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The western entrance to the Ambassador Hotel, an H-shaped nineteen-twenties Spanish Revival that occupies a twenty-three-acre parcel on Wilshire Boulevard, is a monumental porte-cochère. Thick columns, banded with green, yellow, and shell-pink tiles, support a crown of flagless flagpoles and a simple rectangular Art Deco clock that is stopped at ten-thirty. Surrounded by dying palms and a few neglected birds-of-paradise, the hotel, at eighty-four, has the look of a governor's house in an abandoned tropical colony. In some places, the yellow plaster is so worn that you can see the outlines of the clay tiles beneath, like capillaries under fragile skin; in other places the plaster has flaked off altogether. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald used to stay here (they are said to have set fire to their bungalow, and their bill), but now the only residents are fifty feral cats, including Buster, Pinky, and Scabby (a mangy gray with half a tongue), who survive on scraps of catered food left over from movie crews. "The Graduate" was filmed at the hotel; more recently, the six hundred guest rooms, creepy basements, and derelict tunnels have been used as sets for horror movies and "Six Feet Under" episodes. This arrangement, which generates a million dollars a year in location fees, is likely to end soon. The Los Angeles Unified School District owns the building, and has announced that it plans to raze most of it and in its place erect a school for the thirty-eight hundred children, mainly Hispanic and Korean, who are bused out of the neighborhood every day.
Although the Ambassador was designed by Myron Hunt, its fate is intertwined with the peculiar and politicized legacy of an architect named Paul R. Williams, who died in 1980, at the age of eighty-five. Those who know Williams's work celebrate the houses he built for stars—Tyrone Power, Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball—and admire his curvaceous staircases and bars (in the Fountain Coffee Shop at the Beverly Hills Hotel; in the Palm Springs Tennis Club; in Perino's restaurant, not far from the Ambassador, which is also slated for demolition). He is so closely identified with the L.A. Beaux Arts style that real-estate agents selling such houses often describe them as "style of Paul Williams." By some counts, he built more than two thousand houses in his career; he once joked that he had built a house on every street in Beverly Hills.
In the late forties, the Ambassador hired Williams to design its Coffee Shop and a couple of bungalows, and to remodel the dining room and the ceiling of the Embassy Ballroom, where weddings and cotillions were held. But his significance, at least in the eyes of those who periodically lift him from obscurity, is due not only to his actual work—which is graceful, conservative, and lastingly attractive—but also to the fact that he was black. Williams would probably have been denied service at the Coffee Shop: the Ambassador wasn't integrated until the mid-fifties. (As far as anyone can remember, Lena Horne was the first black person to stay at the hotel, when she spent the night there after a performance, rather than going to the Dunbar, on Central Avenue.) For some, in a city with a historical ambivalence about its black citizens, Williams has become a potent symbol of racial injustice. Although he was the first black member of the American Institute of Architects, and later its first black fellow, the story most often told about him is that he had to learn to draw upside down in order to avoid making his white clients uneasy by sitting too close to them. But when Williams wrote about this skill, in an autobiographical essay called "I Am a Negro," published in American Magazine in 1937, he described it as an artistic sleight of hand. It was about making a dazzling first impression, so that people would think twice about judging him by the color of his skin.
By the time Williams began working on the Ambassador, he had a flourishing practice, and was regularly turning down jobs. The hotel was thriving, too. Margaret Burk, a former publicist and a devoted Ambassador booster, describes the opening-night party, on New Year's Eve, 1921, as a kind of coming out for Southern California. There were three thousand guests, including Mrs. Doheny and Mrs. Van Nuys. "The splendor of the setting for the affair probably has never been equaled on the Pacific Coast," a newspaper reporter wrote at the time. Soon the Ambassador was an emblem of L.A. cosmopolitan swank: Rudolph Valentino secured papier-mâché palms from the set of "The Sheik" as decoration for the Cocoanut Grove, the hotel's night club, and three Oscar ceremonies were held there; Norma Jean took classes at the Emmeline Snively Blue Book Modelling Agency, which had offices on the mezzanine floor; Richard Nixon secluded himself in a suite in 1952 to write his "Checkers" speech. Wilshire Boulevard, established by the presence of the Ambassador as a major thoroughfare, filled with restaurants and department stores. Then things took a turn for the worse: on June 5, 1968, Robert Kennedy was ambushed and killed by Sirhan Sirhan in a pantry off the Embassy Ballroom, where he had just delivered his California Democratic Primary victory speech. Over the next twenty years, the city continued to expand westward, toward the beach, and Wilshire became a seedy business district, populated by the newly arrived and the left-behind. In 1989, the Ambassador was closed, sold to Donald Trump and a group of developers, and then "eminent domained" by the school district, a proceeding that took more than a decade.
Several years ago, the school district took possession of the hotel and began a painstaking deliberation over what kind of school to build. In the spring of 2003, when the district revealed its plans—five options that ran from total demolition to almost total preservation—everyone had something to say about it. A coalition of community groups, led by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wanted a brand-new school as quickly as possible, with nothing spent on preservation which could be going toward textbooks and classrooms. Ambassador nostalgists wanted to hang on to the site of their honeymoons and their senior proms. The Los Angeles Conservancy, which had saved the oldest remaining McDonald's, in Downey, and St. Vibiana's Cathedral downtown, advocated "adaptive reuse" of the building, and hoped to reform the city's image as a "throwaway metropolis." Karen E. Hudson, Williams's granddaughter and the author of "Paul R. Williams, Architect: A Legacy of Style," recognized the need for a school—and the fact that the hotel wasn't a Williams original—and was inclined to stay out of it, until, as she put it, "Someone went to a meeting and said that I was in favor of tearing the place down. That's when I got involved." She sided with the conservancy, on whose board she used to sit. The Kennedy family wanted the assassination site destroyed, and invoked R.F.K.'s commitment to the disadvantaged as a reason not to spend money on conservation. And Lawrence Teeter, the lawyer representing Sirhan, who claims that his client was a hypnotized pawn in a C.I.A. plot, maintained that demolishing the assassination site would be tantamount to the destruction of evidence. (Kennedy's last meal, Teeter points out, was at the house of John Frankenheimer, the director of "The Manchurian Candidate.") In October, the school district arrived at what the board thought was an inspired compromise: it promised to save the Williams-designed Coffee Shop, the Embassy Ballroom ceiling (either Williams's remodelled version or Hunt's original), the Cocoanut Grove, and the porte-cochère. It also said it would consider saving the pantry, which it regards as the building's most historically significant site.
The Ambassador is a sad, shadowy, falling-down place, and the pantry, an awkward nook between the dusty kitchen and the backstage of the Embassy Ballroom, is the psychic epicenter of the decay. It is also the only place on the grounds where photography is not allowed. The hulking ice-maker behind which Sirhan lay in wait remains, several feet from where Kennedy fell. On that spot, a panel of linoleum has been removed from the floor, exposing the bare composite floorboard underneath. (There is a rumor that a looter stole it, seeking a drop of Kennedy's blood.) A treacherous passage—the floor is sinking in, and a recent visitor broke his leg—leads to the Embassy Ballroom, which is bubble-gum pink, with a Grecian-wave motif around the awnings and a frieze of charioteers at either end. Daylight streams in through a large hole in the roof. In another place, Williams's ceiling—elegant, arched, and covered with square pink panels—has caved in, and the panels are hitting a charioteer in the head. Thirteen rubber garbage bins are placed around the floor to collect leaks.
The Coffee Shop, which the school district plans to turn into a teachers' lounge, is on the ground floor, along a row of stores with mostly empty display cases and scattered bits of lettering ("Borsalino hats"; "Give Him an Oleg Cassini Tie"). Lanterns suspended from the ceiling form shallow haloes in the gloom. The carpet is tattered, and the stuffing is coming out of one of the banquettes. Two squat columns and the walls are covered with palm-frond wallpaper, which was hung by a production crew to make the restaurant look like the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel, also designed by Williams in the late forties. "That wallpaper's very distinctive, so a lot of people go, 'Oh, the wallpaper, yeah,' " Glenn Gritzner, a representative of the school district, says impatiently. (He regularly contends with what he calls "that's where Frank Sinatra tripped over me" reminiscences.) "It's, like, no. That's a problem we have all over the property. There's a crest above one of the check-in areas, and one of our board members was, like, 'That's so awesome, are we going to be able to keep that and incorporate it?' What I said to her was, 'Yeah, we can keep it, but it's a twenty-seven-cent piece of foam that a film company put up a few years ago and never took down.' "
Though shabby, the Coffee Shop feels like an oasis—dark-green and mellow cream colors, deep seats, voluptuous lines. The bar squiggles toward the back wall, a shape echoed in bas-relief on the ceiling directly above. Max Bond, a black architect who worked for Williams as a summer intern in 1956, sees this fluid style, which Williams also brought to the houses he designed, as more than just a formal expression. "It represents an escape from all the terrors of the day, if you will," Bond said. "It was a way of saying, 'This is how you should live your life.' " Jeh V. Johnson, another black architect who worked for Williams that summer, respectfully disagrees with his friend's assessment. "I think Williams would have thought of it a little bit differently," he said. "He would have thought, What is the most graceful, elegant statement I can make on this building? Not necessarily as a way of escaping harshness and hardship. I think he had put that behind him in his own life as thoroughly as he could."
In the July, 1913, issue of the N.A.A.C.P. magazine The Crisis, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote of a recent trip to Los Angeles, "The air was scented with orange blossoms and the beautiful homes lay low crouching on the earth as though they loved its scents and flowers. Nowhere in the United States is the Negro so well and beautifully housed, nor the average efficiency and intelligence in the colored population so high." Between 1900 and 1930, the black population grew from two thousand people to nearly forty thousand. Williams's parents, Chester and Lila, had come in the early eighteen-nineties from Memphis, where Chester was the headwaiter at the Peabody Hotel. Paul Williams was born in L.A.'s garment district, at 8th and Santee, in 1894; not long ago, a developer of apartment lofts nearby put up a fountain commemorating the birthplace. Chester, who became a fruit seller, died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three, when Williams was two. Lila died of the disease two years later, and Williams was brought up by a family that his parents knew from the First African Methodist Episcopal church. His foster father, Charles Clarkson, was a janitor.
Even as a child, Williams knew that he wanted to be an architect or an artist, and, after graduating from high school, in 1912, he took classes at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. He excelled, and won the Beaux Arts medal. (He later studied architecture at the University of Southern California, and took courses in color harmony and interior design.) In 1914, he got a job with a successful Pasadena architect named Reginald D. Johnson, who built expensive traditional houses; one of his colleagues there was Gordon Kaufmann, who became the architect of Greystone Mansion and a lifelong friend. After Williams started his own office, in 1922, his work often appeared next to Kaufmann's in Architectural Digest.
In the course of the nineteen-twenties, the population of Los Angeles doubled, in what the historian Carey McWilliams called "one long drunken orgy, one protracted debauch." The L.A. Beaux Arts style—an eclectic jumble that allowed Regencys, Georgians, and Spanish Colonials to stand side by side in the same development—suited the new Hollywood rich, who imagined themselves in mansions but didn't trust their own taste. "Paul Williams did exactly what a lot of newcomers to California wanted," Jeh Johnson says. "When the movie colony began to grow, you had lots of people coming out from wherever in America and certainly earning lots of money. Being able to afford a house for themselves, they wanted to build one that looked like it had been there or had been done by somebody who had some grounding in Southern California." Williams understood his clients' wish for grandeur but tempered it with a measure of restraint. He was known as polite and gentlemanly—and conflict-averse. Whenever anything went wrong, he sent out his white office manager to deal with the contractors. Wesley Howard Henderson, an African-American architectural historian and one of the few academics to have studied Williams, thinks that his style was particularly appealing to an arriviste clientele. "Self-made people . . . may have believed that Williams had a special ability to work with them because they perceived Williams as self-made," he wrote in a 1992 U.C.L.A. dissertation on Williams.
By all accounts, Williams was an excellent showman. "Other people in his office came in wearing shirts and slacks, but he was dressed every day as if he were going to an elegant dinner party," the widow of the architect Edward Fickett, a former employee, remembers. A 1936 photograph of Williams by Carl Van Vechten shows a light-skinned and soft-looking man, with a hint of a smile and gentle shadows underneath his eyes. He is wearing a suit, as he is in almost every available picture, and his tie and pocket handkerchief are expertly plumped. In "I Am a Negro," he wrote that in the early days of his practice white clients occasionally turned up at his office and balked upon discovering his race. His strategy was to pretend that he was too busy even to consider taking on their project, and to pique their curiosity by saying that he couldn't accept jobs for less than ten thousand dollars: "I knew that nothing so impresses the average American as the illusion of financial success, especially if that success is encountered in an unexpected quarter."
Williams's first high-profile house was for the automobile magnate E. L. Cord, a former mechanic and race-car driver who became a millionaire car manufacturer (his company made the Duesenberg). The house, which was finished in 1931, had a fifteen-car garage, and bathroom fixtures of fourteen-carat gold. Several years later, Williams built another spectacular house: a twelve-thousand-square-foot white Georgian Colonial on a three-acre plot off Sunset, for Charles Correll, the writer and actor who played Andy on the radio show "Amos 'n' Andy." Williams gave it a shapely portico, with narrow two-story streamlined columns, and embellished the staircase, a classic Williams swoosh, with fleurs-de-lis. Everything was spacious and well proportioned—even the servants' quarters, which faced the gardens. Correll had been a bricklayer in his youth, and he laid out the large radial brick entry plaza in front of the house himself. The writer Sidney Sheldon, who has lived there for thirty years, added ten thousand square feet—scrupulously imitating Williams's design—and recently put the house on the market for $19.5 million.
During these years, Williams lived with his wife, Della, and their two daughters in a humble, one-story house in South Central—largely because Los Angeles had privately enforced Jim Crow laws, in the form of restrictive covenants drafted by homeowners' associations to keep non-white people out. In 1951, he built himself a house in a mostly white neighborhood now called Lafayette Square, off Crenshaw. The small neighborhood is full of traditional houses, several of them by Williams, and is distinguished by its wide, planted avenue and fat, healthy palms. Williams's house—which his family still owns—is sleek and white, with a second-floor porch and a cool lanai, and is surrounded by giant ferns. When he started building the house, the neighbors panicked. "They were putting flyers on every house saying, 'You better sell because your property values are going down,' " Karen Hudson told me. "This was a famous architect, by the nineteen-fifties! It wasn't like Jack the Ripper was moving in or something."
After the Second World War, architecture shifted away from the excesses of the L.A. Beaux Arts style and toward a spare, more economical, utilitarian ideal. Williams tried to keep pace. In 1945, responding to the postwar housing shortage, he published a book called "The Small Home of Tomorrow," and followed it with "New Homes for Today" in 1946. The books advocated open plans, flatter roofs, and a minimum of ornament, and demonstrated a number of low-budget contemporary designs, including the Neutra Home. (Williams and Richard Neutra had collaborated on a government housing project a few years earlier.) The same year that "The Small Home" came out, the editor of Arts & Architecture magazine initiated the Case Study House Program, a project that promoted the new socially progressive aesthetic by sponsoring houses from aggressively modern architects—Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Eero Saarinen, and Pierre Koenig among them—and publishing the results.
Williams's principal contribution to this movement was indirect and undocumented. The owners of Pierre Koenig's Case Study House No. 22, a twenty-three-hundred-square-foot glass box cantilevered over the edge of a cliff in the Hollywood Hills, couldn't find a bank that would give them a construction loan. "The way it was perched, everybody thought it wasn't a good, safe financial move," Hudson told me. But Williams was on the board of Broadway Federal Savings & Loan—founded by Hudson's other grandfather, H. Claude Hudson, it was specifically intended to serve the black community—and he persuaded the bank to lend the money. Case Study House No. 22, which was completed in 1959, is the defining image of L.A. modernism, and is often referred to as the most photographed house in the world.
But the totem of modernism with which Williams is most often associated is one he had little to do with: the soaring, aerodynamic double parabola of the theme pavilion at Los Angeles International Airport. Despite many articles and books crediting him, Williams was not on the design team for the theme pavilion. (He was a member of the joint-venture office for the entire airport project.) The story, which has annoyed the architects who did work on the drawings—many of them were from William Pereira and Charles Luckman's firm—originated with a photograph taken by Julius Shulman in 1965, a few years after the dedication. It shows Williams, his hair white and the wrinkles in his forehead deep, standing before the building with a quizzical expression on his face.
Shulman is ninety-four and lives in a 1949 Soriano house in the hills, with tumbling planters of succulents out front. His studio is filled with books of his photography and the files that he keeps on every architect he's ever worked with. When I went to see him, a packet of Williams articles and photographs was lying on his desk. The famous picture, he said, had been taken on an assignment for the United States Information Agency. As Shulman has recounted elsewhere, when he drove Williams out to the airport and positioned him in front of the building Williams said, "Julius, don't forget, I was not the architect of this building. This was done by William Pereira and his staff." According to Shulman, the U.S.I.A. used the photograph internationally to promote the image of America as a racially inclusive democracy. Eventually, the story that Williams was responsible for designing the theme pavilion made it back home and took root. Shulman was amazed that people believed it. He said, "Don't forget that Paul Williams was not a modernist."
At the end of November, the conservancy, appalled by the school district's decision to raze the Ambassador, sued; so did seven other groups, including the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, appalled by the conservancy suit, filed a brief to block it. Even Lawrence Teeter filed a suit, on behalf of Sirhan Sirhan, the Committee to Preserve Assassination Sites, and the Assassination Archives and Research Center. He wants to perform acoustical tests, similar to the ones that were done at Dealey Plaza, in Dallas, and is outraged that nobody will let him anywhere near the pantry.
Meanwhile, across town, in the upscale Westside neighborhood of Holmby Hills—between Beverly Hills and Bel Air—another Williams building was under siege by another school. The building, a lovely 1936 residence commissioned by a South African merchant named Morris Landau, has had many owners over the years—including Bruce McNall, the onetime owner of the L.A. Kings, and Ron Perelman, the financier—and is now owned by a private school called Harvard-Westlake, whose middle-school campus is next door. Harvard-Westlake would like to expand, and that means removing its original 1927 Spanish Colonial Revival administration building and the Morris Landau house.
In the late twenties, close to the time of the neighborhood's founding, the Holmby Hills Homeowners Association adopted a restrictive covenant. It stipulated that "neither the whole nor any part of said premises shall be sold, rented or leased to any person not of the white or Caucasian race nor shall the same be occupied by any such person, except as the servant or employee of the person using said premises exclusively for residential purpose." Now the Holmby Hills Homeowners Association is trying to keep Williams in the neighborhood, by keeping the Morris Landau house where it is. Fearing noise and speeding cars and the commercialization of their residential neighborhood, the neighbors oppose the school's plans. But it is the story of Paul Williams that moves them. "You can't tear down a Paul Williams house and put a driveway there!" Marcia Selz, the president of the Homeowners Association, says. She admits that she began learning about Williams only recently, but now she is a passionate defender of his legacy. "It shows no respect. It's a sin to replace it with a driveway and a boxy administration building. We believe it's not just the house: it's Paul Williams. His life was such a tribute to what humanity can be. It's important for us to remember this man." In the service of their cause, the Homeowners Association has enlisted the retired reverend of Williams's First A.M.E. Church (which he attended and built), the Los Angeles Urban League, Karen Hudson, and more than four hundred others.
John Amato, the assistant headmaster of Harvard-Westlake, sees things differently, of course. "We're trying to modernize the school to meet the needs of L.A. city kids, so that they can be leaders in this community," he says. He needs a new library and bigger classrooms, and he can't let sentimentality stand in the way. In an unlikely convergence, Harvard-Westlake—a school for which the tuition is some twenty thousand dollars a year—is essentially making the same argument as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. But Amato has what he thinks is a very good solution. He has found a family in La Cañada Flintridge, near Pasadena, who will buy the Morris Landau house for a dollar, and the school will help pay to transport it. Williams built a number of houses in Flintridge in the twenties and thirties; his first commissions were there. Amato is sensitive to the historical importance of the house, not least the fact that its architect would have been forbidden to live there. His solution takes that into account, too. If all goes well, he says brightly, "We can relocate the house to another neighborhood where he also might not have been able to live." ♦


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New York (CNN) -- New York City, that land of hustle and bustle, took on a new character Saturday: Quietness, punctuated by bursts of activity.
The imminent approach of Hurricane Irene made for some mighty unusual scenes.
Long lines were common at grocery stores as residents stocked up, but streets appeared empty just a couple blocks away.
"Once you get outside major hotel areas it gets quiet pretty quickly," said Dan Pinter, a sales associate at New York Running Company, an athletic shop near Central Park in Manhattan.
Under siege from natural forces and under a tornado watch late Saturday, the city was going without its subway system, incoming flights and other transportation services. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had issued a mandatory evacuation order for more than 370,000 residents of low-lying areas in the city. Thousands of public housing residents on the Lower East Side were being taken by bus to shelters.
CNN iReporter Jon Michael Gimpel, 42, a resident of the Upper West Side, took photos of closed businesses and buildings. He likened the emptiness of the streets to the eerie aftermath of September 11, 2001.
"We got cabin fever and walked around," said Gimpel, a system engineer. "A lot of shops are closed. No one knows what to do."
Besides telling people to heed evacuations and to stay away from windows, Bloomberg asked residents to stop being a little too helpful.
Saturday morning, city crews turned over trash baskets, trying to make them less likely to cartwheel away when anticipated strong winds arrive Sunday. Some citizens turned them rightside up.
CNN iReporter Elie Shaby submitted a photo of sandbags in front of the Apple Store on West 14th Street, which planned to reopen Monday.
Shaby said the mandatory evaluation ends at 41st Street, one block away from where she lives. She does not plan to evacuate but said, "living in New York City all my life and never experiencing a hurricane before, I have no idea what to expect."
Eden Pontz, executive producer at CNN's New York bureau, said only two riders were on her subway car as she rode from Brooklyn to work at Columbus Circle in Manhattan.
Cabbies scoured neighborhoods for evacuees and other riders. Tourists were still evident in many parts of the city.
Gimpel saw several eating from the bar stools at an Irish pub. Normally, they would be dining in Manhattan's restaurants, he said.
Irene, a Category 1 hurricane with top sustained winds of 80 miles per hour, was heading into Virginia later in the day, taking aim for the Norfolk area. It will pound the Delmarva Peninsula overnight and hit the New Jersey coast early Sunday, with Philadelphia and New York City in its sights.
The massive Metropolitan Transportation Authority was shut down at noon. The system, which provides 24-hour subway and bus service across the city, is the transit lifeblood of New York. Its buses, subways and railroads carry about 5 million riders daily. And it might not be fully back up by Monday, Bloomberg said.
At the Seventh Avenue station in Brooklyn's Park Slope section, more than a dozen people waited for one of the final subway runs. "What I'm hoping is that they will run trains for the next hour or two to pick up the stragglers," Kate Sandberg, who was headed to visit a friend, told CNN affiliate WABC.
Saturday, Bloomberg exhorted residents to leave immediately.
"Let's stop thinking this is something that we can play with. Staying behind is dangerous, staying behind is foolish, and it's against the law. And we urge everybody in the evacuation zone not to wait until there are gale force winds and driving rain to leave," Bloomberg said.
Pinter, 25, said the running store kept busy Saturday, but he expects it to be much quieter Sunday -- if it remains open.
He lives about 50 blocks away and said he is prepared to jog home if he can't get a cab.
"We'll take it as it comes," he said of Irene. "I say there is more curiosity than concern."
The evacuation zone included Battery Park City on the southwestern tip of Manhattan.
"It's very quiet," said state Sen. Daniel Squadron, whose district includes the community. "There are few people out who do not have large shopping bags."
CNN's Phil Gast, Eden Pontz and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.


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[UPDATE: This story was originally published on January 21.]
If you left your house last night, flipped on your TV, browsed Twitter or Instagram, there's no way (seriously, no way!) you could be out of the loop about the 49ers big win. Hot off the heels of the Giants' sweeping championship, another one of our beloved sports teams amped up the whole city with a wonderful success. And plenty of peeps were out celebrating in some way, shape, or form.
So, of course, we couldn't call ourselves fans if we didn't partake in the home-team appreciation by honoring the 49ers here on R29 S.F. That said, since we know there will be many a Superbowl fete to attend, picking out some gear obviously is first on the to-do list. We've rounded up some stellar red and gold pieces that are anything but yawn-inducing. So, have a look, start shopping, and get ready to party.


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Romney's ability trumps other's likability
The presidential campaign seems like a popularity contest, with President Obama holding the winning hand. He is younger, cool, plays sports, has a world-class smile and is equally at home with the ladies on The View or kibitzing with David Letterman.
As president, he professes openness, but is not above cutting off dissenters with a simple "I won!" Not surprisingly, he rammed his health care bill through Congress with no Republican input. Thus, he fails the test of presidential leadership: the ability to weld a consensus from opposing viewpoints. He acknowledged his failure when he recently announced that political change must come from outside government.
Where President Obama excels, Gov. Romney falls short. He is reserved, aloof, prone to making frequent gaffes, more an adviser than a comfortable pal. Clearly a man measured better by his accomplishments than his popularity, he's a man with proven ability to get things done.
We people will soon make our choice: the candidate everyone likes, or the candidate who can get things done. It now looks like four more unproductive years!
Walter D. Welti
Walmart not needed here
Here's my quick evaluation of the new Walmart store: after several months of remodeling, we now have Walmart in San Ramon.
A couple days after their grand opening I went to see what the hoopla was all about. First, I went to the produce department and noticed a large bin with corn on the cob at 45 cent an ear. "Imported from Mexico" the proud sign announced. It looked sad, and I wondered how long it had been in various trucks before it got to San Ramon. What is wrong with corn from Brentwood? Cabbage, as low-cost item as you can buy, was much more expensive than at Lucky's and other grocery stores.
There is a large sign in the back that locates the meat and seafood section. The only seafood I could find were packages of smoked salmon, and the meat was very expensive and packaged in huge trays. Common hamburger in 5.5-pound bags cost close to $5 a pound. Some already looked like it had been sitting there for some time. Better cuts were well more than $10. There was not a butcher in sight.
Half the store (small by comparison to others in San Ramon) has groceries. The other half has Walmart's usual Chinese imports, household items, cosmetics, pharmaceutical needs, etc. The prices for those items turned out to be quite good. I bought some flossing string that was a dollar less than what I paid at Walgreens and CVS. But what I really need and want is a store where I can buy our daily bread, milk and so on that is fresh, not packaged a week ago.
In a nutshell: Walmart is not needed here. There are enough good grocery stores in this part of San Ramon where the population is relatively stable. We certainly don't need two pharmacies next to each other. What makes it worse, in my opinion, is that Walmart offers substandard produce and meat at high prices. So why bother?
Jay Brentjes
San Ramon
Prop. 30 not right solution for schools
I will oppose Proposition 30. Reason: tt does not provide new funding for education; the money will go into the general fund.
Gov. Brown said if it does not pass, he will cut funding for the schools. What he should say and do is reduce or stop funding for the high speed rail and stop the $1,500 rebates for people who bought plug-in vehicles. More saving can be had by reducing state employee benefits that include 12 paid holidays and up to five weeks paid vacation a year. The added sales tax will affect low-income families the most. Everything they buy except fresh food will have an added cost. That includes a burger at McDonalds, an ice cream cone and don't forget gasoline.
Roger Tuma
Educators are what's wrong, not funding
"Who dares take on religion, free enterprise, patriotism, and motherhood? We do — and we must!" (from "Guidelines for Academic Freedom in the Public Schools," California Teachers' Association).
When I debated CTA's executive director at the Commonwealth Club in 1993, he unguardedly said that reforming California education would take 100 years. The debate was over then, and it should be over now.
Money isn't the problem, and Proposition 30 wouldn't benefit California's students. Instead, it would reward the already overpaid administrators and radical teacher unionists who run the schools.
Unsurprisingly, and as commentator Dan Walters observes, "school officials are sullying" state law "by using official communications to plug passage of Proposition 30 [not to mention local school measures]."
Meanwhile, Jerry Brown claims fiscal responsibility while celebrating the $68 billion bullet-train boondoggle and a pension "fix" that leaves the state with $250 billion or more in unfunded liabilities.
Legislative strangleholds by unions, resultant high taxes and over-regulation — no wonder Chief Executive magazine still rates California's business climate last among the 50 states.
Sensible voters will reject Prop. 30.
Michael Arata
Obama good man who has bad ideas
George Will's recent column imagines what it would be like if the candidates could speak to us as if we were adults. OK, I'll play.
As an adult and conservative Republican, I duly admit that President Obama is not the Manchurian candidate plotting to destroy all we hold dear. I would like my Democratic counterparts to admit that Mitt Romney is not robbing from the poor and giving to the rich and Paul Ryan probably won't push Grandma off the cliff.
It is not from childishness that we observe that Obama's current policy is an amalgamation of indulgences to a confederation of Democratic user groups and crony capitalists. He is simply pumping up his base with the best intentions of using his second term in office to move us in the direction of equality of outcomes for all. President Obama is a good, decent man with bad ideas for America. I hope he starts a new career in January as a retired elder statesman in the tenor of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
David Fore
San Ramon
In what world are they living?
I read in disbelief the headline "Dems: Yes, U.S. is better off" (Sept. 4).
They did not ask me, my friends, family and colleagues. I had to close my practice because clients could no longer pay because of losing jobs. I am still not working. Those closest to me who are still employed have had their salaries frozen, and bonuses and commissions have not been paid for years. Some of our property values in Northern and Southern California have plummeted by 64 percent.
My colleagues who operate and work in service businesses like spas, gyms, salons, training, luxury service, etc. that are the first to be cut from household budgets during bad economic times have been laid off, experienced huge revenue loss or closed. And most of us have had our retirement, in various forms, devastated by the market.
So I gather that the only people Democrat politicians are asking are those employed by the federal government and the private industries that reaped the benefits from the two taxpayer funded stimuli programs.
I wonder how high unemployment, bankruptcies and foreclosures will be in 2016. And how low the market will fall by then? By Dems' standards, America will be "better off' then as well.
Lisa A. Trapani
San Ramon


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Wednesday Mixed Ability Drop-in Class - 6:30 p.m - 1 hr
These friendly mixed ability Sivananda class sequence drop-in sessions are generally taught at an improvers to intermediate level although beginners and more advanced students are all welcome to attend. Beginners will be offered gentle variations and will be encouraged to work at their own pace. More advanced students will be offered advanced asanas and variations according to their ability and experience.


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Worried about HIPAA? Don't Forget GINA
If remember HIPAA regulations wasn't hard enough when it comes to EMR security, a new factor is being brought to the table: GINA. GINA, which stands for Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, primarily aimed at the workplace. The purpose of GINA is to prevent employers from requesting or obtaining any genetic information concerning an employee at any time. This post discusses GINA, and possible issues that may be related to it.
Medicare's New Requirement for Evidence-based Order Sets
This is a guest post by Sean Benson, co-founder of ProVation Medical. He discusses the new changes to Medicare's Conditions of Participation for hospitals that recently went into effect. These changes were small, but significant, and Benson clears up things that might be confusing, and clarifies the new requirements.
5 Mistakes Healthcare Vendors Make in Tracking Customer Satisfaction
The company, KATALUS Advisors, focuses quite a bit on helping healthcare vendors interact with their clients. Chris O'Neal, Managing Partner at KATALUS Advisors, recently created a list of the top 5 mistakes that he sees healthcare vendors make in tracking customer satisfaction. He mentions the importance of customer satisfaction, and how "savvy" vendors are finding ways to avoid this pitfalls.
Runtastic Makes Tracking Exercise Easier and More Fun
As a follow up to a recent post about apps for runners, this post has a review of another great running app, Runtastic. The app has tons of features, including a 3D Google Earth view of completed workouts. The basic app is free to download, however, upgrades and exercise plans are available for a fee.
FDA Approves Voice Guided Epinephrine Injector: Auvi-Q
Many people are plagued with allergies, and at times, have to rely on an epinephrine injector to save their lives. However, when an allergic reaction happens, the victim may not be able to use the injector themselves. As a solution, the FDA has recently approved an epi pen, called the Auvi-Q, which provides step by step audio on how to use the injector and save a life.
GetWellNetwork Unveils the Future of Patient Engagement Video
GetWellNetwork released a video recently which illustrates how innovations in IPC will improve outcomes for patients for hospitals by becoming a part of everyday life. IPC has been implemented in over 20,000 hospital beds across the US and GetWellNetwork has been leading the way for IPC.


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A few weeks ago, reports trickled down from the mount that Acer was prepping a $100 7-inch tablet with specs that were juuuussssssst decent enough to be usable. The Iconia B1-A71 seems to fit the bill. Except, well, for the bill.
The Iconia B1-A71 has a 1.2GHz processor, a 1024x600 display, 8GB of storage, 512MB of RAM, Android Jelly Bean (nice!), and a 0.3MP camera (less nice!). All of which makes its closest comparison the original Kindle Fire, Amazon's price-structure-shattering tablet of last year. So far so good.
But then you remember that Amazon still sells the Kindle Fire for $159, and that it now has 1GB of RAM, and suddenly the case for the $130 Acer becomes slightly less compelling. At the originally rumored $100 this thing would have been a no-brainer; at $130 your brain is probably nudges you gently towards Amazon.
Still, it's nice to see cheap(er) tablets that aren't as feeble as the junk you'll find at Walgreens. And we'll have a much better idea what to expect from budget entry when we go hands on with it this week at CES.


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Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 2 1/2 hr
- Yield
- Makes 6 to 10 servings
- 1 cup Deglet Noor or Medjool dates (6 oz), pitted and each cut into 6 pieces
- 1/2 cup Black Sphinx or Medjool dates (3 oz), pitted and each cut into 6 pieces
- 1 cup dried cherries (preferably tart; 6 oz)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1/4 cup brandy
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/4 teaspoon finely grated fresh orange zest
- 6 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), coarsely chopped
- 3/4 cup pecans (4 1/2 oz), finely chopped
- Garnish: confectioners sugar
- Accompaniment: brandied whipped cream
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Combine dates, cherries, and baking soda in a heatproof bowl, then stir in boiling water and brandy.
- Whisk together flour, cocoa, and salt.
- Beat together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until just combined. Beat in vanilla and zest. Add half of flour mixture and beat at low speed until just combined. Add date mixture with liquid and beat at low speed until just combined. Add remaining flour mixture and beat until just combined. Stir in chocolate and pecans.
- Pour batter into a generously buttered 24-cm (9-inch) springform pan, smoothing top. Bake in middle of oven until center is slightly rounded and top of torte is cracked (edges will be dark brown), about 55 minutes. Let torte stand 5 minutes in pan on a rack. Run a sharp small knife around side of pan to loosen, then remove side. Cool torte on rack.
Cooks' note:
• Torte may be made 2 days ahead and kept in an airtight container at room temperature.
Related Video
Nutritional Info
- Calories710
- Carbohydrates92 g(31%)
- Fat37 g(57%)
- Protein8 g(15%)
- Saturated Fat16 g(82%)
- Sodium330 mg(14%)
- Polyunsaturated Fat5 g
- Fiber7 g(28%)
- Monounsaturated Fat14 g
- Cholesterol92 mg(31%)


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Easyjet has warned customers to be aware of fraudsters trying to con them.
A competition circulating on Facebook claiming to be giving away free tickets is a scam, the airline has said.
Posting on its official Facebook account, a spokesman for the airline said: "We've been made aware of scam competition on Facebook.
"Please ignore this, as it's not official.
"Only follow this account for updates, competitions and offers."
Have you been affected by this scam?
Let us know about your experiences by emailing: email@example.com


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50 Inches of Rain
September 01, 2017
Hurricane Harvey, now downgraded to tropical depression Harvey, dumped 50 inches of rain on parts of the Texas coast this week. This epic storm has wreaked havoc on a large swath of the southwest and left destruction and devastation in its wake. When a large low pressure system moving in from the sea runs smack dab into a high pressure system over the coast, it's a recipe for a natural disaster. Counter-clockwise circulating air vacuums up moisture from the Gulf, and all that warm, moist air rising up must eventually come down. And come down it did. "Harvey came inland about 200 miles south of Houston, and the outer rain bands pushed into Houston on Saturday. . . Houston lies a few dozen feet above sea level, and during normal rainfall residential yards drain into streets, streets drain into bayous, and bayous carry water into Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
But this was not normal rainfall; it was extreme tropical rainfall. Meteorologists measure rainfall rates in inches per hour at a given location. A rainfall rate of 0.5 inches per hour is heavy, while anything above 2.0 inches per hour is intense (you'd probably stop your car on a highway, pull over, and wait out the passing storm). [In the Houston area], from 11pm to 1am that night, 10.6 inches of rain fell, about as much rainfall as New York City gets from October through December. That happened in two hours. Ars Technica
Harvey is estimated to be the biggest flood-producing storm in US History. Ars Technica. Harvey dumped an average of 24 inches of rain over a 20,000 square mile area in a few days, and 50 inches of rain in some areas, including parts of Houston. This unbelievable deluge was made more devastating by the fact that it came down, not in a remote area, but on the fourth largest city in the US. To put "50 inches of rain" in perspective, the average annual rainfall in Seattle is 37.18 inches. 37.18 inches per year. Weather.com
More rain fell on Houston in a few days than falls on Seattle in a year.
In the midst of this unfathomable devastation, however, there have been acts of tremendous courage, generosity, altruism, and, indeed, heroism. Friends, neighbors, first responders, military personnel, and total strangers have come together, provided shelter, and even risked their lives to save those in need.
By CHRIS CIRILLO and DAPHNE RUSTOW. Photo by David J. Phillip/Associated Press
Texans being rescued on airboats. . .
Scott Olson/Getty Images
On CAT construction vehicles ...
Joe Raedle/ Getty Images
On paddle boards . . .
On foot . . .
Even on air mattress . . .
WATCH: Family floating on an air mattress found @CourtneyABC13's rescue boat by the Barker Reservoir #HoustonFlood: https://t.co/IgIDrv7GTe pic.twitter.com/vAXeHeEfHV— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) August 28, 2017
And thousands of flood victims have been rescued by air . . .
#USCG crews continue working to rescue victims of the aftermath of #HurricaneHarvey. #Harvey pic.twitter.com/ywcdLoh7GP— U.S. Coast Guard (@USCG) August 27, 2017
Thanks to the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard!
There are so many more uplifting stories, like these three brothers from San Antonio who wanted to help, so they bought a 5-ton "high water" truck on Craigslist and drove through the flood to help rescue stranded flood victims in Houston. PBS Newshour
And the story about the "Cajun Navy," volunteers from Baton Rouge, LA, who just wanted to help.
Here are some ways that you can help:
Donations to the Red Cross for those affected by Harvey can be made onlineor text HARVEY to 90999.
Donations to the Salvation Army can be made online.
Catholic Charities is accepting donations online or text CCUSADISASTER to 71777 to donate.
If you'd like to help feed people in the region, websites for the Houston Food Bank, the Galveston County Food Bank and the Corpus Christi Food Bank take online donations. Read more.
And don't forget to keep the people of Beaumont, TX, in your thoughts and prayers, as they are without any clean water after this devastating flood. PBS Newshour


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hawe necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 128 diseños de 37 diseñadores freelance.
We need a logo designed for our web application Werkstatt42, which means workshop, home shop, a place where you repair or build something, and it usually looks like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rab36/2183813078/. The product is a web application though.
We need a logo designed for our product Werkstatt42, which meansworkshop, home shop, a place where you repair or build something, andit usually looks like this. The product is a webapplication though.
Our company is bauland42 and it's logowas designed here. Bauland means"building land", which is similar to the Bauhaus. We are not building houses, butsoftware.
The Werkstatt42 is an innovative projectmanagement tool and an intranet. It is easy to use, simplistic, welldesigned and innovative.
We'd like the logo to be "in thetradition" of the Bauhaus, that means simplistic, good design, a verygood-looking font and staid colors. It should be similar to the companylogo, but not too much. We definitely like the 42 to be incorporated asin the company logo.
- A logo which is part of a series. That means make a logowith which we could easily design a similar one if we created anotherproduct. Layered graphics will help us.
- Vector graphic
- Welike the idea of "something round" and "something square-cut" in the companylogo. The square-cut part means "we are building projects here", andthe round part makes it innovative.
- Staid colors, not necessarily the same as the company logo's colors, but well-fitting.
- Innovative looking
- More than just the logotype, but not much more
- no shadows, no 3D effects
- no parts from the Bauhaus logo or other copyrighted logos and fonts
- no Douglas Adams-links
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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PIERRE, S.D., March 9 (UPI) -- South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard has signed a bill authorizing public school districts to allow employees or volunteer guards to carry guns on campus.
Daugaard -- who signed the measure Friday -- predicted not many school districts would take advantage of the authorization and give the green light to pistol-packing teachers or so-called security sentinels from the community, The New York Times reported.
Teachers and volunteers will be required to undergo an intensive training program similar to what police officers receive.
"I think it does provide the same safety precautions that a citizen expects when a law enforcement officer enters a premises," Daugaard told the Times.
The National Rifle Association proposed armed police officers on school campuses nationwide as the best way to prevent a repeat of the Sand Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn., in December.
Critics and advocates of gun control immediately balked at the idea of bringing more loaded guns into schools.
Proponents of the South Dakota bill -- the first of its kind in the United States -- said the idea was not particularly radical in their state where many kids are taught at a young age to hunt and handle guns safely.
The author of the bill, freshman Republican Rep. Scott Craig, said he hoped South Dakota could reassure doubters.
"It is safer than they think, it's proactive and it's preventive," he said.


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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Nine unanswered points during a span of seven minutes helped propel MIT to a 43-36 victory over Mount Holyoke College in a NEWMAC women's basketball game on Saturday afternoon. Freshman Alexxis Isaac (San Antonio, Texas) tallied 10 points, five rebounds, four steals, and two assists as the Engineers improved to 6-3 on the year and 3-1 in conference play. Junior Angelica Pascual (Lawrence, Mass.) led all scorers with 13 points and added four rebounds, four steals, and two assists for the Lyons (1-7, 0-4 NEWMAC).
MIT quickly established a 10-2 lead in the first five minutes, courtesy of six points from sophomore Rachel Hunt (Arlington Heights, Ill.), before going up, 13-4, on a three-pointer from sophomore Tamara Pena (Aliso Viejo, Calif.). Mount Holyoke responded with a 12-2 run to capture its first lead of the day with 7:27 on the clock. Freshman Amber Legare (Chicopee, Mass.) fueled the spurt with six points while Pascual added four of her own. On the Engineers' ensuing possession, Isaac put the Engineers back in front but Legare converted the first of her two free throws to even the score at 17.
A trey by sophomore Sharon Hao (San Jose, Calif.) ended the deadlock as a basket from junior Anna Merrifield (Honolulu, Hawaii) increased MIT's edge to 22-17 with 2:49 to go. Sophomore Annabel Barrett (Williamstown, Mass.) buried a three-pointer on the Lyons' next trip down the court; however, layups from Merrifield and Pascual maintained the two-point margin as the Engineers entered halftime with a 24-22 lead.
A layup from Hunt in the opening moments of the second stanza gave the hosts some breathing room, but a layup and three-pointer from Pascual briefly returned the advantage to Mount Holyoke. Pena followed with a trifecta which put MIT ahead for good as junior Lauren Sascha Burton (Seattle, Wash.) added another basket from behind the arc while an Isaac jumper resulted in a seven-point margin (34-27).
In a span of 11 seconds Angelica Pascual and junior Stephanie Pascual (Lawrence, Mass.) converted layups, trimming Mount Holyoke's deficit to three (34-31) at the 13:58 mark. The Engineers replied with their pivotal nine-point run with freshman Mari Kordell's (Ijamsville, Md.) three-pointer ending four minutes of scoreless play and creating a 43-31 cushion with 6:14 remaining in regulation.
The defensive battle resumed as junior Jasmine Brown (Enfield, Conn.) and freshman Kate Karraker (Morgantown, W. Va.) contributed the final baskets of the game, a layup just inside three minutes and a three-pointer with 28 seconds left, respectively for the Lyons.
Pena totaled 10 points, seven rebounds, a steal, and a block while Hunt posted eight points, six boards, two assists, and a block for MIT. Hao chipped in five rebounds and two assists as Burton grabbed two steals.
Legare notched nine points and five rebounds while Barrett finished with seven points and seven boards. Senior Tricia Chase (Feeding Hills, Mass.) rounded out Mount Holyoke with seven caroms.
Both squads will host non-conference foes in their upcoming games. MIT will return to action on Friday, Dec. 30 against Simmons College while Mount Holyoke will take on Worcester State University on Tuesday, Dec. 13.


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Kenneth MacMillan's production of The Seven Deadly Sins for Granada television was his third treatment of the Brecht/Weill "ballet with songs" and was substantially different from the other two. For this production, MacMillan added a prologue to music from Brecht/Weill's The Threepenny Opera showing Anna arriving at Ellis Island in New York Harbour along with other refugees from Europe. Two, danced by Birgit Keil and Vladimir Klos of Stuttgart Ballet, are denied entry to the New World.
The Dancing Anna was Alessandra Ferri, then a twenty-year old, whose star was then strongly in the ascendant at the Royal Ballet. The more worldly Singing Anna was the Australian soprano, Marie Angel.
For Mary Clarke, writing in The Guardian, MacMillan's staging was assured and definitive. "Cabaret style and sinful dance come easily to him; visually it was stunning". To John Percival of The Times it seemed that MacMillan's choreography had a natural affinity with television with the Ellis Island prologue making it possible for Derek Bailey, who directed, to establish the silent-movie style of the production.
"This permits MacMillan to write in roles for Birgit Keil and Vladimir Klos, two exceptionally photogenic and expressive dancers. After that, the main asset of the show is Alessandra Ferri, her ubiquitous innocently sexy presence ravishingly displayed in a series of exiguous garments by Yolanda Sonnabend, responding to every misadventure with dogged enthusiasm."
First performance: Granada TV, 22 April 1984
Company: The Royal Ballet
Cast: Alessandra Ferri, Marie Angel, Leslie Brown, David Taylor, Birgit Keil, Vladimir Klos, Mary Miller, Stephen Roberts, John Tomlinson, Robert Tear, Robin Leggate, Peter Baldwin, Robert North, Christopher Bruce, April Olrich, Kim Rosato, Wayne Aspinall, Peter Salmon
Music: Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht, Seven Deadly Sins
Director: Derek Bailey
Design: Yolanda Sonnabend
VIdeo: Granada TV, running time 51' 14"


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The number of murders in Chicago is on track to exceed last year's number by at least 16 percent, crime data show.
Some weekends in the City With the Big Shoulders are violent to the extreme, with as many as 10 murders and dozens of shootings.
Chicago is on track to reach 504 murders, or about 42 murders per month if the trend continues through 2012. By June of this year, the New York Times reported last month, the city's number of murders had jumped 39 percent over what they were last year at the same time.
The 2012 Figures
According to RedEyeChicago.com, which tracks the monthly number of murders, 294 persons have been murdered as of July 23. Thus far in July, 37 have been murdered.
Starting with 40 murders in January, the numbers fluctuated but barely dipped below one murder per day, with 28 in February, 50 in March, 41 in April, 51 in May, and 47 in June.
In June, the New York Times reported that Chicago's violence is increasing, and described the first chore of leftist Mayor Rahm Emanuel each morning: "Mayor Rahm Emanuel's first reading material each morning, at 5:30, is not a budget update, a legislative proposal or a packet of headlines."
It is an e-mail from the Chicago Police Department listing the crimes that were committed during the night that just ended. By 7 a.m., he is calling Garry F. McCarthy, the police superintendent. That is unlikely to be their final conversation of the day, or even of the morning.
The Times delivered the grim news in paragraph two: "Homicides are up by 38 percent from a year ago, and shootings have increased as well, even as killings have held steady or dropped in New York, Los Angeles and some other cities. As of June 17, 240 people had been killed here this year, mostly in shootings, 66 more deaths than occurred in the same period in 2011" the newspaper reported.
Despite the numbers, the Times noted, murders have "dropped precipitously in Chicago since the 1990s."
In 1991, Chicago Police data show, 943 persons were murdered, up 1.6 percent from 1990. That's 2.58 murders per day. From there, the city seemed to stanch some of the bloodshed. The number of murders dropped to 855 the next year, but rose again nearly 9 percent to 931 in 1994. The number of murders dropped to a more manageable 633 in 2000 (less than two murders per day), rising to 667 in 2001. By 2007, the number had dropped to 448, rising to 513 in 2008 and landing at 433 in 2011.
Chicago is a dangerous place. At least one person a day is murdered.
Taking note of the drop in murders over the years, the Times detailed trends in other major cities. "Homicides are down so far this year in New York and in Los Angeles, a fact that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's administration in New York has pointed to in defense of that city's controversial stop-and-frisk program," the newspaper reported.
But Chicago is not alone among major cities dealing with more killings. In Philadelphia, for instance, 173 homicides were reported as of June 20, compared with 143 in the same period last year.
Weekends Of Mayhem, Blacks Are Dying
During the past year, murderous violence swept over the city in waves of shocking brutality. On Friday and Saturday, the Chicago Tribune reported, three were killed and 22 shot in gunfire across the city. The article describes a veritable war zone. The newspapers and television stations have become diaries of murder, bloodshed, and violence, most of it gang related.
Before last weekend, the body count was at least 42 dead and 188 wounded just for July 4 and five other weekends of gunfire from February through May.
Aside from turning Chicago into a charnel house, the gunplay also affects one group more than any other: blacks.
According to the Chicago Tribune, "Violent crime has long afflicted minorities in Chicago at a much higher rate than the rest of the population, and the spike in homicides in the first half of this year provides an especially stark measure: 201 of the 259 homicide victims were African-American."
While blacks make up about 33 percent of the city's population, they accounted for nearly 78 percent of the homicide victims through the first six months of 2012.
By comparison, just 11 homicide victims in the first six months of the year were white, and 44 were Hispanic, according to police data.
The newspaper reported that most violent crime occurs in black neighborhoods, and that "a majority of both homicide victims and offenders are young black men with criminal records. With one exception, African-Americans have made up more than 70 percent of homicide victims in Chicago every year for the last two decades."
The newspaper also reported that about 75 percent of the victims were boys or men aged 15 to 35, and that 143 of the victims were gang members or had gang affiliations. And 133 of those had arrest records.
Of the 44 Hispanic victims, 27 were males ages 15 to 35 and had arrest histories, according to the data. Three of the 11 white victims were males in that age range with arrest histories.
Data Nothing New
The data from Chicago reprise what libertarian columnist Walter Williams, who writes frequently about race and crime, disclosed about crime in black communities: blacks suffer the most.
In his column entitled "Should Black People Tolerate This," Williams, a black man, reprised the grim numbers, noting that life in a major American city is more dangerous for a young black man than a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered," he wrote.
Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Using the 94 percent figure means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it's 22 times that of whites. Coupled with being most of the nation's homicide victims, blacks are most of the victims of violent personal crimes, such as assault and robbery.
Williams also denounced the silence of so-called civil rights leaders, who refuse to discuss the problem. He also criticized them for their "silence and concealment about black racist attacks" on whites and Asians, citing the "attacks on two Virginian-Pilot newspaper reporters set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks."
The story wasn't even covered by their own newspaper. In March, a black mob assaulted, knocked unconscious, disrobed and robbed a white tourist in downtown Baltimore. Black mobs have roamed the streets of Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities, making unprovoked attacks on whites and running off with their belongings.
Racist attacks have been against not only whites but also Asians.
Williams hammered black leaders from President Obama on down for "racial demogoguery."
Williams is obviously correct. Blacks are exploited by other blacks and liberal politicians to build political power; blacks are treated as a "victim group" to get them to buy into a political ideology; blacks have been the victims of political policies that demean them and keep them poor; blacks are victims of crime from other blacks because of the societal rot engendered by these liberal policies. And if the same thing happened to any other race, would things be any different? If whites were led to believe they were being held down by another more populous race and laws were put into place, such as welfare laws that pay more to women who have children but no husband, that had the function of destroying two-parent families, morality, and work ethic, wouldn't whites be where blacks are now? The answer is obviously yes.


text: Samuel Delany's revealing autobiographical love story, Bread & Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York, tells the story of a romance that defied social norms and brought two unlikely people together across the boundaries of class, race and convention. Delany was a successful novelist, essayist and professor, when he met Denis, a homeless man selling books on the street in Manhattan. They slowly developed a friendship that grew into a caring relationship—despite the immense differences in their lives. By turns bizarre, humorous and touching, Bread and Wine has garnered praise from the likes of Neil Gaiman, Edmund White and Alan Moore. Delany talks about the story with Mia Wolff, the co-creator of the graphic novel that grew out of it. Out of print for years, Bread and Wine has now been reissued by Fantagraphics Books.


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The two-time cancer survivor is rediscovering the carefree girl she used to be
After successfully battling ovarian cancer for the second time and sharing her journey on PEOPLE.com, Diem Brown is back to blogging. This time around, she will not only share updates on her own life, but also about competing on her new show, MTV's The Challenge: Rivals II.
As we go through different experiences in life we often feel the need to gain and maintain control of our surroundings, hearts and life paths. We all find comfort in things we can control. We yearn for schedules, routines and things that remain constant when the world throws us curveballs.
But when we become ill or encounter various life roadblocks, the urgency and need for that control becomes stronger.
If you would have called me a control freak 10 years ago, I would have thrown my head back and arms in the air laughingly saying, "Ha, heck no. I'm free as a bird! Whatever happens, happens! Just live life, baby!"
However, "living life" has had some setbacks for me. And I started feeling the need to control everything that was controllable … It became my security blanket but it also became a wall that held me back.
PREVIOUS BLOG: My Walls Are Up When It Comes to Romance
Yes, I am on a reality TV show with my ex, an ex who ironically met me back in 2006 when I was in this exact same stage of emotional recovery after cancer. There is comfort there – I'm not sure what that means but when I think of those moments, I just felt comfort and an acceptance of who I was.
PREVIOUS BLOG: Dealing with Mood Swings After Chemo
I was not trying to start the romance back up – I tried to stay far away from all that – but things happened a kiss happened. Emotions are confusing and I was extremely confused by my interactions with my ex. "What am I doing?" "Where is your control, girl?" "Everyone is judging you." "This is wrong." "This can't be right." So many thoughts flooded my head but the familiarity of it all made my control blanket seem so much more comfortable.
Ironically enough I'm a pretty private person when it comes to my romantic life. I had an amazing boyfriend for over four years that the public has probably never seen. I wouldn't put up pictures of us on any social media site, or really talk about him in interviews. He was successful and because I felt I was still struggling with my goals and dreams, I wanted to feel independent from his help.
I am realizing now that the "tough girl" stuff was my way of keeping my control and maintaining my distance to safeguard myself from getting hurt. Sadly not showing him that carefree, screaming from the rooftop "I Love You," couch-jumping love, ended up destroying us.
PREVIOUS BLOG: What Does It Mean to Be Fake?
Looking back now, I would have never wanted to date me. It's a weird thought, but it's true.
I am finally learning to balance my need for complete control. I'm learning you can be your tough independent-girl self and still let in someone that loves you.
I want to meet my former carefree self in the middle and realize that losing control doesn't mean that all things fall apart. If you don't let yourself go a little you aren't letting yourself live, fully.
When I dance I feel free. It may sound cheesy but that's when all my walls and control-freak tendencies fall to the side and I'm back to being my fun, fearless and free self. I don't care if other people are watching or judging. I always dance like no one is around. It has always been one of my greatest releases.
When I am out dancing, my guard's down and my emotions are exposed. At times I have felt so beaten, insecure and vulnerable but when I dance that's all washed away and I can just be me again.
PREVIOUS BLOG: Why I Don't Play It Safe
I am beyond lucky to be here today, I am beyond lucky to be living. I am excited to feel the balance return. Working hard, going for your dreams doesn't have to be a lonely road. I am becoming more and more ready to have a partner in life. A partner who has his own goals and his own dreams yet loves and respects the passion I have for my own.
I think the best relationships are those of two independent individuals who become greater and stronger when they are together. They can admit their shortcomings and together they balance each other out. No one is perfect but like that country song says, "I want a man who stands beside me, not in front of or behind me." What a beautiful thing to aspire to create – a partnership, a teammate in life where you both want the other to reach their dreams and goals.
Life may have thrown you some curveballs that have made you become more guarded, trust me I know that feeling all too well, but becoming that girl you used to be – head thrown back, hands up in the air – is possible.
You just have to come to the realization that love and happiness can't happen if you are too afraid of letting go of some control. You have to able to trust your gut and jump all in. I am ready to become a person I would want to date!
Follow me on Twitter @DiemBrownMTV and on Instagram @DiemBrown.


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Dan Snyder's legal action against Washington City Paper, publisher of "The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," has dominated D.C.-area news this week. Much has been said about Snyder, but Channel 9 sports anchor Brett Haber said it best last night.
Haber breezes through some casual insults in his opening line, calling Snyder "brash," "impatient," and "capricious" in his dealings with the Redskins, and then discards it as "his prerogative" — but the City Paper lawsuit, he explains, is "a classic case of bullying," of someone "stepping on the First Amendment rights of a legitimate news organization because he doesn't like what they say about him." Haber — who works in a news market that traditionally has been friendly to Redskins management — just brings the ether. It's Olbermann without the vainglory.


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McDonald's Removes an Employee Website
McResource Had Come Under Fire by Wage Advocacy Group
McDonald's Corp. has pulled the plug on its "McResource" website, an informational and budget-assistance website for employees that has become a target of derision from a group seeking higher pay for hourly workers.
The group, Low Pay Is Not OK, has criticized the site, claiming that it encouraged employees to do things like break their food into pieces in an effort to stretch their budgets. More recently, the group said the site advised workers to cut down on fast food to stay healthy....


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Barcelona , Spain
See us at the 2017 Mobile World Congress! Flash storage enables exceptional user experience in the latest mobile devices, and provides a reliable foundation for connected applications such as IoT, autonomous driving, and networked surveillance. We'll showcase the latest high-performance, high-capacity flash storage solutions for mobile devices, as well as high-endurance products designed for edge computing.


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The 1st International Meeting on World Heritage of Portuguese Origin will be held in Coimbra, Portugal, from April 27th to 29th, 2006. The meeting is convened by the University of Coimbra, the Portuguese Institute for Architectural Heritage, and the Portuguese Commission for UNESCO, following a proposal made by the Portuguese National Committee for ICOMOS and supported by UNESCO's World Heritage Centre. The main purpose of this Meeting is to pave the way towards the creation of an international cooperation network among experts of every country having heritage of Portuguese origin. Such a network should facilitate the articulation of different management and enhancement policies implemented in classified properties; the in-depth approach of protection and safeguard practices; and likewise the improvement of access by those countries to the World Heritage List, through the elaboration of well sustained Tentative Lists and nominations.
World Heritage of Portuguese Origin
27-29 April 2006
WHPO Coimbra
WHPO Coimbra
World Heritage Portuguese Origin
World Heritage Portuguese Origin
Coimbra, Portugal
Coimbra, Portugal
Thursday, 27 April 2006
Saturday, 29 April 2006
Add to your calendar (ics)
Thursday, 27 April 2006
Saturday, 29 April 2006
Add to your calendar (ics)
States Parties (1)
Partners (1)
News (1)
Events (1)
- 2nd International Meeting "World Heritage of Portuguese Origin" 23-Oct-2010-26-Oct-2010


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SMOKERS are being urged to ensure their cigarettes are put out properly after a blaze wrecked a Sussex home.
Firefighters were called to a terraced house at the Quadrant in Maybridge, Worthing, just after 10pm last night (Tuesday, June 2).
It was after neighbours saw smoke and flames billowing out of a first floor window and raised the alarm.
Two West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service crews from Worthing were both on the scene within seven minutes of the 999 call and on arrival faced a well-developed fire on the first floor of the property.
Additional crews were then requested from Worthing and Lancing.
Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus carried out an immediate search of the house and established that nobody was inside.
Despite difficult conditions, crews managed to bring the blaze under control quickly using hose reels.
Once the fire was extinguished a positive pressure ventilation fan was used to ventilate.
The fire, which has left the house seriously damaged by fire and smoke, is believed to have started by the careless disposal of a cigarette on the bedroom sofa, the fire service said.
Incident commander from Worthing Fire Station, Adam Condell said afterwards: "In this case we believe the occupier had gone out without checking that his cigarette was properly extinguished.
"Fires caused by smoking materials result in more deaths than any other type of fire but they are preventable.
"It's absolutely vital people put their cigarettes out fully when they have finished smoking.
"If they don't, they risk causing a fire that could destroy not just their home, but their life."
West Sussex Fire and Rescue has offered the following simple safety advice to smokers:
Stub out cigarettes properly and dispose of them carefully.
Use a proper ashtray - never a wastepaper basket.
Make sure your ashtray can't tip over and is made of material that won't burn.
Take extra care when you are tired, have been drinking alcohol or taking medication.
Don't smoke in bed.
Keep all matches and lighters well out of the reach of children.
Never leave lit cigarettes, cigars or pipes unattended.


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Relationships are never simple - and these two can prove it. Jamie, an emerging novelist, and Cathy, an aspiring actress, share their perspectives on the highs and lows of their love story. Starting at opposite ends of the relationship, this stirring musical weaves together an intimate look at their time together.
Back to All Events
Earlier Event: January 25Preview of The Last Five Years
Later Event: January 27The Last Five Years


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4BR Editor Iwan Fox talks to Steven Mead about his British Open Criteria Based Adjudication experiment.
Visit 4barsrest.com on Vimeo
Sunday 20 October • . The Hawth,. Hawth Avenue, Crawley. RH10 6YZ RH10 6YZ
Friday 25 October • Regent Hall (The Salvation Army). 275 Oxford Street Opp. RESERVED. London . W1C 2DJ
Saturday 26 October • Thaxted Parish Church,. Thaxted. Dunmow,. CM6 2PL
Sunday 27 October • Victoria Hall, Bagnall Strett, Stoke on Trent, ST1 3AD
Friday 1 November • Charlton House. Charlton Road. London. SE7 8RE SE7 8RE
October 19 • Principle Cornet - We have a new vacancy for this position. We are a 3rd section band, with a full schedule coming up over the rest of the contesting season, into the Christmas period and onward into the New year.
October 19 • As one of our young players is leaving to further his Education in America, we are looking for a Sop player. We also have Vacancies for Principle and assistant Solo Cornet, for B-flat and E-flat Basses and a Tuned Percussionist.
October 18 • Front row cornet player wanted by this forward thinking 130 year old band. We are a friendly group contesting in the 3rd section and much in demand for concerts. Other players welcome.
Conductor, teacher, adjudicator and arranger
© 2019 4barsrest.com Ltd
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text:
Oh, look: the European Science Foundation is sponsoring a contest to reward the best video promoting science.
I haven't watched them all! You'll have to tell me which one is best.
Oh, look: the European Science Foundation is sponsoring a contest to reward the best video promoting science.
I haven't watched them all! You'll have to tell me which one is best.
teejaykay says
Fourteen percent? Damnit! I've had the best of times in my uni with the female profs aside from one Irish male lunatic who is genuinely loved by everyone for getting excited about anything a student loves to talk about. I've noticed that a few of my male profs are taking it for granted that they have their job, and although they're polite, they sometimes seem a little… distant.
(Also, poor rats, and also — thanks to Volvo for safety belts. It's not designed for pregnant women, but it's a patent they gave away for free as I recall!)
teejaykay says
Addendum: Volvo made the three-point safety belt patent free to any manufacturer, but did not in fact invent it. Apologies for the confusion!
Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope says
Nobody mentioned why doing chemistry is not good because your career prospects post-graduation all involve prosaic suicide-inducing analysis positions or retraining as a chemical engineer. That's a bit dishonest. Other than that, they're all good.
I like Safety Bear best, though; it's a sweet idea, and if it ever goes into mass production the inevitable shit-storm that will issue forth from scientifically-illiterate buffoons when they find out how smoke detectors actually work will provide a powerful reminder of just how moronic people can be when they don't understand science.
Abdul Alhazred says
Great video.
That explains why men live so much longer than women. Right?
Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope says
Great video.
That explains why men live so much longer than women. Right?
No; it demonstrates a male bias which results in women being hurt and killed because men didn't see fit to account for them when performing research.
Also, women tend to live longer than men on average. That's all down to biology. Don't worry, though; the phenotypical features granted you by your maimed sex chromosome afford you far greater access to rights and privileges in society, so there's no need to be bitter about having a slightly reduced lifespan on account of being male.
dcg1 says
This site is extremely informative!,.
First I found out that my brain is female and has been damaged by testosterone, now i'm told that my chromosomes are maimed.
Perhaps Professor Fred would care to supply a link to the evidence for these assertions?
Yay science??
Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope says
Not all of your chromosomes. Just the one determining biological sex. XX versus XY; Y is missing a leg. Hence, the Y chromosome is maimed. QED.
The quip isn't scientific. It's designed to urticate the inferiority complexes of neurotic men who are so emotionally FUBAR they perceive a throwaway remark about the Roman alphabet representation of a set of base pairs as a personal slight.
It rarely fails at this level of discourse. Again, QED.
Now go ahead and compound your failure with the obligatory whining about sexism against men, so I can return to being unaware that you exist.
andrewpang says
"Science, it's your thing?" Reminds me of an epic fail of a European science campaign, "Science, it's a girl thing". But the ESF at least wants a good user submission!


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Camping. Skateboarding. Getting your hair done. If you're a looking for a buddy, Darth Vader is the Sith Lord you want.
Vader appears in the Samsung Galaxy spots for Japanese mobile carrier Docomo. Debuting last fall, the commercial is part of the "Walk with You" series of commercials that turns celebrities in personified cell phones and previously featured Kaera Kimura and Ken Watanabe.
Even though Darth Vader is supposed to represent the Samsung Galaxy, don't let that squash your dreams of palling around and playing the guitar with him. Vader loves hanging out. That, and chokeholds.
Darth Vader wants to hang out with your Samsung Galaxy X [Japanator]


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Mark J. Fiandaca and his wife, Alex Fiandaca, love almost everything about their 1843 Greek Revival home in the historic village of East Princeton, including the old rock wall in the front yard next to Route 140.
Yet, as much as they love their home and their rock wall, the Fiandacas do not have a "save our yard" sign displayed in their front yard like several other homes along Route 140 in the historic district.
That is because of what they don't love. They and residents living in the "village" love its charming character, but are disturbed over the thousands of high-speed commuters who travel the dangerously narrow route into Worcester every day, and the lack of sidewalks on the road.
They're also concerned about the dangerous old bridge on the roadway that they say is in desperate need of repairs as well as the poor drainage issues that plague areas along the route.
The couple say they see a project that will improve safety on the road and quality of life for residents in the village as an opportunity, and say those displaying signs are acting out of fear — not going on facts.
"It is fear from lack of information," Mr. Fiandaca said about the signs running along each side of the road. "In the absence of information, people fill in the worst possible scenario."
One of those scenarios that people are concerned about is the possibility of widening Route 140, they said, and losing a portion of what little precious land they have in their front yards.
"We don't want to lose our rock wall, either," Mrs. Fiandaca said. "We're trying to see what we can do within the existing footprint of the road without taking anyone's yard."
Engineers are coming up with ways to improve safety, add sidewalks and calm traffic, she said, but nothing is set in stone, yet, and if the town is successful in receiving state funding, the project would not begin for another five years.
Ms. Fiandaca served on the now-dissolved Route 140 Safety Improvement Task Force chaired by former Princeton Town Administrator Dennis E. Rindone, who relentlessly pursued safety improvements to the road before he died. The task force looked at concerns along Route 140 through Westminster, Princeton and Sterling, and considered possible safety improvements, including widening the road in places, improving lighting, installing traffic controls and improving drainage. As for the latter, culverts beneath the road are reported to be clogged, undersized and in poor condition.
Ms. Fiandaca also serves on the Historic Commission and the Friends of Mechanics Hall that is working to save the 1852 building on Route 140.
"We need to weigh the positive impacts of improving the road versus the space that is lost," she added. "It is a compromise, but if it comes to the point we are losing too much, it won't be worth it."
Judy A. Tyler also serves on the Friends of Mechanics Hall and has lived in an antique, 1860s contemporized barn at Route 140 and Gleason Road for 25 years.
"We do not want it widened and do not want a rotary (at the intersection of Route 31)," she said.
The town, she said, is listening to people who live in the village and working with engineers on their concerns.
"Plans are still in the talking stage," she said.
Brothers Brandon H. Berube, 21, and Robert R. Berube, 23, agree the road is dangerous, but are not sure what should be done. Their father owns two homes on Route . 140 near the Kwik Stop convenience store. Their grandmother lives in one and Robert lives in the other.
Brandon Berube says tractor-trailers make hazardous conditions worse. Truck drivers and commuters use Route 140 as a shortcut in and out of Worcester, he said.
"It saves 10 minutes instead of taking (Interstate) 190 to (Route) 2," he said. "Ten years ago there wasn't that much traffic. We'd ride our bikes in the road all the time and there would never be cars."
His brother said although traffic is fast on the road, he doesn't want to see any changes made to it.
Widening the road would impact his front yard, he said.
"I think 140 is fine," he said. "Police regulate it pretty well."
Inside Kwik Stop, store clerk Melissa J. Braconnier said she thinks widening the road and other improvements would cut down on accidents.
Bicyclists also routinely travel the narrow roadway, she said.
"People don't slow down when they go through the historic district," Ms. Braconnier said.
David Acton, who lives in an 1800s home on the road, said he feels project proponents are considering the rights of the drivers more than the property owners because there are so many of them. And, to those drivers, it is just a highway into Worcester they travel at 50 to 60 miles per hour, though the posted speed limit is 30.
"The police don't stop people during commute time because there is literally thousands of them," he said.