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With the Q2 earning numbers still looming, Nokia has been trimming weight like a boss and there seems to be nothing they won't do to get some greenbacks in their pockets.
Digia, the company who agreed to licensed Qt from Nokia back in 2011, has just taken full custody of the red-headed stepchild project. That is, they're going to acquire all Qt software technologies AND Qt business from both what Nokia was working on, and what Trolltech was doing. While Nokia had great dreams for the cross-platform UI framework, they never really managed to actually make a dent in the mobile platform race with Qt. They agreed to leave KDE alone, and in the event that everything hit the fan, they could essentially be ousted and KDE could release Qt under the BSD license. This agreement holds true with Digia, as they stated in a news post;
We also are committed to continuing the special relationship Qt has with the KDE community via the KDE Free Qt Foundation. We believe that this symbiosis is valuable for everyone involved.
Digia plans to release Qt for iOS, Android, and Windows 8, on the double. Nokia has lagged around with Qt long enough and it's nice to see that Digia is looking towards the future. Hopefully they can get to work with the Jolla Mobile folk and hit the ground running.
Vringo has also been in talks with Nokia, but this is for the purchase of over 500 patents and patent applications. If you've never heard of Vringo, they describe themselves as "engaged in the innovation, development and monetization of mobile technologies and intellectual property.". If you HAVE heard of Vringo, it's likely because either you, or somebody you know, was dumb enough to subscribe to their premium video ringtone service. A fool and his money are soon parted.
It's quite clear that Vringo is acting as a middleman for patent usage royalties, and possible upcoming patent infringement lawsuits. Apple and Samsung can't have all the fun, can they? It's said the patents are worth roughly $22 million, and Vringo sold off $31 million worth of their stock in order to pay Nokia.
Hopefully Nokia has plan which consists of more than "sell it all off, let Microsoft lead the way". Even making the first Windows Phone 8 device likely won't save them if the asset auction continues and the board is blinded by the incoming cash flux, not realizing they are losing their roots.

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First Review by Adam-Troy Castro
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (original title: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo; 1966). Directed by Sergio Leone. Screenplay by Age and Scarpelli, Sergio Leone, and Luciano Vincenzoni. Starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef; also Luigi Pistilli. 177 minutes. *** 1/2.
The Good, The Bad, The Weird (original title: Joheun nom nabbeun nom isanghan nom; 2008). Directed by Kim Ji-Woon. Screenplay by Kim Ji-Woon and Kim Ji-Suk. Starring Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun, Jung Woo-Sung. 139 minutes. ***
This much needs to be said.
To cover these two films together, we stretched the definition of "Remake" almost to be the breaking point. There is no legal connection between them, no shared source material that inspired both. They have completely different stories and even completely different tones, though the Korean film borrows its title, the power dynamic between its three main characters, and even much of the staging of the final showdown from the original, and would likely not exist were it not for the creative urge to evoke the Italian-American one; it is a tribute, certainly, but is it remake?
We err on the side of yes. After all, these aren't the first two films linked conceptually, but – at least at some point during production — not legally. Some examples: despite a changed title, changed character names, and different vampire lore, the vampire film Nosferatu was such a de facto attempt to film Dracula that Florence Stoker successfully sued the makers for plagiarism. Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars was such a clear remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo that legal threats earned Toho studios a nice hunk of change and an official acknowledgment in the credits of the later film. We covered the many ways that the seriously-intended Zero Hour was aped for the parody film Airplane!, but the makers of the latter were new at the business and originally thought they could make their spoof without paying the owners of the Zero Hour copyright a dime – a misapprehension for which they soon learned they would have to make good. So it is for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and The Good, The Bad, The Weird. The connection is so clear that it's visible to the naked eye. We will call it a Remake and sort out the bodies later.
Each film involves a trio of dangerous men, living in dangerous, war-torn times, who find themselves embroiled in a quest to track down and claim a fabulous treasure. Each trio includes as its viewpoint character ("The Ugly" or "The Weird"), an unkempt, accident-prone clown of dubious morality, who kills at the drop of a hat but is so cruelly treated by fate and the other two that the audience cannot help forgiving him his sins. Both place him in uneasy partnership with a professional bounty hunter ("The Good"), the closest thing to an actual hero either of these movies offer, who kills just as easily and is frankly not much more virtuous, but from time to time betrays enough additional humanity that his various abuses of the clown figure emerge as increasingly funny. Both place these two in contention with a professional killer ("The Ugly"), who is charming, dapper, and in some ineffable way that could only make sense in this amoral universe more hissably evil than either of the others. Both films take pains to set the treasure hunt against the fate of nations; and both end with the all three, the last left alive at the site of the booty they have killed so many others to find, each betting everything on a three-way quick-draw duel fought on a circular playing field. They're both brutal, funny, operatic in scale, driven at times by masterful use of soundtrack music, and more fun than any ten other movies, but the stories they tell are otherwise so very different that it's possible to watch both films for the first time, one after the other, note the resonance, and not feel either plot spoiled.
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
The Clint Eastwood character in this film is often referred to as "The Man With No Name," as it's the last and most elaborate of three films marketed in the U.S. under that blanket title. But he really isn't. His name is Joe. He is also frequently called by the nickname Eli Wallach's character gives him, Blondie, but his name is Joe. Moreover, internal evidence establishes that he is absolutely not the same man as Eastwood's character in A Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More; he just isn't, even if moviegoers prefer to believe otherwise. One can only conclude that in the universe of these films, there was an entire ethnic strain of tall, blondish, squinty-eyed and cheroot-chomping men, otherwise unrelated, wandering around uttering catchphrases while shooting people; and that they were slightly more numerous than a similar strain of homicidal gunslingers who looked like the star of two films in this trilogy, Lee Van Cleef. (Eastwood, knowing a good thing when he saw it, later made a couple of subsequent westerns also featuring men with no name, High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider, and, again, moviegoers tend to treat these as de facto sequels, but the fact remains that internal evidence disputes this. The so-called Man With No Name is not just a different character every time he appears, but also not actually a man with no name. Sorry.
The film is set during a mysteriously far-west campaign of the Civil War, at a time when Eastwood's bounty hunter Blondie has enlisted Wallach's outlaw Tuco in a deadly con-game; the two travel from town to town, with Tuco as Blondie's prisoner, so Blondie can collect the reward prior to using his marksmanship skills to scatter the townspeople and free Tuco from the noose, thus earning Tuco an even greater bounty on his head. That there about a dozen serious logical problems with this scenario, including the unlikelihood of Tuco agreeing to it in the first place (if he even knew that this was the deal he was making), or the physical reality that the era's firearms were simply not even close to accurate enough to ensure that even a prodigy could make such shots consistently, is a small matter; the conceit establishes the film as a kind of myth, a fairy tale if you will, that is not to be taken seriously, thus preparing the audience to be slammed with more brutal realities later on. The relationship sours upon a spectacular, even murderous betrayal by Blondie (justifying a big laugh when he is immediately identified on-screen as "The Good"), making the two men bitter enemies who must subsequently team up when circumstances provide each with half the secret location to a hoard of stolen Confederate gold.
With its prequels, the film provides much of the foundation for Eastwood's permanent state of super-stardom, but – we have to note – his performance here is little more than a brilliant, instant parody of itself. He squints and growls and projects menace and sometimes suffers and once in a great while smiles, but his character is by design an enigma, somebody whose humanity is hinted at, and revealed in small doses. We don't have any problem understanding why it contributed to his fame, but it's still the performance of an star icon, and not a star actor. Even director Sergio Leone said this, in ungracious contemporary interviews, which for all we know may have contributed to the star and the director never working together again. Eastwood became much more interesting as an actor, and as a well-rounded artist, as he aged. For our money, the film's true star performance belongs to Eli Wallach, whose Tuco is a profound comic creation: a man utterly devoid of positive qualities, who is nevertheless deeply ingratiating; a man who is not very bright, but nevertheless profoundly cunning; a man who is bullied and mistreated on a regular basis and yet as deadly as a viper; a man who shoots people dead and then compulsively crosses himself afterward, as if that makes it okay. He's a man who from the evidence available on screen probably smells like the inside of a bowling shoe that somebody has stuffed with fish, whose greedy practicality so completely insulates him from most human concerns that he looks downright puzzled when Blondie shows disgust at the ravages of war. It is an emotion alien to him.
This is not the same thing as saying that he's not human at all, which is why it's so great that we get an interlude at the mission run by Tuco's estranged brother Father Pablo (Luigi Pistilli), the angel to Tuco's fallen sinner, who has just returned from the funeral of their father and is not at all pleased to see the ne'er-do-well bandit he has not seen for ten years. The story stops completely dead to show us this confrontation, which suddenly invests the film with the first indication that it might have a soul; and it is riveting, especially given that Tuco really does seem to think that he would be greeted with loving arms, and Father Pablo really does clearly wish he'd shown his brother more than contempt, once the time for reconciliation is past. Once this scene is done we know exactly why Tuco is the way he is, and what follows is a splendid return to his version of normalcy, as he boasts that his brother loves him, and his ally-turned-enemy-turned-ally Blondie (who has witnessed the whole thing), refrains from contradicting him. The camera focuses on a tight close-up of Tuco's face as he processes his hurt, focuses on the quest ahead, and then, improbably, smiles. He has a brother he loves, who has rejected him; and he has a man he hates, who has just shown him a moment of understanding. Here is a relationship he can comprehend. The gold is ahead. He is home.
We cannot stress this enough. The entire Father Pablo scene, and its aftermath, advances the actual narrative not at all. With the movie running as long as it does, it would be the first interlude a modern-day distributor would cut out, the first scene that would make a modern-day test audience squirm with discomfort. (And we can not stress this enough, either: fuck test audiences.) But it serves the story. It lets us know exactly who this scuzzy little bandit is. Eastwood's Blondie, designed as an enigma, doesn't get anything nearly as revelatory, unless you count the powerful moment late in the film where he makes a point of comforting a mortally-wounded Confederate (another that would not survive a modern-day cut). There are others, before and after, playing the brutal search for bounty against a sweeping backdrop of the horrors of war; a not-exactly historically-accurate backdrop, but nevertheless one that makes everything around it play on an epic level.
So the movie can be credited with having a soul, if not consistent logic. This viewer always cringes at the scene where Blondie and Tuco discuss the river up ahead, are captured by Union soldiers, and brought to a major military encampment that they somehow failed to detect even though it was literally only about five steps ahead of them. I also wonder how come Tuco's escape from a train goes unnoticed by a flatcar covered with soldiers, in plain sight and in broad daylight; and how come, in the aftermath of a major battle, new recruits Blondie and Tuco are conveniently left behind in their sleep, when everybody else bugs out without waking them. (Gee. That was convenient.)
The logical questions are unimportant, though, next to the sheer narrative verve, Leone's trademark huge and oddly beautiful unflattering closeups of sweaty and unshaven men, set design that accentuates the ugliness and the primitiveness of the outposts of civilization the three antagonists travel, and the series of reversals, hair's-breadth escapes, and unlikely acts of gunplay that make this one of the best tall tales in the genre's history. Leone was a master of the intensely slow scene that reeked of impending violence, that focused on the terrified faces of desperate men who knew that they were about to be killed; and such scenes are compelling when they arrive at the rate of one or two per film, but can sometimes run afoul of the law of diminishing returns when they come too many times per film. It is for precisely this reason that, while Leone's followup, Once Upon A Time In The West, is likely a far better film, it still can't match this one for sheer entertainment value.
And then there's the music.
Oh, the music.
Ennio Morricone's most famous movie score is a remarkably memorable and powerful series of orchestral pieces that somehow synergizes with all of the movie's great set-pieces to create a kind of magic. I'm not even counting the main title music, which becomes Blondie's theme and provides us with that ridiculously addictive refrain whenever Eastwood does something particularly cool: doody-oodie-ooh. Waa-waa-waa. That is admittedly great stuff, one of the best movie themes of all time, one so inherently terrific that it's been covered in every style from heavy metal to ukelele:
No, I'm talking about such compositions as "The Ecstacy of Gold," which here illustrates Tuco's frantic race through a military cemetery for the one grave which contains a fortune.
It is one of the most purely movie moments the film possesses, an absolute wonderment, and the best thing I can say about it is that, as good as it is, it is followed by an interval that is even better: the three-way gun duel between the titular three.
It is hard to imagine how any remake, even an uncredited one, could possibly provide us with as compelling a mixture of music and image.
Except that 42 years later, the climax of the next film in our discussion came pretty damn close.
The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008)
Kim Ji-Woon's version of the tale is about half an hour shorter, and more dominated by action setpieces; though it retains a historical subtext, relevant to Korea, it nevertheless leaves out almost all (but not quite all) sense of historical tragedy and almost all (but not quite all) depth of character, satisfied to dazzle the eyes and set the heart to racing. It is a much shallower piece of work, as well a far more lighthearted one. It achieves what greatness it has by sheer audacity.
It is an "Eastern," which is to say that it translates the western tropes of the original to an equivalent period in Korean history: here, the no-man's-land of the Manchurian desert in the early 1930s, after Korea's been occupied by the Japanese and the cast of desperate gunfighters has migrated to that lawless frontier, where they can live out of the outskirts of civilization. Dialogue late in the film evokes the heartbreak of having one's country occupied, and the treasure that provides the narrative its McGuffin will turn out to be a very modern resource with important implications for the military future of the region, but these concerns are not central to the tone of the film, as they are in Ugly; they are invoked to provide context, and to provide yet another heavily-armed set of antagonists, but viewers will find little here to match Tuco's confrontation with Father Pablo, or the heartbroken band playing ballads to cover the beating of prisoners of war. The movie simply doesn't have much on its mind, beyond kinetic thrills.
But what thrills! Take this opening scene – the second after a brief expository scene we can safely ignore in order to make this point. I don't know about you, but the second the hawk does what it does, I turned toward my seat companion and declared, "This movie has me at hello." And so it did.
The three main characters are designed to provide the very same dynamic as the one established by the leads of the 1966 film. To wit: the viewpoint character is Yoon Tae-Go, an unkempt, unwashed, amiable but deadly outlaw, widely regarded an idiot but possessed of his own brand of cunning; a man who nothing ever seems to work out for (Yoon Tae-Go, "The Weird"; played by versatile actor Song Kang-Ho, who even possesses the approximate body type that Eli Wallach did in 1966). (Kang-Ho has given terrific performances in other Korean movies worth checking out, which include the vampire movie Thirst and the police procedural Memories of Murder; you could honestly do worse than check out those two minor masterpieces, as well as this one, right now). To counter him, there's Park Do-Won ("The Good," played by Jung Wo-Sung), an almost supernaturally gifted gunfighter and bounty hunter who for most of the film disavows all interest in the treasure; and Park Chang-Yi ("The Bad," played by Lee Byung-Hun), a man who seems to kill for the sheer point of killing, as well as the acquisition of treasure. The chemistry between these three is very precisely modeled on the one between Wallach, Van Cleef and Eastwood, down to our affection for Tae-Go and the grim lack of concern for his well-being shown by the nominal "Good." It is, again, not as deeply realized a relationship as that in the 1966 film, but it scarcely matters, as the movie's true intent is providing us with one over-the-top action scene after another, and in fiendishly arranging for all the parties intent on intercepting Tae-Go on his way to the treasure, a number that encompasses among others desert tribesmen, hired killers and the freaking Japanese Army, to all converge at the same point, a raucous chase and battle across the Manchurian desert.
And here, all critical standards prove irrelevant. Never mind the fallacy of the shotgun with infinite ammunition or that of the army that cannot outshoot a lone man. This is simply one of the very coolest chase scenes in movie history. It is on a par with the climactic battle of Stagecoach, the climactic battle of The Road Warrior, and the truck chase in Raiders Of The Lost Ark; moreover, the melding of the score by Dalparan and Jang Yeong-Gyu and the highly unlikely but intensely cool sequence where Park Do-Won takes on vastly superior forces in a solo ride to the rescue, is pure action-movie orgasm. I dunno about you, but I could honestly watch this scene ten times in a row and still want to see more.
It all culminates in another three-way gunfight, which ends substantially differently, with all three leads apparently killing one another (though an unpersuasive coda insists, against all odds, that the two we want to survive not only did survive but also made it back to civilization and resumed their old habits). I don't entirely buy it myself. But the movie has me at goodbye, as well.
The Treasure, Found
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: a superior adventure film, filled with classic set-pieces, and passages of genuine feeling, marred by some woeful logical gaps; The Good, The Bad, The Weird: not quite the sum of its parts, let alone more than the sum of its parts, but a kinetic wonderment, the kind of movie action fans will want to see again and again.
And now, the wife narrows her flinty gaze, while a mournful chorus goes "Waa-waa" in the background….
Second Commentary by Judi B. Castro
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (original title: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo; 1966). Directed by Sergio Leone. Screenplay by Age and Scarpelli, Sergio Leone, and Luciano Vincenzoni. Starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef; also Luigi Pistilli. 177 minutes. ***
The Good, The Bad, The Weird (original title: Joheun nom nabbeun nom isanghan nom; 2008). Directed by Kim Ji-Woon. Screenplay by Kim Ji-Woon and Kim Ji-Suk. Starring Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun, Jung Woo-Sung. 139 minutes. *1/2
As I may have said before, I'm no great fan of the western genre. Not thrilled by cowboys and injuns, seeing horses abused and maimed doesn't set my heart astir. Don't care if the stagecoach got robbed. All I want is a good story, told well.
Now, we are presented with a Western made in Italy and an Eastern made in Korea.
Neither one is unwatchable or gives me the twitches, but neither one tells me a really good tale.
The Weird focuses on murdering thieves who happen to realize that they have a map that everyone wants. They is an intricate dance of who's actually after who and a few good fights, but I had a tough time following the so-called plot. If it hadn't been for this column, I would have abandoned it way before the climactic chase. Now is it a chase that can elevate this film into even an extra 1/2*? NO! It was overblown and ridiculous. One man can not do what this schmo was supposed to do. I couldn't suspend belief, because I had no feelings for the characters. No suspension, no fun.
Now the "classic" Italian Western that saved a genre has a bit more going for it than the Korean remake, but not by all that much.
I could believe that the "good" is actually a vicious, money grubbing, murderous (when needed) thief. But what makes him any better than the other two? They are all low life scum trying to scratch out a dishonest living on the fringes of the Civil war. And being a great shot with a rifle does not immediately translate to being an incredible pistol man too.
In this classic film we have a few of my least favorite tropes. If an extra is shot, he dies quickly. If a star or plot point is shot, he not only dies slowly, but with enough clarity to pass on his secrets. Oh and speaking of shooting…If a man on a roof or at a window takes a steady bead on our hero, he misses, but is shot dead from a hastily drawn hip gun after a spin around and no sighting at all. And most of all, the star must win and the evil must suffer. So so so…..painful.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was one of those films that formed my dislike of westerns. Not all of the films in the genre have generated my disdain. There are many fine tales and character studies set in the rugged west. But this and its counterparts have permanently left a sour dusty film in my mouth.


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New reviews: Monster's Monster and Pirateria
Last week, I reviewed The Monster's Monster by Patrick McDonnell on Brain Burps About Books. I really love the use of color in this book: In the beginning of the book, when the three little monsters are trying to be bad, the colors are all grey and dark and gloomy. And then, when they build their own monster (who's supposed to be big and bad but turns out a bit different), the colors lighten and get sunnier.
You should also listen to this review to hear a cameo from Dave as the voice of the monster.
You can go here to listen to the episode (or you can subscribe in iTunes).
Then, this week, I review Pirateria: The Wonderful, Plunderful Pirate Emporium by Calef Brown. I love Calef Brown. His art makes me so happy. His nutty, loopy world is populated by lovable oddballs. People might have green or purple skin: what of it? Sometimes I just poke around on his Etsy shop, pretending I live in CalefBrownlandia.
Oh, and guess what? He can write, too. Not only write, but write in rhyme. Seriously, I'd read a Calef Brown book if it was just his illustrations and, like "GUY. OTHER GUY." written underneath. But he writes, in rhyme, and the poems are funny and interesting and perfectly complement the wacky illustrations.
Yeah, Julie, could you get to this book, please? Ok: So Pirateria is a book about a store for pirates, who need to load up on pirate gear. Why has no one written a book about a pirate store before? I don't know. I'm glad Calef Brown is the one that did it. This book rocks.
You can listen to the episode here.


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Category Archives: Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan's Fascination With a Serial Murderer's Groupie and What it Could Mean for the Nation
Paul Ryan has worshipped at the feet of Ayn Rand, at least until recently. He has publicly stated that her books were the most pivotal in shaping his public life. He gave them to interns as gifts, and they were required reading for his staff members. He spoke frequently about how the decline in America looked increasingly like something out of an Ayn Rand novel.
He is not alone among public servants in his admiration for Ayn Rand. Others include Sen. Rand Paul, who is named in her honor, and his father, Rep. Ron Paul. She was also mentioned as being very influential by President Ronald Reagan, Sen. Ron Johnson, Gov. Gary Johnson, Rush Limbaugh, former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. But maybe the most famous follower of Ayn Rand is former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who in the 1950s was part of her inner circle and a close personal confidant.
Ayn Rand seems to have a special appeal to younger people who are empowered by the idea of their individual greatness waiting to explode, ungoverned by the limitations that the world tries to place on them.
As someone once said: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Today we live in a country where millions of people object to the idea of giving health care to the tens of millions of Americans who don't have it, or who take pleasure at the thought of privatizing and slashing Social Security or Medicare. It seems as though the U.S. is the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor, and we can trace their philosophical justification for this kind of attitude directly to Ayn Rand.
One thing that isn't always recognized about Rand's thinking is that she was a textbook sociopath. In her notebooks she heaped praise upon a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used him as an early model for the type of "ideal man" she promoted in her more famous books. These ideas were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half century, including those named above as Rand acolytes.
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs, and maybe understand those who are among her devotees, is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt.Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of a 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with ardent praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so enthralled with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation, Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street, on him.
What Rand admired most about Hickman were his sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others."
William Hickman, the "genuinely beautiful soul" and inspiration to Ayn Rand was an under-educated ne'er-do-well, and psychopath whose only claim to public notice was the commission of a brutal and senseless murder.
While disturbing, it's necessary to read at least the basics of his atrocious crime in order to better understand Rand and what made her tick, because her influence over the very people leading the fight to kill social programs, and her ideological influence on so many powerful bankers, regulators and businessmen who brought the financial markets crashing down, means her ideas are affecting all of our lives in the worst way imaginable, whether we know it or not.
Rand fell for William Edward Hickman in the late 1920s, as the shocking story of Hickman's crime started to grip the nation. His crime, trial, case, and eventual execution were nonstop headline grabbers for months.
Hickman, who was only 19 when he was arrested for murder, was the son of a paranoid-schizophrenic mother and grandmother. His schoolmates said that as a kid Hickman liked to strangle cats and snap the necks of chickens for fun. Most of the kids with whom he grew up thought he was a budding maniac, though the adults gave him good marks for behavior, a typical sign of sociopathic cunning.
After high school he embarked on a brief and increasingly violent crime spree, robbing dozens of gas stations and drug stores. Along the way it's believed he strangled a girl in Milwaukee and killed his crime partner's grandfather in Pasadena, tossing his body over a bridge after taking his money.
I remember very well when I was growing up, my father singing a song made popular at the time of the following crime, called "Little Marion Parker." The horror of it swept the nation, and was only dwarfed by the later abduction and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son a few years later.
One afternoon, Hickman drove up to Mount Vernon Junior High school in Los Angeles, telling administrators he'd come to pick up "the Parker girl." Her father, Perry Parker, was a prominent banker.The school administrator fetched young Marion Parker, and brought her out to Hickman. Marion obediently followed Hickman to his car as she was told, where he promptly kidnapped her. He wrote a ransom note to Marion's father, demanding $1,500 for her return, promising the girl would be left unharmed. Hickman's extreme narcissism comes through in his ransom letters, as he refers to himself as a "master mind [sic]" and "not a common crook." Hickman signed his letters "The Fox" because he admired his own cunning.
Hickman and the girl's father exchanged letters over the next few days as they arranged the terms of the ransom. By the time the last letter was sent by Hickman, he had already murdered and dismembered the girl.
According to a newspaper article from the time, he said, "It was while I was fixing the blindfold that the urge to murder came upon me," he continued, "and I just couldn't help myself. I got a towel and stepped up behind Marion. Then before she could move, I put it around her neck and twisted it tightly. I held on and she made no outcry except to gurgle. I held on for about two minutes, I guess, and then I let go. When I cut loose the fastenings, she fell to the floor. I knew she was dead. Well, after she was dead I carried her body into the bathroom and undressed her, all but the underwear, and cut a hole in her throat with a pocket knife to let the blood out."
Another newspaper account explained what Hickman did next: Then he took a pocket knife and cut a hole in her throat. Then he cut off each arm to the elbow. Then he cut her legs off at the knees. He put the limbs in a cabinet. He cut up the body in his room at the Bellevue Arms Apartments. Then he removed the clothing and cut the body through at the waist. He put it on a shelf in the dressing room. He placed a towel in the body to drain the blood. He wrapped up the exposed ends of the arms and waist with paper. He combed back her hair, powdered her face and then with a needle fixed her eyelids. He did this because he realized that he would lose the reward if he did not have the body to produce to her father.Hickman packed her body, limbs and entrails into a car, and drove to the drop-off point to pick up his ransom; along his way he tossed out wrapped-up limbs and innards scattering them around Los Angeles. When he arrived at the meeting point, Hickman pulled her head and torso out of a suitcase and propped her up, her torso wrapped tightly, to look like she was alive. When her father arrived, Hickman pointed a sawed-off shotgun at him, showed Marion's head with the eyes sewn open (it would have been hard to see for certain that she was dead), and then took the ransom money and fled. As he sped away, he threw Marion's head and torso out of the car, and that's when the father ran up and saw his daughter, and screamed.
This is the "amazing picture" Ayn Rand, guru to the Republican/Tea Party right-wing, admired when she wrote in her notebook that Hickman represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should."
Other people don't exist for Rand, either. Part of her ideas are nothing more than a ditzy dilettante's bastardized Nietzsche, but even this was plagiarized from the same pulp newspaper accounts of the time. According to an LA Times article in late December 1927, headlined "Behavioralism Gets The Blame," a pastor and others close to the Hickman case denounced the cheap trendy Nietzschean ideas Hickman and others latched onto as a defense: "Behavioristic philosophic teachings of eminent philosophers such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer have built the foundation for William Edward Hickman's original rebellion against society," the article begins.
This aptly describes Ayn Rand, whose philosophy developed out of her admiration for "Supermen" like Hickman. Rand's philosophy can be summed up by the title of one of her best-known books: The Virtue of Selfishness. She argues that all selfishness is a moral good, and all altruism is a moral evil, even "moral cannibalism," to use her words. To her, those who aren't like-minded sociopaths are "parasites," "lice" and "looters."
But with Rand, there's something more pathological at work. She's out to make the world more sociopath-friendly so that people like her hero William Hickman can reach their full potential, not held back by the morality of the "weak," whom Rand despised.
Rand and her followers clearly got off on hating and bashing those they perceived as weak. This is exactly the sort of sadism that Rand's hero, Hickman, would have appreciated.
What's really unsettling is that even former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, whose personal relationship with Rand dated back to the 1950s, did some parasite-bashing of his own. In response to a 1958 New York Times book review slamming Atlas Shrugged, Greenspan, defending his mentor, published a letter to the editor that ends: "Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Alan Greenspan."
As much as Ayn Rand detested human "parasites," there is one thing she strongly believed in: creating conditions that increase the productivity of her supermen — the William Hickmans who rule her idealized America: "If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite."
Republican faithful like Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan read Ayn Rand and declare, with pride, "Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism." Indeed. Except that Rand also despised democracy, writing that, "Democracy, in short, is a form of collectivism, which denies individual rights: the majority can do whatever it wants with no restrictions. In principle, the democratic government is all-powerful. Democracy is a totalitarian manifestation; it is not a form of freedom." This from the man who could be one heart beat away from the Presidency.
Whenever you hear politicians or Tea Partiers dividing up the world between "producers" and "collectivism," just know that those ideas and words more likely than not are derived from the deranged mind of a serial-killer groupie. And when you see them taking their razor blades to the last remaining programs protecting the middle class from total abject destitution, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and bragging about how they are slashing these programs for "moral" reasons, just remember Ayn's morality and who inspired her.
Critics of Ayn Rand would rather dismiss her books and ideas as laughable, childish, and hackneyed. But she can't be dismissed because Rand is the name that keeps bubbling up from the Tea Party crowd and the elite conservative circuit in Washington as the Big Inspiration. The only way to protect ourselves from this thinking is the way you protect yourself from serial killers: smoke the Rand followers out, make them answer for following the crazed ideology of a serial-killer-groupie, and run them the hell out of town.
Romney/Ryan Catfood Plan
This is the Republican plan in a nutshell, or rather a can. If the Ryan budget cuts are implemented as passed by the House of Representatives, seniors will pay an additional $6400 per year for Medicare, according to the non-partisan OMB. That's after a lifetime of paying for the popular government insurance plan through payroll deductions.
If that comes to fruition, the Romney/Ryan cat food will supplant other forms of nutrition in the average senior's diet. If they're lucky enough to be able to afford the cat food. The good news is, it contains some nutrition. The bad news is, most of what it contains is filler with no food value.
You'll note it comes in handy pull-top cans. That's because seniors won't be able to afford both the food, and an opener for the can. Also be forewarned. If you cut your thumb on the lid as it is removed from the can, you're on your own. Medicare won't cover such willful and thoughtless accidents on your part.
Oh, and have a nice retirement.
So-Called Medicare Cuts Explained to Paul Ryan by the President
This is from one of the 2010 televised "Question Time" debates between the president and congressional Republican leadership. Here the president explains why Medicare Advantage needs to be reformed and where the savings should go.
Now I'm a participant in Medicare Advantage and have the private part of my plan subsidized by my private retirement provider, and must say that I love the affordability, flexibility, and overall care and access to care that it provides. I certainly don't want to see it turned into the mutation that Romney/Ryan are proposing and envisioning, and I don't think very many Medicare or Medicare Advantage participants would disagree with my viewpoint.
Nothing has been cut. Everyone is getting a better deal and paying less for it. According to HHS, Medicare Advantage premiums are down and enrollment is up. Hardly indicative of something that's suffering and despised.
Now Ryan is on the campaign trail as presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney's running mate, and he is echoing the mantra that the President is stealing $716 billion from Medicare to pay for the Affordable Care Act. We see him sitting in the video, apparently listening, and presumably comprehending what the President is explaining, and yet he's now out there spewing the blatant lie about the gutting of Medicare, which is a total lie. Now he either knows he's lying, or he didn't understand what the President articulated in this meeting. One explanation calls into question his integrity, the other his intelligence. Either way you see it, should disqualify someone like this from holding public office, let alone the second highest one in the land.


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Inspired by the story and advocacy of a mother who lost two sons to the rare disorder characterized by a thickening of the heart walls, the Miller School's Steven E. Lipshultz, M.D., led a national team of pediatric researchers to develop guidelines for assessing and stratifying the risk factors that predict poor outcomes for children newly diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which has many causes. Their study, "Risk stratification at diagnosis for children with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: an analysis of data from the Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Registry," was published September 3 online in advance of print in The Lancet, the world's leading independent medical journal, to coincide with the study's presentation at one of the world's largest gatherings of cardiologists.
By analyzing the cases of more than 1,000 children from 98 centers in the U.S. and Canada enrolled in the Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Registry over a 19-year period, the researchers found that children who were diagnosed at younger than one year of age, had specific inborn errors of metabolism, mixed types of cardiomyopathy, low weight or body mass index, congestive heart failure, and abnormal echocardiographic measures had the worst prognoses. Those children who presented with two or more of these risk factors at diagnosis had the lowest survival rates. Conversely, 97 percent of children with HCM diagnosed over age one had excellent, transplant-free outcomes two years after diagnosis.
"Based on our experience with adults, we do not think of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy as a cause for heart transplant. Yet for a select group of high-risk children with HCM, a heart transplant is key for survival," said Lipshultz, the George E. Batchelor Professor of Pediatrics and public health sciences and Director of the Batchelor Children's Research Institute. "With the exception of certain untreatable inborn errors of metabolism, children presenting with specific risk factors should be evaluated for early heart transplantation and followed more closely than children without these characteristics."
Lipshultz, who established the Registry in 1994 and has had continuous funding from the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to conduct precisely this kind of evidence-based research, also presented the study September 3 at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2013 in Amsterdam. He and his co-authors, including the Miller School's James D. Wilkinson, M.D., M.P.H., professor of pediatrics and public health sciences, who is a co-investigator and the administrative director of the Registry, hope the guidelines will be adopted immediately, giving more children like Kevin and Bryan Yu a fighting chance.
Like his older brother Bryan, Kevin died of cardiac arrest just weeks shy of his first birthday. Unlike Bryan, Kevin was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy at birth, but his cardiologists at a top children's medical center with a well-established heart transplant program did not list him for transplant because he seemed to respond well to medication. As it turns out, both boys had risk factors identified by the study as predictive of a poor outcome at diagnosis. The boys' father also was diagnosed with HCM as a teen-ager but, like many adults with the condition, has always lived symptom- and medication-free.
"Before this study, nobody knew which factors were more important or less important in predicting dismal outcomes," Lipshultz said. "Now we know that many of the characteristics Bryan and Kevin had were risks for failing medical management and needing a heart transplant. Had their cardiologists had access to this study, they likely would have taken a different course of action. Our goal is to prevent other children like Bryan or Kevin from dying."
Lisa Yue, the boys' mother, shared the same goal when, about a year after Kevin's 2001 death, she sought Lipshultz's help in accelerating research and improving the diagnosis and treatment of cardiomyopathies in children, which in addition to the hypertrophic form comes in other forms, including dilated and restrictive. The Children's Cardiomyopathy Foundation Yue and her husband Eddie Yu established supports the Registry and helped fund The Lancet study, as did the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
"My son Kevin is the perfect example why this study was needed," said Yue, a former international business executive who lives in New Jersey. "If this report had been published a decade ago, it would have been clear that Kevin had to be listed earlier for a heart transplant because he fit into that very high risk group with multiple risk factors: he had a mixed form of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, was under one year of age, had lower weight and abnormal echocardiographic measurements."
Another important element of the study, Yue said, is that it breaks hypertrophic cardiomyopathy into different patient sub-categories. "Before, physicians looked at adults and children with HCM as one patient group, but their outcomes really vary. This paper shows that they are not all the same. Those diagnosed with HCM at over one year old have an excellent chance, but for those under one, you really have to pay attention to which predictive risk factors are present."
Gail Pearson, M.D., Sc.D., a pediatric cardiologist and Director of the Adult and Pediatric Cardiac Research Program in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, cited the study as "a good example of public-private collaboration to address one of the most serious and complex heart conditions that affects children."
"Where we don't have good treatment options, such as with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, determining risk level takes on more importance. The long-term follow-up made possible through the Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Registry has improved our ability to determine which children are at the highest risk for needing a heart transplant and for dying from this condition and thus need more intensive monitoring or earlier listing for transplantation," Pearson said.
Robert G. Weintraub, M.B.B.S., of The Royal Children's Hospital and Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and Christopher Semsarian, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., of The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia, and the Agnes Ginges Centre for Molecular Cardiology at the University of Sydney, wrote an accompanying commentary that agrees with Pearson's assessment. In their commentary, "Aetiology Specific Outcomes in Paediatric Cardiomyopathy: Getting to the Heart of the Matter," they said the study provided "new and important information" that "should facilitate early risk stratification and closer monitoring, enabling timely and appropriate listing for heart transplantation."
Lisa Yue fervently hopes so. "Cardiomyopathy is so rare that each center might only see a handful of these kids. Finally, there are guidelines to help physicians determine the best course of treatment for children with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy."
To date, the Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Registry, which is based at the Miller School, has enrolled more than 3,500 children under 18 years of age who were diagnosed with cardiomyopathy from 100 centers across North America.
Also a co-author on the study from the Miller School was Juanita Hunter, M.D., a pediatric cardiology fellow at UM/Jackson Memorial Medical Center's Holtz Children's Hospital. Researchers from Harvard Medical School, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, the New England Research Institutes in Watertown, Massachusetts, Genzyme, a Sanofi company, the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York City, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also contributed.
The study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant HL53392 and by the Children's Cardiomyopathy Foundation.


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COLOGNE, Germany, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- A former Nazi SS soldier was charged in Germany Wednesday with taking part in the largest massacre in occupied France during World II.
The 88-year-old suspect, identified only as Werner C. of Cologne, was named on 25 counts of murder in the June 10, 1944, slaughter that nearly wiped out the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The prosecutor's office in Dortmund said the man, who was 19 at the time of the massacre, also is accused of aiding and abetting the killing of hundreds more villagers, the British newspaper said.
The massacre of 642 people, including 205 children, allegedly was retaliation for the kidnapping of a German officer by the French resistance.
Dortmund prosecutor Andreas Brendel said the suspect maintains he is innocent.
"He acknowledged he was in Oradour-sur-Glane at the time and a member of the SS but disputes any involvement in the murders," Brendel said.
Rainer Pohlen, an attorney for the suspect, asserted his client's innocence in a telephone interview with the New York Times and noted his client's young age at the time of the killings.
He said in recent years authorities have taken a broad view of Nazi crimes, "which means you don't only have the decision makers or perpetrators or whatever, but they're taking everyone they can get their hands on."
"I doubt that it is justified," Pohlen said. "That people are being brought to justice who were still juvenile at the time, who were very young and probably not even mature and developed enough to stand up for themselves. There's something weird about that. That's not how you reconcile anything."
Five other men could be charged in the case as well, Brendel said.
The village has been left untouched since the massacre, serving as a reminder of what happened there.
The Telegraph said the charges came the same day the case against another former SS member, Siert Bruins, a 92-year-old Dutch-born German citizen accused of killing a Dutch resistance fighter during the war, was dropped in Hagen, Germany, for lack of evidence.


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Eric Sigward
I still have the Hunt familyBruce, Kathy, their children and grandchildrenon my list of prayer requests. They told me years ago that I was on theirs. Bruce died in 1992 and Kathy in 1994. Often I talk with Christians who like to witness, and I like to tell them how the great Presbyterian missionary to Korea did it. There is something thrilling about the sources of our faith. I was close to a remarkable Christian missionary for a few years, and his example is worth imitating.
I met Bruce Hunt at an Inter-Varsity missions conference held in Urbana, Illinois, during the winter of 1975. This was a large gathering for students who were contemplating missionary service. As a first-year seminary student, I was there as much as a tourist as anything else.
One evening, while I was waiting in the cafeteria line for dinner, an ordinary-looking man asked if he could join me. He was of moderate stature, with sandy hair swept across his head. Nothing in his appearance alerted me to the esteem he had obtained here or abroad. I said OK. He introduced himself as Bruce Hunt, retired missionary to Korea.
After three years of study at Westminster Seminary, I became a licentiate of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. In 1978 and 1979 I helped plant Covenant Chapel OPC in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with home missionary H. Leverne Rosenberger. One winter weekend, I took a bus to Wilkes-Barre to evangelize and teach Bible studies. Bruce Hunt was filling the pulpit that particular Sunday, but before that he and I would try to solicit interest in the work by doing door-to-door evangelism.
He met me at the bus station with a nondescript car. Strewn across the back seat were innumerable tracts. He asked if I liked any of them. It was impossible to say. He explained that he liked to leave a tract after witnessing, but he hadn't bothered to read them.
When we stepped out of the car, I could see that his suit was in fairly good shape, but that his shoes were old and his coat was borrowed. He had forgotten to bring an overcoat or hat on this trip. He asked what month it was, oblivious to the cold.
We approached a street lined with houses, and the witnessing began. He knocked on the first door and said to the man who answered, "Hi, we're Christians just out for the day to meet other Christians in this neighborhood. The Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died for our sins and was raised on the third day. You can't tell if a person is a Christian by looking at him, so we ask: 'Do you have a faith in Christ?' "
The man said he was an atheist. Bruce warned him that it was not safe to be an atheist. To be one is contrary to the very first words of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Then he asked if he could leave a tract. The man said yes. Bruce handed him one and proceeded to the next door. Although he would talk briefly with each person, he did not delay in any one doorway for very long.
Bruce kept his Bible in a small case, and did not bring it out that day. He said he did not want to intimidate people by showing them a Bible immediately.
At one point we went up the mountain from downtown Wilkes-Barre to a condominium community to witness. Apparently, someone had called the police, and a patrol car pulled up beside us.
The policemen asked what we were doing. Bruce said we were telling people about our faith in Jesus Christ. The police said we were disturbing the peace and would have to stop.
To my surprise, Bruce replied, "I thought this was America. In America we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We're not bothering anyone, and we have a constitutional right to do what we are doing." The policemen backed down. One of them said, "OK, but don't bother anyone."
At lunchtime, Bruce asked what I would like to eat. I said pizza, and we went to a roadside pizzeria. When the pizza came, he asked me where I had gone to college. I said Harvard. Bruce said he had a cousin teaching there, John Finley. I remarked that John Finley was master of the blue bloods' Eliot House and a famous classical Greek scholar. Bruce said that was his cousin, and that his own middle name was Finley.
Profoundly different lifestyles characterized the missionary and the Harvard scholar. Bruce was carrying the gospel by foot through the streets of a small Pennsylvania town, while his cousin was living in a mahogany-lined house with silver tea service at a prestigious university. The self-effacing missionary did not have the world's esteem, as his cousin did, yet he would soon seem light-years ahead of him in my estimation.
As we continued down the streets of Wilkes-Barre, witnessing for Christ from door to door, without shouting or crying aloud, large, beautiful flakes of snow began floating down. As the snow was landing on the bare head of the missionary, something began to dawn on me. It was slow at first, but then it became clearer and clearer, louder and louder. This man in front of me had done all this before. How many days, months, and years of this humble, lowly argumentation preceded our meeting?
It was really more than I could bear, and so I asked him, "What did you do in Korea?" The floodgates of understanding began to open for me as he answered. He explained that he had been an evangelist in Korea, had been tortured by Japanese invaders, and had written two books about his experiences. He asked if I wanted the books. "Of course," I replied. At that moment, it seemed like I was talking to Odysseus himself about the Trojan War.
We went back to his car and he opened the trunk, where he had copies of For a Testimony and The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings Which Followed. After he gave them to me, I began to question him avidly. I wanted to know who he was, what he had done, and what he thought about various things.
We finished the day of witnessing and returned to the nice large house of the Schulz family, where we were staying. I was truly happy that I had met the great Bruce Hunt.
Kathy, Bruce's wife, was waiting for us. She was fairly small and slim, almost like a frail Korean lady. She humorously chided Bruce for forgetting his overcoat.
There were times when I went to Wilkes-Barre with Bruce when Kathy was not there. Then we would sleep in the same guest room. Before turning out the light, Bruce would thoughtfully recall the people we had met that day for whom he wanted to pray. He would say, "I'm concerned about that atheist and that Jewish man; let's pray for them." After praying, he retired for the night.
Sunday preaching was something to behold. Like the apostle Paul, Bruce Hunt was often "of average appearance and despicable speech." He once sat down with about half an hour to prepare, and wrote notes for his morning sermon. He declared, "I should spend a little time in preparation." Then he came up with a sermon.
I remember him opening the Bible and mentioning one or two words he thought were important. Then he preached through the text, with an unusual number of points for an outline. He said, "Well, you have heard of a three-point sermon, but here is a ten-point sermon!"
Korean people tell me that Bruce Hunt could speak two dialects of Korean flawlessly. However, the English sermons I heard him give were not terribly impressive. I got the feeling the people of Wilkes-Barre wanted their own pastor back.
What I remember, though, was that he opened a Bible and used it. He exemplified something that Charles Spurgeon once said: "A living, loving gospel sermon, however unlearned in matter and uncouth in style, is better that the finest discourse devoid of unction and power" (Morning and Evening, September 30).
The thoughts of Bruce Hunt seem important to preserve. I cannot remember how many days we spent together, going from door to door. But I remember many of the things that he said to me. He thought that Robert L. Nevius's book, The Planting and Development of Missionary Churches in China, should almost be memorized by every missionary, and he felt that he had used the "Nevius technique" in Korea. He also thought that although much had been done for Korea by American missionaries, the witness to Korea could and should continue.
As I got various jobs, Bruce would counsel me on how to maintain a witness for Jesus Christ. For instance, when I was teaching in New York high schools, he told me that I should stand up for the truth as it is found in Jesus Christ. That is, he felt I could witness to my classes and other teachers, though not require exams about my faith.
When I got a job in the garment business, he told me that I could witness at lunch on my own time, but not during work, since I was being paid to do work other than teaching.
He thought missionaries should serve for life, if possible, and did not like the idea of temporary missionaries.
I have tried to summarize here how he witnessed as a good example to other Christians.
Bruce Hunt believed that the witness of the gospel should first and foremost be personal. You should tell people about your faith and ask them if they believe, too. He would leave a tract only if requested. He did not believe in handing out tracts indiscriminately.
He often stated that the apostle Paul had established the church at Thessalonica in three Sabbath days, that is, two weeks. He believed in the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit. He told me that in Korea he would preach in a village and then return in six months to see what had happened. He had never seen a conversion on the spot.
He had resisted the entrance of evangelist Billy Graham into Korea back in the 1950s because he felt that Billy Graham's spectacular ministry would distort much of the work that the ordinary missionaries had done in producing indigenous congregations.
During the late 1970s, the Norman Shepherd controversy regarding justification was going on in the Presbytery of Philadelphia. Mr. Hunt was not just a nice elderly man, and he took an active part in the deliberations.
One of his daughters, Margie Mitchell, died in 1977. After her sad death I remember him saying, "She led a full life."
In the spring of 1979, I preached on Wall Street in New York with Cornelius Van Til and Bruce Hunt. Some of us preached in the conventional stylewith a raised voice to herald the good news to the watching crowd. But Bruce did not preach as such. He remained at the foot of the steps of the Federal Building, quietly discussing Isaiah 53 from an open Bible with a Jewish man.
He felt that the mission to the Jews was important and always remembered me as someone who evangelized or ministered to Jews, because I taught New Testament theology at the New School for Social Research in New York, a school established by German Socialist Jews.
When he received an honorary doctorate from Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, hundreds of Korean Christians arrived to celebrate the joyful occasion. Although I was only an observer of the occasion, Kathy came out into the hallway, where onlookers were standing, and invited us to partake of the food. There was never a show of formality with the Hunts.
I received my Th.M. that spring, and had a graduation lunch with Bruce Hunt and Cornelius Van Til. I asked them what they thought the church needed. They both said biblical exposition.
During the middle 1980s, I joined the Harvard Club of New York City, where I met David Otis Fuller, Jr. His father had popularized the writings of Spurgeon in America and had roomed with Bruce Hunt at Princeton Seminary. David gave me an article that Bruce had written in 1928 on "Korean Dragons," an erudite study of the dragon myths in his area of Korea. It is now in the Bruce Hunt Archives at Westminster.
While passing through New Jersey, Bruce gave my name to the Korean American Presbyterian Church of Jersey City. Because of his recommendation, I served as youth minister there for one year.
I ran into Bruce Hunt later at Calvary OPC in Glenside, Pennsylvania, around 1988, before he entered Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community. He had forgotten my name, but remembered that I "ministered to the Jewish people of New York City." I did not see him again, but I did see Kathy at Quarryville a few months before her passing in 1994. She could not speak, but looked radiant and was dressed splendidly to receive guests on a visitors' day.
Much more could be said about Bruce Hunt, but I wanted to focus on how he gave a street witness for Jesus Christ. He did it the hard way, which is the best way. That is, he did not shy away from the shame of the gospel as he carried it personally to a fallen world.
This may not be the best article ever written on Bruce Hunt. But then, he would have said, "There is always someone who can learn from you and always someone who can teach you. Christians have to learn both receiving and giving."
Mr. Sigward is a member of Franklin Square OPC in Franklin Square, N.Y. He has recently produced a CD-ROM containing the complete works of Cornelius Van Til. Reprinted from New Horizons, January 1997.
|© 2020 The Orthodox Presbyterian Church
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Green Bay's All-Time Leading Receiver and Super Bowl Champion
Donald Driver is a Super Bowl Champion, Green Bay's all-time leading receiver, a Dancing With the Stars Champion 2013 AMVETS Humanitarian of the Year and 2013 New York Times Best Selling Author who overcame homlessness and a challenging childhood to succeed.
Driver is the Packers' all-time receiving leader in yards and receptions, and is the only player in Packers history to record seven 1,000 yard receiving seasons. A top performer his entire career, Driver has been a four-time Pro Bowl selection (2002, 2006, 2007, and 2011). In 2010 Donald and the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV giving Donald his first Super Bowl ring.
According to a 2012 poll conducted by the Business Journal of Milwaukee Donald was named the most marketable athlete in Wisconsin. Donald added another trophy to his collection in 2012 after winning Season 14 of Dancing With the Stars. The DWTS title proved that.
Donald can compete on both the football field and the dance floor while winning the hearts of viewers on a national scale. Donald hosts the statewide TV show Inside the Huddle and a weekly radio show with AM 620 WTMJ, Wisconsin's #1 rated radio station. Donald is at the center of marketing campaigns for top companies such as McDonald's, Goodwill, Jani-King and Time Warner Cable. You can find his three "Quickie" children's books on the shelf of local book stores, inspired by bedtime stories with his three children. In 2013, Driver and his wife Betina attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner as a guest of CBN news.
Donald Jerome Driver was born in Houston, TX on February 2, 1975. Driver was the middle child in a five-sibling family where he earned his nickname "Quickie" due to his parents chasing him around the house and because of his quick learning skills. Donald's childhood wasn't easy; he lived out of a U-Haul truck for a period of time during his early teens after a collection agency confiscated his family's possessions. Donald spent multiple nights in motel rooms that his mother, Faye Gray, purchased with food stamps. In order to help support his family, Driver turned to a life of crime which included stealing cars and dealing drugs. "Hey, when things are so bad you have to live in the back of a U-Haul truck with your mom and four siblings for a month, you go with whatever skills you have." Although it was hard, Faye decided the best thing for 14 year old Donald would be to move in with his grandmother, Betty Lofton.
Donald shined as an athlete in high school, lettering four times each in track, football, basketball and baseball at Milby High in Houston. Donald was a Texas All-State honorable mention in Football where he played wide receiver, defensive back and returned kickoffs. Donald continued his football career when he committed to Alcorn State in Mississippi on an athletic scholarship. Donald was a two-year starter while at Alcorn State where he recorded 88 career receptions for 1,933 yards and 17 touchdowns. Donald also competed in track at Alcorn State where he shined in the high jump and earned all-conference honors his senior year. Donald also qualified for the 1996 Olympic Field Trials and could have likely qualified for the 2000 Sydney Olympics in the high jump competition.
But Donald will tell you the best thing he did at Alcorn had nothing to do with sports. While at Alcorn, Donald would meet his future wife, Betina. Donald and Betina were married in 2000; they have three children together, a son Cristian, and two daughters Christina and Charity
Donald Driver was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the 7th round of the 1999 NFL Draft. Donald has spent his entire 14-year career in Green Bay where he is Packers all-time leading receiver and Super Bowl Champion. Donald holds nearly every Green Bay receiving record and is the Packers most prolific pass catcher.
Donald donates much of his time and efforts to institutions such as Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Special Olympics Wisconsin, and Goodwill Industries. Driver has been awarded throughout his career for his commitment on and off the field.
He was awarded the "Community Service Award" by the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, the Walter Payton Man of the Year award in 2002, and Red Smith Award in 2010.


text:
- 版本:1.399
- 更新:2020-08-11
- 指数:168
- 系统:Android 2.2.x以上
At Stiforp, we believe that good things come from a healthy environment.With this idea in mind, Stiforp is setting a new standard in the corporate world, and many other environmentally-minded companies are already starting to follow suit. Going against traditional beliefs that "real companies" have "real offices," Stiforp is on the cutting edge of a new era. This new revolution of effectively running a corporation from home eliminates the need for a corporate office along with the unnecessary utilities required, the gas needed to drive to an office, and the harm that those emissions cause our planet every day.We also have many other advantages that give us a significant edge over businesses with a more traditional corporate environment. With servers hosted at some of the largest and most secure facilities on the planet, we have the ability to monitor every click our employees do on our site, every phone call they answer, every email they respond to, and every second they are logged into our system. With our exclusive state of the art systems in place, we can effectively monitor the quality and effectiveness of our staff better than most companies can with them working in the office next door.


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Ministry is extremely stupid. Al, if you're reading this, I think you're insanely talented. You crafted one of the most unique sounds in Industrial and left most Metal bands in the dust. At their average, they captured the rusty, nihilistic, borderline satirical tone that Industrial music always aimed for. You don't need their best tracks to hear metal that does sound dangerous and threatening to destroy the world along with itself.
The Bush trilogy is stupid, but it was powerful. The lack of insight into politics or the stupidity didn't stop tracks like "Gangreen" to have power in how much bile and hatred they express. "Worm", a fantastic display of depression could only come from a political record that's full of fear and paranoia. The last album in that trilogy was surprisingly good. If the Bush triloy lacked any insight, it was powerful in capturing the emotions of living in such constant fear and hatred of the government.
Oh, but how stupid is Ministry! They can't write songs. They create loops which beat you over the head for five minutes. That's why Ministry were always a Dance act more than a Metal act. Verses and choruses are alien creatures to their music. It's all about the loop that can keep people dancing, but often that loop didn't change. So Ministry's songs tend to exhaust themselves after 2 minutes. Exhaustion is another central theme of Ministry's later works, so overall perhaps it fits.
Seriously, though, how stupid can you get? How stupid can you get with such a fantastic talent and sound design? AmeriKKKant is a moronic album. I mean, look at the title. It still thinks it's clever to spell 'AmeriKKKa'. Al is definitely late to identity politics, but hey it might sell records! The songs still consist of endless loops of the same thing. This time, it works a little better – thanks to turning to sludge – only there are so many terrible ideas in between it's easy to forget that pretty awesome guitar solo that closes the album.
Why oh why did we need "I Know Words", which is Trump's vocals scratched and chopped to some fiddling in the background? It sounds like a Nurse With Wound B-side, or at best a stolen section from one of his songs. As an intro, it's too long. As a 3-minute experimental piece, it goes nowhere and has no reason to take up so much space. Later on we get another interlude with the wasted title of "TV 5/4Chan", which juxtaposes right-wing vocals with some noise. What does it mean? I don't know. Right-wingers are pretty bad and are on 4chan. Ministry writing a song about the idiots of 4chan would've been actually nice. Maybe someone should take an axe to that meme culture, but sadly Ministry missed their change.
As for songs, the first singles are the worst. "Antifa" has been beaten to the ground and it will never get old. The song chugs along with indifferent riffs. The chorus is Al roaring "We're not snowflakes, we are the antifa" without any hint of passion or anger or fury or anything. Even in terms of pure sound the song is bad with how dry and hollow the production sounds. "Wargasm" isn't as stupid and it has a chorus – rare in Ministry's catalogue. Sadly the song also chugs along with little passion or fury. Al sounds tired. At least at their dumbest, Ministry was furious. "Wargasm" lacks all that. Shouldn't he be excited to make something other than Thrash metal?
What makes all this more frustrating is that there are hints of a bright future for this band. Although the highlights don't have Ministry's fury in the Bush era, "Twilight Zone", "Game Over" and the title-track are all borderline excellent. Moving to more sludgy metal, sampling like hell and DJ scratches all help to create a suffocating sense of apocalypse, paranoia and general depression from the end of the world. It separates itself from the Bush trilogy by having zero hope. If the Bush trilogy had a warlike spirit, a character to direct anger at this has none.
"Twilight Zone" would've been a closing track in past Ministry albums. Now it's the first actual song. It doesn't even have a proper riff, but a slow, crumbling sound design that plays like the apocalypse. Sure, Trump is sampled and make fun of, but it's no longe the direct hatred of past albums. Everything is bad and there is no light. It is a direct sequel in spirit to "Worm" and "End of Days", combining the depression and the apocalypse. Time will tell how strong it will stand, but it just might enter into Ministry's greatest hits. "Game Over" and the title-track aren't too different, but they do the job right and added some much-needed melody.
These are only 3 tracks out of 9. Then again, 2 of the 9 tracks are just interludes. So we're left with an odd feeling of a very short album that runs for too long that has few ideas and not enough time to work on them. "Victims of a Clown" is a 4-minute catchy rocker that's stretched for no reason for 8 minutes. The most telling track is "We're Tired of It", a return to Thrash that really does sound tired with a horrible, toothless production job. The walls of sound in "Rio Grande Bloode" were enough. This one has none.
People continue to beat Ministry for their stupidity and perhaps we should continue. Stupid ideas flood this album, from stretching "Victims of a Clown" to the interludes, to the first singles and the overall production job. Yet the solo at the end of the title-track and "Twilight Zone" prove Al still has talent in him and it's a talent no one can capture. Most Industrial Metal bands either replicated KMFDM or Marilyn Manson and Ministry could continue with all the changing members because Al does have a unique vision. I only want him to finally be able to realize it without all the stupidity clogging up their albums. At least this gave me 3 tracks to add to the Industrial playlist.
2 k's out of 5 k's


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First Look: Kolo Klub in Hoboken, NJ
"You can't really find a craft cocktail bar in Hoboken," said Ladislav Sebestyan, one of the two owners of Kolo Klub, recently opened on the second floor of Pilsener Haus & Biergarten in Hoboken. (Sebestyan and partner Andrej Ivanov opened the biergarten one year ago.)
"It's all sports bars; it's the kind of city where you can't really open a bar without a TV. When we opened Pilsener Haus, we didn't know if it could survive without a TV."
But they felt it was time for the neighborhood to have a higher-end bar of its own. So they converted their biergarten's enormous second-floor space into Kolo Klub—an events space during the week, and a cocktail bar on Fridays and Saturdays, soon adding Thursday as well. To design the drinks? Michael Neff and Kenneth McCoy, proprietors of Ward III and the Rum House, came on as consultants. (Serious Eats readers know Michael, of course, as our Behind the Bar columnist.)
"We wanted to create a valid, modern cocktail menu that's not hitting people over the head the 'mixology' hammer—though we don't want to talk down to people, either," said Neff. "We think that's reflective of the space and culture here. We don't want to ever assume people won't drink that, people won't try that."
That means a number of drinks are based on somewhat familiar elements—"The 'Velvet Revolution' is essentially a mojito profile; the 'Daisies' is for someone who knows they like tequila, but is willing to explore a little bit."
While the bar is themed around Prague of the 1920s, Neff stressed that he and McCoy weren't too literal about that as a jumping-off point for the drinks. "It's a fun menu, and part of taking a theme like this is just playing with the flavors of that part of a world. Not just drinking what they did, but really doing your research, exploring the culture." For instance, the herbal liqueur Becherovka, a Czech spirit, fit perfectly, "but the owners never imagined it could be part of a cocktail. It's just what they remember from when they were kids, the liquor people would do shots of all the time. Here, though, we're able to use it in cocktails."
Take a look at five of Kolo Klub's drinks in the slideshow above.
Kolo Klub
1422 Grand Street, 2nd floor, Hoboken NJ 07030 (map)
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Mallomars turn 100 today.
What's a Mallomar you might ask? The slightly elusive chocolate-covered marshmallows with a graham cracker cookie base are only packaged and sold during the autumn and spring – from September to March, according to National Public Radio.
That's because the warm weather would have melted the cookies' chocolate coating back when Nabisco first sold them to a Hoboken, N.J., grocer on Nov. 13, 1913.
U.S. & World
But despite advances in refrigeration, a brand spokesman told NPR the cookies are only sold during the select months to maintain tradition.
And most of Mallomars are found in the Northeast, where 95 percent of them are sold, often found stowed away in someone's freezer.
The cookies have somewhat of a pop culture mystique about them – what the company that sells them calls a nostalgic brand.
As part of their 100th birthday, the company is running a "Mallo-Memories" sweepstakes on its Facebook page where people reminisce about their best Mallomar stories.
Even fictional mob boss Tony Soprano threatens a member of his crime family for stealing his box of Mallomars. Of course, he was kidding.
And Billy Chrystal's character in the beloved 1989 romantic comedy "When Harry Met Sally" declared the marshmallow cookies "the greatest cookie of all time," according to The Jersey Journal.


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Maximizing your infrastructure through virtualization
Rimini Street, the fast-growing business software support specialist currently fighting Larry Ellison's database giant in US courts, appears to have SAP in its sights in Europe.
"Look out SAP," Rimini Street chief executive Seth Ravin warned the giant in a recent interview with The Reg.
"We are going to fight them tooth and nail on these large and mid-sized companies," he continued.
It's the opening shot of a new campaign that will formally get under way next week with the opening of brand new offices in London, at Canary Wharf.
The UK features strongly in the global growth plans of a company that claims to provide service and support to SAP customers for half the price charged by the software giant.
Discounted pricing has helped push Rimini towards revenue increases of 40 per cent a quarter.
The United States accounts for 80 per cent of that, but the CEO's plan is to decrease reliance on the US by expanding the global share of the pie from from 20 to 40 per cent.
The UK and Europe – the latter the backyard of SAP, which is based in Waldorf, Germany - are going to be big chunks of that total 40 per cent, Ravin promised.
"It's a brutal battle – breaking open any new market is a tough play."
Can you ever uncouple from the biz who does your support and upgrades?
Rimini Street is putting corporate noses out of joint in this battle for ERP wallets and minds – and SAP and Oracle are twitchy. Ravin's company threatens a fundamental and increasingly vital piece of their business – support and upgrades.
Rimini Street specialises in making and delivering updates and fixes for SAP and Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP).
SAP and Oracle already provide this support, but Rimini claims to undercut them by 50 per cent on an annual basis. That's a problem for SAP and Oracle because support has become a critical component of their businesses as sales of new versions of their software has slowed to a single-figure limp.
Support for SAP software accounted for the $18.8b (€13.9bn) of the company's total revenue stream of $22.8bn (€16.8bn) in 2013.
Support was Oracle's second largest business line during its most recent year - $18bn out for $38.2bn, accounting for 47 per cent of all the money it made.
Oracle, which reported its full year last week, was mauled by investors for – yet again - missing their expectations.
Rimini Street is still small fry by comparison – only just heading towards $100m in revenue, according to Ravin. But what's important is that once Rimini has customers, it has them for life, and keeps them signed up and updated.
But this isn't about price alone.
Rimini's ongoing development work sees it deliver updates and fixes for customers that allows them to prolong the life of crucial ERP systems rather than get forced to upgrade to a new versions because Oracle and SAP no longer support their version.
ERP is a knobbly piece of software and Rimini Street keeps all kinds of updates coming for SAP, Oracle, Siebel PeopleSoft and JDE (owned by Oracle) on the finer details of tax, legal and regulatory changes plus the standard compatibilities with other companies' software and hardware as they change – as part of the service.
Ravin points to a recent Cobol compiler for PeopleSoft developed and delivered with IBM. He says that Rimini Street delivers the IBM/PeopleSoft Cobol compiler (combined with a Rimini pre-compiler) for free.
Also, there's customer service: Ravin claims a 30-minute response time on urgent issues with a dedicated primary support engineer for each account.
"We are spending a good deal of money on the technologies because it's a part of the overall solution and it makes us very sticky," Ravin claimed.
"[Oracle and SAP] want you to spend money on upgrading because that's the only way they make money. We are the only guys who come to us and say: 'You don't need to spend a penny'. So it gives us a very different relationship with the customer."
Oracle in the US had had enough by January 2010. It struck out at Rimini Street, taking the company to court alleging "massive theft" of Oracle software and support materials had taken place through Remini's work supporting Oracle ERP customers.
What's emerged since then is an effort by Larry Ellison's company to protect the entire support business – not just on ERP. In 2013, Oracle accused independent Solaris fix-it companies Terix and Maintech of stealing its copyrighted code in supporting customers' Oracle servers. All the cases are ongoing.
But while Oracle might be miffed, its users aren't.
Since Oracle chose to take on Rimini Street in the courts, Ravin reckons customers have been voting with their chequebooks: he claims Rimini Street has grown in size between six to seven times since Oracle fired the first shot in its legal war.
Already in the UK with 30 employees, it has 400 worldwide, Rimini Street claims a growing number of local names that include Jaffa Cakes and Jacobs' crackers maker United Biscuits as well as supermarket chain Sainsbury's. Overall, Rimini Street claims nearly 900 customers worldwide in the Fortune 500 and in the public sector.
Born during Y2K
A former head of worldwide support policy for PeopleSoft, Ravin said he saw the opportunity in providing such customers extended support during the rush to replace systems ahead of Y2K. He founded Rimini Street in 2005.
Expanding in the UK and Europe will mean even more clashes with Oracle and particularly SAP, given its based in Germany. Already, Ravin claims to have already snatched Germany's flag-carrying telco Deutsche Telekom from its ERP masters.
"SAP hates us with a passion... but we do have the ability to talk to SAP," Ravin said. He admits to a frosty working relationship.
"We have a structure set up with our lawyers and their lawyers to talk."
Ravin sees Rimini Street as disrupting the all-powerful giant support businesses owned and operated by SAP and Oracle.
Legal fights, midnight phone calls and bare-knuckle customer fights with SAP and Oracle don't seem to bother Ravin. Rather, he seems to be more concerned by the potential threat posed by other companies similar to Rimini Street appearing to take business.
The UK and Europe expansion should be seen as a way of setting down boundaries and signing up sticky customers before others get in on the act.
"We know on the other side of the litigation when we win we will have a good 10-15 companies jump in, so our goal is to be a global player in every market," he said. ®
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text: Padre::Config::Human(3User Contributed Perl DocumentaPadre::Config::Human(3pm) NAME Padre::Config::Human - Padre configuration storing personal preferences DESCRIPTION This class implements the personal preferences of Padre's users. See Padre::Config for more information on the various types of preferences supported by Padre. All human settings are stored in a hash as top-level keys (no hierarchy). The hash is then dumped in config.yml, a YAML file in Padre's preferences directory (see Padre::Config). PUBLIC API Constructors create my $config = Padre::Config::Human->create; Create and return an empty user configuration. (Almost empty, since it will still store the configuration schema revision - see "version"). No parameters. read my $config = Padre::Config::Human->read; Load & return the user configuration from the YAML file. Return "undef" in case of failure. No parameters. Object methods write $config->write; (Over-)write user configuration to the YAML file. No parameters. COPYRIGHT & LICENSE Copyright 2008-2012 The Padre development team as listed in Padre.pm. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl 5 itself. perl v5.14.2 2012-04-19 Padre::Config::Human(3pm)


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This performance has been postponed to a future date. Ticketholders will be contacted when additional information is available.
Fri, May 1, 2020
8:00 pm - 10:30 pm
Chesapeake Shakespeare Company Theater
7 S. Calvert Street (at Redwood Street)
Baltimore, MD 21202
By William Shakespeare
April 17 – May 10, 2020
Hamlet may be Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. It's also a fast-paced drama overflowing with robust language, piercing ideas, and dark humor. CSC Resident Actor Vince Eisenson will play dazzling Prince Hamlet, who wrestles with madness as he seeks to avenge his father's murder.
For the greatest savings on ticket prices, become a subscriber! Hamlet is a featured play in our Super-Subscriber six-show package and our Favorites four-show package. Hamlet is also a choice in our Flex three-show subscription. Subscribers have more fun, enjoy substantial discounts, and hold seats in preferred sections all season long. Learn more here.
Group reservations: For discounted group sales (10 or more adults), please contact the Box Office by email or call 410-244-8570.
Tell a teacher: School matinees are available for this production. To reserve a school group, please contact Ron Heneghan, Director of Education or call 410-244-8571, ext. 113. Visit our School Matinees page for more details.
Click here to learn more about the play.
Questions? Contact firstname.lastname@example.com
Get directions and parking details.
FAQs for CSC Baltimore theater.


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A woman in a white shirt poses seductively on a plush bed. Across the hall, a handsome doctor stands tall, stethoscope hung loosely around his neck. No, this isn't a scene from Fifty Shades of Gray. It's the stage set of the hotbed of telenovela production at the Televisa Studios in Mexico City—and the subject of a new photography collection named after it: The Factory of Dreams by San Francisco native artist Stefan Ruiz.
Televisa, the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the world, produces nearly 50,000 hours-worth of telenovelas each year and exports them to about 50 countries. These soap operas hold a central place in Latin culture, arguably far more than their mainstream American counterparts. Ruiz had rare access to photograph the stars and sets of Televisa's telenovelas for the past eight years.
Ruiz says he saw actors, sets and lighting as a fresh lens to examine issues of race, class and beauty that he'd previously examined with traditional documentary portraiture. "I was interested in the various types [of actors], and in how the definitions of beauty and class are often defined by race," he explained in the book. "Generally, the stars look European. The maids do not. And the villains vary."
The sets also provided Ruiz an ideal space to explore the concept of fame. "It was interesting that many of the telenovela actors were huge stars in much of the world, but virtually unknown in the U.S. and northern Europe," he said.
Ruiz's collection captures the stars in the moments between their public and personal lives. He exposes the "seams between fiction and reality" as an essayist in his book put it. Yes, his audience may enjoy the brief telenovela vignettes that accompany the photos. But fans will almost certainly love Ruiz's subtle glimpse into the private lives of their stars.
So what did Ruiz find most fascinating about his close proximity to these stars? For one, the Televisa system resembled old-time Hollywood. The soaps were filmed quickly and big-name actors were on set much of the time. "Once I had access from Televisa, the stars were generally pretty accessible and were almost always up to being photographed as long as time permitted," he says. "There were no agents or publicists on set." The actors themselves were actually fairly down-to-Earth. "For years the film industry in Mexico was almost dead, and this was the only steady acting work around," Ruiz notes. "I got the feeling that they were appreciative of their jobs."
Stefan Ruiz is a photographer and San Francisco native. More of his work can be seen here. The book Factory of Dreams will be published June, 2012, by Aperture.


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It'll get you arrested. According to Chinese news reports from late last week, an old lady was stopped while trying to bring bags of beer bottles into Mainland China via Hong Kong.
As website M.I.C. Gadget pointed out, some people do bring in bags of bottles in hopes of recycling them for spare change.
However, the customs officials noticed that the bottles weight seemed off. The middle of the bottles was also taped, and there was a thin crack—as if the bottles had be cut.
Inside each bottle, there were three iPhones stuffed inside for a grand total of 216 handsets. That's right, once again, someone was caught trying to bring Made-in-China iPhones back into China, where the devices are in high demand.
More impressive than the attempted haul was slicing all those bottles in half. That's some serious smuggling craftsmanship.
Using Empty Beer Bottles to Smuggle iPhone (Video) [MIC Gadget]