text:
As I get older and the people I help seem to get younger, it seems like more and more I field questions about people who were born in the mid-twentieth century (i.e. my contemporaries). I am still surprised when I ask someone about their grandparents to find out that I am older than the grandparents. It is a fact of genealogical life that unless a person was born before about 1930, it is difficult to find any documents about that person. The genealogical contradiction is that it becomes increasingly more difficult to find a contemporary person closer to the present, just as it becomes more difficult in the distant past.
It is not uncommon for people I meet to not know one or both of their parents. In a number of instances recently, the person knew a name and nothing else. The reasons for not knowing a parent are varied, but follow a common pattern. Sometimes the parent or grandparent is not just unknown, but actively persecuted by the remaining family members as in "we don't talk about him at all."
One issue in finding recent individuals is that more contemporary documents are usually protected by all sorts of privacy rules and laws. Some of which make sense and others of which are merely excuses to charge a fee to obtain the record. Another factor making investigation difficult is the fact that we live in a highly mobile society and it is not unusual for people to move long distances and lose all contact with their former residence. Another significant issue is whether or not the person wants to be found. It is not unusual for people to be in hiding for any number of reasons
Here is are a few suggestions concerning some common situations:
#1 Finding contemporary individuals who may still be living.
There are two possible extremes when looking for living individuals, those whose identity we know and those we don't. The first category is pretty simple and straightforward. The second is a problem. In the first category are those people with whom we have "just lost contact." They aren't hiding or avoiding us, we just don't know where they are. To help find people who aren't hiding, there are dozens of online resources for locating people both for free and for a fee. One example, the white pages from Dexknows. (if you look for your own name, you may get the idea that privacy is an illusion). The second category, people who do not want to be found, are slightly more problematical. The process of looking for these people is called a "skip trace." It is important to understand that depending on your time and resources, nearly everyone can be found.
#2 Finding people who only recently died.
In the U.S., the master source for recently deceased individuals is the Social Security Death Index. Most U.S. citizens are subject to Social Security and the death of anyone who dies who is covered by Social Security should be reported by the mortuary, a relative or other interested party. This works for nearly all deaths back to the early 1960s, before then, more people were not covered by Social Security and finding their death information can become very interesting and difficult. If you know where the person lived, you job is much easier, you can search obituaries and death notices in newspapers. Most obituary indexes go back only a few years, to about the 1970s, so you may need to search the newspaper.
#3 Finding people who are hiding.
I mentioned skip trace. Well, there is a whole industry built up to assist in finding people. Not usually for genealogy, more likely for debt collection. A Google search on "skip trace" brings up well over a million results. Let's just say that skip tracing is a very developed activity that produces results in almost all cases. It is very difficult to really disappear. Here is a pretty good description of the process.
#4 Finding people who are legally unknown.
Adoption is the main reason that for having people that are legally unknown. Originally, adoption was a public matter, but during the 20th Century, due to increased privacy concerns, adoption records were sealed and became very difficult to obtain. Just as with skip trace, a whole industry has arisen around the issue of finding one's birth parents. A Google search on "finding birth parents after adoption" shows 457,000 results. Before hiring anyone to search for birth parents, I would certainly take every precaution to investigate the individual or organization and obtain verifiable references. This is an area that is ripe with the possibility of scams.
#5 The person is really unknown.
The reasons people are unknown are a varied as the human experience. A baby may be born out of wedlock and the father unknown (or unrecorded). These situations are not limited to finding contemporary individuals, but are common throughout any given ancestry. Almost everyone will encounter the mystery father, the one who is not mentioned by anyone. In these cases, the real detective work begins. I am aware of a few success stories, but many times pertinent documents are simply unavailable. In this circumstance, as in most other end-of-line situations, the more information you gather about the individuals you can identify, the more likely you are to solve the mystery and identify the unknown person. In cases where there a lot of resources (read money) involved, a researcher may have to resort to DNA testing and other methods to give some leads into parentage.
#6 There is no information.
Absent the possibility that the unknown person was really an alien from outer space, there are a number of perfectly rationale reasons why a person cannot be identified. The major reason is name change. People do change their names for a variety of reasons, not all for criminal purposes. It is fairly common for immigrants to change their names upon entering a new country to appear more like one of the natives. This process never stopped, it is still going on everyday. It is not infrequent that I will be sitting in court listening to several name change cases before the court gets to my case. Formal name changes are as possible to discover as any other court records. But, when someone merely starts using a different name it is more difficult to detect. Again, this is a case where it is imperative to do the research for the individual in known, available records and not jump off into the unknown too quickly.
The general rule in all of these cases is to work from the known to the unknown. If you cannot find your grandfather, find out as much as you can about him personally before going off to search for his parents. In the course of learning about your father, you may find your grandfather.


text:
The official PA daily quotes Abbas' Facebook page:
"...our land is occupied and not disputed territory,
and this applies to all the territories
that Israel occupied before June 1967 (i.e., all of Israel)."
A second Abbas Facebook page
(not quoted in the PA daily):
"...our land is occupied and not disputed territory,
and this applies to all the territories
that Israel occupied in June 1967."
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
This week the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida quoted a letter that "President Abbas wrote on his Facebook page" to "the people of Palestine." Part of the letter read:
"The [sought UN] recognition will not liberate the land the following day, but will prove that we are right that our land is occupied and not disputed territory, and this applies to all the territories that Israel occupied before June 1967 (i.e., all of Israel)." (emphasis added)
A Facebook page in the name of "President Abbas" had this text posted on Oct. 11, 2012, as part of a letter to "the residents of Gaza." (See below)
Referring to all of Israel as "occupied Palestine" is very common in the PA official daily and on official PA TV. For example:
PA TV presenter: "Today, [May 15, Israel's Independence Day] 64 years ago, the Israeli Zionist gangs carried out the most extensive expulsion activities against our people, in the lands occupied in '48."
[PA TV (Fatah), May 15, 2012]
PA TV educational program for children:
TV host: "You live in Jerusalem. Do you visit the 1948 occupied cities (i.e., Israeli cities)?"
Girl: "I've been to Hebron."
Host: "No, Hebron is a city [in the PA] that we all can enter. The occupied cities - such as Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Jaffa, Acre (i.e., all Israeli cities) - have you visited them?"
Girl: "I've been to Haifa and Jaffa."
Host: "Tell us, are they beautiful?"
Girl: "Yes..."
Host: "We hope all children of Palestine will be able to go to the occupied territories, which we don't know and have never been able to see. Personally, I have never been there."
[PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 25, 2010]
See more examples below and on PMW's website.
However, a second Facebook page also in the name of "President Mahmoud Abbas," linked to by his official website, had the same letter posted one day earlier, but without the word "before":
"...this applies to all the territories that Israel occupied in June 1967." (emphasis added)
Which letter reflects Abbas' true message and ideology? Is it the one quoting him in his official daily, calling all of Israel "occupied?" This is the message that PA official media and many PA officials consistently send to the Palestinian population.
Or does the other version reflect Abbas' true message and ideology, the one defining "occupied" territory as those areas under Israel only since 1967? This is the message that Abbas and PA leaders consistently send to the international community.
The following is the full letter, parts of which were quoted in the official PA daily, and which appeared on one of the Facebook pages.
Mahmoud Abbas' Facebook page #1 [http://www.facebook.com/pages/President-Mahmoud-Abbas-/126646497354105] dated Oct. 11, 2012:
"Letter from His Excellency the President [Abbas] to the residents of Gaza
My friends,
Since I returned from the UN where I spoke, and stressed our final decision to submit a request to recognize Palestine as a non-member state in the [UN] General Assembly, we and others are approached and pressured again and again to retract this step, and to convince the countries in the world not to vote. The economic pressures that are put on us by several parties are a result of this decision only.
The [UN's] recognition will not liberate the land the following day, but will prove that we are right that our land is occupied and not disputed [territory], and this applies to all the territories that Israel occupied before June 1967 (i.e., all of Israel).
I want you to know that this is a great political and diplomatic battle, and I am sorry that some Palestinian voices do not understand or do not want to understand the importance of this matter.
My friends in our beloved [Gaza] Strip,
I'm a very touched by the messages I receive from you. I want you to know that you are all in my heart, and that Gaza of Hashim (i.e., an honorable name for Gaza. Hashim was Islam's prophet Muhammad's grandfather) is a dear part of this homeland, which has sacrificed thousands of Martyrs (Shahids), injured and prisoners during the journey of our struggle to end the occupation and to establish our independent state whose capital is our eternal Jerusalem. I recognize the difficulties that you are experiencing: blockade that does not allow you movement, limitations of freedom of opinion, lack of work places and suffering as a result of Israel's never-ending attacks. I know as you know, my friends, that the rift [between Fatah and Hamas] must end immediately."
[Facebook page in the name of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Oct. 11, 2012
and partially reprinted in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 17, 2012]
Mahmoud Abbas' Facebook page #2 [http://www.facebook.com/President.Mahmoud.Abbas?fref=ts] dated Oct. 10, 2012:
The part of the letter with the text defining "occupied territory":
"The [UN's] recognition will not liberate the land the following day, but will prove that we are right that our land is occupied and not disputed territory, and this applies to all the territories that Israel occupied June 1967."
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' official Facebook page, Oct. 10, 2012]
The following are examples of PA use of terminology that defines all of Israel as "occupied":
PA daily: Israel is "the territories occupied in 1948"
"[Palestinian] Civil defense teams yesterday extinguished a huge fire that raged over hundreds of dunams of land in Kufr Jabara... reaching the town of Taibe in the territories occupied in 1948 (i.e., Israel).
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 24, 2012]
PA TV: Israel is "lands occupied in '48"
PA TV special broadcast marking 64th anniversary of the Nakba:
PA TV presenter: "Today, 64 years ago, the Israeli Zionist gangs carried out the most extensive expulsion activities against our people, in the lands occupied in '48."
[PA TV (Fatah), May 15, 2012]
Israel referred to as "Palestine occupied in 1948"
"The National Committee to Defend the Right of Return (committee marking the 64th anniversary of the Nakba) held... a political symposium... with the participation of the chairman of the Hadash [Israeli political] party from Palestine occupied in 1948."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 12, 2012]
PA daily: Israel is the "Interior" and "occupied Palestine"
"Star [Arab] goalkeeper Majdi Khalaileh rejected out of hand the idea that he might play in the Palestinian league for any club other than Jabel Mukaber... Khalaileh emphasized that only two options are open to him: either to remain in the Palestinian league, with Jabel Mukaber, or to go back to the Interior (i.e., Israeli) league in occupied Palestine."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 3, 2012]
PA daily refers to Israel as "the territories occupied in 1948"
"A state funeral was held for the deceased, with the participation of leaders and senior members of the PLO and the PA, and some leaders of the Palestinian population in the territories occupied in 1948."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 3, 2012]
Fatah press release refers to Israel as "occupied Palestine"
"In a press release published yesterday by the Information and Culture Commission, the [Fatah] movement said:'[Ahmad] Jibril and the merchants of Palestinian and Arab blood who are with him, have not succeeded in pushing the members of our Palestinian nation in Syria and in Lebanon to the fields of meaningless carnage... and the electrified fences of the Israeli occupation, on the border between occupied Palestine
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 1, 2012]
PA TV program for kids: The Galilee is "occupied lands, land occupied after 1948"
PA TV program The Best Home
PA TV host tells children: "You must all be asking what this day commemorates, or why Land Day is specifically on March 30...On March 30, dear friends, in 1976, Israeli occupation forces confiscated a region - in other words, thousands of dunams of land in the Galilee (northern Israel), occupied lands, that is, land occupied after 1948."
[PA TV (Fatah), March 30, 2012]
Israeli-Arabs are from "the territories occupied in 1948"
"The women of Palestine marked March 8 with a central rally, attended by a group of released female prisoners from the various districts of the West Bank... and representatives from the territories occupied in 1948..."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 9, 2012]
PA daily in name of Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa) refers to Israel as the "Palestinian Interior occupied in 1948"
"In a press release published yesterday, Ahmed Qurei [head of the PLO's Jerusalem Department]... called upon residents of Jerusalem and residents of the Palestinian Interior occupied in 1948 (i.e., Israel) to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday, in order to stand against the Zionist calls and to maintain the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 10, 2012]
The Galilee [in Israel] is the "occupied Palestinian Interior"
"District Governor of Jenin, Qadura Musa, met yesterday in his office with a delegation of women - the founding members of the Arab Association of the Galilee... Musa enlisted all the district's resources to bring about the success of the cooperation between the district dignitaries and the occupied Palestinian Interior."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 5, 2012]

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Figured this belonged here.
I loved this!
Got a packet capture of a NetSend ( to port 1026 )
Message read:I hope I got that right.STOP! WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. \n\n\nWindows has found dangerous infected spyware on your computer!\n\n To rid your computer of this dangerous spyware do the following:\n\n1. Download eAntiSpy from: www.helpfixpc.com\m2
I came from 188.8.131.52/32874 ( China -- go figure )
That IP address is apparently well known at DShield
The addresses for the so-called product come form VC "Saint Vincent and The Grenadines"
I didn't investigate this further, just thought it humorous.


text:
Just came across this list over at cbssports.com. Although some pretty major deals have already happened, looking at this list you realize just how much talent is still out there. It's amazing. Here are some more decent guys that wouldn't be TOO much of a stretch to consider:
- WR Steve Smith (from the NYG) – though probably too expensive, his style of play would fit well with what we do – very solid player.
- G Justin Blalock (Atl) – decent player, though I think Colledge was let go b/c we have other decent backups there.
- RB Darren Sproles (SD) – would be too pricey perhaps, but great return guy and nice shifty 3rd down back
- FB Vonta Leach (HOU, former Packer) – he has turned into a very good player, a big part of why Arian Foster has been so good – may be worth the price.


text:
Helen Keller describes the view from the Empire State Building. Damn did that woman have a way with words. Deaf and blind she described a view that was picturesque and poetic. Just because she was deaf and blind didn't mean she couldn't see and hear.
For anybody who loves Tarot cards, either reading them or simply collecting them, there is an awesome Kickstarter campaign going for an Urban Tarot Deck. The pieces that are already done are simply gorgeous and I would love to see this come to fruition.
Seanan McGuire has an awesome post up about why inclusiveness in fiction is so important. And she gives some really great book recs. Now my To Buy list has grown even longer.
And going along with the theme of inclusive fiction, Elizabeth Bear's new book, Range of Ghosts, is John Scalzi's The Big Idea. Range of Ghosts is an epic fantasy set in an Asian landscape rather than the more popular European one. Another book added to my To Buy list.
Jim C. Hines has an excellent post on dealing with online haters.
And another book to add to my To Buy list is Stacia Kane's newest Downside book Sacrificial Magic. Oy, my budget for the month is going to be shot at this rate.
Also, I find it amusing that the very first related article that WordPress recommends is my own post about Seanan McGuire being harrassed for Discount Armageddon being released early. That book, BTW, was AWESOME! I can't wait for the next in the series.


text:
Beckett, Wainwright named NL Players of Week
In this case, a no-hitter equals two shutouts. Josh Beckett and Adam Wainwright were named the National League Co-Players of the Week on Tuesday in recognition of their sterling efforts.
Beckett threw a no-hitter against the Phillies for the Dodgers on Sunday, while Wainwright earned two victories for the Cardinals and led the Major Leagues with 21 strikeouts last week. For throwing his first career no-hitter, Beckett was the first Dodgers pitcher to be named NL Player of the Week since Hideo Nomo in 1996.
Beckett, 34 years old, became the oldest pitcher to throw a no-hitter since 40-year-old Randy Johnson threw a perfect game against the Braves in 2004. The right-hander also joined an honor roll of six other players -- Johnson, Dave Stewart, Don Larsen, Lew Burdette and Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax -- who have won the World Series Most Valuable Player and thrown a no-hitter in their careers.
Beckett also won his other start last week, finishing the week with a 2-0 record and a 2.57 ERA. He previously won the American League Player of the Week Award in July 2009 when he was with Boston.
Wainwright, meanwhile, was simply unhittable last week. The veteran threw a complete-game one-hit shutout against Arizona last Wednesday, leading the Cards to a 5-0 victory. Wainwright allowed just two baserunners in that game, one on a walk and one on a fourth-inning double.
Wainwright, on Sunday, did it all again. The right-hander threw eight scoreless innings and matched a career high with 12 strikeouts in a 4-0 victory over the Reds. Wainwright became the first NL pitcher to reach eight victories, and he currently leads all Major League pitchers with a 1.67 ERA.
Beckett and Wainwright outdueled an impressive class of NL performances that included twin .500 batting averages from Milwaukee teammates Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy. Yasiel Puig hit .522 last week, and Miami's Marcell Ozuna hit three home runs. Atlanta's Justin Upton and the Mets' David Wright also earned consideration, as did pitchers Doug Fister of the Nationals and Julio Teheran of the Braves.
"What [Beckett] did was a rare feat, something that hasn't happened very many times in this game," Wainwright said. "I'm proud to share an award with him."
"[Wainwright has] had a terrific start, and I think it says a lot of him to be able to be a co-Pitcher of the Week when the other guy threw a no-hitter," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "It means you're doing something pretty special. He had a couple of very, very impressive games. ... He's stepping up every time he gets the ball."


text:
The art of language and definition change over time
Any writer must realize
when we try to define words, the definition of things tend to change over time. In fact, few people today may know what a given word we use on a daily basis might haven meant decades or even centuries ago. And the ones who do might potentially have a bit of an attitude when it comes to what we consider the "real" meaning of a word.
The truth is, there is no real meaning but just the meaning that the word was intended to convey at the time.
For example, while today one might use the word "girl" and a representation of a young female child. However, in centuries past, the term girl was used for a young person of either gender. That's a big difference huh?
Some words change do to the influences of other languages and cultures while others adopt a new meaning due to the use of slang. No matter what the source of the change may be, the change itself can be quite interesting.
Here are some more fun examples:
Bad –
In many contexts it can mean negative or terrible while the slang of the last few decades has redefined it to also mean positive, good or outstanding.
Handsome –
Today this usually refers to a man who is attractive in appearance. However, in years past it referred to pleasant looking women.
Dude –
when used today, a dude tends to be a rather fun, lively or interesting guy. But with the earliest origination of the word, the term was one that depicted a pansy sort of man.
Interesting isn't it?


text:
Markup excerpts
From WormBaseWikiJump to navigationJump to search
back to GSA markup SOP
back to Entity classes and problems
Marked up html index
Classes and problems
This is an example of text markup testing the feasibility of linking based on anatomy_name. As you will see, there are a number of problems with the links that are created.
|Possible solution
|"set", "cell"
|Real term but also common word
|Make context specific
|Real term but also common word
|Use case sensitivity
|Real term but also different meanings "… (<AC>pAC> < 0.001) and 0.95 (<AC>pAC> < 0.001) in wild-type" AC is not anchor cell "e.g., the FLP recombinase system (Davis et al. 2008)." FLP is not neuron cell
|Manual correction…context specificity?
|"organism","organ", "axis", "neuronal", "head", tail"
|Too general for the researcher?
|Remove from list?
|"PhaA/B", "CAN", "VPC"
|Synonyms not recognized: "CSN" for ciliated sensory neuron, "VPC"s for vulval precursor cells, "PhaA/B"
|Add to entity list
|"neuron" okay, "neurons" not okay
|Plurality problems
|Make plural indifferent
|"Lateral sense organ", "P12 ectoblast" not linked
|Term not on list: "P12" ok but the expression "P12 ectoblast" isn't, Synonym problem??
|Add term? Add synonym? Just omit for linking?
|Single letters "D", "K", etc
|Too many false hits: Protein domains "C terminus", "D domain", Figure panel references "in panel A of Figure 1"
|Remove single letters from list, or make context specific.
Genomic Expressions
Genomic expressions are not correctly linked
It is not correct to link transgene expressions to the individual entities within the construct
*Note: This genotype is hidden from web page in the tag General_remark, same as for other plasmids ex. HSP-FLP1, pRF4, cpjM1HG.11, IM#171, p76-16B, pPD118.33, pTG96, etc.
- Common name is genotype, not actual name:
- ttx-3p::GFP, in this case, the transgene is mgIs18, but not stated as such in the paper. The expression "[ttx-3::GFP]" in the Summary of mgIs18 in acedb
- sur-5::GFP
- Solution:
- all gene links within genomic expressions will be unmade


text:
by Sarah Monette on Feb 5, 2013 in Nonfiction | 12 comments
by Sarah Monette
At the end of the first act of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark has a problem.
Now, what you think that problem is depends on how you understand what has just happened. Let's start with what we know.
We know Hamlet, King of Denmark, is dead. We know that his brother Claudius has stepped into the king's empty shoes in more ways than one: he's taken the throne and he's married the widowed queen. We know that the dead king's son, Prince Hamlet, is not happy about any of this and is wandering around the court in extremely pointed black, irritating his uncle/stepfather no end. And we know that an apparition is stalking the battlements, an apparition immediately identifiable as King Hamlet to everyone who sees it.
This apparition, let us be clear, is objectively real. All of the guards are scared out of their wits by it, and when they bring Hamlet's friend Horatio up for a consultation, he sees it and recognizes it, too. So when Horatio mans up and brings Hamlet to the battlements, what Hamlet sees–and speaks to–is inarguably an apparition of his dead father.
There's a question here that modern audiences no longer know to ask, and it's a question that has gotten Hamlet scholars in a lot of trouble, leading to the infamous, ubiquitous, and flat-out wrong assertion that Hamlet's "fatal flaw" is indecision. From our point of view, it is baffling that Hamlet, at the end of Act I, doesn't simply walk down into the throne room, like the Arnold Schwarzenegger Hamlet in The Last Action Hero, and blow Claudius the fuck away. His father's ghost has told him that Claudius is a lying, cheating fratricide: what more can he possibly need?
But that's because we think we know what a ghost is. And what we think we know, and what Shakespeare and his audiences and his culture thought they knew, are two very different things.
This is where we have to talk about the Reformation.
Before the Reformation, there was a somewhat precarious but workable harmony in England between the Catholic Church and popular culture. The church said that spirits neither evil enough to be damned nor good enough to ascend to Heaven suffered in Purgatory until they had atoned for their sins. Their friends and relations still among the living could help speed this process along by, for instance, paying for masses to be said on the dead person's behalf. This dovetailed nicely with what "everybody knew" about ghosts, which was that they were spirits which could not rest because of something they had left undone in life or a wrong they had committed–or, particularly with the ghosts of murder victims, a wrong committed against them. People understood that when they saw Uncle Watkin's ghost standing beside the hearth, he was trying to tell them something. And they understood that by figuring out what Uncle Watkin wanted, they would be able both to put an end to the haunting and to help his spirit find peace. The two ideas–that of spirits in Purgatory needing the help of the living to ascend into Heaven and that of ghosts being spirits unable to rest until the living performed some task on their behalf–were not perfectly identical, but they fit together well enough for everybody and their Uncle Watkin to be happy.
But all that changed with the Reformation. The Protestant reformers felt that Purgatory was nothing but a sham devised by Catholic priests to extort money from their parishioners. (Your Uncle Watkin is suffering unspeakably! And you can make his suffering shorter if you just pay us enough money.) And so they abolished it. No more Purgatory.
But if there isn't a Purgatory, how do you understand the ghost of Uncle Watkin? He can't be a spirit descended from Heaven, because spirits in Heaven are already at peace and don't need help from their mortal relatives. And if he's a spirit come up from Hell…. Well, then your Uncle Watkin is a demon, and if you do anything he tells you to, you're going to damn your immortal soul to Hell right alongside him.
Theologically speaking, after the Reformation, there are no ghosts. There are only illusions of Satan, sent to entrap gullible mortals into damnation. Simple, right?
Unfortunately, no. Theology and folk knowledge (what "everybody knows") aren't the same thing, and folk knowledge doesn't obediently follow where theology leads, especially not right off the bat. So while theology said demons!, folk knowledge said Uncle Watkin needs us to do something so that he can rest. And by and large, laypeople said, That's Uncle Watkin! He can't be a demon. We'd better figure out what he wants.
And this brings us back to Hamlet and Hamlet, standing on the battlements with an apparition of his dead father and trying to figure out if it is really his father's ghost, telling him what it needs in order to rest, or a demon sent from Hell to trap him into damnation. Even more problematically, the Ghost's description of his afterlife sounds like a jumbled mixture of Purgatory and Hell: he's only condemned to suffer until his mortal crimes are "burnt and purged away" (1.5.13)–and the doubled-up verbs only accentuate the problem, both burnt (as in, for example, the fires of Hell) and purged, the proper function of Purgatory–but his description of what he can't tell Hamlet sounds like the torments of the damned:
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotty and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
This is the horrors of Dante's Inferno, not the educational punishments of the Purgatorio. So we're hopelessly muddled between Catholic eschatology and Protestant hellfire (and, to counter two potential arguments, let me state here that (1) Denmark had been Protestant since the mid 1500s and anyone in Shakespeare's audience who considered Hamlet's Denmark as anything other than a handy not-quite-England would know that, just as they knew that the theater versions of Spain and Italy were Catholic; and (2) Hamlet clearly has a contemporary setting, since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bring Hamlet the current London theatrical gossip). What's worse, the Ghost's request of Hamlet has nothing to do with his self-confessedly foul crimes or the fact that he died "unhouseled, dis-appointed, unaneled, / No reck'ning made, but sent to my account / With all my imperfections on my head" (1.5.77-79); he wants Hamlet to revenge his murder, as if this were simply a "true crime" story of the sort Londoners were reading avidly about in cheaply-printed pamphlets.
Hamlet recognizes that he has a problem, that he can't tell from the evidence he has whether the Ghost is the ghost of his dead father or a demon garbed in that father's shape; he doesn't treat this as a theological question (the closest things to priests we see in Hamlet are the Gravediggers), but as a forensic one. Not In a Protestant universe, can a ghost be anything other than a demon? but Can I find corroboration of what he says? Hence Hamlet's quote-unquote "indecision." It's not that he can't make up his mind to act, it's that he doesn't know if he should. He doesn't know if what he's been told is truth or lies intended specifically to damn him.
Now, this is not an episode of CSI: Elsinore–the skull disinterred by the Gravediggers is Yorick's, not King Hamlet's with the bone strangely eaten away on one side–and Hamlet is not a detective. The word detective won't come into the language until the 1850s, and Hamlet has no model for how detective work might happen.
What he has is theater.
Hamlet is an intensely metatheatrical play–that is, it is always aware that it is a play: when Hamlet promises the Ghost that he will remember it "as long as memory holds a seat in this distracted globe" (1.5.96-97), he means, of course, as long as his brain is capable of remembering anything, but he also means "as long as Memory holds a seat in this distracted Globe," i.e., as long as Memory is in the audience at the Globe Theatre, where Hamlet is standing on the stage. The theatrical gossip that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bring him, about the "little eyases," the child actors who are overshadowing the adult troupes (2.2.326-46), is the stage gossip of contemporary London. Hamlet is a play about theater, and so it is inevitable that Hamlet's device to prove Claudius's guilt should be a play.
I always find it interesting that while Hamlet insists that Claudius's reaction to the Mouse-Trap is the proof he needs:
HAMLET: Oh good Horatio, I'll take the Ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO: Very well, my lord.
HAMLET: Upon the talk of the pois'ning?
HORATIO: I did very well note him. (3.2.264-67)
(and notice that Horatio sounds less than convinced), the play itself is uneasily aware that this isn't proof, that Claudius might just as easily be reacting to the spectacle of the king's nephew [that would be Hamlet] murdering the king [ergo, Claudius himself]–the actual content of the play–as he might the king [King Hamlet] being murdered by poison [by Claudius]–Hamlet's intended message. Claudius has to come on specifically to reassure the audience that Hamlet is correct: "O, my offense is rank! It smells to heaven. / It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, / A brother's murder" (3.4.36-38). Claudius really is a fratricide, and therefore Hamlet is right to….
Because, of course, Hamlet isn't right. No matter what the Ghost says–and the Ghost has a lot to say on the subject–answering murder with murder, parricide with parricide, merely creates more mortal sin, more damnation. Horatio may wish for flights of angels to sing Hamlet to his rest, but that seems highly unlikely. One wonders if, really, Hamlet doesn't end with two ghosts on the battlements, equally "doomed for a certain time to walk the night / And for the day confined to fast in fires" (1.5.10-11). Hamlet has committed murder (Claudius, Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern), driven Ophelia mad, been the vehicle of Laertes' death and the indirect cause of Gertrude's; whatever "foul crimes" were on King Hamlet's conscience when he died, his son has racked up an impressive tally of his own.
Revenge tragedy was an extremely popular genre in the England of Elizabeth (and James and Charles), and in all its twistings and turnings, only one revenger ever had the stalwart moral courage–and the blessed common sense–to refuse. His name is Charlemont, and he is the hero of The Atheist's Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur. Sadly, he is also quite, quite stupid–too stupid, perhaps, to be ensnared in the trap of his own cleverness as Hamlet is. For, if anything, Hamlet's "fatal flaw," far from indecision, is his cock-a-hoop delight in outsmarting his opponents, in turning the tables on those trying to machinate against him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die sheerly from Hamlet's inability not to show off his own cleverness.
Standing on the battlements of Elsinore, Hamlet fails to make the most basic of all possible saving throws. He fails to remember that revenge is wrong. The entire question of the Ghost's eschatological origins, in this light, is revealed as a mouse-trap of its own, a massive red herring, complete with blinking lights and whirling armatures. Reformation or not, ghost or demon, the Ghost is asking Hamlet to commit murder. And Hamlet falls headlong into the mouse-trap, so distracted by question and proof and clever stratagem that he never notices the jaws springing shut.
Wherever the Ghost is, he now has Hamlet to keep him company. And I cannot help wondering if that was what he wanted all along.
More from Sarah Monette:
Sarah Monette lives in a 105-year-old house with a great many books, two cats, one grand piano, and one husband. She has published more than forty short stories and has two short story collections out: The Bone Key (Prime Books 2007—with a shiny second edition in 2011) and Somewhere Beneath Those Waves (Prime Books, 2011). She has written two novels (A Companion to Wolves, Tor Books, 2007, The Tempering of Men, Tor Books, 2011) and three short stories with Elizabeth Bear, and hopes to write more. Her first four novels (Melusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, Corambis) were published by Ace. Her next novel, The Goblin Emperor, will come out from Tor under the name Katherine Addison. Visit her online at www.sarahmonette.com.
>>Standing on the battlements of Elsinore, Hamlet fails to make the most basic of all possible saving throws.
I love you for this line alone, Sarah. 🙂
Wow, this is excellently erudite! I have one question: what does the Ghost mean by "unaneled"? I'm torn between reading it as "unannaled" and "unannealed"–?
The Norton Shakespeare tells me that it means he did not receive Extreme Unction.
I love that final line. I just love it.
Not only is your ending fantastic, but I absolutely loved this: "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die sheerly from Hamlet's inability not to show off his own cleverness." That is brilliant. Thank you.
(But there is a priest in "Hamlet," and a churlish one at that.)
Oh crap, you're right! I always forget that he makes it onstage. Thank you for the catch.
Understanding history makes such a difference. I appreciate the play at whole new levels now, that feel truer. Also, I loved the "root cause analysis" for Hamlet's character.
I wish I'd had access to this essay in high school…I do believe I'll be reading Hamlet very differently from here on out.
My quibble with this is that while it's a splendidly coherent explantion, I think it's more coherent that Shakespeare managed. True, there's even things in the play that support it — when Horatio exclaims "Angels and ministers of grace defend us" the ghost flees — but if it's about Hamlet's failure to realize that revenge is wrong, it's a little weak in that no one in the story actually suggests that revenge is wrong. So the central conflict is one-sided.
This is brilliant! Thank you for this reading.
Thanks for adding another clue to Hamlet's ongoing detective story. Heaps of religious tension there. It's really hard to project the multiple levels of this conflict on stage to an audience for whom these concepts are foreign.. but we will keep trying.
This is a superb analysis of Hamlet, and I think it gets closer to Shakespeare's intent than anything else I've seen.
One thing which always jumps out at me when I reread Hamlet is that the prince is suicidally depressed when we first see him — BEFORE he has his chat with the ghost. The ghost gives him a reason to live.
Has anyone ever done a version of Hamlet in which the ghost has young Hamlet's face and voice? Or where his conversation with the ghost has Hamlet deliver the ghost's lines as well as his own? Because one can just as easily explain the ghost as a kind of quasi-Charles Fort projection of Hamlet's own will and desires.


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MWC 15 Special
Back in early April, Microsoft's handset division (formerly known as Nokia) announced not only the company's latest budget friendly Windows Phone but also the first available Windows Phone 8.1 - the Nokia Lumia 630. As the model number indicates, the Lumia 630 is a budget friendly entry level smartphone which is nevertheless and interesting device for smartphone and/or Windows Phone newsbies as well as for customers which don't have too high expectations but don't want to miss key features. Therefore is the Lumia 630 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 400quad-core CPU at 1.2 GHz and while it lacks support of LTE, it supports quadbang GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and dualband UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA at 900/2100 MHz. Also onboard are Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi /b/g/n at 2.4.
The Lumia 630 comes with 512 MB of RAM and 8 GB of flash memory which can be expanded with microSD memory cards of up to 128 GB.
It features a 4.5 '' FWVGA (854 x 480 pixel) Corning Gorilla Glass 3 ClearBlack IPS LCD multipoint touchscreen and has a 5 megapixel auto focus main camera with a 1/4 inch sensor and a f/2.4 aperture, which allows to record 720p HD vedieos up to 30 fps. Unfortunately the 630 isn't featuring a front facing video chat camera for Skype or selfies.
The Nokia Lumia 630 measures 129.5 x 66.7 x 9.2 mm and weights 134 grams, including the 1830 mAh user removable battery. It comes in one of 5 colors (green, yellow, orange, black, white) but the covers are exchangeable and therefore can the Lumia 630 change its style; from fancy to serious.
The Nokia Lumia 630 is now available across Europe and Asia in two versions - a single-SIM and a dual-SIM version (piictured above is the single-SIM version). Without a contract it retails for around 159 Euro.
Cheers ~ Arne
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Local students find their way to higher education at Broken Hill Learning Week 2013
3 July 2013
More than 200 Broken Hill high school students will get a head start on their path to higher education at Broken Hill Learning Week, an innovative program run by the University of Sydney to provide academic enrichment and encourage students to consider taking on university.
The event, which runs from 26 to 28 June, will include teachers and students in years 10, 11 and 12 from schools including Broken Hill High School and Willyama High School.
Students will have the opportunity to learn study skills and exam techniques, prepare for their upcoming HSC exams in a range of subjects, and take part in a range of fun activities such as creating a stop-motion video and learning about the business world through interactive case studies.
Approximately 30 teachers will take part in courses on HSC skills and exam techniques for teachers, the new K-10 English syllabus, and a creative writing workshop.
"Students from rural areas perform well academically and contribute a lot to the university community, but unfortunately they're underrepresented in Australian tertiary education," says Annette Cairnduff, Director of Social Inclusion at the University of Sydney.
"With Broken Hill Learning Week, we hope to give students and their teachers a better idea of how to navigate their path to university, as well as find out more about what a tertiary education can offer. Our ultimate goal is to give all rural students the confidence and know-how to go after their career dreams, whatever they may be."
This is the second year of Broken Hill Learning Week, following the popularity of the inaugural event in 2012. The project was developed by the University's Social Inclusion Unit in consultation with the Broken Hill Senior Education Director, Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health, and local schools and community members.
The University of Sydney has been involved with the Broken Hill community for 16 years, since the Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health opened in 1997.
Since then, the University and Broken Hill City Council have worked together on a number of initiatives, mainly associated with student placements, health outcomes for the community, and sustainability and business strategies.
The University Department of Rural Health last year celebrated its 15-year milestone with a special unveiling of a new $1.8 million Clinical Simulation Building by federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek. The University and Broken Hill City Council also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cement their commitment to educational research, professional and service learning development in the region.


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Bub City's BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Making smoked, pulled pork at home is easy with this recipe from Chef Doug Psaltis at Bub City. These succulent pulled pork sandwiches are flavor-bombs, and perfect for your next summer get together.
- 1 cup apple juice
- ¼ cup water
- 2 teaspoons chipotle in adobo puree
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup Demerara sugar
- 1 cup paprika
- ½ cup cumin
- ½ cup kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon coarse black pepper
- 1 cup ketchup
- ¼ cup French's yellow mustard
- ¼ cup dark brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- ½ cup water
- ¼ teaspoon red chili flake
- ½ tablespoon onion powder
- ½ tablespoon chili powder
- ½ tablespoon cracked black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon celery salt
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons hickory smoke powder
- 1 tablespoon worcestershire
- ¼ cup Memphis BBQ Sauce
- ¼ cup apple juice
- Bone-in Pork Butt Shoulder, 9-11 lbs
- White vinegar, to taste
- Potato buns, pickles, and cole slaw, for serving
- For the squirt: Puree in a blender, then strain through a Chinois or other fine mesh strainer. Set aside.
- For Rub: Mix all ingredients together then cover and refrigerate.
- For Memphis BBQ Sauce: In a large saucepot, stir together all the ingredients of Set 1. In a bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients of Set 2. Add the contents of the bowl (Set 2) to the sauce pot (Set 1). Bring to a boil over medium high heat then reduce and simmer slowly for 25 minutes. Stir from time to time to ensure the sauce does not burn. Sauce should be thick and coat the back of a spoon. Taste and season if necessary. Cool and set aside.
- For Memphis Mop: Mix together and reserve.
- For Pork Prep for Smoking: Inject the pork butt with about 2 cups of "Squirt." Thoroughly rub the meat with rub. Let the pork sit for 8 hours in the refrigerator, then rub down again with the rub.
- Prepare the smoker, start with four fresh cut "green" hickory logs. Place the butt into the smoker, cold. Bring the smoker up to 225 degrees F and maintain the temperature throughout the cooking time.
- Cook until tender, about 10 hours, the bone should slide easily from the meat.
- Remove from the smoker. Brush the pork with Memphis Mop. Wrap in foil. The in plastic. Let rest in warm spot for 2 hours before serving.
- Pull the pork right before serving, season with white vinegar and more pork rub to taste.
- To serve: Toast potato bun. Top the bun with 5 ounces of pulled pork. Add in 1 tablespoon of BBQ sauce. Serve with 4 pickles and your favorite cole slaw.


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Michael J. Fox, in Sunday's season finale of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," variously wags his head in possible derision at a terminally annoying Larry David, hands him a shaken-up soda that explodes upon opening and literally bumps into him.
David is left to wonder aloud: "Pissed or Parkinson's?"
The hilarious bits leave nothing to wonder at – other than Fox's remarkable determination to keep entertaining us as he draws attention to the fight to end the disease that affects him and million of others.
His turns as cunning lawyer Louis Canning, who uses his condition to manipulate jurors, have proven highlights of the past couple of seasons of "The Good Wife" (even if he lost the Emmy for guest acting in a drama series Sunday).
We're also getting a kick out the viral video promoting a new pair of kicks: a limited edition of the glowing Nikes Fox's character, Marty McFly, scored in the year 2015 in "Back to the Future, Part II" (which hit theaters way back in 1989). Some 1,500 pairs of the Nike MAGS are being auctioned via eBay through Sept. 18 in an effort raise millions for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
In the video, Christopher Lloyd reprises his role as Doc Brown, who is trying get to 2015 to find the sneakers. He apparently punches the wrong date into the DeLorean and arrives in the present to find a shoe store clerk ("Saturday Night Live" star Bill Hader) selling a pair of the current version (sans power laces) to basketball player Kevin Durant.
The short is a fun homage to the classic movie series – and a tribute to an actor who won't let anything (not even Larry David) keep him down.
Check out the video below, along with a message from Fox, who isn't afraid to dip into his past as he looks to the future:
U.S. & World
Hester is founding director of the award-winning, multi-media NYCity News Service at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is the former City Editor of the New York Daily News, where he started as a reporter in 1992. Follow him on Twitter.


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It never ceases to amaze me that the CCD (Caked Crusader's Da) didn't like cheesecake for the first 70 or so years of his life. Now, he likes it so much that he requested it for his birthday cake this year. Proof – if needed - that our taste buds never stop changing no matter what age we reach. And further proof that we should continue to revisit foods we don't like...although I'm still giving mushrooms a wide berth. Fungus? No thanks.
This cheesecake takes no time at all to prepare but really is something rather special. The addition of Baileys (even a small amount like this) gives a velvety taste and texture to the cheesecake – the harsh alcohol flavour isn't there, but the creamy richness is. The flaked chocolate provides extra bursts of flavour. All in all, a hit!
I pondered how to decorate the cheesecake to give it more of a 'birthday party feel' and decided on covering the top with maltesers. I'm not sure if that conjures up a 'birthday party feel' or not to a wider audience...we're not really party people...more sit down and eat lots people. So it was a success on that basis!
I am going to be (potentially) controversial here, but I do think the best cheesecake is an unbaked one. Don't get me wrong, there is love in my heart for all cheesecake, but I like the texture of the unbaked ones better and they are so quick to make; you can go from needing a cheesecake to having a cheesecake in about 20 minutes (if you're not fussy about chilling it).
The CCB (Caked Crusader's Brother) is a connoisseur of cheesecake i.e. he eats a lot of it, and declared this the best one I've made. I suspect it's because it combines two of his favourite things: Baileys and cheesecake. The malteser topping probably didn't hurt its chances either!
Happy birthday CCD and Nunks (my uncle – they are twins!)
For the base:
250g digestive biscuits
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
For the topping:
600g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia
100g icing sugar
4 tablespoons Baileys
4 Cadbury's flakes, broken up – you could also use 100g grated chocolate
300ml double cream
100g icing sugar
4 tablespoons Baileys
4 Cadbury's flakes, broken up – you could also use 100g grated chocolate
300ml double cream
To decorate: maltesers
Place a 20cm food ring (or the ring part of a 20cm cake tin – springform would be easiest to release) on a plate. Line the ring with baking paper – this aids release later on.
Place the biscuits in a food processor and blitz until you have crumbs. You could instead place the biscuits in a bag and beat with a rolling pin.
Add the butter and blitz again until you have clumpy wet sand. If you are making the base without a processor, melt the butter and stir into the crumbs. NB. There is no need to melt the butter with the processor method.
Press the buttery crumbs into the base of the food ring and level out.
Refrigerate while you make the topping.
Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until smooth and glossy.
Add the icing sugar and Baileys and beat again.
Add the chocolate and beat again.
Pour in the cream and beat until the mixture starts to thicken up. At first it will seem very wet but – have faith – the cream will start to thicken and you will get a silky cheesecake. It will still be unset at this stage.
Spoon over the biscuit base and level the surface.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or – ideally – overnight.
On the day of serving cover the top with maltesers. If you put the maltesers on when the cheesecake is still in the fridge they risk getting wet. As it's a softish texture, serve it from the fridge.
Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.


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Join an Alumnae Chapter or Club
ALUMNAE CHAPTERS and CLUBS
Alumnae groups host educational meetings and philanthropic events, as well as provide the chance of meeting new sisters and staying active in the Fraternity.
The Junior Circle program is for alumnae 35 years of age and younger. The program aims to help make the transition from collegiate life to lifelong alumnae involvement. Junior Circles can be a source of fun and provide fellowship and networking opportunities.
Support an extraordinary group of Alpha Gamma Deltas by becoming a Pearl Sister! For future extension efforts, we will be looking for alumnae to become Pearl Sisters. We will match each new member up with an alumna volunteer who will encourage her throughout her new member period. Pearl Sisters do not need to live close to the colony in order to participate. This is a great opportunity to convey that an Alpha Gam sister is always close! Apply online now.
This program is designed for Alpha Gamma Delta members who live in a foreign country or in an area where there is no organized alumnae chapter or club. Rose Sisters across the globe receive newsletters and programs that provide updates on the Fraternity. The program provides opportunities for sisters to network and interact with each other.
A program designed to introduce girls and young women to the sisterhood of Alpha Gamma Delta through fun activities and community service.


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We're a couple of wicked fun & award winning digital artists, crafting cool stuff, one pixel at a time.
Featured by Autodesk! The tools we use as digital artists are key. It allows us to express our creativity in unique ways through art. Recently, digital media has permeated the art world, with the advances of digital drawing tablets from Wacom and Apple. The software has become so intuitive as well! In fact, one of the … Continue reading[ Read More → ]
We just returned from two weeks entertaining live digital caricatures in Australia as we kick off another whirlwind of traveling. Angie flew to tomorrow by flying across the international date line to Australia. Then Angie started in Sydney and then flew from there to "Melbin" as it is pronounced. This was an exciting convention and Angie had … Continue reading[ Read More → ]


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Snapshots from the 2013 Chicago Korean Festival
The 2013 Chicago Korean Festival was this past weekend. Every year, it's a fun celebration of Korean culture, including entertainment, breakdancing competitions, and of course, lots of Korean food. It's one of the more interesting street festivals; rather than the usual Chicago street festival food (hot dogs, French fries, funnel cakes, etc), the Chicago Korean Festival is almost all Korean food. Being a fellow first generation Korean-American myself, I joined the fun, repped my pride, and enjoyed the food I grew up with.
Check out some of the scenes and good bites in the slideshow!
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Making Books Transparent
Sayamindu and I have been contributing over the course of the year to a Bookserver initiative to define how digital texts are indexed, discovered, and distributed. The Open Content Alliance organized a conference yesterday and today in San Francisco to help us move forward with Bookserver development, improve the draft specification. It was an inspiring event, with a lot of good working code and interfaces to share with one another. Brewster throws a mean party, and when he announced he was hosting one last night to celebrate the launch of the Bookserver project and the Archive's move into a beautiful new space in the Presidio, some 500 people turned up. I was pleased to run into Mary Lou, with four laptops sporting new Pixel Qi screens - low power, and yet so very hot. I spoke about what OLPC is doing with this new specification - Sayamindu's modified "Get Internet Archive Books" activity was the first client application to use the developing spec and beta book servers - and we spent some time brainstorming ways to improve OPDS. It's an open group and process - all input is welcome. On a related note, for those of you in the Boston area, come to the Boston Book Fest this coming Saturday in Copley Square, and visit our tent! We're still looking for a few more volunteers, so drop me a line if you're interested in helping out for a few hours between 9 and 5.2
October 20, 2009 by sjTagged with
bookreaderbookserverChildreninternet archiveMary Lou JepsenOLPCOPDSPixel Qi
A festival of books: 1.6 Million beautiful works for the XO (not verified) says: [...] we announced a joint Bookserver project with the Archive to help all authors, libraries, and publishers share metadata in a way that can be [...] October 26, 2009 at 10 am


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Wachtel Tree Science works throughout the winter months. In fact, during the winter we perform many of our services. We prune and remove trees and shrubs, and even remove stumps. Winters are ideal time to cable, and brace trees, install lighting protection, perform appraisals, consultations and site inspections. With the exception of insect and disease management, winter offers us an additional three months to perform our services.
Winter is an excellent time to work. The benefits are frozen ground, dormant perennials, inactive gardens and defoliated trees. The cold and sterile-like conditions of winter offer us the opportunity to prune trees and shrubs that are susceptible to, or under pressure from insect and disease problems. Trees that have infectious fungal or bacterial disease can have these infected branches pruned out in the winter and greatly reduce the risk of spreading the disease.
Installing tree reinforcement in the winter actually may be easier for your Wachtel Arborist. They can identify weak branch structure, cavities and decay better now that the tree's leaves are not camouflaging these structural concerns. Installation of lightning protection when the leaves have all fallen off is easier. We can pinpoint multiple terminal locations easily.
We perform appraisals and consultations all winter. Tree value can be determined with or without leaves. A tailor-made management plan, created with goals in mind for a homeowner, golf course superintendents and municipalities. There are a number of benefits to having plans in place before spring arrives.
Yes, Wachtel works winters. Call your Wachtel Tree Science Certified Arborist today so you don't miss out on the opportunities winter brings.
The Importance of In-Person Tree Diagnoses
We hear this question all the time: "Can you tell me what's wrong with my tree over the phone?" Asking for a tree care diagnosis over the phone may seem plausible, but it would be much like calling your own doctor and asking them for a physical over the phone. While an arborist may be able to recognize some of the symptoms you're describing, the real tree problem may not be immediately noticeable. In order to effectively assess a tree's condition and its needs, your Certified Arborist should be on-site to view the tree. Fall is a great time to look at trees! Call our office to arrange a property tour with your Certified Arborist.


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These are some things I've observed with my own children who are being raised between Salvadoran and American cultures. Which ones apply to your bicultural children? What are some of the unique things about your child and the cultures they're being raised in?
15 signs you're doing a good job of raising bicultural children
#1. The forks on the dinner table go untouched as they scoop up every bite of their meal in a tortilla.
#2. Not only can they dance the Hokey Pokey, they know the moves to La Bala.
#3. Their iPod contains popular American music, but also a cumbia or two.
#4. They own at least one pair of pajamas from St. Jack's, a Selecta uniform, and at least one shirt with incorrect English phrasing on it, (bought for them by a Tío who didn't know better.)
#5. A look in their toy box reveals not just a Nintendo DS but trompos and capiruchos.
#6. They have been equally visited by both Ratoncito Pérez and the Tooth Fairy.
#7. They become perplexed when their Anglo school friends don't know what common everyday household objects such as a "comal" are.
#8. They can do a perfect Chavo del 8 impression.
#9. They drink horchata with their peanut butter and jelly sandwich at lunch time.
#10. There are people completely unrelated to them that they call "Tío" and "Tía." They're shocked to find out they aren't really family.
#11. When anyone talks about "football" they assume the conversation is about soccer.
#12. They have the English and Spanish version of their favorite bedtime story.
#13. For Christmas dinner they request that in addition to ham, you prepare panes con pavo.
#14. They use a chancla to kill moscas and are surprised to learn that an invention called a "flyswatter" actually exists.
#15. Despite the craziness of their own household, they find mono-cultural houses to be "kind of weird."


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Baden home destroyed in early-morning fire
Beaver County couple escapes house on Prospect Street but loses everything in fire
A Beaver County couple lost their home in a fire early Friday morning.
The couple managed to escape the flames, but lost everything.
"They're very good people, very hard-working people and so my heart goes out to them and the family," said Robert Pavelek.
Just before 4:30 a.m., firefighters were called to Prospect Street in Baden. Crews arrived to find the house engulfed in flames.
"Very intense flames, three cars inside those two garages, all of them on fire," said Baden Volunteer Fire Chief David Trzcianka. "The game room, or whatever the addition is, was fully involved when we got here."
SLIDESHOW: Photos from the house fire scene
Pavelek said his neighbor told him that the man "was trying to start his vehicle, which in the garage area and there was an engine fire."
Investigators are still looking into the exact cause of the fire.
Nobody was hurt. The couple is getting help from family and the American Red Cross.
"It's something that hits home, the things we take for granted every day in life," Pavelek said. "I noticed you can have something taken away that quickly. It just makes you appreciate things a little more."


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The main focus of the debates back and forth was less about whether outlawing slavery was actually bad, and more about whether one should push ahead with bold civil rights initiatives that might have negative short-term consequences.More than that, for a movie about the civil war, this had less action in the whole thing than most other civil war movies have in a given 3 minute period. Which leaves you wondering:
-Why, when discussing the enormity of the civil war, would you focus almost exclusively on the messy politicking involved in passing the thirteenth amendment, rather than the much bigger issues of the war itself?
-Why focus relatively little on the question of the merits of slavery (unlike, say, Amistad), and focus entirely on whether it's wise to push ahead with a bold legal civil rights initiative that might have unknown short-term consequences, both political and social?
And then it occurred to me.
If you strip away the racial angle to the debates, the movie is an allegory for the passage of Obamacare. You have a bill that initially seems unlikely to pass, cunningly gotten over the line by a variety of questionable political wrangling and underhand tactics. You have a large majority of seats held by a party after a recent election, but a proposed bill that threatens to create internal divisions that the leader will need to win over. You have the bill's sponsors knowing that some folks will probably have to walk the political plank to get it passed. And you have Lincoln as Obama, the racial-healing figure not really getting involved in the messy debates, but working the crowd in the background to ensure things get passed. And sure enough, in the end everyone agrees it's a triumph.
Spielberg also donated $1 million to an Obama Super PAC, so you know that he definitely has an interest in the subject matter.
This hypothesis may sound wacky, but how else do you explain a movie called 'Lincoln', set in the middle of the Civil War, that has only 30 seconds of footage of battle, and even that as a scene-setting?
And if the 'Lincoln' movie isn't meaningfully about the Civil War, what else is it about?


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Claiming the title of the first MSM8660-packing devices to get CyanogenMod 10.1 nightlies, LG's Optimus LTE and Nitro HD (su640 and p930) joined the lineup today.
In a post to Google+, CyanogenMod is sure to note that the introduction of the Nitro HD and Optimus LTE does not necessarily indicate the imminent support of other devices that use Qualcomm's MSM8660 chip. "What it does mean," the post goes on, "is that the first hurdle towards more devices has been achieved."
That said, the nightlies are still great news for Nitro HD/Optimus LTE owners who have been hankering for an AOSP-inspired Android 4.2 experience with the full CyanogenMod treatment.Read More


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By Fred Hiatt, Published: The Washington Post
When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney admitted to keeping assets in the Cayman Islands, money managers for the wealthy were not surprised.
When it emerged that he had paid taxes at a lower rate than millions of Americans who earn far less, money managers yawned.
But when they discovered that Romney held as much as $100 million in his IRA — the kind of retirement account to which most Americans can contribute only $5,500 per year — even the most sophisticated financial analysts were impressed.
The campaigns moved on, but President Obama's budget team remembered. This spring Obama proposed a cap of about $3.4 million on how much people can save in their tax-advantaged IRAs and 401(k) plans — enough to generate an annual retirement income of about $205,000.
The response to that modest proposal, which would raise about $9 billion in tax revenue over 10 years, says a lot about what — and who — is wrong with Washington these days.
The employee-benefit lobby — because of course there is one — sounded the alarm, and others joined in. Obama was attacking thrift. He was punishing hard work. He was demonizing the wealthy and pushing the "socialist idea" of "raiding" retirement accounts. And look at his generous pension: Who was he to tell other Americans they should have less?
"I'll grant you that $205,000 a year . . . is serious money in many places," columnist Allan Sloan acknowledged in The Post last Friday. "But it doesn't buy you a rich retirement lifestyle in, say, New York's Manhattan . . ."
I admire Sloan's columns, and I wish him the best wherever he chooses to retire, which I hope isn't any time soon. But Obama isn't keeping people from saving as much money as they can or want. The question is how much the rest of us should have to chip in. Obama is suggesting that at some point retirement accounts, invented to encourage working people to set aside enough for their sunset years, no longer need a helping hand from taxpayers.
Tax law limits traditional pensions to about $205,000 per year, so the administration proposes to put defined-contribution plans on an equal footing. As the limit rises with inflation, so would the ceiling on your IRA or 401(k). Beyond that, you could keep saving, but you wouldn't get a tax break.
The average total wealth of white families in the United States — including not just IRAs but all savings, homes, cars and everything else — is $632,000. For blacks and Hispanics, average total wealth is a meager $103,000, according to the Urban Institute.
Meanwhile, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, about 0.06 percent of IRA account holders have more than $3 million in their accounts, as do about 0.0041 percent — that's one in 25,000 — of 401(k) account holders.
For most Americans, IRAs and 401(k)s offer a way to shelter some income from tax during their high-earning years; when they withdraw the savings later, they may be paying at a lower rate. For the super-wealthy, the plans have become a means to defer huge tax bills and even to shelter inherited wealth.
As always in these matters, opponents of the Obama proposal insist they are defending the general welfare — and the little guy. Obama's plan, they say, would hurt the national savings rate. (Probably not, or not much; in any case, most wealthy people are saving more than what they have in their retirement plans.) A business owner who maxed out his 401(k) would stop offering plans to his workers. (Unlikely, according to Treasury analysts; besides, the Obama budget offers incentives to businesses that establish 401(k) plans from which employees would have to opt out, a smarter and more effective way to encourage savings.)
It's easy, and not wrong, to blame Washington's dysfunction on Republican intransigence, Obama's lack of leadership or other failings of those in charge.
But the rest of us might want to look in the mirror. The entitlement culture, as the Post's Robert Samuelson wrote last week, runs deeper than the entitlement programs we normally think of, like Medicare and Social Security. Whisper the possibility of cuts, or even of slower growth in spending, and everyone from wind farmers to political science professors to Big Bird immediately gears up to insist that his piece of the pie is fundamental to the American way of life. Silicon Valley tycoons, preeningly progressive at most times, descend on Washington to defend their carried-interest loophole whenever Congress threatens to narrow their sweet deal.
Now it's the top one-thousandth demanding their right to tax breaks for socking away unlimited wealth in retirement plans.
Romney never explained how he laid his golden nest egg. Experts speculate that he put cheaply valued assets like stock options into his IRA, where they then ballooned in value.
If it's legal, it doesn't really matter whether we like it. But I don't see why we should have to help pay for it.
Read more from Fred Hiatt's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
For more on this story go to:


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So, in the best interest of you loyal Gap Shots & Whiffs' readers out there, I have spent the better part of 20 minutes finding out what the heck Rule 22(g) means. This in terms of Illinois General Assembly House lingo.
As you may or may not know by now, that's what has happened to the status of a proposal made down in Springfield on Wednesday by the name of HB 1205. You may better recognize it as the Football Practice Hitting Limitation Act. This was presented to an Illinois House Committee this week in an effort to try and eliminate tackling by youth and high school football teams in the offseason and limiting them to twice a week in season.
The idea to create a law was the "brainchild" of State Representative Carol Sente (D-Lincolnshire) and it was shot down or "killed in committee" as State Representative Pam Roth (R-Morris) told me on Wednesday. Actually, at the time, the Elementary & Secondary Education Committee had only stalled the bill by voting it down — reportedly 5-6 — that day.
Procedurally, Sente was then allowed another "bob at the apple" again in committee on Thursday, but it again was punted out of the chambers. Not sure what that vote was, but then HB 1205 was "tabled pursuant to Rule 22(g)" according to ilea.gov. For those that care, that means "in committees, only two passage roll call are allowed".
Roth and State Rep. Barbara Wheeler (R-Crystal Lake) are on the Elementary & Secondary Education Committee and it is clear that they were both in opposition to HB 1205 after talking to their constituents in the days leading up to the committee vote. Here in Morris, that Town-Hall style meeting was held by Roth in the MCHS auditorium on Monday.
"The General Assembly should not be stepping over the IHSA by intervening in school sports," Roth said after the meeting.
"The State of Illinois does not need to be legislating how best to serve the children and coach football," Wheeler said.
I was glad to see this act not even get out of committee and representatives like Roth and Wheeler should be thanked for their role in HB 1205's demise.
Everyone agrees that the issue of safety for the kids should always have the highest priority. That goes for all sports and not just football. That is why I don't understand why Sente chose to focus on football alone. For example, studies have shown that soccer players who "head" the ball — you know, bounce it off their noggins to re-direct it — may be "causing measurable damage to their brains, even if they never suffer a concussion". This according to a report that came out in November by the Los Angeles Times.
Why not create a law against children heading a soccer ball?
Hey Sente, why do you not care about soccer players, too? Or the 18,246 baseball and softball players under the age of 15 who sustained a concussion in the season studied, according to that same LA Times report. There were more reported concussions in those three sports together than in football in cited statistics from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
But that's actually beside the point.
The measures the IHSA have taken in the last several years have drawn high praise almost all the way across the board for the way it has addressed concussions. There are a strict set of guidelines already in place to protect the kids — particularly in football. Heck they can't even have their helmet come off now without them having to leave the field immediately and consult the athletic trainer on the sideline.
The IHSA is the governing body in this instance and the IESA almost always follows suit with any changes in safety regulations. That means the same protective measures are being filtered down to the youngest of kids, as well.
You see, Sente, that's what governing bodies do — address the needs of the masses.
I say let the IHSA stay on (and in my opinion stay in front of) sports safety. In the meantime Sente, why don't you try to find a way to get the Illinois governing body to create jobs, entice new business to want to come to the State and eliminate some of that $270 billion deficit we have on the books? I always though those were the kind of things the General Assembly was supposed to be doing.


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It's hard to believe it has been only four years since the demise of the hour of programming known as BET Un:Cut. The last block of exclusively "underground" and "independent" music on a major basic cable network, its absence has left a booty-shaped hole in the hearts of Hip-Hop and female anatomy aficionados everywhere. Since RapReviews just re:uped the BET UN:CUT SYMPOSIUM PODCAST I did with Adam Bernard two years ago (FREE DOWNLOAD! A MUST HEAR! RING THE ALARM!) I've decided to offer a little extra credit with my countdown of the top 10 BET Un:Cut videos of all time.
Be warned, this is the first post in the history of this site I have to declare a state of NSFW in order to do the subject matter justice. Welcome to the land of a thousand asses.
10 ) Lil Jon & the East Side Boys – "Bia Bia"
The original incarnation of BET UN:CUT was to allow the more explicit major label videos that had to be toned down for prime time to air completely unedited. Back in 2001, this was among the show's first staples. Resembling a David Fincher film, Jon conducts a carnival of urban macabre while controversially wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt. I remember this video being the topic of choice of Ms. Pfeiffer's sixth period Spanish Class as Amy Johnson would reference it all the time.
9 ) Waxamillion – "No Panties on the Dancefloor"
Sometimes these videos speak for themselves, which is perfect for moments like this were I am at a complete loss for words.
8 ) Crazy Al Cayne – "T&A"
"T&A" is an interesting entry in the Un:Cut canon as it's among the first fully self-aware videos that aired in the 3-4 AM time-slot. After a string of successful parodies, popular radio personality Crazy Al Cayne decided in 2004 to finally shoot a video for one of his original compositions "T&A." I remember Cayne himself posting teaser clips of the video for several weeks before it finally aired and having the final product far exceed my seventeen-year-old expectations.
7 ) Murs f/ Shock G & Humpty Hump – "Risky Business"
The heyday of BET Un:Cut occurred simultaneously with that of the modern indie-rap movement, so it's only natural that the two worlds finally collided. Along with the Dilla-Madlib collaboration "McNasty Filth" shocking a nation of rap-apologist "conscious" coffee house college freshmen, the most successful of all these crossovers was Murs' "Risky Business." While Aesop Rock's "Easy" was the first video from independent powerhouse Definitive Jux getting regular play during the channel's standard rap video hours, Murs teamed with the Digital Underground frontman to crash parties across all camps and campuses.
6 ) Top Secret – "Dollie"
When I say BET Un:Cut would play a rap video of ANYONE from ANYWHERE regardless of quality, I really really really meant it. Case-in-point, Top Secret's video for "Dollie," a tribute to breasts that looks like it was shot on scotch tape through a Game Gear. Following the success of the song, the group attached a disclaimer to the front claiming it was a comedy video. Unfortunately for these Tommy Wiseaus of rap, it's a notice that would never air.
5 ) TIE – Joker the Bailbondsman f/ Bizzy Bone – "Uh-Huh"
Labtekwon – "Uhnnn Huhnnn"
While I find putting "ties" in Top Ten lists to be cheating most of the time, I just couldn't justify this as the definitive Un:Cut list without including both of these videos for no other reason than that they share the same name. First, Alaska's favorite son Joker the Bailbondsman's follow up to his original Un:Cut classic that has the most obvious use of stock footage in music video history that was propelled by the charisma of the then almost-completely insane Bizzy Bone. This was right when music video censorship started to get extreme, so the catchiness of "money in a ziploc bag" got relegated to after hours enjoyment.
The latter, from Baltimore rapper Labtekwon is another case of local icon striking national exposure through a veritable buffet of ass.
4 ) The Team Uncut – "Time For Freakin"
At the height of my 14-year-old "I only like lyrical rappers" phase, I used to loathe this video for every reason I love it now. I remember playing some Tony Hawk Dreamcast and always pausing to scowl at the TV when I heard that "bau-ba-bau-baup" bassline kick in. Another one of the early staples, it boggles my mind to this day that something this obscenely amateur got national television time several nights a week for five years. From the "I just got this camera, check out the cool stuff I can do"-esqe cleavage zoom-in to the "check out how funny my crazy friend is" edits to the "I really mean it!" facial expressions of the artists to the "BON-GOOOOOOOOS!" there's an insane level of so-bad-it's-so- good-it's-back-to-bad-again-to-back-to-good-to-great at play that in a pre-YouTube world gave us the all exactly what we needed.
3 ) Mighty Casey – "White Girls"
2 ) Black Jesus – "What That Smell Like"
Game got real. If you ever channel-surfed past an episode of Un:Cut, chances are you've seen both of these videos. Adam and I go super in-depth on both of these on our Free BET Un:Cut Symposium Podcast (which you should download) so I'll just add here that when the story of humanity is written and it's time for the next great species to write the chapter on BET Un:Cut, these will be the two videos given as shining examples of human triumph. Those two and…
1 ) Nelly – "Tip Drill"
Yes folks, chances are the reason you're reading this right now and the absolute pinnacle of mankind's achievements can be found at 5:37 and 5:56 when a credit card gets run through a girl's buttcheeks. I'm sure some of you out there are deconstructing that as some sort of allegory for the Bush Administration or what Hip-Hop went through over the past decade. I don't care. What I do care about is how at once point there was a programming block set aside to where such things could be aired on television. It was a nightly magical moment during my formative years that to-this-day shapes my perceptions of women and the world around me. Thank you Mom & Dad for bringing me into this world. Thank you BET for bringing this program into my life. Thank you God for the divine touch that made it all come together.
We give BET Un:Cut a Five out of Five.
So until next time…Let's Agree to Agree!


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this morning felt very strange because i did not make my weekly 9 a.m. phone call to grandma. see, a good 8-10 years ago now, i made it my new year's resolution to phone g'ma every week. in recent years, our chatting time had evolved to sunday a.m. – a convenient time for us both. our phone visits were not lengthy, and esp in the last few months, our topics of q & a were repetitive, but it was nice to touch base with grandma on a regular basis. our pattern was so established that some weeks, grandma would pick up the phone and immediately say, "hello cathy!" -> whenever she answered in this way, it made me laugh which in turn made HER laugh and got our visit off to a cheery start.
on wednesday of this past week, g'ma completed her daily walk to and from the uptown mall with her best friend. thursday morning, g'ma was taken to the hospital, and it was discovered that the situation was terminal. the care team gave grandma no more than a day or two to live. i cannot BELIEVE how things work out (as i have often said before) – on thursday, i was scheduled to work only until 3 pm. i am RARELY done my work day this early! as such, i was able to go to the hospital late thursday aft, spend time with grandma, and say my good-bye. grandma passed away late yesterday afternoon. [i have to smile because grandma could be quite stubborn at times (dad and i share this trait, too) and the fact that she lived more than 24 hours than expected was her way of being stubborn right to the very end].
i am so so happy that dad and i took grandma to her favourite swiss chalet back in august and enjoyed our lunch outing with her, there.
and remember the lovely family luncheon we shared in may to celebrate g'ma's 90th? the smile never left grandma's face that day.
one other blog post featuring g'ma comes to mind: this one where i showed you some of grandma's needlework creations in her apartment, around the time of her 89th birthday.
grandma was knitting right until the very end. this is a snippet of the last blanket that she made, finished just last week:
here are a couple of grandma-anecdotes:
~ brown was grandma's favourite colour. when we were children, i remember the brother and i being practically aghast – and fascinated! – that anyone would pick BROWN for their favourite colour!
~ g'ma sewed entire wardrobes for me when i was a little girl:
here's another example of grandma's sewing talent: as a teen, i gave her a drawing of an outfit i wanted, and she replicated it even better than i had anticipated! (and you know it is hard to please a picky teen!). i wore that skirt + blouse combo for years.
~ grandma never judged and was pretty unflappable, no matter what news i shared with her.
~ grandma loved florida! i definitely inherited my love of florida + heat + sunshine from her!
~ grandma balanced a diet heavy on fried foods with a ton of walking!
~ a strong faith, a commitment to family, and not shying away from hard work saw grandma through some years of great hardship; i am glad she also experienced years of travel, relaxation, and enjoyment of life.
we are planning on having a service of remembrance and celebration of life on thursday. it will be a day to mourn, but also to be thankful for all the years that grandma was with us.


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Controversy concerning the practice of hydraulic fracturing and unconventional oil and gas development is about more than just breaking up underground rock deposits to release gas and oil. The policy discussion is also about the overall risks and benefits of the entire industrial process of development, from exploration and drilling to build-out of infrastructure, land use changes, production, transportation, and the cumulative impacts on communities of the business of extracting fossil fuels from shale deposits. The injection of water, sand, and chemicals deep below ground is clearly part of issue, but so is the fact that drilling is occurring in dense patterns across the landscape in many regions unaccustomed to energy development. Read more >
Fracking and My Community's Water: What Do We Know or When Will We Know It?
Monika Freyman, Andrew Rosenberg, director, Center for Science & Democracy
September 13, 2013 2:45 PM EDT


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Most future state and municipal retirees would have to pay about $1,000 a year more for health care under an ambitious proposal that Governor Deval Patrick plans to unveil Friday in an effort to save up to $20 billion in health care costs over the next three decades.
Under the plan, most public employees would have to work until age 60, not 55, before they become eligible for health care benefits and would have to accrue 20 years of state or local service, up from the current 10.
The proposal marks another attempt by Patrick, a liberal Democrat, to negotiate a reduction in benefits for public employees in a heavily Democratic and labor-friendly state that has long protected such benefits amid an outcry from taxpayer groups.
Patrick is casting the changes as the next step needed to rein in unsustainable government costs, following changes in recent years to municipal health insurance policies and state pensions.
The governor argues that state and local governments cannot support the $40 billion they face in long-term health care costs for their retirees and that public employees must work longer for those benefits and pay more for them if the system is to be put on firmer financial ground.
Unions and retirees have traditionally resisted any curtailment in retirement benefits, making past attempts to overhaul the system politically treacherous.
But the governor's proposal is based on changes that labor and retiree groups developed on a commission with state and local officials over the last several months.
Three ranking Democratic and Republican state legislators also sat on the governor's commission and support the changes, making it more likely the bill will win the support
of top House and Senate leaders.
City and town managers have raised serious concerns about the bill, saying it contains one flawed provision that could prevent local managers from cutting retiree health costs in the short term.
Michael J. Widmer — president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed budget watchdog group — called the governor's plan "a good first step."
"It is a real reform," said Widmer. "We don't necessarily agree with everything, but, as a general matter, these are positive recommendations that reflect the enormous liability that the state and municipalities face for retiree health care that they can't pay for."
Currently, most state and local workers pay 20 percent of their premiums if they have worked for 10 years on the job. Under the governor's plan, they would have to pay 50 percent of their premiums if they retire after 20 years of service. Only after 30 years of service would the government pick up 80 percent of their premiums, leaving them with 20 percent of the cost.
Patrick estimates that, over the next 30 years, his legislation would save the state $6 billion to $8 billion, while cities and towns would save $9 billion to $12 billion. Most of the savings, however, would not begin to accrue for at least a decade.
The changes would not apply to current retirees or to current employees who are within five years of retirement and have 20 years of service.
The governor's bill was designed by a 12-member commission that has been meeting since May.
The panel determined that Massachusetts faces bears some of the highest costs for retiree health care of any state and that public retirees receive more generous benefits than 90 percent of retirees in the private sector.
Andrew Powell, a member of the American Federation of Teachers, was the AFL-CIO's representative of the panel.
He said labor fully supports the bill because unions recognize that the long-term costs of health care need to be reined in to preserve benefits for future retirees.
"We wanted to be part of the solution," Powell said. "And it was a true joint solution."
Labor's support, he acknowledged, "does change some of the politics around this."
The commission voted 11 to 1 to support the recommendations that form the core of the governor's bill.
The lone dissenting vote was from the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents city and town managers.
Geoff Beckwith, the association's executive director, said that while his group supports many of the governor's proposals, it is opposed to a provision that would forbid municipal managers from changing the share of the premiums their retirees pay through 2016.
That three-year freeze was included in the bill to help win labor's backing.
But Beckwith said that because most of the savings in the bill would take years to add up, that freeze would make it hard for cities and towns to save money in the near term.
"While the legislation contains many good elements, it would take away one of the important tools cities and towns have today to control retiree health costs over the next decade," Beckwith said.
State Treasurer Steve Grossman said the bill would help keep borrowing costs low.
"This is exactly what the investor community wants to hear," he said. "It's another element in a series of reforms that have been achieved in the last several years."
Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@
globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mlevenson.