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By ten o'clock the migration has begun. Thousands move slowly on foot through the humid night streets. They squeeze into buses or haggle lifts from cab drivers cruising in their compact Ladas and battleship Fifties Chevrolets. At the outdoor dance hall La Tropical, a line forms around the block. Some patched and polished rustbuckets, a few new Japanese cars, and one Mercedes share the parking lot; hundreds of bicycles fill a smaller fenced-in area guarded by an attendant. A vendor sells rum from a wooden cart, serving it with a squeeze of lemon in disposable cups or pouring whole quarts into empty plastic water bottles. Young police officers mill about, keeping their eye on the complacent crowd. At the door people pay the equivalent of about 50 American cents for admission. Foreigners fork over ten dollars U.S. to enter the VIP lounge, a balcony bar that overlooks the action, where between sets musicians and their guests sit at the best tables.
About 6000 people have crowded onto a dance floor the size of a small ice rink. Most are black and in their twenties. The men wear athletic jerseys, baggy jeans, and big sneakers; the women midriff tops and shorts, or sleeveless dresses. Some have on souvenir T-shirts from a past Calle Ocho Carnival or a Jon Secada concert. A few sport baseball caps or shirts printed with the stars and stripes of the American flag.
At least a hundred more spectators climb onto the stage itself, a sauna where the air feels twenty degrees hotter than out on the street. Five hours will pass before this Monday evening's headliner, Manolin, El Medico de la Salsa (The Salsa Doctor), goes on with his dozen-piece orchestra. During their nearly three-hour set, the band members will douse the crowd with buckets of cold water. But everyone is already wet with sweat after dancing to Elio Reve y Su Charangon, the venerable big band whose director, a crusty 67-year-old who wears his gray hair in a fade and sports a huge gold pendant, has seen some 300 musicians pass through his ranks in almost 40 years. The club's emcee, Juan Cruz, a Cuban Dick Clark who favors guayaberas and a straw porkpie, has been hosting shows since the days of the legendary vocalist Benny More.
At about midnight he announces that the orchestra fronted by smooth-voiced singer Issac Delgado won't go on because of technical problems. The next two hours go by without a sound from the stage, but everyone stays put, laughing and talking, their loud banter peppered with a street slang that most Spanish speakers would need a translator to understand. No one seems peeved or impatient. This is Havana, after all, and if a band doesn't play tonight, there's always tomorrow.
"The only country where you can go out and dance to live music Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday is Cuba," says David Calzado, a bandleader who has come to see the show. "It doesn't matter if people have to work the next day; they go out and dance and they ride home all packed together on the bus, and everyone is smiling."
Finally Manolin, tall and handsome with large hooded eyes and close-cropped hair, takes the stage. Typical of current Cuban dance groups, his is a big band that features three singers, two pianists, a horn section, and Afro-Cuban percussionists, as well as a bassist and drummer. Dressed in matching plaid flannel shirts, long-sleeve white T-shirts, and low-slung jeans, the musicians look sharp, but they're already slick with sweat in the late-spring tropical heat.
The crowd dances side by side or in tight pairs, putting on a spontaneous, erotic display. Women swivel their hips in a maneuver appropriately referred to as la batidora (the blender) or do el tembleque (the shake), punching the air and rippling their torsos as if they've just received electroshock. The men bob with a cool side-stepping motion accented with a pelvic thrust, holding their partners from behind. One couple at the singer's feet seems intent on demonstrating every position of the Kamasutra with clothes on.
Hands wave above heads as Manolin launches into the chorus, the essence of Cuban dance music, improvised call-and-response lyrics over a rolling piano chord progression and clave percussion. The ritual goes on for half an hour, the singers prancing and rhyming, spinning metaphors that have sexual, social, and sometimes political meanings, and the euphoric crowd shouting back their words.
By the time the music stops and people straggle to the door, it's nearly five in the morning. As he departs, one fan leaps up as if to take a lay-up shot. He's giddy, on top of the world, ready to take on anything. To prove it he shouts, "AQue vengan los americanos!"
Bring on the Americans!
Americans make up only a fraction of the foreigners who have been dropping by Paulito Fernandez Gallo's house in a working-class section of Havana. "I've had offers," says the singer, sitting in the bright, plant-filled Florida room of the single-story bungalow. His mother brings in tall glasses of beer on a tray. Two parakeets in a cage chirp loudly. "EMI, BMG Paris. Some gentlemen from Sony were here -- they wanted to know if I was free. I told them no."
Since 1993, when the dollar was legalized in Cuba, Cuban musicians have been allowed to work as free agents and negotiate their own contracts. (Last year they even began paying income taxes to the state.) Paulito y Su Elite recorded several albums with Magic Music, a Barcelona-based record company, and are now signed with Nueva Fania, a subsidiary of the pioneering New York salsa label Fania Records.
Dressed in jeans with suede patches, a polo shirt, oval sunglasses, and a gold watch and ID bracelet, Paulito exudes street cool. He's in his thirties but looks younger, and he has a raspy speaking voice that comes from performing up to seven nights a week and practicing with his band most days. "Cuban singers have throats of iron," he laughs huskily. "We work all the time. The musicians play, and play, and play."
A seductive stage presence and therefore a huge hit with female fans, Paulito is Cuba's most popular singer, according to a public survey taken at this year's Egrem awards, akin to the Billboards. He says he might consider other offers when he finishes his current contract, but he seem neither surprised nor particularly impressed that the suits have found their way to his door.
"Here in Cuba we're making music that has its own style; it has an identity," says the singer. "Now it seems that it's a novelty for a lot of people, but it's nothing new for us."
After a significant absence in the rest of the world, and despite the dismal economy in Cuba and the obstacles of the U.S. embargo, Cuban dance music is emerging as the international music industry's Next Big Thing. To Jose Luis Cortes, leader of the popular group NG La Banda, the reason is obvious: "The record people know that the only virgin country in Latin America in which to exploit the music -- professional music -- is Cuba."
Notwithstanding persistent rumors to the contrary in Miami, Cuban music has evolved substantially over the past three decades. Regardless of one's political views, nobody with an ear can deny that these artists, who received their entire education from state-run music schools, are a breed of supermusicians.
"What you have today is a large quantity of incredible musicians playing any kind of music they want," says Cari Diez, who manages the Havana office of Magic Music, "simply because they have the ability to do so."
These developments were little known in the United States until fairly recently. Cuba began diversifying its music industry in 1989, forming an independent booking agency called Artex and encouraging foreign record companies to reissue existing recordings held by the state record company, Egrem. A year earlier Congress had passed the Berman Act as a modification of the U.S. embargo, making Cuban recordings -- which, along with books and films, are considered "informational material" -- legally available in America.
When New York musician and producer Ned Sublette first visited Cuba in 1990, he marveled at the music that was thriving in relative isolation. "There was no Cuban music on CD anywhere, except for maybe four or five titles on European labels," recalls Sublette, who founded the Qbadisc label with partner Ben Socolov in 1992. "The Soviet Union still existed and vinyl was still being produced in Cuba for domestic consumption. The greatest groups in the world were unsigned!"
That was soon to change. The reissuing of all manner of Cuban music -- Sublette's 1991 compilation Dancing with the Enemy, released on Luaka Bop, was one notable milestone -- whetted the appetites of world-music fans and Latin jazz listeners everywhere. New artists were the next logical step.
And foreign labels aren't the only ones taking advantage of the situation. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Berman Act made it legal for U.S. companies to sell American recordings to Cuban distributors and for Cuban companies to sell Cuban recordings to U.S. distributors. And although American labels are still prohibited from advancing royalties to Cuban musicians, multinational companies may sign the artists to their foreign subsidiaries and sell the resulting recordings in America.
"It can be done through a third company," confirms Treasury Department spokeswoman Beth Weaver. "I imagine that's the sleight of hand that's going on." Such third-party arrangements, Weaver notes, are not unusual. "Coca-Cola is sold in Cuba; it's manufactured in Venezuela. If they have a subsidiary company, we can't stop that. If Kodak has a plant in El Salvador, they can sell film in Havana -- there's nothing we can do about it. We can only work within our own stipulations."
Jerry Masucci, cofounder of Fania Records, has been called the Godfather of Salsa. He spent time in Cuba before the revolution and worked with Cuban musicians in New York over the years. In 1979 he traveled to the island for CBS Records to produce Havana Jam, a live concert album featuring Weather Report, Stephen Stills, and the Cuban jazz group Irakere, among others. Masucci didn't return to Havana until two years ago, when an official from Egrem called to alert him that times were changing. He has since signed a handful of Cuban groups to Nueva Fania through a Panamanian subsidiary.
"There's a lot of good music in Cuba now, like there always was," says Masucci, adding that he's very optimistic about its marketability: "We're trying to do everything we can to make it happen."
So is the Cuban government.
The Instituto Cubano de la Musica oversees all aspects of Cuban music production, presentation, and promotion from a marble-floored former mansion in Havana's Vedado neighborhood. Alicia Perea, the institute's director, is a trained pianist and music professor, a stylishly dressed and artfully made-up middle-aged woman who formerly taught at the music conservatory of Havana's national art school.
"I think that we have to study the market more and more," says Perea, whose office on the building's second floor features a large photo of Fidel Castro. "For years we didn't do it. Mistake! A grave mistake! It's true that our market has its own laws, but there's another market out there."
In March the institute sponsored the inaugural Feria del Disco Cubano, a Cuban record fair that included a weeklong nonstop showcase of live bands that set the Guinness world record for "the longest son in the world" (100 hours). The institute's staff is already preparing for an expanded version of the fair for next year. And to take advantage of the increasing presence in Havana of the international music industry, later this summer Egrem will open a new state-of-the art digital studio in the tony Miramar neighborhood. The complex, which is costing the Cuban government the equivalent of over $100,000 to construct, will include hotel rooms for visiting musicians and producers. Meanwhile, Egrem can still offer foreigners use of its Areito Studio in Old Havana. Built in the Forties by the storied Panart record company and nationalized after the revolution, Areito has served as Egrem's center of operations for the past 25 years. American guitar whiz Ry Cooder recently recorded an album there with Cuban musicians.
Egrem, which pays its artists in pesos, is making fewer new recordings since the foreign companies came in and offered artists more lucrative deals; the state company is now concentrating on remastering and reissuing selections from its massive archives or offering them for licensing. Thousands of master tapes, including albums recorded by Panart and other labels before the revolution, are housed in a temperature-controlled vault in the studio.
"Socialism signifies justice in the distribution of riches, but we have to generate those riches," reasons Alicia Perea. "Socialism and communism are not at odds with commercialism or marketing. Popular dance music is in a moment of national and international recognition, and we have have to acknowledge that -- it's a fact."
Although the plethora of Cuban music now available in the U.S. and Europe ranges from country trios to avant-garde jazz to classic son and Fifties boleros, the spotlight, both in Cuba and abroad, is on contemporary dance music, popularly called Cuban salsa or new salsa. The style has surmounted both the socially committed nueva trova (folk) singers and American rock as the rage among Cuba's youth.
In the drab suite of offices occupied by the Empresa Benny More, assistant commercial director Javier Patterson and others are working to update the way Cuban artists are promoted. Until recently the task has been impossible, owing to a lack of funds. But with the music industry on the upswing, Patterson says, his agency is hoping to get together enough money to make a video to showcase the leading dance bands to foreign concert promoters.
"If in all these years the United States hasn't been more aware of what's happening in Cuba, that's not our fault; that has to do with the American internal policy and the famous embargo," says Patterson, ignoring the flickering lights of a typical midday brownout. "If today people are starting to learn a bit more about Cuban music, I think that's a positive advancement. We want the whole world to know about Cuban music, and the United States is part of that world. Ironically, the United States was always a big market for our music."
It's safe to say that Americans are listening to more Cuban music now than at any time since the Fifties. Cuban CD sales in the U.S. are still relatively small, in part owing to pressure by exile groups, but the U.S. marketing potential is much better than Cuba's. At Havana's largest record store, an annex to the Casa de la Musica theater, the latest dance music releases are showcased in a large display case, while CDs by nueva trova balladeers Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes have been relegated to a small rack in the corner. A saleswoman reports that the store sells about $400 worth of CDs a day at $15 to $17 a pop, most of it new dance music -- and all of it to tourists. CDs are sold for dollars only, and their price exceeds the average Cuban professional's monthly salary of 300 pesos (about $14.00).
"We don't sell CDs in pesos, because the Cuban people don't have CD players," Perea explains. They do have cassette players, and some own record players from the Soviet period. Perea is quick to point out that even during the "special period" of severe economic restrictions on the island after the disintegration of the Eastern bloc, Egrem pressed records for sale in Cuban pesos, despite the fact that Cuba had to purchase the vinyl abroad and pay for it with dollars. Now that LPs are almost obsolete, Egrem will put its efforts into producing cassettes.
Most Cubans, though, don't buy recorded music at all. Instead, bootleg copies of tapes are passed from friend to friend or dubbed again and again. And there's all that live music.
"Maybe in the rest of the world an artist's success is measured by the number of records he sells," says Magic Music's Cari Diez. "Here in Cuba that's not the most important parameter. Here the popularity of an artist is defined by his popularity with the dancer. That's the essential measure. The places where people dance are where an artist lives or dies. And generally that public doesn't buy records."
Several Spanish companies have aggressively entered the export fray over the past few years, establishing offices in Havana in cooperation with the Cuban government. The current sales leader, Caribe Productions, based in Panama, records many of the most popular dance orchestras, waging a clever campaign to promote the music abroad on the label's El Inspector de la Salsa imprint. The cover of one compilation, Ya Viene Llegando la Musica Cubana (Here Comes Cuban Music), sports a defeated Uncle Sam on his knees, surrendering, with a logo in the corner that reads: "Made in Cuba in Spite of the Embargo." Another disc is titled Sin Embargo Te Quiero, a play on words that means both "I love you anyway" and "Without the embargo, I love you."
Magic Music, meanwhile, is working with all kinds of musicians from all over the island, everyone from young urban rappers to obscure provincial septets. The label has just released La Isla de la Musica, a two-disc set that's the first of a planned 41-CD series. Eurotropical, yet another Spanish label, was introduced last month with a concert at Havana's Teatro Karlos Marx that was taped for a Spanish TV special.
Though a spokesman for the company recently deemed Eurotropical's interest an "altruistic" partnership, some see the burgeoning Spanish presence as more of an invasion than a communion. "I call them the new conquistadors," says Emmanuel Chamboredon, who heads the Paris-based label Milan. "People who go there to traffic and who are handling the artists like the island's a plantation." Chamboredon, who declined to name any of these conquerors specifically, has also licensed Cuban music for his label.
"We've had the misfortune that a lot of so-called producers have come here and because of our economic situation we had to accept their offers," agrees bandleader Pachito Alonso, the son of famed singer Pacho Alonso whose new album Una Salsa en Paris is just out on Milan Latino. "Since they weren't real professionals to begin with, nothing came of it."
But Alonso says Cuban musicians are getting increasingly savvy. This is in part thanks to the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, a Madrid-based song-publishing company akin to ASCAP and BMI that administers royalties for about 400 Cubans and has a representative in Havana. (The artists' percentages of those royalties from sales are established by their individual contracts with the record companies.) Releases by some of the most popular Cuban bands have reached sales of up to 10,000 copies in America alone. Such U.S. figures would be considered a resounding failure for a major-label rock act, but not for world music. And for Cuban bands, which ten years ago found it virtually impossible to export their music, it's nothing short of phenomenal.
"The world is opening up," asserts Manolin. "The record labels that have appeared have forged a path for us, and I think there's a good future ahead for Cuban music." He shrugs. "After all, what good is something if no one knows about it?"
In Havana everyone's talking about salsa -- on the radio stations, which feature bands' tour schedules on the morning news; on TV music programs such as Mi Salsa; in glossy new magazines like Salsa Cubana and Tropicana. Still, tourists flying down to show off the intricate steps and fancy twirls they've learned with their partners in salsa classes in London, New York, or Tokyo are sure to be bemused.
"I'm one of the opposers of that word salsa," says Adalberto Alvarez, founder of the seminal band Son 14 and known since the Seventies for rejuvenating traditional Cuban dance genres. "Maybe in order to retain the term, because it's a very commercial term, people have started calling Cuban dance music salsa cubana. But it's a salsa that is totally different from what that name refers to in other parts of the world."
Alvarez prefers to call his own music son. "Maybe in order not to say guaracha, rumba, bolero, son, you use one word: salsa," he reasons. "But the way the Cuban orchestras play is different from the Puerto Rican orchestras or those in the rest of the Americas, and that has been because the Cuban musicians have been making music for a long time away from the influence of other Latin dance music."
Yet by referring to their music as salsa, Cubans are essentially recouping what was theirs to begin with: The original New York salsa of the Sixties and Seventies had its roots in Cuban rhythms. "In Cuba nobody has had the possibility to get their music out there," says NG La Banda's Jose Luis Cortes. "People came here and took advantage of the situation to take the elements of Cuban music to conquer the world -- like Ruben Blades did, like Oscar D'Leon did, like Cheo Feliciano did." (Singer Oscar D'Leon is generally credited with introducing Cubans to the Latin music being played "on the other side," during a concert tour of the island in 1982.)
And to a certain extent the situation has come back around. Admits singer Issac Delgado: "In my music there's a big influence from Puerto Rico, New York, Venezuela, and Colombia."
Musicologist Helio Orovio has made a study of the evolution. "In the late Seventies and early Eighties, people didn't really know what salsa was," explains the Havana resident, author of The Dictionary of Cuban Music. "It arrived as just a name, a label. At first it was totally negated in Cuba. Then people imitated it. Then they assimilated it. And in that assimilation were combined the best of the New York salsa mixed with the contemporary son, with a bit of rock, with a bit of rap, with some Caribbean rhythms, with the style of playing bass used in reggae. The Puerto Rican bomba, cousin of the Cuban rumba, is there in the conga rhythms. And all of this is mixed with jazz. And that generated a form of music called timba.
"And what did the Cubans do? They invented a way to dance to this music, the tembleque, that has influences from back in the Sixties, when people danced to rock music with the go-go and the shake," Orovio continues. "You can't dance that way to the Gran Combo of Puerto Rico, the same way that you can't take someone who dances salsa and have them dance to timba. The salsa is a style that was born in New York. Cubans have never danced salsa; it didn't enter into our culture. In Cuba something new was born. And why was it born in Cuba? In Cuba the rumba was born, and here they invented the bata drums. Why would it be strange that they invent something new now? It's natural."
Whether it's referred to as timba or new salsa or by the generic term musica popular bailable (popular danceable music), dance music in Cuba has an aggressive celebratory spirit closer to that of early rock than to mainstream salsa. The brassy pop of groups like Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears was a revelation for Cuban bands in the Seventies; now the younger Cuban orchestras acknowledge the influence of funk and R&B artists like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and especially Earth, Wind & Fire.
"Cuban music is always the son, the guaracha, guaguanca, the rumba -- they're very strong rhythms," says Aldalberto Alvarez, who with his current group Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son has just released an album on Milan. "What they are doing now is based in large part on all of these genres. But it's seen through a harmonic viewpoint that comes from jazz -- a product of the fact that all these people have had the opportunity to study. They're graduates of the conservatory."
They're also the first generation of Cubans to have been born and educated entirely under Castro. In the system of free musical education that has existed in Cuba since 1962, children are tested for their musical ability at age four and start studying music in specialized schools at six. "They study harmony, theory, instrumentation, piano, music history, instrumental methodology," explains Alicia Perea. "Then they have history, psychology, sociology, aesthetics, and all the rest. They are people who have an ample knowledge of culture, and a knowledge of music that is very complex and very complete."
Initially students in the music schools were forbidden to play anything but classical music. Musicians like saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera would sneak out at night and play jazz anyway. In the Seventies, when D'Rivera, pianist Chucho Valdes, and the other original members of Irakere proved the virtuoso possibilities of an Afro-Cuban based jazz, the genre evolved into an important part of the curriculum.
Forty-four-year-old flutist Jose Luis Cortes, himself an ex-member of Irakere, played with the archetypal contemporary dance band Los Van Van before cofounding NG (short for Nueva Generacion) La Banda with like-minded musicians in 1988. "We formed our group to do concert music," says Cortes, taking a break to relax with a drink while his band rehearses at the rented home of a Spanish friend in Havana's residential Playa district. "More than any other reason, it was because the academic training of the musicians was so high that it would be crazy to start playing something very simple or something commercial or anything like that."
NG La Banda has recorded or appeared on about 40 albums whose sound has ranged from Afro-Cuban jazz to all manner of dance music. Like other Cuban groups, they can tailor a concert to fit the audience: jazz at the Montreux Festival, dance music at the Tropical. "We're a group that has tried to experiment," Cortes asserts. "We've always played experimental music, but we really put ourselves into the music, and it ended up being popular with the public.
"The elite don't dance," he adds. "When they have a free moment, they listen to Bach or Mozart or a good jazz record or a nice recording of popular music. But they're not the people who say 'I'm going dancing' and get on a bus and ride an hour to see you play. NG La Banda is a very progressive and contemporary group where the arrangements and the depth of the music are concerned. But I think the lyrics have to be simple, words that motivate the people to dance."
He takes a sip from his rum and Coke. "That's where I have problems."
Cortes's troubles are with the government censors, who see a lot of his songs, which are filled with street slang, sexual innuendo, and references to social issues like racism, prostitution, and the economy, as vulgar. Cortes argues that he's just speaking in the voice of the people.
"Language in Cuba evolves," he explains. "A Cuban who left here 37 years ago comes here today and there are a lot of things he won't understand. Eighty percent of Cubans understand my songs and they accept them. Twenty percent don't: those who have the power to censor me."
Cortes, whose nickname is El Tosco (The Coarse One), isn't the only musician who has this problem. Government-appointed committees of (usually older) musicians, known as "artistic consultants," have the power to decide if a song is appropriate for broadcast on radio or television. Often the songs they ban are the most popular ones with Havana's dancing crowds.
"We believe in freedom of creation," says Alicia Perea. "Nobody can prohibit someone from creating something. No one can prohibit that someone write a song. But the promotion of that song and the repetition of the song in the media -- it's a function of the media to control that. Cuban music has always been picaresque; it's erotic, it's sensual. But the media can have a big role in deciding at what time and how often something is played. You can't deal with cultural problems in an uncultured way."
Cortes has his own way of dealing with it. He recently recorded a song called "Cronica Social (Social Chronicle)," a lengthy rap about censorship of popular music in which he decries an elitist attitude that ignores the frequently harsh reality of life on the island. "Sometimes they pretend we're French or English. We're Cubans! And in our songs we're talking about the real Cuba," he says. "The popular musicians in Cuba are the ones who have defended Cuban culture tooth and nail."
It is the popular music orchestras, Cortes argues, that have buoyed the spirit of the Cuban public through hard times. The bands' performances give young Cubans something to look forward to at the end of days marked by little in the way of opportunity and much uncertainty about the future. But for all their nationalism, Cortes claims, the popular orchestras have been repaid with little respect: The government has tended to favor performers who are looked upon as more cultured, such as cabaret singers and concert musicians. And ironically, he points out, that privileged status made it easy for them to defect while traveling on tour.
"Almost all of them left the country!" Cortes throws up his hands. "Mirta Medina, Albita, Maggie Carles -- they left Cuba to work elsewhere, because they didn't accept the reality of that moment here."
Cortes leans back in his chair. He has never thought of emigrating, he says. "I have work in the United States if I want it. I have work in Switzerland," he maintains. "But I enjoy this because I'm living in my country, and I think it's my responsibility as a Cuban musician to take care of my people. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to play my music to my people, and if someone doesn't understand that, screw 'em."
He puts on a tape, a rough cut from NG La Banda's album in progress. The tune is infectious, with a cumbia beat infused with sloping Cuban piano chords and driving percussion. Dancing clownishly from side to side to demonstrate, the singer explains how he's trying to come up with something that non-Cuban audiences can easily dance to. "It's not a problem to do music that can be commercial," he says. "But we have to do it without concessions."
NG La Banda is already one of the best-known Cuban groups outside the country. "We may have sold 200,000 records," Cortes says. "But the people who buy them are the ones who investigate, the ones who like to discover new music."
As much as he wants to broaden his audience, the bandleader adds, he refuses to make bad music in order to do it. "We've made a lot of popular music here after the revolution -- one of the countries that has most developed its popular music is Cuba," he asserts. "Because we sit here and we make a record. We don't have some record executive who tells us all the time, 'Look, you have to do it this way because that's what sells.'"
He rewinds the tape for the band to give the new song another listen. "I say, 'Fine, I can sell records,'" he shouts over the music. "But when I make a record, I'm going to make it so that everybody's going to know that I'm a musician."
The Hotel Capri's Salon Rojo is a showcase of decadent splendor gone to seed. The red velvet wallpaper is faded and mildewed, the large cabaret stage abandoned. These days bands play on a smaller platform in what was once the cocktail lounge, now crammed with rickety tables and chairs more suitable for a school cafeteria than a pricey nightclub. A few American-made video games and an ancient pinball machine stand in the corner. The beer is warm and served in plastic cups. The air conditioner barely blows.
On a Friday night people line up to pay the twenty-dollar cover charge at a kiosk outside the door: a fat, ugly European man accompanied by four teenage Cuban girls, a group of Japanese tourists, a Cuban woman and her Argentine boyfriend, a Canadian journalist, an Italian couple, some Spanish businessmen. Inside, the place is nearly full, and the ladies room is packed with primping girls, high-school age, here to fish for men with dollars.
The opening act consists of a trio of comics who do slapstick impressions of popular Cuban singers, followed by an insufferable band whose self-consciously dour members seem to have been watching too many gangsta rap videos. Then finally, well after midnight, La Charanga Habanera takes the stage dressed like a motley hip-hop crew, in shorts and baseball jerseys, sweat suits and baggy jeans.
The thirteen-piece orchestra soon transcends the dismal surroundings, singing raucous songs about safe sex, construction laborers, and working girls, performing choreographed steps and maneuvering athletically around the stage. Everyone is dancing -- between the tables, on the chairs. The girls-for-hire stretch their arms toward the band, paying scant attention to their foreign paramours, who are bumping suggestively up against them. The small dance floor directly in front of the stage is overflowing. The show goes on for two and a half hours.
La Charanga won't get paid for its performance. Cuban musicians do make some money from royalties, and since 1992, orchestras have been allowed to keep all but a small portion of their earnings -- ten to fifteen percent goes to the government -- from foreign tours. But the artists don't receive any share of the money they bring in at the clubs in Cuba's tourist hotels, a circuit the top bands play constantly and pack nightly. (Of these, the Salon Rojo is unusually rundown; most clubs, like the Palacio de la Salsa in the Hotel Riviera, sport the sort of luxe decor and good service that makes the price of admission seem almost reasonable.) In theory these gigs are compensated for by the monthly salary each musician receives through his representing agency (in La Charanga's case, the Empresa Benny More). Although high by Cuban standards, the wage is paid in pesos and is the equivalent of about ten dollars at best.
"We have a wonderful salary," David Calzado, leader of the band La Charanga Habanera, says with some sarcasm. "But that salary isn't enough to buy the things that we need."
Alicia Perea says that most of the money taken in by the nightclubs, along with the music industry's other profits, is reinvested in the state's music infrastructure. Some goes toward the general economy and some to the Ministry of Culture, but the rest goes to music: everything from promotion to expenses and office supplies, not to mention instruments and recording equipment.
Still, the institute -- which Perea says took in three million dollars last year -- and other musical organizations can hardly provide for all of the 12,000 professional musicians in Cuba. Bands that can afford it buy their own instruments, and they prefer American brands to those available in Cuba. They also pay for their stage wardrobes and sound equipment. Their salaries, they say, don't even cover gasoline, let alone personal expenses. (A pound of pork, for instance, goes for a dollar -- American currency -- at the market in Havana.)
Perea concedes that the musicians' professional expenses are high. Officials are looking into the idea of giving them a share of the door when they perform in the tourist venues, she says, but nothing has yet been approved.
"I think that one day in Cuba we're going to get the pay that corresponds with our quality and our importance," says Calzado, sounding incongruously capitalistic. "The day that we can earn what we should -- not because we want it but because we deserve it, our work merits it -- then somebody won't be able to come from Spain and buy us for two cents, because we'll be able to make two cents here. Then we'll be able to get more respect.
"I think those things will come," he adds. "But it's very slow, because it's not easy. We have the spirit to fight for what we should fight for. And I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking about society. In this society, with all of the difficulties that we have, change takes time."
Artists, like athletes, have always been given special treatment in Cuba. For one thing, they are permitted to travel. The state may help them find comfortable housing (but they must still pay for it). And now that so many more musicians are earning dollars, they are becoming more and more independent of the restrictions of the Castro regime, and their elevated status is more apparent. These days a bandleader's house can be easily distinguished from the rest of the block by the late-model car in front of it. This, some critics on the island have said, symbolizes a nouveau riche lifestyle.
In the transcript of a roundtable discussion about the commercialization of the arts published recently in the Cuban cultural magazine El Caiman Barbudo, journalist Felix Lopez condescendingly referred to the popular young orchestra directors as "little entrepreneurs." Another panelist called Manolin "the model of the successful man: a gold chain, a car, and a lot of money." Oddly, here in Miami El Nuevo Herald has also bashed the singer: A story published in April described his "eccentricities,"alleging that he and his wife spent $56,000 on their recent wedding reception at the Marina Hemingway. ("If I said it cost $5000, I'd be exaggerating," says the singer, adding that a Spanish friend footed the bill for the fete.)
Manolin thinks he might be the target of such criticism because he is different. His is the kind of rags-to-riches story that Americans eat up but Cubans view with suspicion: Unlike most of his fellow musicians, Manolin (whose full name is Manuel Gonzalez Hernandez) did not attend the music conservatory. Growing up poor in Guantanamo, he sang as a child but went to medical school (ergo the "Salsa Doctor"). After graduating he decided to try his luck at singing professionally -- a move state officials didn't look upon kindly, having invested in years of medical training. But he immediately became popular and has been ever since.
"What would I want more than to be rich?" he asks, seated on a sofa in the living room of the small apartment he shares with his wife and baby daughter. Tourist shop souvenirs from his travels to Mexico and Colombia hang on the walls. There's one air conditioner -- in the bedroom -- and a small black lacquer dining set of the type sold in discount furniture stores. "In this world, where everything has a price, where you have to buy everything, where you have to pay for everything -- your clothes, your food, gasoline, tickets to visit another country -- who wouldn't want to be rich to resolve those problems?
"I haven't seen a country where they give people things for free," he says softly. "Only in books. I haven't seen a country where they give you food, clothing, electricity, telephone -- you have to pay for all that. So it's totally normal that you earn money for the work that you do."
If he lived in the United States, Manolin would probably be considered lower middle class. But in Havana he is comparatively rich, and it shows in his car, his sport watch, his Levi's.
"Maybe they have a better lifestyle than the rest of the population," concedes Perea, who is quick to come to the musicians' defense. "None of them are millionaires. Maybe they haven't noticed that in such a difficult period, when there is such dramatic need, maybe they've been a little ostentatious when they bought their cars. But they're young people with talent, and they've shown their love for the revolution and love for the country.
"It's true that they have a higher standard of living," she adds. "But it doesn't bother me."
Manolin doesn't see any reason it should.
"That's not an ideological problem," the singer says. "The problem is, people mix ideology with everything; it's like arroz con pollo. You have to give ideology only the importance that it deserves. There are a lot of people who think the same as me, and people who don't think the same as me. But I think they're going to end up thinking the same as me, because reality imposes itself on everything."
It's a busy day at the Instituto Cubano de la Musica. A shy, fortyish saxophonist from the province of Pinar del Rio who has been invited to play with an orchestra in Germany has come to get help with his visa application. Perea has been in meetings all morning. There's a pile of faxes waiting on Angel Ford's desk in the international affairs department when he arrives.
Ford picks up a letter from a group of Japanese musicians and shakes his head. "These guys were just here doing a workshop," he laughs. "They left three days ago and now they want to come back again." Among the correspondence is a fax from a producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Company who wants help for the report he's doing about Cuban music, and a letter from Lincoln Center inviting NG La Banda and another group to the esteemed American cultural center's summer music festival.
About 3500 musicians left the country on tour last year, according to Perea, who calls it "a record in the history of Cuba." Most were popular-music orchestras. While the top Cuban artists have always toured Europe (particularly the Eastern bloc countries during the Soviet years) and Latin America, more bands are now traveling more often and may be away from the island several months out of the year.
The fact that they can take most of the money home has not only changed bandmembers' standard of living, it has also altered the nature of their work abroad. The bands used to want to stay in one place as long as possible -- even if it was a second-rate disco -- so they could hoard their per diem money to support their families when they got home. Now they do more standard tours in better venues, often covering five European countries in two weeks. According to Jorge Arranz Gonzalez, who coordinates European tours for Artex, a popular band can make about $18,000 a week (which has to be split among more than a dozen members, of course, after the Cuban booking agency gets its share). And they'll do it for less. "Even if we get $40 a day, it's better than what we get back home," says a member of Los Van Van. "In Cuba we get nothing."
Maintaining their immense popularity at home for the past three decades, Los Van Van continues to be the hardest-working band in Cuban show business. They have amassed a dedicated following abroad as well, and this past December they set a precedent by embarking on a five-city tour of the United States, packing houses all the way.
They have already returned this month for another series of concerts -- in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, among other cities. The band had hoped to return to the club S.O.B.'s in Manhattan, where they were given an enthusiastic reception on their last trip. But that idea was discouraged by the U.S. State Department; officials told the tour's promoter, Bill Graham Presents, that the venue was not a good choice.
"The idea behind promoting cultural exchange of this type is noncommercial venues -- the traditional concerts in the park, jazz festivals, university settings -- that's the kind of thing we are trying to promote," explains Jim Theis, a consular officer in the State Department's Office of Cuban Affairs. "We are not interested in promoting tours that are basically a series of club dates, where the promoter and the club make a lot of money off it. That's not the cultural exchange we're looking for. In a long tour, an occasional setting like that is not a strict violation of the embargo, but that's not what we're trying to encourage." (As employees of the Cuban government, musicians are prohibited from entering the United States and must apply for a waiver in order to get a visa. Under the restrictions of the embargo, Cuban groups may perform here only as a cultural exchange and may receive no compensation aside from the cost of transportation, lodging, and a per diem.)
Van Van leader Juan Formell is disappointed by the decision. "I think that if we're given a visa we should be able to play anywhere in the United States," he said before a concert last month in Cancun, where Los Van Van performed a series of club dates. "We're really sorry about it."
Other bands, though, are following Los Van Van's U.S. lead. "One way or another, we have to enter the United States," contends NG La Banda's Jose Luis Cortes. "First, there are three million Cubans who don't know my music. It's also unquestionable that if you want to triumph in the world, you have to get into the United States."
Of course, Miami remains the forbidden city. In September the first Midem Latin American and Caribbean Music Market meeting is scheduled to be held here. Sponsored by the Paris-based music promotion company Reed Midem Organisation, the four-day event at the Miami Beach Convention Center will draw record labels that represent Latin artists and will feature performances by a variety of acts. But no Cubans will be allowed to perform or attend.
"We're not working with the Cuban agencies or Cuban government or anything of that sort," confirms Barney Bernhard, U.S. president of Reed Midem. "We're prohibiting it. The last thing we want is a mob scene at the event."
Ridiculous, counters Cari Diez of Magic Music. "Can you imagine a Latin American music conference without Cuban music?" she scoffs. "They should have held it in Puerto Rico."
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Cuban musicians tend to say they'd play in Miami if they could, largely because they have relatives and friends here. But they know they aren't wanted by one sector of the community, and by now most consider it a nonissue. La Charanga's David Calzado, for his part, doesn't really care. "I want to go to the United States, but I don't want to conquer the Cuban audience in the United States -- I already know that I can conquer them," he says. "I want to go to New York and play for an American public. Of course, I love the Cubans who are there because they're Cubans, the same as me. But that's not the audience I'm after in the United States."
La Charanga has toured extensively in Europe and Mexico, and group members seem particularly conscious of their potential foreign audience -- their CD Pa' Que Se Entere La Habana includes a glossary of slang words used in their songs; a $100 bill with Ben Franklin decked out in a pirate's outfit and holding a microphone graces the cover. They have no plans as yet to come to America, but Calzado is confident the time will come. Meanwhile, he stresses, he's happy playing at home.
"In spite of the difficulties -- the poor sound system, the trouble we have getting paid -- we have to play in Cuba for the Cuban public today," he says as he tosses a ten-dollar bill on the bar at a five-star Havana hotel to pay for a round of drinks. "There are things that the public is in no way responsible for. The system has its characteristics, but the people are the people. We're going to go and play at the Tropical whether we get paid for it or not, because that's the public that needs to see us. And they're the ones who are going to support us.
"We're global artists, and above all we're artists who live in Cuba because we want to be in Cuba," he goes on. "I'm here because I feel good, with the positive and the negative aspects. I have my family and I have a job that fills my soul. As an artist I'm not interested in popularity abroad if I can't have it in my own country. What comes first is to be a Cuban musician in Cuba.


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The Muse Armless Child Chair is a comfortable, easy to access childs chair with an unparalleled amount of style. Choose from our microsuede, cotton, or vintage fabrics. You can even choose your own fabric! Contact a design consultant to have this chair upholstered in your on materials. Shown here in Green Velvet.
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subset: commoncrawl


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What kind of relationship do you have with your money?
Is it healthy? Unhealthy? Toxic?
Are you intimately in touch with your money, or woefully out of touch — and headed for trouble?
Are you in control of your money, or is it in control of you?
Does it support you and serve you, or does it cause you anxiety and sleepless nights?
Listen to my recommendations about how to start developing a healthy relationship with your money on this CBC interview:
Relationship with Money CBC Interview
Want further support?
1. My simply $25 online program will get you in better touch with your money, and help you gain control of problem areas.
2. This book has some thoughtful research and great ideas. I'm not thrilled with the look and feel and tone of the advertising but it's full of great stuff.
Photo Credit: Hipponotized


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Designed for the rider who requires both performance and comfort, the RT-1000 features a taller head tube, sloping top tube, and shock-absorbing rear H stays for all-day comfort and stability . Touted as one of the fastest endurance bikes on the market, the RT1000 is the perfect blend of comfort, aerodynamics, and carbon technology that only Kestrel knows how to provide.
4030 Deerpark Blvd Ste 200
St. Augustine, FL 32033
(855) 762-3245
Working Days/Hours:
Mon - Fri / 9:00AM - 5:00PM EST


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There are things in this world that work in the dark. Luminox watches, for example, SureFire flashlights, anything made by Trijicon. Note the conspicuous absence of C3 headlights from this list. With anywhere between 30 and 40 years of age (and advancing technology) behind them, they leave a lot to be desired for nighttime driving, especially when that driving involves lots of curves and lonely roads. While it's possible to upgrade the headlights themselves, there's also the time-honored option of auxiliary lighting, and that's where we're headed this month. Before the howls of "sacrilege" start to rise, let's take a minute to talk about this particular car.
Every well-built car is a unified whole, composed of disparate elements selected for how they fit into a single vision. In the case of my '72 coupe, aka "Scarlett," the goal is to create a chrome-bumper shark with performance and driveability that equals or exceeds that of late-model Corvettes. Since the car is regularly street driven, we're also trying not to wrap it around a tree or fling it off the side of a mountain, so things like actually being able to see the road matter.
In addition to making the car faster and better handling, we're adding styling cues from the road-race cars of the early shark era. While this car is not and never will be "correct," it should still look right within the bounds of what it's intended to be. With this in mind, the choice of which driving light to use was easy: Cibié.
Although there are plenty of other lights available--PIAA, Hella, Light Force, and KC Daylighters come to mind--when you look at old racing photos, the cars at Le Mans and other tracks generally had the distinctive yellow-and-black sticker of the French lighting company. Although Corvettes often appeared with rectangular lights for competition, it's hard to make that shape fit into the front of a Stingray and look right. Thus we arrive at the Tango light, which is a smaller, round light around 5 inches in diameter and with a shallow, 2-inch-deep back.
Devilishly hard to find (I ordered mine from Aardvark International in California), the Tango comes in a white or yellow fog beam, or a white drive beam. (It's also sold individually, so double the price you're quoted if you want a pair.) While the Tango used to be available with either a black housing or a chrome ring around the front, only the black is currently in production.
Pricing for Cibié lights varies quite a bit, but they're never cheap, which makes it reassuring that they come with plastic covers to protect that precious glass up front when they're not in use.
After installing mine and adjusting the angle a little, I find that they do exactly what I wanted, casting a clear, white light across and down the road. And since I wired them to the dimmer switch, I can dim them along with the high beams when there's a car in the oncoming lane. Once you've used them, you get a real sense for just how pale the wan light of the factory beams is.
I've used the Cibiés both on straightaways as well as up in the tight mountain curves, and they make a world of difference, with the extra light furnishing the confidence needed to negotiate the tightest corners--so much confidence, in fact, that it makes me wish that Scarlett held the road a little better...


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Final Environmental Impact Statement: Land and Resource Management Plan : Siuslaw National Forest, Volume 1
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, 1990 - Forest reserves
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1st Decade 1st Decade 2nd 2nd Decade 5th acres Alternative H Alternative NC amount anadromous average B(Dep Cape Perpetua Cascade Head changes Chapter Coast Range coastal Coho Salmon conifer Decade 2nd Decade Decade 5th Decade developed Douglas-fir Drift Creek Environmental Consequences erosion existing F G H FEIS Fish and Wildlife fish habitat Forest Plan growth habitat capability Hebo increase indicator species landslides levels logs maintain management activities mature conifer natural ODFW old-growth old-growth stands Oregon Dunes NRA Oregon silverspot butterfly outputs Pacific Northwest payments to counties pileated woodpecker populations potential protection R-6 sensitive recreational opportunities riparian River RNAs roads scenery Scenic sediment Semiprimitive Sitka spruce Siuslaw National Forest slopes SOHAs soil SPNM streams suitable for timber timber harvest timber management timber production trail undeveloped areas USDA Forest Service vegetation viewsheds water quality watersheds western hemlock Wilderness wildlife habitat


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Seattle Public Schools (Teacher)
Seattle Schools Startalk Teacher Certification
Arabic, Korean, Spanish
- July 8, 2019 – July 26, 2019: (Face-to-face)
- Seattle Public Schools/Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA
Program Setting
The Seattle Public Schools (SPS) and Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) STARTALK Teacher Program seeks to enroll 13 participants (6 Korean, 3 Arabic, and 4 Spanish) who have at least Advanced Low proficiency. Participants will earn 11 graduate level credits towards teacher certification with a World Language Endorsement through alternative routes to certification and will receive vouchers to take the required assessments for teacher certification This three-week face-to-face summer intensive program and 3 online classes totals 120 contact hours. The program will be followed by 8 credits of fall/spring coursework and internship in order to complete the full certification program, with an estimated out-of-pocket cost of only $6,600 (financial aid available). Participants will have the opportunity to observe and microteach during summer language camps for high school heritage and intermediate second languages learners.
Contact(s)(253) 906-9173
Program Website


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Editing and creating your own profile
How can I edit a preset profile or create my own one with Elecard Converter Studio?
If the preset profiles don't seem to be quite suitable for you and you have to change the settings pretty often, therefore you need to create your own profile. To do that, you need to go through the following steps:
1. Run Elecard Converter Studio.
2. Choose «Open Media File...» in the File menu. You can also use CTRL + O.
3. In the pop-up window choose any file.
4. On Profiles panel choose a profile that you will be using as default.
5. Drag the selected profile from the Profiles panel to the Task Parameters panel.
6. Starting with the Stream type parameters section, make the necessary settings changes that will be suitable for you (each setting is described particularly in the User's Guide). Then move on to the Video Encoding parameters tab and make settings for the encoder, in the very same tab you can also make additional changes for filters settings: Picture transformation. Finish by making settings changes for Audio parameters panel.
7. Save your profile by clicking Save profile button on Task parameters panel.


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Skyline Releases Women's Soccer Report #8
- Magee named Player of the Week -
Clifton Park, N.Y. - The Skyline Conference released the eighth women's soccer report for the 2010 season on Monday afternoon, including Player of the Week, Rookie of the Week, Honor Roll and Conference statistics.
Sophomore forward Corine Magee (Mastic, N.Y./William Floyd) was named Skyline Conference Player of the Week for women's soccer. In a 3-0 week for Farmingdale State College, Magee scored two game-winning goals for the Rams. Magee came off the bench against Richard Stockton and scored the game-winning goal with 46 seconds left in the first overtime period to give Farmingdale State a 3-2 victory. She came off the bench again against Old Westbury and scored the eventual game-winner in the 38th minute of a 3-0 victory.
To view the full report, click HERE.


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Friday, September 26, 2014
Posted by Camille Petrocelli at 6:37 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Saturday, September 20, 2014
New today on ETSY: name and word bracelets!
ETSY SHOP {{{ click here
Posted by Camille Petrocelli at 10:44 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Friday, September 5, 2014
I have been a happy, busy camper!
Making bracelets and bangles and selling them through word of mouth or through Facebook friends.
My ETSY account is pretty and has 32 items right now, but they are just window dressing right now.
With all the competition online for handmade jewelry, I feel like my shop is a needle in the haystack.
Not complaining...when I post something on etsy to sell, I share it with my Facebook friends and it gets noticed and ordered, or they will custom order something else, they send a check and then I mail it out.
So I guess it's a win, win, because bottom line is...sales!
I love working with wire and designing new and fun pieces to wear.
Here are a few more things I have been making.
Check out the ETSY page for more!
http://camille1955.etsy.com ETSY <<< click here
Posted by Camille Petrocelli at 5:09 PM 0 comments Links to this post
About Me
- Camille Petrocelli
- Plantation, Florida, United States
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As state lawmakers all across America craft nullification legislation to defy unconstitutional federal gun-control schemes and sheriffs openly vow to protect the Second Amendment regardless of what Obama or Congress say, municipal and county governments are getting involved in the action, too. In fact, in recent weeks, several local governments have unanimously approved ordinances and resolutions nullifying any and all lawless restrictions on gun rights.
At least two counties so far, one in North Carolina and another in Indiana, recently adopted ordinances nullifying every infringement on the unalienable human right to keep and bear arms. Municipal governments are jumping on the bandwagon as well, with Gilberton Borough in Pennsylvania adopting on January 24 the "Second Amendment Preservation Resolution" proposed by liberty-minded Police Chief Mark Kessler.
Analysts and activists, meanwhile, expect that trend to continue accelerating as extremists in Washington, D.C., and some state capitals openly threaten to impose further violations of the Constitution in defiance of their oath of office. Nationwide, activists are applauding officials at all levels of government who are rising up and putting their foot down, vowing to defend the Second Amendment rights of Americans no matter what decrees or pretended acts of legislation may be issued to the contrary.
Most recently, commissioners in Franklin County, Indiana, voted unanimously this week to approve the "Second Amendment Preservation Ordinance." The popular measure exempts all law-abiding residents of the southeastern Indiana county from unconstitutional federal gun control, including past, current, and future restrictions, according to the text of the strongly worded ordinance.
"All federal acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations regarding firearms are a violation of the 2nd Amendment," reads the simple but powerful measure. "It shall be the duty of the Sheriff of this County to take all measures as may be necessary to prevent the enforcement of any federal acts, laws, orders, rules, or regulations in violation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."
Hundreds of sheriffs nationwide, of course, have already openly announced their intention to defy any federal restrictions on gun rights, and a powerful new coalition just formed to recruit even more. Echoing state-level nullification efforts that are spreading like wildfire across America, the county ordinance in Indiana goes on to explain in clear language the rationale behind the lawful resistance: Unconstitutional infringements on unalienable rights are totally illegitimate and must be treated as such.
"The Franklin County Board of Commissioners declares that all federal acts, laws, orders, rules, regulations — past, present or future — in violation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are not authorized by the Constitution of the United States and violate its true meaning and intent as given by the Founders and Ratifiers," the county law states. Therefore, all such measures "are hereby declared to be invalid in this county, shall not be recognized by this county, are specifically rejected by this county, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in this county."
Analysts noted that the ordinance represents "an extremely strong stand" in defense of the Second Amendment. And that is exactly what county commissioners intended. "The citizens of Franklin County take the Constitution seriously and the State and Federal government need to do so as well," said County Commissioner Scott McDonough, who joined all of his fellow commissioners voting in favor of the powerful stand against lawless tyranny. A legal expert quoted by the Associated Press said the law is legitimate unless and until it is successfully challenged in court.
Last month, meanwhile, Beaufort County, North Carolina, became the first county in America to officially nullify restrictions on the Second Amendment. In a unanimous vote, the board of commissioners approved a resolution calling on the governor and the state legislature to "immediately pass an act to nullify the implementation within the State of North Carolina of any federal law, executive order or regulations restricting the right to keep and bear arms."
The wildly popular resolution, which became an instant sensation among liberty-minded Americans, also ensures that county officials are prohibited from supporting any effort to infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens. Among other actions, the measure directs the county manager to prohibit the use of county officials and resources from participating in the implementation of any federal "law," executive order, or directive that would infringe on the people's right to keep and bear arms.
"Enthusiasm from the community was high," explained an announcement from the Tenth Amendment Center, a non-partisan organization that works to nullify unconstitutional usurpations of power by the federal government. Representatives from the North Carolina TAC reported that the "room was packed," the crowd was "overflowing out into the hall," and two local TV stations were on hand to report the news. "All politics [are] local? Correction. All successful politics are local," the pro-nullification group pointed out.
At the municipal level, facing a tidal wave of national support, the Gilberton Borough Council in Pennsylvania adopted a similarly tough resolution protecting the gun rights of local residents. Police Chief Mark Kessler, one of the first law enforcement officials to speak out strongly against Obama's lawless gun-control machinations in the wake of the massacre in Connecticut, urged local officials to act promptly in defense of citizens' rights.
"Hopefully this will spread like fire throughout the country, and the people will stand up and say, you know what, enough is enough, and under the Tenth Amendment, which grants the power of nullification of unconstitutional laws, we're going to recognize this as unconstitutional, we're not going to enforce it, we're going to make sure this doesn't happen," Chief Kessler told The New American in an interview, adding that the Second Amendment was clear. "We want to do this peacefully, we don't want any kind of violence whatsoever — I'm totally against that — I just want to see a peaceful resolution to this. And under the Tenth Amendment, hopefully we can accomplish this through the nullification process."
Like the county ordinances in Indiana and North Carolina, the Gilberton resolution "recognizes that all federal, state or local acts, laws, orders, rules, regulations — past, present or future — in violation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and/or Section 21 of the Constitution of Pennsylvania are not authorized by the Constitution of the United States and/or the Constitution of Pennsylvania and violate its true meaning and intent as given by the Founding Fathers and Ratifiers."
As such, any unconstitutional restrictions "are hereby declared to be invalid within Gilberton Borough and all of its boundaries, and shall not be recognized by this Council and are specifically rejected by the Borough of Gilberton within all of its boundaries within the state of Pennsylvania, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in the Borough of Gilberton within the state of Pennsylvania."
Gun rights activists nationwide, unsurprisingly, celebrated the county and local nullification victories as a major success, and a harbinger of more lawful resistance to come. As the chief law enforcement officers in their counties, meanwhile, sheriffs in virtually every state have already stood up and publicly said they will refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws — in Utah 28 out of 29 sheriffs vowed to give their lives in defense of the Second Amendment — and many have also vowed to stop any federal agent trying to enforce such measures.
"Anytime that they come against the Second Amendment, or try to say 'we're going to do this or we're going to do that,' well we here are not going to comply with that," Jackson County, Kentucky, Sheriff Denny Peyman, one of the first to speak out publicly, told The New American. "It goes back to us being a sovereign state, it goes back to the way our system is set up — with myself being the chief law-enforcement officer here — federal agents will not be allowed to come in here and do that."
At the state level, well over a dozen state legislatures are working on nullification legislation to prohibit unconstitutional gun control, too. More than a few of those bills have teeth, making it a felony punishable by years in prison for any government official, including federal agents, to seek enforcement of infringements on the right to keep and bear arms. In Wyoming, for example, the state House just approved the "Firearms Protection Act" nullifying new gun control and making it a crime for anyone to try to enforce it.
The Obama administration and some extremist Democrats in Congress may still believe they can violate their oath of office by trying to restrict Americans' gun rights. Analysts, however, say it has become clear that the gun grabbers unwittingly awoke a sleeping giant, and the brave actions of state and local officials are just the beginning. In fact, more than a few gun rights advocates are already predicting that the whole anti-Second Amendment movement is about to be crushed so devastatingly that it will become irrelevant for generations to come.
Related articles:
Sheriffs and Legislators Are Acting to Nullify Obama Gun Controls
Michigan's Allegan County Passes Anti-NDAA Resolution
Liberty Coalition Forms to Support Sheriffs Fighting Gun Control
Sheriffs Target Obama Gun Control, Vow to Resist
Kentucky Sheriff Vows to Protect Residents from Obama Gun Control
Can the County Sheriff Save the Constitution?
Sheriffs Oppose Encroachment of Federal Agents Into Their Jurisdictions
Police Chief Seeks Nullification of Unconstitutional Gun Control
States Aim to Nullify Obama Gun Control
Gun Owners Refuse to Register Under New York Law
Obama Executive Orders on Guns Would Spark Mass Resistance
Wyoming Bill Would Nullify Obama Gun Control, Jail Feds


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Maps makes things easier to find by giving you detailed information and suggestions based on your habits and calendar events.
Add your frequent locations
To add frequent locations, like your home or work:
- Open Maps, and tap in the top-right corner.
- Tap Report an Issue.
- Tap Home or Work and search for the address.
- Tap Add a Place or Address and type the address or tap a recent location.
- Tap Add. When you're done tap Back.
Depending on your carrier and cellular data plan, cellular data charges might apply when using Maps.
Get directions
- Open Maps and enter your destination in the Search bar.
- Tap Directions.
- Choose Drive, Walk, Transit, or Ride.
- Select the route that you prefer. Maps shows the fastest route first based on traffic conditions.
- When you're ready, tap . To see an overview of your route, tap "Tap for Overview" in the banner.
- To end navigation, tap , in the bottom-right corner. Then tap End Route. You can also ask Siri to "Stop Navigating" when you have Hands-Free turned on.
When you start moving, Maps updates its position to give you a better sense of direction. You can also use your finger to scroll ahead to see any obstructions on your route. And with iOS 11 or later, Maps helps you avoid missing a turn or an exit by suggesting the lane you should be in while driving. You can also see the speed limit of the road you're currently on.
To avoid tolls or highways, go to Settings > Maps > Driving & Navigation. Then tap the slider for Tolls or Highways.
Use the Route Card
You can use the Route Card to find nearby places, like gas stations, food, and more.
To add a detour to a trip:
- Tap while you're navigating to open the menu.
- Select an option, like Gas Stations. Maps will show you a list of nearby suggestions.
- Tap . Maps will add the detour to your original route.
- When you're ready, tap the blue banner at the top of the screen to resume your route.
To get detailed turn-by-turn directions, swipe up on the menu while you're navigating and tap Details. You can also see your trip overview and adjust your Navigation Voice settings from the same menu bar.
If you paired your device to Bluetooth in your car, you can manage the Navigation Voice settings. Learn how to use Maps with Bluetooth.
Add a favorite transit line
You can add transit lines to your Favorites, and then see them in your Widget for timely information.
To add a transit line to your favorites:
- In Maps, tap , then select Transit.
- Zoom in on the transit line. Then tap the name or number of the transit line or station. You might also see a symbol for the transit line.
- When you see the Details card, scroll to the bottom and tap Add to Favorites.
You can also enter your destination, then tap Directions to see if there are any other types of transit that you can take.
Use a Marker to get directions between two locations
You can use markers to mark your current location. You can also drop a marker to show the distance from one location to another.
To mark a location:
- Tap in the upper-right corner of Maps.
- Then tap Mark My Location. You can also touch and hold your finger on a specific area to mark its location.
To get directions between two locations other than your current location:
- Tap a landmark icon or drop a marker.
- Tap Directions, then tap My Location and enter a different point of interest.
- To change your start point, tap the text bar. You can also tap to swap your start and end points.
- Tap Route. Maps will show you the fastest route.
To remove a marker, tap the marker, tap Edit Location, then tap Remove Marker.
Search for places nearby
You can use Nearby to search for things that are near your location, like food and entertainment.
To find nearby places:
- Open Maps.
- Tap the Search bar to see the categories in your area.
- Select a category, then choose a location.
- After you choose a location, tap Directions.
- Tap .
Find out if Nearby is available in your area.
Learn how to delete your recent destinations and search history from Maps, and edit your important locations.
Add or remove your favorite locations
To add a location to your Favorites:
- Select a location.
- Scroll down and tap Favorite .
To share, edit, or remove a favorite:
- Tap the Search bar.
- Scroll down and tap Favorites.
- Swipe left over the favorite, then tap Share or Remove.
Do more with Maps
- Use Maps and Bluetooth on your iPhone or iPad.
- Report an issue with Maps if you can't see your location or notice incorrect results.
- Use Maps to find your parked car on your iPhone.
- Learn more about Do Not Disturb While Driving.
- Turn-by-turn navigation works on iPhone 4s or later, iPad Pro, iPad Air or later, iPad 2 or later, and iPad mini or later with cellular data capability.
- Flyover is available on iPhone 4s or later, iPad Pro, iPad Air or later, iPad 2 or later, iPad mini or later, and iPod touch (5th generation or later). To use Flyover as you move your device through space, you need an iPhone 6s or later, iPad Pro, or iPad (5th generation or later) with iOS 11. Cellular data charges may apply.


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Or should I say, My Buddies?
I decided to take part in the Fisher Connections program that was set up over the summer. The purpose of the program is to match up incoming students who might be moving from other parts of the state, country or even world, with students who are already here. These current students can then help with living arrangements, furniture shopping, tips on where to eat and live, etc.
My Fisher Connections buddy is Leanne Tromp, a very cool fellow blogger here. Even though I wasn't able to help out much with the above-mentioned, I think it still helps to have someone to connect with and I was able to tell Leanne about some of the classes she would be taking this quarter as well as the professors and where to get books and such.
I'm also a member of the GHRA and their buddy program that matches up first years with second years. I was really lucky to get not one, but TWO GHRA buddies, both of whom are very cool.
Laura just moved back from DC, my hometown, and so were able to immediately bond over that. Laura also worked in the hotel industry, which I always thought sounded fun.
I also got matched up with Anja, an international student from China. I had the chance to hang out with Anja at the GHRA mixer and also at the GHRA Buddy Dinner. (See Amber Stephen's blog post about the event here.) It's always fun and interesting to meet someone from your own culture and talk about the similarities and differences based on where our families are from and where we grew up. I even got over my shyness of speaking Chinese to native speakers because of their tendency to make fun of my Taiwanese pronunciations and my American accent. Thankfully, Anja kept the fun-poking to a minimum!
Over the course of the next few weeks as the quarter comes to an end, I plan on having lunch with each of them just to catch up and see how their first quarters went. I remember what a whirlwind my first full quarter here was and having a little reinforcement and debriefing would have been a big help to me.
I've already scheduled a lunch with Laura, and don't worry Anja and Leanne, your invites are coming soon!
You can see Leanne and Laura in the photo below. Not sure where Anja was, but I was behind the camera!


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At first glance, anyone who didn't grow up in an Asian culture might scrunch up her nose at herbal jelly. It's black, it's shiny, and it jiggles. But really, herbal jelly, or grass jelly, is like JELL-O, only naturally colored. Whole Foods is losing a big opportunity to market this as the next "it" health food.
Maybe it's the fact that it takes the shape of the tin can it comes from, that may turn people off. If, as a culture, Americans have moved past canned cranberry sauce, we might not be too thrilled with something similarly ridged but not candy-colored. Although grass jelly is made from an herb in the mint family, the taste is pretty neutral. Which is why Asians love it in desserts. In Hong Kong cafés and dessert shops serve grass jelly with mangoes, coconut, and other tropical produce. At bubble tea shops like Saint Alp's you can opt for little grass jelly bits instead of tapioca pearls.
In Hong Kong and southern China, you can find also tortoise jelly in tea shops with big gold or silver pots. Called gwei ling go in Cantonese, the genuine stuff is made from powdered tortoise shell and can get be as expensive as 300 HK dollars (about $38) for a rice bowl's worth. Don't worry, PETA members: imitation tortoise jelly is much more common and usually costs $1 or less. It's made from different herb than grass jelly, but tastes pretty much the same.
What's the appeal of all this stuff? Both real and imitation tortoise jelly (and grass jelly to a lesser extent) supposedly has cooling properties, and can get rid of a bad cough faster than you can say Robitussen. And you know what? It works! Try it: the next time you're in Hong Kong and sick, try getting eating a bowl of herbal jelly for 2 to 3 days. (Ah, you'll say. Chinese medicine does work.) Or pick up a can of grass jelly when you're in Chinatown.
My favorite way to eat grass jelly as a child was to cut it up to bite-sized pieces and mix it with a boatload of granulated sugar. Now if I was to sip instead of slurp, I'll mix the black squiggles with coconut juice, sweetened condensed milk, and ice for a refreshing if slightly unorthodox drink.
Are you a fan of herbal jelly and have a favorite way of eating it?


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For those of you who visit our Web site, what I'm about to say won't necessarily be news.
Two weeks ago, we launched a new Web platform that allows us to more easily update our Web-site. It's all part of an initiative by Landmark Community Newspapers, Inc., to streamline the process of updating the Web sites of its member newspapers.
But, in addition to making updating the Web easier for those of us not blessed with a Web staff, the new platform could, eventually, offer more interesting options to our readers, and of course, our advertisers.
If you currently subscribe or have subscribed in the past to the Henry County Local, then simply find your account number on your mailing label and enter it below.
Click the question mark below to see where your account ID appears on your mailing label.
|ZIP Code:


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SAN FRANCISCO ( Reuters) - Facebook Inc Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and two other executives at the social networking company sold millions of dollars worth of stock this week as restrictions on insider trading expired.
Sandberg netted about $7.44 million by selling roughly 353,000 Facebook shares on Wednesday, according to a filing with the SEC on Friday. Sandberg still owns roughly 20 million vested shares of Facebook stock, including shares held in her trusts, according to the filing.
Facebook General Counsel Theodore Ullyot and Chief Accounting Officer David Spillane also sold millions of dollars worth of shares this week, according to filings. All the Facebook executives' sales were part of pre-arranged stock trading plans.
The sales are the first by Facebook's senior management following the company's high-profile initial public offering in May.
The world's No.1 online social network became the only U.S. company to debut with a market value of more than $100 billion, but has seen its value plunge more than 40 percent since then on concerns about its long-term money-making prospects.
Shares of Facebook, which were priced at $38 in the IPO, closed Friday's regular session down 3 cents at $21.18.
The flood of shares set to hit the market as insider trading "lock-up" provisions expire in several phases have added to the pressure on Facebook's stock.
Roughly 230 million shares of Facebook became eligible for trading this week, as trading restrictions for employees expired. Another 800 million shares will be eligible for trading on November 14, significantly expanding the "float" of roughly 692 million Facebook shares that were available for trading as of September 30.
Facebook's 28-year-old chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has committed to not sell any shares before September 2013.
Ullyot sold slightly more than 149,000 shares on Wednesday and Thursday, collecting $3.13 million. Ullyot has an additional 1.27 million in vested shares.
Spillane sold 256,000 shares on Wednesday, more than half of his vested shares, for proceeds of $5.4 million. Spillane had more than 863,000 Facebook shares, including unvested shares, according to a filing in May.
(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Copyright (2012) Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions


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0 Membros e 1 Visitante estão vendo este tópico.
I feel dizzy!
It's not _that_ hard. I guess it would be a bit harder if the words were in Portuguese, though.
Certainly would be tough if the words were written in portuguese, as Dantas said.
This is called a Stroop Effect. It is a demonstration of the interference on the reaction time of a consciously performed task by a subconscious one. It was first describe in 1935. And yes, you should feel the effect properly if the task is designed in your native language.
It's a little hard in the first time, after that, is easy.
Página criada em 0.208 segundos com 23 procedimentos.


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eddieyates needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 114 designs submitted by 34 freelance designers.
A new fresh logo for my software company that will look great on stationary and give the right image for a modern professional it company.
entropyit.com or entropy software solutions
Desired Color Scheme:
Up to the designer, will guide with feedback
Desired Style:
fresh, modern, professional, clean
Accepted File Formats:
Vector Formats (.eps, .pdf or .ai); Layered Formats (.psd or .tiff)
The companies full name is Entropy Software Solutions although I have just managed to get hold of entropyit.com and also own entropywebdesign.com. As Entropy Software Solutions is a bit long I plan on using entropyit.com as my main domain name. It would be good if the logo would work with all of these although don't worry if not.
 I am after a new modern logo to use on the website, (will be redesigned  when to match the the new logo), and on all the company stationary.
I am open to any idea on design / colours and will add feedback as often as possible to help you all. I've seen some amazing work on sitepoint over the years and am really hopeing for something special.
 Words I can think of to describe what I'm after are: fresh, modern, professional, clean.
Check out the website for an idea of what we do but try not to be to guided by it. http://www.entropyit.com
 Thanks!
 Oh, please make sure the design is original.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Helpful Tips and Advice for Caring Pet Owners, sponsored by CANIDAE Natural Pet Food Company.
Mobile? Subscribe here.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Canine Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome
By Ruthie Bently
As your pet ages, they may get a little gray around the muzzle, and may walk slower on your daily ramblings. They might prefer sitting on the couch to going out and chasing a ball, and they may even get a bit finicky. Now our pets are even coping with some of the diseases we have been dealing with. Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome is one of these; it has been compared to Alzheimer's, dementia or senility in a human. Also known as Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (though cats can suffer from it as well), it's caused by the physiological and chemical changes that occur in a dog's brain as they age.
Canine Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome typically comes on slowly and will gradually get worse. CDS can cause a senior dog to become forgetful or confused about their outside boundaries and even housebreaking. Another symptom is forgetfulness about eating or drinking water. This can be a problem for our senior canines because their bodies do not have a lot of reserves. If you think your dog may have CDS and they seem to be forgetful about eating regularly or seem to have lost interest, it is important to get them to the vet as soon as you can. CDS can become life threatening if not addressed.
A dog with CDS may forget their owner, favorite family member or someone they have just met. They may not meet you at the door when you come home as they used to do. They may walk away while being petted or groomed before you are finished, and they don't tend to seek out the companionship of human family members. They may even forget other pets they live with or animals they have just met. A dog with CDS can have a personality change, and an outgoing dog may become aggressive or fearful of family members, strange people and other animals.
A dog with CDS can become disoriented in a place that has been familiar for years; this can include your yard or the house. They can even get lost in the corner of a room or behind an open door. They may wander aimlessly or pace through the house without realizing they are doing it. They may begin to bark for no reason and their sleeping patterns will change drastically. They may begin sleeping more during the day and wander the house at night. They may not respond when their name is called or may forget it altogether. Your previously housebroken or obedience-trained dog will forget what they are supposed to do. They won't remember to tell you they have to go out, or will forget that they even have to.
The FDA has approved the drug Anipryl® for veterinarians to use in improving symptoms and slowing the process of CDS. The human equivalent selegiline hydrochloride is used for patients that are battling Alzheimer's. While there are alternative therapies that are mentioned in the treatment of human Alzheimer's, it is cited that there is no conclusive evidence that they work. They can be costly, are not well regulated and as such may not be a safe alternative to chemical medications. As such, Anipryl is the only medication available to help our canine pets with CDS at the present time.
If your dog is diagnosed with Canine Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome, there are several things you can do to help them. Make sure to go to the vet for regular yearly visits. Keep your dog's mind and body active by working or training them daily. Teach them tricks or new activities like tracking or scent training. There are many puzzle toys available today that challenge a dog's mind. Even a simple game of hide-and-seek with a food baited toy will challenge their brain function. Adding more enrichment to your dog's daily life can help their mental attitude and overall outlook. A dog that is both mentally and physically healthy tends to be more confident and self-assured, and have fewer health issues. By doing these things you can help slow the progress of CDS.
Read more articles by Ruthie Bently
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The recommended method of thawing frozen meat overnight in the fridge can not only take over a day, it also requires planning. As a quicker alternative, many people submerge frozen meat in cold water. But there's an even faster method: hot water baths.
Previously you may have heard that using hot water to thaw frozen meat is a bad idea because the water would cook the surface of the meat or lead to bacterial growth. However, research sponsored by the USDA and published in the Journal of Food Science and in Food Control last June found that at least for thin cuts of meat—one-inch steaks, chops, and chicken breasts—thawing in hot water can be done in as little as 10 minutes without reducing the quality of the meat.
Harold McGee reports at the NY Times:
At the U.S.D.A. labs in Beltsville, Md., Janet S. Eastridge and Brian C. Bowker test-thawed more than 200 one-inch-thick beef strip loin steaks in three different groups: some in a refrigerator at 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, some in a constantly circulating water bath at 68 degrees, and some in a water bath at 102 degrees.
Air-thawing in the refrigerator took 18 to 20 hours, while the room-temperature water bath thawed the steaks in about 20 minutes, and the hot-summer-day bath in 11 minutes. These water-bath times are so short that any bacterial growth would remain within safe limits.
Not only that, the water thawing methods may result in better-tasting (or at least juicier) steaks:
The water-thawed steaks actually leaked less juice than the air-thawed steaks.
Similar results were found for chicken breasts, with one-inch chicken breasts quickly thawing in 9 minutes and half-inch breasts thawing in a little over 3 minutes. That's pretty fast.
McGee says his method is to use 125-degree tap water and immerse the plastic-wrapped meat in the large pot, stirring occasionally.
Don't try this with large roasts or turkeys, though, as those still are safest thawing in the fridge or in cold water.
But for thinner cuts, this hot water bath method may save you some precious time—great news if you're a last-minute cook.
A Hot-Water Bath for Thawing Meats | The New York Times
Photo by Benjamin Stone


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The 2 bright rooms on the 2nd floor (no elevator) are equipped with everything for a comfortable stay. A comfortable 2 single beds, Desk with chairs, flatscreen tv, mini fridge, hairdryer, Nespresso coffee and tea facilities, towels, Rituals luxurious shower gel, shampoo and soap. FREE WIFI,
We are easy to reach by public transport (bus 21 or 18) from the Amsterdam Central Station. The historic city center is on a walking distance. We are situated in a characteristic Amsterdam house on Singelgracht canal on the 2nd floor in the Jordaan area nearby the 17th century canal area and the Anne Frank house a 8 min. walk away next to the Westerkerk (Westernchurch). In the famous Jordaan you can find a variety of restaurants and bars. The city center of Amsterdam is just around the corner. You can easily walk to most of Amsterdam highlights. On Monday we have a market at the Westerstraat, on Saturday a market at the Lindengracht and Noordermarkt. We are nearby a variety of friendly shoppingstreet (the Haarlemmerstraat) with lunchrooms, restaurants and all kind of shops and the famous '9 streets'.
We are currently searching for the best available rooms...
|Check in
|Check-in possible between 14:00 and 18:00.
|Check out
|Check-out possible until 12:00.
Booking terms & conditions
Hereby conditions and cancellation policy.The applied amounts en percentages are to be paid by the guest.
Special conditions are prior to the main cancellation conditions when applied.
Main conditions and policy (Individual booking)
|Payment methods
Accepted credit cards
Wire transfer
|Wireless Lan, Free WIFI
|Food & drinks
|Free coffee & tea, Senseo
|Luggage storage, Near tramstop
|Non-smoking rooms, Gay friendly, City Center
|Restaurants and bars nearby


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The latest version of this topic can be found at process.
Specifies that your managed application process should have a single copy of a particular global variable, static member variable, or static local variable shared across all application domains in the process. This is primarily intended to be used when compiling with /clr:pure, because under /clr:pure global and static variables are per application domain, by default. When compiling with /clr, global and static variables are per process by default (do not need to use
Only a global variable, a static member variable, or a static local variable of native type can be marked with
When compiling with /clr:pure, variables marked as per process must also be declared as
const. This ensures that per process variables are not changed in one application domain, and giving unexpected results in another application domain. The primary intended use of
__declspec(process) is to enable compile time initialization of a global variable, static member variable, or static local variable under /clr:pure.
process is only valid when compiling with /clr or /clr:pure and is not valid when compiling with /clr:safe.
If you want each application domain to have its own copy of a global variable, use appdomain.
See Application Domains and Visual C++ for more information.


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Administration Shutting Down Economic Indicators Site
from the trending-downward... deptWhile there was some decent news suggesting the economy might not be falling into a recession, there are still plenty of knowledgeable folks who think some sort of recession is likely. Last week, in New York, plenty of folks I spoke to seemed to believe we were already in one. Of course, to actually call a recession, the general consensus is that there would need to be two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. So how would you measure that growth? Well, apparently the White House would prefer to make it as difficult as possible. Reader Jon writes in to note the rather inconvenient timing of the Administration suddenly deciding to shut down its own website that aggregated economic indicators. The site, EconomicIndicators.gov had even won awards from Forbes as a great resource. The timing of the closure certainly raises some questions. It's not that difficult to manage a website (though, I recognize, in the government, all costs are multiplied by some insanity multiplier). If it's really so expensive to manage, why not throw it open and make it into a wiki? Hell, perhaps Jimbo Wales or somebody can build a WikinomicIndicators site instead.
Filed Under: economic indicators, federal government, websites


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The June 29 issue of All Things Aviation includes a nice tribute to Harrison Ford, best known to the general public as an actor but well known to general aviation as a pilot and current leader of the Young Eagles program.
"Harrison Ford has taken flying the way it should be taken, in baby steps," the article points out. "Starting with a Cessna Caravan and remaining a Cessna fan he now flies a Citation 680 Sovereign. But not as a single-piot aircraft. Nope, instead Harrison employs a full-time 20,000 hour experienced pilot to ride shotgun."
To read the full story: all-things-aviation.com/people-in-aviation/actor-pilot-harrison-ford/


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While you are in London, you must take time to walk through Hyde Park, around Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Popular shopping areas include Covent Garden, Oxford Circus, or Knightsbridge. Do your best to see all the bridges that cross the Thames along the length of the city. Particularly beautiful are Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Jubilee Bridge, and the actual London Bridge.
Short on money but want to take in more of London? Not a problem! Try taking a walk or having a picnic around some of London's scenic gardens and parks. Spend a day taking in many of London's free museum filled with historical collections, artifacts and artwork.
Brits love football! In London, there are 5 Premier League football clubs: Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham United and Crystal Palace, and there are numerous London-based clubs in the lower leagues.
The way to get tickets generally is to become a member of the club, and generally there's a half-season membership. However, there is a new tickets-only membership that just lets individuals buy tickets. Pricing varies by club, with Chelsea being most expensive. Membership grants access to online ticketing and the more you purchase from the club (merchandise, tickets, etc.) more points you accumulate. There is also usually at least one NYU London led football trip as part of the cultural programming.
If you do not make it to a stadium, try watching a game on TV. Saturdays and Sundays are dedicated to football at many pubs. If you are not into the sport, but still want to take part of the legacy, take a tour of Wembley Stadium or the Olympic Stadium.
Typical British food is very heavy and many visitors tend to eat out at pubs, which means your typical drink might be a pint of beer. As a result, it is extremely easy to pack on the pounds in short order.
Outdoor running is very popular in the parks and along the Thames. There are also many yoga studios in the city. You can also stay fit by walking around the city and enjoying all the sights! Take advantage of your central London location. Many famous and interesting sites are within walking distance. You'll discover more, see things you would not otherwise see, save money and get fit.
London has an amazing theatre and entertainment scene. The West End is bursting with new plays and musicals . It is right by the academic center, and has a vibe similar to the Broadway shows in Times Square. As New York, there are many ways to see shows cheaply, and if you do your research, shows in the West End can be far cheaper than they would be in the States.