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Wellington Phoenix gifted goals in nervy 2-1 win over Newcastle Jets
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It started in the 73rd minute when he curled a sumptuous shot to the top-right corner from the left edge of the box, before nabbing his second and third in the final three minutes. Between those last two goals, Wairarapa's Taylor Hall-Jones and Cameron Lindsay earned themselves few admirers with rash challenges that were lucky to be punished with only yellow cards. "I can't thank Rob and his staff enough for what he has done for us. I felt that it was the Melbourne Cup that saw Above All mature into the dog he is today," added O'Brian. Backed by their supporters, Waitakere rushed out to a six-goal buffer before Manwatu closed the gap to four at halftime.
- The two teams were drawn level with just over a minute left in the first quarter before a Waitakere intercept sparked the home side which netted three straight goals to go into the break with a 10-7 lead.
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- Daboll sounded more optimistic about Jackson playing this week than McKinney.
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Hedge got the better of Gilschrist from the front row, creating an enthralling Lap 1 battle for the lead. Gilchrist got his man on for the lead on the second lap, with Vodanovich keeping up in third, where he started. Race 1 of the Toyota 86's at Pukekohe saw an intense battle for the lead, with Brock Gilchrist holding on to take race honours over pole-starter Callum Hedge by just .2 of a second. Clay Osborne rounded out the podium places, with a clear gap back to Zac Stichbury in fourth. Van Hattum was a constant danger and kept Brown busy throughout but their resistance was broken when Auckland City FC youth product Dre Vollenhoven set up Logan Rogerson for the third with four minutes left. Their perserverance finally paid off when Awad clipped an inviting ball into the six yard box for Dylan Manickum to hook home from close range on the hour mark.
Plus a couple of humongous Aussie trophies which has now found their way across the "Ditch". For Merv O'Brian, with his partner and owner Ali Lee electing to stay at home this time, being on course was a defining moment. "This is a huge result, not only for us, but for all of New Zealand greyhound racing. It proves that we can breed greyhounds who are competitive at the top level over here. Yes, I knew right from breaking in that Above All was smart – but to come over here to do what he has done is unreal," he commented.
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Andrew Fleming , Ellis, and Finn Holden were also stalwarts in Group A, with Holden finishing runnerup in the final three rounds after being a latecomer to the competition. Carl Rodmell also was a key figure in Group A, and bar one week where he got demoted, was a force to be reckoned with and highlighted his performance with a Round 2 Win on countback. They have two games left in the regular season and need a win to secure their first postseason berth since 2016. The first opportunity will come Sunday with a home game against the struggling Indianapolis Colts. In the form of his life, Chin says he has no plans to retire from his passion, even though the club of people competing in professional races after their 80th birthday must be one of racing's smallest. Wellington Phoenix have set a target of playing finals football in Wellington after claiming a crucial win over Newcastle Jets.
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"I still have a goal to achieve — I want a Group 1 winner," says the popular Waikato horseman. Luk Chin may be turning 80 today but he says there is a good reason he can't retire from training and, more remarkably, driving in races. One feature that could be considered missing is the live broadcast of esports events, which slightly affects the 1Win rating. Right-back Callan Elliot scored his first A-League Men goal on his return from suspension and in-form striker Oskar Zawada converted a spot-kick to take his career-best season tally to 11. After a flat first 39 minutes, the Phoenix awoke from their slumber to score two goals right before halftime. "We're pushing as high as we can go and we'd love to have a home final.
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"The horse still isn't 100 per cent in the coat just yet," co-trainer Jamie Richards said. "He's a staying type of horse and to win over a mile at weight-for-age as a four-year-old is a great effort. The 79-year-old racing legend will start his 50th Grand Prix, an unprecedented feat in world motorsport.
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The season-defining clash at Endeavour Park on Sunday saw the top two sides in the league start the match separated by one point on the ladder, but it's now Wests who have a four-point buffer with six games to go. They did it with some sublime second half football after two moments of individual brilliance from Wests' Elijah Just and Wairarapa's Paul Ifill had seen the sides go into halftime locked at 1-1. Watch game broadcasts and place your bets directly in real time. 1win is popular all over the world and India was no exception.
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With 3 week gap to WMX Round 4 at MXGP of Imola, expectation will prove game-changer, as top Women MX World Championship riders prove their worth for all to see. Not so surprised and good to see were younger up-coming racers of KTM's Sara Andersen mixing racing up-front with 5th in Timed Practice and 3rd in Race 1. Bit disappointing for the Danish rider with mistake in Race 2 finishing the GP 8th Overall, though pleasingly pushed her Championship standings to 7th. Women MX World Championship Round 3 at MXGP of Loket proved spectacular for NZ's Courtney Duncan going 1-1 for Overall GP win and extending points lead in Championship by 14 points.
We spoke to Alison Lee straight after the event with, understandably her voice shaking with emotion said, "I sat here watching Above All with disbelief. The feeling for our little puppy to win a race like this, against the caliber of greyhounds in that field was very emotional. A business advocate says a Mt Roskill liquor store that suffered a robbery over the weekend has been targeted multiple times More… The send off saw defender Daniel Allan go in goal and he made a couple of nice plays including a near post save and being brave enough to take the ball away from the feet of a Halswell attacker. The home team was reduced to 10-men in the opening minutes after goal keeper and captain Corey Turipa was deemed to have deliberately handled the ball outside his penalty area. A 10-man Nelson Suburbs team scored a last-gasp 2-1 win over Halswell United in their Mainland Premier League match at Saxton Field, today.
The winner will get a rating penalty free win if 4YO and older, and driven by a Junior Driver, and has not previously won a rating penalty free race this season. It was hard to be confident tonight because he had a poor draw and there were some really good dogs in the race. He has now won two Group 1 races from box-five – that is pretty special. He was involved in a degree of jostling when going into that turn, which enabled the recent Melbourne Cup winner Dyna Villa to slip clear in the race lead. Once balanced up Above All strongly set off after the pacemaker – standing him up around three to four lengths when going down the back.
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Joelle King the first NZ woman to make world championships semifinal in 20 years
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The two teams were drawn level with just over a minute left in the first quarter before a Waitakere intercept sparked the home side which netted three straight goals to go into the break with a 10-7 lead. Red Plate holder Duncan, has to be pleased with record to date- 5 wins from 6 races with winning margin of 36 seconds in both motos this weekend. Looking far more comfortable running up-front, no mistakes, taking time to know when push is needed and when maintain is enough- Courtney has to be congratulated for control of speed through-out races. Heimgartner eventually came home sixth, with Gaunt in seventh, Tom Alexander a solid eighth, Vodanovich ninth and rookie Billy Frazer completing the top ten. Greg Murphy came home in 13th place, with Ken Smith completing the race and setting himself up for a massive Sunday in his unique career. Chris van der Drift leads away as winner Shane van Gisbergen tucks in behind.
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Picture Bruce JenkinsIt was a blistering display that proved exactly why he is one of the finest and most versatile drivers in the world today. Shane van Gisbergen wowed an impressive Saturday crowd at Hampton Downs in the first race of the 66th New Zealand Grand Prix weekend, passing Chris van der Drift to take the lead and the win. Top seed Debbie Garrett showed her class winning three of the five weeks in Group A, but she was constantly pushed and sometimes toppled by the top juniors and Barry Ellis.
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Two minutes later City's lead was doubled, with Gundogan the provider this time when crossing for Haaland to head in a second goal. When these two sides played in Matchweek 2 Wellington Phoenix Reserves sealed a 4-1 win with a late double from Benjamin Old. The immediate racing plans for Above All now has him heading over to Perth to contest the Perth Cup at Group 1 level. It is for sentimental reasons that Above All will make the long trip west, bypassing Group 1 features like the Paws Of Thunder heats in Sydney this Saturday. More will be revealed about those Perth placement reasons later.
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The only other way the Giants make the playoffs would be if the Lions, Commanders and Seahawks keep losing. The rookie tight end seemed to be a little more reliable before sustaining an eye injury that required surgery in late October. He remains a good blocker, but his lost fumble at the Vikings 23 after a 16-yard catch Saturday hurt. It took away a guaranteed three points with Graham Gano kicking and resulted in a Vikings' field goal. Moderate month for Seven Consulting in February with one new client and two new team members, but more already booked for March. Sunnyfield Disability Services are welcome to join our 30 other clients.
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In Arista v. Lime Wire the recording industry plaintiffs seek to hold Lime Wire liable for acts of copyright infringement by users of its software. The case is among the first to apply the inducement doctrine announced by the Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster in 2005.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Koury Accounting Award
The Koury Outstanding Accounting Alumni Award is given to a Claremont McKenna College alumna/us who has excelled in professional endeavors, who exhibits personal integrity, and who demonstrates a deep commitment to the Economics-Accounting program of the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna College.
The Award was established in May 2004 to memorialize William Koury III '93, a kind, gentle, and brilliant accounting professional, who passed away suddenly earlier that year. Bill was a well-loved member of the CMC community and his commitment to accounting was evident while he was on campus and after graduation.
These distinguished members of the CMC Accounting Community have been honored with the Koury Award:
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- Jose Camps '91, Partner at Deloitte, LLP
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- Venisa Ibarra '96, Partner at Deloitte & Touche, LLP
- Michelle Paterson '04, Experienced Senior at Ernst & Young, LLP
- Miles Remer '01, Manager at Ernst & Young, LLP
- Frederick Wentzel, Jr. '85, Partner at Grant Thornton, LLP


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Capture: Howling at the Moon
163 Responses
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Lilith __, in reply to
if there was a way I could allay your fears in posting your best pictures on here without them being pilfered, I would gladly do it.
Jackson, you're a sweetie. I've thought a bit more about this, and about online sharing in general.
I launched into commenting here because a particular discussion came up and I had things I really wanted to say. I was in a hurry that day and I chose the first pseudonym that came to mind. I also added some underscores in place of a surname because the form validation didn't seem to want to accept me without a surname (I think this was actually just a random glitch or my being in a hurry!) So if you've wondered why the underscores, now you know...if I could take them out, I would!
And I post words and pictures here because I want to share and connect, not because I want to show off my work. I take pictures all the time, some of them are careful and considered and a lot are just snapshots or visual note-taking. Certain types of shots I reserve for commercial use or for my own purposes. But there are a lot of quite nice incidental shots that I'm happy to post online if the occasion suits. The visual conversations here are awesome, and the sharing gives me a real buzz.
I guess it's like the conversation we were having about putting up pictures of ourselves, Jackson. I think it depends what the reason is. If you're building a reputation or brand for yourself, then that's entirely appropriate, although obviously not compulsory!
But not everything has to be public.
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Light fingered...
(or shoplifting)
we have a new crime then - shotlifting
(or possibly picpocketing) -
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
It is very much a grey area....
ahem... whoops, not a Jafa but a mag from Yaffa
; - ) -
Hebe, in reply to
On the button.
Steve Barnes, in reply to
Were I to do this from Ballantyne's it would be called theft (or shoplifting).
Only if you permanently deprived the copyright holder use of their own work.
Personally I get a bit pissed off with the whole concept of ownership, how the hell can you really own an image? are you going to gouge out the remaining parts of my brain because I might remember something created by someone else?.
What does it profit a person if they own the world but can't pass wind in front of a camel?. -
More Moon...
JacksonP, in reply to
Anyway, here's the Moon, the same one others claim as their own', note tsunami in background.
Trust you to bring us back to Earth. I didn't want the whole of the moon...
What I am curious about is the appropriate of digital images (scans) of images that are out of copyright, e.g. any photographs taken in NZ before 1944 had no copyright (expired after 50 years) when the 1994 Copyright Act was passed – this legislation did not re-instate such copyright.
Copyright is held in (amongst others) artistic works, such as photographs, where there is obvious skill or labour in the production of a original artistic work. Russell's snap of a sign may fall under this definition. Or he may not – if the photo lacked sufficient originality.
Online libraries, for example, may claim copyright on scanned out-of-copyright images, but given that they repoduce, with some fidelity (due to the skill and labour of the person doing the scanning), the original, thereby creating a facsimile, with little or no originality, that claim may be invalid. It appears that such claims have never been tested in common law, unlike a most recent case involving different photographs of the same thing.
This always leads me in a big circle – if I photograph a photograph, and apply a magnitude of artistic change, who owns the copyright? A recent example failed to test this in (US) court. If I copy a digital copy (using my own skill and labour) of a digital copy of an out-of-copyright work, who has copyright – them, me or no-one? If a copy is made of an out-of-copyright image, via an automated process (e.g. a semi-automated desktop transparency scanner), is putting film on a bit of glass and pressing a button sufficient artistic effort to claim copyright?
Lilith __, in reply to
I think you might be conflating 2 meanings of "original": "original" as in "made by me", and "original" as in "innovative".
Surely a recognisable copy is still a derivative work no matter how many iterations of copying it may have been through.
Isn't the threshold for re-using someone else's photo 10%? ie. up to 10% of your picture may be borrowed from another image?
If Russell's photo was solely of something someone else had made, then it might not meet the test of being an original. At least I think that's how it goes.
And don't libraries and museums often retain the copyright in their collections, even if it's more than 50 years old?
Jackie Clark, in reply to
I have to pull myself up sometimes and remember that the community that we have all built is not just us, but thousands of others who never say a word. I think I once compared it to being at a party in a group, and there's another group on the other side of the room who just watch. A little creepy if you look at it like that. And I'm not saying that everyone who doesn't join in the conversation is less than. It's just pertinent when, like me, you are prone to sharing everything. Well, not everything, but enough to be unseemly.
David Hood, in reply to
What I am curious about is the appropriate of digital images (scans) of images that are out of copyright, e.g. any photographs taken in NZ before 1944 had no copyright (expired after 50 years) when the 1994 Copyright Act was passed – this legislation did not re-instate such copyright.
Broadly, I would agree with you however, as I understand it the test for orignality (being copyrightable) is (in New Zealand, which differs from the U.S. law that most discussion is based on) from the "independent labour and skill" of the artist, evidenced by:
(a) "very fine work involving a high degree of concentration, skill and care";
(b) work "of great delicacy and intense application";
(c) "remarkable" work; or
(d) work of a "high standard".
So, in a legally untested kind of way, it is quite possible that a careful reproduction of archival material attaches a copyright to the reproduction, where the original was public domain.More pragmatically, most people that have a need to use archival material, have an expectation that they will need to have an ongoing good relation with the archive into the future, so have not been inclined to push matters.
Lilith also asked:
And don't libraries and museums often retain the copyright in their collections, even if it's more than 50 years old?
Short answer no, long answer they hold the original work and so control access to it in conditions of use, which can boil down to a very similar effect.
Lilith __, in reply to
(a) "very fine work involving a high degree of concentration, skill and care";
(b) work "of great delicacy and intense application";
(c) "remarkable" work; or
(d) work of a "high standard".Is this the actual legal wording? Because if it is, it sounds like if I create something quickly, or it's not very good, it's not covered by copyright…
Oh the mast pic especially good1
Hebe, in reply to
there's another group on the other side of the room who just watch
I try on PA to under-share because my life and thinkings, while intensely interesting to me, are eclipsed by many others who think it and say it so much better.
Hebe, in reply to
Only if you permanently deprived the copyright holder use of their own work.
So I can borrow an umbrella or a coat from Bally's, as long as I return it soon after? Doesn't sound right to me.
how the hell can you really own an image?
I don't believe a person can "own" an image but s/he owns their interpretation of that image and the work (accrued creativity, skill, education) that has led to the production of that image.
Lilith __, in reply to
lacebark tree in the foreground.
Oh Jos, that's really creepy!!
Jackie Clark, in reply to
I've heard that a lot. I still like to hear everyone's perspectives!
Sacha, in reply to
borrow an umbrella or a coat
Digitally, you're leaving a perfectly usable coat or brolly behind. It's no longer a zero-sum game.
Sacha, in reply to
another group on the other side of the room who just watch. A little creepy if you look at it like that.
Those people all have other conversations outside here, drawing on what's shared. Everyone contributes in their own way, just like the rest of life. Perhaps less 'creepy' if you think of it like that.
JacksonP, in reply to
lacebark tree in the foreground.
It is kind of creepy, but also kind of awesome. Werewolf material. ;-)
Also, cheers for comment. Seemed a different angle to capture it from.
Lilith __, in reply to
I still like to hear everyone's perspectives!
Russell Brown, in reply to
here's my measly attempt, lacebark tree in the foreground.
Super! My first thought was photo-collage. But no!
Post your response…
This topic is closed.


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Tammy and I on our wedding day, married in my grandmother's backyard on 08/08/08 at 8:08 p.m. |
As some of you may already know, we both came from failed first marriages. Others may also know that we developed our relationship on MySpace--first as poets and only much later as an item. In fact, we're both pretty similar, so we both thought that there was no way it would ever work between us.
For starters, we both lived in different states. It's hard enough to keep a new relationship going when you can see each other frequently; we had to start ours 500 miles apart and with months between visits.
Next, we both had crazy financial difficulties--in part because of our failed marriages, but also in part because we didn't manage our finances the correct way. It's hard to travel 500 miles to see each other when drowning in debt.
And there were other obstacles as well. I'll be nice and not go into them here, but despite everything that was thrown in our way, Tammy and I overcame them, and we overcame them together.
Tammy and I in NYC, early in our courtship. |
Let me share a story with you about the first weekend Tammy and I actually met. I wanted to take her somewhere in the Dayton-area that was really cool, so we went to Yellow Springs. After checking out some of the shops downtown, we wandered into Glen Helen and let ourselves get lost. We wandered around those trails for hours and even went off the trails--eventually coming across a heart-shaped stone covered in moss and a field filled with flowers.
The thing that made our adventure so great wasn't what we actually found as much as both of us willing to get lost with each other. During the years since, a lot has changed. We've welcomed two new wonderful children to the world in Will and Hannah. We've tackled a lot of our financial woes. Oh yeah, and we both live in the same state (which helps with the whole marriage thing). However, one thing has not changed: We still both are not only willing but enjoy getting lost with each other.
Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.
Check out a favorite trail hiking book of both Tammy and myself: A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. It's all about his experience hiking the Appalachian Trail with a friend who was totally not ready. Bryson really captures the rugged feel of the AT while also making you laugh at himself, his hiking partner and others who literally cross their path.


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More Info
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a movement for racial justice in the United States which began in 2012 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager. Since its inception, BLM has organized actions throughout the country in response to vigilante and police violence targeting Black people, and seeks to end systematic inequality while "working for the validity of Black life". The movement's platform includes demands for economic parity, police reform, and an end to mass incarceration. http://blacklivesmatter.com


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The Hebrew word meaning the same thing is Mashiach, or as we know it—Messiah. So Christ is really more a title than it is a name, although the Bible uses it both ways. For example, the Bible often refers to Jesus by name as "Jesus Christ," just as we do in modern usage (see Matthew 1:1, 18; Mark 1:1; John 1:17; 17:3; Acts 3:6; Romans 3:24, etc.).
But it also speaks of Jesus as "the Christ," meaning "the anointed one," the Messiah. When Jesus asked His disciples who they thought He was, Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). At Jesus' interrogation by the Jews just before His crucifixion, the high priest demanded, "Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!" (Matthew 26:63). And Luke records that on one occasion when Jesus cast demons out of individuals, the demons cried out, " 'You are the Christ, the Son of God!' and He [Jesus] rebuking them, did not allow them to speak, for they knew that He was the Christ" (Luke 4:41).
So Jesus Christ combines His name (Jesus) with His title (Christ), meaning Jesus, the anointed One, or Jesus, the chosen One. Jesus is His human name as announced to Mary by the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:31), and Christ is His title, as the chosen, anointed Son of God.
The Old Testament predicted that God would send a chosen one—the Messiah—to save the world from sin. As early as the Garden of Eden, God told Adam and Eve that a "seed" of the woman (a descendant) would come someday and destroy Satan and sin (Genesis 3:15). The psalms of David and the prophecies of Daniel described the work and coming of the Messiah whom God would send to save His people from their sins (Psalm 16; 22; 45; 110; Daniel 9).
The Jewish people knew the Messiah was coming, but they misunderstood what He was coming to do. They believed the Messiah—the Christ—would come to set up a kingdom on earth and deliver them from their Roman masters. But Jesus Christ came to deliver them from a bondage much worse than their bondage to Rome. Jesus came to deliver them—and us—from the terrible bondage to sin.
At the beginning of His ministry on earth, Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath and read the Scripture for the day.
Luke says, "And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'
Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, 'Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing' " (Luke 4:17-21).
Jesus read these words from Isaiah 61, a prophecy of the coming Messiah, and then He said that He was the One to whom this prophecy referred. That He had been anointed to preach the gospel of salvation. That He was the Christ, the anointed One.
In the Old Testament, those who were set apart by God for positions of spiritual or political leadership were anointed with oil as a symbol of their authority. Oil was poured on the heads of priests, kings, and prophets to indicate that God had chosen them and consecrated them for the work He had given them to do.
The Bible records two times that Jesus was anointed with oil (Matthew 26:6, 7; Luke 7:37, 38). But more importantly, Jesus was anointed by God for His role as "the Christ." The Bible says, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him" (Acts 10:38).
As "the Christ," Jesus was God's anointed One who fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, the chosen One who came to save us from sin, and the One who has promised to come again to usher in His everlasting kingdom.


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Hollywood offers free movies to boost UltraViolet (Update)
In a bid to jumpstart its fledgling online entertainment system, Hollywood studios are resorting to a time-honored tactic: giving stuff away.
An industry consortium called the Digital Entertainment Group said Tuesday that it will include 10 free movies from six major studios every time a consumer buys certain models of Internet-connected TVs. Buyers of certain Blu-ray players will get five free movies.
The movies will be stored online through a system called UltraViolet, and are redeemable through Web video services CinemaNow, Flixster, Nook Video and Vudu.
The giveaway launches later this year and includes movies from Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros.
Electronics makers supporting the promotion include LG, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and Vizio.
The giveaway, announced at the International CES show, illustrates the lengths that the movie studios have to go to adapt to consumers' changing viewing habits. The DEG also announced Tuesday that U.S. home entertainment spending was flat in 2012 at $18 billion.
The end-of-year figures showed that revenue from purchases of physical discs fell 5.5 percent to $8.5 billion, as Blu-ray disc sales rose 10 percent and DVDs continued their steady decline.
The major growing categories were kiosk disc rentals, which rose 16 percent to $1.9 billion. Subscription streaming jumped 46 percent to $2.3 billion. Video-on-demand rentals grew 11 percent to $2 billion and digital download sales rose 35 percent to $811 million.
These growing categories helped the decline in overall spending to stop a multi-year slide. U.S home video spending fell 3 percent in 2010 and declined 2 percent in 2011.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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I am starting English Literature with Bear and am quite excited about it. She is not a big fan of English like her siblings are, but I hope to make things more interesting by preparing multi-faceted lessons. I thought long and hard about which book to choose for our first study… then I came across Sounder by William H Armstrong, a book we had done as a family read-aloud when she was much younger.
Sounder is an intensely moving story – simply told so even the young can appreciate it, yet so full of meaning and nuances that an adult cannot help but be drawn into it. The characters just get right down deep into your heart, mind and bones. It is about loyalty and deep abiding love. It is about loss and struggle. Above all, it is about hope.
The story centres around a poor sharecropping black family who struggle to get by. In the winter months, when there is no crop or cash, the father goes hunting with his dog, Sounder. Lately, however, the hunting is poor and he grows more and more desperate by the day. The boy awakens one morning to the smell of ham cooking and for the first time in a long while, the family has a decent meal. There is an undercurrent of tension though, and we realise why soon enough. Three days later, the sheriff and his men barge in and arrest the father for theft. The ever-loyal Sounder tries to protect the father, but is horribly injured in the process and the family are left struggling to cope with this painful loss.
I'll go into the detailed chapter summaries and theme analysis in future posts, God willing. For now, here are some resources you might find interesting before/while reading the book.
The place and time are not specified in Sounder (a clever technique of the author, but more on that later!) but we can guess that the story is set in the deep South, post slavery, around the beginning of the twentieth century. Slavery was abolished in 1865 and this was to provide equality under the law to the freed slaves. However, the reality was that slavery continued to exist, only in another shape and form. The freed blacks were unskilled and uneducated and too poor to buy land or seeds to farm, so many stayed with their former masters as share croppers. They would farm the land and share the profits with their landlords. With no money for supplies, the farmers would have to use their future crops as collateral and be forced to grow cash crops on their land to pay off debts. They would not be able to grow food and would then need to borrow more money to feed their families. This was, in a strange way, worse than slavery – as sharecroppers, they were in perpetual debt, fear and isolation. In slavery, they at least continued to be fed and had a place to live.
We are reading Leon's Story by Leon Walter Tillage – a gem I found for less than $1. This is a first-person narrative of life as a sharecropper in the 1940s when lynching and Jim Crow laws were a part of everyday life. Leon had to walk miles to get to school while white kids rode on buses… he had urine thrown at him, was chased by dogs and had to endure his father's killing by white people. Still, it is a story of hope and perseverance.
Here are some links I went through to learn about sharecropping:


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Studies of Germany's largest river reveal a correlation between periods of low activity of the sun and regional cooling
Scientists have long suspected that the Sun's 11-year cycle influences climate of certain regions on Earth. Yet records of average, seasonal temperatures do not date back far enough to confirm any patterns. Now, armed with a unique proxy, an international team of researchers show that unusually cold winters in Central Europe are related to low solar activity - when sunspot numbers are minimal. The freezing of Germany's largest river, the Rhine, is the key.
Although the Earth's surface overall continues to warm, the new analysis has revealed a correlation between periods of low activity of the Sun and of some cooling - on a limited, regional scale in Central Europe, along the Rhine. "The advantage with studying the Rhine is because it's a very simple measurement," said Professor Dr. Frank Sirocko, lead author of a paper on the study and Professor of Sedimentology and Palaeoclimatology at the Institute of Geosciences of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. "Freezing is special in that it's like an on-off mode. Either there is ice or there is no ice."
But how to find this information? Easily done: From the early 19th through the mid-20th centuries, riverboat men used the Rhine river for cargo transport. And so docks along the river have annual records of when ice clogged the waterway and stymied shipping. The scientists used these easily accessible documents, as well as other additional historical accounts, to determine the number of freezing episodes since 1780. Sirocko and his colleagues found that between 1780 and 1963, the Rhine froze in multiple places fourteen different times. "The sheer size of the Rhine river means it takes extremely cold temperatures to freeze over making freezing episodes a good proxy for very cold winters in the region," Sirocko said.
Mapping the freezing episodes against the solar activity's 11-year cycle, a cycle of the Sun's varying magnetic strength and thus total radiation output, Sirocko and his colleagues determined that ten of the fourteen freezes occurred during years when the Sun had minimal sunspots. Using statistical methods, the scientists calculated that there is a 99% chance that extremely cold Central European winters and low solar activity are inherently linked. "We provide, for the first time, statistically robust evidence that the succession of cold winters during the last 230 years in Central Europe has a common cause," Sirocko said.
"With the new paper, Sirocko and his colleagues have added to the research linking solar variability with climate," said Thomas Crowley, Director of the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment, and Society, who was not involved with the study. "There is some suspension of belief in this link," Crowley said, "and this study tilts the argument more towards thinking there really is something to this link. If you have more statistical evidence to support this explanation, one is more likely to say it's true."
When sunspot numbers are down, the Sun emits less ultraviolet radiation. Less radiation means less heating of Earth's atmosphere, which sparks a change in the circulation patterns of the two lowest atmospheric levels, the troposphere and stratosphere. Such changes lead to climatic phenomena such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, a pattern of atmospheric pressure variations that influences wind patterns in the North Atlantic and weather behavior in regions in and around Europe. "Due to this indirect effect, the solar cycle does not impact hemispherically averaged temperatures, but only leads to regional temperature anomalies," said Stephan Pfahl, a co-author of the study who is now at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich. The authors show that this change in atmospheric circulation leads to cooling in parts of Central Europe but warming in other European countries, such as Iceland. "Sunspots do not necessarily cool the entire globe; their cooling effect is more localized," Sirocko said.
In fact, studies have suggested that the extremely cold European winters of 2010 and 2011 were the result of the North Atlantic Oscillation, which Sirocko and his team now link to the low solar activity during that time. The 2010 and 2011 European winters were so cold that they resulted in record lows for the month of November in certain countries. Some who dispute the occurrence of anthropogenic climate change argue that this two-year period shows that Earth's climate is not getting any warmer. But climate is a complex system, Sirocko said. And a short-term, localized dip in temperatures only temporarily masks the effects of a warming world. "Climate is not ruled by one variable," said Sirocko. "In fact, it has at least five or six variables. Carbon dioxide is certainly one, but solar activity is also one."
Moreover, the researchers also point out that, despite Central Europe's prospect to suffer colder winters every 11 years or so, the average temperature of those winters is increasing and has been for the past three decades. As one piece of evidence of that warming, the Rhine river has not frozen over since 1963. Sirocko said such warming results, in part, from climate change. To establish a more complete record of past temperature dips, the researchers are looking to other proxies, such as the spread of disease and migratory habits. "Disease can be transported by insects and rats, but during a strong freezing year that is not likely," said Sirocko. "Also, Romans used the Rhine to defend against the Germanics, but as soon as the river froze people could move across it. The freezing of the Rhine is very important on historical timescales."
However, it wasn't the Rhine that first got Sirocko to thinking about the connection between freezing rivers and sunspot activity. In fact, it was a 125-mile ice-skating race he attended over 20 years ago in the Netherlands that sparked the scientist's idea. "Skaters can only do this race every 10 or 11 years because that's when the rivers freeze up," Sirocko said. "I thought to myself, 'There must be a reason for this,' and it turns out there is."


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Jeannie C. Riley biography
Date of birth : 1945-10-19
Date of death : -
Birthplace : Stamford, Texas, United States
Nationality : American
Category : Arts and Entertainment
Last modified : 2011-03-10
Credited as : Country music singer, Harper Valley P.T.A.,
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Best known for her international crossover hit "Harper Valley P.T.A.," Jeannie C. Riley was born Jeanne Carolyn Stephenson in Anson, TX, where she developed a love of country music as a girl. When she was a teenager, she made her first public performance, appearing on her uncle's jamboree show. Soon after high-school graduation, she married Mickey Riley; she wanted to become a professional musician, so she and her new husband moved to Nashville, where she performed secretarial work at Passkey Music. She also made a few demos as Jean Riley that led to the single "What About Them," which wasn't successful. Then, in 1967, her manager Paul Perry hooked Riley up with producer Shelby Singleton, with whom she recorded "Harper Valley P.T.A." The song became an instant hit, reaching number one on both the pop and country charts. Later in 1968, Riley debuted on The Grand Ole Opry and released "The Girl Most Likely," which reached number six on the country charts. During the early '70s, she had a string of minor hits and five other Top Ten singles, including "Country Girl," "Oh, Singer," and "Good Enough to Be Your Wife." Around 1974, Riley became a born-again Christian and formed a new band, Red River Symphony, which had a minor hit in 1976, "The Best I've Ever Had." Following its release, Riley founded and began recording on the God's Country label. In 1981, she recorded the gospel album From Harper Valley to the Mountain Top. Throughout the '80s and '90s, she continued to be a popular contemporary Christian recording and performing artist.


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When Patriotism Becomes Mostly Seasonal – North Denver Tribune.com
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Following our annual celebration of the 4th of July, sometimes reflection is helpful. A week before this holiday everyone dons a patriotic tie. A week later few do. This is when patriotism is seasonal. The event comes and goes; essentially colors red, white, and blue are popular for a day, and then out. You might even be viewed as "super patriotic" (as though this were bad) were one to wear the tie a second week.
The evening is filled with fireworks (the bigger the better) but few know why. When asked, the most common response is freedom. "Freedom from what or whom?" I ask. If a stare could kill, I'd be dead. There is no real understanding behind the expression. It is rare when anyone answers correctly, "Freedom from excessive government."
The cause of the American Revolution was excessive government. Some say, "taxation without representation" but this is only a part of excessive government. Every U.S. History text has a chapter dealing with the Revolution. It is filled with the rules and regulations that were most oppressive to the colonists: the Stamp Act, Tea Act, Currency Act, Iron Act, Molasses Act, Sugar Act, even the Hat Act. Such acts were viewed by the colonist as restrictive to their freedom to act independent of governmental permission. Essentially when they came down like rain, as they did just prior to the Revolution, the colonists said why, grieved the rulings without success, then, "Where is my rifle?"
For one day of the year there is peace between liberals and conservatives. Each wears the emblems of the Revolution and demonstrates their patriotism by rising bigger flags, exploding bigger fireworks, eating bigger steaks and guzzling more alcohol. Parades too are non-contentious and show patriotism, but for what? The next day we ask the federal government to manage one-seventh of the economy, whether Obamacare or Trumpcare, totally ignoring the Constitution and the reason for the Revolution.
Few share with their children the reasons behind these symbols and still fewer tie the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution which essentially ended the need for a second revolution by restricting the federal government to a handful of areas in which they can constitutionally restrict our behavior (Article I, Sec. 8), freezing forever, if we adhere to the Constitution as designed, our legislative branch doing the same thing to us as had parliament to the colonists. If the two are not tied together then the American Revolution was just a revolution, rightly commemorated by having a longer weekend and an excuse to get drunk. It is okay then if patriotism becomes mostly seasonal.
Lost in the translation and replaced by the blank stare, previously mentioned, is your right to do most everything you wish without permission from a government located hundreds, often thousands, of miles away. Outside the short list in Article I, Section 8, which, incidentally, has no restrictions on the individual himself, the Constitution left the individual to manage himself. When his behavior offended the right of others to also self-manage, his community, starting at the lowest level (cities, counties, and finally his state government), may regulate his behavior protecting the right of self-managing for others as well.
This is called freedom. And this is the end result of a 13-year transformative period from the Declaration of Independence through the Articles of Federation to the Constitution, which included the Bill of Rights. The federal government constitutionally could only increase its power through Article V, which required the permission of the states.
The collective view of the Founders was to never elevate to a higher level that which could be resolved at a lessor level. Resolvement at the lowest level, the city for example, allows the individual unable to self-manage, to access his elected representatives for redress. He also answers to those he has most directly offended. A more just outcome is likely. Imagine resolvement issues if he had to answer to someone in Washington D. C.
The 4th of July and Constitution Week in September are our best opportunities to share the message of why the Revolution and the Constitution interconnect and are among the more important events in U.S., even world, history. When patriotism is largely seasonal, as it has become, what I have just explained loses its best chance of being remembered and retained when we do not gather our family, church and civic organizations around us using every means to enlightening others.
We are grateful to those who know the real meaning and significance of this event in history and are willing to share it with others. We remain grateful for the bigger fireworks, lights shows, and parades just as long as we do not forget that most of us remain opposed to excessive government, as were those who gave their lives for this cause in the Revolutionary War, whether it comes, as it did for them, from a parliament, or a Congress.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.


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A pair of talented stage alums have been added to the company of ABC's Little Mermaid Live! John Stamos will play Chef Louie while Graham Phillips will take on the role of Prince Eric in the live television event, set to air on November 5 at 8:00pm.
Stamos, most known for his beloved sitcom turn as Uncle Jesse on Full House and Fuller House, has appeared on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie, The Best Man, Nine, Cabaret and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Phillips is best remembered by Broadway fans for his standout leading turn as Evan in the 2008 musical 13 (which premiered on Broadway in the same year as The Little Mermaid). Phillips has been seen on the small screen in The Good Wife.
Stamos and Phillips join a previously announced cast led by Auli'i Cravalho as Ariel, Queen Latifah as Ursula and Shaggy as Sebastian.
ABC's Little Mermaid event will include elements from the Disney animated musical blended with live performances of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's fan-favorite songs. Based on a classic Hans Christian Andersen story, The Little Mermaid focuses on a young mermaid named Ariel (Cravalho) who wants nothing more than to live life on land. She gives away her voice to an evil sea urchin named Ursula (Latifah) in exchange for the chance to spend time out of the water, at the behest of her vocal friend, a crab named Sebastian (Shaggy).
The television event is not to be confused with the upcoming live-action Little Mermaid film, which will star Halle Bailey as Ariel.


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Who's to Blame for Delayed Response to Katrina?
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 6, 2005 — -- In New Orleans, those in peril and those in power have pointed the finger squarely at the federal government for the delayed relief effort.
But experts say when natural disasters strike, it is the primary responsibility of state and local governments -- not the federal government -- to respond.
New Orleans' own comprehensive emergency plan raises the specter of "having large numbers of people ... stranded" and promises "the city ... will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas."
"Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves," the plan states.
When Hurricane Katrina hit, however, that plan was not followed completely.
Instead of sending city buses to evacuate those who could not make it out on their own, people in New Orleans were told to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center, where no one provided sufficient sustenance or security.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said "80 percent" of the city was evacuated before the storm hit, but Bob Williams says that's not good enough.
Williams dealt with emergency response issues as a state representative in Washington when his district was forced to deal with the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.
"If the plan were implemented, lives would have been saved," Williams said.
There's no question the federal government plays a major role in disaster relief. But federal officials say in order to get involved, they must first be asked to do so by state officials.
As one FEMA official told ABC News, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco failed to submit a request for help in a timely manner.
Shortly before Katrina hit, she sent President Bush a request asking for shelter and provisions, but didn't specifically ask for help with evacuations. One aide to the governor told ABC News today Blanco thought city officials were taking care of the evacuation.


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"My partner and I had worked carefully with the Air Force and some Pentagon war planners to figure out the possible scenarios by which such a conflict could come into being," says Zabel, his voice still shot through with disbelief two days after the attacks. "The irony is that we had sort of rejected something as radical as what just happened as being a little too much. So, interestingly enough, the cautionary tale we hoped to tell in fiction ended up becoming a cautionary tale told on the evening news, and there almost is no need for the wake-up call, because America has been woken up."
Canceling that meeting was the second-easiest decision Zabel had to make last week. As the newly elected chairman and chief executive officer of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Zabel was largely responsible for postponing the broadcast of the Emmy Awards, which were to have been handed out last Sunday. Television simply could not yield its unblinking, unending images of annihilation to those of actors and writers being applauded by their peers.
When the show finally does take place October 7, it will be an entirely different broadcast than originally planned. Zabel says the Emmys now will have little to do with TV's "entertainment value"; long gone, in all likelihood, will be the inside jokes and self-satisfied smirks that dominate such award shows. The telecast, Zabel says, will instead "be about being a service to the nation in any way we can in terms of providing a shared experience, in the same way television has always provided Americans and the world a chance to share tragedies and work through them together."
One imagines a somber affair, but what images has television provided in recent days worth celebrating? We've seen too much of Dan Rather to care, for now and for the foreseeable future, who loves Raymond. We are in no mood to laugh, to be distracted, to be entertained. Nor are we prepared at this moment to watch TV shows and movies that use domestic terror to amuse us. As much as the events of September 11 changed the landscape of Manhattan, so, too, did it rumble the foundation of a city on the other side of the country.
It took only hours after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., for Hollywood to respond, as studios began postponing the release dates of films whose plots hinge on acts of terrorism, lax airport security and, in one instance, romance in New York. Touchstone announced on September 12 it was pushing Barry Sonnenfeld's Big Trouble, due for release this week, to early next year. Disney-owned Touchstone had good reason to hold the movie, which is based on a novel by humorist Dave Barry. It's as frothy as a Starbucks cappuccino -- bumbling hit men, dimwitted cops, loutish millionaires and failed journalists cross paths so often you'd think Miami was a city of 12. The studio was uncomfortable with a scene near the film's end, in which two petty criminals (played by Tom Sizemore and Jackass Johnny Knoxville) sneak a bomb and two handguns onto a plane bound for the Bahamas.
"When the wounds are so raw, how do you put out a movie that touches the subject at all?" Nina Jacobson, president of Disney's Motion Picture Group, told the Los Angeles Times last week.
Warner Bros. also announced it would no longer release the Arnold Schwarzenegger "political action thriller" Collateral Damage on October 5. Schwarzenegger plays a fireman who witnesses the death of his wife and son when terrorists bomb a building. The studio has also pulled all outdoor, in-theater, television, radio and Web-site advertising, which will cost Warner Bros. millions. Paramount Classics delayed the opening of Edward Burns' romantic comedy Sidewalks of New York from this week to November. And Sony yanked the trailer for Spider-Man, in which a helicopter is snared in a web between the World Trade Center's towers, and pulled its posters from theaters, in which the now-vanished towers are reflected in Spider-Man's left eye.
MGM was planning to start preproduction on Nose Bleed, a Jackie Chan comedy-thriller involving terrorists and a fight on top of the Empire State Building. But that movie, and many more like it -- including The Sum of All Fears, based on Tom Clancy's novel about a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl, due for release next year -- are on hold. Studios say they have little interest in using panic to sell popcorn, just as audiences likely will have little interest in seeing the frighteningly familiar projected on the big screen. They've had plenty on the small screen.
"This is real life, not a make-believe story that we've been filming," says Robert Wise, the Oscar-winning director of such films as The Sound of Music and West Side Story. "It's a terrible thing, and I think it does have an impact on how we think about movies. It's wise of the film companies and producers to hold off or delay the release of those films while this is so current. . . . What happened in New York and Washington is certainly going to change our way of looking at movies."
Networks also have been forced to re-evaluate some of their fall-season programming. The première of Fox's much-ballyhooed 24, due to air at the end of October, contains footage of a terrorist parachuting out of an exploding airplane. Brian Grazer, the series' executive producer, has said no changes will be made to the show, which is not surprising: The series, about a plot to assassinate a presidential candidate, airs in real time (each episode takes place over one hour), and to manipulate the first episode would likely have a domino effect on others already in the can.
Zabel says CBS executives are also "taking a new look" at The Agency, its set-in-the-CIA procedural thriller. NBC also has its problems: It currently has on its schedule a five-hour miniseries spread across its three Law & Order series, including the forthcoming Criminal Intent, which deals with a terrorist incident in the United States. The shows' creator, Dick Wolf, could not be reached for comment.
But, insists Zabel, "Wolf's five-part series . . . is a valid cautionary tale, and it is powerfully important information for Americans to know. Whether they need to know it right now, in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy, is probably a good question. But I think Americans will enjoy quality television programming that makes them think. I always think we do a great disservice when we underestimate the intellect and capacity of the American public, because they do like to learn and to be challenged and to see things through different eyes. . . . Writers pay very close attention to the news. I would imagine other writers, like myself, are watching these images and thinking about what it all means to our society in the future, and I would imagine you will see some of that reflected in projects in the future."
But how soon in the future? The threat of impending war lingers like smoke over a wounded Manhattan, and the notion of resuming regularly scheduled programming is, at the moment, almost unfathomable. Life has leapt in front of art and blotted it out. We've been reminded of this almost daily, as talking heads sit in front of news cameras and blithely compare the bombings to Tom Clancy novels and Jerry Bruckheimer movies. It's almost as though the so-called Attack on America (the title given the tragedy by the networks just minutes after the first plane smashed into the World Trade Center) is but one of the new fall-season shows.
Few in the entertainment industry have been more mindful of this than New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright, who penned the story and screenplay for the 1998 film The Siege. That film, directed by Ed Zwick, looks now like prophecy: After the capture of a suspected Arab terrorist, Ahmed Bin Talal, New York is subjected to multiple bombings, which the Army uses as an excuse to put the city under martial law and incarcerate Arab Americans. As Wright sat in his Austin, Texas, home on September 11, watching events transpire on his television that looked as though they had been lifted from his film, he was stunned and saddened.
"When I was working on the movie, I was interviewing a lot of people in the CIA and FBI's counter-terrorism task force," says a subdued Wright, "and I don't want to say they expected something like this, but they were all very convinced something like this could happen and that only a series of fortunate accidents had prevented it from happening so far. The movie was, I think, reflective of some of their anxiety. It was meant to be kind of a cautionary tale: What would happen if we experienced in this country the kind of terrorism that happens almost routinely in some other countries, and what kind of country would we become? That was the intention of the movie, and then to see scenes that looked so much like what the movie portrayed was spooky and unsettling and depressing."
At the time of its release, The Siege was almost universally panned for being too polemic, too paranoid and even too racist in its so-called vilification of the Arab community. "It turns into a speechifying consideration of civil liberties and constitutional rights," sniffed Janet Maslin in The New York Times; she added that the "film's stark images of scheming Arab villains often speak louder than its diplomatic words." Wright has had little time to reflect or react to the week's events. He has been too consumed writing a story for the New Yorker about the harassment of Arab Americans and Muslims, which has been especially rampant throughout Wright's home state. In effect, he is writing a factual follow-up to the fiction he authored but a few years ago.
Wright believes that had The Siege been presented as trashy fiction -- as a Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme thriller set aboard a battleship or in a hockey rink -- it likely would have been given a "free pass." But, he insists, the movie was damned for being too challenging, too didactic . . . and far too authentic to be entertaining. The Siege not only could happen. It did happen.
But, Wright says, "We're still going to need entertainment. We may look at things differently somewhat, but beyond entertaining, movies are a form of art. They may at times be low art, they may at times be high art, but the function of art is to help us understand experience. As a reporter, what I'm trying to do is put things down in order, get them straight, get the facts right, sort things out. That's what I've been doing for the last several days. But as an artist, what I'm trying to do is incorporate those facts and experiences and digest them in a human way so they're understood, they're absorbed. One thing that movies and all other forms of art do is help us get a handle on our experiences, especially when those experiences seem too big for us."
No doubt, there will one day be movies about September 11, 2001. They will be set in World Trade Center stairwells, in airplane cockpits, in Pentagon offices. Hollywood will not be able to resist the temptation to document one of this country's most horrific moments, no more than it can stop making movies about the Civil War or Pearl Harbor. Time will pass, debris will be disposed of, bodies will be buried, and all that will linger is the memory of two airplanes disappearing into office buildings that no longer exist. In February 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center for the first time, killing six and injuring thousands. Four years later, Marcia Gay Harden and Peter Gallagher starred in the made-for-HBO film Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing, which bore the promotional tag line, "No one expected a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. But many could have prevented it."
"This story is too big for us," says Zabel, "but I could see writing a character who lost a loved one in this event. That would make it not too big for us, but just small enough to be real. I think there's a lot of different ways to come at a particular story, and not all of them have to be Die Hard. That's too big for us, maybe, but a character moment may not be. But good writing isn't about providing answers. It's about providing the questions."
Don't tell that to Matthew Crouch, the rare film producer whose life did not come to a standstill the morning of September 11. When he saw balls of fire shooting from the World Trade Center, he thought only of how to capitalize on the moment when, this week, he puts into 400 theaters nationwide Megiddo: Omega Code 2, the sequel to the surprisingly successful religious thriller released in October 1999. Megiddo, which stars Michael York as the devil, is full of images that will look appallingly familiar, including scenes of landmark buildings being destroyed and reporters standing in front of fiery ruins.
Crouch says he never -- "not for one second" -- considered pulling the film, which, according to its Web site, is about "the rise of a Machiavellian leader bent on amassing the armies of the world for the battle of Armageddon while calamities of Biblical proportions pummel the earth." Crouch, son of Trinity Broadcasting Network president Paul Crouch, says Megiddo is nothing less than a "prophetic movie" based on various books of the Bible. He insists the movie, which hasn't been screened for critics, does nothing less than "foretell future events," including, but not limited to, last week's massacre.
God, Crouch says again and again, wants this movie in theaters immediately. And who is he to argue?
"God is not in the building-destroying business," he says. "His breath did not blow those planes off course and slam them into those buildings. God is not into the taking-of-life business, nor did he squish those buildings. But God knows all things, and to think that he took my production company and positioned us to make this movie over the last 24 months and have it finished just in time to have it answer a question we did not know was coming is awesome. . . I am thrilled to be in the right place at that right time."
God knows he may be the only one.