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How I Was Fired By Bill Buckley -Joe Sobran
October 2, 2010
In October 1993 I was fired by National Review, the magazine I'd written for since 1972. It wasn't unexpected. Bill Buckley had threatened to fire me a couple of years earlier, and he writes in his book In Search of Anti-Semitism that he'd nearly fired me on yet another occasion, of which I'd had no inkling. So this time, when I wrote a column critical of him and disputing his account, it was a near certainty that the axe would fall.
Since my firing, Bill has privately circulated a selection of our private correspondence — some of it deeply affectionate on my part — and my columns about him. I have only one real quarrel with it: it's not in chronological order. This has the effect of making me look like a hypocrite for professing affection privately while publicly attacking him.
The critical fact is that my letters and columns praising him were written before (in one case, years before) I saw his book, or had any clear idea of its contents. Any reader who notices the dates on the various pieces can see this for himself. At the time I praised him I assumed he was incapable of anything treacherous. It's disingenuous of him to use what I wrote before this book was published as evidence of my inconsistency, let alone hypocrisy, when the book itself changed my view of him so radically.
To put it bluntly, if you betray a man, you have no right to complain that he isn't as nice to you as he used to be. That's the special nature of betrayal: it cancels everything in a friendship. It doesn't mean that you aren't still the same man you were before; but you certainly aren't the same friend you were before. Bill is probably smart enough to figure this out.
In his book, Bill wrote a number of things about me that were shaded in a way that made him look better, and me worse, than the way I recalled it. I wrote at the time that I'd be giving my version soon, but I put it off a while, knowing my version would probably mean the end of my many years at National Review, and I had to think hard before precipitating that.
Bill and I had been good friends for most of the 21 years I'd worked for him. But the friendship was strained in 1986, when he took the side of my attackers in a row over Israel. When Norman Podhoretz and his wife Midge Decter accused me of "anti-Semitism," Bill wrote a weird public disavowal of my columns on Israel, saying in effect that I wasn't anti-Semitic, but deserved to be called anti-Semitic. What made it so bad was that I knew he didn't even believe what he was saying. It was a failure of nerve. That was clear even from the disavowal itself, which included a sweaty digression on Jewish retaliatory power.
Earlier that year, he'd taken me to dinner to warn me of the dangers of being "perceived," as they say, as an anti-Semite. His book makes it sound like a long campaign to set me straight, but it wasn't like that at all. Bill didn't suggest I'd done anything wrong or that he disagreed with anything I'd written. But Norman Podhoretz was mad at me. That was enough. Later that evening when I told Bill about some Irish Catholic fans of mine who told me they prayed for me, he sneered, "You don't need those people." Bill denies having said this (I was fired for quoting it), but he said it, all right. In itself it would be a small thing, but it describes his own policy: ignore the Catholics, cultivate the powerful. (Try to imagine him writing a book against abortion.)
I continued in my wicked ways, criticizing Israel as an albatross for the U.S. In May the Zionist apparat went public in its smear against me, throwing the National Review into a total panic. There was hysteria in Bill's apartment the night he and the other senior editors discussed it: the disavowal had been prepared behind my back. This was the first I'd heard of it. Bill's statement didn't even mention the Podhoretzes by name, as if he was protecting their anonymity. Every other published account of the incident, on both sides, spoke freely of the Podhoretzes' role; but for some reason, National Review tried to pretend they had nothing to do with it. Furthermore, all responses from the magazine's readers — who were overwhelmingly on my side — were suppressed. (A couple of years later, when the Podhoretzes accused Russell Kirk of anti-Semitism, National Review was the only conservative publication that didn't even report it.)
I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. I'd merely applied conservative principles — the things National Review stood for — to Israel: it was a socialist country with no conception of limited, constitutional government, which discriminated against Christians, while betraying its benefactor, the United States, and turning the Muslim world against us. It seemed pretty clear-cut to me, and none of the reasons conservatives gave for supporting Israel made much sense.
Nobody really disagreed with me. That, in fact, was the problem. Nothing creates more awkwardness than saying things people can't afford to admit they agree with. Disagreement is manageable. It's agreement that wreaks havoc. If people disagree, they'll debate you. If they secretly agree with something, but are furious with you for saying it, then they'll try to shut you up by any means necessary. As Tom Stoppard puts it, "I agree with every word you say, but I will fight to the death against your right to say it."
Everything about the uproar puzzled me. After all, I was and am a columnist, not a political leader. I sit alone in a room and write things I hope will make sense to someone out there. I don't ask readers to accept things on my authority; I appeal to what is already publicly known. So what difference did it make what my motives were (supposing the Podhoretzes could know what they were)? Either my 700-word arguments made sense, or they didn't. Why should anyone get that excited? Why go to such lengths to prevent the relatively few people who like to read arguments from reading mine? But Bill acted as if it were a life-and-death matter.
With Bill's statement, National Review became, by default, a neoconservative magazine. It had virtually announced that its avowed principles didn't apply to Israel, and that its conservatism had no real separate existence from that of Commentary or The Public Interest — both of which, in fact, were scooping National Review with feisty anti-liberal journalism. It was so eager to agree with, and especially to get along with, the power Zionists of Manhattan, that it wouldn't even defend its own from smears.
The most telling issue, in a way, was the Pollard case. Conceived in preoccupation with the Hiss-Chambers case, the magazine couldn't bring itself to condemn Israel for Jonathan Pollard's espionage. It demanded the death penalty for Pollard, but amnesty for those who had recruited him and paid him! Moreover, it showed no interest in whether the military secrets Pollard sent to Israel had been passed on to the Soviet Union, as some reports had it.
Here was the Hiss case of the Right. And some conservatives were evading the critical questions just as the Soviets' liberal partisans in this country had done a generation earlier. What the silence of most conservatives exposed was not disloyalty or treason, but insincerity. All their patriotic words were empty. It was all a game, or a way of making a living.
Looking back, I think I felt a strange subterranean anger from Bill dating from about that time. He didn't want to tell me how angry he was, because I was in the right. I was saying things — obvious things — he didn't have the courage to say. It was extremely frustrating to try to argue with him, because he would neither disagree nor concede anything. He would nit-pick, change the subject, accuse me of bad manners — anything but say whether Israel was a worthy ally of the U.S. Once he wrote that I was "prayed over" at National Review, implying that my differences with the other editors were not merely intellectual, but spiritual; I could just picture editorial meetings in my absence, with those present kneeling to beseech the Almighty to guide this straying sheep back to the editorial consensus on Israel. Bill must be among Penthouse's most prayerful contributors.
When I wrote columns on Israel, Bill would write me peevish notes saying I was "obsessed." I had my own view on which of us was obsessed. Once, as I say, he said he would fire me unless I retracted a column on the Gulf War he took as implying that he was in effect working for Israel. I not only hadn't implied such a thing, I hadn't mentioned him, and hadn't even been thinking of him when I wrote the column in question; in fact the idea was so bizarre it had never occurred to me, and I was baffled that he inferred it. Now I think he was just looking for an excuse to get rid of me. I saved my bacon by writing a "retraction" whose irony escaped him. But I realized my days at the magazine were numbered. I came close to quitting several times. John O'Sullivan talked me out of it once; and once Bill and I had sharp words, and I told him he needed to learn the difference between an employee and a serf. He backed off for a while, but pretty soon he resumed dropping me ominous notes about columns he didn't like.
Once I wrote a column about the strange fear of Jews I found among people who were publicly friendly to them. Bill wrote me an angry note about that one too, thinking I had him in mind. That time he was partly correct. He was afraid people would know I was alluding to him. Well, at least I didn't use his name, which was more consideration than he showed me.
And again I thought, Gee, why all the fuss? I was just a writer. All I asked was to be let alone to write for my little public. Nobody was forced to read me, and my views didn't seem to be swaying public policy. Yet here was Bill, trying to put pressure on me behind the scenes. And he wasn't the only one. The Washington Times came under intense Zionist pressure to drop my column; so did my syndicate. They both held firm, showing more spine than Bill did. So I was able to ignore him and write.
In early 1990, as I recall, Bill told me he was writing an "essay on anti-Semitism" and asked for my views on the subject. Thinking he wanted to know what I thought, I wrote him a long memo. He neglected to tell me that I was one of his targets, and that he wanted my views for the purpose of quoting them against me in what became his most talked-about piece of writing in years. What he quoted didn't do me any harm, but I'd have appreciated at least a Miranda warning before going to all that trouble for him.
Bill's essay (it later became the first chapter of his book) consumed the entire Christmas issue of National Review. His attack on Pat Buchanan, naturally, got far more attention than his milder remarks about me; coming during Pat's presidential campaign, it did terrific damage and created lasting bitterness among conservatives. The whole essay (and book) defies paraphrase; Bill never defines "anti-Semitism," and he compounds the confusion by writing a prose refined of such coarse elements as nouns and verbs.
But most readers thought Bill's dragging his father's anti-Semitism into the piece plumbed new depths, even for the era of the Mommie Dearest genre. After all, nobody is easier to expose to public obloquy than your parents; unless they desert you, you are likely to know a lot about them, some of it unflattering. Most of the human race considers it ungracious to take advantage of them. (One of Bill's recent books was titled Gratitude.)
I think it tells you something about Bill's real attitude toward Jews that he thinks the way to propitiate them is by offering up a member of your own family — Isaac sacrificing Abraham, so to speak. Actually, it smacks of the Soviet era, when children were urged to inform on their parents; nothing was private. Bill's own attitude reminds me of the way Stalin was regarded: public fawning, private dread.
Now Bill didn't really say anything very bad about either Pat or his father, because he didn't really say anything, period. His late style has declined into something approaching pure gesture, and meaning tends to get lost in it. All he really did — to Pat, Will Buckley, and me — was to juxtapose us with the word "anti-Semitism," which is in itself enough to create a foul impression, no matter what the logical and syntactical ligaments may be.
Bill himself used to be accused of anti-Semitism and even Nazism, which ought to have taught him something about loose charges. But he learned the wrong lesson: he learned that the best way to be safe from them is to make them yourself. When he caught on to that, he was like a kid with a very annoying new toy — a noisy gun that he points at everyone.
In his essay-book, he continues to avoid mentioning the Podhoretzes' role, and he refrains from judging their conduct toward his fellow conservatives. In fact, it transpires in the responses to his first essay that he'd made a backstage deal with Norman Podhoretz to prevent me from writing about Israel and related Jewish topics. Imagine an editor giving another editor that kind of control over his magazine! And imagine letting such an arrangement become public knowledge! Why not just put Norman at the top of the masthead?
The finished book turned out to be as turgid as the first essay, except for the parts where others' replies were printed. I wrote a reply myself, and much of the rest of the book was Bill's attempt to belittle my arguments without meeting them. He didn't have the honesty to concede that I'd made any valid points about our "alliance" with Israel. It was one long act of appeasement, aimed only at getting back on the good side of the Zionist apparat.
The book may have done Bill some good, but it didn't do the Jews any good. Treating fanatical Zionists like the Podhoretzes as normative Jews is no favor to Jews. (You could even argue that it's an insidious form of anti-Semitism.) The book was written in a sort of nervously meandering prose that sounded as if the author had a gun at his head. It should have come with a ransom note.
In other words, the book is written in fear. Nothing in it suggests any appreciation of Jews, any savoring of distinctive Jewish qualities. Its real message is not that we should like or respect Jews; only that we should try not to hate them. But this implies that anti-Semitism is the natural reaction to them: if it's a universal sin, after all, it must be a universal temptation. If people are taught that the Jews are hated everywhere, they are not going to draw the conclusion that it's always the gentiles' fault. But this doesn't occur to Bill When he defends Jews, I sometimes feel like saying: "Bill! Bill! It's all right! They're not that bad!"
Though Bill professed concern for the survival of the Jews, it was his own survival he was worried about. What he'd told me on the disputed winter night back in 1986 was not that my columns on Israel threatened the Jews, but that they threatened my own future — and thanks to him, that turned out to be partly true. But the Podhoretzes could never have hurt me the way he did.
I felt betrayed by that book, and by Bill's general conduct on the Jewish issue. But there was more to it than that. His mind had lost its edge. I kept waiting for him to come to his senses, not only on Israel but on other things too. I'd thought the whole conservative mission was to reduce government to "rational limits," as he once finely put it. But he was getting further and further from the great old state-haters of his youth — Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorow, John T. Flynn — and going off on benders like writing a book in favor of national service.
Finally it became obvious that he wasn't going to change. He's old and set in his ways, and his mind isn't going to come up with anything new. His preoccupation seems to be protecting his celebrity. That was what I'd threatened: he was afraid that charges of anti-Semitism against me, no matter how unfair, would hurt him, and it was his duty to avoid being accused. In his mind, the accusation itself constituted guilt.
Early in 1993 I heard that he'd spoken on anti-Semitism to a Jewish group and had mentioned me. The next time I saw him I told him to leave my name out of these affairs. "You started it," he said. I can only guess that he meant I "started it" by getting myself accused of anti-Semitism. I'd certainly given him nothing but loyalty for twenty years. Now he thought he owned the right to abuse my name. He was telling me he had no intention of stopping.
At about the same time, he sent me another note about my column. I'd twitted George Will, one of his pals, and Bill wrote that I shouldn't do this because Will was on "our side." I had to stop and reflect on how Bill defines "our side." His "our side" seems to include a Podhoretz but not a Buchanan. Like most of Bill's communications, this had a wry interest as self-revelation. He still thought, in spite of everything, that he was my respected mentor.
This summer he wrote an especially contemptible essay on Muslims, arguing crudely that terrorism is encouraged by the Koran itself. I knew where he got that stuff. It was right out of the Zionist agitprop manual. I was reading the same sort of thing in the New York Post, The New Republic, and suchlike rags. I wondered who'd clipped the Koran for him; I doubt he's ever opened it in his life. Citing the injunction that wives obey their husbands, and apparently unaware that St. Paul says the same thing, Bill suggested that this explains the miserable plight of women in the Islamic world; adding humorously, "To all appearances, the only time men and women get together in Islamic society is when they copulate."
The clear purpose of that column was to suck up to his buddies. Nothing else. Bill doesn't even hate Muslims enough to wish to offend them. He was doing it only to curry favor with the neocon crowd, with a touch of gutter humor showing how far he was willing to go. An abject performance. So much for his pose as the Right's scrupulous foe of bigotry. He was telling Norman Podhoretz, in effect, "Whom thou smearest, him also will I smear."
"Israel," he wrote defensively later, "didn't cross my mind when I wrote that column." Then why did the column mention Israel? It dragged in the assertion that Anwar Sadat had been murdered by Muslim fanatics for his "civilized attitude toward Israel." That kind of pandering reference has become so routine in Bill's writing that I can well believe he didn't remember having thought about Israel afterward; the gesture has become almost automatic.
That column enraged me. It showed how insincere Bill had been all along. I should have seen it long before, but I'd assumed there had been some conviction, however misguided, behind all the trouble he'd caused me, as well as other conservatives. Now it really sank in: he'd never meant a word of it. Everything was for public and social effect. If the positions of Jews and Muslims were reversed, he would have written the same column about the Jews.
Bill is always on stage: always acting, posing, making empty gestures. He isn't concerned about their truth or coherence. That's why he can talk facilely about prayer while he's writing for Playboy and Penthouse. And that's why it's frustrating to read most of what he has written over the past decade or so.
I wrote a column slamming him for his ugly cracks about Muslims. Then I decided the time had come to tell my side of the story about his sycophancy to the Zionist apparat.
When he fired me, Bill replied publicly to my account by ascribing it to "an incapacitation moral and perhaps medical." That was the typical Buckley touch. He has broken with many people over the years, and his standard response is to insinuate that they have become a little, you know, unbalanced. He himself, of course, represents the golden mean.
But another way to interpret this recurrent situation, with its attendant rhetoric, is that the people Bill has broken with have consistently been more principled than he is — Randians, Birchers, Murray Rothbard, Willmoore Kendall, Brent Bozell, Garry Wills, and others of less renown. His only recourse is to imply that they are fanatical, extreme, obsessive — from causes that are "perhaps medical." Bill is an overrated debater, but he's peerless at making others look bad.
I thought I'd miss National Review as an institution, but I don't. After two decades there I had dear friends, but the place itself was a facade. When I signed on at the age of 26, I thought everyone there would be philosophizing and discussing first principles. There was some of that, but basically it was just a business. Nice, decent, ordinary, though intelligent people. A million laughs, and some terrifically funny guys, from Jeff Hart to Ed Capano to Jim McFadden. Bill could be very funny too, of course, but even he didn't stand out in that company. What I really miss, as anyone who knows her will understand, is Dorothy McCartney.
But how strangely different it all became from what I'd expected. In the Sixties, when most of the world was going madly leftward, in the insane pursuit of "progress," Bill Buckley's conservatism seemed to many of us to be a politics appropriate to the tradition of Aquinas, Dante, Shakespeare, and Dr. Johnson. That tradition seemed implicit in Bill himself, in his refusal to join the flow of what he mockingly called the Zeitgeist. You could see in him the reflection of your own yearnings: for Christianity, for constitutional government, for the free market, for the Old South, for almost every other fugitive "reactionary" principle; and also for the courage to stand in opposition.
Now all that seems only distantly related to Bill's actual life, like the boyhood memory of a pious old aunt when you are a middle-aged man. Not that his life is discreditable, apart from the things I've mentioned; but somehow he belongs more to the world of Phil Donahue than to the world of Dr. Johnson. His conservatism is a conservatism of image, show business, public relations, stock mannerisms; big words, anfractuous grammar, repetitious Latinisms, implying a depth that isn't there.
What happened to him? Conservatives everywhere speculate on this. I don't fully know the answer, because it's partly the mystery of a soul. All I can say is that New York, a Babylon of dizzying distractions, has absorbed him, as it is likely to absorb anyone who stays there too long, and Bill, bored with his early role, forgot what he started out to do. Gravitas was finally swallowed up in celebritas. And by now it may be necessary to stand athwart National Review yelling "Stop!"
Source: MecFilms.com via Archive.org.


text: Bridal crystal hair pins make a stunning, yet understated addition to your outfit on your special day. Embedded in your hair, the stunning crystals will delicately catch the light, drawing attention to your fabulous hairstyle. Aye Do Weddings offers a diverse range to choose from, to ensure that we cater for every bride.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Thursday, October 20, 2005
A fine meal of mushrooms and cabbage
An Estonian friend of a very good Estonian friend of mine is visiting, and as my Turkish flatmate already has some Turkish friends staying in our guest room, this Estonian friend is staying with another Estonian friend who lives just around the corner (got that?:) But I'm in charge of cooking the dinner for a few nights. Not that I mind obviously...
On Monday night the theme was 'cooking Estonian but not only'. I picked up some mushrooms (sadly cultivated, as chantarelles or any other wild mushrooms are hard to come by in Edinburgh), organic beef mince, a cone shaped cabbage ('sweetheart cabbage' – a novelty for me) and some Dolcelatte cheese. And after pretty much minimal effort I ended up with three delicious dishes.
Stuffed Mushrooms
(Täidetud seenekübarad)
For starters, I peeled the mushrooms, removed the stalks (see the above banner), covered with a piece of blue cheese and grilled them in the oven. I served these with a sprinkling of fresh parsley. Putting them on top of some panfried German rye bread ('Mischbrot' that I bought in Göttingen) provided a nice contrast of textures. This was the non-Estonian bit.
Cabbage Roll
Now to the Estonian bit. For the mains I cooked a cabbage roll. Cabbage rolls are beloved autumnal and winter dish back home, but I didn't feel like stuffing individual cabbage leaves, so I cheated. Again. I mixed the mince, finely chopped onion, crushed Finn Crisp bread (I had no breadcrumbs in the house), an egg, chopped mushroom stalks (my addition), salt, and slightly simmered shredded Sweetheart cabbage. I formed this into a fat sausage and baked in the oven until dark golden brown.
Ingredients for the cabbage roll:
400 grams of mince (pork is traditional, though I used organic beef)
a small head of (sweetheart) cabbage
1 chopped onion
handful of breadcrumbs or 1-2 slices of soaked bread
1 egg
salt and pepper
This cheat's cabbage roll was served with some boiled Charlotte potatoes, which I tossed in butter, sprinkled with Maldon salt and put into the oven for another 5 minutes.
And everyone could help themselves to some chopped cucumber, grated turnip and sour cream.
Again a lovely night 'eating and drinking (in) Estonian', with some nice food and wine (Torres Sangre de Toro 2003 and The Wolftrap 2004) and another very exciting episode of Without a Trace.
And finally: I had started a bread dough before the dinner, planning to make some delicious Estonian pastries with loads of butter. But somehow the yeast dough didn't look like it's gonna like being layered with butter and rolled over and over again like puff pastry. So I rolled it out rather thickly, crumbled the rest of Dolcelatte on top, added a sprinkling of parsley, rolled it up and baked at 230˚C until golden. Delicious as a late night nibble, and perfect as a take along lunch at the office (it was nicely soft and inviting on the following day as well)...
So I planned to make something sweet and Estonian, but ended up with something savoury and Italian-ish. Nevertheless, I was especially pleased with this bread, as I modified the recipe to a great degree and turned it into something nice and 'mine'. Quite an achievement, considering that I usually tend to follow recipes quite closely...
Sinihallitusjuustuleiva retsept
6 comments:
- Michèle said...
Hi Pille, your meal looks lovely, especially that cabbage roll. And even though you cheated, as you say, I would definitely love to try some of it, it looks great! And your theme for the evening was especially cute: "Cooking Estonian but not only" ;)
- 7:54 pm, October 20, 2005
I love the presentation of everything, especially the mushrooms above. Everyting looks delicious! Lucky dinner guests!
- 8:53 am, October 21, 2005
- everydaychef said...
It's great to get ideas for meals with a distinctly different influence. The cabbage roll looks and sounds great and something I'll definitely try!
- 11:32 am, October 21, 2005
- Pille said...
Michele - I've updated the post and included the recipe for the cheat's cabbage roll - it's easy, and if you don't like it too 'cabbagey', you can just use less cabbage/more mince/add some grated potato or carrots etc..
Paz - thanks! I was quite satisfied with the way they looked as well:) Dinner guests were pleased. I also hosted a home-cooked Indian feast on Wednesday - will post about it during the weekend hopefully..
Everydaychef - though it was never my intention to blog so much about Estonian foods (I guess that's what you mean by 'distinctly different':), I feel a positive pressure to do that. And I feel pleased and privileged that there are readers out there in foodblogosphere who want to read (me writing) about Estonian (and Nordic and Easter European) food.
Let me know what you thought of the cabbage roll! And I will be writing about proper cabbage rolls soon!
- 1:47 pm, October 21, 2005
- J said...
hi pille, i really dig the looks of that cabbage roll...it must have been so very moist and savoury...
- 9:52 pm, October 21, 2005
- Pille said...
J - coming from you, it's a real compliment!
- 8:51 pm, August 08, 2006


text:
September 2013 News Articles
Lowery Encourages Students to Reconcile with Others
September 25, 2013—
Cris Lowery, Emerging Generations Specialist for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, speaks to OBU students and faculty about the importance of reconciliation. The weekly chapel service on Sept. 25, continues the Fall Chapel Series theme of The Sermon on the Mount.
For chapel
OBU Joins Fight for Religious Liberty
September 20, 2013—Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration Friday on behalf of four Christian universities in Oklahoma. The lawsuit is the latest to challenge the administration's mandate that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral
OBU Theatre Announces 2013-14 Season: 'Keeping the Faith'
September 20, 2013—OBU Theatre has announced its 2013-14 productions, based on the theme, "Keeping the Faith." Season tickets are now on sale for the three productions of the season: "Tartuffe," "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and "Doubt: a Parable."
Season tickets are $27 for adults and $12 for
U.S. Navy Identifies Math and Science Programs as Tier One
September 19, 2013—The United States Navy recently identified OBU's physics and mathematics majors offered through the James E. Hurley College of Science and Mathematics as the only tier one academic majors in the state of Oklahoma and the North Texas region for the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate
OBU Ranked Best Regional College by U.S. News & World Report
September 11, 2013—For the 20th consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report listed OBU as Oklahoma's highest-ranked college in "Best Regional Colleges."
OBU students meet during Welcome Week in August 2013. U.S. News & World Report announced OBU as Oklahoma's highest-rated college in the "Best Regional Colleges"
OBU Theatre to Showcase New Works Festival
September 11, 2013—OBU students will showcase their creative talents at the New Works Festival Friday, Sept. 13 beginning at 7:30 p.m. The event will feature short plays written and directed by OBU students. The one-night-only show will take place in the Craig-Dorland Theatre located in Shawnee Hall. The price
OBU Receives Citation of Gratitude
September 6, 2013—The State of Oklahoma recently honored OBU with a citation of gratitude as a result of emergency response efforts during the EF4 tornadoes May 19, 2013.
OBU provided temporary housing at Agee Residence Center for tornado victims and relief workers assisting victims through May 29. The
Bison Pep Band Adds Excitement to OBU Football
September 5, 2013—
The Bison Pep Band, comprised of 55 Oklahoma Baptist University students and led by Director of Bands Ryan Meeks, performed various numbers including the OBU fight song during the first Bison football home game of the 2013 season, Saturday, Aug. 31. "I'm excited to be a part of a new
Jones Joins College of Theology and Ministry
September 5, 2013—Dr. Galen W. Jones has joined the faculty of the Herschel H. Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry at OBU for the fall 2013 semester. Jones is an associate professor of church planting in the college.
He earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Cincinnati, and a bachelor
Griffin Recites Sermon on the Mount to Students
September 4, 2013—
Dale Griffin, OBU dean of spiritual life, recited the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew: 5-7) for students and faculty during a weekly chapel service Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2013. "Have courage, those of you that are in the Kingdom of God," said Griffin.
For chapel messages, follow this link.
Two Faculty Members Join College of Fine Arts
September 4, 2013—OBU's Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts has added two new faculty members beginning with the fall 2012 semester. Ryan Meeks is an instructor of music, and Tyler Welker is an assistant professor of video, motion graphics and animation.
Meeks served as an executive board member of the East
Four Join OBU's Hurley College of Science and Mathematics
September 3, 2013—Four faculty members have joined OBU's James E. Hurley College of Science and Mathematics for the fall 2013 semester. Dr. Tanner Auch joins as assistant professor of mathematics; Dr. Cherith Tucker joins as assistant professor of mathematics; Dr. Ming Liang Zhang joins as assistant professor


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Pets, Pets, Pets
As a true Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Darcy was put on earth to show the power of devotion. This darling dog adored everyone with all her heart….a heart too damaged to sustain her beyond a mere 6 years. Last June Darcy succumbed to chronic valvular disease (CVD), the most common canine cardiac ailment, a condition particularly devastating in her breed. Thanks to her owners, Darcy's love lives on in a legacy that may one day benefit all dogs.
The Darcy Fund, created to support research into the causes and cures of CVD, was established by Darcy's owners, Kim and Jerry Thornton of Lake Forest, California, in conjunction with the American Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Charitable Trust. Kim Campbell Thornton happens to be an award winning author and past editor of Dog Fancy who has written extensively about dog and cat health. The Thorntons chronicled the heartbreak of Darcy's ordeal and expert advice at darcysdaily.blogspot.com.
Though the Darcy Fund is linked to Cavaliers, any discoveries resulting from these grants have the potential to help every breed, perhaps other species as well. A cardiologist at Tufts says that about 11% of all dogs seen by veterinarians have some form of heart disease. Of those dogs, about 75-80% have congestive heart disease (CVD.) The University of Pennsylvania already received funding for projects with Darcy donations.
With mitral valve disease, another name for CVD, the valves do not shut completely due to changes in their structure causing a back flow or leakage. This turbulence creates a murmur. After time, the heart starts to weaken and fail. CVD is prevalent in small and medium-sized breeds that are middle-aged or older, but it is the most common heart condition in all canines. Cavaliers and Dachshunds have the greatest incidence, while Yorkies, Poodles, Papillons, Chihuahuas, Schnauzers and Cockers are prone to develop CVD also.
According to CavalierHealth.org, Cavaliers are the most vulnerable to chronic valve disease. It is a multi-gene condition that affects about half of all Cavaliers by age 5 years old, and nearly all Cavaliers by 10, if they live that long. In these Spaniels, the prevalence of mitral valve disease is 21 times that in the typical canine. The disease manifests itself earlier and accelerates more rapidly in Cavaliers.
With the help of the Darcy Fund, hopefully specific genes will be pinpointed so tests can be developed to identify dogs at risk and eliminate the defect in future generations. Since 1998 responsible Cavalier breeders have followed a strict veterinary protocol to curtail early onset CVD. This includes having dogs certified yearly by cardiologists, not breeding any Cavalier with a murmur until 5 years old, any dog before 2 _ years old, or any dog at all unless both parents were murmur free until 5. Increased breed popularity, sparking the puppy mill tactic of pumping out pups for profit has ignored these caveats, disregarding the welfare of Cavaliers… thus, one more reason not to purchase a purebred from a pet store.
Cavaliers are the ultimate companion dogs, natural stress reducers- once only a luxury of the British aristocracy. Darcy herself was an import from Ireland. She adored people and Kim joked that "it was her friendly Irish nature coming out. She must have licked the Blarney Stone before she was shipped to us." An ambassador of affection, Darcy loved meeting new people and tailored her greetings. She was gentle to kids and the elderly, yet planted more rambunctious kisses on everyone else. She wilted if a stranger chose to ignore her.
CVD presents itself in insidious ways. When Darcy was a puppy,
a cardiologist noticed that
she had a soft murmur. By
the time she was 3, the murmur was louder, but
Kim hoped she'd remain
symptom-free. On her 6th birthday annual tests showed that her heart had
greatly enlarged. Medications
began but were hard to
stabilize. Unfortunately, studies show the medicines are not effective until symptoms appear, and the side effects are such that owners hold off as long as possible.
Genes shaped the wonderful Cavalier temperament, but also weakened their hearts. When Kim describes Darcy, I see my tiny Cavalier mix. These clever characters know how to commandeer laps. They anticipate your couch arrival—be it the remote's click or the coffee's perking. They are most content when snuggled on you or flipped over in your arms. One of saddest parts of CVD was that Darcy was no longer able to rest this way. She had to lie alone on a hard surface to lessen her discomfort and labored breathing.
My holiday wish for my dogs, and yours, would be to "freeze them in time"- keeping them as vibrant as they are now. I know that is impossible. The Darcy Fund, though not magical, may conquer this cardiac crisis so someday all our dogs can enjoy longer, healthier lives. A tax deductible donation to the Darcy Fund- by mail: C.Tennille, Treasurer, ACKCS Charitable Trust, Inc., 14430 Overlook Ridge La, Beaverdam VA 23015 or at: www.akcsccharitabletrust.org - www.ackcsccharitabletrust.org - "in memory or in honor of" a dear dog is a gift of life and love from our hearts sent straight to theirs.
The poster pets at Oyster Bay Shelter (677-5784) Miller Pl. Syosset are all decked out in holiday garb because they want to stand out from the crowd and attract a home of their own. "Scruffy" #1186 in the sweater is a friendly Terrier mix- Cairn with a twist of Scotty, while "Big Bob" #919 in the Santa hat is an affectionate, and large tabby. He greets everyone from his lobby window cage. Merry Christmas!
Female: "Maggie" #1139- a 2 yr. purebred St. Bernard; "Powder" # 1129- a sweet Boxer; a white Akita puppy #1167- about 4 _ months; "Kitcha"- #1182- the Polish cat shown last week.
Males: "Sarge" #1119- a big-boned Shepherd mix; "Talker" #1188- a mostly white cat with a Siamese voice. He said, "Hello'. I'm not kidding.


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The country star chose to wear her mom's vintage gown when she wed Blake Shelton last month
When planning her wedding to country star Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert had the perfect dress in mind — and didn't have to look far to find it. "The first time I heard her talking about it, she said, 'My mom and dad have had a great long marriage and it must have been good luck for them, so I want to start my marriage wearing the same dress my mom had on,'" recalls Lambert's publicist and wedding planner Kathy Best. "It was all about the lasting love her parents had, and that was very important to her." Once Lambert slipped into the Gunne Sax dress, she knew she'd found the one. "It was a very tearful moment the day we first tried it on," Lambert's mom, Bev, tells PEOPLE Country. "She's like, 'I'm not even going to try another dress on. This is it Mom. There's no other dress that would fit me better or mean more to me than this dress.' It was stunning on her." The gown, which Bev wore during her 1979 nuptials, had been tucked inside a cedar chest for more than 30 years, so Lambert gave it a little updating, adding a small train of the same fabric to the end, but otherwise leaving the spaghetti-strap, off-white frock untouched. During the couple's wedding ceremony, Lambert's family pastor explained the significance of the dress, and at the barnyard reception, the newlyweds displayed photos of their parents at their own weddings — including a shot of Bev in the Gunne Sax gown. "It was perfect," Best adds. "And [Miranda] was just beautiful." For more on Lambert and Shelton's wedding and all your favorite country stars — and for free music downloads! — pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE Country or check out people.com/free. —Reporting by Danielle Anderson


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(CNN) -- Remote and wild, the windswept island of Newfoundland off Canada's Atlantic Coast offers Viking history, stunning rocky landscapes and warm, welcoming locals.
iReporter Margaret Zubert, from Sudbury in the Canadian province of Ontario, recently traveled to Newfoundland as part of a travel quest.
"My goal is to visit all the Canadian provinces on the premise that even though I love to travel to other countries, I should also know my own country too. So, after the Newfoundland trip, I only have one more province to go!" she said.
The large island, which is part of Canada's easternmost province, Newfoundland and Labrador, even has its own time zone -- a half-hour ahead of neighbors to the west.
Zubert, 63, made the trip to Newfoundland with her sister-in-law, Sylvia. They took a 12-day bus tour from Deer Lake in the northwest, along the Northern Peninsula and then south along the east coast to St. John's.
The tour was operated by McCarthy's Party, a local company.
"Our tour escort was a retired school principal who was just a fountain of information about the history, the people and the culture of the province," Zubert said.
Zubert answered the following questions about her trip:
Favorite spots
That is a tough one to answer since we visited so many wonderful places. I'll give two places: St. John's, the capital city, because it's so different from most North American cities, and Conche, a small fishing village on the Northern Peninsula, which has the most fabulous tapestry I've seen outside of Europe.
Don't-miss experience
Don't miss the chance to hear the locals perform! At almost every stop, local fiddlers and singers performed their own music. At times, it was toe-tapping dances or sea shanties; at other times, sad ballads that brought a tear to the eye.
Share your travel experiences on iReport.com: Just back from
First impression
I was amazed by how rugged the landscape was and how close the sea was to every community. It's obvious that this harsh environment has helped to shape a tough and resilient people.
Lasting memory
I will always remember the friendliness of the people. They were courteous yet funny, helpful but proud.
Three adjectives that capture this place
Scenic, rugged, resilient
Biggest surprise
The amazing history -- from Vikings, to explorers, to current-day oil rigs off the coast.
Most delicious food, drink or place to eat
Maybe not most delicious, but most notable is the local rum, Screech. If you go to Newfoundland, you have to be Screeched in!
Most meals featured fish, and the featured fish there is cod. We had wonderful fish chowders and fish cakes. Atlantic salmon was also very good.
Check out Zubert's photos above for more on the places she visited. Have you been on a trip recently? Share your story at Just back from on iReport.com.


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"Do you realize," a friend told composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, "that none of your best-sellers are your own?"
He was referring to the Fantasia on Greensleeves and the English Folk Songs Suite. And while it's a clever remark that the composer found very funny, the truth is, all three works are very much his own.
In fact, one could argue that Vaughan Williams' particular form of greatness is not in saying things that have never been said before--but in presenting familiar or forgotten things in a way that makes them seem fresh and relevant.
In this hour, an exploration of two of Vaughan Williams' best-loved works, and the folk songs that inspired them.
Recordings Used
Ralph Vaughan Williams (Vernon Handley) EMI Eminence CD-EMX 2179
Under the Greenwood Tree Naxos 8.553442
Vaughan Williams: The Collector's Edition, disc 10 EMI 2066362
Homeward Bound (US Navy Sea Chanters) Coker & McCree (iTunes download)
Anne Briggs: A Collection Topic Records TSCD504
Alan Lomax: Classic Ballads of Britain & Ireland, Vol. 2 Rounder Records 1776
The Gordons: Time Will Tell Our Story Blueberry Hill BBH 122
Luke Kelly: Working Class Hero Celtic Airs Records CACD0203
Heather Wood: Fast Folk (Vol. 3, No. 9), Songs of Tradition iTunes download]
Martin Simpson: The Bramble Briar Topic Records TSCD513
HeartSounds: Behind the Green Bushes HeartSounds 610 388 7523
Bournemouth Symphony: English String Music Naxos 8.550823


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V-Money Vs. Jee Money $100 Rap Battle [Grind Time]
Drect reports "Battle from Saturday, January 24, 2009 at the Citrus Bowl in downtown Orlando. Fan favorite Jee Money goes for his 3rd win against up-and-comer V-Money, who is 1-3. Who will take it? "
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


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If you have ever searched for an apartment before, you will obviously reckon that it is not an easy task. Although the ease of coming across a new apartment depends on the method that has been used, the simple fact is that it is not an easy task. There are numerous reasons why this is the case. First of all, some prospective tenants lack the knowledge on the best methods to use when searching for an apartment to rent. On the other hand, some prospective tenants simply look for apartments whose features are either out of this world or are too expensive for them to afford. Suppose you are in search of one of the arbor crossing apartments for rent, consider the following tips.
Identify the location of the apartments and ensure that it is exactly what you are looking for. This is usually very easy, but most people even find this task to be daunting. Perhaps, it is because they hardly know the advantages of staying in certain places. In general, identifying the location of the apartments begins with learning more about the name of the apartments. It is important to bear in mind the fact that various apartments have got different names depending on the preferences of the owner or their actual location. Once you have identified the location of the apartments, you can easily tell the best method to use in order to search for the right one.
After you can have made up your mind on the location of the apartment, you have to consider the costs of the search. This is actually the next and most important stage of the search process. In general, the cost of every search process depends on the location of the apartments from your current area of residence. If your current area of residence is near the apartments that you are looking for, the search process will probably be quite costly. Therefore, the method that you should use to search for an apartment should depend on the costs that are associated with the method. For example, the use of agents can be cheaper than traveling to the actual location of the apartments if the apartments you are looking for are located in a distant place.
Another important thing worth bearing in mind is whether the cost of renting a particular apartment is consistent with the features possessed by the apartment. This is actually the most important matter that is worth taking into account when searching for an apartment to rent. There are certain apartments that are expensive to rent, but they possess features whose quality is not depicted by the cost of the rentals. For example, consider an apartment that does not have luxurious features but whose rentals are almost equal to that of an apartment which possesses luxurious features.


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I finally recieved the photos that were taken when I participated in Wreaths Across America on December 13th at the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery in Gustine, California.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
2 comments:
- Terry Thornton said...
Thanks, Rabbit in the blue coat, for this update. The Wreaths Across America is wonderful way to honor servicemen and their families. I'm so glad you participated and shared your experience with us.
Terry Thornton
- January 2, 2009 at 4:49 PM
- Dead Man Talking said...
Wonderful set of photos. Did you also take the one in the following post of all the stones with their wreaths?
National cemeteries are sort of amazing. I have to get back up to Willamette National to see what's new behind the berm.
And while I'm at it, I loved the graphic for the iron fence in another post. Did you scan that in or capture it somehow from the Web?
- January 30, 2009 at 10:12 AM
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Sheldon Abb Hunter
Date unknown
I don't know much else about the family until 1917 when Shell was married, living in San Francisco and completed his WWI Draft Registration on 5 June 1971. On 16 April 1918 their first and only child was born, Robert Melvin Hunter. At one time Mom told me that she had a memory of Shell adopting Robert as a tiny baby and after a little researching today, I think that just might be the case – I found a Robert M Cochran born on the same day with the mother's maiden name as Pease. Could this really be true? If she was married to Shell in June, 1917 and gave birth to Robert in April, 1918, could he really have had a different father? Was the wife Sheldon was married to in June, 1917 really Harriett or was there another wife I don't know about? Or was he really not married at all and just wrote that on his registration? Geez, so many new questions today! I wrote about Robert here when he was killed while serving on the USS Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor.
Maybe it was Robert's death that tore Shell and Harriet apart or maybe it was something else – I'll never know – but on 18 Feb 1942 Shell married my grandmother, Clara Fitzgerald Martin, in Las Vegas and became a 'volunteer' dad to my mom. Mom and her mother had been on their own for some years and, in fact, Mom had lived with her great aunt and uncle for a few years while her mother was sorting things out. But after her mother and Shell married, she returned to Fresno for high school where she met my dad, Gordon Levy. Who knows if she would have found her way back to Fresno and met my dad if Shell hadn't entered the scene. And when Mom and Dad were married 3 September 1950, who else but her volunteer dad would walk her down the aisle?
And then came grandkids for Shell and really, he was my mom's dad and our Grandpa as far as we were concerned. Her biological dad, Earle Martin, had started a new family and with the exception of yearly Christmas gifts, he was pretty much not a part of any of our lives. But Shell was and we loved spending time with him and Grandma.
Clara Maxine Fitzgerald and Sheldon Abb Hunter
At one point Shell was part of the Shaver Lake Fishing Club along with his father-in-law, Edward Francis Fitzgerald. I asked Mom about this once and while she didn't know if they were specifically part of any fishing club, she did remember spending a lot of time at Shaver Lake with her grandfather. But this picture proves they were part of the club as someone wrote on the back "Shaver Lake Fishing Club".
Shaver Lake Fishing Club
Date Unknown
Edward Francis Fitzgerald – standing, far left
Sheldon Abb Hunter – standing, 7th from left or right
Our favorite part of visiting Fresno was spending time on the chicken farm that Grandma Clara and Grandpa Shell owned on Olive Avenue. I wrote a little about their chicken farming adventures here and have such great memories of helping Grandma and Grandpa on the farm. We recently came across an article about the chicken farm.
The Fresno Bee
Sunday, September 27, 1959
Since the article is hard to read…….
When Sheldon A. Hunter of 2341 West Olive Avenue, Fresno, retired in 1955 as manager of the Fresno office of Western Union, he recalls he did not know the difference between a laying hen and a bantam chicken.
Today, the grey haired Hunter is the knowledgeable owner and operator of a 2,000 bird egg laying flock, who maintains he "never worked harder, made less or felt better." Hunter and his charming wife, Clara, bought the one acre layout two and a half years ago when it included only 600 hens. They have expanded cautiously and only recently constructed a new cement floored laying house featuring the latest in wire cage operation.
Hunter, whose Western Union career covered 47 years, including 35 years in Fresno, credits feed company salesman and breeder representatives with a big hand in helping him learn the poultry business. "We thought this would be an interesting part time occupation," Hunter grins, "but we find there is always something to do, repair or change. And these birds need a lot of care. But we like the idea of keeping busy."
Since all the Hunter eggs are sold directly from the small combination garage and egg processing room, the retired couple enjoy meeting people who stop to purchase the eggs. Mrs. Hunter chuckles as she recalls a visit by a 10 year old neighbor girl. "She wanted to borrow three eggs because her mother was baking a cake and didn't have enough," she says. "But she assured me she would soon return them because her mother was going downtown and would buy some there."
Along with the modest sized poultry set up, the Hunters are proud of their variety of fruit trees, ranging from figs to persimmons, a vegetable garden and boysenberry vines.
While the Hunter operation ranks quite small as compared to some of Fresno County's sprawling commercial laying establishments, the owners keep abreast of the latest breeding developments. They are grooming a new experimental White Leghorn strain obtained from Washington State which is said to lay larger eggs for specialized poultry men who have a market for them.
And a few photos of us in the garage/egg processing room – look at all those eggs!
Cary Levy, Sheldon Hunter, Debi Levy
c. 1960
Doug Levy, Sheldon Hunter
c. 1963
Doug Levy, Sigmund Levy, Cary Levy, Debi Levy, Sheldon Hunter
c. 1963
Sheldon Hunter and Clara Fitzgerald Hunter
9 March 1974
Even though Shell was a 'volunteer', when I think of my Grandpas he is one of the two that is etched in my mind. And while we weren't "blood" (as my family likes to say) we were his grandchildren in every way!
Sheldon Abb Hunter
Volunteer Grandpa


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January 11, 2014
(CNN) -- A man calls 911 saying his family needs help. His wife is scared of their schizophrenic son, armed with a screwdriver. One, then two, then three law enforcement officers -- all from different agencies -- arrive. After the situation calms somewhat, according to the family, a tussle ensues.
What happens next?
In a case this week out of Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina, one officer responded by firing his gun, killing 18-year-old Keith Vidal, who was mentally ill.
The teen's furious family soon take their case public, saying there's no justification for Sunday's shooting. Vidal, they say, weighed all of 100 pounds; he was mentally ill, yes, but he was a "good kid."
CNN first learned of the shooting through an iReport sent by a family friend.
Veteran defense attorney Mark O'Mara, a CNN legal analyst, agrees with the family. From what he knows of the case -- including the police detective first saying he was 'defending himself," only to later say through his lawyer he was defending another officer -- O'Mara thinks "deadly force was (not) the only option" when you have three officers responding to subdue a slim, mentally ill teenager.
"Every other opportunity to resist using that deadly force should be deployed (first)," said O'Mara. "Why not just back away from the situation and see what happens?"
Yet some criminal experts say it may not be that simple. Law enforcement officers thrust into situations like this do have protocols to follow. They often do have nonlethal tools like Tasers at their disposal. But things don't always go to plan; in fact, things oftentimes go wrong, forcing an officer to make extremely difficult, split-second decisions whether to use lethal force or not.
"They have to make a judgment very quickly: Is (the individual) a danger to themselves or a danger to others?" said Ron Martinelli, a justice and forensic consultant who trains police officers on what to do in such situations.
The lawyer for Bryon Vassey -- the Southport, North Carolina, police detective who fired the fatal shot in this instance -- said firmly that his client made the correct, spur-of-the-moment decision.
"At the instant that it occurred, he had to make that (judgment call) in that split instant," W. James Payne told CNN.
'Objective reasonable' to use force?
Investigators and, possibly, a civil or criminal jury will decide whether Detective Vassey did the right thing.
Already, two law enforcement departments have weighed in, determining that their officers didn't break the law or policy. The Southport police department put Vassey on paid administrative leave, a step that John Midgette, the head of the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association, says is standard in such cases.
That department's police chief, Jerry Dove, says Vassey has a spotless record but, still, he's "waiting for when I hear all the inquiries." Those are being conducted by the state Bureau of Investigation and chief prosecutor for the state's 13th Judicial District, with the latter possibly pressing charges.
Experts say the final judgments likely will hinge on whether Vassey acted in an "objectively reasonable" matter. That term comes from a 1989 Supreme Court ruling, Graham v. Connor, and means that an officer -- and ultimately, higher authorities -- must decide on the spot whether there is a valid presumption of an imminent, serious risk that would warrant the use of force.
"It's objectively reasonable as seen by the officer," said Martinelli, a former officer who adds there's no federal legal requirement that officers use "the least intrusive level of force" nor do they "have to put themselves at risk." "And it often all depends on a rapidly evolving situation."
David Klinger, a ex-patrol officer who now teaches at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, explains "notions of reasonableness are predicated on the circumstances." Even then, different law enforcement officers working alongside each other may well reach opposite conclusions on whether someone poses a real threat and should be fired upon, noted Klinger, an expert in officer-involved shootings.
In the Boiling Spring Lakes case, there were three different officers at the scene. The first two didn't open fire, but Vassey did.
Vidal was making a "stabbing motion to an exposed part" of another officer -- wearing a bulletproof vest -- struggling with him, said the detective's lawyer. But this downed officer didn't yell out, asking for help or someone to shoot, according to Payne.
O'Mara said it doesn't make sense to him that shots needed to be fired after Vidal had been tased and given he was outnumbered by the three officers in the room, including two that Vidal's family claimed had him pinned down.
Ultimately, it won't matter what outside experts, Detective Vassey or even the late teen's family think is "objectively reasonable" in this case.
Speaking generally about cases like these, University of North Carolina-Charlotte criminology professor Vivian Lord said, "It's up to the courts to make a decision on whether or not they agree with that."
Three officers, all from different agencies
It may be notable, too, that the three officers who responded all came from different agencies.
Especially in small towns, having one officer from another agency like a sheriff's department come to a scene isn't unusual, said Lord. Typically, she adds, the first responding officer and one from the home agency -- in this case, from Boiling Spring Lakes police -- acts as the lead officer.
But Vidal's stepfather Mark Wilsey -- who, along with the late teen's mother, witnessed the incident -- said the Southport detective was assertive when he came in, disrupting the situation.
"(He) walks in the room, walks around the corner, (and) says, 'We don't have time for this. Tase that kid now. Let's get him out of here,'" Wilsey said, according to CNN affiliate WWAY.
Authorities have not confirmed that such a statement was made, or that this detective by himself made the situation worse.
Still, Martinelli said generally -- even if every officer did everything right -- issues can arise when there are officers not used to working together due to differences in style, training or perspective.
"When you have multiple jurisdictions involved, it's very difficult to communicate," he said. "It's not unusual for one officer to act one way, and another officer to act another way."
The significance of late teen's schizophrenia
And when officers respond to deal with a mentally ill person, any disruption can have a snowball effect, experts say.
The 911 caller made clear Vidal had schizophrenia, adding he "won't take his medication," was carrying a screwdriver and wanted "to fight his mother." Vidal's stepbrother, Mark Ryan Wilsey, told CNN that local police were familiar with him, having come to the house at least three times before.
"He's not doing very good," said the man on the 911 call. "We've got to get him someplace."
According to O'Mara, the fact this was a call for help -- to subdue someone and get him to a professional -- is significant.
"They have to respond with that in mind," said the Florida-based lawyer. "... They have to look at the situation as not being a criminal (matter), but as being (to help) someone who is ill."
It is also important to note someone who suffers from a mental illness like schizophrenia may not act rationally; he or she may seem to communicate coherently and appear composed one moment, only to spiral out of control the next.
"It doesn't take a whole lot," said Lord, a licensed psychologist, who made a point to add schizophrenics aren't necessarily violent. "If somebody is calming down, ... anything changing could make that happen."
Within 70 seconds -- according to police records cited by CNN affiliate WECT -- of when the Southport detective arrived, things went downhill quickly, ending in Vidal's death.
The detective didn't necessarily have to do or say anything to set off this spiral. Martinelli -- who said he specializes in handling what authorities call emotionally disturbed people, or EDPs -- said anyone coming into a room and distracting a mentally ill person "could be like throwing gas on a flame."
Adds Lord, "If (a mentally ill individual) is unstable, it's hard to say what might have made this blow back up."
Justified or not?
Vidal's stepbrother said the first two officers to arrive "did nothing wrong."
"All they did was tase my brother and try to get him into handcuffs so he couldn't harm himself," said Mark Ryan Wilsey, who wasn't at the scene but relayed his family's account. "They had the situation under control."
'My brother just needed help, and now he is dead'
The family lays the blame squarely on the Southport detective.
"This officer who shot my son needs to be behind bars," said Vidal's mother, Mary Wilsey. "He needs to die the way my son died."
The detective spoke moments after the shooting, saying on a radio call, "I don't know if you've been advised or not, but shots fired. I've had to defend myself against the subject."
His story later changed, with his lawyer and the North Carolina Police Benevolent Association saying the shots were fired to defend another officer. O'Mara said he believes the altered story might come back to hurt Vassey.
The benevolent association is siding squarely with the detective, concluding after talking with two of the officers involved that the teen posed a "deadly threat."
"We are very confident that the officers did what they should have under state law," Midgette, the trade group's director, told CNN. "It's a very tragic situation, but we do believe the officer."
CNN's David Mattingly contributed to this report.


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Pop Stars React to Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy is barreling up the East Coast, and it's slated to be one of the worst storms in history. Extreme flooding and wind gusts of 60-90 miles per hour are expected, and combined with the full moon, high tides will be higher than ever. Widespread flooding and power outages are likely, and celebs are taking note.
Some famous folk gave practical advice, including Missy Elliott, while others offered thoughts and prayers, like New York City native Jennifer Lopez. Ricky Martin even took photos of the fall foliage -- the calm before the storm -- in New York, where he resides while performing on Broadway's revival of 'Evita.'
Below are a collection of Sandy-related pop celeb tweets. It's good to know that they're thinking of everyone on the East Coast, because we are too. Stay safe!
"@revetta: Every time the weatherman says 'rain bands,' @bobatl 'Ray Bands' starts playing in my mind. #Sandy #Frankenstorm" << BANDZ!!
— B.o.B (@bobatl) October 29, 2012
Flew into NYC…I'm live on @onairwithryan tomorrow with #Sandy updates… also have the @jonasbrothers on. Might send a canoe to pick them up
— Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest) October 29, 2012
Always! "@lovejlo4ever: @jlo Please keep the east coast in your thoughts and prayers. Hurricane Sandy is heading our way. #LOVE #NYC #NJ #CT
— Jennifer Lopez (@JLo) October 29, 2012
A great walk in the park before the storm. We may not have foliage after it :0( Una buena caminata antes de la torment… say.ly/Gxs4sZ4
— Ricky Martin (@ricky_martin) October 28, 2012
Every1 on the EastCoast try 2 stay off the roads with the wind picking up its not safe. Your safety is very Important.
— Missy Elliott (@MissyElliott) October 29, 2012
To everyone in the path of sandy our thoughts and prayers go out to you.#staysafe
— kevin jonas (@kevinjonas) October 29, 2012
I pray for the storm Sandy to spare those without a house, those who suffer... brothers in NY and around the East Coast: my prayers r with u
— Wyclef Jean (@wyclef) October 28, 2012
Told stubborn Sandy to be gentle on the east coast.Hope she listens.Stay safe out there folks!
— Harry Shum Jr (@iharryshum) October 29, 2012
Beautiful monday in Nashville. Sending good vibes to all my friends & family on the east coast. Stay dry & inside, Sandy could be a doozy.
— nathan followill (@doctorfollowill) October 29, 2012
Good Luck to all my friends and family with tha Frankenstorm
— Joel Madden (@JoelMadden) October 29, 2012


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A true-crime author stumbles onto something beyond his beat in Scott Derrickson's "Sinister," which follows Ethan Hawke's Ellison Oswalt as he grows increasingly obsessed with a missing-girl case he hopes will lead to a bestselling book. Occasionally stupid (stretching even fright-flick conventions) but scary nonetheless, the pic should please horror fans.
When Oswalt's wife (Juliet Rylance), just uprooted to a new town (so he can investigate the new story) and already getting bad vibes from neighbors, asks "We didn't move a few doors down from a crime scene again, did we?," he assures her they didn't. She asked the wrong question: Oswalt has bought the very house in which four members of a family were slain, with the fifth abducted. An ornery sheriff (Fred Thompson) stops by before the boxes are even unloaded to warn the author he's not a fan of his books, and doesn't cotton to a fame-hungry scribbler second-guessing his department's work.
Local lawmen are soon the least of Oswalt's worries. He finds a box of Super-8 films in the attic, each showing a family being murdered in a uniquely grisly way. Believing he's stumbled across his own "In Cold Blood," he stays up nights scrutinizing the films and looking for connections between killings whose locations and victims are still unknown.
Derrickson borrows the vibe of Joel Schumacher's "8MM" as Hawke, swigging whiskey and giving the crease between his eyebrows a workout, struggles with the horrible things he's seeing. But the film soon shifts into bump-in-the-night mode, with an unseen visitor leaving clues for Oswalt in his own house and taunting him with increasingly unsettling (and harder to explain) stunts.
Setting aside Oswalt's infuriating unwillingness to turn on the lights when homicidal intruders infiltrate his home at midnight, the movie has him doing some pretty unjustifiably dumb things — like walking with a butcher knife thrust in front of him when he has every reason to think his sleepwalking young son might suddenly leap out at him.
We allow him some of this, thanks to the picture's coy suggestions that Oswalt might be going a little nuts due to the nature of his investigation. But Derrickson and co-screenwriter C. Robert Cargill are eager to draw in more familiar supernatural elements — an occultologist (Vincent D'Onofrio) identifies a crime-scene marking as a pagan symbol "dating back to Babylonian times" — and the movie's proceduralist pleasure takes a backseat to ghosts and a mysterious figure known as "Mr. Boogie."
The scares are effective throughout, helped a good deal by Christopher Young's glitchy electronic score. While the end clearly points toward a possible franchise, though, many of the ingredients that make "Sinister" compelling wouldn't make sense a second time around. Some of them barely hold up for the first.
"Sinister," a Summit Entertainment release, is rated R for disturbing violent images and some terror. Running time: 109 minutes.


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Did you miss me? Don't deny it! I've seen all the emails wondering when I would write again, begging for my phone number, suggesting they give me a daily column or rename the site "Tales of the Tiger". But I'm a magnanimous fellow. I don't want my colleagues to suffer in my shadows…
Anyways, this time I thought I would talk about something that girls love even more than a man with a college education: A man with money. "But Tiger, I didn't even go to college; how am I supposed to get money??" I know, I know, relax! I've got you covered. Today we're going to learn how to convince a girl that you're loaded even if you're in debt to your grandmother.
So let's imagine you're working at a gas station. A hot chick pulls up and asks you to fill her tank up, what do you say? "Regular or premium?" NO! You tell her: Hi, my name is Chester B. Exxon Mobil IV, I came here today to speak with beautiful customers like you and make sure that you were satisfied with our service.
So a couple days later after asking her out (you did remember to get her number, right?), you swing by to pick her up in your "good as new" 1997 Dodge Neon. Don't worry! Explain to your lady friend that you swapped cars with your butler so that he could drive his daughter to her wedding in your Lamborghini Diablo.
Now here comes the tricky part, you are going to have to take her out to dinner. Breathe! Pick a fancy and exotic restaurant and let her order whatever she wants. When you're done eating, start frantically searching under the table. Tell her that you lost your lucky secret decoder ring. Beg her to look in your car while you pay the bill. Wait about two minutes before sprinting out of there yourself.
As you are getting close to her place, clutch your stomach and cry out in pain. Explain that it's your thyroid; it always acts up this time of night. With a tear in her eye, she'll grab your hand and let you inside to "nurse you back to health". It's going to be a good night, my friend!
– Mike "the Tiger" MacNamara


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Why You'll Love La La Land
Even the movie poster highlights La La Land's dancing.
After seeing La La Land last week, one particular moment keeps replaying in my mind. It's only about two seconds long. Sebastian, played by Ryan Gosling, has just enjoyed a flirtatious impromptu dance with Mia, played by Emma Stone. While walking to their cars after a pool party, their conversation turns into a tap routine set against the backdrop of L.A. at dusk. After telling Mia good-bye, Sebastian walks toward his car, and then it happens: He pauses for a quick moment and then slyly scrapes the pavement with the toe of his tap shoe. They may annoy each other, but Mia's growing on him—and that one move says it all.
It's moments like these that make dance in film matter.
While Stone and Gosling (hey, girl...) are irrefutably charming in La La Land, a huge part of what makes them irresistible is the third main character: the dancing. Mandy Moore's choreography is not a few dance breaks that seemingly come of out nowhere and leave the audience scratching their heads. Instead, they're essential to the film: propelling the narrative, amping up emotions, or setting the tone, as in the opening scene featuring 30 dancers who get out of their cars during a Los Angeles traffic jam. (Who wouldn't prefer a gleeful dance party over gridlock?)
It's hard to put a single label on Moore's choreography for movie. There's some tap, ballroom, contemporary. And the atmosphere it creates is part old-Hollywood movie musical, part 21st-century flash mob. Regardless, Moore's moves feel delightful, breezy and seemingly effortless. Stone, Gosling and a large ensemble of dancers make the choreography look natural but with a touch of whimsy that echoes the movie's theme of dreamers in L.A. You may even recognize a few familiar faces—like Dana Wilson, Galen Hooks, Melinda Sullivan, Kayla Kalbfleisch and Martha Nichols—in some of the larger numbers. Stone and Gosling, though, aren't trying to look like professional dancers but simply people who are dancing.
While there is no choreography category for the Academy Awards (we have a bone to pick with you, Oscar), if there was, Moore would have undoubtedly snagged a nomination come January. Still, La La Land scored seven Golden Globe noms—more than any other film this year. It's safe to say that the dancing played a part.
To get a peek at the making of that post-pool-party dance number, check out this "Anatomy of a Scene" video from The New York Times.
When Thomas Forster isn't in the gym doing his own workout, he's often coaching his colleagues.
Two years ago, the American Ballet Theatre soloist got a personal training certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. Now he trains fellow ABT members and teaches the ABT Studio Company a strength and conditioning class alongside fellow ABT soloist Roman Zhurbin.
He shared six of his top tips for getting into top shape.
No matter how much anti–Valentine's Day sentiment I'm feeling in a given year, there's something about dancer couples that still makes me swoon. Here's a collection of wonderful posts from this year, but be warned: Continued scrolling is likely to give you a severe case of the warm fuzzies.
When Rennie Harris first heard that Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater had tapped him to create a new hour-long work, and to become the company's first artist in residence, he laughed.
"I'm a street dance choreographer. I do street dance on street dancers," he says. "I've never set an hour-long piece on any other company outside my own, and definitely not on a modern dance company."
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When Chase Brock signed on to choreograph a new musical at a theater in New Jersey in 2015, he couldn't have predicted that four years later, he would be receiving fan art featuring his Chihuahua because of it. Nor could he have he imagined that the show—Be More Chill, based on the young adult novel by Ned Vizzini—would be heading to Broadway with one of the most enthusiastic teenage fan bases the Great White Way has ever seen.
As ballet's gender roles grow increasingly blurred, more men than ever are reaching new heights: the tips of their toes.
It's no longer just Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo and the few pointe-clad male character parts, like in Cinderella or Alexei Ratmansky's The Bright Stream. Some male dancers are starting to experiment with pointe shoes to strengthen their feet or expand their artistic possibilities. Michelle Dorrance even challenged the men in her cast at American Ballet Theatre to perform on pointe last season (although only Tyler Maloney ended up actually doing it onstage).
The one problem? Pointe shoes have traditionally only been designed for women. Until now.
Camille Sturdivant, a former member of the Blue Valley Northwest High School dance team is suing the school district, alleging that she was barred from performing in a dance because her skin was "too dark."
The suit states that during Sturdivant's senior year, the Dazzlers' choreographer, Kevin Murakami, would not allow her to perform in a contemporary dance because he said her skin would clash with the costumes, and that she would steal focus from the other dancers because of her skin color.
You wander through the grocery aisles, sizing up the newest trends on the shelves. Although you're eager to try a new energy bar, you question a strange ingredient and decide to leave it behind. Your afternoons are consumed with research as you sort through endless stories about "detox" miracles.
What started as an innocent attempt to eat healthier has turned into a time-consuming ritual with little room for error, and an underlying fear surrounding your food choices.
Aside from a solid warm-up, most dancers have something else they just have to do before performing. Whether it's putting on the right eyelashes before the left or giving a certain handshake before a second-act entrance, our backstage habits give us the comfort of familiar, consistent choices in an art form with so many variables.
Some call them superstitions, others call them rituals. Either way, these tiny moments become part of our work—and sometimes even end up being the most treasured part of performing.
Raise your hand if you've ever gotten sucked down an informational rabbit hole on the internet. (Come on, we know it's not just us.) Now, allow us to direct you to this new project from Google Arts & Culture. To celebrate Black History Month, they've put together a newly curated collection of images, videos and stories that spotlights black history and culture in America specifically through the lens of dance—and it's pretty much our new favorite way to pass the time online.
If you're anything like us, your Instagram feed is chock-full of gorgeous dance photos and videos. But you know what makes us fall in love with an artist even more? When they take a break from curating perfect posts and get real about their missteps. These performers' ability to move past mistakes, and even laugh them off, is one reason why they're so successful.
Every time you fall out of a pirouette, just remember: The stars—and literally every. single. dancer.—have been there, too. (Even Misty Copeland.)
Dancers today have an overwhelming array of options at their fingertips: New fitness tools, recovery trends, workouts and more that claim to improve performance, speed up recovery or enhance training.
But which of these actually meet the unique demands of dancers? In our new series, "We Tried It," we're going to find out, sampling new health and fitness trends to see if they're dancer-approved.
First up: Brrrn, the cold temperature fitness studio (the first and only of its kind, they claim) located in Manhattan.
Lately I've been having recurring dreams: I'm in an audition and I can't remember the combination. Or, I'm rehearsing for an upcoming show, onstage, and I don't know what comes next. Each time I wake up relieved that it was only a dream.
However, this is the reality of how I often felt throughout my dance career. Once I knew the steps, there was no undoing it. It was the process of getting there that haunts me to this day.
If you follow Sergei Polunin on Instagram, you've probably noticed that lately something has been...off.
Though Polunin has long had a reputation for behaving inappropriately, in the last month his posts have been somewhat unhinged. In one, Polunin, who is Ukrainian, shows off his new tattoo of Vladimir Putin:
Throughout your dancing life, you've heard the same corrections over and over. The reason for the repetition? Dancers tend to make the same errors, sometimes with catastrophic results. Dance Magazine spoke to eight teachers about what they perceive to be the worst habits—the ones that will destroy a dancer's technique—and what can be done to reverse the damage.
Rolling In
To get a 180-degree first position, dancers will sometimes let their arches roll forward. But turnout is not about forcing your feet open; it's about opening up in the hips. "Turning out is an activity, not a position," says Irene Dowd, who teaches anatomy at the Juilliard School. "If we stop sustaining that movement, our feet will passively roll in." Rolling in places stress on the tendons of the feet and leads to injury because the rest of the body compensates for the imbalance when your knees can't line up over your toes.
Dowd warns against using only the arch to combat rolling in. "Dancers will try to lift up their arches and pull up on the inside of the ankle," she says. This can result in the inflammation of the tendons in the ankle and lead to tendinitis, a painful overuse injury that's common in dancers. What she feels are "Victorian furniture feet—feet that aren't fully in contact with the ground" should be solid in three areas: the heel, the ball of the big toe, and the ball of the little toe. Imagine how your weight is being transferred from above, through the body and down the legs, rather than gripping the foot and lifting from the arch.
Misaligning the Spine
Distorting the back, either by crunching the lumbar vertebrae and splaying the rib cage open or by hunching the shoulders forward and tucking the pelvis under, affects every other part of the body. Since the proper placement of the torso is the foundation of any movement, a dancer with a misaligned spine will develop other deadly technique sins. Problems can ripple all the way down to the extremities and upward to the neck and head. The core will be loose, unable to provide essential support. A pelvis that either tips back or tucks under will limit the range of motion in the hips.
Christine Spizzo's students at the North Carolina School of the Arts constantly work on their placement. "The one directive I give in class more than any other," she says, "is tailbone down, navel muscles lifted." She emphasizes that the tailbone lengthens downward without tucking under, and the navel muscles lift upward, not inward. This opposition allows the external rotator muscles to be actively engaged at the top of the thigh. Spizzo uses the expression the Four Ts—"no tucking, tipping, tilting, or twisting of the pelvis"—as a reminder for students.
Clenching the Toes
Clenching, curling, knuckling—no matter what it's called, this condition hampers a dancer's ability to articulate the feet. Clenched toes also make the feet an unstable platform to stand on, creating problems for the rest of the body. The muscles and tendons of the foot, knee, and ankle must work together to perform a relevé or jump, says Edward Ellison, director of Ellison Ballet Professional Training Program in New York. Clenched toes will place unwanted stress on the joints of the legs, leading to imbalance and overuse injuries. On pointe, knuckling over can damage the bones and tendons of the feet.
Master ballet teacher Sara Neece of Ballet Arts in New York says that when the first joint of the toe presses down into the floor too hard, the second joint of the toe jams into the metatarsal. For Neece, the key to remedying clenched toes lies in "bringing sensation to those unused tendons" beneath the second joint, and teaching the toes how to work in a careful and deliberate manner. While seated, a dancer should prick the back of each clenched toe with a fingernail about 20 times. Sitting on a chair with the foot on the ground, she should drag it back toward the body, slowly raising it to demi-pointe with a forced arch. Teachers must pay attention to the response of the feet to this localized work, since overstressing the tendons can damage them. Another way to teach the toes to stretch out is to weave a strip of cloth over the second toe and alternate below and above successive toes, leaving it there during barrework and nondance activities.
Giving In to Extreme Hyperextension
Hyperextended legs, in which the straightened knee naturally curves behind the thigh and calf muscles, are prized in the world of extreme ballet bodies. Christine Spizzo sings the praise of a moderately hyperextended leg line, as the leg fits snugly in fifth position, and the arabesque looks gorgeous, with that slight curve offsetting the arch of the foot. However, dancers with extreme hyperextension must take special care. "The hyperextended dancer tends to have weak external rotator muscles," she says, so the legs are more prone to collapse in on themselves when landing from a jump, letting the body weight fall on the knees. This can result in damage to the joints that maintain the alignment of the leg, including twisted knees and sprained ankles. Even if the dancer understands how to avoid giving in to her hyperextension, she has to learn how to express herself fully while restraining her legs.
But Spizzo points to dancers such as international star Sylvie Guillem, who has used her extreme hyperextension to her advantage. The dancer must think of lengthening rather than straightening or locking the knee, even if it feels slightly bent. She must develop a heightened awareness of the turnout muscles from the top of the thigh down to the calf. "The muscles must be activated to not allow the dancer to give in to the hyperextension," says Spizzo. She uses the image of the barbershop pole to encourage dancers to apply that feeling of an infinite spiral to their legs. Somatic practices such as Pilates can help to strengthen those stabilizing turnout muscles. Spizzo insists that dancers stand with the heels together in first position and never be allowed to press back into that knee joint. To do this, "the quadriceps must remain soft. As soon as you grip, it pulls that kneecap back dangerously."
Using Unnecessary Tension
"Tension," says Daniel Lewis, dean of dance at the New World School of the Arts, "pulls you off balance. It tightens the muscles and causes injury." Stiff muscles are injury-prone muscles, which make free and confident movement impossible.
Unwanted stiffness can also limit your versatility as a dancer. "Modern dance is concerned with trying to go into space off-center and off-balance," says Mary Cochran, chair of the dance department at Barnard College. "If you spend too much time holding your body stiffly, it's hard to make the transition from working in-balance to working off-balance."
Rhythmic breathing helps dissipate tension. Think of the lungs as another limb and pace the breath with the dynamics of the music. Sustain a sense of motion in the body, even when you are still, advises Cochran. Doing so will help reverse the muscle memory of using tension as a form of stability.
Pinching Your Shoulder Blades
Although used as a strategy to open the chest in front, pinching your shoulder blades together immobilizes the back. The serratus anterior on the sides of your rib cage is so overstretched that it can't work. Edward Ellison says that pinched shoulder blades impede the freedom of the arms and the support of the upper spine. He feels that they "cause your weight to fall behind your axis, and strain the trapezius and rhomboid muscles of the back."
Irene Dowd suggests thinking about widening the tips of the shoulders to the side, to allow plenty of room for the chest. "It helps to think about the chest—full of your lungs, your heart, all those organs—as a sphere," says Dowd. "We need to have enough room for all those precious organs to breathe." To relax shoulder blades, sometimes she will tell students to focus on the movement of the hands. "Is the hand really a lively part of my being?" Dowd has her students ask. "The shoulder blade should support that hand."
Getting Stuck in a Rut
While physical habits impede progress, the deadliest sin is losing the drive to improve technique at all. Franco De Vita, principal of American Ballet Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, says good technique begins with a dancer's approach to class. Being present and focused enables the dancer to learn combinations quickly—and correctly. "Not listening and changing the exercise is unacceptable," says De Vita.
Michael Vernon, chair of the ballet department at Indiana University, feels the worst thing a dancer can do "is to get fixed into doing something a certain way, being safe. I love young dancers who understand that you have to dance for tomorrow, and not yesterday." Keeping an open mind means more than just trying a different preparation for a pirouette. "Being open to new styles of dance and new ways of moving the body is vital to keeping the art relevant."
I write this letter knowing full well and first-hand the financial challenges of running an arts organization. I also write this letter on behalf of dancers auditioning for your companies. Lastly, I write this letter as a member of society at large and as someone who cares deeply about the culture we are leading and the climate we create in the performing arts.
In the February 1969 issue of Dance Magazine, we talked to Bob Fosse about taking Sweet Charity from stage to screen. Though he already had a string of Tony Awards for Best Choreography and had spent plenty of time on film sets as a choreographer, this adaptation marked his first time sitting in the director's chair for a motion picture.
"When I started out, I wanted to be a Fred Astaire," he told us, "and after that a Jerome Robbins. But then I realized there was always somebody a dancer or choreographer had to take orders from. So I decided I wanted to become a director, namely a George Abbott. But as I got older I dropped the hero-worship thing. I didn't want to emulate anyone. Just wanted to do the things I was capable of doing—and have some fun doing them. By this time I'm glad I didn't turn out to be an Astaire, a Robbins or an Abbott." He would go on to become an Academy Award–winning director, indelibly changing musical theater in the process.
If you've ever wondered where models get their moves, look just off-camera for Pat Boguslawski. As a movement director and creative consultant based in London, he works with top brands, fashion designers, magazines and film directors to elicit bold, photogenic movement for ad campaigns, runway shows and film. Boguslawski has collaborated with plenty of big-name talent—FKA Twigs, Hailey Baldwin, Victoria Beckham, Kim Kardashian—and draws on his diverse experience in hip hop, contemporary dance, acting and modeling.
Dance Magazine recently asked him about how he got this career, and what it takes to thrive in it.
Let's say that today you're having a terrible time following your class's choreography and are feeling ashamed—you're always stumbling a few beats behind. Do you:
1. Admit it's your fault because you didn't study the steps last night? Tonight you'll nail them down.
2. Feel worthless and alone? You slump your shoulders, avoid eye contact with your teacher and fellow dancers, and wish to disappear.
Shame is a natural emotion that everyone occasionally feels. If you answered #1, it may be appropriate—you earned it by not studying—and positive if it motivates you to do better in the future.
My hypermobility used to cause me a lot of trouble, but I've gained confidence and strength after reading about it in one of your columns. I now have a Pilates instructor who's retraining my body and helping me dance in a consistent way. Thank you!
—No Longer Anxious, Philadelphia, PA
George Balanchine famously wrote, that ballet "is a woman." Four of his most celebrated women—Allegra Kent, Gloria Govrin, Kay Mazzo and Merrill Ashley—appeared onstage at Jacques d'Amboise's National Dance Institute Monday evening to celebrate his legacy. The sold-out program, called "Balanchine's Ballerinas," included performances of excerpts from ballets closely associated with these women and a discussion, moderated by former New York City Ballet principal Wendy Whelan. Here are some highlights of the conversation, filled with affection, warmth and fond memories.


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Hi all,
This may be a bit of general question as i do not have a whole lot of experience with servers. However, I have been wanting to set up a local environment to develop websites on for close to a year now, but after a while of searching and playing around with it I end up giving up and coming back to it later. I do feel I am more prepared to handle this as I have ever been before, but what is driving me absolutely nuts is sending mail from a form store on the localhost. For those not familiar with Xampp... it is a package that contains apache, mysql, mercury mail, php, and some other extensions. However these are the main components and the ones I am interested in mostly. Anyway, I have tried following several tutorials of how to configure mercury and Thunderbird(and even windows live mail), but I have had absolutely no luck. I have tried different approaches, and yet I have yet to actually receive any mail. If anyone has any suggestions on a helpful source for an absolute noob with servers it would be greatly appreciated if you could point me in the right direction, as all the sources I have found so far have been a big waste of time.
Thanks in advance


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The Third Pillar of Automated Data Collection: Imaging Software SolutionIntermec's Imaging Software Solution reduces errors and improves efficiency by automating the collection of character-based, human-readable data in a wide variety of formats, including: license plates, vehicle identification numbers (VINs), truck trailers, shipping and air cargo containers, and utility meters, as well as paper documents and labels.
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Real-World Results: Find Out How Customers Use Intermec Imaging SoftwareAspects of your supply chain operations may require you to track assets that you don't own or that must adhere to a pre-established identification scheme. The assets may even transition to operations that aren't automated, and rely on human-readable identifiers for tracking purposes. Read how these companies overcame similar challenges, boosting both their productivity and their accuracy with the Intermec Imaging Software Solution.
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- This certified imaging solution has vastly improved the speed and accuracy of capturing the CCC label content on the production line and eliminated the slow-downs associated with label reading.
- Barcode Decoding »
- Honeywell Scanning & Mobility licenses high-performance image processing software specializing in barcode decoding and recognition for integration into imaging products such as high-speed cameras, hand held area scanners, page scanners, postal sorting systems, and package handling systems.