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University of Nebraska Role and Mission Statement
The University of Nebraska is one University comprised of four campuses: the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Teaching, scholarly research and creative activity, and statewide outreach are at the heart of the work and aspirations of the entire University. Each campus has a unique role and mission which should be recognized, enhanced and developed.
Under the State Constitution, the University of Nebraska is governed by a Board of Regents. The President is the chief executive officer of the University and reports directly to the Board. He or she is principally responsible for implementing the Board's policies, and exercises such executive powers as necessary for the proper administration and operation of the University. The President operates primarily through the campus chancellors and the other vice presidents.
The President, assisted by the Central Administration staff, supports and enhances campus strengths to best serve Nebraska's higher education needs. The President and the Central Administration staff provide educational leadership and direction to the University of Nebraska. As chief executive officer of the largest higher education institution in the State, the President also provides educational leadership for the State of Nebraska and the Nation.
A major responsibility of the Central Administration is to develop, monitor and encourage the role and mission of each campus. The President and the Central Administration staff, under the policy directives of the Board of Regents, promote and develop long- and short-term strategic plans, and, where necessary, improve and enhance educational, research, and outreach opportunities through the assignment and reassignment of program responsibilities and resources among the campuses.
The planning process should establish program priorities which provide each campus with diverse academic programs while striving to avoid unnecessary duplication among the campuses. Through the University-wide Graduate College, the Central Administration coordinates the development and administration of graduate programs of the University.
Where appropriate, the resources of the four campuses should be linked in cooperative efforts. Also, the University should encourage and support regional and national programs with other institutions of higher education. Similarly, the University should encourage cooperative and exchange programs between the University and educational institutions abroad.
The President is assisted by the Central Administration staff in such essential areas as academic administration, administrative systems, capital construction and facilities management, finance and auditing, personnel, risk management, legal affairs, and public and legislative affairs. To maximize the benefit of resources available to the institution, the University system should realize economies that may accrue from scale of operations whenever possible. The division of responsibility between the Central Administration and the campuses frees the latter to focus on their role and mission of teaching, research, service, and achieving high quality.
The President and the Central Administration staff provide a single focus and voice for the University as a statewide institution, and they insure its accountability to the public. This requires communication of the State's need to the campuses through the Chancellors, and the communication of campus contributions and potential to the leadership and citizens of the State. The President and the officers of the Central Administration are the principal spokespersons for the University in the Legislature and with other political bodies, and are primarily responsible for interpreting and implementing statutes and regulations, and responding to official requests. As far as possible, Central Administration should seek to shield the campuses from unwanted or inappropriate intervention.
The University's system of governance and coordination of effort should bring the Governor, the Legislature and the citizens of Nebraska a clear presentation of the priorities of the State's needs in education, research and creative activity, and service, and strategies to respond to those needs for the benefit of Nebraskans.
Approved by the Board of Regents 05-10-91
University of Nebraska at Kearney Mission
The University of Nebraska at Kearney, a part of the University of Nebraska, is a comprehensive university located in Central Nebraska and serving students from throughout the state. Through its educational programs, research and creative activities, and public service, the University of Nebraska at Kearney contributes to the social, cultural, and economic development of the state, but particularly Greater Nebraska. The central location of the University of Nebraska at Kearney creates a unique opportunity for the institution to provide access to a broad range of educational and cultural experiences for Greater Nebraska and to assist its people in developing an understanding of the state, the nation, and the world in which they live.
UNK's mission is accomplished through the Colleges of Natural and Social Sciences, Fine Arts and Humanities, Business and Technology, Education, the Expanded Campus Programs, and the University-wide Graduate College.
UNK strives to be an institution of choice, committed to a quality educational experience for each student pursuing an undergraduate education. Central to this goal is an extensive General Studies Program which contributes significantly to strong liberal arts and professional degrees that allow for the interaction of students with outstanding faculty in an environment conducive to interactive learning. UNK is committed to the recruitment of both minority students and culturally and economically disadvantages students who might otherwise be denied educational opportunities.
UNK strives to be at the forefront in the formation and implementation of public education policy. The institutional mission also includes selected graduate programs that complement those especially strong undergraduate programs. Graduate programs in education through the Specialist degree and the MBA degree present continuing educational opportunities to rural Nebraskans and have a significant impact on the region.
Incorporation into the University of Nebraska acknowledges the distinctive research function of UNK, which is intended to support graduate and undergraduate programs, the teaching emphasis, and the faculty's scholarly development.
Public service and programs offered in cooperation with other institutions of higher education also comprise an important aspect of the mission of the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
The University of Nebraska at Kearney offers baccalaureate degrees in the arts and sciences, in business and technology, in nursing, and in education, with a broad range of majors. Masters degree programs in education and business are offered and additional masters degree programs may be offered in the future. In addition, UNK offers the Educational Specialist degree in the areas of Educational Administration, School Counseling, and School Psychology. In the future, the University of Nebraska at Kearney anticipates the opportunity to better serve Greater Nebraska by participating in doctoral degrees administered by other components of the University.
The University of Nebraska at Kearney is committed to research and scholarship designed to enhance its educational program. Recognizing that teaching and scholarship are inseparable, UNK aims to provide an environment which facilitates the recruitment of faculty committed to the advancement, integration, application, and presentation of knowledge.
The University of Nebraska at Kearney has a long tradition of service. This service function will continue to be an integral part of the UNK mission as opportunities are provided to the people of the state and region.
UNK's resources and expertise provide leadership to assist with the solution of social, cultural, educational, and economic problems. Cooperative programs with social services, criminal justice systems, and health agencies, clinics and consultants help to address the community and health needs of Nebraska citizens. Cultural opportunities are offered through programs in science, the humanities, the visual and performing arts, national and international exchange programs, the Museum of Nebraska Art, and other creative activities. The College of Education, through its various outreach programs, serves the needs of educational systems. The Nebraska Business Development Center, operated in cooperation with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, directly assists Nebraska's small business. The Center for Rural Economic Development applies the unique expertise of the faculty and of other agencies and institutions to the economic programs of rural communities.
The entrance of the University of Nebraska at Kearney into the University of Nebraska presents an opportunity for cooperation through which the citizens of the state can be better served.
The University of Nebraska at Kearney enters the University to complement, enhance, and extend quality educational opportunities for citizens of the state and is committed to cooperation with all institutions of higher education to meet this end.
Approved by the Board of Regents 05-10-91
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Mission
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, chartered by the Legislature in 1869, is that part of the University of Nebraska system which serves as both the land-grant and the comprehensive public University for the State of Nebraska. Those responsible for its origins recognized the value of combining the breadth of a comprehensive University with the professional and outreach orientation of the land-grant University, thus establishing a campus which has evolved to become the flagship campus of the University of Nebraska. UNL works cooperatively with the other three campuses and Central Administration to provide for its student body and all Nebraskans the widest array of disciplines, areas of expertise, and specialized facilities of any institution within the state.
Through its three primary missions of teaching, research, and service, UNL is the state's primary intellectual center providing leadership throughout the state through quality education and the generation of new knowledge. UNL's graduates and its faculty and staff are major contributors to the economic and cultural development of the state. UNL attracts a high percentage of the most academically talented Nebraskans and the graduates of the University form a significant portion of the business, cultural, and professional resources of the State. The quality of primary, secondary, and other post-secondary educational programs in the state depends in part on the resources of UNL for curricular development, teacher training, professional advancement, and enrichment activities involving the University's faculty, museums, galleries, libraries, and other facilities. UNL provides for the people of the state unique opportunities to fulfill their highest ambitions and aspirations thereby helping the state retain its most talented youth, attract talented young people from elsewhere, and address the educational needs of the non-traditional learner.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been recognized by the Legislature as the primary research and doctoral degree granting institution in the state for fields outside the health professions. Through its service and outreach efforts, the University extends its educational responsibilities directly to the people of Nebraska on a statewide basis. Many of UNL's teaching, research, and service activities have an international dimension in order to provide its students and the state a significant global perspective.
The role of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the primary intellectual and cultural resource for the State is fulfilled through the three missions of the University: teaching, research, and service. UNL pursues its missions through the Colleges of Architecture, Arts and Sciences, Business Administration, Education and Human Sciences, Engineering, Hixon Lied College of Fine and Peforming Arts, Journalism and Mass Communications, Law, the University-wide Graduate College, and the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources which includes the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, the Agricultural Research Division, the Cooperative Extension Division, and the Conservation and Survey Division. Special units with distinct missions include the University Libraries, Extended Education and Outreach, International Affairs, the Lied Center for Performing Arts, the Bureau of Business Research, Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, the Sheldon Museum of Art and Sculpture Garden, the University of Nebraska State Museum, the University of Nebraska Press, the Water Center, the Nebraska Forest Service, the Nebraska State-wide Arboretum, and Intercollegiate Athletics.
To capitalize on the breadth of programs and the multidisciplinary resources available at UNL, a number of Centers exist to marshal faculty from a variety of disciplines to focus teaching and research on specific societal issues and to provide technical assistance for business and industry in order to enhance their ability to compete in world markets. Additionally, interdisciplinary programs promote integration of new perspectives and insights into the instructional research and service activities.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln promotes respect for and understanding of cultural diversity in all aspects of society. It strives for a culturally diverse student body, faculty, and staff reflecting the multicultural nature of Nebraska and the nation. UNL brings international and multicultural dimensions to its programs through the involvement of its faculty in international activities, a student body that includes students from throughout the world, exchange agreements with other universities abroad involving both students and faculty, and the incorporation of international components in a variety of courses and curricula.
Teaching, research, and service take on a distinctive character at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln because of its status as a comprehensive land-grant university. These traits permit opportunities for the integration of multiple disciplines providing students more complete and sophisticated programs of study. Its land-grant tradition ensures a commitment to the special character of the State and its people.
The faculty is responsible for the curricular content of the various programs and pursues new knowledge and truths within a structure that assures academic freedom in its intellectual endeavors. The curricula are designed to foster critical thinking, the re-examination of accepted truths, a respect for different perspectives including an appreciation of the multiethnic character of the nation, and a curiosity that leads to life-long learning. Additionally, an environment exists whereby students can develop aesthetic values and human relationships including tolerance for differing viewpoints.
The people of Nebraska created UNL to provide its citizens with the highest quality of post-secondary education. Therefore, a fundamental mission of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is teaching. The distinctiveness of the teaching mission at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln lies in its range of undergraduate majors, the character and quality of the faculty, and the extracurricular environment. The University provides students with a wide choice of courses and career options which often expands the scope of their dreams and ambitions. The size and diversity of the University permits students to mature and to develop their own sense of self-confidence and individual responsibility. The course work is enriched by a faculty that is engaged in active research and creative activity and whose frame of reference is the national and international community of scholars.
Having created the first graduate college west of the Mississippi River, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has historically recognized graduate education to be a central and unique component of its mission. Thus, UNL has primary responsibility in the State for graduate education, especially at the doctoral and professional levels. UNL is unique in possessing the scope of programs necessary for multidisciplinary instruction at the graduate level, a faculty involved in research necessary to support graduate education, and the libraries, laboratories, computer facilities, museums, galleries, and other ancillary resources required for graduate instruction.
Basic and applied research and creative activity represent a major component of UNL's mission, a component that is recognized in Nebraska legislative statutes, and in its status as a land-grant university. The quest for new knowledge is an essential part of a research university; it helps define and attract the type of faculty necessary to provide a university education; it distinguishes the quality of the undergraduate students' classroom experience; and it is the necessary component of graduate instruction.
As part of its research mission, UNL is dedicated to the pursuit of an active research agenda producing both direct and indirect benefits to the State. The special importance of agriculture, environment, and natural resources is addressed in its research priorities. In addition, UNL conducts a high level of research and creative activities that address in specific ways the issues and problems that confront Nebraska. Through their research and creative activities, faculty at UNL interact with colleagues around the world and are part of the network of knowledge and information that so influences our society. As a consequence, the University serves as the gateway through which Nebraska participates in and shares the gains from technological and cultural developments.
The land-grant tradition creates for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln a special state-wide responsibility to serve the needs of Nebraska and its citizens. In addition, many of its service aspects extend to regional, national, and international clientele. Special units such as Extended Education and Outreach and the Cooperative Extension Division have specific responsibilities to bring the teaching and research resources of the University to a wider clientele. Through Cooperative Extension's partnership with federal, state, and county agencies, UNL has an outreach program in each county in the state. Moreover, all units of the University have a service and outreach mission.
To help accomplish this mission, UNL delivers educational services through diverse ways including telecommunications methods and as a participant in the development of regional educational centers especially in those areas where it has state-wide responsibilities. The University recognizes its obligation to extend the resources of the University beyond the campus and throughout the State. Serving the needs of Nebraska requires more than responding to the felt needs of the time. UNL must be visionary in its planning and must help the citizens of the state prepare for the future as well as deal with the present.
Approved by the Board of Regents 05-10-91, edited January, 2012.
University of Nebraska at Omaha Mission
The University of Nebraska at Omaha, as part of the University of Nebraska, is a comprehensive university sited in Nebraska's largest metropolitan area. Its distinguished faculty is drawn from the nation's leading graduate institutions. UNO exists for the purpose of providing appropriate educational opportunities, discovering and disseminating knowledge through research and teaching, and offering public service to the citizens of the State, particularly the residents of the Omaha metropolitan area. Through these traditional, interdependent, and mutually-reinforcing functions, the faculty of the University of Nebraska at Omaha enrich the lives of students; advance the frontiers of knowledge; and contribute to the social, cultural, international and economic development of the community, State, and region.
UNO's mission is accomplished through the faculties of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business Administration; Communication, Fine Arts and Media; Education, Information Science and Technology; Public Affairs and Community Service; and the University-wide Graduate College.
The University of Nebraska at Omaha is committed to the following broad priorities in fulfilling its mission:
- Undergraduate instructional programs based on a strong liberal arts foundation;
- Graduate programs, research, and creative activity;
- Public service.
UNO offers a broad range of bachelor's programs, a diverse array of master's degree programs, one specialist's program, and doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice; educational administration; exercise science; information technology; psychology; and public administration. UNO exercises a statewide responsibility in the areas of criminal justice, social work, public administration, and gerontology. The campus also plays a key role in public affairs research and small business development in Nebraska. In expanding doctoral study, UNO emphasizes areas in which the campus has a statewide responsibility, as well as cooperative programs with UNL and/or UNMC in additional academic areas to address otherwise unmet needs in the Omaha metropolitan area. UNO is committed to broadening educational participation for those under-represented groups who do not yet fully enjoy the promise of higher education and the wellsprings of opportunity that it brings.
The faculty of the University of Nebraska at Omaha share the obligation of all university faculties to participate in the creation, reorganization, and application of knowledge. Indeed, scholarly research is a sine qua non of graduate-level programs. Research and creative activity have been accorded a greater priority at UNO in recent years, and this emphasis will increase as UNO develops further doctoral programs.
As the only comprehensive public university located in the State's largest metropolitan area, UNO has a special responsibility to use its resources and expertise to provide leadership in solving problems of the community and supporting its social, cultural, and economic advancement. UNO's capacity to engage in public service derives from its instructional and research programs and resources; these, in turn, are enhanced by involvement with the community on issues of mutual concern including, where appropriate, the delivery of its programs through Learning Centers.
Since its inception in 1908, the University of Nebraska at Omaha has forged a continuing partnership with the community. That partnership has focused on providing affordable, accessible instructional programs of high quality that are designed to meet the diverse needs of both traditional and nontraditional students. Through that partnership, UNO has enhanced the social and cultural life of the metropolitan area and State, and it has partnered worked with various organizations and individuals to address community problems and stimulate economic development. Throughout its history, UNO has been firmly anchored to its community, building strong ties with business, education, government, arts, and civic organizations. Those linkages will continue to grow and new ones will be formed as the campus anticipates and energetically addresses the changing needs of the metropolitan area, State, and region and its growing global participations.
The University of Nebraska at Omaha continues to develop as a pacesetting comprehensive metropolitan university, committed to a standard of excellence in its teaching, research, public service activities. Working cooperatively with other campuses of the University of Nebraska, UNO strives to anticipate and respond creatively to the emerging needs of the 21st century and beyond. It works to promote the economic vitality of the community and the State; it enhances its international programs and presence; and it continues to instill in its students a lifelong commitment to learning while preparing them for leadership roles in a constantly changing society.
Approved by the Board of Regents 05-10-91, edited January, 2012.
University of Nebraska Medical Center Mission
The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), a major unit of the University of Nebraska, serves the State through its programs in health professions education, research, patient care and community service.
This mission is accomplished through the eight major units: the College of Dentistry; the College of Medicine; the College of Nursing; the College of Pharmacy; the College of Public Health; the School of Allied Health Professions; the Munroe-Meyer Rehabilitation Institute; and the Eugene C. Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases. Additionally, the Office of Graduate Studies oversees a variety of Masters and Ph.D. programs under the auspices of the University-wide Graduate College.
The health professions programs of the University of Nebraska Medical Center have a major responsibility for educating dentists, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, public health professionals and allied health professionals in Nebraska. Its programs encompass both the basic and clinical sciences and are designed to provide to students, fellows, residents and practitioners, the knowledge, skills and attitudes essential to practice in their chosen fields. Successful completion of a course of instruction leads to the award of a certificate, degree, or qualification for licensure or certification by an external accreditation body or may prepare students to progress to a higher level of education in a pertinent discipline. Special emphasis is placed on education and training of physicians in primary care, and to programs that benefit health care delivery in rural areas, and minority groups throughout the state.
In addition, research-oriented educational activities leading to the M.S. or Ph.D. degree are conducted through departmental, interdepartmental and college programs. Students who complete these advanced studies will be prepared to pursue careers in research and teaching.
In order to assess the need for programmatic adjustments and to address health manpower needs throughout Nebraska, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, in cooperation with the state health planning agencies, closely monitors the demand for practicing health professionals in the state and changes in the number of individuals seeking admissions to health professions training programs.
UNMC provides leadership for other campuses of the University and other post-secondary institutions in Nebraska on matters related to the education of health care personnel and health education for the public.
Research is an essential component of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and adds to the quality of both the educational and the patient care programs. Participation in biomedical and other health-related research provides the foundation for the graduate degree and post-doctoral programs. Research contributes to the health of all mankind, provides an opportunity for the development of solutions to health problems and creates new products and jobs to support the economy of Nebraska.
The University of Nebraska Medical Center is the only public facility in Nebraska which possesses the faculty expertise, library, laboratory, computer facilities and diverse patient population essential for a broad-based program in health related research.
The University of Nebraska Medical Center, in response to the health care needs of the state, is committed to: (1) direct patient care; (2) public health education; and (3) other forms of technical and consultation services to the professions, the public, industry and to governmental and other agencies at local, regional, national and international levels.
In partnership with the Nebraska Medical Center and the UNMC-Physicians Clinics, UNMC provides direct care to patients including a broad range of preventive, diagnostic, therapeutic, and rehabilitative services to residents from every part of Nebraska and surrounding areas. As an academic health science center, the Medical Center serves as a referral center for the state and in some highly specialized areas for the nation and provides high quality patient care in an environment conducive to clinical instruction and research. A sufficient patient base must be sustained to afford the appropriate level of supervised clinical instruction.
The UNMC has a leading role in continuing education and should expand these efforts by developing innovative techniques and using the public media for providing educational programs to health professionals and to the general public. It places special emphasis on public service programs designed to address health problems of particular importance to the State of Nebraska.
UNMC, as a unique resource to the people of the State of Nebraska, provides exemplary programs of education, patient care, research and public service.
Approved by the Board of Regents 05-10-91, edited January, 2012.


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In an effort to bounce back from recent earnings disappointments, McDonalds's has vowed to improve their customer service practices.
The Wall Street Journal reports the fast food giant is pushing to repair their "broken" service amid numerous complaints about rude employees.
In a webcast with franchise owners last month the vice president of business research for McDonald's USA, Steve Levigne, stated that "service is broken" and that one in five customer complaints were congeniality-related.
The restaurant chain's most-often received customer complaint is "rude or unprofessional employees," so it was only natural for franchise owners to step up and change things.
According to one franchise owner, the new leadership at McDonald's "has decided to focus on customer satisfaction as a real driver for us to build the brand and build sales."
"For us to maximize the potential that's out there, we've got to be the leader in guest satisfaction," the franchisee said.
Other complaints about the restaurant include the speed of the service, with many restaurant patrons calling the overall service "chaotic."
According to Levigne complaints about speed "have increased significantly over the past six months."
This has not been a good week for the world's largest chain restaurant. The news of McDonald's dealings with customer service coame a few days before the company came under fire for featuring an ad comparing Big Mac cravings with mental illness.

subset: commoncrawl


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Slow Food September Membership Drive- LAST DAY!
Slow Food Seattle is part of a growing movement that needs you. On Labor Day, more than 20,000 people came together across the country to show their support for getting real food in school. You are helping us send a powerful message to decision makers that this is a movement of people who think it's time to change what kids eat at the lunch table. Thank you to so many of you who already support us through your participation and membership.
To keep building momentum and change our food system, we are counting on you to be part of our local chapter. If you're not yet a member, you can join the organization with a donation of any amount now through the end TODAY. Give more if you can and less if you can't. The point is – we want you with us. Membership normally starts at $60, so please visit www.slowfoodusa.org/growthemovement so you can take advantage of this offer and join today.
Your support will help legislators take notice of our cause, and your involvement in our chapter will make a difference. Please join us.


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Late at night, when there's nowhere left to go, we go to Alice's house. Scotty drives his pickup, two of us squeezed in the front with him, blasting bootleg tapes of the Stranglers, the Mutants, Negative Trend, the other two stuck in the back, where you freeze all year long, getting tossed in the actual air when Scotty crests the hills. Still, if it's Bennie and me I hope for the back, so that I can push against his shoulder in the cold, and hold him for a second when we hit a bump.
The first time we go to Sea Cliff, where Alice lives, she points up a hill at fog sneaking through the eucalyptus trees and says that her old school is up there: an all-girls school that her little sisters go to now. K through six, you wear a green plaid jumper and brown shoes, after that a blue skirt and white sailor top, and you can pick your own shoes. Scotty goes, "Can we see them?" and Alice goes, "My uniforms?" but Scotty says, "Your alleged sisters."
Alice leads the way upstairs, Scotty and Bennie right behind her. They're both fascinated by Alice, but it's Bennie who entirely loves her. And Alice loves Scotty, of course.
Bennie's shoes are off, and I watch his brown heels sink into the white cotton-candy carpet, so thick that it muffles every trace of us. Jocelyn and I come last. She leans close to me, and inside her whisper I smell cherry gum covering up the five hundred cigarettes she's smoked. I can't smell the gin we drank at the beginning of the night, taking it from my dad's hidden supply and pouring it into Coke cans so that we could drink it on the street.
Jocelyn goes, "Watch, Rhea. They'll be blond like her, the sisters."
I go, "According to?"
"Rich children are always blond," Jocelyn says. "It has to do with vitamins."
Believe me, I don't mistake this for information. I know everyone that Jocelyn knows.
The room is dark except for a pink night-light. I stop in the doorway and Bennie hangs back, too, but the other three go crowding into the space between the beds. Alice's little sisters are sleeping on their sides, the covers tucked around their shoulders. One looks like Alice, with pale wavy hair; the other is dark, like Jocelyn. I'm afraid that they'll wake up and be scared of us, in our dog collars and safety pins and shredded T-shirts. I think, We shouldn't be here. Scotty shouldn't have asked to come in. Alice shouldn't have said yes, but she says yes to everything that Scotty asks. I think, I want to lie down in one of those beds and go to sleep.
"Ahem," I whisper to Jocelyn as we're leaving the room. "Dark hair."
She whispers back, "Black sheep."
1980 is almost here, thank God. The hippies are getting old. They blew their brains on acid, and now they're begging on street corners all over San Francisco. Their hair is tangled and their bare feet are as thick and gray as shoes. We're sick of them.
At school, we spend every free minute in the Pit. It's not a pit, in the strictly speaking sense; it's a strip of pavement above the playing fields. We inherited it from last year's Pitters, who graduated, but still we get nervous walking in if other Pitters are already there: Tatum, who wears a different color Danskin every day, or Wayne, who grows sinsemilla in his actual closet, or Boomer, who's always hugging everyone since his family did est. I'm nervous walking in unless Jocelyn is already there, or (for her) I am. We stand in for each other.
On warm days, Scotty plays his guitar. Not the electric he uses for Flaming Dildos gigs but a lap steel guitar that you hold a different way. Scotty actually built this instrument—bent the wood, glued it, painted on the shellac. Everyone gathers around; there's no way not to when Scotty plays. One time the entire J.V. soccer team climbed up to listen, all of them looking around in their jerseys and long red socks like they didn't know how they'd got there. Scotty is magnetic. And I say this as someone who does not love him.
The Flaming Dildos have had a lot of names: the Crabs, the Croks, the Crimps, the Crunch, the Scrunch, the Gawks, the Gobs, the Flaming Spiders, the Black Widows. Every time Scotty and Bennie change the name, Scotty sprays black paint over his guitar case and Bennie's bass case, and then he makes a stencil of the new name and sprays it on. We don't know how Bennie and Scotty decide if they're going to keep a name, because they don't actually talk. But they agree on everything, maybe through E.S.P. Jocelyn and I write all the lyrics and work out the tunes with Bennie and Scotty. We sing with them in rehearsal, but we don't like being onstage. Alice doesn't, either—the only thing we have in common with her.
Bennie transferred here last year from a high school in Daly City. We don't know where he lives, but some days we visit him after school at Green Apple Records, on Clement, where he works. If Alice comes with us, Bennie will take his break and share a pork bun in the Chinese bakery next door, while the fog gallops past the windows. Bennie has light-brown skin and excellent eyes, and he irons his hair into a Mohawk as shiny black as a virgin LP. He's usually looking at Alice, so I can watch him as much as I want.
Down the path from the Pit is where the Cholos hang out, with their black leather coats and clicky shoes and dark hair in almost invisible nets. Sometimes they talk to Bennie in Spanish, and he smiles at them but never answers. "Why do they keep speaking Spanish to him?" I go to Jocelyn, and she looks at me and goes, "Rhea, Bennie's a Cholo. Isn't that obvious?"
"That's factually crazy," I go, and my face gets hot. "He has a Mohawk. And he's not even friends with them."
Jocelyn goes, "Not all Cholos are friends." Then she says, "The good part is: rich girls won't go with Cholos. So he'll never get Alice, period-the-end."
Jocelyn knows that I'm waiting for Bennie. But Bennie is waiting for Alice, who's waiting for Scotty, who's waiting for Jocelyn, who's known Scotty the longest and makes him feel safe, I think, because even though Scotty is magnetic, with bleached hair and a studly chest that he likes to uncover when it's sunny out, his mother killed herself three years ago with sleeping pills. Scotty's been quieter since then, and in cold weather he shivers like someone is shaking him.
Jocelyn loves Scotty back, but she isn't in love with him. Jocelyn is waiting for Lou, an adult man who picked her up hitchhiking. Lou lives in L.A., but he said he would call her the next time he comes to San Francisco. That was weeks ago.
No one is waiting for me. Usually the girl in a story that no one is waiting for is fat, but my problem is more rare: I have freckles. I look like someone threw handfuls of mud at my face. When I was little, my mom told me that my freckles were special. Thank God I'll be able to remove them, when I'm old enough and can pay for it myself. Until that time I have my dog collar and my green rinse, because how can anyone call me "the girl with freckles" when my hair is green?
Jocelyn has chopped black hair that looks permanently wet, and twelve ear piercings that I gave her with a needle, not using ice. She has a beautiful half-Chinese face. It makes a difference.
Jocelyn and I have done everything together since fourth grade: hopscotch, jump rope, charm bracelets, buried treasure, Harriet the Spying, blood sisters, crank calls, pot, coke, quaaludes. She's seen my dad puking into the hedge outside our building, and I was with her on Polk Street the night she recognized one of the leather boys hugging outside the White Swallow—it was her dad, who was on a "business trip," back before he moved away. So I still can't believe that I missed the day she met Lou. She was hitchhiking home from downtown and he pulled up in a red Mercedes and drove her to an apartment that he uses on his trips to San Francisco. He unscrewed the bottom of a can of Right Guard, and a baggie of cocaine dropped out. Lou did some lines off Jocelyn's bare butt and they went all the way twice, not including when she went down on him. I made Jocelyn repeat every detail of this story until I knew everything she knew, so that we could be equal again.
Lou is a music producer who knows Bill Graham personally. There were gold and silver record albums on his walls and a thousand electric guitars.
The Flaming Dildos rehearsal is on Saturday, in Scotty's garage. When Jocelyn and I get there, Alice is setting up the new tape recorder that her stepfather bought her, with a real microphone. She's one of those girls who like machines—another reason for Bennie to love her. Joel, the Dildos' steady drummer, arrives next, driven by his dad, who waits outside in his station wagon through the whole practice, reading books about the Second World War. Joel is A.P. everything, and he's applied to Harvard, so I guess his dad isn't taking any chances.
Where we live, in the Sunset, the ocean is always just over your shoulder and the houses have Easter-egg colors. But the second Scotty lets the garage door slam down we're suddenly enraged, all of us. Pretty soon we're screaming out the songs, which have titles like "Pet Rock" and "Do the Math" and "Pass Me the Kool-Aid," but when we holler them in Scotty's garage the lyrics might as well be fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Every once in a while a kid from band or orchestra pounds on the garage door to try out with us (invited by Bennie). Today we audition a sax, a tuba, and a banjo, but sax and banjo keep hogging the stage and tuba covers her ears as soon as we start to play. Practice is almost over when there's another bang on the garage door and Scotty ropes it up. An enormous pimpled kid in an AC/DC T-shirt is standing there, holding a violin case. He goes, "I'm looking for Bennie Salazar?"
Jocelyn and Alice and I stare at one another in shock, and it feels for a second like we're all three friends, like Alice is part of "us."
"Hey, Marty," Bennie says. "Perfect timing. Everybody, this is Marty."
Marty plugs in his violin and we launch into our best song, "What the Fuck?":
You said you were a fairy princess
You said you were a shooting star
You said we'd go to Bora-Bora
Now look at where the fuck we are.
Bora-Bora was Alice's idea—we'd never heard of it. While everyone roars the chorus ("What the fuck? / What the fuck? / What the fuck?"), I watch Bennie listen, his eyes closed, his Mohawk like a million antennas pricking up from his head. When the song ends, he opens his eyes and grins. "I hope you got that, Al," he goes, and Alice rewinds the tape to make sure.
Alice takes all our tapes and turns them into one top tape, and Bennie and Scotty drive from club to club, trying to get people to book the Flaming Dildos for a gig. Our big hope is the Mab, of course: the Mabuhay Gardens, on Broadway, where all the punk bands play. We go there every Saturday night, after practice. We've heard the Dead Kennedys there, and Eye Protection, the Germs, and a trillion other bands. The bar is expensive, so we drink from my dad's supply ahead of time. Jocelyn needs to drink more than me to get buzzed, and when she feels the booze hit she takes a long breath, like she's finally herself again.
In the Mab's graffiti-splattered bathroom we eavesdrop and find out how Ricky Sleeper fell off the stage at a gig, how Joe Rees, of Target Video, is making an entire movie of punk rock, how two sisters we always see at the club have started turning tricks to pay for heroin. Knowing all this takes us one step closer to being real, but not completely. When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know if it's happened?
During the shows we slam-dance in front of the stage. We tussle and push and get knocked down and pulled back up until our sweat is mixed up with real punks' sweat and our skin has touched their skin. Bennie does less of this than the rest of us. I think he actually listens to the music.
One thing I've noticed: there are no real punk rockers with freckles. They don't exist.
One night, Jocelyn answers her phone and it's Lou, going, "Hello, Beautiful." He says he's been calling for days and days, but the phone just rings. "Why not try calling at night?" I ask, when Jocelyn repeats this.
That Saturday, after rehearsal, she goes out with Lou. The rest of us go to the Mab, then back to Alice's house. By now we treat the place like we own it: we eat the yogurt her mom makes in glass cups on a warming machine, we lie on the living-room couch with our sock feet on the armrests. One night, her mom made us hot chocolate and brought it into the living room on a gold tray. She had big tired eyes and tendons moving in her neck. Jocelyn whispered in my ear, "Rich people like to hostess, so they can show off their nice stuff."
Tonight, maybe because Jocelyn isn't here, I ask Alice if she still has those school uniforms she mentioned the first time we came over. She looks surprised. "Yeah," she goes. "I do."
I follow her up the fluffy stairs to her actual room, which I've never seen. It's smaller than her sisters' room, with blue shag carpeting and crisscross wallpaper in blue and white. Her bed is under a mountain of stuffed animals, which all turn out to be frogs: bright green, light green, Day-Glo green, some with stuffed flies attached to their tongues. Her bedside lamp is shaped like a frog, plus her pillow.
I go, "I didn't know you were so into frogs," and Alice goes, "How would you?"
I haven't really been alone with Alice before. She seems not as nice as she is when Jocelyn is around.
She opens her closet, stands on a chair, and pulls down a box with some uniforms inside: one of the green plaid one-pieces she wore when she was little, a sailor-suit two-piece from later on. I go, "Which did you like better?"
"Neither," she says. "Who wants to wear a uniform?"
I go, "I would."
"Is that a joke?"
"What kind of joke would it be?"
"The kind where you and Jocelyn laugh about how you made a joke and I didn't get it."
My throat turns very dry. I go, "I won't. Laugh with Jocelyn."
Alice shrugs. "Ask me if I care," she says.
We sit on her rug, the uniforms across our knees. Alice wears ripped jeans and drippy black eye makeup, but her hair is long and gold. She isn't a real punk, either.
After a while I go, "Why do your parents let us come here?"
"They're not my parents. They're my mother and stepfather."
"They want to keep an eye on you, I guess."
The foghorns are extra loud in Sea Cliff, like we're alone on a ship sailing through the thickest fog. I hug my knees, wishing so much that Jocelyn was with us.
"Are they right now?" I ask, softly. "Keeping an eye?"
Alice takes a huge breath and lets it back out. "No," she goes. "They're asleep."
Marty the violinist isn't even in high school—he's a sophomore at S.F. State, where Jocelyn and I and Scotty (if he passes Algebra II) are headed next year. Jocelyn tells Bennie, "The shit will hit the fan if you put that dork onstage."
"We'll find out," Bennie says, and he looks at his watch like he's thinking. "In two weeks and four days and six hours and I'm not sure how many minutes."
We stare at him, not comprehending. Then he tells us: Dirk Dirksen, from the Mab, gave him a call. Jocelyn and I shriek and hug onto Bennie, which for me is like touching something electric, his actual body in my arms. I can remember every hug I've given him. I learn something each time: how warm his skin is, how he has muscles like Scotty even though he never takes his shirt off. This time I feel his heartbeat on my palm when I hold his back. Jocelyn goes, "Who else knows?"
Scotty, of course. Alice, too, but it's only later that this bothers us.
I have cousins in Los Angeles, so Jocelyn calls Lou from our apartment, where the charge won't stand out on the phone bill. I'm two inches away from her on my parents' flowered bedspread as she dials the phone with a long black fingernail. I hear a man's voice answer and it shocks me that he's real, that Jocelyn didn't make him up, even though I never supposed that she had. He doesn't say, "Hey, Beautiful," though. He says, "I told you to let me call you."
Jocelyn goes, "Sorry," in an empty little voice. I grab the phone and go, "What kind of hello is that?" Lou goes, "Who the Christ am I talking to?" and I tell him, "Rhea." Then he goes, in a calmer voice, "Nice to meet you, Rhea. Now, would you hand the phone back to Jocelyn?"
This time she pulls the cord away. Lou seems to be doing most of the talking. After a minute or two, Jocelyn hisses at me, "You have to leave. Go!"
I walk out of my parents' bedroom into our kitchen. There's a fern hanging from the ceiling by a chain, dropping little brown leaves in the sink. The curtains have a pineapple pattern. My two brothers are on the balcony, grafting bean plants for a science project. After a while, Jocelyn comes out. Happiness is floating up from her hair and skin. Ask me if I care, I think.
Later she tells me that Lou said yes: he'll come to the Dildos gig at the Mab, and maybe he'll give us a record contract. "It's not a promise," he warned her. "But we'll have a good time anyway, right, Beautiful? Don't we always?"
The night of the concert, I go with Jocelyn to meet Lou for dinner at Vanessi's, a restaurant just down Broadway from the Mab, where tourists and rich people sit outside drinking Irish coffees and gawking at us when we walk by. We could have invited Alice, but Jocelyn goes, "Her parents probably take her to Vanessi's all the time." I go, "You mean her mother and stepfather."
A man is sitting in a round corner booth, smiling teeth at us, and that man is Lou. He looks as old as my dad, meaning forty-three. He has shaggy blond hair and he's handsome, I guess, the way dads can sometimes be.
Lou actually does say, "C'mere, Beautiful," and he lifts an arm to Jocelyn. He's wearing a light-blue denim shirt and some kind of copper bracelet. She slides around the table and fits right under his arm. "Rhea," Lou goes, and lifts up his other arm for me, so instead of sliding in next to Jocelyn, like I was just about to do, I end up on Lou's other side. His arm comes down around my shoulder. And, like that, we're Lou's girls.
A week ago, I looked at the menu outside Vanessi's and saw linguine with clams. All week long I've been planning to order that dish. Jocelyn picks the same, and, after we order, Lou hands her something under the table. We both slide out of the booth and go to the ladies' room. It's a tiny brown bottle full of cocaine. There's a miniature spoon attached to a chain, and Jocelyn heaps up the spoon two times for each nostril. She sniffs and makes a little sound and closes her eyes. Then she fills the spoon again and holds it for me. By the time I walk back to the table I've got eyes blinking all over my head, seeing everything in the restaurant at once. Maybe the coke we've done before this wasn't really coke. We sit down and tell Lou about a new band we've heard of called Flipper, and Lou tells us about being on a train in Africa that didn't completely stop at the stations—it just slowed down so that people could jump off or on. I go, "I want to see Africa!" and Lou goes, "Maybe we'll go together, the three of us," and it seems like this really might happen. He tells us, "The soil in the hills is so fertile it's red," and I go, "My brothers are grafting bean plants, but the soil is just regular brown soil," and Jocelyn goes, "What about the mosquitoes?" and Lou goes, "I've never seen a blacker sky or a brighter moon," and I realize that I'm beginning my adult life right now, on this night.
When the waiter brings my linguine I can't take one bite. Only Lou eats: an almost raw steak, a Caesar salad, red wine. He's one of those people who never stop moving. Three times people come to our table to say hello to him, but he doesn't introduce us.
Back on Broadway he keeps an arm around each of us. We pass the usual things: the scuzzy guy in a fez trying to lure people into the Casbah, the strippers lounging in the doorways of the Condor and Big Al's. Traffic pushes along Broadway, people honking and waving from their cars like we're all at one gigantic party. With my thousand eyes it looks different, like I'm a different person seeing it. I think, After my freckles are gone, my whole life will be like this.
The door guy at the Mab recognizes Lou and whisks us past the snaking line of people waiting for the Cramps and the Nuns, who are playing later on. Inside, Bennie and Scotty and Joel are onstage, setting up with Alice. Jocelyn and I put on our dog collars and safety pins in the bathroom. When we come back out, Lou's already introducing himself to the band. Bennie shakes Lou's hand and goes, "It's an honor, sir."
The Flaming Dildos open with "Snake in the Grass." No one is dancing or even really listening; people are still coming into the club or killing time until the bands they're here for start playing. Normally Jocelyn and I would be directly in front of the stage, but tonight we stand back, leaning against a wall with Lou. He's bought us both gin-and-tonics. I can't tell if the Dildos sound good or not. I can barely hear them, my heart is beating too hard and my thousand eyes are peering all over the room. According to the muscles on the side of Lou's face, he's grinding his teeth.
Marty comes on for the next number, but he spazzes out and drops his violin. The barely interested crowd gets just interested enough to yell some insults when he crouches to replug it, with his plumber's crack showing. I can't even look at Bennie, it matters so much.
When they start playing "Do the Math," Lou yells in my ear, "Whose idea was the violin?"
I go, "Bennie's."
"Kid on bass?"
I nod, and Lou watches Bennie for a minute and I watch him, too. Lou goes, "Not much of a player."
"But he's—" I try to explain. "The whole thing is his—"
Something gets tossed at the stage that looks like glass, but, when it hits Scotty's face, thank God it's only ice from a drink. Scotty flinches but keeps on playing, and then a Budweiser can flies up and clips Marty right in the forehead. Jocelyn and I look at each other, panicked, but when we try to move Lou anchors us. The Dildos start playing "What the Fuck?" but now garbage is spewing at the stage, chucked by four guys with safety-pin chains connecting their nostrils to their earlobes. Every few seconds another drink strikes Scotty's face. Finally he just plays with his eyes shut. Alice is trying to tackle the garbage throwers now and they shove her back and suddenly people are slam-dancing hard, the kind of dancing that's basically fighting. Joel clobbers his drums as Scotty tears off his dripping T-shirt and snaps it at one of the garbage throwers, hitting him right in the face with a twangy crack—snrack—like my brothers snapping bath towels, but sharper. The Scotty magnet is starting to work—people are watching his bare muscles shining with sweat and beer. Then one of the garbage throwers tries to storm the stage, but Scotty kicks him in the chest with the flat of his boot—there's a kind of gasp from the crowd as the guy flies back. Scotty's smiling now, grinning like I almost never see him grin, wolf teeth flashing, and I realize that, of all of us, Scotty is the truly angry one.
I turn to Jocelyn, but she's gone. Maybe my thousand eyes are what tell me to look down. I see Lou's fingers spread out over her black hair. She's kneeling in front of him, giving him head, like the music is a disguise and no one can see them. Maybe no one does. Lou's other arm is still around me, which I guess is why I don't run, although I could. I stand there while Lou mashes Jocelyn's head against himself again and again until I don't know how she can breathe, until it starts to seem like she's not even Jocelyn but some kind of animal or machine that can't be broken. I force myself to look at the band, Scotty snapping the wet shirt and knocking people with his boot. Lou is grasping my shoulder, squeezing it harder, turning his head into my neck, and letting out a hot, stuttering groan that I can hear even through the music. He's that close. A sob cracks open in me. Tears leak out from my eyes, but only from the two in my face. The other thousand eyes are closed.
The walls of Lou's apartment are covered with electric guitars and gold and silver LPs, just like Jocelyn said. But she never mentioned that it was on the thirty-fifth floor, six blocks away from the Mab. She didn't even tell about the green marble slabs in the elevator. I think that was a lot to leave out.
In the kitchen, Jocelyn pours Fritos into a dish and takes a glass bowl of green apples out of the refrigerator. She's already passed around quaaludes, offering one to every person except me. I think she's afraid to look at me. Who's the hostess now? I want to ask.
In the living room, Alice sits with Scotty, who is wearing a Pendleton shirt from Lou's closet and looks pale and shaky, maybe from having stuff thrown at him, maybe because he now understands for real that Jocelyn has a boyfriend and that it isn't him and never will be. Marty is there, too; he's got a cut on his cheek and an almost black eye and he keeps saying, "That was intense," to no one in particular. Joel got driven straight home, of course. Everyone agrees that the gig went well.
When Lou leads Bennie up a spiral staircase to his recording studio, I tag along. He calls Bennie "Kiddo" and explains each machine in the room, which is small and warm, with black foam points all over the walls. Lou's legs move restlessly and he eats a green apple with loud cracking noises, like he's gnawing rock. Bennie glances out the door toward the rail overlooking the living room, trying to get a glimpse of Alice. I keep being about to cry. I'm worried that what happened in the club counts as having sex with Lou—that I was part of it.
Finally I go back downstairs. Off the living room I notice a door partly open, a big bed just beyond. I go in and lie face down on a velvet bedspread. A peppery incense smell trickles around me. The room is cool and dim, with photographs in frames on both sides of the bed. My whole body hurts. After a few minutes someone else comes in and lies down next to me, and I know it's Jocelyn. We don't say anything—we just lie there side by side in the dark. Finally I go, "You should've told me." "Told you what?" she goes, but I don't even know. Then she goes, "There's too much," and I feel like something is ending, right at that minute.
After a while Jocelyn turns on a lamp by the bed. "Look," she goes. She's holding a framed picture of Lou in a swimming pool surrounded by kids, the two littlest ones almost babies. I count six. Jocelyn goes, "They're his children. That blond girl, she's almost twenty."
I lean close to the picture. Lou looks so happy, surrounded by his kids like any normal dad, that I can't believe the Lou with us is the same man. He comes into the bedroom a minute later, rock-crunching another apple. I realize that the bowl of green apples is completely for Lou—he eats them non-stop. I slide off the bed without looking at him, and he shuts the door behind me.
It takes me a second to get what's going on in the living room. Scotty is sitting cross-legged, picking at a gold guitar in the shape of a flame. Alice is behind him with her arms around his neck, her face next to his, her hair falling into his lap. Her eyes are closed with joy. I forget who I actually am for a second—all I can think is how Bennie will feel when he sees this. I look around for him, but there's just Marty peering at the albums on the wall, trying to be inconspicuous. And then I notice the music flooding out of every part of the apartment at once—the couch, the walls, even the floor—and I know Bennie's alone in Lou's studio, pouring music around us. A minute ago it was "Don't Let Me Down." Then it was Blondie's "Heart of Glass." Now it's Iggy Pop's "The Passenger":
I am the passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the city's backsides
I see the stars come out of the sky.
Listening, I think, You will never know how much I understand you.
I notice Marty looking over at me kind of hesitantly, and I see how this is supposed to work: I'm the dog, so I get Marty. I slide open a glass door and step out onto Lou's balcony. I've never seen San Francisco from so high up: it's a soft blue-black, with colored lights and fog like gray smoke. Long piers reach out into the flat, dark bay. There's a mean wind, so I go in for my jacket then come back out and curl up tight on a white plastic chair. I stare at the view until I start to feel calmer. I think, The world is actually huge. That's the part no one can really explain.
After a while the door slides open. I don't look up, thinking it's Marty, but it turns out to be Lou. He's barefoot, wearing shorts. His legs are tanned, even in the dark. I go, "Where's Jocelyn?"
"Asleep," he says. He's standing at the railing, looking out. It's the first time I've seen him be still.
I go, "Do you even remember being our age?"
Lou grins at me in my chair, but it's a copy of the grin he had at dinner. "I am your age," he goes.
"Ahem," I go. "You have six kids."
"So I do," he goes. He turns his back, waiting for me to disappear. I think, I didn't have sex with this man. I don't even know him. Then he says, "I'll never get old."
"You're already old," I tell him.
He swivels around and peers at me huddled in my chair. "You're scary," he goes. "You know that?"
"It's the freckles," I go.
"It's not the freckles, it's you." He keeps looking at me, and then something shifts in his face and he goes, "I like it."
"Do not."
"I do. You're gonna keep me honest, Rhea."
I'm surprised he remembers my name. I go, "It's too late for that, Lou."
Now he laughs, really laughs, and I understand that we're friends, Lou and I. Even if I hate him, which I do. I get out of my chair and walk to the railing, where he is.
"People will try to change you, Rhea," Lou goes. "Don't let 'em."
"But I want to change."
"Don't," he goes, serious. "You're beautiful. Stay like this."
"But the freckles," I go, and my throat gets that ache.
"The freckles are the best part," Lou says. "Some guy is going to go apeshit for those freckles. He's going to kiss them one by one."
I start to cry. I don't even hide it.
"Hey," Lou goes. He leans down so our faces are together and stares straight into my eyes. He looks tired, like someone walked on his skin and left footprints. He goes, "The world is full of shitheads, Rhea. Don't listen to them—listen to me."
And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads. But I listen.
Two weeks later, Jocelyn runs away. I find out at the same time as everyone else.
Her mother comes straight to our apartment. She and my parents sit me down: What do I know? Who is this new boyfriend? I tell them, "Lou. He lives in L.A. and has six children. He knows Bill Graham personally." I think that Bennie might know who Lou actually is, so Jocelyn's mom comes to our school to talk to Bennie Salazar. But he's hard to find. Now that Alice and Scotty are together, Bennie has stopped coming to the Pit. Before, he and Scotty didn't talk because they were like one person. Now it's like they've never met.
I can't stop wondering: if I'd pulled away from Lou and fought the garbage throwers, would Bennie have settled for me the way Scotty settled for Alice? Could that one thing have made all the difference?
They track down Lou in a matter of days. He tells Jocelyn's mom that she hitchhiked all the way to his house without even warning him. He says that she's safe, he's taking care of her, it's better than having her on the street. He promises to bring her home when he comes to the city the next week. Why not this week? I wonder.
While I'm waiting for Jocelyn, Alice invites me over. We take the bus from school, a long ride to Sea Cliff. Her house looks smaller in daylight. In the kitchen, we mix honey with her mother's homemade yogurts and eat two each. We go up to her room, where all the frogs are, and sit on her built-in window seat. Alice tells me that she's planning to get real frogs and keep them in a terrarium. She's calm and happy now that Scotty loves her. I can't tell if she's real, or if she's just stopped caring whether she's real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?
I wonder if Lou's house is near the ocean. Does Jocelyn look at the waves? Do they ever leave Lou's bedroom? Are his children there? I keep getting lost in these questions. Then I hear giggling, pounding from somewhere. I go, "Who's that?"
"My sisters," Alice goes. "They're playing tetherball."
We head downstairs and outside, into Alice's back yard, where I've been only in the dark. It's sunny now, with flowers in patterns and a tree with lemons on it. At the edge of the yard, two little girls are slapping a bright-yellow ball around a silver pole. They turn to us, laughing in their green uniforms. ♦


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Feature requests & roadmap / This most come to Playstation 3!!!« on: March 24, 2007, 09:46:47 pm »
Ihope this will come to Ps3.!!!!!!!
Rule #1 - Be Patient - Rule #2 - Don't ask when, if you don't contribute - Rule #3 - You have coding skills - LinuxMCE's small brother is available: http://www.agocontrol.com
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USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick and Jeff Zillgitt break down the NBA Finals, which resulted in Gregg Popovich's Spurs winning a fifth title, and what's next for the Spurs and Heat.
SAN ANTONIO — Unless Tim Duncan decides he wants to retire, it will be more of the same next season for the 2014 NBA champion San Antonio Spurs.
The big man has a player option worth $10.3 million on his contract for next season, and he said throughout the postseason run that he didn't know yet whether he'll be back.
"I know he's got one more year on his contract, and he loves being with us, loves playing basketball," Spurs guard Tony Parker said. "Either way, whatever he decides, I'll support him. But if I have to choose, obviously, I would love him to keep going. I love playing with him."
HEAT: Will LeBron stick around?
GAME 5: Spurs roll to their 5th title
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich's future is forever tied to Duncan's, of course, as he has always made it clear that he'll be right behind his big man if he heads for the exits. San Antonio does have significant role players who will become free agents in small forward Boris Diaw, point guard Patty Mills and forward Matt Bonner, but the core is intact.
But the potential for a return remains, just as it did after losing the Finals last year.
"At the beginning of the season, I stepped back on this court knowing we wanted to get back to this point and we had the opportunity to and we had the team to, if we believed and if we fought through and let all that go," Duncan said after winning in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night against the Miami Heat.
"With a team like this, and guys like this, everything's changed, and we adapted and to come out here and win another championship for these fans, it's unbelievable."
LEONARD: Third-youngest Finals MVP
GINOBILI: Turns back clock with huge dunk
Duncan's legacy most certainly reaches a new level with this title, as he has now tied the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson (among others) with his fifth while managing to head an elite team for a longer stretch of time (Bryant's first and last championships were separated by a decade while Johnson had eight years between his).
Popovich, meanwhile, has become one of five coaches to win at least five titles, with the others being Phil Jackson (11 with the Lakers and Chicago Bulls), Red Auerbach (nine with the Boston Celtics), John Kundla (five with the Minneapolis Lakers), Pat Riley (five with the Lakers and Heat). But what makes Popovich's unique is in the sustained success, the 15 years that separated his first and last title with the same team is easily the best among that bunch. Both then and Sunday, they did it their way.
The Spurs' way is not easy to define. Selflessness and sacrifice are important elements, but their special formula goes well beyond that. And as Spurs general manager R.C. Buford reminded reporters Saturday, this powerful program started well before the drafting of Tim Duncan in 1997.
"We played at a really high level, defensively and offensively, making the moves, attacking the seams," Spurs guard Manu Ginobili said after Game 5. "Everybody contributed. It wasn't about Tim Duncan or Tony Parker. It wasn't about Kahwi (Leonard) or Danny Green. It was about team, and that's what makes it so, so nice."
GALLERY: Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard
Had former Spurs head coach Larry Brown never invited Gregg Popovich to leave Division III Pomona-Pitzer and become a Spurs assistant in 1988 — the two having connected as coaches in the mid-1980s and gone on to become the best of friends — then this generation's version of Red Auerbach and Bill Russell would likely never have been united.
"I've been very blessed and very lucky to play with Timmy and Manu and coach Pop," Parker said. "He's unbelievable. I know he doesn't like when we talk about him to I'm not going to say nothing. We're a great team and we do it together."
Brown had everything to do with the basketball philosophies that remain until this day, the "play the right way" approach that he taught Buford when he was an assistant coach for him at Kansas from 1988 to 1991 and then as a Los Angeles Clippers assistant under Brown.
"The Spurs way has been different over the course of this time, and I think it's been built to fit the strengths of our team," Buford said. "But we both (himself and Popovich) grew up under coach Brown, and he thinks that there's a wino on the street corner who has got the perfect out of bounds play, so he'll listen to anybody. That rubbed off on us. ... We grew up under that burden."
As it turns out, Pop — whose affinity for adult grape juice is so well-chronicled — was that wino.
GALLERY: Top shots from the NBA Finals


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Najdorf Fun: Kosteniuk-Amanov and New In Chess Yearbook 104
In the latest issue of the New In Chess Yearbook (#104), there's a survey by Cuban IM Jose Vilela on the variation 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.0-0-0 Nbd7 10.Bd3 b5 11.Rhe1 Bb7 12.Qg3 b4 13.Nd5 exd5 14.exd5 Kd8 15.Nc6+ Bxc6 16.dxc6, and now the main move is 16...Nc5.
I don't play either side of this line, but as I was a huge fan of the 6.Bg5 Najdorf (with both sides) as a youngster* I started going through the survey with interest. I always wanted the 6.Bg5 Najdorf to win, if only because White's position is so aesthetically pleasing - especially in this line after 11.Rhe1. If White can put all his pieces on such beautiful squares, have a lead in development and an advantage in space and still not win, then something is wrong with chess! Now when I look at the position it's not so clear. It's not just that I know more; even then I knew that Black always wound up okay. The difference is that the harmoniousness of Black's setup is more apparent to me now, deep in my bones. There are many dangers facing Black, but now White's position doesn't look quite as beautiful and Black's feels more powerful and threatening than it used to.
But back to the variation. While replaying the games in the survey, I recalled seeing a blitz game between Alexandra Kosteniuk and Mesgen Amanov at the 2009 U.S. Open in Indianapolis in this same variation. I saw the game in person and thought I blogged about it, but as I don't have the game in my "blog" database I may not have. At any rate Kosteniuk has a video of the game, with her own voiceover commentary, so I was able to check my memory of the game and compare it to the NICY survey.
The main move in the position above, and the only one covered in the survey, is 17.Bh4, threatening to take on g7. Kosteniuk chose a subtler move, 17.Bc4, which had been tried in only one high-profile game up to that point (and still, if you exclude this blitz game). It's no better than the usual move and may even be slightly worse, in the sense that the burden is more on White than on Black to prove equality. But it was a good practical choice, and Kosteniuk won pretty easily. To see that game, with my notes, along with a bit of the 17.Bh4 material, have a look here.
* There's an old expression in politics, at least in the U.S., that if you're not a liberal when you're young you don't have a heart, and if you're not a conservative when you're older you don't have a head. Something roughly similar could be said about playing lines like the Najdorf or the Dragon. Or as Bent Larsen once said, if you play the Caro-Kann when you're young, what are you going to play when you're older?


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At those prices, I'll stick with Haribo ...
Mulebar Kicks are energy gels from the company that produces Mulebar energy bars. Just like the bars, the gels have organic and '100% natural' ingredients. We've reviewed them before on road.cc but 2013 sees a new flavour and a slight change to the packaging, although the main formulas stay the same.
The new flavour is called Cafe Cortado, and not surprisingly the main ingredients include coffee, along with rice syrup, barley syrup, agave syrup, guarana and Himalayan crystal salt.
The brown rice and barley syrups are there to provide carbohydrate – the fuel you need to keep riding your bike after an hour or two – but what's all this other stuff?
As everyone knows, agave is a thick spiky-leafed plant that mainly grows in Mexico (a similar species is used to make tequila); it's here to provide a bit of slow-release energy. Meanwhile guarana is another plant from the Americas; it produces beans containing caffeine, to top up the caffeine already supplied by the coffee. And the Himalayan crystal salt (according to the all-natural boffins at Mulebar) provides all the minerals you need to replace those lost through sweat.
Put all that together and a 37g sachet of Cafe Cortado gel provides 469kJ of energy, consisting of 27g of carb (with less than 1g each of protein and fat) plus 0.1g of sodium and 100mg of caffeine.
The taste is undeniably like coffee – in fact, more like coffee beans than the actual drink – with an extra Horlicks-style tingle from the malted barley, and definitely sans sucre. This taste might not suit everyone, but it makes a nice change from the over-sweet flavour of some other gels.
Talking of which, the other two flavours of Mulebar Kicks are more on the sweet side. Lemon Zinger also has brown rice syrup, agave, guarana (providing 50mg of caffeine) and Himalayan crystal salt – along with natural lemon concentrate (Sicilian, no less) and some ginger flavouring. Cherry Bomb adds organic cherry juice to the familiar rice-agave-salt combo, and has no caffeine. In terms of kJ and carb content, both flavours are almost identical to the Cafe Cortado.
To test the gels, I've used them on several long (about 4 hours) training rides over the past couple of months, and they definitely work – giving enough energy to keep me cruising along for 30 to 60 minutes, depending who I'm trying to keep up with, before needing another one.
The 'double-shot' of caffeine in the Cafe Cortado flavour helped me get up the hills on the last 20 miles before home. On all the gels, though, the consistency is on the thick side, so they definitely need to be washed down with water.
Another feature of Mulebar Kicks worth mentioning is the shape of the sachet. At the top is a V-shaped notch, making the sachet much easier to open with your teeth and one hand when you're on the bike. It also means a small hole, so the gel can be squeezed out in a controlled fashion, and you don't get it all over your hands. It also means the little tear-off bit stays attached to the main sachet so you can stuff the whole lot back in your pocket when finished and not litter the countryside.
As with other Mulebar products, all of the ingredients in these gels are natural, and the Soil Association logo on the packet indicates that most are organic. So if you find the compositions of some other gels give you stomach ache, then these Kicks would be well worth a try.
And while we're on about badges, Mulebar products are also FairTrade where possible, and the '1% for the Planet' logo indicates financial support for environmental organisations.
On the the Mulebar website a box of 24 Kicks gels costs £36, working out at £1.50 each. You can choose all one flavour or a mix. You can also buy them singly or in smaller batches at some local bike shops.
With 27g or 28g of carb in a 37g gel, on a pure carbs-per-quid basis, this compares well against similar products such as Nectar Sports Fuel Cell (40g sachet containing 20g of carbohydrate for £1.50), is comparable to Bike Food Pure Energy (40g gel, almost 30g of carb, about £1.45), but is comparatively expensive when compared to products such as High5 Energygel (38g sachet, 23g of carb, £1), ZipVit (60g gel, 51g of carb, £1.50) or Sponser Liquid Energy Long (40g gel, 23g of carb, £1).
But if you're looking for more than just carbs, and want a high-performing gel made with all natural ingredients that's tasty and easy to digest, then Mulebar Kicks are well worth trying.
High-performing gel made with all natural ingredients - tasty too, and easy to digest.
If you're thinking of buying this product using a cashback deal why not use the road.cc Top Cashback page and get some top cashback while helping to support your favourite independent cycling website
road.cc test report
Make and model: Mule Bar Kicks Energy Gel (box of 24)
Size tested: Box of 24
Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?
Mulebar Kicks are energy gels aimed at cyclists, athletes and all outdoor active types. The Mulebar website says: MuleBar has summited Everest, has ridden ... the incredible Absa Cape Epic mountain bike stage race across South Africa, is the Official Energy Bar of The 2009 Tour of Britain ... is used by the likes of Javi Gomez Noya, 2008 World ITU Triathlete Champion, the England Rugby team ... [and] 17 of the best riders in The Tour de France."
Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?
The Mulebar website goes on to say: "MuleBars work on a very simple premise: that what is natural is good. A natural mixture of ingredients made the way nature intended and picked for their broad spectrum of energy providing sugars and fats makes for the perfect bar. ... The more processing, the more additives, the more artificial ingredients a bar has - the more likely it will not make for a better energy bar..."
Looking at the construction of the packet that contains the gel, the V-shaped notch to make opening easier when on the bike is a very handy touch.
Performance is very good: nice taste, noticeable benefits, easy on the stomach.
These gels definitely work for me. As always though, try a few on training rides first to check they work for you, before launching into using them un-tested on an important race or sportive.
Looking at price and the carb content alone, Mulebar Kicks are a tad more expensive than some other similar products. But if you want a gel made with all natural ingredients that's tasty and easy to digest, then this might be a small preium you're prepared to pay.
Tell us what you particularly liked about the product
Nice taste, noticeable benefits, easy on the stomach. I also liked the reaively non-sweet taste of the Cafe Cortado flavour.
Did you enjoy using the product? Yes.
Would you consider buying the product? Yes.
Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes.
Anything further to say about the product in conclusion?
This is an excellent product, deserving a score of 9, but a point gets knocked off for the slightly-higher-than-average price, giving an overall score of 8 - even though many riders will be happy to pay this extra for a gel that's easy on the stomach, especially on longer rides and sportives.
About the tester
Age: 51 Height: 5ft 10 / 178cm Weight: 11 stone / 70kg
I usually ride: an old Marin Alp, or an old steel classic My best bike is: an old Giant Cadex (can you see a theme here?)
I've been riding for: Over 20 years I ride: A few times a week I would class myself as: Experienced
I regularly do the following types of riding: touring, club rides, sportives, general fitness riding,
10 comments
I'm sceptical that you can attribute performance as directly as a double shot of caffine helping you up the hills at the end of your run. Reminds me of the story of the guy who had half a dozen oysters in a restaurant and called back later to say one of them didn't work.
Thanks for the comments.
I did try oysters once. No noticeable benefit - and they're a bugger to eat when cycling too. Am I doing it wrong?
You can try wearing Rapha and riding a Colnago instead ... the effect is the same ... just be careful when getting off the bike.
I'm a coffee lover and I'd like to find an alternative to typically sweet gels, so these sound particularly appealling. Not sure I'll want to buy 24 at a time, will wait and try one of each to begin with.
The faff and mess of opening and consuming a gel is the part that puts me off so the 'notch' sounds good, and I'm pleased that they are organic and F/T, worth paying a little extra for IMHO.


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Not long after the anticorporate "Occupy Wall Street" protests began in New York, one question surfaced repeatedly: Could this be the beginning of a liberal movement to counter the tea party?
Implicit in the question, however, is a concession that many even on the left acknowledge: For several years now, the right has largely driven and dominated the national conversation.
But why, amid America's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, has the upwelling of political activism been greater on the right?
When the United States has been through periods of deep economic anxiety before, the populist movements that mobilize ordinary citizens against an empowered elite have typically pushed the national agenda to the left. A century ago, they backed the idea of a graduated income tax.
But now, at a time of high unemployment, record foreclosures, a significant jump in poverty, and concerns about a possible new recession, populist outrage has largely focused on government as a problem rather than a source of economic cures.
"In general, for the past few years the enthusiasm has certainly been more on the right end of the spectrum," says Michael Dimock, a polling expert at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It's "an antigovernment movement more than an anticorporate movement."
Political analysts cite several reasons. Some of the activity is a backlash against the president. Since President Obama is a Democrat, it's more likely that opposition will rise up on the right.
Another factor is that the nation's top priority, a dearth of jobs, is hard to fix, with neither the left nor right offering solutions that most of the public view as clear-cut winners. It's possible that many tea party supporters are attracted to the movement because it provides a clear target at which to vent – bloated government – even if that may not be the cause of the problem. Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup polls, uses this analogy: "If you're mad at work, you come home and kick the cat."
A third reason, some say, is that the right has found ways to steadily deepen its roots, while the left has seen key institutions such as labor unions wither.
It's a development decades in the making. Notably, Ronald Reagan steered the country toward greater skepticism of government and a stronger embrace of free-market economics. A parallel rise of conservative think tanks, as well as the political influence of Christian-right colleges and advocacy groups, helped spread this message.
By the time activists latched on to a 2009 rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli, who raised the idea of a modern-day tea party, the field had been prepared. The American right knew who its enemy was, and conservative politicians, donors, and media – notably Fox News – lavished attention and support on tea party rallies to help the movement grow.
But "how do we account for the relative silence of the left?" asked Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University historian, in a recent New York Times opinion column.
To be sure, the left has its own parallel groups and backers. But their clout has been diminishing, argues Mr. Kazin. Private-sector labor unions have been in steady decline, he notes, and other liberal groups have changed so they cater more to middle-class social causes (the environment, same-sex marriage) than to the economic concerns of ordinary workers.
Occupy Wall Street could become a remedy to that for the left. The Wall Street protests in part express the frustration of a "lost generation" of young Americans facing high student-loan debts and grim job prospects. But they have rallied support from liberal groups ranging from labor unions to MoveOn.org, which added a "virtual march on Wall Street" to its website on Oct. 5. Film celebrities like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon have lent their voices.
The protests have also brought people like Paul Vena on board.
Mr. Vena, who attended a recent rally against Bank of America in Boston, lives in Burlington, Mass., a middle-class suburb outside the city. He says he's not a protester by nature, but has grown deeply concerned about America's future.
It doesn't help that two of his sons, with college degrees in economics and business, are unemployed, and that he has recently had his own bout of joblessness.
If the economic problems aren't addressed, he says, "I actually worry about a revolution coming in 2020 or later."
What the Wall Street protests show most clearly, perhaps, is that the dissatisfaction that is fueling the right is now also starting to drive the left.
"Obama just flat-out failed to deliver on the most important promise of his campaign," says Cenk Uygur, host of Current TV's "The Young Turks," a show on politics. "He said we are going to fundamentally change the way Washington works. He hardly tried."
But so far, the Wall Street protests have targeted corporate influence without providing a clear vision of what they want. The tea party movement, by contrast, has focused from the onset on shrinking the size of government and low taxes. In that way, it parallels past populist movements – even if it is conservative in orientation.
H.W. Brands, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin, sees the current US situation as analogous to the late 1890s, when the People's Party became a force in American politics.
Now, as then, Americans were anxious amid economic and social upheaval. Today, Americans are troubled by the implications of globalization. Back then the nation was in the throes of the Industrial Revolution and a strong populist movement emerged from rural voters.
"The world was changing out from under them," Mr. Brands says. "The farm ... had given way to the factories. [Populism] was as much an emotional response as it was an economic response."
And now, as then, the populists focused on simple answers to complex challenges. In the 1890s, the People's Party's answer was "free silver" – a proposed departure from the gold standard, which was seen as harming indebted farmers, to allow coinage of silver, too. Today, it is federal spending cuts.
But just as free silver was at best a partial answer to the challenges facing late-19th-century farmers, federal deficit reduction is not a fully formed plan for restoring economic growth, Brands says.
Measuring the extent of the conservative populist surge since 2009 is difficult. On one hand, Republicans used it to win historic gains in the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections. But Republicans in Congress are as unpopular as Democrats, polls find.
Other polls show Americans are more likely to say they disapprove of the tea party than approve. A Gallup poll in August found 25 percent of Americans call themselves tea party "supporters," while 28 percent see themselves as opponents and 42 percent said neither.
But the tea party has clearly given the right more purpose and energy. Occupy Wall Street could be an answer to that, and supporters of the protests note parallels to the early days of the tea party movement – beginning with grudging media coverage.
"There's been thousands of people across the country participating in this," says Mr. Uygur. The news media have been "weirdly derisive and dismissive" of protests on the left, he says, even when "the same numbers of people show up" as to some tea party events.
The comparison has its limitations, others say.
The tea party has shown tangible electoral results and staying power, notes Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Conn. "There's no evidence that the Occupy Wall Street folks have any numbers on a national basis."


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When it's hot, your hot
There are so many fishing opportunities hereabouts that it is only prudent to tell you what's hot and what's not. First, there is some really good action in most of our fishing holes, and now is a great time to go after them. One of the things that has kicked off the saltwater action has been the stable weather. Of course, there have been times when the winds caused rough and of color water, but most of the time the May weather, as expected, has been fine.
On the saltwater scene, those fishermen that have been afloat have enjoyed some super action for the most part. East Bay has come alive with speckled trout, as has Trinity Bay. By this time annually, the fish begin to move in to do whatever their thing is. There are mega numbers of small shrimp around, and we all know all species of fish feed on them. Whether you are after trophy-size speckled trout or you enjoy catching good numbers of them, there are some really solid size fish showing up now. Many of the guides on East and Trinity bays are lure purists and they do extremely well with them. There are, however, still a majority of non-guides that prefer to use live shrimp when going after speckled trout.
Should you be heading to the west, then be sure to give the early morning bite a shot along the shorelines and grassy areas. After that, the reefs are paying off whenever there are not too many other boats zipping around. Should that be the case, then head to open water and look for feeding seagulls or surfacing, feeding specks.
Moving on over the Big Lake In Louisiana where many Texas fishermen do their fishing, the action is super. There are really large flocks of seagulls feeding over some really good-size schools of speckled trout. The gulls are working over most of the mid to south end. Live shrimp will do a no brainier job on them, but lures are just about as effective, and they require much less trouble. Plastics on lead-head jigs have been the more popular lures. Lead-heads in the 1/4-ounce size seem to be the choice of the experienced speck catchers. Color, as always, is the angler's choice. It seems that the only trick is to cast the jig into the schools that are under the gulls and hang on.
Should you be enjoying the fast action under the birds and the gulls move, it could be prudent to just sit tight for a few minutes. If the bait is still around, then the fish could still be there too. There are more times than not when they will re-appear. So just keep on casting and watching for awhile before moving on.
In Lake Sabine, the speckled trout seem to have invaded several spots. Besides that, they have been really large for the most part. Several fish have been reported in the 8-pound-plus weight range. There have been more 6 to 7 pounders that I've heard of this time of year. The Louisiana shoreline from Blue Buck Point south, the reef on the south end of the lake and on into the ship channel have been giving up limits of specks.
On the Texas side, both the north and south levies have been yielding some of the big trout. Being out early on light-wind days seems to be the ticket. Although lures have been OK, live shrimp have been much better for filling limits. The Gulp on a lead-head or the Half-Alive with the fresh shrimp in the tube seem to be about as hot as the live shrimp. There are also scattered flounder hanging out along the revetment rocks.
In the ship channel all the way out to the Sabine Jetty, there are actually schools of 3 to 8 pound speckled trout. The moving tide is when the action is better. The water all the way from just south of the Causeway on out to the jetty has yielded choice pickings.
The jetty area is giving up some really big speckled trout on live shrimp. There are also Spanish mackerel and sheepshead by the droves. For table fare, the sheepshead are among my favorites. Should live shrimp not be your thing, worry not. A lead-head jig under a popping float will do well, too. Here, again, I like the Half-Alive and the Gulp.


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October 25, 2002, Section B, Page 3Buy Reprints
Two days after city inspectors ripped up illegal Nike advertising decals glued to sidewalks along Central Park West, Microsoft unleashed a swarm of large adhesive butterflies in Manhattan.
They settled yesterday morning on sidewalks and doorways; traffic signals, stop signs and planters. They alighted on the bluestone paving around Grand Army Plaza and the granite corners around Grand Central Terminal.
Their blue, green, orange and yellow wings had spans of 12 to 20 inches, the larger ones accompanied by a caption -- ''It's better with the Butterfly'' -- advertising Microsoft's new MSN 8 Internet service.
''This is nothing more than corporate graffiti,'' said Vanessa Gruen, director of special projects for the Municipal Art Society, a civic organization that has long battled commercialization of public space. ''It's no better than all those kids out there tagging subway cars.''
And no more legal, city officials said.
''We intend to hold your firm directly responsible for this illegal, irresponsible and dangerous defacing of public property,'' wrote Cesar A. Fernandez, assistant counsel of the Transportation Department, in a letter sent yesterday to the Microsoft Corporation.
His letter instructed Microsoft to remove the decals from city property immediately and warned that further placement might lead to ''legal proceedings which may include, but not be limited to, a request for injunctive relief and additional monetary damages; and criminal prosecution.''
''I trust and hope that these offensive activities are not the authorized acts of your organization's employees and agents,'' Mr. Fernandez wrote, requesting a reply from Microsoft with assurances that its promotional staff and agents would be directed ''to avoid such illegal conduct.''
A single summons was issued, with a $50 penalty, though each butterfly could have been subject to a $50 fine, said Tom Cocola, the assistant commissioner for public affairs at the transportation agency. He said the city's chief goal was seeing to it that the decals are removed.
Microsoft, for its part, insisted that it was authorized to place the decals.
''There are permits for everything,'' said Colleen Lacter of Waggener Edstrom, a public relations firm representing Microsoft, emerging from a tent at Wollman Rink in Central Park after an MSN 8 promotional event.
''This is not a repeat of Nike,'' she added. But she would not tell a reporter what agency had issued the permits. After a brief huddle with two people whom she identified as being from McCann-Erickson, the advertising firm handling the account, Ms. Lacter said: ''There's nothing else to say. They didn't want to get into a discussion about the details.''
The law, Section 19-138 of the New York City administrative code, states: ''It shall be unlawful for any person to deface any street by painting, printing or writing thereon, or attaching thereto, in any manner, any advertisement or other printed matter.''
The butterflies found on vertical surfaces were made of flimsy plastic, held in place by static electricity and easily removable. The sidewalk decals were a heavier plastic, with a roughly textured surface. Though they were stuck to the pavement, they too could be lifted off fairly easily.
And that is what the Grand Central Partnership set out to do yesterday afternoon as it confronted butterfly decals on some of the special pink granite sidewalks it has installed at 172 intersections from Fifth to Second Avenues, 38th to 48th Streets. These include curb cuts for the disabled.
''Anything that impairs the ability of someone to move on those accessible corners is a concern,'' said Marc A. Wurzel, general counsel to the partnership, which runs the business improvement district. ''It's a unique form of guerrilla advertising.''
In a state of some astonishment, Ms. Gruen took in the scene outside the Municipal Art Society office at the Villard Houses, Madison Avenue and 51st Street. There were butterflies on building facades, a telephone booth and a Grand Central Partnership newspaper vending machine.
''It's illegal,'' she said, ''and they're going to get a lot of publicity for it.''
That may have been the point. ''It's a tremendous opportunity,'' Ms. Lacter said, ''for us to build brand awareness.''