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In high places: Crew 613-K on the summit of Mt. Phillips (11,736 ft). Mt. Baldy in the background.
A long time ago, at a Scout ranch far far away…
In the summer of 1972, when I was 16, my father put me on the Greyhound bus that would take me from Lewiston, Idaho to Cimarron, New Mexico, home of Philmont Scout Ranch, a place about which I knew almost nothing, my attendance owing only to an unclaimed scholarship offered by our local Scout council. I didn't really want to go. I was traveling by myself, dressed in the full Scout uniform my father insisted that I wear for the duration of the bus trip. In 1972 the Vietnam War was still raging, and my generation, or part of it, was still raging against authority. Anyone in a uniform was suspect, and dressed as I was, I could only be taken as someone whose allegiance was to The Man. Talk about being self conscious. The bus trip was to take almost three days, with stops at almost every wide spot in the road. Forward progress was hard to discern, and at some point I began to feel, as one sometimes does on long unpleasant trips, that my entire life had been spent on this interminable voyage.
When I finally did arrive at Philmont, any embarrassment about being seen in a Scout uniform was quickly dispelled. Everyone, and there were a lot of people milling about camp headquarters, was in uniform, all wearing neckerchiefs and patches that advertised their home council. It was a flurry of activity and color, and above this scene were the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and the Tooth of Time. I met my Ranger and the rest of my crew. The scholarship I had claimed was for a program called Kit Carson Men, a precursor to the current Rayado program. We would trek for sixteen days and cover Philmont south to north. The highlight would be a side trip into the Latirs where we would climb Wheeler Peak, and try, unsuccessfully, to signal to the Scouts we imagined to be on the summit of Mt. Baldy, the high point on the Ranch. In all we hiked about 135 miles, a modest trek by KCM standards. However, to that point in my life it was the hardest thing I had ever done. I was always hungry, my equipment was inadequate, and I was, at times, almost overcome by self doubt. Completing my trek and successfully shouldering my share of our crew's responsibilities were among the proudest moments of my young life, and in time I came to realize that those brief weeks were as important a formative experience as I have had.
I arrived without a backpack, but did bring a kapok sleeping bag from the Lewiston Army Navy store, a heavy Scout issue jacket in bright red wool, a pair of department store "wafflestompers," a plastic poncho, and a steel GI mess kit. I also brought one of my prized possessions, a Buck knife, the Folding Hunter, in a black leather sheath. At my father's insistence, I wore a Scout issue campaign hat in dark green felt, like the one Smokey The Bear wears. I suppose that such a ridiculous thing may find a place in a Scout's ceremonial wardrobe, but it proved wholly unsuitable as a backpacking hat. It was unwearable while carrying a pack, owing to the fact that the flat circumferential brim continuously bumped into the back of my pack, forcing my head down, and denying me a view of the terrain ahead. In the end I carried the thing in my hands most of the length of our trek. At the trading post I purchased a Philmont belt, along with the iconic bronze Philmont buckle. At that time, there was a tradition that you were supposed to wear the belt and buckle upside down until you had climbed the Tooth of Time. I bought a belt that was a little too long, but that was a choice that proved foresighted in the long run since I can still (barely) wear it today.
In Tent City: crew members make final preparations for their trek.
There was other paraphernalia, but that's what jumps out at me these many years later. I had as yet no notion that backpacking could be anything but uncomfortable. I had never used a hip belt or a Nalgene bottle, steel canteens being de rigueur in my experience. I was vaguely aware of a book called The Complete Walker, written by a man named Colin Fletcher, which advocated Kelty Packs, and walking sticks that would "convert an insecure biped into a confident triped." But for that, the backpacking revolution in my neck of the woods had gotten no further than the Lewiston public library.
Back in the Day
My Ranger chose for me a canvas Camp Trails frame pack from camp stores and advised me to outfit it with a hip belt, an unpadded version of which was available for purchase at the Philmont trading post. For his part, my Ranger was equipped with a dark green Kelty D4, a nylon mummy bag stuffed with goose down, and a pair of svelte Pivetta hiking shoes. Even now, it is hard to call them boots. They reminded me of nothing so much as hiking slippers. Instead of a water bottle he favored a leather bota bag. His name was Jeff Dias, and I suppose he was then in his early twenties.
I had never used a backpacking stove, and, indeed, during that portion of our trek which was on Ranch property we cooked over open fires, after first rubbing down the outside of our pots with a paste made from powdered soap and water to prevent soot from sticking. I believe the brand of soap used for this and all other cleaning purposes was "Tetrox," and there was a running (pardon me) joke about the "Tetrox trots," which you would contract if you did not rinse your cookware thoroughly enough. (Although Tetrox appears to be long gone, the condition it sometimes caused yet abides, now known to one Philmont Ranger as the "butt pees." Our Scouts loved this expression. Excretory humor is never wasted on a 15-year-old. ) However, when we ventured into the Latirs, my crew used what was then called a "bluet" stove, later rebranded as "gaz." I had never seen anything like it and was amazed that a heat source so small and light could accommodate a crew of seven people.
Coming Full Circle
After returning from Philmont, I was anxious to apply all I had learned about backpacking and to equip myself in a fashion that would allow me to travel comfortably in the wild. Among my first purchases was a red Kelty B4 pack, a purchase which I have never regretted. Thirty-eight years later, I am still carrying that red pack, although the packsack is now so sun rotted as to make me reluctant to pack it too tightly. Backpacking became a passion and ultimately came to include a summer hiking the Washington and Oregon sections of the PCT.
My partners in crime, Joe and Todd, take a break at Rayado.
However, marriage, small children and the demands of my profession caused me to take a break from backpacking until my son, now 15, joined Scouts. I, in turn, joined the Troop committee and participated in planning activities for the boys including backpacking trips into the Sawtooths and Owyhees. I began to sense that during my hiatus from backpacking, things had again changed. I didn't pay much attention to the lightweight movement, still satisfied with my Kelty and an MSR Hubba, which I had acquired for Scout outings. As an aside, I found that as I reached middle age, I no longer desired to have a tent mate, particularly one of the same gender. My sleep was much more restful if I slept in a solo tent, using earplugs to drown out the snoring neighbors situated around me.
About a year ago, a fellow Scouter suggested that the Troop apply for a Philmont trek. She had staffed at Philmont in the 80s and had the same halcyon memories of her time there as I did. We applied for a trek and were told by those in the know that it might take as long as three years to get a slot. However, the Great Recession evidently tempered demand, and in the fall of 2009 we were contacted by Philmont and asked if we would be interested in a trek for 6/12/10 – 6/25/10. We accepted and began planning. Our roster filled quickly, our crew consisting of three adult Scouters – Todd Swanstrom, Joe Williams and myself – and nine Scouts. I accepted the responsibility to be adult advisor for our crew and began to obsess about how to make this as great an experience for our Scouts as my Philmont trek had been for me.
Rules & Regs
Where to start? My cursory searches on the internet about Philmont suggested something rather ominous, later confirmed by the first mailings we received from the Ranch in the fall of 2009; Philmont has become a place of rules, adherence to which is not optional. I know my temperament, and I recognized that it might prove difficult for me to accede to regulations that ran counter to my own experience. The best advice I received about returning to Philmont was from one of Doug Prosser's articles. He advocated going with the flow, even though the rule in question might seem arbitrary, or even slightly ridiculous. Months in advance, I got my mind right and resolved that I would flow like water. (After arriving at our first campsite, and after our Ranger had watched me erect the thing, I was asked to move my tent eight (eight!) paces so that all crew tents would fit within some radius visible only to him. I smiled and did as I was asked.) To anyone contemplating a Philmont trip, especially experienced backpackers who think they know a thing or two, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of Doug's advice. You will have a lot more fun if you knuckle under and do it their way, because there really isn't any other way. By the way, their way works!
They like things cozy here: Scouts, tents, and Ranger huddling within the invisible radius.
Early in my preparations I stumbled on the Backpacking Light website and discovered that a number of Scouters have given a good deal of thought to how to do Philmont in a lightweight style that accommodates the constraints of established trek architecture. I am particularly indebted to Doug Prosser and Al Geist for their tested insights on gear and practices that made our Philmont trek more enjoyable. After reviewing these and other materials, I personally resolved to go as light as possible and to craft gear lists that would lighten the packs of all our Scouts. Particular attention was devoted to selecting crew gear.
Troop Gear
My gear list was disseminated to Scouts and their parents several months before our departure date. With total Philmont costs and associated travel expenses hovering around $875 per Scout, I recognized that it was not reasonable to ask Scouts to replace their current equipment with lightweight gear as I planned on doing, so I focused on getting them to select from their current gear, and when in doubt leave it out. Here my list is reprinted, unchanged from my original email:
- Backpack with hip belt. You all have one of these.
- Rain cover for backpack.
- Sleeping bag. Light summer bag is better. Light summer down bag is best.
- Sleeping clothes; synthetic t-shirt, boxer shorts or light (Capilene) long john bottom.
- Sleeping pad.
- Rain jacket. Philmont will not allow a poncho for some reason.
- Rain pants.
- Hiking shoes. Many recent trekkers recommend lightweight breathable hikers or trail running shoes. Avoid heavy leather boots. I'm told that most of the Philmont trails are smooth and there isn't a lot of off trail scrambling required. Some may also want to bring pair of low gaiters.
- Two or maybe three pairs of mid-weight synthetic or wool socks, inclusive of the pair you start hiking in. Some may also want to use a liner sock. Wear one pair of socks and wash the other for the next day. Repeat.
- One set of underwear, i.e., the set you're wearing.
- One pair nylon pants and one pair hiking shorts, or one pair of zip off pants (best).
- One short-sleeve wicking t shirt, or one long-sleeve nylon trekking shirt, such as the ones we used for Kandersteg last summer.
- Hat with brim.
- Insulating layer, e.g., fleece jacket, lightweight down sweater. Avoid heavy windproof fleece. The idea is to take a pure insulating garment, one whose only purpose is to create dead air space. Any wind blocking that needs to be done can be done by donning your rain jacket over your insulating layer.
- Bowl.
- Cup.
- Spoon.
- Container(s) in which to carry 3 L of water.
- Sunglasses.
- Lip balm.
- Small knife.
- Flashlight (LED headlamp is best).
- Butane lighter.
- $10-$20 in small bills for the trail.
- Bandanna (trip neckerchief being created by Dr. Williams may substitute for this).
- Compass.
- (very) Small synthetic towel.
- Philmont map, available at trading post.
- Toothbrush and baking soda, dental floss.
- Small container biodegradable soap, e.g., Campsuds.
- Stuff sacks and two or three one-gallon Ziploc bags.
- Tent. Philmont requires that two- or three-person tents be used. One-man tents are not allowed. We will use Troop tents, footprints, and stakes.
- Trekking poles, if you use them.
- Camera, if you are so inclined.
- Class A shirt for travel and first day at Base Camp.
- Compass.
- Any medications you need.
- Lightweight beanie if you sleep cold, or to wear on chilly morning.
The Phillips brand.
Prior to our departure, I required all Scouts to produce their packs for inspection and announced that a prize would be awarded to the lightest pack that met all of the above requirements. It was an interesting exercise in winnowing, and I'm glad we did it, or all kinds of unnecessary gear would have been lugged from Idaho to New Mexico. As I remember, the prize went to the son of the Scouter responsible for reinvigorating our Troop as a backpacking Troop. His pack weighed in at 17 pounds exclusive of food, water, and crew gear.
Out of the fiery furnace; crew members play around with wrought iron at Rayado.
My Gear
For my part, although I seriously considered taking my Kelty as a kind of homage to another era, the thought of having to sew the thing up with dental floss and duct tape should it fail left me with an excuse to acquire another pack. I considered several packs, including a GoLite Jam, a Granite Gear Vapor Trail, and an REI Flash 65 before finally settling on a Granite Gear Meridian Nimbus, at 3800 cubic inches, slightly smaller than my Kelty. This is the first internal frame pack I have owned, and it proved very comfortable, but really not any more comfortable than my Kelty. I did not find it to be any hotter than my frame pack, and I appreciated the expandability afforded by the extension collar. Without this, I would never have been able to accommodate my share of Philfood following our two resupplies. Water bottle pockets were nice and deep, but accessible without taking off the pack. I purchased a Granite Gear shoulder strap pocket in which I carried a small Zeiss monocular, and on the other strap I mounted my camera case, which kept my Canon G10 close at hand.
The floating lid provided good access to small items, although I did begin to tire of readjusting it as my load shrank or grew. Since this was my first experience with an internal frame pack, I did have a couple of head scratching moments that probably seem funny to anyone who is a longtime internal frame pack user. For example, what do you do with the thing when you take it off? When I take off my external frame pack, I stand it upright on the frame ends, and prop it up with a trekking pole. The packsack, shoulder straps and hip belt never come close to touching the ground. The internal frame pack is not so handy. Since Philmont does not want you to tie or hang anything from a tree, you have to throw your pack down in the dust. I decided that I should have brought a 3 x 4-foot sheet of Tyvek that I could lay on the ground before lowering my brand new pack. Alas, I made do with a garbage bag.
Sleeping Bag & Pad
I took a Feathered Friends sleeping bag, the Swift model, rated by the manufacturer as a 20 degree F bag. At 34 oz, it proved more than adequate for conditions in early June. My coldest night was at Carson Meadows, where the temperature briefly dipped below freezing. Even so, this was the only night I had to zip the bag all the way up.
Descending Mt. Phillips towards Cypher's Mine camp.
Philmont requires that all crew members bring separate sleep clothes to be worn nowhere except inside the tent. The logic is that the clothes a Scout wears during the day will inevitably carry traces of food, Gatorade, or suntan lotion, all of which might cause a bear to investigate the sleeping Scout's tent. I took a Patagonia Capilene t-shirt (4.3 oz) and a pair of Patagonia Capilene boxers (4 oz) for this purpose.
Like many middle aged backpackers, the ground feels much harder to me now than it did twenty years ago. A few years ago I purchased an Exped Downmat pad and have slept soundly ever since. However, at 41 ounces, I deemed it too heavy and too bulky to bring on this trip. Instead, I opted for a Therm-A-Rest NeoAir, at 14 ounces. This mattress is just as long as the Exped (72 in), but only 20 inches wide. When inflated, it is 2.5 inches thick, versus 2.8 for the Exped. It looked extremely fragile though, and I very carefully prepared my sleeping surface every night before laying down on the thing. However, it worked as advertised, and I experienced no leaks during our trek. I found it pretty easy to inflate, and very comfortable, though it was easy to roll off the 20-inch-wide pad in the night.
As I have explained, it is my preference to use a solo tent on Scout outings. This view was shared by Joe and Todd, each of whom brought a solo tent on our trek. I had planned to take my Tarptent Contrail on this trip. At 24.5 ounces, it provides a great deal of space for a single adult, along with excellent bug protection and ventilation. It erects with a single trekking pole which can be angled to give unobstructed access to the tent. However, as I studied the materials sent by Philmont, I noted that Philmont does not allow single person tents, just as it does not allow clotheslines or hammocks.
These restrictions puzzled me for awhile, until I learned that in the course of a summer Philmont will run up to 30,000 Scouts through the Ranch. Yet Philmont looks just as lovely today as it did thirty-eight years ago. The Scouts have taken good care of the generous gift made by Waite Phillips in 1938. Every Scout who visits the Ranch is instructed in Leave No Trace practices and is expected to apply these rules during his trek. These rules receive reinforcement during the first three days of a trek while each crew is accompanied by a Philmont Ranger.
Philmont looks so good because use has been concentrated. Travel is limited to existing trails, and camping is restricted to designated campsites containing a fire ring and a grey water sump. Tents must be pitched in a tight group, on durable surfaces. In practice, the area in which a group of tents may be located at a particular campsite is limited, and owing to the heavy traffic at Philmont, these areas are pretty quickly reduced to mineral soil. After a few days without rain, the campsites become quite dusty. However inconvenient this may be for the individual, it has proven to be a necessary tradeoff if the natural beauty of the Ranch is to be preserved.
Strange colors in the sky portend more good weather.
Getting back to our tent issue, several months before we left I decided that if Philmont could be expected to insist that only multi-person tents could be used, I needed to have a fallback position for the three adult Scouters on our trek. I eventually settled on a Mountain Laurel Designs Super Mid, in silnylon, which I ordered in March, and received (as promised) just a week before our intended departure date. It is a pyramidal tent without a floor and is billed as cozy for four. It weighs just 24 ounces. If the rule against solo tents was not negotiable, the three adults would share the Super Mid.
On the day of our arrival at Philmont, we were met by our assigned Ranger, a great young man on loan to Philmont for the summer by the U.S. Naval Academy. He possessed the kind of quiet self assurance that you would hope to see in a future naval officer, and in him Philmont's expectations of visitors were fully internalized. I took a deep breath and told him that the three adults on our trek were prepared to sleep in one tent, but would probably be at each other's throats within a week. Did he want to be responsible for that? He considered this for a moment and told me that it would be OK if all adults slept solo. This was no small kindness, and it left me with palatial quarters in the Super Mid, which I did not have to share with anyone. The Super Mid weighed less than my Tarptent, and allowed me to stand up inside. I should also say that the workmanship on the Super Mid is impeccable. You can tell that it is lovingly put together by a small shop and that product quality is of paramount importance.
Still, if I had it to do over again, I might have taken the Tarptent, only because it was difficult to keep gear and clothes clean in the Super Mid, due to omnipresent dust in combination with a floorless shelter. I used a mylar space blanket for a ground cloth, and I had to be very careful about how I laid it out in order to avoid kicking up the fine powder. Of course, the Super Mid did not provide 100% bug protection. However, as I thought back on my trip thirty-eight years ago, I did not remember bugs being a significant problem. Even so, I took along a head net which would protect my exposed face once I was fully cocooned in my bag. As it turned out, we were troubled by mosquitoes on only one night, and even then, I had pitched the Super Mid low enough to the ground that I had no problems. In all I recommend the Super Mid very highly to anyone in need of elbow room.
Nowhere to go but up: a crew member pushes the limits at Cimarroncito.
The Super Mid can be erected with one trekking pole, so long as one uses the MLD supplied pole extender. Since I use two trekking poles, I elected to leave the extender at home and figure out some way of joining my poles together to achieve the necessary height. My solution, though not particularly elegant, worked very well for the twelve days of our trek, even during a windy night at Carson Meadows. I joined the poles tip to tip with about a foot and a half of overlap. To handle the vertical load I wound a two-foot length of Kelty Triptease line around the poles where they overlapped. Each end of the line had a small loop tied in it, which I slipped over the tip of each pole. To keep the poles bound together, I employed two six-inch lengths of double sided Velcro tape, which proved sufficiently strong and durable to keep the poles rigidly in line for the duration of our trek. Every morning, as I prepared to get on the trail, I separated the poles and wound both the Velcro tape and the line around one of the poles for use again that evening.
I took one pair of Mountain Hardwear Matterhorn convertible pants at 14 ounces, a pant that I have used for several years and like a great deal. I did not take any other pants or shorts. We had showers available to us on days two and eight of our trek. I rinsed the pants out during my shower, and they were dry in thirty minutes. I chose a long-sleeve Cloudveil Classic Cool nylon shirt for my one top. I liked the shirt for its two deep zippered chest pockets, which I could get to easily even while wearing my pack. Any time we had water in a camp, I would rinse it out and put it back on. It, too, was dry in thirty minutes. If you are disciplined to take advantage of opportunities to wash your clothes, there is no reason to be burdened with extras in the dry Philmont climate
I took a pair of Salomon XT Wing trail running shoes and was generally pleased with their performance, although the toe cap of one shoe began to delaminate during our trek. A little more ankle support would have been appreciated, the trails being slightly less buffed than I had been led to believe, particularly,the ascent of Mt. Phillips and the descent from Shaefers Peak to the Tooth of Time. My most significant complaint about the shoes was, strangely enough, their breathability, or, to be more precise, their porosity. The uppers are constructed of a nylon mesh which is porous enough to admit the fines that are kicked up on the trail. At the end of the day my feet and socks were black. This could have been ameliorated by staying well in front of, or behind, our gaggle of foot dragging 15-year-olds, but for another Philmont regulation.
Working on the dirt tan. Fastidious they were not.
To keep crews from getting separated, to lessen the chances of bear and mountain lion encounters, and to make passing other groups somewhat less problematic, Philmont requires that a crew hike as a group. During the first part of our trek, our Ranger took us through a little exercise to demonstrate the appropriate interval between crew members while hiking. It turns out to be about eight to ten feet, and they are pretty serious about it too; on day five of our trek, we spent an hour at Crooked Creek camp, which is staffed by Rangers who play the part of a family of 1840s homesteaders. It's a pretty good show, and the staff has it down to a T, affecting period attire, accents, and mannerisms. As we left Crooked Creek, a few of us who were low on water backtracked several hundred yards to a spring. The rest soldiered on, leaving a quarter mile gap in our midst. The manner of our departure was evidently noted by at least one keen-eyed staffer, who radioed ahead to Clear Creek camp, our next staffed camp, with a tale of our misdeeds. The next day, as Todd, Joe, and I were walking past the Clear Creek staff cabin, we were surprised to be stopped by several Rangers who gently chided us for allowing our crew to become separated. Lesson learned: the woods have eyes. Thereafter, we stuck together.
On a recommendation from Backpacking Light, I took two pairs of Darn Tough Vermont socks. I also used a Coolmax liner sock. The Darn Toughs were great, and I would recommend them without reservation. I had to wash a pair every day, but once you get into this routine, it is not a hassle. In keeping with Philmont protocol, I did my wash in a Ziploc bag at the end of the day, and poured wash water down our campsite sump. Our Scouts, as well, were encouraged to wash their clothes and socks when the opportunity arose. Of course, they would not do this without some prodding. Left alone, I do not doubt that they would have been most content to ignore soap and water for the duration of our trek.
I have always used gaiters on backpack trips, mostly to keep pebbles out of my shoes and trail dust off my socks. On this trip I took a pair of Integral Designs Shortie gaiters in eVent fabric, weighing in at 2.5 oz. They work well with low top shoes and are equipped with a replaceable instep cord. The most notable thing about these gaiters is the lack of a zipper. You pull them on before you put your boots on, and then snug them down on your boot using the elastic instep cord and the front hook. I took them off only once during our descent from Mt. Phillips to Cypher's Mine camp, when mid-day temperatures were high enough to cause me to want a little more air flowing around my feet.
Waite Phillips' favorite view: a crew member on Window Rock.
For an insulating layer I took a Patagonia Nano Puff pullover. If I hadn't taken this on a shakedown trip into southern Idaho's Owyhee mountains in May, I would never have believed that this silky, bulkless garment could offer significant warmth. However, it was all I needed and more on chilly mornings. At 10.2 ounces, it disappeared in my pack. Under a shell, I am sure that it would have kept me comfortable in any conditions we might reasonably have expected to encounter at Philmont in the month of June.
The funny thing was that June was as nice as June can be. In twelve days of trekking we saw nary a drop of rain. Only at Zastrow did we hear distant thunder one evening, though the next day was clear and cloudless. Against the chance of Philmont weather at its worst (I remember the August monsoon from my 1972 trek), I took a Mountain Hardware Cohesion jacket in Conduit fabric (14 oz), and a pair of Marmot PreCip rain pants at 11 ounces. Both of these were a little bit of overkill, and I could have gone lighter with a Mountain Hardwear Quark jacket at 10 ounces. The Cohesion jacket has a nice slim fit and mated well with the Nano Puff jacket. At any rate, it never left the bottom of my pack.
For headwear, I took a Patagonia Bimini cap, a baseball style cap with a wrap around cape to protect the back and sides of the neck. Others have complained about the fact that the cape is not detachable, but I did not find this to be a problem. The fabric is so sheer that the cape can easily be tucked inside the hat when not wanted. I thought this was a great piece of gear, and I felt like a French Legionnaire while wearing it. With a little sunscreen on my nose and cheeks, I was good to go.
AWOL from the French Foreign Legion: the author and his son atop the Tooth of Time.
I took prescription sunglasses along with my regular specs. I considered taking a Photon Micro-Light II as a backup flashlight to my Petzl headlamp until I used the Photon on a shakedown trip, decided to make it my only light, and found it filled this role admirably. Especially useful was the clip attachment for the brim of my hat, which made night time reading/writing very easy. I highly recommend this light as your only light for around camp activities after dark.
Shortly after we arrived at Philmont, our crew leader and I reviewed our itinerary with an Itinerary Planner from Logistic Services. This was very informative, and we learned a great deal about the current conditions at each of our camps, the location of our two resupply points, and how we would have to arrange our hiking schedule to accommodate the programs we hoped to take in. We learned that we had no dry camps, though we did have two stretches of trail that would probably require humping some extra water. With this in mind we made sure that each Scout took at least two Nalgene bottles, or the equivalent, down from the three I originally recommended. A lot of our Scouts prefer two- or three-liter bladders. For my part, I took a one-liter bottle and also carried a three-liter MSR Dromedary, which I would usually fill with about half a liter of water. Our last day was a thirteen-mile hike including the obligatory hike down Tooth Ridge, all of which is dry. As chance would have it, this was also our hottest day. I filled the Dromedary and my bottle at the spring at Shaefers pass and was glad to have done so. This was the only day I had to dispense water to a few Scouts who underestimated the distance remaining to Headquarters.
I was prepared to use Philmont-supplied water purification tabs every time I filled up. However, the use of these tablets turned out to be the exception, rather than the rule. Most of the camps we stayed at had potable water on tap. When we did use the tablets, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they did not impart a terribly disagreeable chemical taste. I was happy to have left my filter at headquarters.
Of course, I suffer from doodad creep as much as any backpacker. There is always a shiny gadget that serves no vital purpose, yet demands to be taken. I was able to restrict myself to bringing only my Kindle, with some summertime reading on board. All I usually need to send me into a sound slumber is a few pages of words in a row, and my reading for this trip was Justin Cronin's thriller, The Passage. It must have made an impression on me, since one night I had a dream about vampire bears hanging from the trees surrounding our tents.
Crew Gear
At Wild Horse camp crew members busy themselves with cooking.
Philmont will provide all crew gear you may require. However, as others have noted, it is heavy and somewhat battered. I saw some bear bag ropes at Philmont that should have been retired long ago, and I don't even want to think about the stuff I saw stuck to the Frisbee filter that I was offered at camp stores. Of the myriad items that Philmont is prepared to lend a crew, we took only the Philmont bear bags. All other crew gear we brought with us after considering the advice of those who have given careful thought reducing weight.
Stove and Cookware
I read that butane canisters are now offered for sale at trail commissaries. We had three opportunities to obtain butane canisters after we started our trek. This led us to forego white gas stoves in favor of butane stoves. I also read that good luck had been reported with MSR WindPro stoves. We elected to carry one of these and one MSR Pocket Rocket. Of the two, I much preferred the WindPro, at 6.5 ounces. The Pocket Rocket burner sits on top of the fuel canister and makes balancing a pot on top of this set-up somewhat precarious, and we lost at least one pot of boiling water to an errant foot while using this stove. It is also hard to come up with an effective wind screen, the height of the burner again making things somewhat difficult. The remote burner of the WindPro sits on the ground, connected to the canister by a flexible fuel line. Others have reported that crews of twelve have gotten away with using only six cartridges during their twelve-day trek. Knowing that we could resupply en route made us a little lazy about being as efficient as possible in our daily water heating. We used seven eight-ounce canisters, and we had plenty of hot water for cooking, cleaning, and coffee.
We brought two three-liter aluminum pots with lids and found these entirely adequate for our needs. We also brought one hot pot lifter. We took neither crew spoons nor spatulas. A plastic measuring cup was used to dip hot water from the pot. The real trick was to get the Scouts not to set it down in the dust after having used it to measure and dispense hot water.
Todd demonstrates our rehydration technique, complete with cozy.
Grey Water Treatment
As part of its bear protocol and also in furtherance of its Leave No Trace policy, Philmont has equipped all campsites with grey water sumps. These are lengths of PVC pipe, approximately 5 to 6 inches in diameter, which are driven into the ground to an undetermined depth such that only 8 or 9 inches of the pipe protrudes from the ground. A coarse wire screen is affixed to the open end of the pipe with a hose clamp. In addition, every crew is issued the dreaded Frisbee, which turns out to be an actual Frisbee, into which a number of small holes have been drilled. This is the first stage filter that is to be used when getting rid of grey water. It is placed over the sump, concave side up, and waste water is strained through it. At the end of the process, anything that has not made it through the filter is picked off the Frisbee and put in the crew "yuck" sack for transport with the rest of the Troop's packaging waste.
In doing things this way, very little is left above ground that might attract bears, and grey water is disposed of in a way that does not contaminate surface water. All very laudable, if a little unsavory, particularly if you are the one carrying the Frisbee. Others have given thought as to how this process might be improved. At Doug Prosser's recommendation we took four one-gallon paint strainer bags, purchased at Home Depot for a few cents and weighing next to nothing. On arrival at a campsite, we simply stretched the elasticized bottom of one of these bags over the sump and poured all waste water through it for the duration of our stay. The weave of the paint strainer bag is much finer than the holes drilled in the frisbie, but since the bag is a mesh, you can actually move a higher volume of water through it than you can the frisbie. Because of the cooking method we used, we did not generate a significant amount of suspended food in our cleaning and rinse water, but we nevertheless switched out the paint strainer bags every three days. The use of paint strainer bags met with the approval of our Ranger and is a great improvement over the status quo. My advice is to come equipped to (politely) decline the Frisbee.
The Question of Rehydration
Of all the things that caused me to scratch my head during our months of preparation, none caused more perplexity than cooking, or to be more precise, rehydration, lest real cooking be given a bad name. I read with great interest about all of the methods devised by inventive Scouters to deal with this task. Every method had its champion, and I saw a few of these demonstrated during our trek. At Clear Creek camp, I caught a glimpse of a turkey bag from which a dinner entrée had been incompletely decanted several days before. There were things growing in it! I suppressed a shiver and moved on. During our planning we considered rehydrating via turkey bag, until I read an article by Al Geist which discussed a rehydration procedure that struck me as being very much in the spirit of Leave No Trace. Geist advocated conducting rehydration in a way that made use of resources at hand and generated neither dirty dishes nor grey water for the sump. This procedure is familiar to anyone who has used Mountain House, Packit Gourmet or Backpackers Pantry products: in-the-pouch cooking means all you dirty is a spoon. Since all of the Philfood we saw called only for rehydration with hot water, pouch cooking would seem much the preferable route to go. The devil, as they say, is in the details.
All Philfood meals come packaged for two people. However, some of the individual meal items are individual servings and some, such as the dinner entrees, are packaged to serve two people. If one were to rehydrate the dinner entrée in the pouch in which it was packaged, you would still have to split the entrée up so each Scout could have a serving. What do you put the other half of the entrée into if you are striving not to dirty a bowl? Geist advocated mining the packaging debris from other meal components for foil pouches that can be reused to rehydrate a portion of an entrée and serve as a simple bowl. For example, one of our dinners included one two-person serving of Mountain House Chili Mac. In that same meal one finds two foil packages of "Kreamy" crackers. Geist proposed that the cracker bags be carefully slit along their long dimension and the crackers put into a Ziploc bag for later consumption. Next he proposed that the contents of the Chili Mac pouch be equally distributed between the two empty cracker pouches. Boiling water would then be carefully measured and introduced into the cracker bags to rehydrate the entrée. Because the cracker bags are somewhat flimsy, the wonderfully obsessive Geist made little foam "cozies" for his crew, which would provide both support and insulation for the foil cracker pouches that were never intended to be used in this fashion.
Joe samples a canned meat product.
You can make this work, although it requires practice and a certain amount of forethought not normally found in a 15-year-old. We elected to try it out. We made cozies out of an aluminized bubble wrap that I think is used in HVAC applications. This material provided rigidity and insulation. As the Scouts tried to make this method work, they discovered a hybrid approach that seemed to satisfy everyone. The entrée pouch was put in the cozy and rehydrated. After enough time had passed, half of the entrée would be poured/spooned into an empty foil pouch resting in a cozy. One Scout would eat directly from the entrée pouch and one Scout would eat from the salvaged foil pouch. We also used an alternate method, which was preferred by some of the Scouts. Because our itinerary called for a chuckwagon dinner at Clark's Fork camp, each Scout carried a 16-ounce Tupperware container with a snap lid. Some Scouts preferred to use this as the container in which to pour their half of the rehydrated entrée. At the very most then, we had only six containers and twelve spoons to clean after the evening meal.
My mess mate Todd Swanstrom and I did not dirty anything but a spoon apiece during our entire trek, and we became pretty adept at Geist's process after awhile. However, we remarked more than once how all this agonizing about food and cooking could be avoided if Philmont would simply mandate of its suppliers that all foods requiring rehydration be individually packaged. That way each Scout has his own pouch in which to rehydrate his food and out of which to eat. Although this would generate a little more packaging waste, fuel would be saved, and the tedious necessity of cleaning dishes and filtering grey water avoided.
As to the quality of the food itself, any adult with a modestly refined palate will find a lot to complain about in Philfood. (Again, get your mind right! Whose trip is this anyway, yours or your Scouts'?) However, I think the boys in our crew were generally pretty happy with the fare. It's nice to get Oreos and Nutter Butter cookies in your meal, particularly when you can wash them down with limitless volumes of Gatorade! They did not want for sugar. The breakfasts and lunches are "bar heavy," but Philmont seems to try to mix things up so the food does not become too monotonous. Ritz and Saltine crackers and canned and pouched meat products all figure prominently in the lunch menu. For the peanut averse, Philmont has substituted sunflower butter in squeeze packets. Oatmeal and granola are well represented in the breakfast menu. Gatorade powder makes up a surprisingly large percentage, by weight, of the meals. Of all the food, the dinner entrees were probably the least offensive to me. This year, Mountain House and Richmoor products were found in the dinner bags, and they seemed to be of the same quality that you would find at REI, albeit in cheaper packaging. One treat that I was particularly fond of was the freeze dried cherries that appeared in one meal. They were extremely tart and crunchy, sort of like an organic SweetTart. Fortunately, these did not seem too popular; I found all I wanted in the swap box at Cypher's Mine camp.
Finally, I consider the vexing problem of caffeine delivery to have been solved once and for all with the introduction of Starbucks Via instant coffee. Each adult took 24 packets, which provided each of us with two cups of coffee per day. If you have just a few quiet moments in the morning to contemplate what the day might bring over a cup of decent coffee, you can get through about anything.
Bear Bag Hanging
The crew hoists the first bear bags of the trek at Olympia camp.
Our Ranger advised that 200 bears and an undetermined number of mountain lions make Philmont their home on any given day. That makes roughly one bear per square mile. Philmont has devoted a great deal of energy to preventing or minimizing the chances for Scout/bear interactions. In addition to Leave No Trace, this is one of the main drivers of Philmont regulations. Every camp is equipped with a number of bear bag cables strung between two trees. The cables are, on average, about 25 feet off the ground. It is over these steel cables that Scouts are expected to hoist their crew bear bags with rope that each crew carries. Philmont will supply a crew with two 150-foot lengths of heavy, typically quite worn, nylon rope for this purpose. In lieu thereof, we took two 150-foot lengths of Amsteel Blue rope with a diameter of 7/64 inch and a breaking strength of 1600 pounds, made of Dyneema SK75 fiber. The best price I could find was $.20/foot, or $60.00 for 300 feet. Its small diameter also makes it somewhat hard to hold onto while hoisting bear bags, particularly after a resupply. After it gets a little dirty, it becomes less slippery. Three hundred feet of this rope, plus two carabiners, two mini carabiners, and two small stuff sacks weighed 21.6 ounces.
The first of the two ropes is for the main bear bags, and these items should be hoisted as soon as the crew arrives in camp. To prepare this rope, a loop is tied in the rope at its midpoint using a butterfly knot. A carabiner is clipped to this loop. With the carabiner clipped to the belt of the thrower, the two ends of the rope are coiled and thrown over the bear cable. Snarls are inevitable. My solution, and the only refinement I can offer to Al Geist's treatment of this issue, is to employ a rescue bag, something that has been a safety mainstay in whitewater rafting and kayaking for some years: Find a small stuff sack that will hold all 150 feet of the rope. It needs to have a small loop sewn into the bottom of the bag. Into this loop clip a mini carabiner. Tie loops in both ends of the rope and clip these ends into the mini carabiner. Then, stuff all the rope into the bag, leaving only the midpoint carabiner sticking out of the sack. It can be clipped onto the stuff sack drawstring to keep it outside the sack.
When you are ready to hoist the bear bags, clip the midpoint carabiner to your belt, loosen the drawstring of the stuff sack and pull out eight or nine feet of slack. Throw the sack over the bear cable. Because of the way you have loaded the sack, the rope will spool out without snarls. The rope ends can then be unclipped from the stuff sack, and the bear bags tied to the rope using lark's head hitches. Next, the second rope, which has been similarly prepared, is threaded through the midpoint carabiner of the main rope. Finally the bear bags are hoisted and each end of the rope is tied off to a separate tree, per Philmont protocol. The second rope, which has been threaded through the first, is dangling within reach. When you are ready to put up the "oops" bag later in the evening, it will be attached to the midpoint carabiner of the oops bag rope and hoisted up to join the other bags, using the bear bag rope carabiner as a pulley. This worked very well for us, and I know that other crews were envious of our minimalist setup. After hoisting bags for two weeks, the Amsteel Blue showed no noticeable wear.
A remembered landscape; Lower 'Cito, Hidden Valley, Window Rock, Cathedral Rock and Mt. Baldy as viewed from Shaefers Peak.
Dining Fly
Philmont requires that each crew take a dining fly and offers to supply a 12 x 12-foot tarp and poles. The crew is expected to bring its own guy lines. Packs and other gear are stored under the fly at night, and the fly serves as a kitchen or group refuge in inclement weather. Interestingly, Philmont will not let Scouts sleep under this or any other tarp. A tent is required. I don't know whether this requirement is related to bear safety or privacy issues. The Philmont fly is made of coated nylon and weighs about four pounds. I did not get a look at the poles. In lieu of the Philmont tarp we took a Granite Gear 10 x 12-foot silnylon tarp, weighing in at 23 ounces. Instead of dedicated poles, we erected it in a variety of configurations using two, four, or six trekking poles. It worked really well and pitched very taut, owing to its slight catenary cut. However, because we did not encounter any foul weather, I can't comment on its storm worthiness.
Aside from TP, a scrub pad, hand sanitizer, and liquid soap, we took no other Philmont gear. We took no extra accessory cord since all our tents and tarp were pre-strung, as it were. We left the spade at Headquarters, since all camps we were to stay at were equipped with scenic Philmont latrines. We took one communal 8-ounce tube of 30 SPF sunscreen, which we used religiously. It was still about one quarter full when we got home, and we had no cases of sunburn. We also took a communal tube of Ultrathon insect repellent at 2 ounces, and I don't think we got into it except for one night at Wild Horse camp.
Preparatory to our trek, Todd Swanstrom and I took the 16-hour wilderness first aid training course offered to Scouters by the Red Cross. Philmont now requires that each crew have at least one, and preferably two, adults with this training. However, Todd and I didn't have to worry ourselves with things medical since Joe Williams, our third companion, is a Boise M.D. Joe graciously offered to oversee the collection and safekeeping of the all important medical forms, without which you do not pass go. We had one Scout with us who has a strong allergy to all things equine. There was a possibility that he would go into anaphylactic shock should we camp or hike around horses, so we were all instructed in the use of the Epi-Pens Joe brought. This issue ultimately informed our choice of itineraries, and we were able to avoid all horse activities with the exception of the chuckwagon dinner at Clark's Fork camp. Joe assembled our medical kit and dutifully tended to the boys as needed, but drew the line at working on their feet. He would, however, talk them through a blister repair from a safe distance. Fortunately, we had no significant blister problems, although we came equipped with tincture of benzoin and Leukotape P.
Leaving 'Cito for greener pastures.
In all, I was very pleased with the equipment choices we made as a group, although these choices were not tested by bad weather. We were all happier for having parsed the over-inclusive Philmont equipment lists, bringing only what was essential, and making appropriate substitutions where there was a superior and lighter alternative. For myself, were I to leave tomorrow for another trek, I would bring a pair of briefs in lieu of the Capilene boxers I wore, and I might opt for a slightly sturdier shoe. I would leave the 16-ounce Tupperware bowl at home and make do with something else for our chuckwagon dinner, like a gallon Ziploc bag. Although I was pleased with the comfort of my new pack, I can't say that it performed any better than my Kelty, and in some areas the external frame pack clearly excels, such as ease of loading. They weigh nearly the same, at 4.2 pounds for the Granite Gear and 4.4 pounds for the Kelty. To my mind, and I appreciate that mine is a minority view, the modest improvements offered by internal frame packs don't seem to justify the extinction of the external frame pack.
Thirty-eight years ago I stood on the summit of Mt. Baldy and concentrated on fixing the 360-degree view in my mind, confident that I would never return to the spot, and I haven't yet. To the south I could make out Mt. Phillips, the second highest peak on the Ranch. This summer my son and I stood on the summit of Mt. Phillips and contemplated the not-too-distant summit of Mt. Baldy away to the north. I suggested that he, too, should take a good look around since this might be the last time he would ever visit this particular vantage point. He considered this for about two seconds before busying himself with lunch on the windswept summit, lunch including, among other things, yet another squeeze packet of the (by now) much reviled "Sunbutter." I suppose that it's asking too much of a 15-year-old to imagine that there will ever come a time when opportunity is foreclosed by age or infirmity. When you are 15, there is always another day.
We finished our trek on the afternoon of 6/24/10. We turned in our bear bags, which ended up being the only bit of Philmont-issued gear we carried, and the boys quickly repaired to the snack bar and trading post. I showered and completed my last journal entry before getting ready for the closing campfire, at which we would receive our arrowhead patches for successfully completing our trek. As I review that journal now, I am struck by one wish I expressed while we were at Cimarroncito, a large staffed camp northwest of the Tooth of Time, and adjacent to Hidden Valley, a place that I had visited in 1972 and still remembered. There were a lot of crews at 'cito, and the dust was roiling. I briefly longed for a landscape vacant of Scouts, vacant of people. Philmont is no longer a wilderness, notwithstanding that the BSA has been a good steward of the property. There are just too many people using the small portion of the Ranch designated as durable surface. So be it. The activities at the staffed camps are great, the staffers are friendly, knowledgeable, and engaged, and at Philmont the Scout Oath and the Scout Law are taken seriously. Philmont's experience and dedication to making everything click is visible everywhere. Thirty-eight years after last setting foot on the Ranch, Philmont still strikes me as the embodiment of Scouting at its very best.
Last rest stop of the trek. Headquarters and snack bar in view.


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Syfy finally returns to seemingly abandoned sci-fi roots with "Defiance" (8 p.m. Monday, Syfy; 2 stars out of 4), but the new drama doesn't live up to the expectations set by its reportedly $100 million price tag.
To be fair, that money not only went into the TV series, but also an online video game that is set in the same world with some of the same characters. Syfy and its video gaming partner, Trion Worlds, are hailing "Defiance" as "the first-ever convergence of television and online gaming," but I'm going to focus on the show, since I won't be playing the game.
If you're a fan of sci-fi TV (and classic literature, Westerns or conspiracy dramas, for that matter), you're going to recognize a laundry list of genre tropes in "Defiance." You'll also identify the DNA of far-superior efforts by the new show's three creators: Rockne S. O'Bannon ("Farscape"), Michael Taylor ("Battlestar Galactica") and Kevin Murphy ("Caprica").
As the story begins on TV Monday (it's already started in the video game), we see how seven alien races, collectively called Volton, came to Earth 30 years previously and the resulting Pale Wars destroyed the planet. Now the survivors, human and alien, are trying to get along on the "terraformed" Earth that bears little resemblance to what was there before.
War hero Joshua Nolan (Grant Bowler) and his adopted Irathient* daughter, Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas), are brought to the mining town Defiance, which used to be St. Louis, after a run-in with an alien motorcycle gang called the Spirit Riders.
Like a rule-breaking outsider from any number of Westerns, Nolan gets hired as the town's law keeper after the previous one is killed as the result of a feud between mine-owning human Rafe McCawley (Graham Greene) and Castithan* crimelord Datak Tarr (Tony Curran). Their kids, Alak Tarr (Jesse Rath) and Christie McCawley (Nicole Munoz), might be involved in a "Romeo & Juliet" romance, but these town leaders hate each other.
The two-hour premiere introduces us to a dizzying number of other characters: Mayor Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz) and her brothel-running sister, Kenya (Mia Kirshner); not-as-nice-as-she-seems former Mayor Nicolette Reardon (Fionnula Flanagan); manipulative Lady MacBethish Stahma Tarr (Jaime Murray); Indogene* doctor Yewll (Trenna Keating), and a Wookie-looking alien of some Votan race I can't recall.
There's also a lot of plot in the premiere, which begins with a history lesson, then slides into a murder mystery before bringing everyone together to fight a common foe. As if that isn't enough, the writers launch a conspiracy story.
Not only is the production harmed by its overloaded pilot and just fleeting moments of originality, its visual effects and alien makeup design are wildly inconsistent.
Despite all this, "Defiance" grew on me the more I watched. I'm encouraged by some of the continuing story threads that have been introduced, including an interspecies debate about a controversial Castithan practice and Irisa's troubling visions.
If the writers continue to develop characters as they've started with Irisa--Datak Tarr, for example, could become a fascinatingly multi-dimensional baddie--"Defiance" could reach its potential and become more than an pale imitation of better sci-fi.
* These are some of the seven alien races in "Defiance."
Watch the first 14 minutes of "Defiance" below:
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The Battle of Evesham was fought on the morning of the 4th August 1265, between the rebel barons led by Simon de Montfort and the army of King Henry III, under his son Prince Edward.
Heavily outnumbered De Montfort's charged his cavalry into the enemy ranks. The battle lasted for some hours before turning into a bloody massacre. Both de Montfort and his son Henry were killed, along with around 4,000 of his soldiers.
Despite defeat, Simon de Montfort is hailed a hero, he fought for the people; a democrat and the man who set up the first true Parliament. His fame in international and his Parliament is the template for others.
2015 is the 750th anniversary and Evesham will be commemorating the battle and his legacy with the Battle of Evesham Festival.


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A visit to Ilfracombe's town centre is a treat for shoppers and fans of Victorian architecture and history alike. With an excellent selection of independent shops, greengrocers, butchers and bakers, some handed down through generations. You will also find banks, building societies and chemists.
Around the harbour and along the seafront and surrounding streets you will find traditional seaside souvenir gift shops and galleries as well as a well stocked convenience store.
Ilfracombe & District Tourism AssociationLandmark TheatreThe Seafront, IlfracombeDevon EX34 9BZ
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Sunday, 17 July 2011 06:32 PM
LONDON (AP) — Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's former British newspaper chief, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of phone hacking and bribing police, and the escalating scandal shaking Murdoch's global media empire also claimed the job of London's police chief.
The arrest of the 43-year-old Brooks, often described as a surrogate daughter to the 80-year-old Murdoch, brought the British police investigations into the media baron's inner circle for the first time.
Hours later, the resignation of Britain's most senior police officer, Paul Stephenson, who quit over his links to an arrested former editor at the same Murdoch's tabloid that Brooks once edited, was the latest shock in a scandal engulfing Britain's political and media elite.
Brooks' arrest came only 48 hours before she, Rupert Murdoch and his son James were to be grilled by U.K. lawmakers investigating widespread lawbreaking at Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid. It also raises the possibility that Murdoch's old friend Les Hinton, who resigned Friday as publisher of The Wall Street Journal, or his 38-year-old son and heir apparent, James, could be next.
Brooks' detention also moved the police inquiry closer to the heart of British political power. Brooks is the ultimate social and political insider, who dined at Christmas with Prime Minister David Cameron and counts numerous celebrities and senior politicians among her friends.
Cameron's Conservative-led government and the London police are facing increasing questions about their close relationship with Murdoch's media empire.
Stephenson said he was resigning as commissioner of London's force because of "speculation and accusations" about his links to Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor, who also worked for the London police as a part-time PR consultant for a year until September 2010. Wallis was arrested last week.
Stephenson said he did not make the decision to hire Wallis and had no knowledge of Wallis's links to phone hacking, but he wanted his police force to focus on preparing for the 2012 London Olympics instead of wondering about a possible leadership change.
"I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice and the repugnant nature of the selection of victims that is now emerging," Stephenson said. "I will not lose any sleep over my personal integrity."
Until Friday, Brooks was the defiant chief executive of News International, Murdoch's British newspaper arm, whose News of the World tabloid stands accused of hacking into the phones of celebrities, politicians, other journalists and even murder victims. In the tumultuous last two weeks, she had kept her job even as Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old tabloid and tossed 200 other journalists out of work.
On Sunday she showed up for a prearranged meeting with London police investigating the hacking and was arrested. She was being questioned on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications — phone hacking — and on suspicion of corruption, which relates to bribing police for information.
Brooks' spokesman, David Wilson, said police contacted her Friday to arrange a meeting and she voluntarily went "to assist with their ongoing investigation." He claimed that Brooks did not know she was going to be arrested.
The arrest threw Brooks' appearance at Tuesday's parliamentary hearing into doubt.
"Obviously this complicates matter greatly," Wilson said. "Her legal team will have to have discussions with the committee to see whether it would still be appropriate for her to attend. "
Lawmaker Adrian Sanders said if Brooks did not appear, "that is not going to go down very well with my fellow committee members."
The arrest was the latest blow for Murdoch, the once all-powerful figure courted by British politicians of all stripes. Now Murdoch is struggling to tame a scandal that has already destroyed his muckraking tabloid News of the World, cost the jobs of Brooks and Hinton and sunk the media baron's dream of taking full control of a lucrative satellite broadcaster, British Sky Broadcasting.
"(Murdoch) needs to come absolutely clean about what he knew, about what his senior executives knew, and why this culture of industrial-scale corruption — so it is alleged — appeared to have grown up without anyone higher up in the food chain taking any real responsibility for it," Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Sunday.
Even more senior figures could face arrest, including James Murdoch, chairman of BSkyB and chief executive of his father's European and Asian operations. James Murdoch did not directly oversee the News of the World, but he approved payments to some of the paper's most prominent hacking victims, including 700,000 pounds ($1.1 million) to Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor.
James Murdoch said last week that he "did not have a complete picture" when he approved the payouts.
Britain's bribery law gives authorities the power to prosecute corporate chiefs for failing to prevent bribery, something that had previously been difficult, but the bar for proof is high.
Chandrashekhar Krishnan, executive director of Transparency International UK, said British prosecutors seeking to prove that bribes that were approved at a high level would have to uncover strong evidence such as memos or minutes of a meeting.
"That usually proves to be very, very difficult," he said
James Murdoch's ties to the hacking scandal might bolster the position of his 42-year-old sister, Elisabeth Murdoch, who was not with News Corp. during much of the period in question.
Hinton, too, could face questioning over wrongdoing at the News of the World during his 12 years as executive chairman of News International. But Hinton is an American citizen living in the U.S., so British authorities would have to seek his extradition if he refused to come willingly.
Brooks stepped down Friday as head of Murdoch's British newspapers, saying she was going to "concentrate on correcting the distortions and rebutting the allegations about my record."
She was editor of the now-defunct News of the World between 2000 and 2003, when some of the phone hacking took place, but has always said she did not know it was going on, a claim greeted with skepticism by many who worked there.
At an appearance before U.K. lawmakers in 2003, Brooks admitted that News International had paid police for information. That admission of possible illegal activity went largely unchallenged at the time and lawmakers are keen to ask her about it again.
Police have already arrested nine other people, including several former News of the World reporters and editors, over allegations of hacking and bribery. Those include Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor who became Cameron's communications chief before resigning in January. No one has yet been charged.
Some Murdoch critics were suspicious of the timing of Brooks' arrest, which may draw attention away from uncomfortable questions about police actions.
"The timing stinks," said Mark Lewis, lawyer for the family of Milly Dowler, the murdered 13-year-old whose phone was hacked by News of the World journalists in 2002.
Stephenson quit as London police are under pressure to explain why their original hacking investigation several years ago failed to find enough evidence to prosecute anyone other than News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Detectives reopened the investigation earlier this year and now say they have the names of 3,700 potential victims.
Records show that senior officers have had numerous meals and meetings with News International executives in the past few years.
Stephenson, who became police chief in 2009, said he had "no knowledge of, or involvement in, the original investigation into phone hacking in 2006." He said he was "unaware that there were any other documents in our possession of the nature that have now emerged."
Tuesday's televised public inquisition by a parliamentary committee is one both Murdochs fought to avoid, but later reluctantly agreed to attend.
Politicians want answers about the scale of criminality at the News of the World, while the Murdochs wan to avoid incriminating themselves or doing more harm to their business. They will have to walk a fine line: misleading Parliament is a crime.
Murdoch is eager to stop the crisis from spreading to the United States, where many of his most lucrative assets — including the Fox TV network, 20th Century Fox film studio, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post — are based. The FBI has already opened an inquiry into whether 9/11 victims or their families were also hacking targets of News Corp. journalists.
On Sunday, Murdoch took out full page ads in British newspapers promising that News Corp. would make amends for the phone hacking scandal, with the title "Putting right what's gone wrong." News Corp. vowed there would be "be no place to hide" for wrongdoers.
That followed a full-page Murdoch ad Saturday declaring, "We are sorry."
But Murdoch's critics say that is not enough. Labour Party leader Ed Miliband said Sunday that Murdoch has "too much power" in Britain and his share of media ownership should be reduced.
Murdoch still owns three national British newspapers — The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times — and a 39-percent share of BSkyB.
Christopher Torchia in London contributed to this report
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访问J/boat us
What a Difference a J/Makes!
Comfort Under Sail
Now it's possible to sail fast with just a friend or two as crew. After all, isn't this how we sail most of the time on a day's sail or when cruising? Rarely is the gang aboard to hold the boat down or fly a spinnaker.The measure of a good sailboat is how well it sails upwind and downwind with only 2-3 people aboard. The goal is VMG, Velocity-Made-Good, straight into the wind or away from the wind, considering both speed and sailing angle. Many of the modern integrated instrumentation systems can display this data, or you can use a set way-point to windward on a GPS to come up with the number. Good short-handed VMGs are when a "50-something" husband & wife jibe a J/105 (34.5 ft.) with asymmetrical through Woods Hole against the current, while others motor. Or, if you can beat upwind in steep waves doing 6.8 knots with a VMG of 5 knots in 18 knots of wind!
Safe, Fast & Easy
Flying an asymmetrical spinnaker from a retractable, carbon-fiber bow sprit is a one person job. By using a cockpit-operated snuffer, no one has to be on deck when the spinnaker is flying, being jibed or doused. To jibe, simply let off one sheet and pull in the other. Downwind VMG is doubled. Result? Less motoring and more sailing.It's safer. One corner of the spinnaker (the "tack") is always secured to the bowsprit, eliminating wild oscillations. The sail has more slope to its leading edge with a center-of-effort located further forward and lower. Wind gusts lift the bow, propelling the boat forward with finger-tip control. No more "white-knuckled" round-up broaches.Speed from the asymmetrical's greater power pushes the apparent wind 30-50 degrees forward of the true wind direction. In light air and lumpy seas, the sail's added power steadies the boat. Deep sailing angles (160-170 degrees True Wind Angle) are achieved in a breeze. The luff, which is 8% longer than the straight line distance from tip of the sprit to halyard exit on the mast, rotates to windward as the sheet is eased - projecting area to the wind like a conventional spinnaker when pulled back by a pole.
That Feel
The new Js instill a sense of confidence, freeing one from anxieties. Even when planing at 10+ knots, one feels in total control. There's less work. Guests aren't pressured into unfamiliar tasks. Fewer orders are needed. It's more fun...like a good sports-car, turning as if it were part of you. Not with sluggish delay. But with a smooth, even response - around crests, down waves and through crowded harbors.
Mainsail Only
J's sail well flying any sail combination you feel comfortable with. For harbor-cruising or heavy winds, an unreefed main is the answer. If the boat sails 6+ knots under main alone, why bother with large overlapping jibs? Visibility is improved. The big main is a bonus for "cruising canvas" races. And, it takes one person to sail the boat. High wind mode is a flattened mainsail with open leech, achieved by tightening backstay, cunningham, vang and outhaul. These adjustments are quicker and easier than reefing. The jib can be rolled up and forgotten.
34% Upwind VMG Gain?
Hull design, rig, sailing length and weight location greatly affect VMG. You see many cruising boats motoring upwind in both light and heavy air. Why? Not enough sailpower for light air or stability for a breeze. For example, the J/109 (35 ft.), sailing upwind at 7.2 knots, 38 degrees from the true wind (25 degrees apparent) will have a VMG of 5.7 knots. This is 15% faster than boat X sailing 7 degrees further from the wind at 7 knots with a VMG of 4.7 knots. And, it's 34% faster than a classic cruiser doing 6 knots with an upwind VMG of only 4.2 knots. These differences are inescapably locked in by design and construction.
Low Center of Gravity
Good upwind VMGs are only possible with a low, vertical center of gravity (VCG). Top-heavy boats roll and pitch. This motion disturbs water flow around the boat and airflow past the sails, not to mention equilibrium of the crew on deck. The lower the weight of the boat relative to its waterplane, the greater the stability, the more sail that can be carried and the smoother the motion. This explains a J's smooth, stable ride through waves. The VCG is well below the waterplane.
Resin Infusion Process
You get what you pay for. Low VCG is achieved by light, strong construction of what's above the water. Since 1994 most J models benefit from the innovative SCRIMP resin-infusion process. End-grained, aircraft-grade balsa-core laminates have structural GRP skins with 65-70% glass content, or the equivalent of custom high-tech, oven-baked pre-pregs.
Performance Rigs
The best place to reduce weight is aloft. All spars are custom-designed for J Boats, race-tested and abused to insure reliability with a good safety margin built-in. Running backstays aren't required. For models like the J/122 and J/133, a carbon-fiber mast is specified to further optimize upwind stability and VMG for short-handed cruising. These custom-engineered, one-piece, autoclaved spars by Hall Spars have a luff track designed for low-profile and low-friction slides. The 120-130 pound weight saving aloft is equivalent to having two invisible 200 pound genies sitting on the weather rail to improve performance.
Ballast & Shoal Draft
The best place to add weight is in the keel. A lead keel, fixed under a structural molded sump, having much of the weight in a bulb at the bottom, serves to optimize a boat's stability without adding excess draft. J's combine low VCG ballast with quality construction - especially important when opting for a shoal draft keel. Cruising "J's" with shoal draft keel routinely outperform longer, deeper draft cruising boats. Before deciding on this option, consider that the need for shoal draft may be a function of speed. A fast boat, that easily sails 50 miles in a day, puts more deep harbors in range than can be visited in a year.
Sails are the horses. A light boat with clean lines and good stability can carry the sail power needed for lively performance. There's no need for tall, scary rigs with heavy sheet loads and winches. Sail Area to displacement (SA/[DSPL/64]^.67) is a good indicator of how much horsepower the design can handle and what its speed potential might be. Look for ratios over 20. The J/122 is at 23%.
Low Resistance
Too much weight usually means too much wetted surface (WS). Like brake shoes. The more WS there is relative to sail area, the quicker you stop. A good SA/WS ratio is critical for performance in light air conditions. Among 40 footers, J/122's ratio of 3.1 is FAST. A boat with a 2.0 would be "glued." Then there's form drag. It's usually faster to be long and narrow. But only when combined with greater stability and sail power. A length (LWL) to beam (BWL) ratio greater than 3 is desirable for good directional tracking in waves. Then, oversized keel, skeg or rudder surfaces aren't necessary. A long canoe tracks, a pram spins. J/122 has a healthy 3.6:1 ratio with flared topsides. Flare slaps waves down and keeps the crew dry. Vertical-sided hulls bounce waves up on the crew.
Speed Rating
The rated speed of most sailboats is published. Order a copy of PHRF Handicaps from US SAILING (401-683-0800). It's how we know the projected speed of a J/120 with genoa will be 30 seconds per mile faster than a Sabre 42 - more than the length a football field after 8 minutes of sailing! Or, that her all-round speed will equal boats which are nearly 20 feet longer, such as a Swan 57, Hinckley 59 or Deerfoot 62. An often overlooked benefit of such speed is the help it gives you in route-planning when dealing with weather systems.
Your Next Boat
Now more than ever before, differences between sailboats are greater than differences between golf clubs, tennis rackets, skis or cars! Performance is the reason you don't see wooden or solid fiberglass tennis rackets, skis or golf clubs anymore. A fast new "J" can make a beginner look very good, leaving the experts far astern with little solace that slow is easier or more comfortable. It could take years, owning and sailing all types of boats, to learn that good design and high quality composite construction makes so large a difference. Or, you can make the most of your time and dollars by acquiring what we've learned and are designing into every new "J."
J/Boat US
Sailing In
© Copyright 2016 J/Boats, Inc. - PO Box 90 Newport, RI 02840
401-846-8410 - email@example.com - Site Map


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Tag Archives: twitter tips
All Posts, Promoting Your Website 7
Twitter: Four Ways to Fuel Traffic to Your Yola Site
Among social media, Twitter is one of the most addictive and it's the best suited to ever-increasing mobile use—with 200 million active Twitter users sharing more than 100,000 Tweets per minute. It has also become the medium of choice for countless celebrities, brands and experts to gain and engage a following. You had a quick introduction to using Twitter to promote your Yola website in our post, "Drive Traffic to … Read more
Tagged gain followers, gain traffic, Social Media, traffic, Twitter, twitter tips, twitter tutorial |


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Leavitt Racing Components Introduces A New Straight-Rail Asphalt Chassis
Anyone who has been a part of racing for a while has likely noticed a sort of ebb-and-flow of technology and wisdom that moves between the racing strata. For example, expensive technology developed in the professional racing classes gradually becomes cheaper as it evolves and usually gets adopted by Saturday night racers. Or it can go the other way. Every year, great new crew chiefs, chassis specialists, and drivers make a splash on the Sprint Cup tour, or other professional series, after cutting their teeth and winning races at the local level. A lot of that is planned, but some happens more naturally.
Take, for example, Leavitt Racing Components out of Mooresville, NC. The chassis shop has always built cars for all levels, but for the last several years it had been quite busy designing and fabricating chassis for NASCAR's top-level racing series, the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World Series. Building cars on that level requires a lot of expertise as well as technology. To that end, owner Steve Leavitt added a complete CNC-machining center to be able to fabricate custom components for the chassis, installed computing centers to completely design a chassis to determine strengths and weaknesses before bending the first piece of tubing, and many other tricks.
Despite Leavitt Racing Components' success as a chassis builder, the vogue trend in the Cup series is for teams to build all their cars in-house. It makes sense for the multi-car teams to invest in the capabilities to build their own chassis, but even single-car teams feel the need to emulate that trend in order to "keep up." So despite the organization's success, Leavitt slowly found its high-end Cup chassis business drying up through no fault of its own.
That ebb from the Cup end of the business winds up "flowing" to the benefit of the Saturday night racer. Leavitt Racing Components is already a major player on the USAR Pro Cup Series and has several winning NASCAR Late Model Stock teams running its chassis. And now the company is designing a new straight-rail asphalt car.
"The NASCAR Late Model Stock is really only dominant in the Southeast," Steve Leavitt explains. "But the straight-rail car is raced all over the country. We used to build a lot of straight-rail cars but haven't in years. Now that most of the Cup teams are doing their own thing we have the ability and the time to start building them again, and I think we can put a really good race car on the track."
Following is a close look at Leavitt Racing Components' new straight-rail chassis. As this went to press Leavitt says he can't give an idea of the final cost. "There's still too much left to be finalized," he says. "This is the very first chassis, so we're developing jigs and new ideas as we go along. When we get the second one built we'll have a better idea of what we will need to charge. I do know we'll have at least a few on the track by the end of the 2009 racing season and, hopefully, this chassis will have wins to its credit before the start of the 2010 season."


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About this font family
Carton is a font family whose origin comes from his Display version, which is made up of a parallelepiped in isometric projection on a large grid.
The Carton type family boasts an entire range of original forms with a number of different constraints other than calligraphic strokes or modular construction techniques. The constraints chosen in the process of creating this alphabet allowed us to give it specific features which would lead to the development of a coherent family of type. The design of the Bold and Regular departs from the earlier strict geometrical forms and increases in contrast and complexity. It paved the way for the creation of a thinner character for the reading of ordinary texts.
- Basic text strings
- Random text strings
- News feeds
- Pangrams
Carton Bold
Carton Display
Carton Tricolore 1A
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There's never been a better time
to apply to Otterbein University.
Apply online today!
Welcome, new graduate students! Please join us at Orientation on Thursday, January 5th, 2017. Orientation opens at 5pm in the Campus Center. Explore various campus resources, shop the bookstore, get your student ID card, and meet your faculty & classmates. Registration is open now!
This virtual orientation page will familiarize you with registration, the campus portal (My O-Zone), parking, getting your ID card, and some of the many resources available to you at Otterbein. Don't forget that many campus services are available to you at little or no cost – career counseling, recreation facilities, community service projects, sporting events, and arts and music productions.
Join us at the Welcome Event held the first week of classes Fall and Spring terms. And, join our Facebook community for updates, news, events, and activities for graduate students.
Call the Graduate School at 614-823-3210 if you'd like a tour of campus before classes start or give us a call with any questions. Again, welcome to Otterbein!
Below are a few resources to help you start your journey at Otterbein as a member of one of our Graduate School programs:
Barbara Schaffner
p/ 614.823.1735
e/ email@example.com
Terry Magas
Assistant to the Dean
p/ 614.823.3274
e/ email@example.com
Gaby Miller
Graduate Education Recruiter/Counselor MAT
p/ 614.823.1346
e/ email@example.com
Dorothy Crider Fleming
Graduate Nursing Admission Recruiter/Counselor
p/ 614.823.3272
e/ firstname.lastname@example.com
Amy Featherstone
Graduate Education and MAEM Recruiter/Counselor MAE
p/ 614.823.3271
e/ firstname.lastname@example.com
Steve Saunier
MBA Recruiter
p/ 614.823.1096
e/ firstname.lastname@example.com
Otterbein University, 1 South Grove Street, Westerville, OH 43081 614.890.3000
Otterbein University is a private, non-profit, United Methodist affiliated, regionally-accredited institution.
© 2019 Otterbein University. Otterbein University is an affirmative-action, equal-opportunity employer


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18 Bay
23 North Ferry Road
Shelter Island
Dinner Thursday through Saturday
Brunch and early dinners Sundays
beginning April 7
Eighteen Bay on Shelter Island is the kind of restaurant you see all over Europe but seldom in America. In tiny villages throughout France and Italy you can find little bistros and trattorias serving one menu offering whatever is seasonal and whatever the chefs found at the market that day.
It's the same at 18 Bay, which offers one four-course menu but happily accommodates vegetarian and vegan guests with alternative choices on that set menu. Located on North Ferry Road, 18 Bay is in a lovely restored farmhouse with big windows and a covered porch. There is a wood-burning stove at the entrance, a bar in the middle, and about 12 tables all around. It is a quiet and pretty place with shiny dark mahogany-colored floors and creamy buttery yellow walls.
Upon arrival we decided to try a few of the specialty cocktails at the bar. The cucumber gimlet, no more than Hendrick's gin, cucumber puree, and lime juice was light, not too sweet, and a relative bargain at $12. When we moved to our table we were served some delicious warm and crusty wheat bread with a cauliflower puree that had a hint of truffle oil in it. I decided to go for the regular set menu and my guest went for the vegan option. The first course was an antipasti platter with four mini portions nestled into four dents of a square plate. The regular menu offered handmade pizzette with mozzarella and roasted tomatoes, baby kale, blood orange, and duck confit salad, roasted beets, and baked Peconic Bay scallops. Each was utterly delicious.
The pizzette had a chewy, slightly sweet and salty crust and the roasted tomatoes were very flavorful. The baby kale with blood oranges and duck confit was also absolutely divine. The baby kale was remarkably tender and the citrus tang of the blood oranges complimented the richness of the duck. The roasted beet salad included a few pretty and tender stems, a few leaves, and was surrounded by a wonderful pistachio pesto. The Peconic Bay scallop dish was two large scallops nestled in their shells topped with plenty of buttery breadcrumbs. The presentation of these four antipasti was beautiful. The vegan substitutions for this first course were an olive tapenade on the pizzette instead of mozzarella, and grilled fennel as a substitute for the scallops.
The next course for me was risotto Milanese, the vegan version prepared with Swiss chard. Both were excellent, although I much preferred my more intensely flavored, ultra-cheesy, cooked al dente Arborio rice treat.
For entrees there were two choices on the regular menu, either lamb or monkfish osso bucco. I chose the lamb which, again, was excellent. While the serving portions before were somewhat dainty, this was a good-size piece of lamb with a nice bone with marrow. It had an excellent sauce, a light jus, and had a few little potatoes and artichoke heart quarters scattered on top. The gremolata topping didn't seem to be garlicky, it was a more subtle sprinkling of lots of flat leaf parsley and slivers of blanched lemon peel. The vegan option was a Napa cabbage caponata stuffed Japanese eggplant with maitake mushrooms. It was well seasoned and . . . virtuous.
The service on the night of our visit was excellent. Everyone is very low key, mellow, soft-spoken, kind. Even the Cure playing through the speakers sounded uncharacteristically mellow. As this is the kind of cozy spot where people chat with each other, we struck up conversations with people at the tables nearby. One couple, local vegetarians, said they come to 18 Bay often. On the other side of us were two hipsters on a date all the way from Brooklyn.
There is one price at 18 Bay, $55 for the four-course meal. This is a bit steep but the quality of the food justifies it. However, I would feel more comfortable if the vegan and vegetarian offerings were perhaps less. Duck confit, scallops, and lamb shanks are a lot more expensive than cabbage, eggplant, and Swiss chard. Give the vegans a break!
For dessert there is one choice, a vegan chocolate cupcake served with whipped cream and strawberries or whipped tofu. It is a beautiful little cake with a glistening top of wonderful dark ganache. The cake is very sweet and moist, the whipped cream barely sweetened, just right. I can't really get my head around whipped tofu, it's okay.
The chef-owners, Adam Kopels and Elizabeth Ronzetti, moved 18 Bay from Bayville to Shelter Island in 2011. They are truly dedicated to using local ingredients whenever possible. I loved 18 Bay and can't wait to see what creativity pops up on the menu as the seasons progress. Bayville's loss is most assuredly Shelter Island's gain.


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First we got the administrative court ruling to ban YouTube in Egypt for a whole month .
This is extremely
It is worth to mention that Google had already blocked the clip in both Egypt and Libya following the violent clashes that took place right after the release of that 13 minutes clip. The administrative court judge's reasoning is that this one month ban decision was taken after the refusal of YouTube to remove the film totally from its servers.
The administrative court judge does not understand that by banning the website in Egypt , the circulation of that offensive silly video will not stop worldwide for God sake !! Why does the judge ignore the fact that there are millions of videos defending Prophet Mohamed "PBUH" and Islam against those insults on the YouTube !?
I am already wondering about why the administrative court chose this particular time since last September 2013
Again the film was promoted equally in Egypt by none other than the Islamist Channel Al Nas and yet it has not been closed yet.
It is extremely dangerous court ruling because it opens for wider online censorship.
Speaking about Religion and media censorship.
Al Masry Al Youm has officially apologized for the daring cover of Assyasy Magazine "The Politician magazine" latest issue.
Here is the daring cover which is the product of famous revolutionary cartoonist Ahmed Nady.
|The controversial cover by Ahmed Nady
Many activists criticized the political activists and parties participated in the document accusing them of dumping the protesters alone facing the police violence.
This is the first time the Sheikh of Al Azhar and the Church representative are being shown naked like that.
According to Ahmed Nady , the cartoonist he got a tip that Al Masry Al Youm administration has decided to pull the issue from the market after it got an objection from the Church on how a church man would appear like that in a cartoon on cover of a magazine.
الي عرفته دلوقتي ان اول من اعترض على العدد وغضب جدا كانت مؤسسة الكنيسة … وبعدها العدد اتسحبAlready this was the last printed issue of the magazine issued by Al Masry Al Youm.I do not know if Al Masry Al Youm is going to print another issue.
— احمد نادي (@ahmad_nady) February 9, 2013
I believe this is one of the best magazine covers in Egypt from many many years ago. It broke many taboos yet unfortunately it seems that administration of Al Masry Al Youm does not want to break any taboos anymore.
Now moving to investigations and interrogations with journalists and TV hosts. TV hosts Dina Abdel Fatah and Wael Al Abrashi will be interrogate at the public prosecution office as they are accused of promoting Black Bloc culture in Egypt !! Wael Al Abrashi claimed that he spoke to Black Bloc members on Dream TV2 while Dina Abdel Fatah hosted alleged Black Bloc Members in her show on Tahrir TV. Of course the alleged and self proclaimed Black Bloc Facebook pages and twitter accounts denied that these were members in the Black Block.
To be honest I know that both of them did not host for real Black Bloc members but to be accused of promoting Black Bloc in Egypt !! For God sake what kind of charge this is !?
It is not the first time actually TV hosts and prominent figures are being dragged to investigations because of what they say on air.
From couple of weeks we found out that Alaa Abdel Fatah was summoned to the Supreme court to be interrogated for a case he knew nothing about !! At the Supreme court he found out that he is being accused of insulting judiciary !! Alaa refused the interrogation and instead he accused SCAF and Morsi of insulting the judiciary with their actions and decrees.
It is an irony considering the fact that Alaa Abdel Fatah was detained for 45 days in 2006 for protesting in solidarity with the reformists judges like Mekki brothers , El Khodiary and El Gheriany in the famous battle of judiciary independence.I can not keep noticing that Abdel Fatah is being summoned after his live TV confrontation with minister of justice Ahmed Mekki last Saturday during the Ultras trial on CBC channel's morning show.
I do not know how Al Naggar can be accused of insulting judiciary considering how polite he is , in fact I do not remember that he criticized judiciary or any judge rudely. I remember that he once criticized former Public prosecutor Abdel Magid Mahmoud when he was a MP in the parliament only !!
Now it turns out that Abdel Fatah and Al Naggar are not the only figures in Egypt accused of insulting judiciary and are being interrogated by a magistrate appointed by the ministry of justice , there is a long list of TV hosts and journalists like Mahmoud Saad , Lamis El Hadidy and Mona Shazly as well their producers. These TV hosts are accused of letting their guests insult the judges and judiciary in Egypt !!
Now a tip I got from a dear friend that the judges who reported that long list to the ministry of justice are the Muslim brotherhood's Judges for Egypt group !!!
You have to know that the number of "Insulting the president" lawsuits in time of Morsi's rule "6 months" exceeded all the lawsuits filed isnce 1892 when that stupid charged entered our legal system !!
I have got nothing to say more.
This is not the Egypt we want.


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Construction on Bell Street Park begins Thursday, March 21, 2013. Seattle Parks and Recreation awarded the construction contract to AGR Construction Inc.
The project will be divided into phases with each block being constructed individually to minimize disruption to local residents and business. The completed park will run between 1st – 5th avenues on Bell Street. AGR Construction will begin phase one between 1st to 2nd avenues with completion anticipated by the end of May 2013.
Seattle Parks is providing safe access to all businesses and residents along this portion of Bell Street during construction. Parks appreciates the neighborhood's consideration and cooperation during construction and encourages residents to contact Project Manager Patrick Donohue with construction concerns.
Bell Street Park will be a unique park for Seattle, providing much needed community open space for the high density Belltown neighborhood. The Parks and Green Spaces Levy project provides the funding to convert one traffic lane and reconfigures parking to create a park-like corridor through the heart of Belltown on Bell Street.
The project was first envisioned in the 1998 Belltown/Denny Triangle Neighborhood Plan with leadership from the Belltown Housing and Land Use Committee. Subsequently, the Belltown Community Council, Belltown Business Association and other community groups requested that the City develop the project as a response to inadequate open space facilities in the neighborhood and the difficulty in purchasing property for such uses.
For more information please contact Patrick Donohue, project manager, at 206-684-9286 or firstname.lastname@example.com or visit http://seattle.gov/parks/projects/bell_street/boulevard_park.htm.
# # #


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By Marcia Z. Segal
Since 2003, the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging has held an arts celebration marking Older Americans Month in May. This year, PCA's "Celebrate Arts and Aging" features three exhibits of works by older artists (age 55+); musical performances by seniors; special senior discounts to museums, theaters and concerts; and art classes and workshops.
The first exhibit is currently on display until the end of May at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St. Two other venues are displaying senior artworks throughout May: Philadelphia Senior Center, (PSC) 509 South Broad St.; and Center on the Hill…the place for active adults, at 8855 Germantown Ave, adjacent to the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. An artists' reception will be held at PSC on May 13 from 4 to 6 p.m.; Center on the Hill will host a reception Tuesday, May 31, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., which is also the last day of the exhibit. All of the receptions and exhibits are free and open to the public.
This will be the first year the Free Library has served as a venue for one of the "Celebrate Arts and Aging" exhibits, according to Joan Zaremba, director of marketing and corporate relations for PCA.
"We're very pleased that the Free Library is one of our exhibit spaces this year," Zaremba said. "One of our primary goals is to showcase creative works by seniors, and having a public space like this is wonderful.
"Over the past eight years of holding this celebration, we've found a fascinating diversity among the artists. Some are professionals who have made a living from their art, while others have only discovered late in life that they have truly exceptional artistic abilities. Those are the most inspirational — people who, after retiring, took a class in painting or sculpture and found a whole new aspect of themselves."
Throughout May, museums, theaters and cultural venues are also offering special discounts for seniors of 25% off or more. Classes and workshops for seniors are taking place at venues throughout the city.
Throughout the month, updated information on "Celebrate Arts and Aging" activities will be available at www.phillyfunguide.com/celebrate; or from the PCA Helpline at 215-765-9040.


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Yesterday, we featured a 9-inch Dell Netbook with Ubuntu Linux in our roundup for $199 (normally $249). Today, Dell is coupling the deal with an external hard drive or GPS for cheap.
Buyers now have the option of picking up a 1TB Western Digital MyBook Essential USB Hard Drive for $49 (normally $115) or a Magellan Roadmate 1212 GPS Navigation for $59 (normally $130). What a steal. [Dell via TechDealDigger]


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