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Looking for great Cadillac lighting work? Compare prices across Stepney NOW.
Enter your Registration to see competitive local lighting quotes now!
Looking for great Cadillac lighting work? Compare prices across Stepney NOW.
Anthony did great job for a fair price. Next time I will definetely ring ahead to check he will be in the garage before setting out.
Perfect job without any additional cost. On time with the good price. One of my head light was not working. They fix it without any additional cost. Definitely I will use this garage in the future. Highly recommended.
Could Never Recommend this Garage - Agreed price was £50 for diagnosing issue. Then Anthony said he could recalibrate lock if he had an extra 3hrs. They closed in 30mins when I collected car he wanted £150. He said he recalibrated lock however it was gauranteed to fail! So why recalibrate? Started car no lights, worse experience ever..stay well clear.
a great friendly service, saved me over £800 on a main dealer quote by inspecting what needed to be replaced rather than fitting a new DMF along with the clutch kit as per the main dealer. contacted me about worn brakes also and quoted a very reasonable price. All the work was done to a high standard and on time ..
Excellent workmanship I am very pleased thank you very much
Excellent service, very happy with Daniel and his team, ended up spending more than i was prepared for but I was completely happy with service I received..
Excellent service. Picked up and delivered the car in the given time. Car also cleaned. Thanks Daniel for your honest and excelllent service --Regards Suresh Canning town
Daniel's friendliness and customer service is second to none. Audi A3 cambelt kit, water pump and coolant fitted. Work completed as scheduled at the price estimated. Car cleaned inside and out too. Can't fault the whole experience, I'm so happy I've found a mechanic I can trust.
Superb. Great customer service. Daniel is a person who will tell You what exactly need to be done and he's mechanic who is not inclined to rip his clients off. Also very clean garage. Great communication during the whole process - even if You are not there. I can honestly recommend!
Fantastic ! Adam was fast efficient and very friendly used a very good brand replacement part Excellent service and highly recommended. Adam is now my mechanic of choice. Thanks very much for helping me get back on the road the work. Car is working perfectly, now. Thank you.
Better service than any other garage I have ever been to. Don't think you will get a better mechanic in London. Talked through all the problems and diagnosed the car fully. Very happy with the whole job and would use again.
Excellent service and highly recommended. Adam is now my mechanic of choice. Thanks very much for the work. Car is working perfectly, now.
Most definitely - real decent mechanic - highly recommended!!!
Highly recommend Adam, knows what hes talking about. He keeps you up to date with progress and everything. Definitely will come back to him in future
Yes prompt service and reasonably priced.
Terrible service. Scammers never did the work. They just polished my old parts and pit them back on.
Executive Motor Service was quick, reliable and cheap and very friendly team. Took my car in on the Thursday afternoon and the job was done by 12 pm Saturday afternoon. Looks brand new and no extra cost definitely recommend these guys Darren C
I was really impressed with the service I received. Had been meaning to repair bodywork on my outlander but never had time to get it done during term time as the car was needed for school run. Carl and his team did an excellent job. Looks like new. Only came over budget because I asked him to do more than what I quoted for originally. Professional and trustworthy. Would definitely recommend.
Initally Carl seemed very helpful, however due my experience with this garage i am giving a negative review. I put in a quote and this garage was the first to respond. I then realised i needed extra work done to the car. I called the garage and spoke to a guy called Carl. He was very helpful and advised that he could carry out the additional work too at a good price. He also sounded very knowledgeable with my type of car which was also good. In the telephone converstation with Carl i asked if he was open the next day which was on Sunday. He advised he wasnt however would text me over his number and garage details to arrange a time he could open the garage so i could drop my car off. I the replied to Carl advising that i would drop the car off at 1pm. I never got a reply. I then sent another message to Carl advising when i can drop my car and still no reply. He agreed to carry out the work and then stopped all communication with me and still to this day has not contacted me. This delayed me getting my car fixed and is extremely unprofessional. If he didnt want to carry out the work he should of said at the time rather then lead me on. I would not recommend this garage and would avoid at all costs. If they cant get his communication right i would not trust this garage with my car.
Done my car really good work would recommend
Great job, exactly as described. Would happily use Bodyteq again.
couldn`t find the problem
the quote was £75 incl VAT but that was not the case
Thanks Jason. Would probably use again.
Wonderful and honest and reability
All good!
Very good service.
Really great job at a really great price!
Excellent, friendly and fair service. I would definitely use this garage again. Thank you.


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|HoloGlobe: Active Volcanoes from 1960 through 1995 on a Flat Earth (with Dates)
This is one of a series of animations that were produced to be part of the narrated video shown in the HoloGlobe exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Earth Today exhibit at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
Intended for grade levels:
Type of resource:
Technical requirements:
RealPlayer plug-in
Cost / Copyright:
No cost
Please give credit to NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio.
DLESE Catalog ID: NASA-SVS-001287
Related resources:
This resource has a thumbnail image at 'Global volcano activity from 1960 through 1995. Active volcanoes are shown as red triangles, with brightness denoting the activity level.'
Resource contact / Creator / Publisher:
Author: Jim Strong
NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio
Author: Horace Mitchell
NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio
Principal Investigator: Tom Watters
Smithsonian/Air and Space

subset: commoncrawl


text: Summertime fashion is all about skin, so make sure your legs are in tip-top shape. Try grabbing a pair of heels to kick things up a notch. If you have trouble with heels, your next level is to don a pair of wedges: they're easier to walk in and have the same confidence-building impact as a heel. If you need to run around, ballet flats can be just as effective, but make sure to choose the right skirt length to show off your pins. In this video, WatchMojo.com gets some tips from BIC Soleil and stylist Hans Koechling for how we can make our legs stand out this summer with the right fashion choices. For more information, click Here.


text: Returning to enchant audiences across the nation, ABC's Once Upon a Time is back for its 3rd season this fall. A fairytale case of charming princes, evil queens, and magical folk, it takes a true believer of faith and fairy dust to fall in love with this tale of love and adventure. (more…)


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Jammers lose on road
WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. – Jamestown pitched well enough to earn its eighth win in 10 games Friday night in Hudson Valley.
Unfortuantely, the offense didn't cooperate.
Jamestown was limited to one run on seven innings, Friday, at Duchess Stadium, dropping a 2-1 decision to the Renegades.
Hudson Valley did all of its damage in the fifth inning, scoring one earned run and one unearned run of Jamestown starter Jackson Lodge. Lodge suffered his first loss of the season, allowing two runs on six hits and striking out two.
Both runs came on the same one-out play as Granden Goetzman and Pat Blair scored on an error by Jammers shortstop Adam Frazier. Catcher Jin-De Jhang helped Jamestown avoid further damage by throwing not one, but two runners out at third base to end the inning.
The Jammers (16-9) quickly tried to strike back in the top of the sixth as Michael Fransoso led off with a double and scored on Jhang's single to center. Harold Ramirez followed Jhang's single with one of his own and Edwin Espinal put down a sacrifice bunt to move runners to second and third with one out.
From there, Hudson Valley pitcher Justin Choate struck out Erich Weiss and got Andrew Dennis to fly out to right, ending Jamestown's biggest scoring threat of the game.
Hudson Valley starter Kevin Brandt earned the win and Choate pitched the final four innings for the save. Ramirez was the only Jammer with multiple hits, finishing with two.
The Jammers continue their road trip on Saturday, traveling to Massachusettes to face the Lowell Spinners.
Jamestown 000 001 000 – 1 7 2
Hudson Valley 000 020 00x – 2 6 1
2b-Michael Fransoso (J). WP-Kevin Brandt. LP-Jackson Lodge. Save-Justin Choate.


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The need is constant.
Red Cross Joins United We Serve, answer the call by getting involved
The American Red Cross invites you to get involved in honor of United We Serve by becoming a volunteer blood donor or hosting a blood drive. United We Serve culminates in a National Day of Service on September 11.
"The Red Cross has a long history of relying on the valuable service of volunteers," said Gail McGovern, president and CEO of the American Red Cross. "That's why we're very excited to be part of the United We Serve initiative."
The stability of the nation's blood supply is in the hands of healthy, volunteer blood donors who give generously for others in need. The blood you give today can make a difference in the lives of patients in your community and throughout the nation. Answer the call and donate blood or platelets and get involved with the American Red Cross.
September is National Preparedness Month
Red Cross supporters know how important it is to be prepared and have a plan in place should emergency strike. September is National Preparedness Month and the Red Cross urges everyone to be Red Cross Ready: get a kit, make a plan and be informed.
Last month, community volunteers like you helped when heavy rains caused massive flooding in the Louisville, Ky. region. The Louisville Area Red Cross Chapter immediately opened three shelters for those seeking a dry, safe place to sleep and fed hot meals to hundreds until they were able to return to their homes.
Recently, the Twin Cities Red Cross Chapter was able to provide shelter, food and counseling to residents after tornadoes ripped through Minneapolis, Minn. because of the support of giving individuals. For more information on how you can prepare for emergencies, visit this link.
MSL donors rocked, helped save lives
Music Saves Lives 2009 has drawn to a close, but thanks to dedicated blood donors nearly 3,000 pints of blood were donated at Midwest-area Music Saves Lives blood drives this summer! As part of this program, throughout July and into August hundreds of Red Cross blood donors enjoyed special access to the Vans Warped Tour concerts in Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Kansas City and Minneapolis.
This was also the first year the Red Cross used Facebook to reach music fans, with 165 members of the American Red Cross – Music Saves Lives – The Vans Warped Tour (2009) Facebook page.
Stay in touch throughout the rest of the year and become a fan of the American Red Cross Blood Donors on Facebook.
First-time donor says he'll be back
As I stepped out of my mom's car to donate blood for the first time she said, "You ready to help save lives, bud?" And to be honest, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to go through with it.
I'd done nothing but think about donating, making sure I drank lots of fluids and had all the right foods – lots of burgers to be exact.
The entire ride I had butterflies flying inside me, but when I stepped out of the car I realized just how nervous I really was. You see, I've been extremely afraid of needles my entire life. In fact, it took four nurses to hold me down for my tetanus shot and I think I took a swing at one of them!
To all those who don't donate because they fear needles, I promise you it won't hurt. I know – I survived my first blood donation! I ask you to come out and donate just once. It's a lot of fun. You get free food and drinks – not to mention your donation will help save lives.
First-time donor and definitely a life-long donor,
Featured Links
Give Blood
Share Your Story
Send an eCard
Red Cross Blog
©2009 The American National Red Cross, 2025 E Street NW, Washington DC, 20006.


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jgkojak, totally agree with you on the single mix. Hadn't heard that since I HAD the bloody vinyl 45!! (what, 27 years ago?). Since then, I'd only listened (very rarely) to the bonus track version...which isn't anywhere as good as this one.
Thanks for posting and bringing back the memories! I'll have to steal this now and make an mp3 out of it for my library!


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Pacific Partnership 2011 (PP11) officially ended when the USS Cleveland left Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) on July 15. Ambassador Peter Prahar held a memorable farewell reception dinner at his residence high over Kolonia harbor, which was attended by a very happy group of exhausted PP11 participants, some of whom had been aboard the Cleveland since March. Although a handful of us flew out of Kolonia the next day on the "island hopper," most of the group remain on Cleveland sailing towards Hawaii.
The mission to the FSM was especially challenging as a training mission for future disaster mitigation. PP11's commitment to undertake projects in all four states of Micronesia -- Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, and Yap -- required assistance from the Navy Air Logistics Office (NALO), which provided two C-12 and one C-9 aircraft during the mission. Using Kolonia as a base, these aircraft delivered both medical teams and a team headed by Ambassador Prahar and Commodore Wilson to Chuuk, Kosrae and Yap. Since the devastating tsunami of December 2004 killed more than 200,000 people in Indonesia and elsewhere in the Pacific, the necessity of early warning systems and disaster plans has been emphasized in the Pacific Islands. But only when you spend some time there, or fly several hours from one island state to another, do you begin to appreciate the challenge of preparation for future calamities.
The emphasis on training in no way affected the overall medical effort in FSM. PP11 doctors and dentists treated more than 6,200 patients and dispensed 4,229 pairs of glasses. Veterinary teams treated 244 animals, and educational exchanges were held at the primary hospitals in each state. Engineering projects were completed in all six of Pohnpei's municipalities.
The Cleveland, which provided an excellent crew and platform for PP11, will be decommissioned in San Diego on September 30 of this year. As many have noted, it was fitting that her final mission should be Pacific Partnership. Just prior to her decommissioning, also in San Diego, will be the initial planning conference for Pacific Partnership 2012, which will again operate via the USNS Mercy. All of the Pacific Partnership news and updates will continue to be available on the Pacific Partnership Facebook page.
Patrick in Maryland writes:
The Pacific Partnership is one of my favorite operations. Because they care about the people they're helping. I like their mission updates, about how they are improving the lives of other people around the world.
I think this is the way governments should act. Impoving the lives of their citizens, and citizens of other countries. :)


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A small friendly lodge with all facilities in the centre of town. Easy access to Hot Water Beach, Cathedral Cove and amazing beaches. Activities and trips arranged such as kayaking, scenic flights, swimming with dolphins, bone carving and much
Bell Lodge is a quiet & relaxing place to stay with self contained motel units, double, twin / single rooms with own bathroom and sliding doors opening onto decks & courtyards, plus 4 & 8 bed dorm rooms
A quiet retreat set in an acre of bush with a natural stone swimming pool and hot spa.
5 minutes from Auckland Airport. A small homely , family run lodge. A wide range of budget priced accommodation to suit everyone. Shuttle to/from the airport. Motel units also available for families. Cosy fireplace in winter.
Small, family run backpackers style accommodation in lovely colonial home with huge gardens, swimming pool, native birds, view of Mt Eden & city. Double/twin rooms from NZ$50. Shared rooms from NZ$20/person
Brand New Apartment Hotel soaring 19 stories high with collection of one,two,three bedroomed rooms and ap
This friendly, comfortable hostelis set in spacious grounds overlooking Whangarei Harbour and the town basin.
New Zealand's leading backpacker hostel network representing over 90 of the highest quality backpacker hostel accommodation in New Zealand.
ASTRO ACCOMMODATION MOTEL & BACKPACKERS - TAUPO, NEW ZEALAND UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT 2010!!!! Budget Accommodation that 'Stands Above The Rest'
Find a hostel in Tairua New Zealand and save money on discount lodging. Hosteling in Tairua New Zealand offers a different travel experience than staying at traditional accommodations. Youth hostels allow you to meet new people and learn from other international and worldly travelers. Most hostels are conveniently located in the center of the action close to public transportation, including buses and rails. Staying at a hostel in Tairua New Zealand is a great option whether you are backpacking or traveling on a budget . Browse our hostels and plan your Tairua New Zealand vacation today!


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Genie Bouchard is back in the semifinals at a Grand Slam tournament as she defeated Angelique Kerber 6-4, 6-3. Bouchard becomes the first player since Dianara Safina in 2009, to qualify for a spot in the semifinals of the in the first three major tournaments (Australian open, French open & Wimbledon). Bouchard has progressed by leaps & bounds since a year ago. Entering the 2013 Wimbledon Tournament, the young Canadian was ranked No. 66 in the world; next week she will reach a world ranking of at least No. 8. Bouchard is set to face Romanian, Simona Halep, who is ranked No. 3 in the world & is having a fabulous year as well. Below is a quote from Bouchard tweeted by Wimbledon's official twitter account. Also take a look at the outfit Bouchard is wearing during the Wimbledon tournament.
"I'm happy I could pull it out. I'm excited but I want to go one step further, for sure" – @geniebouchard #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/WpACd4G0Bf
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 2, 2014
Genie Bouchard's Gear


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Share Your Reflection

Thank you, Ms. Cottier, Leyton Elementary 4th Grade
Thank you, Ms. Cottier, Leyton Elementary 4th Grade Teacher, Gurley, NE (attended 1993-1994). Your heart for children wouldn't allow for mistreatment of others and gave me a role model for care and compassion just outside of that which a mother teaches her child. You're a wonderful educator who gave me an excellent standard I hope to achieve in this profession you so gracefully expressed. Thank you for your footprint in my life and the lives of others. Justin

Thank you, Ms. Cottier, Leyton Elementary 4th Grade
Thank you, Ms. Cottier, Leyton Elementary 4th Grade Teacher, Gurley, NE (attended 1993-1994). Your heart for children wouldn't allow for mistreatment of others and gave me a role model for care and compassion just outside of that which a mother teaches her child. You're a wonderful educator who gave me an excellent standard I hope to achieve in this profession you so gracefully expressed. Thank you for your footprint in my life and the lives of others. Justin

My favorite teacher was Coretta Scott King! For two years
My favorite teacher was Coretta Scott King! For two years she co-taught a graduate level class at the Candler School of Theology of Emory University in Atlanta on the "Theology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." She was able to entice AMAZING guest speakers to come to our class. I remember Ralph Abernathy, Harold DeWolf (Dr.King's dissertation professor from Boston University), and Andrew Young. One of the highlights of the class for me was singing "We Shall Overcome" with Mrs. King during our final class session. She had a masters degree in vocal music from the Boston Consevatory of Music and had a beautiful soprano voice. At the time she was my teacher, she was working on getting a National Holiday established for Dr. King's birthday. Ever since, I have always sought to find some way to honor Dr.King's legacy---and Mrs. King's too.

Thank you for sharing this memory, and what a great
Thank you for sharing this memory, and what a great experience! We've gladly retweeted your lovely note.

Recently, I happened across a picture of my second grade
Recently, I happened across a picture of my second grade class at South Valley Elementary School in Moorestown, New Jersey, taken in the spring of 1967, when I was eight years old and possessed a devilish innocence that bespoke an eternal, if reticent optimism. Though the faces are familiar, I remember few names and can only wonder where my classmates are today, where the paths of life have taken them, how history and experience have affected them. Not surprisingly, the person I remember most vividly is my teacher, Mrs. Ellis. A kind, warm, African American woman of grace and stature, she taught us during the two formidable years of first and second grade. It was Mrs. Ellis who taught us to read, to multiply and divide, to follow directions, and to think for ourselves. She was one of the best teachers I have ever had, a dedicated public servant who represents everything that is good and decent about America and the value of education.
Mrs. Ellis understood instinctively the words of President John F. Kennedy, that education was "the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength of the nation." Mrs. Ellis did not merely teach us to read and write, add and subtract – though these she did quite well – she developed our young minds and helped us mature and to feel valued as human beings. She inspired us to want to learn, to want to achieve, work hard, and improve our lives.
I especially appreciate a good teacher, because in the United States, at least, the teaching profession has always been undervalued. "Modern cynics and skeptics," said President Kennedy, "see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing." A half-century later, little has changed. When a hedge fund manager makes more money in a week than a schoolteacher makes in a lifetime, there is something wrong with the world. Someday, when we are past our prime and looking back on life, when our children are older and beyond the need of a parent's advice, it will not matter what kind of house we live in, or car we drive, or how many stock dividends we claim on our tax returns each year. What will matter is how we influenced the lives of others and whether we left the world a better place than when we entered. Mrs. Ellis has long since passed that test.
"It is not what is poured into a student that counts," said Linda Conway, "but what is planted." Mrs. Ellis was the gardener of my early education, planting the seeds that helped make me what I am today. Her influence over my young and developing mind was real and magical. "I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist," said John Steinbeck, "and that there are as few as there are any other great artists." Mrs. Ellis was a true artist indeed.
I have been blessed with many outstanding teachers and professors in my lifetime, but Mrs. Ellis will always be special, for it was under her guidance I learned to read, to write, and to embark on a journey of the human mind and spirit. Today, when I read a good book or write something of substance, I think of Mrs. Ellis. Looking now at the photograph, I am in awe of this group of naive, innocent, wide eyed children, full of life and dreams and limitless possibility. An all-white class taught by a positive, uplifting black woman, we were oblivious to the civil rights movement and not cognizant of the many inequities and injustices of life. And yet, fully enraptured by this vibrant, strong, kind woman who led, taught, molded, and cared for us as if we were her own children, we knew we were in good hands, secure in the knowledge that if we tried and failed, if we fell down along the way, Mrs. Ellis would be there to help us to our feet and to try again.
"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps," Thurgood Marshall once said. "We got here because somebody (a parent, a teacher . . . or a few nuns) bent down and helped us pick up our boots." When we think back on the teachers and mentors of our lives, we especially appreciate the effective ones, those whose influence left a permanent mark. But it is the few who touched our humanity that we remember with deepest gratitude. Here's to you, Mrs. Ellis, and to all the great teachers past and present.

Thank you, Miss Nettie Shaw, my first grade teacher at
Thank you, Miss Nettie Shaw, my first grade teacher at Brantwood Elementary in Dayton , Ohio in 1961. You were a compassionate and learned teacher to 30 little kids from a semi-rural and lower socio-economic background. You taught by demonstration, bringing in piglets from your farm, having us cut out felt letters to touch- all ahead of your time. You were in your 60s when you taught me and you followed me through my public school career, paying for a fifth grade field trip when my father was unemployed by illness and strikes, sending me cards as I passed each milestone of my schooling. You never allowed bullying and you rewarded kindness. I can still see you in your floral shirtwaists and pearls, open arms and sweet smile.

Three thank you's...

Thank you Dr. Miles from Penn
Three thank you's...
Thank you Dr. Miles from Penn State Ogontz/Abington campus. He taught me/us to drive to class using a different route and to pay attention to my surroundings. This has been a life lesson.
Thank you Tony Curtis and Karen Walsh, Journalism professors from Penn State University Park. One taught me how to write and the other how to use language appropriately. Career lessons. All three made a lasting impression that I carry with me to this very day. Each were wonderful professors/teachers...
This memory is of Ms. Alsup
This memory is of Ms. Alsup at Hallsville, Ilinois grade school in 1953. One of my fellow third grade boys suffered from some form of retardation. In my infinite wisdom, I told Ms. Alsup one day that she should provide easier questions for this boy. And I further told her than those of us who had no trouble could take harder questions. She told me in no uncertain terms that I should worry about Terry, and that she could take care of everyone else. This was a lesson to me in not condescending to anyone and I never forgot it. What a great teacher this woman was!


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A Look Back; Data; QE: Best of Kass
Among his posts this past week were entries about the week that was, parsing the data and the effects of quantitive easing.
Please click here for information about subscribing to RealMoney Pro.
That Was the Week That Was
Originally published on Friday, May 24 at 12:06 p.m. EDT.
Let's review.
My look back at the week's daily diary highlights borrows its title from a popular 1960s BBC comedy show hosted by David Frost.
Monday began with a song (or my version), "Mr. Market Keeps Singing a Happy Song," in which I summarized fundamentals that are out of tune with the current market -- namely, rising valuations in lieu of real economic improvement, the printing of money as a panacea, the belief in a free lunch and market optimism by the dominant influential investor class. Also, Caterpillar
On Tuesday in "The Home Run Hunt," I examined the tactics used for finding the next big thing on the heels of Tumblr's acquisition by Yahoo!
I posed the question "Are Valuations Peaking?" on Wednesday. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Index of National Economic Activity, which was -0.53 compared to the prior month's reading of -0.23, and the Citigroup U.S. Economic Surprise Index's drop from +40 in January to -18 confirm unambiguously that the economy is slowing. The disconnect between fundamentals of GDP, corporate sales and profits (weak and disappointing) and share prices (strong and euphoric) has widened in recent weeks with the S&P 500 trading at 16x forward earnings vs. a long-term average of 15x over the past five decades. The market's valuation (P/E ratio) appears stretched, supporting my thesis that its risk/reward is unattractive at these prices. Lowe's


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Dealing with international crime
NEW TOWN Fifteen top law enforcement officials from Central and South America were at New Town Thursday to meet with Three Affiliated Tribes officials on drug and human trafficking and other concerns on Fort Berthold Reservation.
The drug trafficking concern has reached epic proportions on Fort Berthold the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and is crippling the justice system, social service programs and healthcare costs, according to Fort Berthold District Court officials. Court officials said their goal is to create a national and international forum between law enforcement agencies to strategically plan, organize and share resources to bring safety, health care and well being back to their nation's community.
The visitors are in the U.S. under the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program. The Graduate School USA in Washington, D.C., arranged their program.
They are involved in a Western Hemisphere regional project called Combating International Crime. Participants are examining U.S. policies and strategies dealing with a broad spectrum of international organized crime including human trafficking, arms, and narcotics and financial crimes such as money laundering, according to State Department information.
The project objectives include to promote a better understanding of U.S. objectives in international crime issues, foster better cooperation between law enforcement entities throughout the Western Hemisphere, and introduce participants to the mission, organization and management of the Department of Homeland Security and the coordination among its principal member agencies.
The project is for government and law enforcement officials, prosecuting and private attorneys, academics, immigration officials and others who deal with international crime issues. No journalists are involved in the project.
The participants in North Dakota this week are from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay and Peru.
On Wednesday, the group visited the Portal Port of Entry to meet with representatives from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Joseph Jastrzembski, Minot State University history professor with the Minot Area Council for International Visitors who is among local representatives accompanying the group in the Minot area, said the Minot region is the group's last segment of the three-week program that took them to various locations.The visitors started their project in Washington, D.C., and then went to New York and Portland before arriving in Minot Tuesday evening. They will meet for a closing meeting today at MSU.


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Offer hardworking families a chance to take their first step out of poverty. Learn more.
Support World CouncilWith Amazon Smiles!
From February 27 to March 3, 2006, the World
Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), the Consultative
Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) of the World Bank,
the Inter-American Development Bank
(IADB)/Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) and the
International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD) held an e-conference on money transfers for
microfinance institutions. The aim of this
virtual conference was to help microfinance
institutions make strategic and operational
decisions on international and domestic money
transfers and to generate input for the
forthcoming Money Transfer Operational Guide for
microfinance institutions (MFIs) developed by
Dave Grace, Senior Manager of Association Services
WOCCU, served as the facilitator for the
conference in which more than 200 people from over
20 countries subscribed to the discussion.
The key findings that emerged from the five-day
discussion are:
For more information please visit the conference
website at:
World Council of Credit Unions is the global trade association and development agency for credit unions. World Council promotes the sustainable development of credit unions and other financial cooperatives around the world to empower people through access to high quality and affordable financial services. World Council advocates on behalf of the global credit union system before international organizations and works with national governments to improve legislation and regulation. Its technical assistance programs introduce new tools and technologies to strengthen credit unions' financial performance and increase their outreach.
World Council has implemented more than 290 technical assistance programs in 71 countries. Worldwide, 60,500 credit unions in 109 countries serve 223 million people. Learn more about World Council's impact around the world at www.woccu.org.


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Quindlen, Anna
Anna Quindlen 1953-
American journalist, essayist, children's writer, and novelist.
The following entry presents an overview of Quindlen's career through 2004.
Quindlen first gained public attention as a columnist for the New York Times. Her distinctive style blends domestic concerns and politics and is a departure from the typical male-centered columns found on the op-ed page. As a novelist, Quindlen has used her journalist's eye for detail to explore family relationships and the details of everyday life.
Biographical Information
Quindlen was born in Philadelphia to Catholic parents on July 8, 1953. Quindlen started her career in journalism as a reporter at the New York Post while she was still attending Barnard College. She continued to work there for two years after earning her B.A. in 1974. In 1977 Quindlen began working for the New York Times as a general assignment reporter. Later she covered City Hall until 1981, when she started writing the "About New York" column. From 1983 to 1985 she served as the deputy metropolitan editor until she decided to leave the newspaper to focus on raising her children and writing fiction. The executive editor persuaded her to continue to write for the paper, offering her a freelance column which evolved into the popular and widely syndicated "Life in the 30s" editorial. The column ran from 1986 to 1988, and in 1990, Quindlen began writing a bi-weekly "Public and Private" column on the op-ed page. She published her first novel Object Lessons in 1991, and in 1992 won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Quindlen left the New York Times in 1994 to pursue writing fiction full-time, but eventually returned to journalism in 1999 with a column for Newsweek.
Major Works
Quindlen's essays range from the personal to the political. Living Out Loud (1988) collects her "Living in the 30s" columns from the New York Times. These essays focus on Quindlen's family life and domestic issues. Thinking Out Loud (1993) is comprised of her "Public and Private" columns, which maintain the personal outlook of her earlier work, but also focus on political and social issues. Some of the more controversial of these columns delineate Quindlen's differences with the Catholic Church. Raised as a Catholic, Quindlen describes her ambivalence toward Church doctrine and conservative teachings in these pieces. Her latest collections of columns, Loud and Clear (2004), is comprised of essays that explore homelessness, misogyny and sexual aggression, politics, gun control legislation, smoking, women's health issues, the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic church, and the war in Iraq.
Like the majority of her essays, Quindlen's novels focus on domestic life and family relationships. The heroine of Object Lessons is Maggie Scanlon, an adolescent girl growing up in an Irish-Italian Catholic family in the 1960s. The novel chronicles the elevating tensions between Maggie's parents during one summer season. One True Thing (1994) focuses on the story of Ellen Gulden, a reporter for a glamorous magazine in New York City. When her mother, Kate, is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ellen returns home to help take care of her. Initially resentful, Ellen bonds with her mother, confronts her philandering father, and comes to terms with her feelings about her family and her own nature. Black and Blue (1998) explores the topic of domestic violence. Fran Benedetto, the protagonist of the novel, flees from her violent husband with her ten-year-old son. After assuming new identities and settling in Florida, Fran reflects on the life she left behind and tries to create a new, happier existence. Blessings (2002) is set within a household of the same name where Lydia Blessing, an elderly woman, has lived since being banished by her family. Her narrow and reclusive life changes when her handyman finds a baby at the back door and, together, they care for the child.
Critical Reception
Quindlen has been recognized as a compelling American author. Many reviewers have commended the personal nature of her writing and her unique voice. Some critics have found her female perspective a welcome addition to the New York Times Op-Ed page, while others accused her of failing to provide rational analysis of issues. A few reviewers have criticized the didactic tone of Quindlen's editorials, claiming that her voice is at times condescending to readers. Reviewers of Quindlen's novels have praised her strong characterization and realistic dialogue, attributing her abilities in these areas to her extensive journalistic experience. Moreover, commentators have extolled her complex depiction of familial relationships. Some critics, however, have derided Quindlen's tendency to tie up the loose ends in her novels too neatly, maintaining that her endings can feel contrived.
Principal Works
Living Out Loud (journalism) 1988
Object Lessons (novel) 1991
Tree That Came to Stay [illustrations by Nancy Carpenter] (juvenilia) 1992
Thinking Out Loud: On the Personal, the Political, the Public and the Private (journalism) 1993
One True Thing (novel) 1994
Naked Babies [with Nick Kelsh] (essays) 1996
Happily Ever After [illustrations by James Stevenson] (juvenilia) 1997
Black and Blue (novel) 1998
How Reading Changed My Life (essays) 1998
Siblings [with Nick Kelsh] (essays) 1998
A Short Guide to a Happy Life (essays) 2000
Blessings (novel) 2002
Loud and Clear (essays and journalism) 2004
Anna Quindlen and Marilyn Gardner (interview date 13 October 1988)
SOURCE: Quindlen, Anna, and Marilyn Gardner. "Columnist Anna Quindlen." Christian Science Monitor 80, no. 223 (13 October 1988): 21-2.
[In the following interview, Quindlen discusses women in the workplace, child care, and her future plans.]
Early in her third pregnancy, Anna Quindlen, the syndicated columnist, made an important decision.
Quindlen would not undergo amniocentesis, a medical procedure commonly performed on women over age 35 to determine the condition of the fetus.
She and her husband, she reasoned, were prepared to raise and love the baby, due in November, regardless of its physical or mental condition.
Later, when Quindlen wrote a column about her decision, the piece drew more mail than any she had written. Although she had expected a lively response from readers, she says she "didn't expect so much of the discussion and the distress to coalesce around me personally."
One woman in particular rankled her by writing, "The Anna Quindlen I know would never have made this decision."
"I was stomping around the kitchen," Quindlen recalls, "and I said to my husband, 'She doesn't even know me!' He replied, 'For 2[frac12] years you've given people permission to know you, and you've invited them into this house. You can't pull the plug now just because you don't like it.'"
For a writer, this kind of emotional connection with strangers is one of the perils of Quindlen's brand of self-revelatory reporting.
Yet for readers, her weekly invitation into the kitchen, nursery, and psyche of a thoroughly '80s family has proved to be enormously appealing.
About 60 newspapers now carry her column, syndicated by the New York Times. And 65 of those columns—dealing with everything from marriage and motherhood to sibling rivalry and junk food—have been collected in a book, Living Out Loud.
"We've sort of edged into this first-person, home-based journalism, which has really taken over now," Quindlen explains.
"It's taken us a while to get to the point where people are comfortable with you saying, 'Gee, my mother died, and it changed my life.' Or, 'I'm going to have a baby, and I don't want to have this test, because I couldn't do anything to end its life.'"
For Quindlen, the oldest of five children raised in what she describes as "the silly branch of a funny family," the strength of her columns derives from the 15 years she spent as a reporter—first for the New York Post and then for the New York Times, where she covered city hall and served as deputy metropolitan editor.
Now, instead of reporting breaking news, her beat involves "reporting on my life."
It's a life she shares with husband, Gerald Krovatin, a criminal defense lawyer, and the couple's two young sons, Quin, 5, and Christopher, 2.
It's also a life she describes as "charmed," saying, "I have the kind of work that makes it easy to work part time and at home. And I have the kind of husband who, A, is...
(The entire section is 1327 words.)
Marilyn Fenichel (review date April 1989)
SOURCE: Fenichel, Marilyn. "Spokeswoman for Our Time." Psychology Today 23, no. 4 (April 1989): 71.
[In the following review, Fenichel asserts that Quindlen's personal essays about being female work more effectively than her political ones in Living Out Loud.]
While reading Living Out Loud, I came across a section I found particularly pithy. Eager to share my find, I read it to my significant other. He listened closely, but when I read the punch line, I could tell by looking at his face that he just didn't get it.
The reason for his puzzlement is simple. Living Out Loud is really about being female, with its ambiguities and...
(The entire section is 537 words.)
Anna Quindlen and Sybil Steinberg (interview date 15 March 1991)
SOURCE: Quindlen, Anna, and Sybil Steinberg. "Anna Quindlen." Publishers Weekly 238, no. 13 (15 March 1991): 40-1.
[In the following interview, Quindlen discusses her career and her first novel, Object Lessons.]
To reach Anna Quindlen's office at the New York Times one walks down a corridor past doors identified with discreet brass plaques: Arthur Gelb, Tom Wicker, Russell Baker. Neat and composed, with a serious, direct gaze, Quindlen ushers PW into her spacious digs, with a wall of windows affording an enviable view of midtown Manhattan. "They were very careful to let me know that my office was the same size as Russell Baker's," Quindlen says,...
(The entire section is 2140 words.)
Maude McDaniel (review date 21 April 1991)
SOURCE: McDaniel, Maude. "Anna Quindlen Writes a Wise Coming-of-Age Novel." Chicago Tribune Books (21 April 1991): 6.
[In the following review, McDaniel praises Quindlen for her portrayal of adolescence and loss and for vivid characterization in Object Lessons.]
Adolescence is widely held these days to be a traumatic experience, and Anna Quindlen's first novel clearly supports the theory. On the other hand, although it closes with the thought that "our whole lives are puberty … we have to grow up again and again," Object Lessons adds to that insight the possibility that, out of the turmoil, lessons can be learned and advances secured.
(The entire section is 721 words.)
Carolyn See (review date 22 April 1991)
SOURCE: See, Carolyn. "A Back-Yard Story Mired in the Morass." Los Angeles Times (22 April 1991): E2.
[In the following review, See concludes that while much of Quindlen's Object Lessons is contrived, Quindlen exhibits a willingness to create horrible female characters.]
In the suburban town of Kenwood, just on the northern border of the Bronx, Maggie Scanlon grows up as a de facto half-caste. Her mother, Constance, is a gorgeous Italian Catholic. Maggie's maternal grandfather still survives as a gardener-caretaker in a lush Italian-Catholic cemetery. But Connie has married "up" into the huge Irish-Catholic Scanlon family. That grandfather, driven...
(The entire section is 682 words.)
Karen Lehrman (review date 10 June 1991)
SOURCE: Lehrman, Karen. "She the People." New Republic 204, no. 23 (10 June 1991): 38-41.
[In the following review, Lehrman notes the limitations on Quindlen's brand of writing, both in her novel Object Lessons and in her columns.]
For nearly three years devoted readers turned weekly to Anna Quindlen's "Life in the 30's" column in "The Living Section" of The New York Times for updates on her life (lawyer husband, two sons, Victorian rowhouse in Hoboken), reflections on her past (Catholic schooling, mother's death), and her feelings about being female. Quindlen was the thirtysomething girl next door, chatting about the ordinary and often...
(The entire section is 3177 words.)
Judith Grossman (review date July 1991)
SOURCE: Grossman, Judith. "Free Spirits." Women's Review of Books 8, nos. 10-11 (July 1991): 40.
[In the following excerpt, Grossman lauds the authenticity of place in Quindlen's Object Lessons but criticizes the author's tendency to put everything in order at the end of the novel.]
The girl child, a heroine of strong character and candid speech, has been a presence in fiction ever since Jane Eyre and Alice in Wonderland. And these two first novels by Deirdre McNamer and by New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen demonstrate her perennial vitality, just at a moment when the psychological studies of Carol Gilligan and others are focusing...
(The entire section is 631 words.)
Anna Quindlen and Alexander M. Santora (interview date 14 February 1992)
SOURCE: Quindlen, Anna, and Alexander M. Santora. "Anna Quindlen: From the '60s to the '90s." Commonweal 119, no. 3 (14 February 1992): 9-13.
[In the following interview, Quindlen discusses the role of a columnist, the relationship between her life and her work, and her relationship with the Catholic Church.]
[Santora]: Where did you grow up?
[Quindlen]: I was born in Philadelphia. My mother was from South Philadelphia, which was predominantly Italian; my father was from West Philadelphia, which was predominantly Irish. I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia called Drexel Hill.
What prompted you to come to...
(The entire section is 4539 words.)
Terry Eastland (essay date June 1992)
SOURCE: Eastland, Terry. "Booby Prize." American Spectator 25, no. 6 (June 1992): 42-3.
[In the following essay, Eastland delineates the flaws in Quindlen's column writing.]
Now that Anna Quindlen of the New York Times has won herself a Pulitzer Prize for commentary, there's one more reason to grant her lifetime membership in the Current Wisdom section of this magazine. But an event that is good for The American Spectator is not necessarily good for the country or the press—or for women, whom I bring up because it is on their behalf that Quindlen claims to speak. As she said in a Commonweal interview this past February, having "51 percent...
(The entire section is 1551 words.)
Kenneth L. Woodward (review date 21 May 1993)
SOURCE: Woodward, Kenneth L. "A Visit to Quindlenland." Commonweal 120, no. 10 (21 May 1993): 17-19.
[In the following review, Woodward argues that Quindlen does not provide facts to support her assertions in the columns collected in Thinking Out Loud.]
The eighty-seven pieces collected [in Thinking Out Loud] are culled from Anna Quindlen's op-ed columns in the New York Times, written between 1990 and 1992, and for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary last year. To these she has added not only an introduction about herself and her approach to column writing, but also prefaces to each of the book's four sections explaining what she's...
(The entire section is 1429 words.)
Margaret O'Brien Steinfels (essay date 14 January 1994)
SOURCE: Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien. "Drawing Lines: Quindlen, Kissling and Us." Commonweal 121, no. 1 (14 January 1994): 5-6.
[In the following essay, Steinfels discusses Quindlen's relationship with the Catholic Church and Commonweal's coverage of her disagreements with the Church.]
Two years ago, Commonweal published an interview with Anna Quindlen. Alex Santora's friendly, almost pastoral, conversation with the New York Times's premiere woman columnist (February 14, 1992) led to accusations of soft-ball questions and several canceled subscriptions. Last spring we ran a review (May 21, 1993) by Kenneth Woodward of Ms. Quindlen's essays,...
(The entire section is 1294 words.)
Michael Dorris (review date 25 August 1994)
SOURCE: Dorris, Michael. "Finding Truth as Death Looms." Los Angeles Times (25 August 1994): E6.
[In the following review, Dorris lauds Quindlen's One True Thing for its interesting plot and satisfying ending.]
What a treat to read a good story told by a smart, if not always likable, narrator. We meet Ellen Gulden, the young woman at the heart of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Anna Quindlen's provocative second novel [One True Thing] (the best-selling Object Lessons was her first), soon after she's graduated from Harvard and taken a magazine job in New York.
The brightest and eldest of three children, she has always seen...
(The entire section is 835 words.)
Carolyn See (review date 23 September 1994)
SOURCE: See, Carolyn. "A Lesson in Dying." Washington Post (23 September 1994): F1.
[In the following review, See calls Quindlen's One True Thing "a hypnotically interesting novel, straight and plain, and very lovable."]
People may get lost in the gruesome topicality of what happens in One True Thing. Don't many of us have parents who are looking peaked, acting as if they might die? And isn't their demand, "When I get too sick to take care of myself, I want you to be the one to give me the pills, the seductive combination of vodka, morphine, Nembutal etc., because there's no one else I can trust to do it"? My own mother has always been...
(The entire section is 947 words.)
Rosanne Daryl Thomas (review date 25 September 1994)
SOURCE: Thomas, Rosanne Daryl. "Tender Is the Heart." Chicago Tribune Books (25 September 1994): 3.
[In the following review, Thomas asserts that Quindlen fails to deliver in the second half of One True Thing, but shows signs of becoming a first-rate novelist.]
In One True Thing, Anna Quindlen's second novel and the book that inspired its author to give up her job as a nationally syndicated New York Times columnist and devote herself to the writing of fiction, Ellen Gulden is relatively fresh out of Harvard and sure of what she wants, with the cocksureness of those whom life has not yet tested. Ellen has a plum magazine job, a fast-track law...
(The entire section is 1133 words.)
Suzanne L. MacLachlan (review date 27 October 1994)
SOURCE: MacLachlan, Suzanne L. "A Mother's Struggle, A Daughter's Sacrifice." Christian Science Monitor 86, no. 234 (27 October 1994): 13.
[In the following review, MacLachlan concludes that the second half of Quindlen's One True Thing falters and that the author is best when she focuses on the relationship between the mother and daughter.]
About the time that her second novel, One True Thing, was published, Anna Quindlen announced she was giving up her job as a nationally syndicated columnist for the New York Times to devote herself full time to fiction writing. Quindlen is expected to leave her job at the end of the year, and though her...
(The entire section is 643 words.)
James Bowman (review date February 1995)
SOURCE: Bowman, James. "A Rose for Anna." New Criterion 13, no. 6 (February 1995): 58-62.
[In the following review, Bowman provides a scathing review of Quindlen's last column in the New York Times.]
She disappeared in the dead of winter. Just when we needed her most, she was gone. In the month after the election she showed what she might have made of the Newt World Order, had she been spared to us. She prayed for the health of Al Gore (why not Bill Clinton, I wonder?) lest, catastrophe having overtaken the president and vice president, the country's chief magistracy should devolve on Mr. Gingrich, whom she characterized as going "straight for the neck flesh,...
(The entire section is 3365 words.)
Elizabeth Leland (review date spring 1995)
SOURCE: Leland, Elizabeth. "An Easy Switch from Columns to Fiction." Nieman Reports 49, no. 1 (spring 1995): 65.
[In the following review, Leland praises Quindlen's style in One True Thing, but points to a few of the novel's weaknesses as well.]
When I heard that Anna Quindlen decided to write novels full-time, charging confidently into a new career that many journalists dare only dream about, my first thought was: can she pull this one off, too? If One True Thing is any indication, the answer is as clear as her writing style: "yes."
Yes, she switches from fact to fiction as easily as she switched from New York Times...
(The entire section is 961 words.)
Marilyn Gardner (review date 11 February 1998)
SOURCE: Gardner, Marilyn. "Fugitive Life of a Battered Wife: Details of a Home Torn Apart." Christian Science Monitor 90, no. 53 (11 February 1998): 15.
[In the following review, Gardner provides lukewarm praise for Quindlen's Black and Blue.]
When Anna Quindlen was mapping the social landscape of late-20th-century America as a columnist for The New York Times, she wrote regularly about domestic violence. With a blend of compassion and outrage, she gave eloquent voice to a sisterhood of women who remain largely silent and invisible.
Now, in her third novel, Black and Blue, Quindlen has turned those real-life women into a courageous...
(The entire section is 610 words.)
Anna Quindlen and Kim Campbell (interview date 11 February 1995)
SOURCE: Quindlen, Anna, and Kim Campbell. "Speaking Freely about Her Latest Novel." Christian Science Monitor 90, no. 53 (11 February 1995): 15.
[In the following interview, Quindlen discusses her new novel Black and Blue and how her writing has improved.]
In person, former columnist Anna Quindlen is much like she is in print: forthright, thoughtful, and often funny.
She is game to discuss most anything—the president's problems, the reading habits of her children, the movie version of her book One True Thing.
But what she talks most freely about these days is her third novel, Black and Blue, and what it's...
(The entire section is 826 words.)
Susie Linfield (review date 4 March 1998)
SOURCE: Linfield, Susie. "From Discord, a Wife Makes a Nice New Life—Too Nice." Los Angeles Times (4 March 1998): E6.
[In the following review, Linfield asserts that while Quindlen's Black and Blue is well-paced, the novel remains too glib and predictable.]
In her column "Public and Private," which ran in the New York Times for five years and won a Pulitzer Prize, Anna Quindlen exemplified the essence of a very nice feminist. She consistently took positions that were reasonable and fair, arguing in favor of justice and equality. But hers was a feminism that was essentially safe—for cozy suburbanites, for corporate profits, for life as we know...
(The entire section is 702 words.)
Frank L. Fennell (review date 6 June 1998)
SOURCE: Fennell, Frank L. Review of Black and Blue, by Anna Quindlen. America 178, no. 20 (6 June 1998): 25-6.
[In the following review, Fennell offers a mixed assessment of Black and Blue.]
"Pulitzer Prize-winner"—it is a phrase she rather likes, Anna Quindlen admitted once during a television interview. And well she should—first, because she has earned it, for her earlier New York Times column "Public & Private," and, second, because the chief virtue of her fiction writing is the ability to dramatize an issue in a way similar to the impassioned essays that first brought her to our attention.
Black and Blue,...
(The entire section is 918 words.)
Faith McLellan (review date 27 June 1998)
SOURCE: McLellan, Faith. "Where the Bruises and Hurts Live On." Lancet (27 June 1998): 1970.
[In the following review, McLellan concludes that Quindlen's gifts as a columnist have served her well in Black and Blue.]
In the hospital I'd learned that there are really two kinds of people in the world, people who go hard and efficient in times of terrible trouble, and the ones … who scream, shriek, go limp, sink to the floor, become patients themselves." Fran Benedetto, the nurse who is the protagonist of Anna Quindlen's compelling novel [Black and Blue], has, after years of physical abuse by her New York cop husband, Bobby, gone hard and efficient, has...
(The entire section is 627 words.)
Margaret Russell (review date July 1998)
SOURCE: Russell, Margaret. "Fighting Back." Women's Review of Books 15, nos. 10-11 (July 1998): 22-3.
[In the following excerpt, Russell praises Quindlen for creating the right tone for her novel Black and Blue.]
Images and themes of women and violence are an easy sell in popular culture. Through the reporting of rapes on the evening news to the hairpulling slugfests on the Jerry Springer Show to the numbing array of "slasher" novels and movies, violence in the everyday lives of women comes to seem both ubiquitous and unremarkable. Violence against, as well as by, women is often depicted not to illuminate its influence, but to shock, titillate and...
(The entire section is 1238 words.)
Kim Risedorph (review date 3 December 1998)
SOURCE: Risedorph, Kim. Review of Siblings, by Anna Quindlen. Christian Science Monitor 91, no. 6 (3 December 1998): 18.
[In the following review, Risedorph provides a favorable assessment of Siblings, Quindlen's collaboration with photographer Nick Kelsh.]
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anna Quindlen and renowned photographer Nick Kelsh collaborated before on their bestseller Naked Babies. In this newest work, they reveal the naked truth about siblings.
In 60 captivating black-and-white photos, Kelsh reveals the many sides of the sibling relationship—the fun, the fights, and the friendships.
In her text,...
(The entire section is 243 words.)
Publishers Weekly (review date 26 August 2002)
SOURCE: Review of Blessings, by Anna Quindlen. Publishers Weekly 249, no. 34 (26 August 2002): 41.
[In the following review, the critic argues that Quindlen's Blessings offers convincing dialogue, strong characterization, and a dramatic plot.]
Venturing into fictional territory far from the blue-collar neighborhoods of Black and Blue and other works, Quindlen's immensely appealing new novel [Blessings] is a study in social contrasts and of characters whose differences are redeemed by the transformative power of love. The eponymous Blessings is a stately house now gone to seed, inhabited by Mrs. Blessing, an 80-year-old wealthy semirecluse...
(The entire section is 296 words.)
Kirkus Reviews (review date 1 September 2002)
SOURCE: Review of Blessings, by Anna Quindlen. Kirkus Reviews 70, no. 17 (1 September 2002): 1258.
[In the following review, the critic provides a lukewarm assessment of Quindlen's Blessings.]
[Blessings is the] fourth adult novel from Newsweek columnist Quindlen (Black and Blue, 1998, etc.), a story of lost souls redeemed by love.
A friend of Lydia Blessing once told her that there was a secret at the heart of every family and—predictably—it's revealed that the Blessing family had dark secrets to spare. Eighty years old when the story begins, Lydia lives more in the past than present, haunted by memories. Her handsome,...
(The entire section is 353 words.)
Michael Harris (review date 22 September 2002)
SOURCE: Harris, Michael. "All in the Family." Los Angeles Times Book Review (22 September 2002): 13.
[In the following review, Harris offers a positive assessment of Blessings.]
A teenager drives his girlfriend one night to a rich widow's estate outside a small New England town. They leave a box containing a newborn baby, which is found the next morning by the young caretaker, Skip Cuddy. Skip, who has served time in jail and was abandoned by his own father, isn't inclined to turn the infant girl over to what he considers a callous foster-care system. He names her Faith and tries to raise her himself, in secret.
The estate is called Blessings, and...
(The entire section is 714 words.)
Barbara Lloyd McMichael (review date 6 October 2002)
SOURCE: McMichael, Barbara Lloyd. "Blessings Sewes Up Faith, Hope." Seattle Times (6 October 2002): L10.
[In the following review, McMichael lauds Quindlen's realistic dialogue and characterization and her portrayal of emotion in Blessings.]
The timeworn admonition to "count your blessings" takes on profound new dimensions in a moving new novel by Anna Quindlen.
The author already has forged a reputation for putting her finger on the pulse of the American condition, both in her Pulitzer Prize-winning columns and in her long-form works of fiction and nonfiction, which include A Short Guide to a Happy Life and One True...
(The entire section is 673 words.)
Donna Seaman (review date 1 February 2004)
SOURCE: Seaman, Donna. Review of Loud and Clear, by Anna Quindlen. Booklist 100, no. 11 (1 February 2004): 930-31.
[In the following review, Seaman offers a positive assessment of Loud and Clear.]
In her first retrospective essay collection since Thinking Out Loud (1993), best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Quindlen continues to unscramble gnarly social issues [in Loud and Clear] with splendid clarity and pithiness, wit and compassion, and uncommon common sense. As always, the autobiographical energizes her persuasive arguments and sense of justice, and Quindlen writes with her signature candor about her children's...
(The entire section is 230 words.)
Kirkus Reviews (review date 1 February 2004)
SOURCE: Review of Loud and Clear, by Anna Quindlen. Kirkus Reviews 72, no. 3 (1 February 2004): 121.
[In the following review, the critic offers a mixed assessment of Loud and Clear.]
Light, appealing, and devoid of nutritional value, [Loud and Clear,] this selection of New York Times and Newsweek essays dating from the early 1990s to last year doesn't demand that readers think much. Since the author's opinions are never surprising, they eventually become background noise. This is a shame, because much of what Quindlen has to say is valuable, if shopworn. She fulminates against cigarettes, the death penalty, and the abuse of women—all...
(The entire section is 309 words.)
Further Reading
Abcarian, Robin. "Anna and the Boys of the N.Y. Times." Los Angeles Times (30 October 1994): E1.
Abcarian discusses Quindlen's departure from the New York Times.
Kurtz, Howard. "Quindlen Quits N.Y. Times." Washington Post (10 September 1994): C1.
Kurtz discusses Quindlen's departure from the New York Times.
Lannon, Linnea. "Predictable Blessings Will Entertain Anyway." Detroit Free Press (29 September 2002): 4E.
Lannon evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Blessings.
Meadows, Susannah. "Leading a...
(The entire section is 247 words.)


text:
On April 4 in Times Square, Three-time Olympian Kikkan Randall, her mom, Deborah, and younger brother, Tanner, celebrate winning the first World Cup cross-country skiing title for the United States in 30 years. Randall was the 2011-12 overall sprint champion. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
For winning the World Cup overall sprint title, Randall also received this crystal medal. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
Randall and Olympian Liz Stephen show off Randall's World Cup cross-country ski title in Times Square. No one nearby even knew what the globe represented. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
Randall was also fifth in the world across all disciplines in 2012. For this, she earned another medal -- and displayed it in the New York City sun. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
Randall accomplished what only one other American cross-country skier has done so far: take a World Cup globe home to the United States. On April 4, she lugged it to Times Square to have some fun. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
Surprisingly, no one recognized the new 2012 World Cup sprint champion and her crystal globe. Or maybe New York tourists were too awestruck to say anything. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
This is how you carry one of the ski world's most highly-coveted 8 lb. pieces of crystal through New York City. Randall graciously lugged it to Times Square so teamusa.org could get some shots. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
The World Cup crystal globe awarded to Randall for having performances all season in cross-country skiing's sprint events. The last American cross-country skier to win a World Cup title was Bill Koch in 1982. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
Olympians Liz Stephen (left) and Randall, about to give Kikkan's World Cup globe a New York City subway ride. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg
Randall's World Cup globe can't match the excitement of a New York City bagel at 2:30 in the afternoon in Times Square. The globe goes under the bench while she, her cross-country ski teammate Liz Stephen and Tanner chow down. Photo Credit: Aimee Berg


text: CASE NUMBER: 69 CASE MNEMONIC: THAILOG CASE NAME: Thailand's Logging Ban A. IDENTIFICATION 1. The Issue On January 10, 1989 Thailand banned harvesting of timber in the country following the worst flooding there in nearly a century. Thailand had long been a traditional exporter of raw logs and in more recent years had begun to develop a competitive furniture industry. Despite the ban on harvesting, Thailand's furniture industry has continued to climb in terms of total output and export value. The country now imports large amounts of raw teak and other wood from Myanamar and Cambodia. This trade is not documented nor is it always even carried out with the permission of the governments in Yangoon and Phnom Penh, respectively. In fact, these two countries are now experiencing some of the highest deforestation rates in the world. 2. Description Following disastrous floods in November, 1988, Thailand banned logging in the country in January of 1989. During the floods, 350 people died and there was $120 million in property losses. Soil erosion caused by deforestation exacerbated the floods, thereby making the damage and loss of lives much worse. Since a large part of the logging was actually for the purpose of export, either in raw or processed form, there was a large international component to this decision (Thailand has a growing furniture export industry). Resourceful Thai businessmen began importing wood from their unstable neighbors -- Myanamar and Cambodia. When the Myanamar government faced international sanctions due to its human rights policies, and was short on cash, it awarded 22 logging concessions to Thai firms, raising about $100 million. Myanamar used the hard currency to purchase weapons from China to use in its domestic war against the Karen people. Many Thai investors also imported wood from Cambodia by purchasing concessions from the Khmer Rouge, who controlled forested tracts adjacent to the Thai border. It was estimated that the value of the concessions was worth $100 million to the Khmer Rouge, again allowing them to purchase arms. The Supreme National Council of Cambodia and the United Nations, who ran the country between 1991 and 1993, adopted a ban on the export of logs in September, 1992, aimed at depriving the Khmer Rouge access to funding. However, Thai firms continued to import logs, in part due to the lack of a real government in the country and sometimes with the blessing of Phnom Penh, who also needed hard currency. These shipments usually went via Laos or the Gulf of Thailand. About 7 million of Cambodia's 18 million hectare area remains forested. During the 1970s and 1980s, Thailand's forests were cut down to meet growing foreign demand for tropical hardwoods and wood furniture; teak was especially prized. Most deforestation was the result however of land use changes. Between 1965 and 1989, Thai forests and woodlands were reduced at an annual rate of 2.6 percent. Over the same period, pasture lands and agricultural plots expanded at 3.5 and 2.4 percent per annum, respectively, and by 1989, Thailand was left with 28 percent forest coverage, 2 percent pasture land, and 43 agricultural land. Following a massive international and national campaign to stop forest clearing, coupled with the disastrous floods linked to the forest loss, the government banned all logging of natural forests. The government quickly formulated a series of policies to reforest the open tracts of land. One policy chose a economically profitable tree, eucalyptus, as the preference species for reforestation. The tree's pulp is used for paper production and demand for paper pulp is expected to grow by 10 percent annually in the near term. The implementation of reforestation policies, designed to turn commonly held land into Eucalyptus plantations, resulted in the enclosure of these lands, the disruption of tradition land management techniques, the transfer of land ownership to large corporations, and uprooting millions rural farmers and their families. Because of the reforestation program, many local people will be displaced and forced to resettle in the few virgin forests that remain. One study suggests that a 2000-km2 eucalyptus plantation proposed by Shell could potentially affect 300,000 families. These areas are already densely populated by people already displaced: some 10 million Thais live in degraded forest areas and only 15 percent of the original forests remain. The first stage of the project focused on reforestation of Thailand's impoverished northeast, part of the "Golden Triangle" for heroin production. The project forced approximately 1.25 million people from 1.5 million hectares to resettle over a five- year period beginning in 1991. These lands were to be converted to eucalyptus plantations. In essence, the plan simply transferred ownership of the land from subsistence farmers and their families to large agribusiness concerns. 3. Related Cases USWOOD case MALAY case INDONES case TEAK case VIETWOOD case CHIPKO case Keyword Clusters (1): Trade Product = WOOD (2): Bio-geography = TROPical (3): Environmental Problem = DEFORestation 4. Draft Authors: Paul Macek and Kalaya Chareonying B. LEGAL Clusters 5. Discourse and Status: AGReement and COMPlete The Royal Forestry Department has jurisdiction over the public lands, especially the numerous protected areas and environmental sanctuaries. By tradition the people have lived within these forested zones for decades and millennia in some cases, claiming them as ancestral lands. Another factor complicating the legal context is the presence of huge speculative markets for real estate that have emerged as a by-product of industrialization. A sort of "wild west" mentality is emerging in the northern part of Thailand, where speculators convince farmers to sell lands that may or may not belong to them in the first place (see THAIBIRD case). There have been reports of some lands being sold three times in a day. 6. Forum and Scope: THAIland and UNILATeral The decision is similar to other logging bans. The related Indonesian ban on raw log exports, stemmed from Indonesia's ban on the export of raw materials used in making pencils. Brazil also bans the export of raw logs but is a large producer of semi- processed wood and wood-products (see BRAZIL, INDONES, and MALAY cases). 7. Decision Breadth: 1 (THAIland) 8. Legal Standing: LAW III. GEOGRAPHIC Clusters 9. Geographic Locations a. Geographic Domain : ASIA b. Geographic Site : Eastern Asia [EASIA] c. Geographic Impact : THAIland The domain corresponds to the tropical forests on the mainland of Asia, bordered on the north by China and the west by India. This forest is clearly different, in terms of its dominant species, from those in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. (The latter are dominated by the family of trees known as Dipterocarpaceae). The site of the actual conflict is in Cambodia and Myanamar, where they have replaced Thailand as the source of the raw log inputs for Thai furniture exports. 10. Sub-National Factors: No. Part of the deforestation problem is a domestic problem to Thailand. These factors include fuel wood gathering, traditional shifting agriculture, government resettlement programs, and development projects. More recently, plantations aimed at cash crops have led to widespread deforestation to grow casssava, intended for export to Europe as a feed for cattle, pigs and poultry. 11. Type of Habitat: TROPical IV. TRADE Clusters 12. Type of Measure: Regulatory Ban [REGBAN] 13. Direct vs. Indirect Impacts: INDirect The impact on trade is not "at the border" since the actual ban on cutting is an "inside-the-border" issue. There are statutes that do not allow the export of raw logs, but these laws are predicated by the ban on harvesting. 14. Relation of Measure to Environmental Impact a. Directly Related : YES WOOD b. Indirectly Related : YES WOOD products c. Not Related : NO d. Process Related : YES DEFORestation 15. Trade Product Identification: WOOD Thailand's export of raw roundwood logs was about $10.4 million in 1977 and has been in decline ever since. In 1988 this had fallen to just over $2 million prior to the ban on exports. Meanwhile, Thailand's imports of raw logs has climbed from $4 million in 1977 to over $80 million in 1988. Thailand's furniture industry had grown largely due to the teak and rosewood stands that provided cheap raw inputs into making the product. As of 1987, the major furniture export markets for Thailand were the United States, Japan, and France, accounting for about 60 percent of the total. Exports to the United States jumped by 177 percent over 1987/1988, up to $68 million. Singapore and Hong Kong were major re-export sites of Thai furniture products. One offshoot of the reforestation program was the establishment of large-scale eucalyptus plantations. The wood chips and paper pulp would be exported by transnational corporations such as Shell and Esso to Taiwan and Japan to earn hard currency. The policy has been supported by the Thai Board of Investment, the Thai Royal Forestry Department, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Bank. In addition, numerous local and foreign businesses, such as Japan's Oji Paper and Phoenix Pulp and Paper among others, will profit from publicly subsidized purchase of land and the establishment of commercial eucalyptus plantations. 16. Economic Data In order to meet domestic demand, Thailand currently imports $100 million worth of pulp every year, just to make paper for export. Furthermore, paper may be used as an input to other products like books and newspapers. In recent years, paper prices have been rising. Yet, the establishment of these plantations would reduce biological diversity, contribute to deforestation and depletion of the water level, and uproot and destroy rural communities. Employment in agriculture accounts for 63.8 percent of the total economically active population. 17. Impact of Measure on Trade Competitiveness: BAN 18. Industry Sector: WOOD 19. Exporter and Importer: THAIland and MANY Thailand's wood exports in the past had gone largely to Japan. V. ENVIRONMENT Clusters 20. Environmental Problem Type: DEFORestation 21. Name, Type and Diversity of Species Name: Eucalyptus Camludlensis Type: Plant/Angiospermae/Dicot Diversity: 3,442 higher plants per 10,000 km/sq (Thailand) The forests of this area are not as diverse or have as high a degree of endemism as New World tropical rain forests. No specific estimate of species diversity values are available, but bio- diversity for seed plant species in peninsular India is perhaps comparable. 22. Resource Impact and Effect: HIGH and SCALE 23. Urgency and Lifetime: MEDium and 100s of years Thailand's ban was quick in coming and done only after the problem had revealed itself. 24. Substitutes: LIKE Possible alternatives include bamboo and acacia, both of which are indigenous to Thailand unlike eucalyptus. Recycling of wood products has been suggested, as well as more efficient and less destructive means of cutting trees. VI. OTHER Factors 25. Culture: YES Culture is increasingly a point of conflict in Thailand. As Pra Prajak stated, the forests are viewed in Buddhism as an essential element of the world and of Thai spiritual life. "We don't try to protest all development," explained the Buddhist Abbot Pra Prajak, "but everything needs to be developed in a good way -- development growth with morality. They can balance each other. You only destroy yourself when you destroy the mountains, the forests, and the streams. Do you understand?". The Thai government has been under pressure by the activism of Buddhist monks on the issue. Buddhism, the almost universal religion in Thailand, is sacred and monks have a certain amount of freedom from persecution. Pra Prajak has been arrested but the courts have consistently ruled in his favor. 26. Trans-Boundary Issues: YES Thailand's ban has increased deforestation in the neighboring countries of Burma and Kampuchea. 27. Rights: YES One rights problem is that this act was assisting Myanamar in evading sanctions that various countries had placed on it as a result of the regime's non-democratic tendencies. But it was most often the case that the actual sellers of the Burmese wood (much of it teak) were actually the various ethnic groups (such as the Karen) that live in the remote highlands of Myanamar and are fighting the government. In turn for selling wood, these groups then had funding to buy more military equipment. Thailand's ban then set into motion a string of events: Myanamar's forests are now being cut much more rapidly and the power of the government in Rangoon vis-a-vis the differing parts of the country is weaker. Villagers threatened with the loss of land and livelihood organized to protest the natural resource policy. Under the leadership of Pra Prajak Kuta, a local Buddhist monk, the villagers successfully staged a number of standoffs with local authorities and eucalyptus corporations. Pra Prajak was arrested on several occasions, but local resistance prompted the government to reconsider its reforestation programs. Pra Prajak exemplifies this new breed of religious leaders who actively challenge the RTG's development strategy. Together with other monks, he has been instrumental in organizing resistance among poor villagers. He has also staged symbolic acts of resistance by ordaining the souls of trees. To cut the tree would be equivalent to the greatest sin in Buddhism -- killing a monk. As Pra Prajak explained, "I became a monk so I could study the dama, Buddha's teachings, teachings about nature. Our well-being depends on the four elements -- earth, water, wind, and fire. Neither humans nor animals can survive without these resources. That's why it's my duty to protect the forests." The politically charged battle has resulted in angry villagers cutting down eucalyptus trees and other acts of defiance. 28. Relevant Literature "Forestry in Thailand: The Logging Ban and Its Consequences." Ecologist 19/2 (1989): 76-77. "Who Defends Biological Diversity? Conservation Strategies and the Case of Thailand." Ecologist 21/1 (1991): 5-11. Faichampa, Ketty. Program Officer for Southeast Asia, World Wildlife Fund, interview with Paul Macek on November 18, 1993. FAO Yearbook 1988: Forest Products. Rome: FAO/United Nations, 1990. FAO, World Bank, World Resources Institute, and United Nations Development Programme. The Tropical Forestry Action Plan. FAO, Rome, 1987. Feeny, David. The Political Economy of Productivity: Thai Agricultural Development, 1880-1975 . Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1982. "Forestry in Thailand: The Logging Ban and its Consequences." Ecologist 19 (1989). Jacobson, Jodi. Environmental Refugees: A Yardstick of Habitability. Washington, D.C.: World Watch Institute, World Watch Paper #198. Kelley, Sean. Country Desk Officer, U.S. Department of Commerce, Paul Macek interview on November 12, 1993. Lohmann, Larry. "Commercial Tree Plantations in Thailand: Deforestation by Any Other Name." Ecologist 20/1 (January/February, 1990): 9-17. McDonald, Hamish. "Partners in Plunder. Thailand's Timber Shortage Gives Rangoon its Opening". Far Eastern Economic Review 147 (February 22, 1990): 16-22. Mardon, Mark. "Maneuvers in the Teak Wars." Sierra 76 (May/June,91): 91+. Robert Repetto and Malcolm Gillis. Public Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Rich, Bruce. Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment, and the Crisis of Development *** need full cite. Royal Thai Government. Thai Environmental Situation, Thailand National Report to UNED. Bangkok, Thailand: 1992. Smith, P.M. and Ma, H.O. The Global Wooden Furniture Industry: An Emphasis on the Pacific Rim. Seattle: Center for International Trade in Forest Products, 1990. Thailand. Video recording produced by the Maryland Public Television, NHK (Japan), Film Australia and InCA (UK). One of three part series "Mini Dragons II". Tuntawiroon, Nart. "The Environmental Impact of Industrialization in Thailand." Ecologist 15/4 (1985): 161-164. "For a Better World Environment." World Monitor (May, 1993: 63). World Resources Institute in collaboration with UNEP and UNDP. World Resources 1992-92. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Wuliger, Robert. "A World Economy: Paradigms Lost and Found; An Analysis of the International Economic Order", Challenge 35/1 (January 1992): 4. References


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Brocton native tries for second Guinness records appearance
ERIE, Pa. – A former area resident who previously worked at the OBSERVER is going to attempt to be in the Guinness World Records this weekend. If he makes it, it will be the second time he's held a world record.
David Belmondo, is the JET 24/FOX 66 TV weekend anchorman. However this weekend he will not be in the anchor chair. Instead, he will be riding the Ferris wheel at Waldameer Amusement Park and Water World in Erie.
The popular TV news personality will be attempting to set a new Guinness world record for the most continuous hours riding a Ferris wheel, or as Guinness Book of World Records puts it, "Longest Marathon on a Fairground/Theme Park Attraction."
With approval of Guinness World Records, and the blessing of Waldameer owner Paul Nelson, Belmondo will begin his feat today at 11 a.m. His goal is 31 continuous hours. That would have him exiting the Ferris wheel with a new world record, sometime after 6 p.m. on Sunday.
Waldameer Amusement Park and Water World is celebrating its 117th season this summer, and Belmondo's feat marks opening day for 2013.
Admission to the park is free. The public is invited to come and watch Belmondo in his attempt to break the record. You can cheer him on. Or if you want, you can even take a ride with him high above the shores of Lake Erie. Belmondo is asking anyone wanting to ride along to make a small donation to benefit the John Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation.
If you think trying to set a world record is a crazy idea, it's old stuff to Belmondo. He's already in the Guinness Book for a stunt he successfully completed in 1978. When Belmondo was a disc jockey, he set the world record for the most continuous hours spinning records in a disc jockey booth, 2016 hours. He entered the booth at The Castle in Brocton on Sept. 15, 1978 and didn't leave it until Dec. 7. He appeared in the 1980 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Thirty-five years later the record stands unbroken.
A Brocton native, Belmondo later became an OBSERVER sales representative, working from 1979 to 1982.
So this weekend, as Saturday turns into Sunday and the official timer approaches 31 hours don't feel bad for a man who spent two months in a disc jockey booth. To Belmondo, this feat is nothing more than a ride at the amusement park.
You can follow Belmondo's record setting adventure LIVE on JET 24 Action News and FOX 66 News at 10, with updates around the clock on YourErie.com, Facebook and Twitter.


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Snow Running In Cleats Demonstrated By Green Juice Guzzling Super G Athlete Tim VanOrden
Contributing Monkie Tim VanOrden
Topics of Interest snow cleats, snow running, Workout
Published on March 4, 2009
Section Fitness/Diet, G Living
Story by G Monkie
Our super G athlete friend Tim VanOrden (the running raw guy) could be described as obsessive, energetic, and extremely dedicated. But I would say the best description would be "Giver". Yes Tim can't help himself, he gives and then goes out and gives some more. Here's an example, Tim doesn't just worry about getting himself psyched about tackling a difficult run in the fridgid snowy woods of Vermont. Nooo, not Tim, he is also worried about your two fat storage tubes you call legs. Yes, I mean you, sitting there in front of your computer. He wants to help you become a snow running, raw food chomping, super "G" athlete too. So, what does Tim do? He figured out how to bring all of us along with him. Yes, some how packing all of us into his pocket ($10 Jacket), he heads out to the snow packed trails and begins to entertain and teach us a thing or two about how fun and good for us, running really is. Even in a snow covered wonderland like Vermont.
So, I want to thank Tim, personally for hauling all of us along, I have been enjoying the rides.
In this Running Raw video, Tim teaches us the value of a good pair of cheap ($4) snow cleats which fit on your running shoes. Plus, he clues us in on just how beneficial cross country skiing really is. So, get your right hand on your mouse and your left hand around a green smoothy and click play. Tim is about to whip us out and teach us a lesson.


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Katherine Haik
K. Lee Graham
Cassidy Wolf
Logan West
Danielle Doty
Kamie Crawford
Stormi Bree Henley
Stevi Perry
View more
Q: What is the craziest thing you have ever done?
A: I once went parasailing in Mexico. I am afraid of heights, so this was a crazy thing for me to do. I was absolutely terrified, but it was a thrill I will never forget.
Q: Do you cook and/or bake anything? If so, what are your special dishes?
A: I am not much of a cook, but I can make delicious sandwiches!
Q: If you were handed 10 million dollars, what would you splurge on?
A: It would definitely be shoes. I love fun trendy shoes, and I believe a girl can't have too many pairs of shoes.
Q: If you could meet one celebrity, who would it be and why?
A: I would love to meet Ã?ngleina Jolie. I think she is a beautiful and talented actress, and I am inspired by her humanitarian efforts.
Q: What is unique about you (something no other contestant can say about themselves)?
A: I was Miss Utah's Outstanding Teen 2006, and had the opportunity to compete in the Miss America's Outstanding Teen Pageant.


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ABC Bath Towel Set
- Overview
Bring lively letters to the bath with these supersoft cotton terry towels. The animal and letter appliqués are finished with playful embroidery. Cotton dobby trim adds tailored style.
- Looped cotton terry.
- Ultraplush 550-gram weight.
- Appliquéd with a's, b's and c's.
- Accented with a gingham border.
- Machine wash.
- Imported.
- Dimensions & Care
- Made of looped cotton terry skillfully woven to an ultraplush 550-gram weight.
- Yarn-dyed and piece-dyed cotton percale appliqués.
- Washchloth: 12" square
- Hand Towel: 16 x 27"
- Bath Towel: 25 x 50"
- Machine wash in warm water, gentle cycle.
- Use only nonchlorine bleach, if needed.
- Tumble dry on low heat.
- Shipping & Return Info
This is a general shipping item.
View Our Shipping Information
Return Policy
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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Valentine's Day Inspiration Week Day TWO!
February 5, 2013 by Ellen
Filed under Core Blog, Provocraft
Today we have designer Andrea Amu with the Tuesday Tip to create a handmade gift for that special someone….grandmothers, moms,dads, teacher's aunts, uncles…this is perfect for ANYONE!
Framed subway art! How cool is this. Just create the cuts on your Cricut or diecutting machine and viola! You have the perfect gift for anyone, anytime of year.
And Andrea has some great tips:
1.) Back the cuts in a lighter color so they really pop.
2.) Cuts don't line up exactly how you want? Add little embellishments!
3.) AND, of course, a photo! Personalizing it will mean so much.
4.) Add a doily for that soft, feminine touch.
5.) And don't spend a ton on a frame. Get them on sale at your craft store. You can paint them any color you like!
And a detail:


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Grout Gator Grout Brush
Grout Gator cleans grout faster and with less work. Grout Gator cleaning system features multiple, adjustable brushes to fit grout lines up to 12 inches apart, allowing you to clean grout up four times faster. Grout Gator brush as seen on TV features soft grip handle and four adjustable brushes that clean the dirt and grime that settles in grout lines. Make your shower, floors, back-splashes and counter sparkle without harsh chemicals. The GROUTGATOR is so fast and easy it makes cleaning fun.
Stop struggling to keep you tile clean and fresh buy Grout Gator today.
- Includes: Grout Gator and 4 Brushes
- Weight: 11 oz.
Availability: Backordered
Email me when item is available
In stock items are ready to ship in 1-2 Business Days
Reviewed by 2 customers
- Attractive Design
- Durable
- Easy To Assemble
- Great Easy To Use
Best Uses
- Bathroom
Comments about this product:
I can no longer get on my hands and Knees to clean the grout this was Wonderful.
- I Am A:
- Couple No Kids
- Attractive Design
- Durable
Best Uses
- Bathroom
- Gifts
- Kitchen
Comments about this product:
This tool is so sample. All I do is line up the brush heads to fit either my 2", 4", or 12" tile. It has literally saved me hours of work. I use it to clean the tile in my shower, bathroom floor, and entry way. Best used with an extension pole so you don't have to get on you knees.
- I Am A:
- Family Older Kids