Gal.
*Cotton/Spandex Blend
*30"/76cm bust
*26"/66cm waist
*35.5"/90cm length
*Model is wearing size small
*Measurements taken from size small
*Machine wash cold
*Made in the USA
*Measurement taken from garment
Carolina is a US size 2
Height: 5'8"
Bust: 34" / Waist: 24" / Hips: 35"
Astrological sign: Taurus
Can't live without: Love
Tell us a secret: I never go anywhere in public without mascara.
If you're not utterly obsessed with your recent purchase, it's now so easy to send it back! All US returns can be completed online using our fast, hassle-free system. Check out the links below for more details.
Opened makeup, earrings, ear cuffs and panties cannot be returned.


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"I only drink champagne on two occasions: when I am in love and when I am not. "
Up Front: April 2013
I have always maintained that the best people on our team–those who bring the most creativity and fresh ideas to the table–are the ones who have varied and passionate interests outside the office. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems that the world (or at least the workplace) conspires against us being able to develop such interests.
Nothing inspires me more than the ballet, for example, and I am fortunate enough to live in New York City, where I have firsthand access to some of the most exquisite ballet in the world. Yet every year, I almost decide to not invest in season tickets, because I start to think about how I won't have time, it's too expensive, I have too many emails to get through, it's too stressful getting to Lincoln Center during rush hour, etc. But then I do go, and the experience always makes everything I encounter afterwards seem more vibrant; the ballet gives me a different perspective on the world, my family and work. Therefore, the investment in season tickets is, as they say, priceless.
Of course, one person's inspiration is another person's waste of time. For my husband, for example, the ballet is a slow torture–the Washington Redskins are what inspires him. But it really doesn't matter what it is that gets your heart beating faster, as long as it does.
For BJT editor Jeff Burger, one out-of-the-office passion is music, and especially that of Bruce Springsteen, whom Jeff admires not only for his performing and songwriting but for his worldview and morality. To find out why, check out Jeff's just-published book Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters. Even if you're new to Bruce's soulful music, you will likely be inspired by this thoughtful compilation of his musings over four decades.
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Welcome to our Day Camp!
2017 will be our 33rd season. Plans are being made to make this the best season yet!
Discovery is a small nurturing camp where your child receives individualized attention. One of our goals
is to create an environment in which campers have fun while growing as individuals and as members of a group
through participation in a variety of activities. Campers are grouped in small age appropriate groups where they receive individualized
attention while participating in: swimming (twice daily), fine arts, sports, nature, ropes course and special events.
Campers are challenged to try new skills that are taught in a non-competitive atmosphere as they form memorable relationships
with their group and group leaders.
Come join us for a fun-filled summer! Call us at (847)367-2267 to schedule your personal tour!


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Topic: attachment fu and windows
I've tried and tried. I couldn't get freeimage installed. I got mini_magick installed, but everytime I try Mike Clark's tutorial, I get the error 'Size is not in the list'. I found some people fixed this by putting a sleep statement in their controller, but this didn't work for me. Any help out there?
Rails, Javascript, Actionscript and More.


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Arkansas Retailers Hope Holiday Season Is Happy
by Mark Friedman on Monday, Oct. 8, 2012 12:00 am
Editors Picks
Whispers Blogby Arkansas Business Staff
- Live Video: Watch Gov. Asa Hutchinson's Speech to the Legislature
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- Here's the Wells Fargo Foreclosure Lawsuit on the Regions Bank Building
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- John Goodson To Defend Himself at Circuit Court of Appeals 2 days ago


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Banks to Suffer Big Decline in Mortgage Revenue in 2013
NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Regional banks enjoyed a blowout 2012 for mortgage revenue. But that may all come to an end this year.
That means investors can no longer count on a steady stream of glowing earnings-season headlines for mortgage growth or upward earnings-estimate revisions.
President Obama early last year expanded the Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, to allow qualified borrowers with mortgage loans held by Fannie Mae (FNMA) or Freddie Mac (FMCC) to refinance at record-low interest rates, no matter how much the market value of the underlying home had declined.
The expanded HARP, along with record-low interest rates, led to a 39% year-over-year increase in U.S. mortgage loan origination volume to $1.75 trillion during 2012, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The low-rate environment also generated unusually high gains on the sale of newly originated loans to government-sponsored enterprises, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Many of the large regional mortgage lenders saw continual increases in mortgage lending volume and profit last year, but gain-on-sale margins were already beginning to soften during the fourth quarter.
Projecting Declines in Margins and Volume
The MBA estimates that total U.S. mortgage origination volume will decline by 19% to $1.41 trillion this year, and drop another 25% to $1.061 trillion in 2014.
The Federal Reserve has kept the short-term federal funds rate in a record-low range of between zero and 0.25% since late 2008, and the Federal Open Market Committee has said this "highly accommodative" policy is likely to continue until the U.S. unemployment rate declines to 6.5%. But investors are always looking ahead, and the market yield for 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds has increased by 42 basis points over the past three months to around 2%.
Atlantic Equities analyst Richard Staite said in a Jan. 29 report that a concurrent increase in yields on mortgage-backed securities (MBS) led to a contraction in the primary secondary mortgage spread to 82 basis points from an average of 123 during the fourth quarter.
Jefferies analyst Ken Usdin said in a report Friday that the median gain-on-sale margin for eight large-cap banks covered by his firm expanded to 3.16% in 2012 from 1.94% in 2011. Usdin also estimated that the median gain-on-sale margin would decline to 2.75% in 2013 and 2.33% in 2014. These combined figures exclude Regions Financial of Birmingham, Ala., because "it does not offer the same granularity" as other large-cap regional banks covered by Jefferies, according to Usdin.
Jefferies also said mortgage production revenue for the group of eight large-cap banks more than doubled in 2012. The firm estimates that their mortgage production revenue will decline by 19% during 2013 and by another 24% in 2014.
Usdin says Wells Fargo (WFC) will take the biggest hit on gain-on-sale margins during 2013, with the margin declining by 43 basis points to 1.92%, dropping further to 1.55% in 2014. Jefferies also estimates that Wells Fargo's mortgage production revenue will decline to $8.79 billion in 2013 from $12.2 billion. For 2013, Usdin estimates Wells Fargo's mortgage production revenue will total $6.63 billion.


text: Page list tidied up Posted on March 11, 2012 by genealyn I have now structured the page list in the right hand column of the blog, so it should be easier to use as a navigation tool. The page hierarchy is similar to the menu structure. Share this:EmailPrintTweetMoreShare on TumblrPocketLike this:Like Loading... Related


text: Home How To 10 Supermarket Buys for Faster Dinners 10 Supermarket Buys for Faster Dinners Stock up on versatile fast-fix ingredients to simplify dinner preparation. Category: Dinner Email Thumbnails of Previous Next http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN_washed-baby-spinach-istock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Washed Baby Spinach Raw or cooked, these greens add protein and iron to any dish. Try baby spinach in salads, stir-fries and soups. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/10/0/FN_couscous-ingredient-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Couscous A few minutes is all it takes for it to be table-ready, and couscous is as versatile as cooked rice; try it served alongside roasted meat or chicken, paired with sauces, as a stuffing or to thicken a soup. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN_frozen-shrimp-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Frozen Shrimp Defrost a bag of shrimp in 10 minutes (or less!) by immersing it in a bowl of water. You'll have a protein that takes three to five minutes to cook, depending on whether it's steamed, boiled, sauteed, grilled or roasted. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN-sliced-polenta-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Precooked Polenta Depending on how it's prepped, these rolls work as a stand-in for pasta, rice or bread: Try them sliced for personal pizzas/flatbreads, mashed into a gravy or sauce, or chopped and sauteed in a stir-fry. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN_pizza-dough-flat-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Refrigerated Pizza Dough Pizza and calzones are solid options, but try stretching the dough extra-thin and baking it for flatbread or heating it in a pan for flour tortillas. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN_frozen-edamame-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Frozen Shelled Edamame This choice is protein-rich and has a soft texture that's just as pleasant pureed for a dip or sauce as it is whole and tossed into salads, stir-fries or eaten plain for a snack. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN_rotisserie-chicken-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Rotisserie Chicken Carved, shredded, sliced or chopped, rotisserie chicken works as a topping or filling, in a soup or salad, cold or heated through. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN_canned-beans-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Canned Beans Cost-effective and rich in fiber, canned beans can be used whole to whip up a chili or fortify a soup; or mash them for a side or a burrito filling. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/10/0/FN_brown-rice-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Frozen Brown Rice Serve healthful hot grains in minutes as an accompaniment to a quick vegetable saute or roast chicken; leftovers also make a hearty addition to soups and casseroles. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2013/12/9/1/FN_grated-parmesan-cheese-thinkstock_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese Grate or shave this cheese over pasta or vegetables for a savory fix that adds richness in the simplest dish. Sprinkle a layer over a casserole and broil until golden for a quick crust. http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2016/10/3/1/FN_getty_grocery-shopping-basket_s4x3.jpg.rend.snigalleryslide.jpeg Coming up 10 Ways to Organize and Speed Up Your Supermarket Trip Don't spend any more time at the grocery store than you have to. Advertisement Continue to Next Photo


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Man arrested in Iron River on assault, drug charges
Daily News craft show today in Kingsford
By LISA M. REED
Staff Writer
KINGSFORD – There will be a variety of homemade crafts, jewelry, food, and other specialty items available at the Second Annual Daily News Spring Craft Show today.
The show is being held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Birchwood Mall, 610 S. Carpenter Ave., Kingsford.
Daily News Newspapers In Education Coordinator Christopher Ashburn said 34 crafters and/or vendors will be on site selling their handmade items.
The event is being catered by Casual to Gourmet Catering.
Specialty items featured include bird houses/feeders, wood signs, pot holders, place mats, pottery, sports collectables and apparel, doll clothes, stained glass, ceramics, jam, syrup and hone, stone oil candles, lamps, crocheted and hand-woven items, and baked goods.
The Spring Craft Show is an event aimed at involving the community and welcoming in the spring season.
Admission is free.
The spring craft show raises funds for Newspapers In Education, a non-profit organization funded solely through fund-raising events and grants paid for by The Daily News, local business sponsors, and generous subscribers.
Lisa M. Reed's e-mail address is email@example.com.


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At certain moments in the Shabbat service, congregants circled their arms around their heads, like background dancers in a music video. And when the Torah came out, everybody held their hands out with their palms up, to, as the man standing next to me explained, "Receive the Light."
My wife was there, too, upstairs in the women's section. She whispered something to a friend during the rabbi's sermon, and someone on the other side of her hissed, "Shh!" It was comedian Sandra Bernhard.
Weird? It all seemed to me a cross between Scientology and Hebrew school -- full of glassy-eyed acolytes who knew more about multilevel marketing than Torah.
Two weeks ago, I went back. And what I found and what I felt shocked me: I liked it.
That's right, I liked it. I had been reading Jody Myers' (photo, left) just-released book, "Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Centre in America" (Praeger, $49.95), and it is the book's great strength that it forces a second and third look at a group that the great majority of mainstream Jewry finds suspicious, aberrant, fraudulent -- even dangerous.
Myers is a professor of religious studies at Cal State Northridge. She is a scholar of orthodoxy and Zionism and a member of the Library Minyan at Temple Beth Am. In 1999, simply out of curiosity over the disdain her colleagues had leveled at the Centre, Myers walked for the first time into the Centre's attractive mission revival building on Robertson Boulevard, just south of Olympic Boulevard. This slim, diminutive and energetic academic decided then and there to use her sabbatical leave to research the Centre.
She dug into archival, academic and religious research, interviewed numerous adherents and leaders and attended two 10-week courses the Centre offers, along with numerous Centre services and events. She devoted seven years to this work.
The result is a rare example of open-minded, fair inquiry on a highly charged subject. She tracks the origin of the kabbalah movement, examines its main teachings, looks at the particular way Kabbalah Centre founder Rabbi Phillip Berg adapted those teachings to the American spiritual seeker, and she profiles Centre participants. She rarely lets the curious down -- though I suspect she will incense many readers who expect a mainstream indictment of this new form of Jewish expression.
Instead, what she offers is a dispassionate analysis of the Kabbalah Centre as one of many new religious communities that have sprung up to satisfy the spiritual needs of a new generation. While most Jews and their rabbis disparage it, the Centre has grown worldwide to attract tens of thousands of participants by appealing to a generation that is suspicious of religious authority but hungry for tangible spiritual benefits. At a time when mainstream Jewish life is struggling and often failing to reinvigorate itself, the Kabbalah Centre has successfully taken, in Myers words, "an elitist and highly complex religious tradition limited to Jews" and modified it to appeal to a large, universal audience.
It has done so without a dime of Jewish foundation grants or the benefit of focus groups, academic studies or any of the other hallmarks of 21st century institutional Jewish life, including membership dues or building campaigns.
What Myers teaches, and what my visit last month taught me, is that instead of shunning the Centre, we ought to at least be studying it.
The history of popular kabbalah in America doesn't begin with the Kabbalah Centre. It begins with a poor Polish Russian-born rabbi named Levi Krakovsky.
As Myers tells it, Krakovsky followed his teacher, Yehuda Ashlag, to Palestine in 1922. Ashlag considered himself a disciple of the 16th-century kabbalistic master Isaac Luria, whose esoteric system of understanding the deeper, divine meanings of Torah influenced all future generations of Jewish and non-Jewish mystics. (In the age of "The Da Vinci Code," it's easy to see the appeal of a system of images and symbols that claims the Bible's real, true essence is "a code that establishes correspondences between the divine realm and the earthly realm.")
On the death of his wife, Krakovsky placed his five children in a Jerusalem orphanage and came to New York to bring kabbalah to American Jewry. He failed. In post-war America, Jews wanted their religion staid, rational and practically Protestant. After two more marriages and an itinerant life spent carrying a satchel full of his English-language kabbalah book from Jewish community to community, Krakovsky -- a character in search of a Michael Chabon short story if ever there was one -- died in 1966.
"Kabbalah destroys families," his son, Shlomo, said by way of eulogy.
But before he died, Krakovsky met Shraga Feivel Gruberger in Brooklyn. Gruberger, born in Brooklyn in 1929, was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi at yeshiva TorahVaDat. Already successful in real estate and insurance, Gruberger decided to devote his life to spreading the understanding of Jewish mysticism he had received via the chain of Ashlag, Krakovsky and his colleague, Yehuda Brandwein -- kabbalah means "that which is received."
It was the 1960s. Gruberger -- who by now went by the anglicized name of Phillip Berg -- promoted kabbalah as a way to keep young Jews out of the cults and away from non-Jewish religions that were sweeping them up. One study at the time found that Jews, just 2 percent to 3 percent of the American population, constituted between 6 and 20 percent of the membership of radical new religions. Berg, Myers writes, wanted to "show alienated and spiritually hungry Jews that their own religious heritage contained everything they needed for fulfillment."
Berg's genius was in making something that was dense and esoteric into something highly accessible. What Ashlag wanted to teach to all Orthodox Jews, what his disciple Krakovsky wanted to teach to all Jews, Berg wanted to teach to all -- period.And his success is inarguable. Berg opened the first Centre in Toronto in 1988 (hence the spelling of Centre). There are now 26 Centres around the world and dozens of study groups. The Centre's Web site and marketing machine are arguably the most sophisticated of any Jewish organization, even one that denies it is Jewish. Go into any bookstore and books on kabbalah and mysticism dominate the new releases, just as kabbalah classes proliferate at synagogues and JCCs. How did Berg do this?
At root, he offered an easy-to-grasp mysticism, a mysticism with handles. Take God. The Kabbalah Centre God is not an angry old man on a throne. "The picture of God [presented by the Kabbalah Centre] is, for many people, quite unlike the conventional one," Myers writes, "and they welcome it." The Kabbalah Centre God is like light, "a sharing good power ... often called simply, 'the Light.'"
"The Light is warm, life giving, loving and completely and utterly devoted to fulfilling all the needs of the recipients of its glow. God desires only to share and never to withhold Light."
If the Light is yours for the receiving, that great bugaboo of organized religion -- compulsion -- falls away. As Myers points out, at the Kabbalah Centre, there is no compulsion.
In Berg's worldview, the Torah's directives -- mitzvot -- "are not mandates but suggestions." Kabbalah Centre adherents can -- and many do -- follow traditional mitzvot: keeping kosher, keeping the Sabbath. The more you follow, the more you let "the Light" shine in. But no one is pushed or made to feel compelled to do more than he or she desires.
Where it gets weird is when Berg asserts that people's misdeeds in past lives, including their lack of kabbalah study, cause illness and misfortune in this lifetime. That explains how Berg could tell the mother of a young boy gravely ill with leukemia that the disease is a result of something from the boy's past life. And it explains how Berg could continue to teach that Sephardic Jews were not destroyed in the Holocaust because they hadn't abandoned kabbalah as the Ashkenazim had (in fact, Sephardic Jews were slaughtered). "Jewish persecution occurs when the Jews are receiving rather than giving," Myers writes in summarizing Berg's lesson. "This applies to the Holocaust, as well."
The theology continues to be, to my mind, loopy, or at least unsatisfying. But Myers does an entirely admirable job of laying it out clearly and dispassionately.
And, she points out, few religious thought systems have a lock on logic or consistency. The classes and teachings of the Centre resonate among boomer and post-boomer religious seekers not because they answer every big question with perfect sense (by the way, which Jewish movement can claim that?), but because they address central concerns about healing and self-fulfillment. The Centre teaches that our human desires or our reactions to life's challenges often block the Light. But when we shut down our reaction and let the Light in, when we "connect with the Light," we have the power to transform ourselves, those around us and the world.
If you sniff intimations of "The Secret" and EST and other self-actualization psychologies in this, you aren't far off. Myers actually has a nifty chart comparing how Kabbalah Centre beliefs match five fundamental New Age beliefs.
She also addresses head on the most visible and ridiculed aspects of the Centre:
- The Products: The Centre created two "spiritual tools": a rather pricey bit of red string and "Kabbalah Water," both purported to have healing powers. Wearing red against the "evil eye" has ancient precedent, Myers said, and Berg extrapolates from a passage in the central kabbalistic text, the Zohar, to make this point. The Kabbalah Water, which The Jewish Journal had tested for any special chemical properties several years ago -- it has none -- is part of the Centre's emphasis on both spiritual and physical healing, a "central concern" of the Centre -- and of younger spiritual seekers.
- Scanning: Adherents are taught that passing their eyes over the Hebrew text of the Zohar, even though they can't read Hebrew, confers spiritual benefits. Myers found precedent for this among 18th-century kabbalists. But more importantly, she sees it as an outreach strategy. Anti-intellectual to be sure, but a way to bring Hebrew-illiterate Jews and non-Jews into the fold.
- Cult-like Behavior: Myers directly addresses whether the Centre is a cult. I came across these accusations frequently when I wrote what was the first in-depth article on the L.A. Kabbalah Centre in 1997. Young men and women I spoke with told of being strong-armed into donations. One wife described how her husband burned through their savings, donating and buying Centre reliquaries. Myers doesn't re-investigate such charges or unearth and examine new ones. She does assert that while early Centre techniques and adherents might have been overly strident, the organization, as it has grown, has softened its approach and reined in its zealots. The difference between a cult and a religion is, as the saying goes, about 100 years.
- Celebrity: The pop goddess Madonna was reported to be taking Centre classes in 1997. Since then, a string of celebrities -- Britney Spears, Demi Moore, Roseanne Barr, Bernhard and others -- have been linked to the Centre and studied under Berg or his sons, Yehuda and Michael.
In a 2004 interview on National Public Radio, Terry Gross asked Madonna if she planned to convert.
"Oh please, don't make me sick!" Madonna exclaimed. "I'm never going to be Jewish, and I hate that phrase."
The pop star was reflecting a Centre teaching that what it offers is not Jewish; it's not even religion. By not naming a Jewish thought system as Jewish, by abhorring the idea that adherents must convert, Berg repositions Kabbalah as universal wisdom, available to all.
"The term 'Jew' is not used" in Centre discourse, Myers writes. Jew and gentile are ethnic terms. Kabbalah is for all humanity."
(This grand distinction, Myers points out, didn't stop Centre co-director Karen Berg, Phillip Berg's wife, from asking Myers herself to write a letter to a government agency testifying that the Centre deserves status as a religious organization, when it served the Kabbalah Learning Center's purpose.)
But the experience of walking into the Centre on a Shabbat morning is recognizably, undeniably, like walking into a traditional Orthodox synagogue, albeit one on steroids and joy juice.
My second time at the Kabbalah Centre was oh so different. A woman I had met at a movie screening -- a professional woman from a wealthy and connected Persian Jewish family -- was one of two, perhaps not coincidentally, beautiful young women greeting people at the door.
Inside, almost every seat was taken, and the place, by 10 a.m., was filling up fast. Average age, I'd say, was 35. I didn't notice any celebrities, but there were plenty of men and woman who could have been on magazine covers. As is common at the Centre, Israelis were well represented.
The traditional prayers were projected in Hebrew, along with a transliteration, above the bimah, using a high-tech Shabbat-kosher projector. Men and women, separately seated, fully participated, the singing and chanting often reaching a crescendo. Men who led prayers or blessed the Torah went from person to person receiving hugs. The man next to me, a 20-something African American, said he had first picked up a copy of Michael Berg's book, "The Way," at Costco, and it led him to the Centre.
That was four years ago. Now he's studying Hebrew.
Rabbi Phillip Berg appeared on the bimah. The crowd leapt to its feet and began chanting and dancing. No one sat until he sat. The rabbi had been seriously ill lately, and his presence was a cause for celebration. Men approached him for his blessings. The relationship appeared not so much cultish as, perhaps, Sephardic or Chasidic -- the rebbe in the house. Another rabbi gave the sermon -- as lackluster as any number of sermons that probably were being given across the town that Saturday.
But the energy in the room never flagged. The davening, the praying, was intense, focused and, yes, uplifting. At the end, I realized something uncomfortable: As a Shabbat morning in shul goes, this was good. And it was familiar: the Centre had long ago done what any number of new Jewish communities and old-line synagogues have, over the past 10 years, been learning to do: embrace visitors, use music (in this case, noninstrumental), emphasize personal and world healing, stick to Hebrew liturgy.
Professor Shawn Landres, co-author of a just-released study on these "emergent communities," told me the Kabbalah Centre -- though it denies it is Jewish -- was a "predictor" of innovative forms of Jewish worship and outreach.
"American Judaism is no longer an Ashkenazic conversation with itself, which is what the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Orthodox schism was -- it was all an Ashkenazic conversation with itself," Landres said. "The Kabbalah Centre proves the total success of Judaism in America, as it has spun off heterodoxies at the fringes."
I can't help but think that part of what rubs establishment Judaism the wrong way is the very popularity of this heterodoxy. Berg, in trying to keep young Jews from cults, was accused by the Jewish establishment as promulgating a cult of his own. But Myers shows that the Centre, while far from flawless, has pioneered a way of reaching Jews and non-Jews.
Her book begs a serious, unanswered question: What if we were to see the Centre not as a threat but as a model?
What if every rabbi and synagogue president and executive director spent a Shabbat morning in the sanctuary on Robertson, experiencing the undeniable warmth of the congregation, its immersion in an experience that, if not normative, is certainly recognizably -- forgive me, Madonna -- Jewish. Perhaps this form of kabbalah is, as Myers calls it, "a singular type of Judaism." It is a hybrid religious culture that reflects not just the utter embrace of Judaism in America -- the assimilation by non-Jews of fundamental Jewish beliefs -- but also the pluralism and reach that all religious movements are capable of today.
Even ours.
You can hear Jody Myers discuss her book at the Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles on Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. For more information call (323) 761-8644
Sarah Silverman has her own take on kabbalah -- and she mentions Scientology, too!
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Shiite Muslims quietly establish a foothold in U.S.
QUINCY, Mass. (RNS) Until recently, the overwhelming share of U.S. Muslims were Sunni. That's changing as Shiite Muslims flee persecution in their homelands and set up mosques in the U.S., presenting another face of American Islam and bringing overseas tensions within Islam to U.S. shores. By Omar Sacirbey.