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Cookeville, Tenn. - The Tennessee State men's basketball team won its third consecutive game on Thursday night with a 72-66 victory over OVC-rival Tennessee Tech.
The win pushed TSU's record to 8-7 and 2-0 in the OVC. It marks the first time this season that that Tigers went over .500.
Patrick Miller had a team-high 21 points for TSU with 16 coming in the second half. The junior guard made six of his 12 attempts and three of his five threes.
M.J. Rhett was second on the squad with a career-high 15 points while Jordan Cyphers was not far behind with 14. Deshawn Dockery also finished in double-figures with a career high of his own: ten points.
TSU shot 52.4 percent from the field (22-of-42) and held TTU to just a .368 line (21-of-57).
Rhett was TSU's leader in rebounds with 12 while Kellen Thornton finished with 10. Their efforts allowed the Tigers to edge TTU on the boards 38-32.
Both teams looked to be feeling each other out during the game's early going and neither side was able to score a point until Thornton hit a jumper at the 15:14 mark to put TSU up 2-0.
TSU clung to a narrow lead for the better part of the opening half thanks to seven straight points by Rhett, but eventually TTU tied the game at 22 when Jeremiah Samarripas hit a three at the 4:24 mark. The bucket was part of a 17-8 TTU run that put TSU behind by six.
Samarripas finished with a game-high 22 points by virtue of canning five three-point shots.
The two sides played it close for the remainder of the first half and the only separation proved to be a pair of free throws by TTU's Jud Dillard with 11 seconds left in the frame. The buckets made the score 31-29 in favor of the Golden Eagles.
Rhett had a solid all-around first half for TSU and the sophomore from Columbia, S.C. had a team-high nine points, eight boards and four blocks.
Strong defense was a key for TSU during the first half as the Tigers held the Golden Eagles to a 28 (7-of-25) percent shooting percentage during the opening frame. However, TTU was able to get 12 of its 31 first half points from the charity stripe.
Meanwhile, TSU shot 47.6 percent from the field (10-of-25) and 37.5 percent from three-point land (3-of-8).
The in-state rivals continued to duke it out in the second half until a 20-7 TSU run made the score 51-43 with the Tigers on top.
Miller led the charge with 12 of TSU's 20 points. He had a pair of threes during the 10 minute span and an emphatic breakaway dunk that silenced the Golden Eagle crowd.
With just three minutes left in the game, TSU was up by 11 points. However, the game was far from over as TTU resorted to fouling the Tigers every time down the court.
Tennessee State responded by nailing 11 free throws down the stretch to seal the victory, 72-66.
TSU will put its perfect 2-0 conference record on the line on Saturday when the team travels to Jacksonville State for a game against the Gamecocks. Tip-off is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. and the game can be seen on the OVC Digital Network.
--TSU Tigers--


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WIDEFIELD, Colo.—Authorities say a soldier from Tennessee has been shot and killed at his home in Colorado, and a juvenile member of his family is a suspect.
Army Sgt. James Fleming died Saturday in Widefield, a town near Fort Carson, where he was stationed.
The juvenile's name hasn't been released. El Paso County sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer declined Wednesday to describe the juvenile's relationship to Fleming. Kramer says the juvenile isn't in custody but the public isn't at risk.
The 36-year-old Fleming was a mechanic from Cordova, Tenn. The 11-year veteran had deployed to Iraq three times and Kuwait once.
He's the second Fort Carson soldier fatally shot at home in two months. Staff Sgt. David Dunlap and his wife, Whitney Butler, were killed when they surprised a burglar Jan. 14.

subset: commoncrawl


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Various musings on social and political changes in America.
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This is a classic anti-war novel that was banned in the US during WWII. Read the reviews, there's over 300 of them.
Interview of the author.


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Randy Yorks N-Sider
To "Respond to Randy" click on the above link and choose "Randy York's N-Sider" under "Area of Interest" on the new screen. Please include your name and hometown Your responses may be published on "Randy York's N-Sider" page on Huskers.com. Please check back for updated comments.
Pepin Bringing Out the Nation's Best . . . Again
Sixth-ranked Nebraska will host some of the nation's best track and field athletes Friday and Saturday in the 33rd annual Frank Sevigne Invitational. Nearly 900 athletes from 22 colleges and universities, including 38 All-Americans and 35 NCAA national indoor event qualifiers, will converge at the Devaney Center.
The field includes two-time defending NCAA men's outdoor champion Florida State, which is leaving the warmth of the South for the speed of Nebraska's cushy, hydraulic indoor surface.
Why would the Seminoles make the trip North in the dead of winter?
"Because of Gary Pepin and his long-time commitment to excellence," said T.J. Pierce, director of operations for the Nebraska men's and women's track program. "The Sevigne Invitational isn't quite the Millrose Games (a professional indoor meet this weekend at New York's Madison Square Garden), but it's one of the crown jewels of the collegiate indoor season leading up to conference and NCAA meets."
Pepin's influence among his fellow coaches and athletes from coast-to-coast always has helped lure the nation's best to Lincoln.
Epley Bullock and Dan Christensen, who flank NU Track Coach Gary Pepin, took different paths to All-America status.
In his 28th year at the helm, Pepin is the most decorated track coach in the history of the Big Eight and Big 12 Conferences. His women's teams have won three indoor national championships. He's been honored as both a Big 12 and a National Indoor Coach of the Year. He's guided Nebraska track to 22 of its 28 top five NCAA team finishes. And he's within months of equaling Sevigne as the longest tenured head coach in the history of the program.
Among the hundreds of athletes who will compete this weekend are Nebraska sophomore sprinter Dan Christensen and NU sophomore high jumper Epley Bullock. Both have taken decidedly different paths to All-America status.
Bullock was a highly recruited high jumper at Allen, Texas, and Christensen is a walk-on sprinter from Millard West.
Both said the gravitational pull to Lincoln can be summed up in two words . . . Gary Pepin. He has a way of bringing out the best in everyone, scholarship and non-scholarship athletes alike.
|2008 NCAA Qualifiers
This weekend's Frank Sevigne Invitational features a number of athletes who have already qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in March
"I really didn't have a great state track meet my senior year in high school, but Coach Pepin saw something in me," offered Christensen, who earned All-America status as a freshman member of the Huskers' 4X400 relay team.
"Iowa State offered me a full academic scholarship, but only a couple of smaller schools were interested in me for track. Coach Pepin told me if I worked hard and gave great effort, I could walk on. That's all I needed. I knew about Nebraska's tradition in track, and I wanted to be part of it. For me, it's worth it to pay my own way to get the best in coaching and competition."
Christensen is like so many other Nebraskans who walk on, work hard, get a chance, take advantage of it and then keep going.
"We liken Dan to the track version of the Makovicka family in football," Pierce says. "All he wanted was an opportunity. When he got it, he went right to work. Our program has produced Olympic champion sprinters like Charlie Green and Merlene Ottey. But we're just as proud of the men and women who walk on and overachieve. They're all about the team."
Bullock, who also earned All-America status last year as a freshman, came to Nebraska with great expectations. She was recruited by UCLA and Oregon, among others. "Nebraska is the only place I even considered," she said, admitting that the Huskers always held the inside track because her parents graduated from Lincoln high schools – dad Ivan from Northeast and mom Diane from Southeast.
"My dad is a vice president of operations for State Farm Insurance, so I've lived in Illinois, California, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois and Texas, but we've always considered Nebraska home," she said. "Both of my parents graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan, but we've been Cornhusker fans wherever we lived. I was raised on Nebraska football and every other Nebraska sport."
Bullock's great grandmother's maiden name was Epley. "When I was little, I didn't care much for it, but it's grown on me," she said. "Boyd Epley (former Nebraska strength and conditioning coach) is a distant cousin of mine, so I've always had a connection to Nebraska athletics."
For Bullock, though, the real connection is Pepin. "Coach Pepin is so awesome," she said. "I talked to a lot of coaches and was thinking about making several visits. But when he came to Texas and offered me a full ride, my recruiting was over. He made the difference. Even if he hadn't offered me a scholarship, I probably still would have tried to come here.
"There's just something about Coach Pepin. You can talk to him as a person, not just as a coach. It's his personality. He's a jokester, and he pushes you hard, but I love him. And I love Nebraska. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."


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where do i go on the forum to say we are looking to do festivals in 09
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text: Eric Jourdan's Dino is an original storage system based upon the asymmetry of colors and forms. In each piece, one sees the unique walnut-veneered shell, which wraps around the rear and right-hand side, along with other elements that can be either monochromatic, or in a combination of mastic, argile, elephant, white (or lavender-blue lacquer for some models), one color for the left-hand section and another for the right. Range of storage with gloss aluminum-finished feet.


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SOURCE: http://blog.livedoor.jp/gunbird/archives/9993596.html
SOURCE: http://blog.livedoor.jp/gunbird/archives/9996324.html
SOURCE: http://blog.livedoor.jp/gunbird/archives/9996603.html
SOURCE: http://blog.livedoor.jp/gunbird/archives/9996607.html
SOURCE: http://blog.livedoor.jp/gunbird/archives/9996588.html
SOURCE: http://blog.livedoor.jp/gunbird/archives/9996575.html
The New York-based 'reality' artist Signe Pierce examines the ambiguous intersection between art and technology in the 21st century. Her use of exaggerated light and colour is applied to scenes of the every day as she creates a heightened realism that negotiates between the realm of art and life. Her distinct aesthetic, which is often oversaturated, excessive, aggressive and perverse...
SOURCE: https://designyoutrust.com/2019/02/artist-signe-pierce-explores-the-chaotic-beauty-of-reality-and-its-natural-tefractions/
Damselfrau is the myserious London-based artist creating masks that look like nothing you've ever seen before. Originally from Norway, the artist also known as Magnhild Kennedy is interested in the power and rituals behind disguise – and how they can be used to play with our identity and sense of place. "I work with masks as autonomous works of art as well as action-objects. For me the mask is a...
SOURCE: https://designyoutrust.com/2019/02/norwegian-artist-damselfrau-creates-otherworldly-masks-from-recycled-materials/
Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby has created 'Specter'. Inspired by strange and unidentified objects that often appear in the desert, this acid orange monolith attracts drivers with its orb-like glow. 'Specter' is made with powder-coated aluminium and silhouettes of the mountains and the sky reflect in its shiny surface, appearing silver on one side when the sun hits it. The cuboid is bedded...
SOURCE: https://designyoutrust.com/2019/02/artist-embeds-giant-neon-orange-monolith-into-coachella-valleys-desert-landscape/


text: I get the Connecting Threads catalogue and also their emails. They carry beautiful fabrics. I'm confused as to why their prices are so much lower than all other designer fabric. Is the cotton inferior? I have ordered and it seems to be good quality. Does anyone have insight on this? I'm also wondering if you have used their thread for machine quilting? Does it compare to well known brands? Thanks.


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A fascinating and inspiring documentary about Mark Hogancamp, who after suffering a.savage beating outside a bar, began building Marwencol, a make-believe Belgian town, circa WW II.
We don't waste our time on anything not worth your time. We celebrate the best of what's coming on film and TV. We cheer when our expectations are met and criticize when we're let down.


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Definition of afeard
p. a. - Afraid. 2
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Words formed by adding one letter before or after afeard (in bold), or to aadefr in any order:
e - afeared
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The government of Italy requested the COP/MOP at its first session (FCCC/KP/CMP/2005/8, paragraphs 112–118), to reconsider the numerical value for forest management under Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol inscribed for Italy in the appendix to the annex to 16/CMP.1, in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 12 of the annex to that decision. The COP/MOP requested the SBSTA to consider this request from Italy (FCCC/KP/CMP/2005/MISC.2) and to forward a draft decision for adoption by COP/MOP2.
In response, the SBSTA, at its twenty-fourth session (FCCC/SBSTA/2006/5, paragraphs 104–106), took into account the country-specific data on forest management activity under Article 3.4 submitted by Italy (FCCC/SBSTA/2006/MISC.1) in considering this request. In its provision of country-specific data taken from its 2005 National Inventory Report (for which there has been a technical review in accordance with the UNFCCC inventory review guidelines), Italy requested for a new numerical value of 2.78 Mt C/year. The SBSTA decided to recommend a draft decision (FCCC/SBSTA/2006/5/Add.1) on this matter and it was adopted by the COP/MOP at its second session in November 2006 (Decision 8/CMP.2).


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[response to: Bottom of the Glass]
Deconstruction of Bottom of the Glass
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is interpretation about something else.
bus stops. snow. waiting for the weekend. clinic for vascular diseases malmö-lund. it costs he says. that it's common. returns. the rain comes back. few-flowered sedge. police cars. ambulances. come up and circle on the small turning place. changing the missing or broken parts. different kinds of foam. in the corners of the mouth. bubble and grow. says she wants to borrow money. substituted and replacing the endorphins. dedication a hundred times stronger. knowledge for the dead. a white bleeding. almost no one but seniors by the swimming pool. i dive and swim below the lines through the sky breathing is easy.
fluttering in a yellow bush by the subway station. it's a thick gravel road. lots of rocks. nib the ink runs through. silk belt. or a sharp tongue. barriers can lie before fertilization. brake pads. and amalgam. what stops. and surges. the measures taken is criticized by the world health organization. he denies strongly that he himself should have been intoxicated. bonds are broken and stretched. never never never again. your heads hands. rivers over the maps veins beaches waves brakes against the embankment of memory. and i think yellow blue a wheat field on a picture of scania. this responsibility is irrevocable. the enamel in your round ear chew now. and swallow. a rosary prayer and prayer and prayer in the throat.
-from Anna Hallberg's Mil
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|18 May 1853, George and Eleanor Taylor to Rt. Rev. John Hughes
As it turns out, it wasn't until 1853 that the Diocese of Brooklyn was founded (from territory that had theretofore been part of the Archdiocese of New York). I can't find an actual date in 1853 when the Diocese of Brooklyn was created, but it seems to have somewhat predated the consecration of the Right Reverend John Loughlin on 30 October of that year.
|16 Nov 1853, John Hughes to Right Rev. John Loughlin Bishop of Brooklyn
|18 Nov 1865 R't Rev John Loughlin Bishop of Brooklyn to Roman Catholic Church of the Visitation, Bklyn
|15 May 1867, Martin and Margaret Shea to Roman Catholic Church of the Visitation of Brooklyn
|1 May 1868, Timothy O'Farrell to "The Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary"
|2 Dec 1893, Kate A Woods to Visitation Lyceum
If anyone has any more information about the history of the parish, I'd love to hear from you!


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I Do. I Do. I Do. I Do. I Do. I Do. I Do. I Do. I Do.
Confessions of a serial husband
Love is like oxygen.
Mr. John Susor—husband to nine wives and lover of all ladies—was sitting beneath a bevy of brassieres strung like prayer flags from the ceiling of his dark Florida bar. It was cold, even for February, and he poked the fire in front of him, sending a shiver of glowing embers aloft. He fingered the gold-lump talisman that hung around his neck on a gold chain—all the wedding rings from all the marriages that he'd had melted down into the shape of, well...a lump. We sat on a wood bench against pillows, each silk-screened with the shadowed outline of two figures in a different sexual position. Sitting in his bar—called Mahuffer's—was like sitting in the den of someone's overactive id. About to turn 88 years of age, John Susor (pronounced Seuss-er) felt compelled to make an important distinction for me. "I'm a titty man," he said, narrowing his eyes behind gold spectacles, "but I never married for titties."
I pondered this gravely.
"#9 had these little saggers, but I married her because I respected her and her intelligence. But she was the worst deal I ever had."
Didn't physical attraction have at least something to do with it?
"Of course!" he roared. "#3 was a beauty. A body like Ava Gardner. But that's the problem with your generation. It's all show. It's this deal of showing your midriff and tattoos. It's 'motherfucker' this and 'motherfucker' that. No wonder women are loving women. Look at the loser guys they have to date."
What went unsaid was that John Susor was a real man. He'd loved and he'd lost...and loved and lost...and loved and lost...and so on and so on, with the passion of a male marsupial mouse, a creature which has been known to die from copulation. He claimed to have had more than a hundred sexual partners—Casanova numbers—but it was only those lucky nine with whom he'd been willing to walk the aisle. "The wives all wanted the same thing—respect, safety, love—but they all had a different way of getting to the bottom line," he said. "That's what kept me interested."
But it was something more, too. "Love was the way they made you feel," he said. "All the little goofy things. Love was when they were on your mind all the time. Love was a bowl of cherries." Susor possessed what few others did: eternal hope, a delusional optimism, a bedrock belief that this conjoining of two people, right here, was repeatedly forever. He wasn't a poet about love. He couldn't really go deep discussing it, except by calling up specific wives: #4 was "a dingy" who just made him giggle nonstop. #1 had been the only woman he'd truly loved. ("I'd come home every night with a boner up to my neck.") #2 had been "a mistake" but was "probably the most honest of them all." #8 was "a business deal, with no more love between us than between you and me." #7 had come from Toronto, #9 from Germany. #5 he'd met when his plane—yes, he could fly—was grounded in Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1962, and he took a room at the hotel there, and lo and behold came this vision, this waitress, offering a menu. #6 he married at her house, with his new father-in-law, an appellate judge, presiding. ("He got so goddamn drunk that the mayor had to hold him up while he did our vows.") Three marriages were in a church; six weren't. One was at "a shingle" somewhere in North Carolina, another at a penthouse overlooking the beach, the last on a friend's boat. At one, he had a black justice of the peace and a Jewish witness, neither of whom he knew. He met his wives on street corners and at the Elks Club—here, there, and everywhere.
When I asked for their names, he began counting on his fingers. "#2 was Virginia," he said. "No, Marie. #1 was Jean. #3 was Ginger...Virginia, actually. #4 was Sybil...or was she #5? Jesus, now you got me all confused."
He stared into the fire. Mr. John Susor had a steel-trap mind, but it was a lot for any one man to remember. "Okay," he said. "#5 was Renee. #6 was Kate. I can remember #7 because we called her 'Old Number Seven' after the mule on Grizzly Adams. That was Mildred. I'm sure about that one. But #8 and #9—those I'm still trying to forget."
The art of seduction.
There were so many lessons to glean from a man who'd been around nine times, especially if you yourself had only done the singlet or doublet. Mr. John Susor was a man who'd lived big, and living big meant taking risks, putting all your chips on red, believing that each woman might be the last woman, that maybe, truly and for real, your restless heart had found its place. Home.
In his life, he had worked as a bookie. He'd had a vending-machine business that serviced roughly fifty whorehouses. He'd done a military tour in the South Pacific during World War II. He'd conducted a geological survey of the state of Washington from a Piper Cub. He'd shot a man and had had his nose broken seventeen times. He'd run a big hotel where the astronauts came for parties. When Harry Truman came into his club while campaigning for president, he said, "You don't look at all like the son of a bitch they say you are." When he met Jimmy Hoffa, he looked him up and down through the peephole of the private club where he worked, and said, "For a man who's wearing about $1,000 in clothes, why are you wearing thirty-nine-cent socks?"
He was direct, had a fearless energy and a million stories. And his secret with the broads? "They like the way I talk to them," he said. "Your generation of men think you have to bullshit to get a piece of ass. I never bullshit. You say, 'I've never seen anything so beautiful.' I say, 'Let's go and take your clothes off and go to bed.' Why do you want to bullshit?
"For instance, the other day, this lady comes into the bar, and I say, 'Man, I bet those were a great pair of titties.' And she sits back and says, 'Well, what do you mean?' And I say, 'I'm an 88-year-old man, so don't tell me I haven't seen fifty-year-old titties before. They've got about two inches of sag now.' Before she left, do you know what she said? She said, 'You're the first real man I've ever spoken to.'
"What else is there to say?"
Feels like the first time.
Being a ladies' man extraordinaire had its complications: Over time the ladies blurred, as did the various sweet and sour memories attached to each. To help sort things out, Mr. John Susor put them into categories: "wicked," "smiley," and "Good Samaritans," though when I asked him to place each of his wives, none qualified as a Good Samaritan. Some were "smiley-wicked," some just one or the other, and some, the special few, were "evil-wicked" or "wicked-mean" or simply "a son of a bitch."
And then there was Jean, the only one who would ever represent purity.
"I was 21 before I even thought about sex," he said at dinner one night at a local seafood joint, stabbing his baked squid, happy to have my rapt attention as he ran the course of his life. "I had too many things I wanted to do. I wanted to learn how to fly and fish. I made race cars. When I was 17, I hitchhiked to Florida"—during which he spent two nights in jail (not having committed any crime) and another night at Ty Cobb's house ("He couldn't have been nicer"). "I had wet dreams and never knew what they were, but then I got a book out and learned."
What accelerated the stirrings of Mr. John Susor was a chance encounter in his hometown of Oregon, Ohio. "It was pouring rain, and I came around the corner of Starr Avenue onto East Broadway," he said, describing a scene from 1940, still a year before Pearl Harbor. "There was a bus stop, and she was standing there—had just come from church, and she was going home. I said, My God, I can't let her stand there getting wet. At first I didn't recognize her, it was raining so hard.
"She got in the car and said, 'Don't I know you?' And I said, 'Yes. I know you from school. Your name is Jean.' And she said, 'Yeah, your name is John.' It was about nine o'clock in the morning, and I took her home. We parked outside her house and talked until five o'clock. Finally, her stepfather came out—and he was very nice, and he'd always treated me like I was his kid, because I lost my own dad at an early age.
"Well, I was supposed to pick up my uncle that morning, and here it was five! And when I got home, my mother said, 'Where in the goddamn hell have you been?' And I said, 'Well, I picked up a girl.' And she said, 'Jesus Christ, he's in love.' She was an expert at that."
Within a year, they were married. She was 18; he was 21. It lasted four months.
"I blame the goddamn mother-in-law," he said. "I'd come home from work, run up the stairs, open the door, and there she'd be. She wanted someone for her daughter who wore a necktie. She thought I was too strong, that my language was too strong. I owned five bootlegs with jukebos in them, and I had a dream that we'd have six kids and Jean would stay home with them, but every night my mother-in-law was at the apartment. Finally, I told her, 'You know what? You're going to win.' And she said, 'What do you mean?' And I said, 'You know exactly what I mean.' After that, she told my wife I tried to make her, but I'd never make an old broad. Jean said, 'I have to believe my mother.' And that was it. We sold the furniture, and she moved back home. That was my first love and only love. It still hurts today."
The coda: She remarried a good-looking man—a "Jewish pimp," as Susor put it, not that she ever worked as a call girl nor he as a pimp. Still, when the second husband had gone out of town, she called John, and he took her to breakfast, and she sat and cried the whole time. She could barely speak.
And that was the last he ever saw of her.
Jesus Christ—fatherhood!
2, Marie, was clear as a whistle. She didn't want no "goddamn kids."
"She'd liked the oral sex, so she wouldn't have a kid," said Mr. John Susor, still working his dinner. He had a gray beard, and there were those who had written of him as a Hemingway look-alike, which was true in certain rare moments. To my mind, he was much more the hoary John Huston, cutting to the quick, consequences be damned. If you had a few minutes, he was willing to take you to some pretty dark places—but they weren't without their bright epiphanies.
Marriage with Marie, as he remembered it, had had all the comforts and longing of distance, but because of his military service in the South Pacific, they spent little actual time together. It lasted six years, a record: 1942–1948.
"She was cute as a bug's ear," he said, "and a hell of a dancer. And of course, back in them days, if she had two heads and buck teeth but could dance, that was it!"
On his leave, they spent two days in an Indianapolis hotel room, never came out, and that's how Marie got pregnant. Eighteen months after giving birth, she was through. "I come into the kitchen one morning," he remembered, "and there was a note on the sugar bowl: 'I left. I'm gone. Don't try to follow me.' Well, Jesus, I wasn't going to follow her, but that was a big wake-up call. It sparked something I guess I didn't know I had. My mother and sister came from Michigan to take my daughter with them. Just assumed I was in over my head. I ordered them right out of the house.
"I said, 'Ma, how could you do this to me? You raised me and said you were proud of me, and I never got into trouble, and now you think I can't raise a daughter? That doesn't say much for you.' "
He got rid of the vending-machine business and bootlegging joints. He hired babysitters, took a job running a private club, and went to beauty school in order to understand what he needed to do—how to clean his girl and comb her hair. He walked her to school, and most of all, he tried to be there for her. "To make a good girl, you have to give her a lot of room," he said. "And listen to her. If she wanted to know something in the middle of the night, like what her dream meant, and came and woke me, I wouldn't tell her to go back to bed. I'd sit on the couch and explain it to her.
"I had nothing but time for her."
He was there for all his daughter's early firsts, too. Her first period, her first bra. As awkward as it was for a 1950s dad to have to initiate his daughter, he always tried to keep it light, always went for the laugh, even as he studied the books to learn exactly what was happening to his little girl.
When her breasts started to grow, he visited a woman psychologist. " 'I got a problem,' I told her. 'Well, what is it?' she said. I told her, 'My kid's getting breasts,' and she said, 'Well, what the hell's the matter with that? You don't want her to get balls!' That broke the ice."
Feeling emboldened, he took his daughter to Gillespie's in Toledo, world-renowned for undergarments. When he arrived with her, he was asked to wait while his daughter was fitted by one of the clerks. Mr. John Susor said, " 'No, I've got to be there.' She thought I was crazy and said, 'No, it's forbidden for a man to be behind the partition,' and I came right out and told her, 'Look, I'm raising this little girl alone, and I've got to be there—for her.' "
Mr. John Susor was talking loudly, describing these events, and on occasion diners would turn from their meals and steal a glance at the man talking about his daughter's first bra fitting. He remembered running that private club, and judges and FBI men coming in for lunch—steak sandwiches and a glass of beer—and razzing him about being a single father: "How do you do it? Living the life you've led, how the fuck do you do it?" they asked.
His reply was always the same: "Because I have to." But what he didn't say then—maybe what he didn't yet know himself—he shared now, decades later, as we sat finishing dinner. "Those were the best times," he said. "My daughter and I. More so than any of the wives, it was always the two of us together. Those are my happiest memories."
Love stinks.
As gruff and uncensored as Mr. John Susor could be—and as ably as he played the role of court-jester provocateur—he still had a heart underneath. He called himself a social democrat. ("Give the people what they need," he said.) He raised money at his bar for various local causes. If you asked him for help—if you really needed help—he'd give it. He was a bit of a folk hero where he lived in Indian Shores, just on the beach outside of St. Petersburg. For standing up to the cops, the mayor, whomever. For speaking his mind. People came in for autographs—and to see his world-famous bar full of crazy knickknacks: the snowmobile and the sawed-off bow of a boat, the casket, the ashes of his good friend hanging in a pill bottle from a rafter, the walls festooned with dirty jokes and various figures engaged in the full rotation of sexual positions.
And yet, despite his willingness to push, prod, and shock, he'd never had much of a stomach for breakups. He always had a soft spot for his ladies, harbored hope that even as the marriage was crumbling, it might last out its rough moment.
Typically, it was the wives who ended it. Pulled stakes and left.
Take #7, Millie, for instance. She proposed to him by telephone from Canada, then sent the plane ticket for him to come and pick her up and bring her down for the winter. "We got married in an office building in Toronto by a justice of the peace, then jumped on the 401 for Windsor," said Mr. John Susor. "I was driving, and she was all full of love and all that crap. She said, 'I have a plan,' and I thought, Uh-oh."
He had kicked off his shoes while driving and instinctively tried to find them again. Somewhere deep in his brain, the impulse to flee was working its way to consciousness.
"She had money and some property in Florida, and she started talking about building a house with three bedrooms, and I said, 'Heck, make it four. And we'll need a rec room.' She said she'd buy me a boat and a new car and we could really start living. The kicker was that she wanted me to sell my bar, settle my debts, and give the rest to my daughter."
Mr. John Susor scowled at the thought. The bar was so completely a reflection of him, with its thousands of intimate Polaroids on the wall, the story of a life and the women who came and went from it. "I pulled over right there and said, 'Whoa, I think we're off on the wrong foot. My bar is what makes me feel alive. It's who I am.' And she said, 'I think I understand.' "
But according to Susor, once they'd settled in Florida, she had another plan. She wanted to work behind the bar, her husband's domain, and he could do odd jobs. "Come to find out she was crazy jealous. She said, 'You want to meet all the girls,' and I said, 'That's not why I married you, but I can see it now: It's not going to work.' "
Despondent, she returned to Toronto, then came back to try one last time. "She said, 'I made a terrible mistake,' and I said, 'I know you did.' What the hell, this was a new one on me. She lasted five days, then left again. I said, 'I don't understand: This bar is my pride and joy.' "
6, Kay, whom he married after his daughter had left home, was worse. "She tried to see how many times she could get me to have a hard-on, and then she'd just leave me with it, walk away, go to the toilet. She was the most wicked. She was a no-good son of a bitch. Did she fool me? Absolutely, positively, completely. If I screwed Kay as many times as she tried to catch me having a hard-on, she would have died.
"But I gotta give it to her for the way it ended. I came home one night at five fifteen, fifteen minutes late, and there were three place settings. She had two kids, and I thought one of them must be out, so I said, 'Who ain't eating?' and she said, 'You, you son of a bitch! Your bags are packed.' And sure enough: They were.
"That was great. I didn't see that coming. But I was glad to be done with her."
He could have spent the day telling breakup stories. #3, Ginny, and #4, Sybil, the dingy, had left honorably, because like him they'd put their kids first. #9, Jutta, had been one of the worst. According to Mr. John Susor, she poured whiskey on the computer, ruined the Web site for the bar, showered soda all over the color copier. "My biggest problem with them," he said, "was the goddamn bickering.
"Before you get married, maybe you liked to go to a certain restaurant. Or go to the beach to watch a sunset. And then suddenly, after getting married, they didn't want to do those things anymore. They'd start quack-quack-quacking: 'Why can't we go here? Why can't we go there?'
"I never understood that," he said.
Sure enough, the quack-quack-quacking—alternatively referred to as the "bite-bite-biting" or the "bing-bing-binging"—was always the death knell, he said. Once it started, no matter how good the "fiddle-faddle" between husband and wife, he knew the marriage was over.
Regrets, I have a few.
For having lived nine decades—and for having lived them so loudly—Mr. John Susor had a pretty clean conscience. From his perch behind the bar, he claimed he'd seen the best and worst of human nature. Had watched peoples' lives be destroyed by drugs and greed. Seen heartbreak and the passing of most of his friends to the other side. But when pressed, he could come up with only three regrets:
"Maybe I made a mistake by thinking sex wasn't everything, instead of saying that's the best piece I ever had—and staying with it.""I think they should bring back whorehouses. They were everywhere before the war, in almost every town. And it wasn't always about sex—at some you could get a blow job, a quart of cold beer, and a side of ribs for less than $2. Everything you could want. And it did provide a service for those with overactive drives. In those days, you never heard of rapes, and if you did, you found the guy and beat him up and tied a rope around his dick.""I've been thinking about my first wife a lot recently. I wonder if she's alive. Sometimes I think, What if we'd stayed together? What if I overreacted to her mother? It was almost sixty years ago, but she was what I wanted—and she was the best I ever had. The sex was good, but we were young. We would have tried more things over the years, but it wouldn't have mattered how it turned out, because we were in love. And I guess that's what love really is."
How Mahuffer got his mojo back.
The name Mahuffer had come from Mr. John Susor's youth, when he and a close friend had taken their first jobs with a bookie. The bookie had a beautiful car—a seven-passenger Caddy—that he let them use to run errands. And when they passed anyone in town, they heard the same shouted question: "Hey, whose car is that?"
"Mahuffer's," they would shout back. It was a purely fictional word they'd made up.
"Yeah—Mahuffer's!" Then they'd accelerate, laughing until they pissed their pants.
Over time, Mr. John Susor and Mahuffer became one and the same, a character in his own life, the adventuring spirit, the quintessential self-invented American hero.
The marriages were about self-invention, too. In any relationship, there was the "fiddle-faddle"—sex—but there was also something else. "I liked what they taught me," said the legend of his wives. "But even as I made a vow to each of them, I made a vow to myself, about just how much of them I could live with. Maybe someone else would have been shattered with each divorce, but I drew strength from them."
So was that why he married again and again—said "I do" and then, three months later, had his lawyer on the phone—because it made him stronger?
"Oh yeah!" he boomed. "There were times when I got shot out of the saddle, when I couldn't do anything right. But I knew what I didn't want. And once I was rid of them, I felt free. And that's how I found what I did want."
Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more...
Even after nine wives and eighty-eight years, even with arthritic joints that sometimes made it hard to cross a room, love was a mysterious primal force that Mr. John Susor was still trying to understand. "I realized at some point," he said, "that I could do exactly what the women did. If they wanted sex, they could have it any night of the week, with any man. Just show up at the bar and men are usually willing. Now I've got women down the road, I can call them up today and go there and set in a chair, and she'll get down on her hands and knees and blow me."
I should have seen it coming, but really? Was this another act of delusional optimism, machismo unfettered, the id in action? He assured me it was true, but it spoke to a larger point he was trying to make about the cosmic power of love. This was as close as he could come to it:
"Look, that's just a sex act. There's no love, nothing there. If the love is there, you start thinking about them. They're on your mind all the time. Of course, you think about sex with them, but it's a little different. Like #5, the little freckle-faced one from Chillicothe; she was weird, boy. When it came to lovin', she'd go crazy. She'd howl and groan and moan. She'd bite on both sides of your thighs...bite! Black and blue. You know why she did that? So I wouldn't mess with no other girl. That was her trademark. That was love, her way. To show she was mine and I was hers. That we were thinking about each other all the time.
"Still, I never did understand that. Hurt like hell. Do you follow me?"
Second endings.
Sadly, it still always came down to good-bye. And as sure as there would be an ending, there was often a second one. The crying breakfast with #1, Jean. Several skirmishes with #9, Jutta. A blow job from #2 after signing the divorce papers. Some disappeared, but others were like #7, Mildred.
About five years after splitting, after the usual involvement of lawyers and acrimonious divorce proceedings, Mr. John Susor had a call at his bar.
"Do you know who this is?" came a small voice.
"No, I do not," he said. Sounded like a very old broad.
"It's Millie," she said.
"Jesus, Millie, how are you?"
"Thinking about old times," said Millie, "and was wondering if I could come and spend a few days with you."
"Why, sure," said Mr. John Susor, genuinely glad, but then never heard word again. She probably had doubts, he thought at the time. So be it.
Three years later, a friend of Millie's came to the bar and told the story. They found the door to Millie's big lake house open—and the car trunk unlatched. Inside the trunk was a suitcase—and Millie. She'd died loading the car. When they found her body, it had decomposed.
Except for maybe one or two of his wives, he believed they were all dead now.
He was seated by the fire again, reclining against a pornographic pillow, fingering the gold lump around his neck. "Suddenly, you're the only one left," he said. "There's no one to talk to, no one who remembers how it was. You know in your head all the stories. They become part of you. But then what happens?"
He said that over the recent nights, he'd kept thinking and dreaming about Jean. Just couldn't get her out of his head. Haunted by her.
She'd been #1, and she'd always listened to him, to his hopes and dreams. He'd taken her to the big parties of his extended family—his father's side—the ones where they square-danced and sang and laughed until all hours with all of his aunts and uncles and cousins. They were a family that seemed so happy, and Jean would leave with a stomachache from so much laughing.
Mr. John Susor got up and shuffled beneath the brassieres, retrieved a log, and added it to the fire. He wasn't down yet. And so long as he wasn't, he couldn't stop thinking of Jean. When he did, he was no longer Mahuffer, folk-legend bar owner. He was just John again, full of those same old hopes and dreams. "I'd like to find her," he said.
"And what if you did?" said I. What would you say after six decades, after all the other lives you both have led?
"I'd have only one question for her," he said. "Are you married?"


text:
Tragic Epidemic
In Senegal, unsafe abortions remain rampant
By Amy Karafin
year-old woman working
as a maid in Dakar, told
her boyfriendshe was pregnant,he
allegedly threatened to beat her and
forced her to take pills and a drink
concocted from green powder. Hours
later, in severe pain, she delivered a
fetus—she doesn't know if it was
alive—which he took away, saying he
would bury it. When she fell unconscious
the next day, Tall's mother
brought her to the hospital. There
she remained until well enough to be
transferred to jail—charged with
infanticide. After four years' detention
in prison, she was found guilty of
abortion—which carries a maximum
penalty of two years—and was then
In Senegal, abortion is illegal except
to save a woman's life. But doctors,
midwives and traditional healers
perform abortions, as do affected
women themselves"You can't imagine the number of
abortions that take place in Dakar,"
says one ob-gynwho performs the
procedures on nights and weekends.
"Every day, dozens upon dozens." He
has a private practice and charges the
equivalent of $375, in a country
where a servant's monthly salary is
roughly $36.
For the poor, the procedure usually
entails dangerous do-it-yourself
experiments. Women drink teas of
boiled coins, seek injections of drugs
such as acetate and oxytocin, and prepare
cocktails of neem leaves and
malaria drugs. The World Health
Organization estimates 30,000
women die in Africa each year from
unsafe abortion. In Dakar, word on
the street is that surgical abortion can
kill you, and the link between abortion
and fatality defines Senegal's reproductive
Those so poor and socially isolated
they cannot or will not access the underground-
abortion loop sometimes
hide their pregnancies and kill the
newborns. Recently, a single mother
of five said she had been raped and
hid her pregnancy for shame. When
she had a stillbirth, she buried it in a
neighborhood cemetery. Her brother
called the police, and she is currently
in jail awaiting trial for infanticide.
Infanticide occupies a prominent
place in public consciousness, serving
as a projection of society's confusion
about abortion. Women who are
accused of committing infanticide
routinely make headlines; courtrooms
are packed for such trials.
Meanwhile, on any given day, news
of a baby's corpse found in a local
dumpster travels through Dakar's
poorest neighborhoods.
In 2006, dozens of women were arrested
for infanticide (which also includes
abortion after 180 days of
pregnancy). But only 23 cases were
deemed solid enough to warrant a
criminal court trial. The women were
jailed, serving four years' detention
on average, awaiting trial at a special
session for serious crimes held only
once or twice a year.
This deplorable situation persists,
although in November 2005 the
African Union Protocol on the
Rights of Women in Africa went into
effect. In Senegal, as in the other 14
signatory countries, women were
guaranteed the right to legal abortion
for pregnancies resulting from rape
or incest. Nevertheless, it would be
difficult to overstate the gap between
international charters and the reality
on the ground in Dakar. Many people
in Senegal haven't even heard of the
Protocol, and Senegalese law is still,
as it has been for years, "catching up."
In the meantime, the nightmare
epidemic of unsafe abortion persists.


text:
By Meredith Woerner.
All five Star Trek Captains reunited on stage at Destination Star Trek London a week or so ago. Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, William Shatner, Scott Bakula and Patrick Stewart were all there, talking Trek and taking questions from the fans.
Wired posted a great recap of the whole event, and we've gleaned the very best quotes from each Captain.
Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko)
"We thought you'd be thrilled, we made him a god!" the writers told him about Sisko, to which he replied, "No. One of the most important things is to watch your children grow. A god can't do that."
Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer)
"[Quantum Leap's Sam Beckett] is still out there, doing good deeds…There's still a lot of love for the show and I think some Trek fans may have been influenced to go out and start watching it, which can only be a good thing for scifi."
Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway)
"Everyone wanted Janeway to have a big bubumbabumba with Chakotay but I ask you, who's watching the ship?"… "Kirk, God bless him, I don't know how he got any work done."
William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk)
"I chose to play Kirk's death with awe and wonder, the challenge is to maintain that attitude."
Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean Luc Picard)
"On Star Trek we are wearing costumes - and just like Elizabethan costume, no pockets. Sometimes actors would stand awkwardly because they didn't know what to do with their hands, but if you've spent half your career acting in tights…"
There's tons more coverage over at Wired.


text:
Old Raiders punter Ray Guy went bankrupt. So, a judge told Ray Guy to sell off the hand jewels he received for participating in Super Bowl victories over the Vikings, Eagles and Redskins. No word on who made off with the rings via Nate D. Sanders Auctions — "Sorry, I can't disclose the winning bidder," wrote Sam Heller from the auction — which means there's no way of confirming or denying that it was Ron Jaworski.
Side note: Rashaan Salaam's Heisman trophy ring was also up for grabs. It fetched $9,768. Because Jaws has a hell of a lot more money than Ki-Jana Carter.


text:
Surveying ICT use in education in five Arab States
When I was back in school, and long before I had come across names like Wilbur Schramm or Manuel Castells, I remember learning about the power of new information and communication technologies to help change societies. Even from the (perhaps rather limited) perspective of someone growing up in a prairie state in the American Midwest, whether it was the role of pamphlets in the American Revolution or the more contemporary examples of audiocassettes in the Iranian revolution or photocopiers helping to spread samizdat culture and messages in the countries of the former Soviet Bloc, it was clear that the emergence, adaptation and innovative uses of new 'ICTs' could help committed groups of people upend the existing status quo.
(Whether such 'upending' is a good thing or not depends, I guess, on your perspective, and the specific circumstances and context. Flip through the pages of UNESCO's Community radio handbook, for example, and you may well be inspired, but read a recent paper from a researcher at Harvard about the role of RTLM radio in the Rwandan genocide and you will be chilled to the bone. Technology is a magnifier of human intent and capacity, as my friend Kentaro Toyama likes to say.)
More recently, the events of the 'Arab Spring' have been popularly attributed, in part, to the use of new ICTs and ICT tools like Twitter and SMS. Whether or not one agrees with this attribution (and about this there is much scholarly debate), there is no denying that rhetoric around 'ICTs' and the Arab Spring has increasingly marked and colored discussions about the use of educational technologies in many Arab countries. In announcing a recent report documenting technology use in education in the region, for example, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) begins by noting that, "Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, arguably the most significant ICT-assisted "learning" phenomena of the recent past, data from five countries provide a snapshot of ICT integration in education." It continues:
"Great strides have been made in the last decade to harness the power of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to help meet many development challenges, including those related to education. However, evidence shows that some countries in the Arab States continue to lag behind in fully implementing ICT in their education systems.
According to a UIS data analysis, which was based on a data collection process sponsored and conducted by the UNESCO Communication and Information Sector and the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization (TAG-Org), policies for the implementation and use of ICT in primary and secondary education systems have not necessarily translated into practice. This is revealed in the newly released data from five participating countries."
Results from this data analysis were recently published by UIS in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Education in Five Arab States: A comparative analysis of ICT integration and e-readiness in schools in Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Palestine and Qatar [pdf], one part of a larger multinational effort to collect and analyze basic data related to ICT use in education around the world (results from a similar exercise in Latin America, also led by UIS, were featured on the EduTech blog last week; recent posts have also looked at related sorts of efforts in Europe and Central and West Asia).


text:
Humpback whale WDC
Humpback whale Scott Portelli
Humpback whale
Humpback whale WDC
Humpback whale WDC/Sue Rocca
Humpback whale WDC
Humpback whale Fernando Felix
Humpback whale Paolo Flores
Humpback whale
The humpback whale is renowned for being one of the most energetic of the large whales with its spectacular breaching, lobtailing and flipper-slapping. Its scientific name Megaptera novaeangliae means 'big winged New Englander' because of its long flippers that look like wings when it breaches and because it was first described in New England. Currently three sub-species of humpback whale are recognised; M. n. australis - southern humpback, M. n. kuzira - north Pacific humpback, and M. n. novaeangliae - north Atlantic humpback. The species' worldwide popularity on whale watch tours has helped to ensure that they are the focus of many conservation efforts. These measures have an umbrella effect and protect not only humpbacks but also many other species found in their protected areas, including species that experience the same risks.
The humpback whale can be distinguished by its large size, knobbly head and 5m long flippers. Individuals found in the Atlantic Ocean have mainly white flippers, but those found in the Pacific Ocean have a darker colouration on the upper surface of their flippers. Humpbacks in the southern hemisphere are generally more lightly coloured on the flanks. The bumps found on the head are called tubercles, and each one contains a single hair follicle, which may be used in a sensory capacity, much like a cat's whiskers. The flukes are distinctive compared with any other whale species; the black and white markings and scalloped edges are as unique as a human fingerprint, allowing experts to name thousands of individuals around the world. The wavy edged flukes are raised during dives, enabling researchers to keep track of individual whales from year to year.
You can help WDC's work by adopting a humpback whale today.
Male humpbacks sing the longest, most complex songs in the animal kingdom. Songs consist of a complex series of whistles, squeals and deep sonorous calls divided into 'verses' and sung in a specific order, which may last for as long as half an hour. Males in the same area of the breeding grounds sing the same songs, which change gradually over time. Humpback whales have unusual feeding behaviour - they sometimes herd their prey or create a kind of fishing net by exhaling air in a spiral of bubbles. Fish cluster tightly inside these 'bubble nets' allowing the whale to swim through with its mouth open and eat them. Humpbacks are capable of travelling at 25 km/h or more, however during migration they move more slowly, resting and socialising along the way. Humpback whales make long journeys. Each population of humpbacks has its own migration route; generally they spend the winter in warm, low latitudes or tropical waters breeding and giving birth, and the spring, summer and autumn feeding in cooler, high latitude polar waters. The humpbacks which feed in Antarctic waters and travel north to breed off Colombia and Panama make the longest confirmed migration of any mammal.
More than 250,000 humpbacks were killed in past whaling operations yet they are currently recovering in many places and were recently reclassified as Least Concern (IUCN 2008), although certain populations retain an IUCN Endangered status. There is also concern about the apparently discrete, small populations of humpback whales in various oceans for which status information is lacking. The main humpback populations are found in the North Atlantic, the North Pacific and the Indian Ocean and there is some mixing between different populations. Threats to humpback whale numbers worldwide include: habitat loss; chemical and noise pollution; entanglement in fishing nets and lack of food.


text: Wal-Mart to Widows Will Feel U.S. Food Stamp Cuts Starting Today November 1, 2013 02:55 AM Tweet TAGS: Marketing, Overseas December 18, 2014 By Bloomberg Email Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Annie Crist says she dreads telling her two daughters that cuts in food-stamp benefits taking effect today means less chicken and fewer hamburgers for dinner. And with deeper cuts looming as part of a possible U.S. budget deal, Crist and other recipients may feel an even greater pinch -- along with retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and Kroger Co. "I don't bother them or worry them with adult issues or adult problems," Crist, a 30-year-old self-employed babysitter in Lancaster, Ohio, southeast of Columbus, said in a telephone interview. "But if they ask me, 'Well, why can't we get this? We always get this,' how am I going to explain that?" Food-stamp spending reached a record $78.4 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, due in part to a temporary boost in benefits passed as part of the 2009 economic stimulus that expires today. Lawmakers battling over U.S. farm and budget policy are looking to cut deeper by tightening eligibility rules that could drop as many as 3 million people from the program. With an estimated 8 percent of shoppers using food stamps, the impact will probably be felt most acutely by discount retailers such as Dollar General Corp., Family Dollar Stores Inc. and Wal-Mart, said Bryan Gildenberg, chief knowledge officer of Kantar Retail. "You'll find the effects will happen quite quickly," Gildenberg said. "These are shoppers that have probably already allocated their spending down to the dollar." Few Extras Crist said her budget leaves little room for extras. The $547 a month she received in food benefits for herself and her daughters, ages 13 and 8, will become $497 today, as a roughly 5 percent benefit cut takes effect nationwide. With utilities and other expenses, she said she will be spending less on fresh meats, fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. Grocers say they're watching the situation closely. "We're a little concerned about the food stamp cut, I can tell you that," Dennis Eidson, president and CEO of Spartan Stores Inc., a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based grocer, said in a conference call Oct. 24. "That could be a meaningful event for us." Kroger, the biggest U.S. grocery chain, said it doesn't expect the food-stamp drop to affect its sales. "Customers may shift to spending more of their cash on food and less cash on other things," Keith Dailey, a spokesman for the Cincinnati- based company, said in an e-mail. Monthly enrollment for what's officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program peaked last December at 47.8 million. It was 47.6 million in July, according to the most-recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up from 28.2 million five years ago, when the program's annual cost was $37.6 billion. Feel Impact "All retailers who sell food are likely to feel the impact of cuts, since people receiving assistance often don't have excess income to make up the difference," said Jennifer Bartashus, senior analyst for food retailing for Bloomberg Industries in Skillman, New Jersey. Nearly half of all food stamp redemptions are in big-box supercenters such as Wal-Mart or Target while most of the rest are in supermarkets, she said. Of the total $72.9 billion in food stamps redeemed, $36.2 billion went to supercenters like Wal-Mart and Target and $25 billion to supermarkets, she said. Stores with a higher portion of low-income customers will lose some revenue, though it could partially be offset by those trading down to discount-style stores, Bartashus said. The cuts could change shopping patterns for those on assistance toward store-brand items, which are generally cheaper than name-brand, she said. Benefit Seen Target spokeswoman Amy Joiner said in an e-mail that "we are monitoring the situation but aren't going to discuss or speculate on impact to the business." Asked for comment, a Wal-Mart spokesman referred to remarks made by Chief Executive Officer Bill Simon on Oct. 15. Simon told analysts that the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company, which is the biggest U.S. food-seller and retailer, may see some benefits from the reduction. "Price will become more important" as food-stamp recipients pay more nutrition costs out of pocket. "And when price is more important, we're more relevant," Simon said. At Najib Atisha's two grocery stores in Detroit, about 50 percent of his customers in one location use food stamps and 70 percent in the other, said the owner. "Many of our customers really don't have any source of income," Atisha, 55, said in a phone interview. If those customers can't buy, "we can't turn product over, it sits on the shelf longer, and then we have issues of quality control with our fresh foods." Political Debate Atisha employs a total of 40 people between the two stores. He said that while he's watching government actions, he hasn't yet made any changes in response to his anticipated income loss. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said on Oct. 30 that food stamps are among the items Republicans are eying for additional cuts as part of a House-Senate conference panel working to reconcile differences between Republican and Democratic budget blueprints for fiscal 2014. The Senate-passed budget for fiscal year 2014 is about $90 billion more than a House-passed version. Farm bills being debated in a separate committee trying to replace agricultural legislation that expired Sept. 30 are considering cuts ranging from $18 billion over 10 years in the Senate plan to $52 billion in the House. House Plan Of those amounts, the Senate would take $3.9 billion from nutrition programs while the House would cut $39 billion, according to nonpartisan congressional estimates. The House plan would also require work or job training and let states drug-test recipients as a condition of eligibility. Representative Marlin Stutzman, an Indiana Republican, earlier this week said lawmakers should support the House food- stamp proposal as well as a timeline that divorces it from its longtime ties to farm aid. "The American people are tired of this type of out-of- control spending," he said in a statement. The plan, he said, represents "dramatic reform." Margaret Keith, a 73-year-old widow from Ashfield, Massachusetts, said she relies on food stamps and Social Security. She said she doesn't know what's left to cut. "I am really skimming through right now," she said. Worker Households Changes to the program will be challenging for recipients balancing work, family and budgets, said Kevin Concannon, the USDA's undersecretary for the agency that that administers the food-stamp program. About 40 percent of food-stamp recipients live in households with at least one member working, he said. "People don't realize how many people in the SNAP program are in the workforce," he said. Both the reductions and potential rules changes "are going to be challenges for the 47 million who depend on the program because of the continuing challenges of the economy," he said. For Crist, the challenge will be the simple squeeze on resources, and her desire to raise healthy daughters. "What worries me the most is just not being able to make it stretch," she said. "The money only goes so far." --With assistance from Mark Niquette in Columbus , James Rowley and Heidi Przybyla in Washington and Renee Dudley and Minsi Chung in New York. Editors: Jon Morgan, Michael Shepard To contact the reporters on this story: Derek Wallbank in Washington at email@example.com; Alan Bjerga in Washington at firstname.lastname@example.com To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at email@example.com Back to news


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The SEO Dream is Dead. Or is It?
Lisa Barone has done it to me again. Her latest post on Outspoken Media's Blog, "Why Bloggers Should Put Up, Shut Up & Pay Their Tax", created another fever-pitch of comments. I'm not going to craft a reply post because, frankly, the comments on that post are all the discussion and reply anyone will ever need. But there was a very striking comment made by Alan Bleiweiss that resonated deeply with me: creating and building something out of the ashes.
There were a lot comments that suggested investing money into a business, putting your life-force into it, and grinding the pavement to dust were the true testaments to ensuring your business survived.
It's something I've been thinking a lot about, having started a business last year. You can't fight the entrepreneurial spirit, but there is always a time when you question the decision. Did I make the right choice? Can this business live, breathe, and succeed? After thinking about it, my honest, gut answer, is that the SEO entrepreneur is a lot like a restaurant owner; over 50% are going to fail within the first three years [1].
That SEO Dream is Dead, Kid.
Like it or not, it's a reality. And, please don't misunderstand, I'm am not saying SEO is dead. SEO is alive and well. I really do believe that the idea of an pure SEO shop is dead. Just look at the search marketing landscape a moment.
1) The Exponential Growth of SEO as an Industry
In the last three years, everyone is trying to capitalize on the SEO game. The market has exploded into stratosphere. So when I hear comments, that it's all about passion, talent, and sweat-equity that will all but guarantee success, I have to shake my head a bit. Look, there's is absolutely no substitute for those qualities. If you aren't mentally prepared to dive in head-first, then turn around now. But the landscape is drastically different from where it was ten years ago. Hell, even five years ago, when SEO was just this thing "geeks" did.
Now a company is facing everyone and anyone who's ever read a blog about SEO. Now a company is facing overseas outsourcing at a fraction of the cost. Now a company is facing traditional agencies building out "digital" arms of their business in order to cash in and feign relevance.
2) SEO Isn't Enough Anymore
Another sad, but true, fact. Personally I think SEO is a lot more than just keywords and links, and that it is the core to building a great website that produces great content and converts. Something I've said for a long time now, an SEO must be capable and fluent in everything search marketing. Specialties are dead for the consuming public. They want one-stop-shops that can combine SEO, paid search, social media, and conversion optimization to create aggressive strategies. Whether they listen or not is a question unto itself.
Ten years to fifteen years ago, SEO lone gun men/women (Aaron Wall, Rae Hoffman, David Harry, Greg Boser, Meg Geddes (a.k.a. Netmeg), etc.) were the standard. Small, niche groups of people who studied and experimented to hone their craft. And, really, it's all you needed. With the web making breakthrough after breakthrough, crushing barriers at the speed of sound, even the lone gun men/women adopted and incorporated the other search marketing channels.
3) Super-Groups: The New SEM Assassin
If you were lucky enough to get in on the first few floors of this SEM industry, then creating and securing a reputation was easier. I didn't say it wasn't ball-busting, grinding work. It's hard work to convince people that you can help build them a better website that ranks better in search engines. Especially with something so foreign.
It was simply easier. Less competition. Less people competing for the bullhorn. A more connected community; warriors of the same ilk. It existed and so did they; an easy match. Fast-forward ten years, and everyone is a SEO/SEM expert. Shouting to be heard. Elbowing their way to the fifteen second spotlight, only to fade to oblivion moments later. Because of the proliferation of our service, our knowledge, profit-centers splinter thousands of ways now, instead of hundreds. No one can make any money.
Of course there are those that all the stars lined up and they caught lightning in a bottle. But that's the absolute exception, not the rule. Much like that sweet American Dream: the true Horatio Alger legend; rags to riches. Instead of settling for a quarter of the business, why not get fifty percent or more by creating a super-group?
Expect to start seeing the most talented SEMs/SEOs in the game congealing to form a powerhouse SEM group. It's already happening (i.e. Blueglass Inc. and Outspoken Media). These super-groups offer the best talent, a wide variety of specialties, and have an existing client base to ward off the new company doldrums. I have the utmost respect for those two companies and the people associated with them, but I have no illusions that I could compete with them. Economies of scale. More manpower to throw at something within days than I could muster in months.
It's the next phase of the SEM industry.
Or Maybe It Isn't Dead?
Maybe there is still hope for the small SEO company? People working out of one room buildings and in-home offices building respectable client lists and knocking out dynamite work? Maybe we all catch lightning in a bottle a few times in this lifetime and it up to us to know what to do with it?
Aug 24 2010
thought provoking, to say the least, Tony. And it's honestly why I shifted focus to where I now only do audits and the ensuing implementation consulting that goes along with them. I no longer need to wear all the hats.
Yet even then, I still need to intimately understand enough of the hats to even do the audit these days, let alone communicate with all the players.
Aug 24 2010
As long as that lightening doesn't hit me in the butt! And fwiw Tony, I think it really comes down to whether someone believes both in themselves and in the notion that God/ the universe will provide regardless of what things might look like all around us. So I think you're also gonna do great things in the coming years.
Aug 25 2010
Nice and thought-provoking post Anthony.
I may be overly optimistic (in this one case) but I don't think that smaller SEO shops, or one-man SEO shops, will be going away anytime soon. I do think, and hope, that all these people who know nothing yet profess to be expert SEOs on Twitter will quickly fade away when people realize that they honestly have nothing good to offer other than a possibly low price.
One reason that I think smaller groups and lone individual SEOs will be ok is that the larger SEO companies won't be able to handle all of the work. They'll need someone to refer a potential client to when they have to turn something down. Another reason is that there will always be quality beginner SEOs who will do good work for a low price simply to get their name out there, and for companies that can't afford a larger budget, this will be a godsend.
Aug 25 2010
For the foreseeable future there will be a place for the true Search Expert, in my estimation.
1) search engines are in the business of providing the best results to users (well, and making a boatload of cash doing it)
2) as search engine publishers become more and more sophisticated – driven by the arms race that is search – they will become more and more able to discern human efforts from automaton efforts*
3) if 2) is true, then it is safe to say that the need for actual search experts will be all the more acute
But tomorrow's search expert will have to be completely fluent in inbound link building and information architecture. Today's search experts already get it. The poseurs don't.
And tomorrow's search experts will have to be more technically savvy as well.
As long as their are search engines to be kowtow-ed to, there will be the search expert and a bunch of previously-burned companies that want to hire them.
Aug 25 2010
Hi Anthony. Great post and you raise some points that I've been considering myself as a 1 man SEO band recently.
Overall, I think it's a case of weathering the storm. I think that the majority of these new digital arms of traditional agencies are learning on the job. Some will provide solid results some wont. I agree with Julie that the "fly by night" SEOs will pass onto something new soon enough too where they think they can make more money.
Alan's point about believing in yourself and your business is vital to weather the storm. I'm making efforts to target more of the types of clients I've enjoyed working with recently.
I've found some companies will instantly discredit you if you're not a large agency, and I can live with that. I've also found some small businesses who think SEO is a $200 job that can be done in a week. I used to try and educate these enquiries thinking it would be worthwhile, but it isn't.
I've found the best option is to seek out those businesses that respect your work, and the process. It doesn't matter to them who you are, or how big your office is, but what you bring to the table, and that's up to us to make sure we offer as much value to their overall marketing and not just their SEO. There's plenty of these businesses out there, it just might take a little longer to find them.
Aug 25 2010
Great post! From working on both the corporate and now agency side, you definitely see things from two different angles – from small SEO business consulting to larger internal SEO teams.
I don't feel that the small SEO is going away, I am kind of with Julie in that I believe the fakes will fizzle out. Like anything in life, you are only going to do something for the long term if you are passionate about what you are doing.
All these people who are jumping on the bandwagon because they know companies are interested in growing SEO due to the ROI are soon going to realize it is not for them. Back in school it was the same thing with accounting, everyone and their mother was hiring accountants, so all these kids were getting their CPA's etc. Now, three of my friends have decided to move on from Accounting as "it is not for them" :).
Keep doing your thing….I am a big advocate for specialties, however, do believe (like Alan) that you need to know most interactive disciplines and the full search gamut within the marketing mix to be a successful search marketer.
Aug 25 2010
Nice post, Tony.
I think that your basic point is very much correct — that many people are now looking for an all-in-one SEM shop rather than just an SEO shop — but I think that people like yourself will be able to adapt, if for no other reason than this: the vast majority of businesses in the country won't be able to afford the mega-agency price tag.
Maybe this is the affiliate marketer in me talking, but if I ran a business like yours, I'd probably focus on one very particular niche of the broader 'SEO' umbrella — and strive to be the absolute best at it.
You don't have the staff to compete with the all-in-one agencies. But do you have the staff to be the best CMS migration company out there from an SEO point of view? To be world class linkbuilders? To be the best at anything that these larger agencies will undoubtedly need help with if they want the best results?
I think that this will be especially true in coming years. As technology improves, it becomes more complicated. And the more complicated something gets, the higher the barrier to entry. That is the sort of environment where specialists thrive.
Aug 25 2010
Great post Tony. Being a freelancer and being able to build up a clientele base for me has been a SEO dream come true, so I hope the dream isn't dead. It's been.
I've been fortunate enough to get some referrals from current clients who have been very happy with what I've provided for them. As Julie said "Another reason is that there will always be quality beginner SEOs who will do good work for a low price simply to get their name out there, and for companies that can't afford a larger budget, this will be a godsend." She was talking about me and my clients.
Ultimately I've finally found something I LOVE doing, and helping a small biz bottom line makes me feel great. As one of my favorite people to learn from, Alan Bleiweiss has it right, belief in yourself and being happy goes a long way, in life and business.
Once again great read and great comments from all of you.
Peace, Love & SEO :-}
Aug 25 2010
That's a good point too…it's easy to fake this stuff at times. However, for my part in reducing the amount of people like this who actually get business, I'll be certain to only send referrals to quality people whom I know to be good, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. If all the bigger firms can commit to doing that, it will go a long way towards keeping smaller shops and individual SEOs going.
Aug 25 2010
As a one-woman SEO agency, it is a challenge. There is a part of me that misses and so wants to be part of a larger team again. However, by running solo, I'm able to be part of each client's team. One-person shops cannot serve the same clients nor the level of services as an SEM super-power, nor should we try.
We are able to be nimble and work collaboratively with others who specialize in order to provide a level of personal service and training that may not be provided on a larger agency level.
Your point about having a wide-range of knowledge is key. Pure SEO is no longer pure SEO. We may not implement the full-spectrum of online initiatives needed, but we can advise accordingly to help educate clients so they understand it's more than keywords and code on a page.
P.S. Most of us either do or will have a waiting list. For you starting out, your quality of work and reputation will follow you for years, and there will be a payoff.
Aug 25 2010
I'd like to see a post exploring how one-man and small SEO shops can work with the larger firms actually…ways to stay engaged, etc. I would not like to see it enough to WRITE it but it's an intersting concept!
Aug 25 2010
Great post that has spawned some great discussions here. I would agree with those that say the small/inidividual SEO shops will not die. With the increased importance of local there will be hoards of SMBs out there getting into SEO. Plus the super groups and large SEO firms/agencies are EXPENSIVE! Most people will never be able to afford the services of Blueglass or Outspoken and people like that really do not want to work with firms that don't have at least $5k/mo to spend. That is great for them but there are small guys, with $1000-$3000/mo to spend that still need good service. That will never go away.
Aug 25 2010
I am one of those people who is finding it harder and harder to wear all hats. I agree with Dana, that SEO is much more now than it was before. You absolutely have to know your way around Analytics, for starters.
The challenge is that small businesses have no budget for comprehensive SEO services and larger businesses have large scope projects that require teams to execute. For a one person SEO, you have to get a "perfect storm" to not only land a client, but have the capacity to help them effectively.
I also think that taxes are not the solution for everything. I am wholeheartedly with Alan on this one. Bad bloggers will eventually disappear. If someone makes money on their blog – great for them. I like the free spirit of the Internet. "We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." – Dave Clark (1992)
Aug 25 2010
Many good points here. However I still believe that one man/woman SEOs can succeed in the foreseeable future for example, the trend of bringing SEO in-house. Having a specialty on building in-house SEO teams for example. Consulting with large businesses would still be viable.
Also, many large SEM powerhouses tend to have a certain price point for engaging with a client
Aug 25 2010
As has already been said, kudos on the thought provoking post. You are not alone, Tony.
This very reality is what led me months ago to shift my focus toward building search engine friendly small business websites, doing on-site audits and keyword research and away from focusing on SEO as a whole.
Frankly, I was much in need of an outlet for my creativity and I feel my skills are best put to use building a solid foundation that small businesses can continue to build on confidently for a long time to come.
There's still room for smaller SEO firms who cater to the small business market and their shrinking marketing budgets. As others have said, there's a large percentage of SMBs that can't afford $5,000 a month to work with a big agency, even if the investment would ultimately prove to be more than worth it.
Aug 25 2010
Nice post on the state of the SEO industry. And, thank you for the respect you have for OSM, we love it and hopefully we can maintain it for years to come!
A quick personal note on size and resources — it was awesome to see our name next to Blueglass as a mega agency, but the point I most relate is, "People working out of one room buildings and in-home offices building respectable client lists and knocking out dynamite work?"
We've been in the industry as individuals for awhile now, but as a company we're still very young. We started off with a couple great clients and coverage, but we've certainly had struggles along the way. For example, as of this week we're finally securing office space in Troy and hiring a second employee. A year and a half in and Lisa and I get to move out of our apartments! I feel much more like a scrappy startup than a major agency. I won't argue with perception though, so what makes us look bigger than we actually are? We partnered with each other to compensate for our individual areas of weakness. We wanted to grow and that's impossible to do while trying to wear every hat. I can't do Lisa and Rae's job and vice versa. Accepting that and respecting each other's strengths is what makes us look like such a powerhouse.
We also recognize what we're good at and refer to others when we aren't equipped with the information a client needs. For example, we don't know PPC and we don't pretend to. We stick to a few core areas of specialization and since the start of the company, even those have evolved with demand and knowledge. We want to stay boutique, nimble and collaborative and if we get to a place of wanting everyone and everything, please slap me! There's plenty to go around. 🙂
Aug 25 2010
Much appreciation for your thoughts. In the few years I've been running our small company, I've learned that SEO is only the beginning of a truly effective online marketing strategy. SEO is simply an introduction to an interested audience. Attraction, engagement and conversion (not to mention an infrastructure that can actually deliver a quality product or service) are no less critical just because you're the first foot in the door. The same mentality was responsible for all the "AAA plumbing" and excessive "A" businesses that thought they would game the yellow pages' use of alphabetical listings. SEO provides an advantage, but as I said, its only the beginning.
Aug 25 2010
Interesting article… However, one thing I feel is often forgotten in our industry is that 'industry celebrities' aren't necessarily the most successful individuals or business owners.
I have been in this business for about 14 years now. Not only have I been pretty successful in my own right, but I have worked for multiple agencies who are extremely successful where their names and the names of their employees are not 'known'. We were all too busy working, perfecting our craft, and landing clients to promote ourselves.
Don't get me wrong – there is value in being published on industry blogs or speaking at industry conferences. However, many times you're just promoting yourself to others in our niche industry… This doesn't translate directly into revenue and success.
Getting back to the main point of your article, there are so many small businesses who don't even have websites, let alone know what SEO is. Our industry is still in its infancy, with tons of unrealized opportunity still out there for the taking and much more to come…
Aug 26 2010
Love the article. Gotta say I'm glad you mention Rae Hoffman prominently as one of the Lone Wolf SEOs – however simply having been a groundbreaker doesn't give anyone already established reason to rest on their laurels. Rae Hoffman (since I've already mentioned her, I'll use her for an example) has branched out into providing all of the services that a business needs to make them happy. Why go to five people to work on various aspects of your site when you can simply call one person / company who does it all?
Newbies are definitely going to have to put in five times as much effort tooling up to face the total SEO challenge – and business owners need to be educated in what SEO today really is – a much broader package with much higher returns.
Aug 26 2010
I agree with you to a certain extent. Don't you think with local search becoming more popular there will always be opportunities in geo-specific areas? Sure, theses opportunities may not be to work with a fortune 500 company, but they will be there. Local/independent business are starting to realize the power of SEO and SEM, which provides the smaller agencies opportunity to still provide services.
Aug 26 2010
Tony – well, tis true about prospective Clients not "getting it" – meaning not being able to discern what it is precisely you do and don't do.
But that is more of a sales issue:
For instance, in selling into a company, we do a line-by-line break out by item and hours – some would disagree with this approach – but it seems to work for us… however, having said that, we are not inclined to line item something like "SSL Cert," as it is too much to expect our prospects to "get" – and, it is such a tiny piece of the puzzle that getting caught in that discussion is a real low-value discussion… that is, it complicates a smooth transaction.
I think in the line of work you're in, specifically, trust is crucial. Because frankly, most clients may know they need "SEO" (having been told by someone or another that it is so), but are not at all interested in really understanding wtf "it" entails.
So, it's like this… "it must be done… it must be done properly… it is harmful to have a poor job done of it… so, I am here now to make sure that you do in fact receive as much benefit as your budget will allow."
Beyond that, expect the glaze over the eyes look.
Just my two cents. We approach the topic in this manner… partially because I am not a SEMktr, but also because it really is a matter of due diligence, isn't it? It's a dotted "i" … a crossed "t" – that is, it is NOT an option. It must be done.
Aug 26 2010
I would also add… I don't know how a one-person SEO shop could survive on a one-crack-at-a-time basis, where the SEM specialist has to be selling and fulfilling to keep the pipe full. I am sure it CAN be done. I am just not sure it is at all the recommended way to go about it.
Aug 26 2010
The comments here are just awesome. Something I'll add for those of us who are individuals or small shops that can't or don't want to wear all the hats, or even if you think you can and then can execute on that.
The vast majority of my work comes from agencies – design houses, development companies, PR and brick-mortar marketing firms. I bust my butt more on cultivating those relationships than anything I do, because on great agency is like having an entire team of account managers.
Crucial to this success is being crystal clear on what you will and will not work on, what you are and are not expert in, as Rhea mentioned. It requires being fearless when an agency client comes to you with a new opportunity. I mean – if you alienate an agency, you don't just lose one client – you lose five, ten or fifty, all in one shot.
Yet by being fearlessly honest and focused, I have built a level of trust and respect that itself is invaluable. And that just brings me more work of the kind I like, enjoy and excel at.
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"Unsettled Souls" is a soft and subtle piano piece. It is deeply emotional with flowing piano, which carries the listener through a number of different emotions. It could be used in a variety of different ways which makes this an extremely useful background for emotional projects.
Please rate if you enjoyed this track!
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A problem has surfaced with the popular RAZR phones sold through Cingular and T-Mobile, where calls are cut off because a component erroneously registers that the phone has been closed. Motorola said RAZR phones sold by Verizon were not affected because they use wireless technology different from that of Cingular and T-Mobile. Even though Motorola said the dropped calls are only an issue with a few phones, Cingular and T-Mobile stopped selling the units as of Thursday.
Razrs Pulled For Connectivity Glitches. No Blood Spilt. Sorry. [The Consumerist]


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SlingshotSoftware needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 463 designs submitted by 112 freelance designers.
Slingshot Software
Slingshot Software is a small Australian firm providing software development and IT consultancy services. We're based in Melbourne and work with companies Australia-wide.
We pride ourselves on being cutting-edge and professional, yet personable and accessible to those who might find the IT world a little daunting. Other words that reflect Slingshot Software are flexible and reliable.
We target small-medium companies that don't have the resources to do the work in-house. In a nutshell, David used a slingshot to take down Goliath.
Looking to use a slingshot image somewhere in the logo. Not too realistic, though. Also, please include the text "Slingshot Software".
No preferred colour scheme yet, so please submit a few and I'll decide on something well before the competition ends.
The logo should be quite crisp and inspire confidence. No other instructions. You're free to be creative!
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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mnp13 wrote:dogcrazyjen wrote:Encouraging an owner who cannot control a dog who aggressively bites to do PP work seems to me a recipe for disaster.
I agree with this statement. The aggression is the first thing to address. Once obedience is solid and the 'issues' are under control the dog could be evauated for PP training.
I'm sure Mike and his mentor Nelson would never do PP training with a dog that was not completely under control and responsibly handled.
Absolutely!!!! My old trainer typically does not allow a dog to start PP work until it has a VERY high level of obedience. His one exception was Sacha...we worked on the PP and obedience together...but she was different...she was a lab...There wasn't a threat of her biting someone (I mean, honestly...heck, I'm lucky she bites the sleeve now).
My current trainer starts bitework with puppies, and does not start obedience until much later...she's been biting since she was 6 weeks old, but has only JUST started obedience (she's 9 months old) but I have socialized my puppy from day one (asking people to touch her, handle her, taking her places where there are lots of people).
I also know other dogs, though, who have bitten people...and ONLY after they have gotten that aggression out of the dog, and have the dog under complete control will they start bitework. They have found, though, that the dog will no longer do it....