text:
Launching a quick-serve concept is no walk in the park, and entrepreneurs just starting out in the restaurant field must have realistic expectations, says a top fast-casual executive.
Jeffrey Zurofsky, partner and founder, along with celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, of New York City–based sandwich chain 'wichcraft, said during a recent International Culinary Center entrepreneurship webinar that while "being your own boss" is appealing to many, becoming an entrepreneur is not suitable for everyone. He says it requires a high level of personal commitment, a great concept idea, leadership, organization, and passion.
"You get a lot of the autonomy that you're looking for by starting your own thing and getting out from working for someone else," he said during the webinar. "[However], you do lose some of your freedoms, because now you're responsible for the business, responsible for employees, responsible to your investors, responsible to your customers."
During the startup process, Zurofsky says, an entrepreneur must be persistent and personable. No matter how strong the concept is, he says, it will only go as far as the entrepreneur is willing to take it. Zurofsky spent months developing his concept and business plan before speaking with investors. Even with a design in hand, he found it was difficult to convince financial backers to take a risk on 'wichcraft.
Zurofsky says counseling and advice from industry veterans helped get his concept rolling. They offered him a fresh perspective, ways to improve upon his idea, and risk-taking strategies. "I recommend that everyone be open to that counsel; don't be defensive about it, don't dismiss it," he says.
Zurofsky also suggests launching a business with a partner because a partnership brings more opportunities, ideas, and enthusiasm to the table. A partnership also helps divide up some of the responsibilities, which helps with time management, he says.
"Great entrepreneurs know how to manage their energy and balance their energy, and also know how to create more energy," Zurofsky says. "If you're upbeat and you have a lot of energy and you're not stressed out and busy all of the time, you've got more time for your employees."
The real work begins once the first unit opens, Zurofsky says. With 'wichcraft, he and his team had to run the restaurant, understand it, and make it successful before raising additional capital. "After two or three months of working in the store, we were out raising capital to expand the business and to grow it into the business plan we had written," he says.
Moving through all of this work can be tough, Zurofsky says, which is why restaurant entrepreneurs must have "a real passion, a real core, an iron core to get you through [the obstacles]."
"Entrepreneurship is really about grinding it out everyday," Zurofsky says. "You sleep less, you obsess more, you wear many hats, you wake up everyday thinking nothing's perfect and everything needs to be fixed, you believe in the best and prepare for the worst, you risk everything."
By Marlee Murphy


text:
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Thank you PlayStation
Matt Kemp lost the MLB The Show 13 cover contest. Andrew McCutchen wins. Congratulations Andrew! Honestly, if it wasn't Kemp, I'm glad McCutchen won. Big fan of him.
The folks at PlayStation were nice enough to send me some 'Vote Kemp' items. Got this yesterday.
A shirt and bumper stickers.
And a pin! My son took it away.
Thank you PlayStation!
Click here to view the final results.
2 comments:
- jonathan said...
he's been one of my favorite players, im glad he won i hoped he would be in dodger blue soon since the pirates always give away their talent. but he's a great all around player
- January 12, 2013 at 7:34 PM
- Roberto Baly said...
@ Orlando - Andrew actually signed a big contract with the Pirates. Free-agent until 2018. Don't see them moving him.
- January 13, 2013 at 6:24 PM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Due to current health and safety measures, all wineries are accepting visitors by appointment only
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Tamber Bey
Cases: 5
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2018
Release Date: April - 2021
Appellation: Oakville
To purchase this wine or check on availability contact:
Brinkmann's Wine & Spirits
Franklin TN


text:
Devart presents the new state-of-the-art version of a powerful Oracle database development tool dbForge Studio for Oracle (formerly known as OraDeveloper Studio). Now it looks differently, and includes a whole pack of new features and extended old ones.
Devart is glad to release new completely redesigned version of the tool for Oracle development - dbForge Studio for Oracle, v 3.0. This product is formerly known as OraDeveloper Studio, but the new version has a different name, looks differently, and includes a whole pack of new features and extended old ones.
* Product Editions
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* About Devart
Devart is a widely recognized provider of database connectivity solutions and tools for the most popular databases, including MS SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, InterBase, Firebird and SQLite.


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Guests: Ezra Klein, Eugene Robinson, Joan Walsh, Sue Herera, David Corn, Mark Halperin, Sam Stein, Robert Reich, Ezra Reich, Steven Rattner
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Let`s play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I`m Chris Matthews in Boston. Let me start with Mitt
Romney`s rules of engagement. He is a man of faith, family and business,
and that, ladies and gentlemen, is about it. This is also a statement of
what his opponents, the press and the public is not supposed to ask about.
We`re being asked to let a man lead us in the world without knowing
what his world is all about. He`s a candidate for our highest office who
holds himself well beyond the rope line, who complains about the need to
explain himself.
There is something strangely and defiantly weird in a man demanding to
enter the public world who demands -- commands is a better word -- that we
keep our distance and do not try too hard to enter his world. We can`t
talk about his faith. We can`t talk about his time as governor. We can`t
talk about Bain Capital.
What can we talk about, his choice in Cadillacs?
Steve Rattner was the car czar for the Obama administration and "Time"
magazine`s Mark Halperin is an MSNBC senior political analyst. He just
interviewed Mitt Romney for the new edition of "Time" magazine.
By the way, Mark, in your interview, you asked Mitt Romney whether his
business record was open to scrutiny. Let`s watch his response.
MARK HALPERIN, "TIME," MSNBC SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: But you welcome
scrutiny of your business record, is that right?
MITT ROMNEY (R-MA), FMR. GOV., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Mark,
what I can tell you is this. The fact is that I spent 25 years in the
private sector. And that -- that obviously teaches you something that you
don`t learn if you haven`t spent any time in the private sector.
If you were to say to me, Tell me what you learned from your schooling
that would help you be a president, that`s, like, well, How do I begin
going through a list like that? You learn through life`s -- life`s
The president`s experience has been exclusively in politics and as a
community organizer. Both of those are fine areas of endeavor. But right
now, we have an economy in trouble. And someone who spent their career in
the economy is more suited to help fix the economy than someone who spent
his life in politics and as a community organizer.
MATTHEWS: Mark, what did you make of that interview? It`s a good
question, but what did you make of the answer?
HALPERIN: Well, that`s part of what he said, Chris. And people can
go to the Web site and read the full answer on Time.com. I think two -- I
think his answer had three basic parts to it, two of which I think are
politically effective.
The general answer of just, business -- if you`re in business, you
know how to make the economy work -- I don`t think that`s particularly
effective. And he went to that well, as he normally does, several times.
There were two other aspects of the answer that I think are more
effective. One is -- and part of what you showed there -- I think his
critique of the president -- while the White House will push back on it, I
think a lot of voters will find that compelling, to say, I have been in the
private sector, he hasn`t, you don`t like the economy.
There`s part of his answer I thought was quite effective -- again, we
didn`t see it there -- where he talked about energy. It`s one of the first
times I`ve ever heard him drill down specifically and say, When I was at
Bain, this is a specific thing I learned about business that I can apply as
president, basically not a huge, like, mega-revelation, but that if your
energy costs are high in a business, you can`t -- you can`t meet your
payroll. You can`t be competitive with other countries. And that`s
something that he thinks -- he says animates his energy policy. I think
that line could be effective if he fleshes it out.
MATTHEWS: Let me go to Steve Rattner. Steve, you -- I`ve known you a
while and you`ve worked with -- pretty closely with politicians as a
reporter and then as a political contributor and a man who`s close to a lot
of them and also to business people. You`re in business yourself up there
in New York.
What -- there has been a reason why business types -- and I don`t mind
using the phrase like Romney, and I don`t mean just corporate or private
equity guys, businessmen -- have not made great political leaders. It
seems like a different world. You have a different press. You have a
different isolation. You can pick the press you want to talk to. You can
pick the people you want to talk to.
Politicians have to swim in a world of people and be concerned about
an awful lot of people that aren`t involved directly in making money for
STEVEN RATTNER, FMR. OBAMA CAR CZAR: There`s no question about that,
Chris. They are somewhat different sets of skills. And I think you
articulated it pretty well. If you`re a CEO, you do have to do with --
deal with employees. You do have to deal with shareholders. But it`s a
lot different than legislating and being part of a group and trying to
build consensus.
And the record of business people going to Washington -- treasury
secretaries and other jobs -- is at best very mixed because most
businessmen are used to this sort of command-and-control CEO kind of
approach. It is quite -- it is quite different.
MATTHEWS: Yes, well, let me ask you about Bain. And he seemed to
give -- he did -- I mean, Mark is smart. He shifted quickly away from it
to Obama. And he said, I can`t give you a whole list of things. He
doesn`t want this to be a choice election. He wants it to be about the
performance of the president, right? That`s where he wants the focus of
the voter to be, on Obama, not him.
RATTNER: I was -- I watched that clip of Mark`s interview and I was
astonished at how quickly he pivoted. He never really even answered the
question. He immediately turned around and started talking about the
president as a community organizer.
Look, Mitt Romney put Bain on the table by claiming that he created
100,000 jobs while he was there. He made this an issue in the campaign.
He basically put himself forward as a kind of job-creator-in-chief. And so
once he did that, and frankly, did it in what I think is a very specious
way, then I think it`s totally fair game for the press, for the Democrats,
for anybody who wants to, to dissect that job creation record and see what
it really amounts to.
MATTHEWS: Well, here we are back to the interview. Mark, you asked
Governor Romney about the president`s focus on Bain. And he told you he
welcomes that before quickly pivoting, as Steve said, to the president`s
Let`s watch that action here in your interview.
HALPERIN: So when the president said he wants to focus a lot of the
election debate on your career at Bain Capital, do you welcome that?
ROMNEY: Well, of course. I`d like to also focus on his record. What
is it -- what is it that he`s done as the president of the United States
over the last four years? Has he established the revitalization he
promised he would bring to us? Did he hold unemployment below 8 percent?
It`s been what, 39 months now. That hasn`t happened. He promised it would
happen by virtue of his stimulus.
Gasoline prices -- are people happy with those? Home prices -- they
happy with the home prices, the level of foreclosures? Do they think
someone can do better?
This is a president who spends his time blaming other people for the
fact that he has been unsuccessful in turning around this economy. And I
think the reason you`re seeing across the country people saying they`d like
to try someone new is because they believe this president, while he may be
a nice guy, is simply not up to the task of helping guide an economy.
MATTHEWS: Mark, what do you make of his nervousness, his calmness?
Could you read anything into that? People have told me he looks a bit
nervous there. I can`t tell from the small clip.
HALPERIN: Well, he`s getting over a head cold, so you got to -- you
got to give a little bit of a slack on that.
I think -- I think right now, one of his great strengths is he`s not
all caught up in the election. You and I have both covered presidential
candidates who sometimes -- they`re constantly saying, What`s the other guy
saying? What`s the newspaper saying? What are the polls saying?
Governor Romney`s engaged in all that, but in my time with him this
morning -- it was a long interview, it was more than 30 minutes, one of the
longest he`s done -- I found him to be very calm, the same guy, from the
first time I met him, calm, relaxed.
And he -- just like the believes Mitt Romney would be a horrible
president, Governor Romney in his heart believes the president`s been a
horrible president. And that really animates him and gives him the ability
to talk about this stuff, I think, quite naturally for him. He`s not
making this up. This is what he believes.
MATTHEWS: Yes, you -- well, I trust you on that as a reporter.
You`re one of the best. But why does he have this weird dichotomy where
he`ll do a formal sit-down with you because he obviously respects you, but
-- and then he seems to be very wary of the rope line -- and he says the
loopiest things on the rope line -- and yet when he gets a formal setting,
almost like a business press interview, he`s solid?
He can`t talk spontaneously on the rope line. He gets in trouble all
the time. He seems nervous about it. And he likes the formal debate
structures and conversations with you.
What is it about his formality that you can figure out?
HALPERIN: He`s got a severe allergy to rope that causes him to get
HALPERIN: Look, not everybody`s good at everything in politics. And
I think he`s learned not to talk on the rope line most of the time, but
sometimes he slips up. He`s not a great off-the-cuff politician. It`s
still the case. And this is why the debates will be a really interesting
challenge for him.
It`s still the case that sometimes, when a certain button gets pushed,
like on a rope line or in a debate when he`s weak, he`s not that good. But
I think, overall, in the interview today, on rope lines most of the time,
in most of the debates in the Republican nominating process, his skills are
pretty good. When he`s prepared, he`s pretty good.
MATTHEWS: I agree. Let me go back to Steve. Again, to your
knowledge -- you do have a pretty good knowledge of all these kinds of
people. He doesn`t seem like the guy that wants to talk about his private
life. He certainly doesn`t want to talk about religion, and that`s a right
he has to keep that to himself, doesn`t really want to talk about his
experience as governor, as a moderate governor up in Massachusetts. He
really doesn`t like this scrutiny of some of the -- a lot of the Bain
Can you get away with being elected president and have this hermetic
shield around you?
RATTNER: I don`t think so. I think people expect something different
from a president, or from any politician who`s running for office, than
they do from a CEO. And so I do think that part of his problem connecting
with people is the fact that he doesn`t want to do any of the things that
you just mentioned.
I think the thing in Massachusetts may also be a little bit different,
which is that I think there are questions about his record in
Massachusetts. The Democrats have a sound bite about Massachusetts being
47th out of 50th in job creation. I don`t think he wants to be in "Romney
care" because that is clearly a toxic issue politically for him.
And so he`s trying to dodge and weave. And I agree with you, I think
we have several months in which people are going to try to run him to
ground, and I think he`s going to have trouble responding.
MATTHEWS: OK, Steve. And by the way, thanks for saving the American
car industry. I think that is quite a notch on anybody`s belt, including
yours. Thank you, Steve Rattner. And thank you, Mark Halperin, as always,
for a big interview.
Coming up: The Republicans say it every day, President Obama raised
taxes. His spending is out of control. He apologized for America. Well,
the fact is, not one of those three things is true.
Wait until you catch -- we did some work here, our producers and I.
We got some facts for you. Spending hasn`t gone up every year. It`s
basically been flat. He hasn`t (INAUDIBLE) didn`t even care what the
Pakistanis thought. He got bin Laden and killed him. This guy is not what
the Republicans say he is. You ought to know that.
By the way, swing time. The economy may be struggling nationally, but
it`s a lot better in many swing states. Wait until you hear this. A lot
of cases where it`s going to matter most, he`s doing his best.
And we`re looking at a great divide right now in the Democratic Party,
or are we, among the elite who do like people, well, like Cory Booker, who
likes the guys in eq1uity and big money, and the regular rank-and-file
person who doesn`t quite like the big guys.
Anyway, finally -- finally, "Let Me Finish" tonight with the knock-
knocks (ph) on President Obama and why they`re a joke.
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
MATTHEWS: Troubling numbers for President Obama in the biggest swing
state on the map. Let`s check the HARDBALL "Scoreboard."
Here it is. A New Quinnipiac poll out of Florida gives Mitt Romney a
6-point lead over the president, 47 to 41. That`s a big swing from the
polls we`ve been seeing recently showing a much tighter contest down there
-- Romney by 6 in Florida.
We`ll be right back.
MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL. There`s been a flood of dishonesty
coming from Republicans as they try to reshape the image of President
Obama`s record the last four years. They want you to think the president`s
ballooned government spending. Well, that`s not true. For four years
running now, spending has run basically flat as a pancake at the federal
Nor is it true that he has raised taxes. Let`s face it, Bush`s tax
rates are still in effect, even though Karl Rove will try to convince you
otherwise. And what do they want you to think? They want you to think he
didn`t order the death of Osama bin Laden, that he`s been out there
apologizing all over the place for America. Well, it`s been a campaign of
large falsehoods, and the question is, does it work?
Joan Walsh is editor-at-large for Salon. David Corn is Washington
bureau chief for "Mother Jones" and the author of "Showdown." Both are
MSNBC political analysts.
Joan, I have to tell you, every once in a while, I come across a fact
that just blows me away. Look at a part -- now, this is not the true part,
this is the falsehood. Here`s the new ad from Karl Rove`s group Crossroads
GPS, which says President Obama engaged in massive government spending
increases. Let`s watch it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obama started spending like our credit cards
have no limit. We`ve had stimulus and bail-outs. Obama added almost
$16,000 in debt for every American. How will my kids pay that off when
they can`t even find jobs? Now Obama wants more spending and taxes. That
won`t fix things.
I had so many hopes. Cutting taxes and debt and creating jobs --
that`s the change we need.
MATTHEWS: Well, Mitt Romney likened Obama`s spending to an inferno.
Let`s watch him.
ROMNEY: Rather than putting out that spending fire, he`s been feeding
it. He has spent more and borrowed more. The time has come for a
president, a leader who will lead. I will lead us out of this debt and
spending inferno!
MATTHEWS: Not true. And the only problem with Republicans trying to
paint President Obama as a reckless spender is it`s not true at all.
Marketwatch points out that federal spending is rising at the slowest rate
-- in fact, look at it there -- since 1950 (ph). But take a look at that
bar chart there. For four years, from fiscal year `09 right through the
fiscal year `13 we`re heading into, no change. It`s been about $3.5
trillion right through.
You know, Joan, every once in a while, I`m amazed because I`ve heard
so much about how government spending`s been spiking every year. And you
look at the ad that Rove`s put out and you`d be led to believe...
JOAN WALSH, SALON.COM, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.
MATTHEWS: ... every year, it`s ticking upward. It`s incredibly flat,
government spending, federal spending.
WALSH: It is. You know, I mean, this Marketwatch piece has gotten a
lot of attention because it does fly in the face of what a lot of people
believe, even a lot of Democrats, Chris.
And you know, I`ve been trying to think about -- what`s the biggest
lie they`ve told so far? I mean, birtherism is vile, but it is really a
crackpot, fringe. This may be the biggest lie of all. You take...
MATTHEWS: Including Trump...
WALSH: ... utter mendacity...
MATTHEWS: Trump`s still pushing it.
WALSH: Trump!
WALSH: And Joe Arpaio, the crackpot fringe. But this one, you take
sheer mendacity and you multiply it by the number of people who believe it.
And this to me -- that`s the Joan Walsh formula for the biggest lie -- this
to me is the biggest lie. And it`s frankly devastating.
When you look at the numbers, I mean, actual per capita spending per
American dropped under President Obama. You know, it`s partly -- the
administration is now pushing this and Jay Carney practically swore at
today`s briefing, telling people, Don`t believe the Republican BS. But
they`ve got to get better at getting this stuff out.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
WALSH: That chart is unbelievable.
MATTHEWS: Well, the phrase "big lie" is -- the phrase "big lie" is
terrible, of course, but in this case there has been an effective use of
relentless not truth telling. David?
DAVID CORN, "MOTHER JONES," MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, there are
so many candidates for the biggest lie, despite Joan`s favorite. One was
WALSH: I know.
CORN: ... the stimulus created -- you know, created no new jobs,
which Eric Cantor and others were saying. And a good example -- I think
about how they get away with this and why they get away with it.
And we were just watching Mark Halperin`s, our colleague`s, interview
with Mitt Romney. And in that interview, Mitt Romney said once again that
Barack Obama promised that the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8
percent. He never made that promise. You know, Politifact and others have
said that that`s a lie, and yet Mitt Romney keeps saying it again and again
and again.
And I was just wishing for Mark to stop the interview just there and
say, Wait a second. That`s really not true, is it? Can you defend this
comment? But as long as Mitt Romney and others can keep saying things like
that and feeding an impression that`s out there, even if it has no basis,
they`re going to keep doing it. The fact checking doesn`t stop them.
MATTHEWS: Well, the word "hold," by the way, is dishonest. The
number of unemployed in this country spiked up to above double digits the
minute the guy got into office that first spring.
CORN: Of course.
WALSH: Right.
MATTHEWS: And he was trying to get it down to 8, and he`s got it down
to 8.1. And it was Christina Romer, his economics person, who said it was
8. But he -- the word "hold" it, as if it was all way down below 8
MATTHEWS: ... and he was keeping it from going up.
CORN: It wasn`t a promise.
MATTHEWS: It was...
CORN: None of this made sense. But it`s just one...
MATTHEWS: I know. It`s dishonest.
CORN: ... big lie after another.
Here is another one: taxes. You and I, all three of us, have watched
Obama lose one fight after another with the Republican-controlled Congress
trying to get rid of Bush tax rates.
They get it both ways, Joan.
JOAN WALSH, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.
MATTHEWS: They attack him for having raised the rates from -- from
Bush`s level, when he has lost every one of the fights to try to do it. So
they whack him from both sides.
MATTHEWS: They say, he -- he tried to raise the taxes. Oh, he did
raise them. But he didn`t. We have still got Bush`s tax policies right
WALSH: Right.
MATTHEWS: Bush -- our economic fiscal policy is basically the Bush
tax rates right now.
WALSH: Mm-hmm. Right.
MATTHEWS: Well, I guess there`s nothing more to say on that.
WALSH: Well, no, but he cut -- there is more to say. He cut taxes.
He cut taxes in the first two years through the make work pay tax credit.
MATTHEWS: On payroll.
WALSH: And then he followed up with payroll taxes cut. So actually
he cut taxes for most Americans and he hasn`t raised them on any Americans.
The only thing they can point to really is I think is that tanning tax
that Snooki was so upset about in the Affordable Care Act.
WALSH: That`s the extent of the tax increase.
MATTHEWS: OK. I have heard about the tanning tax.
Let`s go to Romney`s dishonesty here. OK, let`s go -- we have skipped
-- we have moved that already. Let`s go to another attack that he`s sort
of always around the country, around the world, being weak on national
And I don`t know. Here he is, here is Romney again with that old song
that he is always apologizing. Let`s watch.
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Internationally --
internationally, President Obama has adopted an appeasement strategy.
He believes America`s role as leader in the world is a thing of the
past and he apologizes for America. And I will never apologize for the
greatest nation in the history of the Earth.
MATTHEWS: Well, the president took on credits about his national
security record during a press briefing last December. Let`s listen to the
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ask Osama bin Laden and
the 22 out of 30 top al Qaeda leaders who have been taken off the field
whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them
about that.
MATTHEWS: David, appeasement has a horrible ring to it, of course.
And -- and they don`t mind using it.
CORN: Of course.
It goes back to the Nazis and appeasing Hitler. It is an awful word,
and there is no basis for this. Ask him for an example of appeasement.
Libya? That was an instance where the president pushed the European
allies to go further than they were willing in order to take on Gadhafi`s
killing machine that was threatening civilians. The president himself
makes a good case on not appeasing al Qaeda, which is really our biggest
threat now.
Mitt Romney is out there saying that Russia is our number one
geopolitical foe, which is not true. And he`s blaming the president for
appeasing unknown, unidentified enemies. It is the type of thing that
really shouldn`t pass any sort of laugh test...
MATTHEWS: Oh, it`s horrible.
CORN: ... in polite society. He should just be -- he shouldn`t be
allowed in the room with positions like that. But because it feeds this
notion that Obama is an amateur, that he is not really American, doesn`t
really care about American -- and American values, it finds a foothold
amongst those out there who are already skeptical of the president and it`s
red meat for those folks.
It is kind of sad that Romney has to sink that low and can`t have an
honest debate over foreign policy and national security differences that
may legitimately exist.
MATTHEWS: Well, he doesn`t know anything about foreign policy.
CORN: Yes, I know.
MATTHEWS: Joan, it seems to me, and David -- he doesn`t know anybody
about it.
You know what? I`m no hawk, as everybody knows it.
CORN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: But I have been reading a lot about Reagan lately. He
spent a lot of time trying to get Gadhafi. And he`s been toppled thanks to
this president. And the people of Libya, let`s forget -- let`s not forget
the people with our help...
CORN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Those people got rid of this bad guy.
W. talked like the macho man about getting the bad guys in the war on
terrorism. That was his phrase. And yet in terms of the war on terrorism,
I thought that the sheet that the president just ran through, the bad guys
at the top of that list, the 30-some people, he has done pretty good at
actually fighting the war on terrorism.
So even on their own score sheet, he should be their hero. Barack
Obama should be a hero to the hawks and the right wing.
WALSH: He should be their hero.
And, you know, I have to call ourselves and the rest of the media on
the carpet here, too, Chris, because we have got to find ways -- I don`t
know if Mark Halperin should have jumped into that interview. I would like
to see that too, David. Maybe that wasn`t the time.
But certainly in print and in broadcast, every time we report that
Mitt Romney once again said Barack Obama apologizes for America, reporters
should be required to say, as a matter of fact, you know, MSNBC has found
that he has never once apologized for America.
There`s got to be a way to just -- to make this a reporting
MATTHEWS: There is a catch-22 there.
WALSH: What is it?
MATTHEWS: There`s a catch-22, Joanie (ph). We will never get that
CORN: No. No.
MATTHEWS: Because we will keep doing that to him.
MATTHEWS: They`re not going to listen.
MATTHEWS: And, by the way, we won`t get a second interview. We are
not going to get a second one. If Mark has done that, had laced into him,
like you and I would love to do it, the goodbye would be permanent from
this guy.
CORN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: David?
CORN: Well, that`s part of the problem. Well, that`s part of the
problem here, because if you don`t do that, then you are enabling him to
use you as a platform to say things that aren`t true.
The other day, he gave a speech in which Romney said, if Obama is
reelected and Obamacare is fully implemented, half of the government will
be controlled by the government, again, not true. It`s a line he keeps
over and over again.
CORN: And unless someone sort of really gets in his face about it, he
is not going to stop. And some voters will actually believe that. That`s
the sad thing. And that`s what is unfortunate about it.
WALSH: Oh, yes.
CORN: It is not just cable chatter here. This really matters when it
comes to picking a president.
WALSH: Right.
WALSH: They believe he raised taxes.
MATTHEWS: Well, he will be president and his press conferences will
have all kinds of participation all the way from "Forbes" to FOX.
MATTHEWS: Anyway, they will give him good interviews.
Anyway, thank you, David Corn. Thank you, Joan Walsh.
Up next: Say no more. Wait until you hear the brain-dead answer
repeated over and over by a United States congressman who is still, believe
it or not, in office about what he said about the president not being an
American. Finally, this guy has been caught by a good piece of work by a
local journalist out there in his state.
By the way, tomorrow on HARDBALL, Newt Gingrich is going to join us.
We are going to have a lot of fun looking back over his late, great
presidential campaign, and we are going to have some real interesting back
and forth with the Newtster. And I`m glad he`s coming on.
This is the place for politics.
MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL. Now for the "Sideshow."
First up: the ad wars. Last week, Mitt Romney ran his first ad of the
November election. It is what Romney would do on day one, he says. A
couple of comics did some editing.
Here is Letterman.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: What would a Romney presidency be like? Day one,
President Romney immediately approves the Keystone pipeline, introduces tax
cuts and reforms, and issues the order to begin replacing Obamacare.
Day two, Mitt Romney is reminded his wife, Ann, that he lost to
President Obama by a landslide.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: That`s what a Romney presidency will be like.
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I`m Mitt Romney, and I
approve this message.
MATTHEWS: Well, that one is called day two, of course.
Well, taking things in another direction, here is Jimmy Kimmel.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: What with a Romney presidency be like? Day one,
machines, trucks, Mexicans, an American flag, guys wearing hats, ties and
tractors, a black lady, more American flags, dockers, happy old guy, black
friend, more American flags.
ROMNEY: I`m Mitt Romney and I approve this message.
MATTHEWS: Well, I wish the original was that smart.
Anyway, and last week, I told you about Congressman Mike Coffman, the
Colorado right-winger who at a recent fund-raiser said this about President
REP. MIKE COFFMAN (R), COLORADO: I don`t know whether Barack Obama
was born in the United States or not. I don`t know that. But I do know
this, that, in his heart, he`s not an American. He`s just not an American.
MATTHEWS: Well, Coffman later said he misspoke, but a local newspaper
reporter -- actually newspaper -- TV reporter actually -- tried getting
Coffman to elaborate.
QUESTION: Do you feel that voters are owed a better explanation than
just, I misspoke?
COFFMAN: I think that as -- I stand by my statement that I misspoke,
and I apologize.
QUESTION: OK. And who are you apologizing to?
COFFMAN: I stand by my statement that I misspoke, and I apologize.
QUESTION: "I apologize."
We talk to you all the time. You are a very forthcoming guy. Who is
telling you not to talk to handle it like this?
COFFMAN: You know, I stand by my statement that I wrote, that you
have, and I misspoke, and I apologize.
QUESTION: Was it that you thought it would go over well in Elbert
County, where folks are very conservative, and you would never say
something like that in the suburbs?
COFFMAN: I stand by my statement that I misspoke. And I apologize.
QUESTION: Is there anything I can ask you that you will answer
COFFMAN: You know, I stand by my statement that I misspoke, and I
QUESTION: Thank you, Congressman.
COFFMAN: Thanks.
MATTHEWS: Sounds like he`s brain-dead, doesn`t he? It`s like, I
refuse to testify on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me.
Anyway, finally, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett last week
floated the idea of not putting President Obama on his state ballot if the
state of Hawaii would not verify his birth in the United States. Well,
yesterday, Hawaii put out the president`s birth certificate again. And
Bennett said now he now apologizes if he has embarrassed his state.
These guys are unbelievable.
Anyway, up next, while the economy isn`t in great shape nationally
yet, it is looking up in some key states. And that`s good news for
President Obama, of course. We`re going to talk about it
You are watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
SUE HERERA, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: I`m Sue Herera with your CNBC "Market
The Dow closes well off its session lows. It was down 200 points. It
finishes down 6, the S&P up two and the Nasdaq gains 11. The NYSE says
there have been no talks with Facebook regarding a switch in their listing
from the Nasdaq, contrary to some reports.
New home sales rose a stronger-than-expected 3.3 percent in April.
And oil prices fell to several-month lows, below 90 bucks a barrel.
And Hewlett-Packard`s earnings beat estimates, but it also plans to
cut some 27,000 jobs.
That`s it for CNBC. We are first in business worldwide -- now back to
HARDBALL and Chris.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
The economy has been a drag of course on President Obama`s reelection
efforts, but where the election will be decided of course is in those swing
states. And the story is much different there.
In 2008, Obama moved nine states that had gone from Bush, he won them,
that had gone for Bush in 2004, brought them into his column. Today in
five of those states, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado, the
unemployment rate is below the national average, in Iowa`s case far below.
In short, the geography of recovery may be working for the president.
Sam Stein is political reporter for The Huffington Post. And Ezra
Klein is with "The Washington Post."
Sam, let me ask you just generally about the way the local economies -
- my old boss Tip, up here in Boston, would say, or in Cambridge, that all
politics is local. My question, do people go by what they see on the
economic reports, like we get on CNBC and in the financial pages? Or do
they go by what they sense locally went they vote?
SAM STEIN, THE HUFFINGTON POST: I would have to guess they go by -- I
would have to guess they go by what they sense locally. Like you said, all
politics is local.
But you know you get a sense of what is going on by the community
around you, by the Main Street in your town, by businesses that you know
that are hiring. And, so, in this case, you`re right. Obama has an
interesting map of states that are battlegrounds that have done by and
large better than the national average with respect to the unemployment
There are some states that are higher, such as Nevada and Florida.
But it is interesting that the key -- some of these key battlegrounds
states have recovered or never had a recession quite like the national
averages were. And I think it benefits him in the long run.
MATTHEWS: Ezra, the president bought a ticket on the auto industry.
He bet on an industrial policy, as we used to call it, rather than laissez-
faire, rather than buying into Ayn Rand, like some of these guys like Ryan
do every day when they get up in the morning. They pray to her.
He made a decision. He didn`t want to trust the markets. Will he
benefit from that, say, in Ohio, where you have a resurgent auto industry?
EZRA KLEIN, STAFF WRITER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": They`re going to run
hard on the auto industry.
And I think the way to see whether people think it`s going to work is
to look at the incoherence, frankly, of the Romney campaign on it. What is
important about the auto bailout for the Obama administration is it`s
somewhere where the Romney campaign actually had a very different proposal,
a very different message.
So Romney has been very quiet about what he would have done on things
like TARP. But he did say in an op-ed that he would not have bailed out
the auto industry. He would have sent them into a managed bankruptcy. The
problem was, when the economy collapsed, there was no bankruptcy financing
that could have got in and threw that into the other side.
Everybody understood that forcing them into traditional bankruptcy
court would have meant a liquidation. So you have had two messages now out
of the Romney campaign. And one, a couple months ago, in "The Detroit Free
Press," he wrote a second op-ed on the auto bailout and said that what
Obama did made things worse.
A couple weeks ago, though, his communications director, Eric
Fehrnstrom, said that the Obama campaign is frustrated because they just
followed Mitt Romney`s advice on the auto bailout, and so all the success
of that is actually attributable to Mitt Romney.
So, I think their inability to actually figure out a deal with this
sort of shows how touchy they are and how ineffective frankly it has been
in some of these states.
MATTHEWS: You know, Sam Stein, it impossible to imagine.
Suppose Romney were to win this election this November, for whatever
reason, perhaps the economy.
STEIN: Sure.
MATTHEWS: And people would say, wait a minute. He won by arguing the
case for rock `n` roll, cowboy capitalism, free-ranging deregulation, lower
taxes for corporations, all the good stuff that got us into this mess, and
he rolled to victory by saying, let`s come back and do it again.
STEIN: Yes. I mean, it`s a gamble on his part, but the gamble is
that there`s some sort of amnesia along the American populace about what
actually got us into the financial crisis to begin with.
And, you know, Ezra hits on a lot of it. But, you know, it goes
beyond that. For instance, when he talked about the foreclosure crisis in
Nevada, he said explicitly, we need to let it hit rock bottom before we
start doing anything else. That is the style of deregulation that, you
know, two years ago would have seemed crazy, but I think it gets him
somewhere politically because the American public has to some extent moved
Now, if you look at some of the polls, there is a large blame placed
on Bush for getting us into this mess. But, you know, Romney has done very
well to distance himself, at least in name, from the former president. You
rarely see him talking about George W. Bush. The endorsement that happened
-- happened in an elevator. It is not exactly rolling out Bush on the red
carpet here.
So, yes -- I mean, he is hoping that people forget exactly the causes
of what happened.
MATTHEWS: This is another one of those do not go there demand behind
the curtain. I didn`t think we would talk about it here but it seems so
relevant, Ezra. We can`t talk about Bain. We can`t talk about his
religion -- fair enough. We shouldn`t talk about his family -- fair
We can`t talk about Bush. We can`t talk about his philosophy. We
can`t talk about where he came from politically.
What are we allowed to talk about even in this show about Romney if
you ask him? What`s fair game?
EZRA KLEIN, MSNBC POLICY ANALYST: You can talk about Obama`s high
spending and high deficits, of course. I actually think one of the
interesting things about Romney`s veep search right now is that two of his
leading candidates, Mitch Daniels and Rob Portman were former Bush budget
So, you bring up one of the guys who ran Bush`s budget policy and
you`re going to bring up the Bush years in a very, very big way.
Similarly, if you look at his economic team, Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard,
who are two of his four key economic advisors, they both ran Bush`s chief
economic council, his council of economic advisers at different times.
So, one thing is very true about Romney, is he`s got the Bush sort of
circle around him. But I do wonder, you know, whether or not he`ll be able
to escape from some of that. I think one really interesting thing about
this recession, people used to talk about Obama and this FDR moment, you
remember "Time" had the cover when he came, as Obama is FDR.
FDR came in three years after the Great Depression had begun. Things
had long ago hit rock bottom, and so the previous philosophy had been fully
discredited. Obama came in right as things hit rock bottom. So, he came
in and for months things got worse because we were in descent, falling off
There was some sort of sharing of blame that didn`t exist from the
Great Depression and allowed a lot of the key financial policies here, you
know, the deregulation of things to get muddled.
MATTHEWS: I guess one the problems was the Constitution office and
he took office in January rather than March 4th, right? That`s it.
KLEIN: It`s a great counterfactual.
MATTHEWS: Yes, OK. Well, thank you for the constitutional change
which is allowing you to come in just in time for the blame for the
catastrophe created by the Bushes.
Anyway, by the way, when you come back, I want to talk more next time
about Virginia and the states that are doing well. Again, I think that may
help Obama but you never know.
Anyway, thank you, Sam Stein, as always.
STEIN: Thanks, Chris.
MATTHEWS: Thank you, the brilliant Ezra Klein, up next -- and as
well, the brilliant Sam Stein. Anyway, thank you.
Is there a government rift, by the way, within the -- a growing rift
within the Democratic Party right now between pro-business better off
people, I must say, like Cory Booker, politically, and the rank-and-file
regular Democrats who mistrust big economic power?
Well, this is HARDBALL -- place for politics.
MATTHEWS: Anyway, President Obama has a big lead over Mitt Romney
among Latino voters. That`s according to our new NBC News/"Wall Street
Journal" poll. And also Telemundo poll.
Let`s take to HARDBALL scoreboard.
Obama has a 34-point lead, believe it or not, over Romney among
registered Latino voters, 61 percent to 27 percent. Don`t see numbers like
this anywhere else. He carried the Latino by a similar spread, by the way,
in 2008.
The challenge for the president: getting Latinos to vote. Only seven
in 10 told pollsters they were highly excited to vote this time around.
That`s Latinos. Less than 10 points than for fellow Americans.
We`ll be right back.
MATTHEWS: We`re back.
When Newark Mayor Cory Booker criticized the president`s attack ads
on Bain Capital on "Meet the Press" this week, he outraged most Democrats
who hoped to hang Bain Capital around Mitt Romney`s neck. But some of the
Democratic Party have increasingly relied on Wall Street for money and
support. In short, Booker exposed a fisher, a fisher in the Democratic
Party, between the rank and file and its moneyed elite.
Robert Reich is former labor secretary under President Clinton. He`s
the author of a new e-book, "Beyond Outrage". And Eugene Robinson is a
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for "The Washington Post" and an MSNBC
political analyst.
Gentlemen, I want it talk about this. I`m not sure this is true.
But I`ve been told it`s true.
I`ve been told, Robert Reich, that there are Democrats who are pro
private equity, who like those very wealthy people on Wall Street. They
seem to think that the Democratic Party is of kinship with those people and
don`t like this populous outrage. I know there`s only few of them but they
are noisy and they know how to get into the newspapers.
Your thoughts?
ROBERT REICH, FORMER LABOR SECRETARY: Well, they are noisy, they
know how to get into the newspaper and they`re also very wealthy, generally
speaking, Chris.
This is not a new rift, by way. I remember 20 years ago, 15 years
ago in the Clinton administration, there was very much the same kind of
rift. There were the Wall Streeters, there were the big money people,
Democratic Party, many who came from Wall Street or business big, and then
there rank and filers who didn`t want it have anything to do with them and
were far more populist in their inclinations. That`s going to be
inevitable, that rift, in the Democratic Party, in the modern Democratic
But I think it is wrong to take it to the point where you see a kind
of conflict between the notion of fairness and the notion of growth. I
mean, you can`t get real growth in the economy unless have a more equitable
distribution of income because what`s happened for the past 30 years is so
much income and wealth has gone to the very top that the vast middle class
doesn`t have the purchasing power to keep the economy going?
MATTHEWS: Wasn`t that liberal Henry Ford who said he wanted his
workers, his auto workers to be able to afford one of his cars? Was that -
MATTHEWS: That was a reasonable, conservative gentleman.
REICH: And back in 1915 --
MATTHEWS: Gene Robinson, your thoughts about this battle? I`m not
sure it`s the same battle -- I think there`s always a battle in the
Democratic Party as there is used to be in the Republican Party between
center-right, and center and right. The Democratic Party between left and
center left.
But it also seems to be there is a -- I was going to say lousy, I
shouldn`t say that -- a noisy group of people that are in equity who are
offended that their wealth is being questioned. And I thought Cory Booker
spends a lot of time hanging around with those guys for future reasons.
Your thoughts, Gene.
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, politicians in the
New York metropolitan area, the greater New York area, like Cory Booker,
get a lot of campaign contributions from wealthy financiers, including
people in private equity. So they are nicer to those folks.
You know, this divide exists not only in the Democratic Party, Chris.
I think you saw it during the primaries. You saw the same sort of rift
inside the Republican primary. In fact, when Newt Gingrich made a lot of
hay out there, especially in my home state of South Carolina, talking about
Bain Capital and talking about private equity, and talking about that form
of what Rick Perry called vulture capitalism.
So, I think he`s --
MATTHEWS: Yes. Well, he`s on tomorrow night and we will raise that.
We will raise that issue -- the populism in the Republican Party is there,
just like when Nixon could refer to the cloth coat Republicans, they are
there. They don`t always make the most noise in that party, Gene, but
they`re there. And he`d cling to them and so did Rick Santorum.
ROBINSON: They are there. And there is a wealth of Newt Gingrich
quotes. Of course, there`s a wealth of Newt Gingrich`s quotes about
everything. But there`s a wealth about Bain Capital and equity.
And he hasn`t taken it back. He has talked about that model of
capitalism, where you kind of come in and pick the bones clean of a failing
company, and he`s questioned it. I mean, he continues to question. So
that would be great to talk to him about it tomorrow night.
MATTHEWS: Good idea.
Let me go back to Robert Reich and this question of populism. I know
you`re a populist. I know you believe in it. And I just wonder why we`re
seeing this fight. It looked to me like a couple of things happened last
Cory Booker obviously wanted to differentiate himself from the
president. He did so effectively. But he did so by undermining the
president`s main campaign argument.
I want to ask if you think it`s a smart argument, the Democratic
side, that fairness cuts with voters.
REICH: I think it does -- again, Chris, if it is linked up with
growth, as it must be, because the only reason and the only way we can get
growth back in this country is if we have a fair distribution of income and
wealth in this country. Most people looking at that why we have such a
sluggish recovery now understand the problem is on the demand side. It`s
not the supply side. It`s not because corporations don`t have tax cuts and
it`s not because the wealthy don`t have the tax cuts, it`s because the
middle class doesn`t have the income they need to provide adequate demand
for all the goods and services that the private sector is capable of
producing. And understanding that makes the connection between growth and
So, I think the president has done a good job. He could do even
more, making that connection. You know, Wall Street and the top reaches of
the Democratic Party, the big contributors, very often they don`t
understand that. They would do better with a rapidly growing economy, a
smaller share but rapidly growing economy, than they are doing right now
with a big share of an economy that is slowly growing.
MATTHEWS: You know the old line, Gene, you`re my age so you remember
this. If you want to live like a Republican, vote like a Democrat. I
mean, the fact of the matter is, the great irony is that Bill Clinton, with
his 39.5 percent top rate, was the best thing that ever happen to American
ROBINSON: Yes, look at recent Republican and Democratic
administrations. And under Democrats, government spending goes down, and
the economy roars ahead. And under Republican, spending goes way up and
the economy stalls out and goes into recession because they cut everybody`s
taxes, they cut the wealthy`s taxes and essentially stomp their foot on the
middle class, you know?
And just to add to what Bob Reich said, I think you also have to talk
about the equality of opportunity in the sense that wealthy insiders like
the people at Bain Capital and like a lot of folks in Wall Street have
opportunities that the rest of us don`t have, simply, because they`ve sort
of rigged the system to favor themselves at the expense of everybody else.
And, you know, financial markets are supposed to serve the interests of the
economy. It`s not supposed to be the other way around.
REICH: And most people in this country understand that right now.
MATTHEWS: I know. Robert Reich, you`re great. Please come back
with your populist message whenever you can.
And, Eugene Robinson, as always, sir.
When we return, let me finish with you just couldn`t believe -- or
shouldn`t believe everything you hear from the Republicans about President
Obama. This is a lot of the phrases, B.S., as it is. Lots of it coming
out of their mouths about spending, about taxes, about apologizing. None
of it`s true. We ought to know that.
You`re watching HARDBALL -- the place for politics.
MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this:
Did you catch this Karl Rove ad on TV? He`s running it for, I think,
10 million bucks across the country attacking the president. It`s a smart
effort to grab single women in this case -- smart, but not especially
Did you see what that ad said about government spending under Obama,
that it`s rising year after year, relentlessly throwing away our dollars?
Well, the big lie in that is that spending, government spending, has been
basically flat all these last years. Fiscal years `09 to 2013, flat,
flat, flat. Anyway, flat all four years.
And how about saying Obama raised taxes? That`s another thing you
hear out there. How could we have fallen for that one? Obama has lost
every single fight we know he`s had with the Congress, the Republican
Congress, trying to get rid of the Bush tax rates. Lost every single fight
and we know it. The tax rates we have today are the same as they were when
W. left us.
If they`re holding the economy back, blame W. Republicans like Karl
Rove can`t keep attacking Obama from trying to dump the Bush tax cuts and
then come back and blame him for having done so. He didn`t succeed. We
still got Bush`s tax rates.
Well, that`s apparently they can. And that`s what he`s doing in this
slick ad, Karl Rove, walking Obama for the tax cuts his guy -- remember,
wasn`t Karl Rove the architect of the W. era, the tax rates he left us
And that`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us. Join us
again tomorrow when we meet Newt Gingrich in the flesh on HARDBALL.
"POLITICS NATION" with Al Sharpton starts right now.
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text:
Heartbreak: Could a simple device have saved a life?
On January 10, Madison resident Susan DeJarnette called the Hook to urge a reporter to write an article about what she described as a "critical health matter": the need for automated external defibrillators to be available in all health clubs. The equipment– which delivers an electrical shock to an irregularly beating heart– can increase a cardiac arrest victim's survival rate by as much as 85 percent, DeJarnette said.
But despite recommendations from the American Heart Association that all health clubs be equipped with such a defibrillator, commonly called an AED, her own club, Gold's Gym, did not have one at either its Charlottesville or Culpeper location. Not only that, she said, but the club had rebuffed her repeated requests to buy one.
"I don't understand why they won't get one," a frustrated DeJarnette said, pointing out that the life-saving devices cost thousands of dollars less than many of the club's exercise machines.
"All these people are in there for their New Year's resolutions, huffing and puffing," she said. "I'm just worried someone's going to have a heart attack on a treadmill and die."
On January 26, less than two weeks after her call, DeJarnette called the Hook a second time, and this time her earlier words seemed tragically prescient. Someone had suffered cardiac arrest at Gold's. And it wasn't an out-of-shape newcomer: it was her husband.
"Henry died on Sunday," DeJarnette sobbed, "on the treadmill."
Little device, big life saver
Less than 10 years ago, there was little a bystander could do to save a victim of cardiac arrest. Traditional CPR, which delivers oxygenated blood to the brain and organs, might buy some time until an ambulance arrives. But even if begun immediately, CPR alone, according the American Heart Association, saves only five percent of cardiac arrest victims.
In the early 1990s, however, the Association began recommending that AEDs be placed in public places, based on research showing that if the victim of cardiac arrest receives defibrillation, the survival rate can reach as high as 90 percent– but only if it's administered immediately after the attack.
"It's absolutely exponential," says Norman Pool, Virginia spokesperson for the Association.
In 2000, Congress signed a law allowing defibrillators to be placed in all federal government buildings, and around the same time states began signing their own AED laws into effect.
Even before defibrillators were legislated, however, some businesses jumped on the bandwagon. Major airports were among the first to install AEDs in the late 1990s, placing them both in terminals and on planes, and very quickly anecdotal evidence of the success of the device began making headlines.
One notable story involved Gary Terry, former chair of the Texas Affiliate of the American Heart Association. Terry was among the individuals who had pushed for more defibrillators in public places.
On March 19, 2001, Terry was at the Austin airport, rushing to catch an evening flight. Soon after passing through the metal detectors, Terry suffered a heart attack and collapsed. A nearby security guard administered CPR, and a bystander located an AED and administered a shock. According to an account by the National Center for Early Defibrillation, Terry made a full recovery.
The Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Airport has had AEDs on site for "a few years," says Darryl Canipe in the Aiport's public safety department, though, he adds, "We've never had to use them."
At least one local business, however, has been very glad to have an AED on site.
Local lives saved
"We've had two cardiac arrests in the last nine years," says Joe Schwar, membership coordinator and safety consultant at ACAC health club. In both cases, Schwar credits the use of AEDs– which the club has had on site for "five or six years"– for saving the members' lives.
"They're both still coming in here, working out," he says of the people saved.
Like ACAC, the Boar's Head Sports Club, the Farmington and Glenmore country clubs, and the Medfit training facility on Berkmar Drive have all had AEDs on site for "several years."
So why doesn't Gold's have a device at either location?
DeJarnette says she got an answer, but it wasn't one she wanted to hear.
In a conversation just two days after Henry's death, DeJarnette says, Gold's consultant Eddie Dail, who is overseeing the gym's upcoming move to an expanded space, approached her to offer his sympathy while she was working out at the Charlottesville club.
"He asked if there was anything he could do," DeJarnette recalls. "You could buy an AED," she says she responded.
DeJarnette and her workout partner, Jennifer Nesbit, say they were shocked by his response: that the million-dollar expansion project was a financial stretch and that purchasing an AED was "not a priority."
"He said, 'We're in this business to help people get healthy so they don't have heart attacks,'" DeJarnette says.
Dail, however, vigorously disputes her account.
"I never said that," he insists, explaining that he himself has had a heart attack, and that he's considering buying his own AED.
Although AEDs cost $3,000 to $4,000 five years ago, many of today's models today cost under $1,500.
As for why the Gold's Gyms he oversees aren't equipped with AEDs, Dail simply says, "We have a plan, and we'll continue to follow that plan to provide our members with the best workout experience possible."
Club fans
Despite her recent loss, DeJarnette agrees that the Gold's workout experience has been– and continues to be– top notch.
"The trainers there are like family to me," she says. And, she says, in many ways the club is only getting better. On March 1, the Charlottesville Gold's will move from its current location in Seminole Square to the former Food Lion space next to Kmart on Hydraulic Road, more than doubling its space from 13,000 to 27,000 square feet. Much of that space will be devoted to cardiovascular equipment–- 90 pieces in addition to a 2,500-square-foot aerobics room, a spinning room, and a mind/body room. The child-care center– designed with the idea of fighting childhood obesity– features several physical activities to keep youngsters active while their parents work out.
DeJarnette describes herself and Henry, whom she married in August 2004, as fitness buffs who worked out six days a week at either the Charlottesville or Culpeper Gold's locations. Despite his healthy lifestyle, however, 48-year-old Henry DeJarnette discovered last summer that he had a congenital heart murmur as well as a blocked artery. He had recently undergone heart surgery to implant a stent, a piece of mesh that opens a blocked artery. Even so, DeJarnette said, his doctors had cleared him for exercise, and he was in the "best shape of his life."
Thrilled by Henry's new lease on life, the DeJarnettes wanted to make sure other people getting in shape at Gold's were doing so safely.
After asking for months that the club buy an AED, DeJarnette says, she finally took matters into her own hands and bought a Philips Heartstart defibrillator for $950.
On Tuesday, January 17, two days after the device had arrived in the mail, she, Henry, and her 16-year-old son Joe took a CPR and AED training class at ACAC.
Five days later, Henry was dead.
A tragic day
Sunday, January 22 was a day like most others for the DeJarnettes. Seventeen months into their marriage, they still considered themselves newlyweds. That afternoon, they had joined Joe at the Culpeper Gold's to work out as a family.
"We were always there together," DeJarnette says.
After the pair had done 20 minutes on an elliptical machine, Henry had moved to a treadmill in front of Susan, where he jogged slowly for about five minutes. The two were joking and chatting, DeJarnette recalls, but as Henry slowed to a walk for his cool down, he suddenly fell off the back of the treadmill and collapsed on the floor.
"I thought he'd tripped," she says.
She ran to his side and immediately checked for a pulse. There was none. While a nurse who'd been exercising nearby began CPR within 10 seconds, a frantic DeJarnette remembered she'd left the new AED in the car. She raced to the locker room, retrieved her keys, ran to the parking lot, and returned with the device– which she estimates took about two minutes. Though the AED administered several shocks to Henry's heart and a rescue squad arrived in under 10 minutes, Henry never revived, and he was pronounced dead at UVA hospital.
According to the Heart Association, survival rates for patients defibrillated within three to five minutes of a heart attack are between 50 and 70 percent. If the heart is shocked within one minute of the cardiac arrest, the survival rate is 90 percent.
"I'll never know what might have happened if there'd been an AED right there," says DeJarnette, who expresses relief that she was able to use her own AED within minutes of Henry's collapse.
"If I hadn't," she says, "I would be going through some pretty hellish stuff right now."
Liability questions
Gold's is not the only local club not to purchase an AED. New Fitness for Ladies, also in Seminole Square, does not have one on site either, a fact owner Karen Carpenter attributes to the cost of outfitting each of her four Virginia clubs with an AED in addition to the necessary staff training.
That may not be the only reason a club would opt out. The website of the International Health, Racquet and Sports Club Association asks clubs to "consider" buying an automated defibrillator, but it also gives several reasons why such a purchase might not be a good idea.
"Legal analysis suggests that the required addition of this medical service to health clubs may raise the overall duty of care owed to health club members," states the site. "This would undoubtedly increase the likelihood of costly and often frivolous lawsuits."
Other reasons IHRSA gives suggesting that clubs decide against AED placement: "a high employee turnover rate" that makes it "nearly impossible to ensure that a staff member holding a valid certification to operate an AED would be on premises at all times"; and the "expense" of the equipment and staff training, which, the website states, "would ultimately raise the cost of health club memberships, resulting in fewer state residents exercising."
The American Heart Association's Pool says he disagrees that the cost would have much impact.
"Most organizations are required to have CPR training anyway," he says.
As for the claim that clubs with AEDs face greater liability, Pool says simply, "The greatest risk is if you don't have them." Virginia has "very clear" Good Samaritan laws, he explains, protecting anyone from legal action who's acting in good faith to save someone.
ACAC's Schwar agrees and says he thinks health clubs may soon be liable for not having a defibrillator on site.
"The standard of care is changing," he says. "The cost is almost minimal. There is no reason for a health club not to have one."
Minimal cost, minimal difficulty
Though most people's exposure to defibrillation comes from watching shows like ER– where doctors and nurses place paddles on a patient's chest and shout "Clear!" while the victim's body lurches dramatically on the table– advocates say that AEDs are far simpler and don't require medical expertise to use.
In fact, according to the American Heart Association and various manufacturers, the vast majority of people can learn to use an AED in just an hour, typically as part of CPR training.
That's because, as Schwar suggests, the machine does all the thinking. Placed on the chest of a person who has suffered cardiac arrest, the AED first measures any electrical activity in the heart. Based on that data, Schwar says, the AED determines whether a shock is needed and when CPR should commence. (An AED does not replace the need for CPR, and the two should be used in conjunction.) Though models vary in complexity, many AEDs actually give verbal commands about how to administer CPR. An AED will not shock a person whose heart is beating normally.
In 2004, to increase the ease of purchasing AEDs, Virginia removed a requirement that forced businesses to register an AED with the state. That same year, the federal government changed the laws enabling individuals to purchase an AED directly from a distributor without a doctor's referral. Federal law still requires businesses or government agencies planning to install one to obtain a "prescription" from a physician, who then ensures that employees are properly trained and that the equipment is maintained.
How do we stack up?
Some states are already enforcing the use of AEDs in rigorous ways. Many require AEDs to be present in schools, and at least two– Arkansas and Oregon– mandate their presence in health clubs.
But aside from including AEDs under Good Samaritan laws, Virginia has done little to legislate their use, though various localities have made the purchase and placement of the devices a priority. Albemarle County has placed AEDs in government buildings and high schools, as well as in every police car. Charlottesville, however, has fewer AEDs in public places.
Smith and Crow pools, Washington Park, and Onesty Pool have AEDs, says City spokesman Ric Barrick, and an AED will soon be purchased for the Carver Recreation Center and for Charlottesville High School. In addition, the police department has several, though not every car is equipped.
Adding more is "in our strategic plan," says Barrick, "but it's not mandated."
DeJarnette says she'd like to see an AED accessible within five minutes of any public gathering place, as the Heart Association recommends.
One local expert agrees this is a worthy goal but he points out that Charlottesville already has a leg up on more rural communities.
"Time is what's critical," says Kostas Alibertis, a paramedic who works in UVA's Life Support Training Center.
"Because of Charlottesville's relatively small size," he says, emergency medical technicians can usually respond quickly and administer defibrillation within the recommended timeframe. But, he stresses, AED installation is still "important for any place that has gatherings of high- or moderate-risk people."
Remembering Henry
"It sounds like a cliché," says DeJarnette's friend Nesbit, "but Henry was seriously the nicest person I've ever known. He was always ready to help you out."
On Wednesday, January 25, 168 of Henry's friends and family members arrived at the DeJarnettes' farm in Madison to remember the custom homebuilder and outdoors enthusiast who'd embraced his new roles as husband and stepfather.
"We had just gotten married there a little over a year before," says DeJarnette sadly. Though DeJarnette had been married twice previously and has two sons– 16-year-old Joe and 22-year-old Vijay– Henry had never tied the knot.
"He told me he'd never met anyone he wanted to marry before," DeJarnette recalls.
The couple had moved into the 156-acre horse farm, which had been Henry's childhood home, and– after Henry's health problems– had spent their year focused on exercising more and eating right, DeJarnette says. Henry took no supplements other than vitamins, but he was undergoing "chelation" at the Mount Rogers Institute, a holistic treatment center. Chelation, also a controversial treatment for autism, removes heavy metals from the body, and DeJarnette says she and Henry believed it could help with heart disease.
"We were a little extreme," she says, "but we didn't do anything without a doctor's permission."
In just a year, both of their cholesterol levels had dropped by 50 points, and DeJarnette says they were leaner than either had been before.
Though they did nearly everything together– working out daily and both working from home– "We never got sick of each other," she says. "We were on a year-long honeymoon."
Now, despite her grief, DeJarnette says she's determined to move forward. She says she has no intention of suing Gold's and hopes to maintain her membership. She hopes to do what she can to get AEDs placed not only in Gold's but throughout Virginia's public spaces.
While she acknowledges Henry might not have been saved even if an AED had been closer by, she and her sons plan to push for legislation in Henry's honor requiring health clubs to keep an AED on site at all times.
The passage of such a law won't bring Henry back, but the thought of it brings her comfort nonetheless.
"It would be a really great way to remember him," she says.
Henry DeJarnette
Henry and Susan DeJarnette with sons Joseph Streaker, front, and Vijay Chokshi (cap and gown).
Henry and Susan DeJarnette worked out at both the Charlottesville Gold's Gym in Seminole Square (above) and the Culpeper Gold's. The clubs are under the same ownership, and neither is equipped with an AED.
The inner workings of an AED at ACAC
PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLORead more on: defibrillation


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Comfortable in center or left, CarGo trusts Rox
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Outfielder Carlos Gonzalez said Tuesday he doesn't mind the Rockies using Spring Training to determine whether he'll play center field or left field.
After trading center fielder Dexter Fowler to the Astros, the Rockies told Gonzalez, a three-time Rawlings Gold Glove Award winner, that he'll play center. But the Rockies later acquired Drew Stubbs in a trade with the Indians, which opened the possibility of Stubbs playing center in a combination with Charlie Blackmon or Corey Dickerson. Brandon Barnes, who played center for the Astros last year and came in the Fowler trade, also is an option.
Manager Walt Weiss said Monday that the plan is still for Gonzalez to play center, but he reserved his right to change his mind. Weiss and Gonzalez agree that whatever decision is made will be final. Gonzalez believes switching back and forth during the season creates an injury risk.
"We have options, and it's smart for the manager to know he can count on his players," Gonzalez said. "I'm ready to play center field or left field, wherever they need me. When they traded Dexter to Houston, that was their best option. But now we have more depth, plus Drew Stubbs, who is a pure center fielder. It's good.
"I know I'm going to be playing every day. I don't know if I'm going to play center field or left field, but if I'm healthy, I'm going to have the opportunity to help the club."
Gonzalez was challenging for a batting title and leading the National League in home runs before suffering a torn ligament in his right middle finger in July. The injury curtailed his hitting, but he still managed to win the Gold Glove Award.
If he moves to center, Gonzalez could be in competition for this year's Gold Glove Award with the incumbent, the Pirates' Andrew McCutchen.
"Every year is a new challenge, and the word 'challenge' to me is a motivation," Gonzalez said. "It doesn't matter to me what I did the year before -- I want to do better the next year. I have three beautiful gloves at my house and I want to continue that. It doesn't matter where I play, I'm going to do my best. But that's not my No. 1 goal. It's to help this team win a championship. When you have that in your mind, you're going to force yourself to be the best."
Gonzalez said the finger has healed and he'll try to mitigate further injuries by holding the bat about a half inch higher to reposition his pinky, and he'll use less tape and pine tar. He also has gained back all the weight he lost after an offseason emergency appendectomy.


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Not all news is doom and gloom though. A recent report by Equifax Canada says that Canadians are doing a lot better in paying off credit card debt. It shows that we are taking heed of all the warnings about rising Canadian debt.
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It's once and always Stanley Cup Champion Washington Capitals hockey, all day, all night, all the time . . . or when I get around to it
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Let's play a game...
Things we wouldn't have thought...
-- That John Erskine would have more game-winning goals – shoot, goals period – than Alexander Semin
-- That only seven Caps would have more than one goal…by way of comparison, the New York Rangers – the most anemic offense in the league – have eight.
-- That Brian Pothier would lead the club in plus-minus (+6) and Shaone Morrisonn would be last (-8)…and Morrisonn's -8 is entirely earned on the road; he's even at home
-- That Joe Motzko would dress for more games (3) than would Steve Eminger (1)
-- That Tom Poti, who had 32 power play points last year, would have two so far this year (of course, injury has something to do with that)
-- That Caps defensemen would have seven goals…they had only 17 as a group all of last year.
-- That Brian Sutherby would lead the club in shooting percentage…ok, he's only taken three shots. Among players with at least ten games played, your leader is…Tomas Fleischmann?
-- And speaking of shots…you might expect Alex Ovechkin and Viktor Kozlov to be among the team leaders…but Matt Pettinger (third on the club)?
-- That the Caps would be on a pace for more losses (48) than they had in the sell-off year of 2003-2004 (46)


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Now that's a question that you'll only hear in a video game trailer. Or at least I hope you only hear it in a video game trailer. I bet Hitman: Absolution's Agent 47 gets that all the time.
He's in line at Wendy's, ordering a Frosty. They ask him if he wants fries with that (of course), is this for here or to go (for here, he likes the atmosphere), and whether he's a silent assassin or wants to kill everyone in his way (up to you). Then he looks up at the Wendy's cashier and realizes that it's himself.
You know what the first gameplay trailer for Hitman: Absolution needs? No, not wigs. Okay, wigs would be pretty cool. No, it needs a Frosty and some salty fries.
Maybe that's just me.


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Argument recap: Searching for immunity
The Supreme Court made clear on Monday that it is entirely comfortable with states having the authority to set up a monopoly for public services in one of its communities, but not unless the state says — in so many words — that that is exactly what it intends. The Justices came away apparently unsatisfied that a hospital monopoly in Georgia had produced hard evidence that it had the state legislature's specific blessing. Without that, the monopoly probably would not survive a federal antitrust attack.
It has long been settled that a state is entitled to immunity from antitrust law if it chooses to displace competition with an officially sanctioned enterprise to carry out a public duty, but it remains unclear when it can pass on that immunity to private firms that get assigned to perform the public task. That is what the Court and two lawyers were debating in Federal Trade Commission v. Phoebe Putney Health Systems (docket 11-1160). The FTC's lawyer did not escape a hard grilling, and left at least some of the Justices uncertain about what legal standard he was advocating.
But that lawyer, Assistant to the Solicitor General Benjamin J. Horwich, could walk away somewhat content, since he had obviously made one of his most important points: a state must provide some kind of clear statement when it wants to substitute something for competition. And that put the attorney for the merged hospital complex in Albany, Georgia, on the spot, throughout.
The hospitals' lawyer, Washington attorney Seth P. Waxman, had the rougher time at the podium, as one member of the Court after another pressed him to show that the Georgia legislature had actually said that it was willing to let the only hospitals in Albany join forces, and thus stifle what remained of competition. He never quite dispelled the impression that the hospitals had been left to go very much on their own, although he did try to argue that they were on a rather tight leash.
The argument, overall, appeared to turn very much on the specifics of this case, and thus suggested that no new principle of state or local antitrust immunity and no more refined theory of what constitutes "state action" for immunity purposes would emerge. The Court seemingly had granted review to add some clarity to this area of law, but it now seems that they can decide the case without doing so.
The FTC's attorney, Horwich, had come prepared to argue that, even if a state does give clearance to an anti-competitive private enterprise, that enterprise has to be held under some kind of continuing government oversight to assure that it does not stray from its public mission of providing a governmental service. From the opening question from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, however, it was clear that the Court was more focused upon just how a state would authorize such anti-competitive behavior on its behalf in the first place.
Georgia's legislature had authorized county governments to set up a hospital authority, with full power to provide the full range of acute care services, with the proviso that they make a special effort to provide care for the poor. Sotomayor wondered just what that grant of authority meant, in detail — in other words, what specifically did the legislature intend, or how could that be shown? That remained the core of the exchanges between Horwich and the Court, especially when Justice Elena Kagan energetically tested his answers.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer tried his hand at interpreting the authorizing law for the hospital authorities, without obvious success, and wound up somewhat plaintively asking Horwich, "What do you want us to do?" Horwich in response did make one clear point: a state cannot share its immunity with a local hospital combine merely by saying it wanted to do so; it cannot act to stifle competition "at any cost" but had to make clear how doing so would advance its governmental objective.
Waxman, the hospitals' lawyer, had barely begun when Justice Antonin Scalia said he could not find in the Georgia hospital authority law a grant of permission to create a hospital monopoly. He told Waxman that, if he was relying on a statement that a hospital authority could acquire hospitals, that was not enough. The attorney also encountered some trouble with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who interpreted Waxman's argument to suggest that the mere grant of general corporate powers to authorized hospitals was to be understood as the equivalent of a legislative grant. Waxman said that was not his argument, that the hospitals were sensitive to the need to show specifically that the end of competition was a "foreseeable result" of their approval by the hospital authority. It was foreseeable, he insisted, that they could "acquire market power — or even a monopoly."
That response, however, did not seem to reassure the Court that the legislature had intended such an outcome. Justice Sotomayor, for example, responded that she could accept that the hospitals had a mandate to provide a public service, but she added that there had to be a further step, to authorize a form of anti-competitive conduct, and she said she could not find it in the legislative grant.
Justice Kagan noted that Waxman had said that a grant of general corporate powers was not enough to authorize a merger that produced a monopoly, and that the mission assigned the hospitals also was not enough, so, she asked, "What else have you got?" What evidence is there, she went on, that the legislature thought about the matter and decided to give explicit permission? Waxman suggested that the hospitals had been put on notice that their "rate of return" on hospital operations would be closely monitored, and that was "a hallmark of a public service monopoly."
It would be left to Justice Scalia to provide something of a rhetorical clincher against Waxman's argument. If that argument prevailed, Scalia said, the Court would not be endorsing a hospital monopoly in a small rural area, but in Georgia's largest county where five or more hospitals could be combined into one. Waxman's only response was that that would not be allowed under Georgia law. "We have no way to know," Justice Scalia retorted.
Recommended Citation: Lyle Denniston, Argument recap: Searching for immunity, SCOTUSblog (Nov. 26, 2012, 4:59 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2012/11/argument-recap-searching-for-immunity/