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There is nothing better than reading a book that transports you somewhere steamy and lush when outside your window the temperature has been hovering just below zero for a week. I was thrilled to be able to curl up with Hope Edelman's new book, The Possibility of Everything, during our ridiculous cold snap a few weeks back. Edelman has written a number of narrative nonfiction books, including the New York Times best-selling Motherless Daughters, but The Possibility of Everything is her first memoir.
It begins like this:
A ragged dirt road twists through six miles of rain forest in western Belize, linking the villages of Cristo Rey and San Antonio. If you make this drive the day after a heavy December rain, as my husband, Uzi, and I do, the road will still be gluey and ripe. Its surface will be the color and consistency of mango pudding…
I tighten my right arm around my daughter Maya's waist. Everything's fine, I tell myself. She's going to be fine. I press my left hand against the window and watch the landscape stream by between my fingertips. The jungle grows flush against both side of the road, tangled and pristine. The bulldozers of American expatriates chewing up the Caribbean coast haven't found their way back here yet. Fat, squat cohune palms burst up from ground level like Las Vegas fountains spraying out of the forest floor.
In The Possibility of Everything, Edelman is living in Southern California with her husband, Uzi, who works 80 hours a week, and their three-year-old daughter, Maya. Edelman is juggling motherhood and writing and seems to have created a tense balance in her life until Maya becomes aggressive and withdrawn after developing a relationship with Dodo, a sinister imaginary friend. Then Edelman is at a loss for what to do. The answer for Maya, and it turns out the whole family, lies in Belize.
The Possibility of Everything is a story of trusting in the unknown and of letting go of fear. The main narrative line has to do with how Edelman and her husband end up dealing with Maya's disturbing imaginary friend, but there are a number of other really compelling threads that also move this book forward: Edelman's struggle with feeling equal as a parent and partner, her struggle with faith, and the great sense of loss she still feels about the early death of her mother. The narrative thread that I find most compelling is this last one. Edelman's mother died when Edelman was a teenager, and she's written about this experience in her other books, but I love the way she's woven it into this larger story, as well.
Writing yourself takes a great deal of courage, and writing all parts of yourself, even when they are less than flattering, is really brave. At the beginning of the book, Edelman is very hard on herself and her husband, but as the narrative progresses and the landscape changes from Southern California to the tropics of Belize, we see her slowly begin to uncoil, to open herself up to possibility.
I love this moment in the book, when Edelman is watching her husband and daughter on a swing:
Whatever I need—what we need—is right here on this swing. Sitting. Playing. Now. And I realize, in this moment, that this is how a family grows. Now by the addition of more children or through the race to endlessly accumulate more or from my constant attempts to guard against loss, but in ordinary moments like this one. Deceptively simple moments that manage to be worth everything while appearing to be worth nothing at all.
Hope Edelman was gracious enough to take the time to answer a few questions about The Possibility of Everything and her writing process. So without further ado, I welcome Hope to Mother Words:
KH: You are the author of a number of very successful narrative nonfiction books, but this is your first memoir. Can you talk a little about how writing The Possibility of Everything was different and/or the same as writing your other books?
HE: In a very practical way, this was the first book I wrote that didn't rely on a massive amount of research and interviews, so I didn't have to be chained to the bookshelf and filing cabinet as I wrote. I was able to write large portions of the book in cafes, and at the kitchen island late at night after my kids went to sleep. That was such a relief, I cannot emphasize it enough. Being able to write in cafes gave me the illusion of human contact that I missed terribly while holed up in a single office writing my other books, and definitely gave me a renewed appreciation for Starbucks and my local cafes.
From a more literary perspective, although I've been writing personal essays and short memoir for many years this was the first book where I had to shape myself into a narrative character. And that was a lot more challenging than I'd anticipated. The story in the book took place in 2000 and I chose to write it in the present tense, which meant going back and inhabiting the voice and persona of who I was back then: a very anxious new mom and not a particularly grateful wife. Although my friends back then might not agree, I think I was in some ways not a very nice person nine years ago, and it pained me to come face to face with that while telling my story. I made the choice to depict myself honestly rather than trying to sugarcoat some of my less-flattering moments because I wanted to be fair and accurate to readers, but boy, it was really hard to avoid passing judgment on myself. Ultimately I had to come to a place of compassion for the lost, struggling, imperfect woman, mother, and wife I was back then. Not that I'm perfect now, by anyone's standard!! But I am different, largely because of the experiences we had in Belize.
KH: Along that same line: One of the most important narrative threads in this book, for me, has to do with the loss of your mother when you were sixteen and the intense fear of loss that this engendered in you. I know you wrote extensively about your mother's death in your previous books, but I'm wondering whether it felt/was different to approach this subject in a memoir.
HE: My first four books were about mother-daughter relationships and/or mother loss, and they all had the word "mother" somewhere in their titles. When I started writing the memoir, I said to my editor, "Please, please don't ask me to put 'mother' in the title of this book!" And I said to myself, Thank god I'm finally writing a book that's not about my mother. Because I just didn't think the world needed another book about my story of mother loss. And then about halfway into the writing, I called my editor and said, "Oh, shit. Guess who's showing up in the book?" And she said, "Your mother. Of course. I was wondering how long it would take you to figure that out." Because it really is impossible for a motherless woman to write about being a mother without reflecting on how the loss of her own mother has affected the choices she's made. I think any motherless mother would tell you the same.
At the same time, I was very conscious that my story of mother loss had already been told in great detail in Motherless Daughters and Motherless Mothers and I didn't want to be redundant in this book. So I tried to write my mother into the book in a way that would make sense to new readers who had no idea I'd lost my mother and also repeat readers who'd read both of my prior books and were already familiar with my childhood story. I'm happy with the way it turned out, although I did read one online review of my book in which the reader said he thought I'd stuck the sections about my mother in just so I could capitalize on the audience of my earlier books. And I thought, Mister, you have no idea.
KH: Was there anything—either in terms of what emerged or the process of writing this memoir—that surprised you?
HE: I had a big a-ha! moment just before I finished the book. We were at a condo in Lake Tahoe for what was supposed to be a family ski vacation to celebrate the end of my book, except I hadn't finished it by the time we left. So I was inside writing while everyone else was out on the slopes. A big theme of the book is my relationship (or non-relationship) with faith, and how after my mother died I became a hardened, jaded cynic who didn't believe in anything larger than myself any more. Because who can believe in a benevolent spiritual world after such a terrible thing happens to a mother? I was in the midst of the book's final chapter when literally out of nowhere I had a Dorothy-and-the-ruby-slippers moment. In the middle of a sentence, I realized that if I didn't have any faith at all left after my mother died, I never would have agreed to make the trip to Belize. Because talk about a leap of faith, that trip was. And I realized that I must have been afraid to admit I had any faith left, even to myself, and how broken and scared I must have been to have responded that way. It was an incredibly emotional moment for me. I was sitting alone at this dining room table in a rented condo with the snow coming down and these huge evergreens outside the window, just sobbing. I always cry when I uncover a nugget of truth about myself, so that's how I know it was real.
KH: You've incorporated sections of history/research about the Maya and healing into the narrative. One of the things I wondered while I was reading was: when did you learn this information? From other interviews I know you did some of this research after your initial trip to Belize. I think this issue of how to weave into a present-tense narrative research and information that you learned after the time period of the narrative is really tricky. (I struggle with this in my own memoir.) I'm wondering if you can talk a little about how you approached this issue as a writer.
HE: Some of the information I already knew when we made the trip, such as the Maya calendar details presented at the end of Chapter Four. I'd heard most of that on the radio not long before we left. But I didn't learn about the majority of information about healing and cosmology until 2008, when I went back to Belize for a workshop in Maya healing with Dr. Rosita. When I got back, I spent several months reading about Maya history, astronomy, mythology, and cosmology. I hadn't originally planned to include all that in the book, but after that 2008 trip to Belize I felt very strongly that I wanted to ground the story in something larger than myself, because I understood that what happened to us happened because of the ancient Maya's relationship to nature, the stars, and the land. By that point, I'd already written half of the narrative in the present tense, so I then faced the challenge of weaving in the research so it wouldn't feel interruptive. On some pages I'd rely on a turn of sentence or phrase to indicate when I was stepping out of story time—like in Chapter Seven, when I talk about the World Tree—and at other moments I inserted the history in isolated paragraphs so the readers could tell it was separate from the action that was unfolding. For me, the key was to integrate these passages so they would read with the same consciousness I'd had in 2000, even though I discovered and synthesized much of the material years later.
KH: All memoirists must decide how to approach writing about family, and I'm wondering if you can talk a little about what it was like to write and publish writing about your husband and daughter. Did you get their approval before you went to print? How do you balance your need to create as a writer with your family's need for privacy (if they do, in fact, feel they need privacy)?
HE: My husband gets full veto power over anything I write about him or us. He has a stellar reputation in his industry and in our community, and I would never want to damage that by putting my point of view about his actions or behaviors on public display. That said, he was enormously generous with this book, and hardly asked me to remove anything at all, even when it was potentially unflattering to him. He felt that the book's overall message was more important than his ego, and I so admire him for that.
My daughter was a little more complicated, because I started the book when she was five and finished it when she was eleven. As a five-year-old she thought it was really, really cool that her name would be in a book. At eleven, though, she had a much more developed sense of privacy and didn't want her childhood to be written about, so we negotiated and horse traded on some of the details. I wound up changing some that didn't affect the story at all, but helped her feel as if I weren't actually writing about her. Since then, she's made me promise not to write my next book about her. As a nonfiction author who writes about family, I'm not sure where that leaves me. I'm thinking seriously about trying a novel next.
KH: I think you did a really nice job of creating a sense of urgency in the book by beginning it where you do, on the muddy road in Belize. Was this always where the book began or did this become the introduction later in the writing/editing process?
HE: Good question! No, the book didn't always begin with that scene. I began it as a novel in 2002, soon after my second daughter was born and about a year after the initial trip to Belize. I started it as a novel because I didn't think anyone would believe it was a true story, and I began with the back story of a couple with a troubled child who eventually chose to take her to healers in Belize. Even after I chose to write the story as memoir, I was structuring it in a linear fashion, starting in California and moving forward in chronological sequence. I was in a writing group at the time (I still am, but a different one now) and one of the women in the group, a novelist, read the scene on the muddy road and said, "What if you started the book here?" I realized that would give me a very classic memoir structure, insofar that the book would begin right before a climactic moment and then back up to the very beginning of the story, before catching up to the opening scene right around the halfway point. I tried this structure and it seemed to work, so it stuck.
KH: Can you talk a little bit about how you began writing this book? How did it change and grow over the years of writing it?
HE: I tried it as fiction for about a year before switching to memoir, which is how I think the story really wanted to be told, because it wasn't working as a novel at all. I puttered around with it for about another year, and then decided to write Motherless Mothers so it went on the shelf for a couple of years. I took it back down in early 2007, and by October had about 100 pages ready to show to editors. I finished it on New Year's Day 2009. So I guess you could say it took me five years to write the first 100 pages, and fourteen months to write the rest.
KH: What was the most challenging part of writing this book?
HE: Finding time to immerse myself in it while in the midst of life. My kids are young, so I have to write around their schedules—mainly when they're in school, and after they go to sleep. On several occasions my husband would watch them for a weekend and I'd check into an inexpensive hotel up the coast for a night or two and write nonstop, emerging from the room only to eat, and sometimes not even then. I'd get an enormous amount of work done that way, but then I'd come home and have to dive back into to lunchboxes at 7 a.m. again. Not that I'm complaining about lunchboxes!! They're a form of creativity all their own.
KH: Now that The Possibility of Everything is out in the world, how does it feel to see this part of your life in print and have people react to your experiences? What are some of the responses you are getting?
HE: Having written several books that were largely beloved by readers, it was a big shock at first to discover I'd written one that inspired controversy and even sparked some Mommy Wars online. I'd been prepared for readers thinking I was a whack job because of my spiritual views, but oddly that never really came to pass. Instead, a small but vocal minority of readers have really taken me to task for my parenting style and choices, introducing me to the tyranny of the blogosphere. But a much larger group of readers have contacted me personally to thank me for writing the book, and to tell me how much they appreciated my honesty and my willingness to portray myself as an imperfect mother because it gave them license to embrace their own imperfections. I recently got a letter from a 70-year-old male M.D. who thanked me for writing a book about "cracking molds and obliterating the ordinary crap we all have to deal with and…expressing how you felt and thought without apology and rationalization." That email was worth a dozen angry Amazon reviews. I'd frame it if I could.
Thank you, Hope, for taking the time to talk about your lovely memoir here at Mother Words. I look forward to reading more of your wonderful writing! You can learn more about Hope's books on her website.


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Sharks earn shootout win in Detroit
Detroit, MI – Patrick Marleau supplied the decisive shootout goal as the San Jose Sharks edged the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2, at Joe Louis Arena.
Each team scored in the first round of the penalty-shot tiebreaker before the goaltenders traded stops in the next round.
Gustav Nyquist was the third shooter for Detroit and he went with a spin-o- rama backhand, but San Jose netminder Antti Niemi denied the flashy attempt with his left skate.
Marleau, who opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal, secured the extra point for the Sharks by beating Detroit's Jimmy Howard through the five-hole with a wrister.
Logan Couture tied the game in the third period for San Jose, which snapped a two-game winless streak and remained in fifth place in the Western Conference.
"These points are huge and you never know what's going to happen," Marleau said. "There's still a lot of room for error both ways."
Niemi made 27 saves through regulation and overtime.
Justin Abdelkader and Jakub Kindl lit the lamp for the Red Wings, who have dropped five of their last seven games but still hold a two-point lead over Phoenix for the final playoff spot in the West.
"We're in a dogfight. We'd like to get two points, but, to me, we're just going to keep battling, keep worrying about the process and doing good things, and in the end, good things will happen to us. We just got to compete hard," said Detroit head coach Mike Babcock.
Howard, who said Thursday that he is close to signing a six-year contract extension to remain in Detroit, stopped 28 shots.
Kindl broke a 1-1 tie 2:29 into the third period with his first career power- play goal. The defenseman moved down from the point to the slot and one-timed Henrik Zetterberg's pass behind Niemi.
Couture quickly countered with a power-play goal of his own. Stationed in front of Howard, he collected a rebound and roofed a backhander at the four- minute mark.
Not long after the game's opening faceoff, San Jose forward Tommy Wingels went off for boarding. The Red Wings, however, turned the puck over in the San Jose zone, resulting in a 2-on-1 for the Sharks. Joe Pavelski dished to Marleau, who found the back of the net at the 2:35 mark of the first period.
Detroit pulled even at 9:51 of the middle frame when Abdelkader scored from close range off Johan Franzen's behind-the-net pass.
Game Notes
Zetterberg picked up his 400th career assist ... The Sharks have now won eight of the last 10 meetings with the Red Wings.

subset: commoncrawl


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R.A. Dickey throws a knuckleball, and last night he pitched well, but not good enough to win against the Houston Astros. After the game, Dickey threw high heat, not only at himself, but his teammates.
"We have to find a way to be honest with ourselves about what kind of team we are. We can't just keep telling ourselves, 'Oh, we're a better team than this.' We may not be.''
There has not been a better analysis of the Mets this season. Maybe not for a long time.
So, let's be brutally honest.
Their pitching, both in the rotation and out of the bullpen is not good enough to win with in the National League. It might not even be good enough to win with in Triple-A.
Fundamentals, which was supposed to be their upside, has been poor in all aspects. They have not hit for power or in the clutch. They've given away too many at-bats both at the plate and in the field.
And last night on the bases was atrocious, from Angel Pagan's slide at the plate to Jose Reyes being doubled off first in the ninth inning.
It does me no joy to write this, but it is the truth. I don't see where Jason Bay's return will provide immediate help.
However, we all knew this heading into spring training. This was supposed to be a bridge year until payroll was cleared the Mets could be able to spend next year.
Payroll will be cleared, but probably nothing significant by the trade deadline, so let's not expect any flashes at mid-season. Major League Baseball has taken over control of the Dodgers, and who is to say the Mets aren't next? Who is to say the handpicked selection of Sandy Alderson as general manager isn't close to the same thing?
Ownership is in a state of crisis, and until that is resolved things will continue to be bleak for the Mets and the crowds thin at Citi Field, where they are a dismal 1-8 for the worst home start in franchise history.
Hell, the 1962 Mets did better than that at the Polo Grounds.
Three weeks into the season and the Mets have five victories to show for their efforts. The Angels' Jered Weaver has that many by himself.
But, this is your team. You've cheered for them in gloomy times before and will pull for them again. That's what loyal fans do.
All you Mets fans on this blog and the dozens of others that follow your team. All of you who watch on SNY and tune into WFAN, and to those who read the papers every morning. You do so because the Mets are your passion.
And, they are lucky to have you.


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Time+Space / Toontrack Music Tour
Wednesday 26th July - 1.00pm
Dolphin Music Liverpool
At each workshop Andreas Sundgren, from Toontrack Music, will be ready to answer any questions you may have about their latest drum software. And if you like what you see/hear, then you can buy EZdrummer at 20% off* - that's just £79!
Plus, you could WIN a complete Toontrack Music bundle worth over £500 - containing EZdrummer, DFH Superior and Custom & Vintage – giving you all the tools you'll need to create realistic drum rhythms.
* This offer is only available in-store on the dates specified above.


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Must you create your own Foreign Currency Trading Systems?
You are at: Home » Active Trading » Forex Indicators Use natural language to create your own expert advisors for MetaTrader. Great graphical user interface.
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If an aged Vaudevillian slips on a banana peel and no one laughs, is it still comedy?
I admit that one of the reasons I selected Mill Creek's 50 Drive-In Classics box set to follow the legendary and (probably) never-to-be-topped 50 Chilling Classics compendium (still the deal of the century folks--get one today!) is the presence of one title among the fifty forgotten films presented there that begged--nay, screamed--to be watched: 1980's Mama Dracula. I mean, come on. MAMA DRACULA. How could you not want to watch that film?
The more I learned, the better it sounded--a zany vampire spoof at the tail-end of the seventies, and starring Academy Award™ Winner Louise Fletcher in the title role? A pair of famously wacky twin vampires? An Elizabeth Bathory-based plot that promised loads of nudity along with the laffs? Last Tango in Paris hottie Maria Schneider to boot? How could it go wrong?
Let me count the ways...
We open on a portrait of the severe-looking Countess Erzebet Dracula (Fletcher, doing her best Nurse Ratchet scowl), as a deep but also fey/gay voice-over details the particulars of her history. This is the standard Bathory stuff--she kidnapped virgins from the village and bathed in their blood in order to preserve her youth, she was locked up in a tower for her crimes, she disappeared later, yadda yadda yadda--ending with the ominous line, "Today the Countess lives still, and continues to pursue her eeeevil destiny..." All in the voice of the MC from Queer Eye for the Creepy Guy. You laughing yet?
Next we cut to a laboratory, where a stereotypically nerdy professor-type who looks like he just stepped out of a Men-At-Work video (Hello, Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive!) is cajoling his bunnies into giving him blood samples. The bunny-poker is Professor Peter Von Blood, who on second look is actually the spitting image of Jon Cryer in his immortal role as Duckie in Pretty in Pink.
Or at least knock her out long enough that it won't matter."
There's a little bit of cleverness as Von Blood orders his dinner on the ship, obviously uncomfortable with the high-class Maître d', and as he opens the menu we find the film's credits inside. (I'll have the Fletcher Falafel, thanks!) We get more shots of differing modes of transportation as Von Blood makes his way across Europe by train, headed for Transylvania, natch. One of the passengers is holding a nespaper that has the headline, " "TERROR: FIVE MORE GIRLS ARE MISSING!" ," extraneous quotation marks included. Now THAT made me laugh--yes, I got my first chuckle of the movie from an unintentional grammar gaffe. That should tell you something.
In Harker mode, Duckie ends up at a pub in the Carpathians, where all the villagers still dress like extras from Bride of Frankenstein. There's some "comical" tooth checking, the pub owner offers his daughter to Von Blood, forcefully encouraging him to deflower her (if she's not a virgin, she'll be "safe," see?), and as Duckie dances with the buxom virgin we get more "hilarious" cartoon sound effects over closeups of the girl's cleavage (Gerald McBoob-Boing!) before a heavy, ugly henchwoman who speaks only in grunts shows up to whisk him away. It's all sub-sub-Mel Brooks level comedy, and while I enjoy boinging boobs as much as the next guy--hell, as much as the next 5 guys put together--it still all seemed a little desperate and sad.
the Countess's twin sons (more on these two in a minute) and Mama Dracula herself. It was at this point that I realized things were just not going to get any better. Louise Fletcher is not just phoning it in--she's gone back in time to the Old West and is dictating her role to a clerk in green visor, vest, and white shirt with a garter on the sleeve who's tapping it out in Morse code. She's clearly having no fun, and the success of a would-be zany comedy like this almost depends on the sense that the people involved all think it's a hoot. Here, you get the sense that almost everyone involved would rather be having a root canal or a proctological exam--which come to think of it, would probably be more entertaining.
So the gist of the plot goes like this, and stop me if you've heard this one: Countess Dracula needs virgin blood to maintain her youth, but thanks to the recently-ended Swingin' 70s, virgin blood is in record-low supply. She's lured Duckie to her castle in the hopes that he can take a small sample of virgin blood and use SCIENCE! to reproduce it indefinitely, creating a blood-red fountain of youth. To give him the raw material he needs, she and her sons kidnap virginal girls from Mama Dracula's fashion boutique--which is named, cunningly, "Vamp Boutique"--conveniently located in the sprawling Paris-like metropolis only a half-hour's drive from her castle in the heart of the Carpathian mountains. Yeah.
Of course the missing girls raise the suspicion of the town police force, which seems to consist entirely of a fat old man in Sherlock Holmes gear and his nubile, virginal daughter, played by Schneider (the daughter, not the fat man). While the old man bumbles listlessly from one tired slapstick gag to another (and his catch phrases of "Sabotage! Sabotage!" and "You know my methods!" summarily fail to inspire the chuckles they're so plainly striving to), his considerably smarter but no more comedically-talented daughter suspects the truth about Vamp Boutique and uses her position as lead actress in a traveling drama troupe (seriously, don't ask) to infiltrate Castle Dracula and get to the bottom of things. It all ends in a gala fashion show at the castle with a would-be zany ending and a nonsensical epilogue that once again inspires little more than a sardonic smirk.
"Doin' the French Mistake" from Blazing Saddles, or Marty Feldman's inspired performance as EYE-gor in Young Frankenstein ["IIIIIIII ain't got no body!" "Call it...a hunch!" "What hump?"]) But here that warmth, affection, and knowing corniness is completely absent. It's as if the actors know the things they're doing are supposed to be funny, but are clueless as to why, and furthermore don't care enough even to try to sell it.
For a few examples, early on Fletcher is having a therapy session with a stereotypically Jewish shrink, who inexplicably shouts all his lines at top volume. That's supposed to be funny. Fletcher relates a disgusting dream in which a naked young girl transforms into a naked old crone--so disgusting a sight, she says, "Even my horse was throwing up!" Yes, that's the punchline. Dr. Duckie works tirelessly in his lab, and is extremely disappointed when in one experiment he produces not blood, but a gold brick! He tosses it into a huge pile of alchemical loot with a disgusted sneer. Hilarious? And about a later scene in the boutique where a Little Orphan Annie lookalike wards off her vampire attackers by lifting her dress to flash panties with a cross on the front and a Star of David on the back--this last can-can style, naturally--well, the less said the better.
Oh, and the pub girl whose father was trying to protect her by helping her lose her virginity? She finally succeeds, which leads her to invite all the pub-goers to a gangbang in the back room that ends up LITERALLY making the pub explode! Cause it's a gangBANG, see! Is this thing on?
I know Louise Fletcher is renowned more for her dramatic prowess than her skills as a comedienne, but still, her performance here is just painful. Still, it's not all her fault. Apparently the writers and director thought having an Academy Award™ Winner pronounce normal words in silly, nonsensical ways equalled comedy GOLD. For instance, it's not "the castle," it's "the CAST-ull." Every time. Seriously, did anyone laugh? And apparently in the 70s and early 80s pronouncing "virgin" as "WIR-gin" was the height of hilarity--not only do they wring that gag to its dregs here, but I remember another unfunny comedy from the same era that did the same--Zorro, the Gay Blade. But at least that one had George Hamilton.
Could you put me in touch with his agent? I'm about to be in the market for one."
For all her notoriety and nubile-ness, in this flick Schneider is a black hole of acting ability--her mere presence makes the people around her WORSE, simply by the cosmic power of her sucking. Dr. Duckie is similarly execrable, performing his canned zaniness and mad doctor scenes like the ADD kid in the drama club. (A scene where he bounces gleefully around his new laboratory--which honest-to-God looks like a brewery--is just embarassing.) The Inspector looks like George Kennedy after a three-day bender--which is to say, like George Kennedy all the time--and couldn't make you laugh if you were on nitrous oxide. Really, it's that dire.
The only potential bright spots in this long, dark tea-time of comedy are the Countess's twin sons, played by the debuting Wajnberg Brothers. These two guys make quite an entrance, looking for all the world like the emaciated offspring of Bela Lugosi and Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Their strange voices and weird mannerisms in their early scenes are actually just freaky enough to be entertaining, and an early strange interlude where one of the brothers spouts nonsensical surreal poetry and discovers his sibling trapped in a grandfather clock (A Rollin homage? No, definitely not.) is probably the standout scene of the movie, followed closely by a dreamy shot of the two of them bathing in blood with Mama.
But unfortunately the director can't let a good thing be good enough, and by the 45-minute mark the brothers are so overused as to be annoying. He even has them go through a 5-minute recreation of the famous Harpo/Groucho "mirror routine," which they don't have anywhere near the physical comic sense nor the timing to pull off. Again, embarrassing.
(Giving credit where credit is due, there is ONE scene in the movie that inspired honest chuckles and something approaching enjoyment--Von Blood requests 10 gallons of blood for testing, which means the brothers have to procure 10 virgins from the boutique. They do this by opening a secret panel in the changing room while the girls are trying on dresses, scaring them into a faint, and dragging them off. The montage that follows the 10-gallon request is actually pretty funny, as a parade of topless girls falls into the brothers' arms, one after another, but not passing out before answering the question, "Wirgin?" As the quest goes on, the brothers get tired, letting their fatigue show through yawns as they try to scare the topless girls. Hey, it's not much, but I enjoyed it.)
I commented some time ago that I feared I had watched too many awesome movies in a row--I'd given something like seven 2.5-to-3+ thumbs ratings in a row, and I felt the streak was bound to reverse at some point. And here I am, giving Mama Dracula 0.5 thumbs, the second less-than-one-thumb review in as many weeks. Don't watch it. Watch Love at First Bite (also with George Hamilton! Hey!) or Dracula: Dead and Loving It. You'll thank me later.
As to this funk I'm in, looks like it's time to break out my unwatched Rollin, Naschy, and Meyer. I need to do something to break this streak. Oh well, thank God for AMERICAN XPRESS!
Friday, May 23, 2008
Mama Dracula (1980): or
BloodSucking Freaks
Posted by The Vicar of VHS at 3:23 PM
Labels: '80s, 0-1 Thumbs, Comedy, Drive-In Movie Classics, Mad Science, Mill Creek, Vampires (Regular)
3 comments:
- Karswell said...
Well here is one film that I have not seen yet... and apparently I guess I don't need too.
Speaking of Molly Ringworm, I watched Office Killer the other night and it wasn't too bad. Not great but it had a couple really nice demented moments and gore.
- May 24, 2008 at 10:46 AM
- The Vicar of VHS said...
I've heard that Molly's 1995 suspense/thriller Malicious is pretty good...or at least that she gets topless in it. Which amounts to the same thing, right? :)
- May 24, 2008 at 6:55 PM
- houseinrlyeh said...
Oh, God, I watched this atrocity on a different Mill Creek set (100 Horror Classics?) and am really impressed by your endurance to write in detail about it.
I...just couldn't.
- May 30, 2008 at 8:00 AM


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Hi all,
I'm new here on Atheistnexus. I was a believer (in one deity or another) for years, most recently a fundie (Xtian), up until a few years ago.
Although, I started questioning my beliefs (including the belief in any supernatural deity) about 12 years ago, it was a long process to evolve to where I formally "came out" as atheist about 1.5 yrs ago. Finally, I feel free.
I also find I spend as much time/energy researching atheism and scientific points of view now, as I did poring through religious texts and commentary. I want to be as well-versed in my "new" belief system as I was in the old one (if not better) because I think it's important to understand why you believe what you believe. As I'm sure most can understand, things are so much clearer when not clouded by looking through a theist/religious filter (brainwashing) all the time.
Anyway, I found this video recently and it appears on the surface to be sound but I was wondering what you think of it. Does this man's argument have any holes in it, or does it stand up under scrutiny?
Views: 201
George, that's a good point about Occam's Razor. Thanks!
I've seen several of Matt Dillahunty's podcasts. I like them. I haven't read that book though. I'll try to watch for it.
Wow, that man talks fast!
I'm not much for making sense of philosophy, but if only I understood what's meant here by "infinite" I might at least stand a chance. Anyway, the video seems to make two claims about the properties of (non)infinite things. The second one sounds a little strange to me, or maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe I'm just too un-philosophical.
0:52-0:55 Non-infinite things are non-beginningless... which I guess just means that non-infinite things have a beginning?
1:30-1:35 Infinite things cannot exist within the universe... ?
Maybe there are some philosophers out there in the group who could clear that up... and the rest of the argument too for that matter. :)
But for what it's worth, one problem I have with the argument is here:
1:07 This falsifies the existence of God since it is a violation of Occam's Razor to needlessly multiply explanations...
And that is, just because a hypothesis (like the one in 1:00 - 1:06) "violates Ocamm's razor" doesn't mean it's false.
Well, good luck.
Round Peg, his point about an infinity not being able to exist within the universe (even though it's a stretch, because we don't know whether the universe is finite or infinite) is based on the principle that two infinities cannot simultaneously occupy the same space and time.
And that's a good point about Occam's Razor. I missed that the first several times I watched it, but I totally agree. Occam's Razor isn't an irrefutable absolute law.
"two infinities cannot simultaneously occupy the same space and time"
I'm think I'm still unclear on what is meant by "infinity". Here's why. Take for instance a two dimensional space (say, the x-y plane). To the left of the x-axis there is an infinite amount of space. To the right of the x-axis, there is also an infinite amount of space. Could not two "infinities" share the infinite space of the x-y plane, each by occupying a different side of the axis?
Also, physics tells us some pretty weird things about the properties of space and time...
"Could not two "infinities" share the infinite space of the x-y plane, each by occupying a different side of the axis?"
I don't think so, because the dividing line (between the two sides) would be the end of one side and the beginning of the other. I think in that case, neither side would be truly infinite.
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�Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult,� said Canadian feminist Charlotte Whitton back in the �70s.
We don�t want to dwell on tragedy � every day there are losses everywhere. But recently we had three deaths among important women � Nora Ephron, Helen Gurley Brown and the lesser-known Lois Smith, publicist to earlier big, big stars.
This week NYC�s intelligentsia took leave of Lois who was much beloved and an all-around wonderful creature. She died at age 84 some weeks ago after a fall. She was retired and living in Massachusetts, even though many begged her over and over to �come back home!�
So it was a weepy get-together at the 92nd Street Y, where such as Meryl Streep and Rosie O�Donnell got into a semi-loving-correcting contretemps onstage over another actress, Claire Danes. (All I can say is that Lois Smith would have loved every moment of this friendly �argument.� Lois was such an �innocent� in her embracing, positive, motherly manner that she once looked at me in amazement when I told her one of her clients had used cocaine right in front of me. �Really, Liz. I never suspected that!� said Lois. She left it at that and to my conscience. I didn�t print it.)
Anyway, I found it pretty remarkable and appealing that another Smith � Lois � could be eulogized in person by the mistress of all she surveys, Oscar-and-every-other-kind-of-winner Meryl Streep. (Streep was formidable and the best of most speakers at the recent Nora Ephron memorial and she out-does herself informally time after time!)
At the Y, it all began with emcee Rosie O�Donnell. She was wearing red, imitating Lois, who was famous for the scarlet coat she wore on the red carpet so that her celebrity clients could easily find her.
Rosie opined that she hoped Lois �was up there� talking with Marilyn Monroe and Nora Ephron and taking notes. Then, Rosie segued into a bit about whether Claire Danes now employs a lisp on the TV series �Homeland.�
This was followed by Lois� former partner, Leslee Dart, reminding us that Lois called those she loved by the pet name �Ducks.� (She had sprayed the premises with Lois� favorite, Joy perfume.) Ms. Dart won applause by noting that the PR industry should follow Lois� lead and �be less self-centered, and kinder.� Rolling Stones critic Peter Travers made some funny remarks and there was a song from Mandy Patinkin.Then, I think it was then, this was all interrupted by Streep who defended Danes, saying that the latter �had her mouth taped up for two days � and she�s pregnant. You get a pass!� Rosie yelled from backstage, �Sorry!�


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Jacob Grimm, in his 1835 treatise Teutonic Mythology, gives a convoluted argument that Saturday is named for Loki. While the other days are clear translations from the Roman days of the week into their Germanic pagan equivalents, Saturday does not fit the pattern. Every other weekday is named for a god or goddess from the Norse mythology: Sunday/Sol, Monday/Mani, Tuesday/Tyr, Wednesday/Odin, Thursday/Thor, and Friday/Freya. Grimm asserts that the Saturday does not retain the name of the Roman Saturn, but is named for Sæter ("insidiator" or "one who lies in ambush"), a name that he connects with Loki and suports with Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse sources. However, there is no evidence of a historical Loki-cult, or that he was ever worshiped as a god. There are, instead, multiple contradictory portrayals of the slippery figure.
Loki is best-known in the guise of the Trickster - the god who continually gets into mischief, has his escapades go horribly wrong, gets compelled by the other gods to fix the results of his troublemaking, and ends up doing good in the end as a sort of byproduct of his machinations. One of the more intriguing etymologies of his name connects it to the Swedish dialect-word Locke ("spider"), which places Loki in the world continuum of Trickster Gods with animal forms. In 1933, French philologist Georges Dumézil argued that the characterization of Loki as master thief is incredibly ancient, and can be traced back as one of the foundational conceptions of Indo-European mythology.
|Loki as flea on Freya's cheek by Maria Klugh [?] (1909)
Combined with this transformative ability and thieving nature is the idea that Loki's pranks end up redounding to the benefit of the gods and of humanity. The clearest example of this occurs in the Skáldskaparmál ("The Language of Poetry") section of the Edda. After Loki cuts of the hair of the goddess Sif as a prank, Thor threatens him with grievous bodily injury unless he can convince some dwarves to make her a new head of hair. Loki somehow convinces a pair of dwarves to not only spin the golden hair, but to also forge the ship Skíðblaðnir and the spear Gungnir ("swaying one"). The hair magically attaches to Sif's head and begins to grow. In the Ynglinga saga, Snorri writes that the ship, given to Frey, "is large enough for all the Æsir to board it fully armed, and it takes a fair wind as soon as the sail is hoisted, wherever it has to go. When it is not at sea, it is constructed so skilfully and of so many parts that it can be folded up like a cloth and put in a pocket." In the Eddic poem Sigrdrífumál ("Lay of Sigrdrifa"), the valkyrie tells Sigurd that there are mystic runes cut into the point of the spear. According to Snorri, it has the magic power that it is "never stopped in its thurst" and will be used by Odin during his final battle with the monstrous wolf Fenrir that will occur at Ragnarök.
|Loki as gadfly by Willy Pogany (1920)
The triumvirate of Odin, Thor, and Frey judges that the hammer is the greatest treasure of the lot, as it will defend them in their battles with the enemy frost-giants, and they decree that the dwarves have won the wager. Loki, of course, is not quite willing to give up his head and uses his magic shoes to flee across the sky and sea. At the dwarves' request, Thor (ever the enforcer of legal contracts), catches the fleeing Trickster and brings him back. When the dwarves attempt to cut off Loki's head, he tells them that they are welcome to it, as long as they don't damage his neck in the process. Frustrated by the letter of the contract from taking the head away, one of the dwarves instead pierces Loki's lips with an awl and sews his mouth shut. A stone carving from the Viking Age found in Denmark is sometimes thought to be a depiction of Loki on account of what appear to be stitch-marks on the figure's lips.
Loki's misadventures also redound to the benefit of humanity. After he has brought about the death of the god Baldur, Loki is finally driven from the company of the gods once and for all. Hiding from the wrath of the Æsir, he spends his days in salmon-form at the bottom of a river. Trying to figure out what device the gods might use to capture him, he develops a net, but throws it into the fire when he realizes that his enemies are near. Kvasir, the wise Vanir, sees the ashes of the net and realizes what Loki had created. The gods weave their own net and use it to drag the river, eventually deciding to weigh it down so that Loki cannot hide in the stones of the riverbed. When Loki tries to jump over the net, Thor grabs him by the tail so that he can't slip away. The end result is that Loki, despite his anti-heroic nature, is what Hilda Ellis Davidson calls a "culture hero, who provides mankind with benefits" - in this case, the invention of the fishing net and the idea of dragging a river bottom. He also provides comical Just-So Stories; after Thor catches hold of the wriggling fish, Snorri concludes, "And it is for this reason that the salmon tapers towards the tail."


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National Days of mourning for Robredo
National Days of mourning
President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III has signed Proclamation No. 460 s. 2012, proclaiming August 21 until Robredo's interment National Days of Mourning.
This entails that the national flag will be at half-mast from sunrise to sunset in all government offices and landmarks, even posts in abroad for six days.
"Furthermore, from today, August 21, 2012 until the date of internment, the national flag shall be lowered to half-mast in Malacañan Palace, the City of Naga, and in all offices and installations of the DILG, BFP, BJMP, LGA, NAPOLCOM, PNP and PPSC," the proclamation said.
The Committee on Funeral Arrangements said public viewing of Robredo's remains in Naga City will continue until Thursday. On Friday, Robredo's remains will be transported from Naga City to Malacañan Palace.
Secretary of Communications Ramon A. Carandang issued this schedule for those who want to pay respects to Robredo:
August 22, Wednesday
9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. – Mass
10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – wake
5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. – Mass
6:00 p.m. onwards – wake
August 23, 2012, Thursday
9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. – Mass
10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – wake
5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. – Mass
6:00 p.m. onwards – wake


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April 9, 2011
Game One Box Score
Game Two Box Score
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - UC Santa Barbara (17-18, 3-2) guaranteed its first Big West Conference series win with a pair of blowout victories at Cal Poly (6-25, 2-3) on Saturday evening. The Gauchos posted a 10-2 win in game one before picking up a 12-2 mercy rule victory in game two.
UCSB will conclude this weekend's three-game series on Sunday with a noon pairing against the Mustangs at Bob Janssen Field.
In game one, UCSB benefited from three consecutive errors by the Mustangs and loaded the bases with no outs at the top of the first before Jessica Beristianos drew a walk to put the Gauchos on the board. A single hit up the middle of the field by Kendall Gill stretched the UCSB lead to 2-0.
After pitcher Krista Cobb took down the first three Cal Poly batters in order, the Gauchos went back to work. Brooke Putich and Kathryn Pilpil opened the second inning with consecutive doubles and McKenzie Kane loaded the bases with a fielder's choice. Allison Taylor drove Putich home with a ground out to second base and a double to left field by Keilani Jennings put two more runs on the board.
In the fifth inning, Jennings led off with her second double of the game and was able to push the UCSB lead to 6-0 when she scored on a Mustang error.
After suffering through five shutout innings, the Mustangs finally scored when Anna Cahn came home on an illegal pitch.
The Gauchos followed with their biggest inning of the game in the seventh. Cal Poly pitcher, Cahn, hit Jennings with a pitch before walking Beristianos and Gill to load the bases with one out. Lainey DePompa was able to send a base hit down the left field line sending a pair of runners home. A single by Kane one out later to left center field drove in two more runs to give UCSB the 10-1 lead.
Cal Poly's Stephanie Correia hit a two-out single at the bottom of the seventh driving in one more run for the Mustangs to bring the final score to 10-2.
Cobb (7-9) tossed the complete game for the Gauchos and allowed just two runs (one earned) on four hits. She walked five a struck out two. Rebecca Patton (4-13) suffered the loss after pitching the first three innings. She gave up five runs (three earned) on four hits while walking one and striking out three. Cahn closed the game and allowed five runs (four earned) on five hits. She walked four and struck out one.
Jennings led the Gauchos going 2-for-3 with two doubles, two runs and two RBI. Kane went 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBI.
The Gauchos kept the ball rolling in game two and at the top of the second with the bases loaded and one out, Putich hit a triple to left center field to put UCSB on the scoreboard, 3-0.
In the third, Taylor led off with a single through the left side before Jennings hit her third double of the day to right field. Lauren Boser walked to load the bases before Beristianos drew a walk sending Taylor home. One out later, DePompa drove Jennings home with a single up the middle, pushing the UCSB advantage to 5-0.
UCSB's offense exploded in the fourth inning as they piled on seven more runs off of five hits to take a commanding 12-0 lead.
Mariah Cochiolo drove in two runs with a one-out single to the left side at the bottom of the fourth to prevent the shutout, but pitcher Andriana Collins retired the next five batters in order to seal the 12-2 run rule win for the Gauchos.
Collins (10-9) tossed all five innings in the win and allowed two earned runs on three hits. She walked three and struck out one. For the Mustangs, Trista Thomas (1-4) suffered the loss after allowed 12 runs (six earned) on eight hits. She walked seven and struck out three. Cahn finished the game and allowed just one hit in 1.2 innings of work.
Jennings was once again phenomenal at the plate going 2-for-3 with three runs. Putich, meanwhile, went 2-for-3 with four RBI.


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Facebook Tells Content Producers Which Stories to Share
Oct 23, 2013 5:00 AM PT
Facebook has introduced Stories to Share, a tool to help media outlets -- from online publications to TV broadcasters to music startups -- maximize value. Appearing in the media panel of a publisher's Facebook page, Stories to Share makes recommendations based on the number of shares a post has received. When an article gets a certain number of Likes, it will appear in the list.
Facebook tested the new tool with 29 media sites over a seven-day period to observe referral traffic. Although previous experience suggested that too many posts to a Facebook audience might turn off users and cause them to Unlike a page, the new data suggests that more of the right posts increases page views.
"The net result: Posting more frequently increases referral traffic by over 80 percent," said Justin Osofsky, VP of media partnerships at Facebook.
Participating media sites averaged an increase in the number of articles posted to their pages by 57 percent. That translated to an 89 percent increase in the average outbound clicks to their domains, Osofsky explained.
Publisher Tools
Facebook has rolled out Stories to Share to 1,500 media organizations, spokesperson Meredith Chin told the E-Commerce Times.
"Stories to Share is simply a way of telling publishers which of their content is getting the most traction in social, so that publishers can then seamlessly push this content to the news feed and, given that it's already been identified as highly engaging content, engage their community with content of the highest standard," Jeremy Leon, social strategist at Laundry Service, told the E-Commerce Times.
Facebook Development
In addition to helping publishers, the Stories to Share tool aims to deepen Facebook's user base.
"Facebook is continually looking for more ways to increase sharing by users, and Stories to Share is the latest tactic for businesses," said Josh Crandall, principal analyst at Netpop Research.
"It's a win-win for publishers and Facebook," he continued. "Publishers will now know which stories they can add to their pages and increase the momentum."
Facebook gains feedback and data on what is trending. It will get data that it can sell advertising against as a bonus.
"This feature also shares insights into the type of content that is popular on the social site, possibly informing the types of stories publishers decide to focus on. Ultimately, Facebook wins by increasing the amount of content and interaction that is available on the site, presumably bringing users back more frequently to view and click on ads," Crandall told the E-Commerce Times.
Stories to Share will benefit Facebook, publishers, and perhaps readers as well.
"Facebook's Stories to Share function is a win for everyone," said Leon. "Publishers get insight into their most engaging pieces of content, users get a constant stream of amazing content in their news feeds, advertisers get an increase in engaged users comsuming content on Facebook, and Facebook gets a steady stream of ad revenue from these advertisers. This is the first feature Facebook has released in a long while that benefits everyone."


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Value Line is regarded as the best independent research available. More than just recommendations, Value Line provides the rationale behind its picks for greater understanding.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) is one of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States, with more than 260,000 employees. It operates several large insurance businesses, as well as more than 80 subsidiaries that range from ice cream manufacturing to electric utilities. However, like most large corporations, Berkshire started out small.
In 1888, Horatio Hathaway, with funds obtained from a whaling business in the Pacific Ocean, started to mill cotton and formed the Hathaway Manufacturing Company. The business quickly became profitable. However, after World War I, the demand for cotton declined sharply. Soon after, the situation improved, and in the 1950s, it merged with Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates, a milling company that can trace its roots back to the early 1800s. For the time, the combined entity was massive, with 15 manufacturing plants, more than 12,000 workers, and annual revenues that exceeded $120 million. The combined company was run by Seabury Stanton, who was an expert miller and manager, but lacked extensive financial knowledge. Stanton proposed a number of strategies to expand the business, which turned out to be unsuccessful. By the end of the 1950s, the company fell on hard times, and was forced to close nearly half of its plants, and reduced its workforce materially. Its stock price fell accordingly.
Warren Edward Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1930. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, he studied business at Columbia Graduate Business School under Benjamin Graham. Soon after graduation, he went to work at Mr. Graham's firm, and later started his own limited partnership in Omaha. In 1962, he believed that Berkshire Hathaway, although struggling, was undervalued; he began buying shares. A year later, Mr. Buffett and a few associates were Berkshire's largest shareholders, and soon owned 49% of the company. They quickly took an active interest in the operation and pushed for a management change. Mr. Buffett installed Ken Chase to run the mill business, while he focused on improving the company's financial position.
In 1967, Berkshire entered the insurance business with the purchase of two Nebraska companies, National Indemnity and National Fire and Marine Insurance. Mr. Buffett recognized that insurance operations have the ability to be an effective vehicle for raising capital. When a company sells insurance policies to individuals, businesses, municipalities, and other entities, it receives premiums upfront and pays claims, if necessary, down the road. Thus, this business allows the insurer to hold large sums of money, which is referred to as the float. The float can then be invested, and/or used to make acquisitions. The investment gains, for the most part, are cost free.
The Government Employees Insurance Company was started in 1936 by Leo Goldwin. Its purpose was to provide inexpensive insurance to government employees. Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett's mentor, took an interest in the company and, at one time, was a 50% owner. Mr. Buffett bought shares, as well, and was very interested in GEICO, since the company's float was substantial. However, GEICO struggled mightily during the 1970s, thanks to the writing of higher-risk policies. At this time, GEICO stock fell from $42, to $2 a share. Mr. Buffett's interest appeared never to waiver and he continued to increase his position. Finally, in the beginning of 1996, Berkshire Hathaway purchased the remaining shares of GEICO, and it became a wholly-owned subsidiary.
At the time GEICO was welcomed into the Berkshire Hathaway family, it was the sixth largest automobile insurer in the United States. Now, it is third, and offers its products in 44 of the 51 American jurisdictions. GEICO's market share has increased four-fold over the past 15 years (since Berkshire took full control), and now accounts for more than 8% of the total market. With the backing of Berkshire, it can, in most cases, offer lower insurance rates than its competition, and with an advertising budget that exceeded $900 million in 2010 alone (more than twice the amount spent by any other auto insurer), GEICO's long-term prospects appear solid. Over the years, Berkshire developed and added a number of other large insurance and reinsurance businesses, all of which contribute meaningfully to the company's bottom line. Also, these operations, as mentioned earlier, create substantial float. For comparison purposes, Berkshire's float amounted to $16 million in 1967. At the end of 2010, Mr. Buffett had nearly $66 billion to invest.
During the decades since Mr. Buffett and his partner Charles Munger took control of Berkshire Hathaway, it has completed dozens of non-insurance acquisitions. Today, it operates candy manufacturers, clothing retailers, building materials companies, an aircraft ownership entity, and many more. Most notably, at the beginning of 2010, the company completed the $34 billion purchase of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe. As a result, Berkshire now owns more than 32,000 miles of track in the U.S. It is the largest acquisition ever completed by the company.
Berkshire's size and scope of operations is impressive. It used insurance float and profits from its other businesses to create and accumulate a vast equity portfolio. At this time, it owns large pieces of blue chips Coca-Cola (KO – Free Coca-Cola Stock Report), American Express (AXP –Free American Express Stock Report), Wal-Mart (WMT – Free Wal-Mart Stock Report), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ – Free J&J Stock Report), among others. Currently, the portfolio's value exceeds $53 billion. Stock dividends and corporate profits, along with the insurance float, are commonly used to make acquisitions, increase its equity portfolio, and expand the company's current operations, a strategy that will likely continue in perpetuity.
Investors that took a position in Berkshire Hathaway when Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger took the reins have been richly rewarded. In fact, in the late 1960s, Berkshire A-shares traded for around $20. At the end of 2010, one share was worth about $120,000; an annual gain, on average, of 23%. In 1996, Berkshire introduced B-shares which, at the time, were worth 1/30 of an A-share. However, in order to help facilitate the purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Berkshire split the B shares 50-for-1, and they are now worth 1/1500 of an A-share. For most investors, purchasing a single share of stock for six-figures is not possible--the B-shares allow the majority of the investment community to own a piece of Berkshire Hathaway.
Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway is run by legendary investor Warren Buffett, and is one of the largest corporations in the United States, with a market capitalization of more than $185 billion. Its operations are divided into three segments: Insurance and Other; Railroad, Utilities and Energy; Finance and Financial products. In 2010, it wrote more than $30 billion in insurance premiums, and total revenues exceeded $136 billion. Including its vast equity portfolio and $40 billion in cash, total assets amounted to $372 billion. Berkshire remains active on the acquisition front, and is always looking to bolster its vast operations with new purchases. It consistently targets companies that are managed well, are among the market leaders in its particular industry, and generate material cash flow.
As mentioned earlier, Berkshire Hathaway has two classes of stock. Due to the A-shares' hefty stock price, the B-shares are typically more appealing and obtainable for the majority of investors. Berkshire's stock has performed remarkably well since Mr. Buffett took control, and the company's prospects, due to its variety of successful businesses, is solid. Thus, we recommend Berkshire stock to buy-and-hold investors. Lastly, the company's healthy track record and excellent financial position, make this stock an appealing choice for conservative accounts, as well.
At the time of this article's writing, the author did not have positions in any of the companies mentioned.


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Smiles and laughter brightened the Bears locker room Saturday night after their 23-11 exhibition victory over the Colts in Indianapolis. It was a gratifying finish to a four-day road trip that challenged players in the new schemes. In the end, both sides of the ball showed glimpses of the identity the Bears want to embody.
As they regroup for Saturday's exhibition against the Bengals, the dress rehearsal for the regular season, we break down the key takeaways from Indy in our three-phase review.
Reason for optimism: In the absence of a regular-season game plan, play-caller Adam Gase stuck to the Bears' formula for success. He...


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Saint Anthony of Rome
Benedictine monk at Saint Andrew's monastery on the Coelian Hill, Rome, Italy under abbot Saint Gregory the Great who later wrote about him. Miracle worker.
- c.590 of natural causes
- Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
- Den katolske kirke
- Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints
- "Saint Anthony of Rome". CatholicSaints.Info. 16 January 2011. Web. 19 November 2018. <>


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