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The monotony evaporated in an instant. All around the tired, bored and homesick soldiers of the 24th Infantry Division were confirmations the Persian Gulf War hadn't ended yet. Their first battle was imminent.
Pale orange flames from countless rockets streaked through the predawn darkness. Their roaring whooshes filled the Iraq desert. For 60 relentless minutes, GPS-guided missiles arced from miles behind the soldiers and landed with absurd accuracy on Jalibah Airfield in the distance.
"Nothing but rockets," Sgt. Ken Kozakiewicz said recently at his kitchen table in West Seneca. "We just stared at them. We didn't expect that. That was never part of the training.
"It was surreal. I was scared s---less. If anybody tells you they weren't, they're a liar."
The rocket strikes looked like lightning. Seconds after the first rockets cratered the airfield, soldiers could feel the hardscrabble desert floor quake beneath their boots. They were on alert, awaiting orders to swarm their shell-shocked enemy.
Jalibah Airfield was among the final objectives of America's lopsided campaign to evict Saddam Hussein from neighboring Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm was an unqualified rout.
When the rocket assault began at 5 a.m. Feb. 27, 1991 – less than three days after Saddam ignored a U.S. deadline to withdraw his troops – Kuwait had been all but liberated. Cease-fire was scant hours away.
"They unleashed hell on this airfield," Cpl. Mike Tsangarakis said. "I was thinking 'Damn, imagine what those poor Iraqi bastards are going through right now.'
"We've got to go over there in a little while, and hopefully there's nothing left."
From the outset of Operation Desert Storm's ground offensive, Saddam's soldiers gave up with barely a struggle. The Iraqi conscripts were hungry, filthy, afraid. Some didn't have shoes. They surrendered in such vast numbers they couldn't be taken as prisoners. Coalition forces merely disarmed them, pointed toward the horizon and told them to hike.
The Jalibah Airfield mission was to be yet another display of American force. In the book, "Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian Gulf War," U.S. News and World Report noted the 24th Infantry Division had more firepower than Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army in World War II.
But war provides no guarantees, neither for the mission nor the individual soldiers about to enter the breach.
U.S. soldiers were anxious about sweeping Jalibah Airfield, overmatched as it was. More than 1,000 dug-in members of Saddam's elite Republican Guard loomed ahead. They were respected professional soldiers with at least 20 tanks and 60 air-defense guns.
The Americans were exhausted. Much of the mighty 24th Infantry's time was spent traversing the bleak desert from Kuwait into Iraq and toward the Euphrates River Valley – with Jalibah Airfield now in their cross hairs.
Along the way, they dealt with zero visibility, rain, dust and shamal winds of 50 mph. A post-battle Army memorandum stated "soldiers had been on the move almost continuously for previous 63 hours during the drive to the Euphrates River Valley."
Five days before the mission, Pvt. Andy Alaniz sent a letter to his 19-year-old pregnant wife back home in Texas, telling her "something combat-like would be appreciated" because the desert boredom was frustrating the troops.
His request was soon granted.
"Our mission looks pretty simple," Alaniz wrote in his journal, dated Feb. 27 at 0300 hours. "An airport is our next objective. Armed vehicles are closing in on it. So are we. With the skies clearing up and a full moon, it looks alright to fight.
"The rest of the night should be long, but exciting. ... This is no time for sleep. A hasty defense is all we are doing right now. The trip home lies ahead."
Daylight broke and roughly 2,000 U.S. soldiers and 180 combat vehicles rolled toward the airfield.
"We were so overpowering," Tsangarakis said last month at a cigar bar near his home in Palm Harbor, Fla. "So much power. We had power in overkill.
"That's what got us: our own powerful power."
No going home
U.S. troops seized Jalibah Airfield without much Iraqi resistance. The engagement was as one-sided as Operation Desert Storm itself.
Dominance, however, wasn't without catastrophe.
Grave errors on the approach to Jalibah inflicted pain that persists 21 years later. U.S. soldiers accidentally killed and dismembered their own brothers.
Anguish in the immediate aftermath was captured in an iconic and controversial photograph that's considered the most significant from the Persian Gulf War and among the greatest ever taken on the battlefield.
In the photo, Kozakiewicz sobs as he stares out the window of a medical evacuation helicopter. His left arm is in a sling. Next to him, in the middle of the frame, Tsangarakis lifts the bottom edge of his head bandages to peek at the bloody body bag that has been loaded at his feet. They have just learned that Alaniz is inside.
"As graphic and as horrible as that picture is – because of what it is – I think it's an amazing photo," said Catherine Alaniz-Simonds, a bride of eight months when Andy got killed. "It shows the effects of war and that not everybody comes home alive.
"The guys crying and injured in there are going to be changed forever."
She is right. The lives of those in the photo remain scarred, their recoveries almost certain to be continual works in progress.
Kozakiewicz, Tsangarakis and Alaniz's widow spoke to The Buffalo News about their lives and how the photograph, seen in newspapers and magazines around the world, affected them.
Survivor's guilt and bitterness toward the government are serious issues.
None of the three soldiers, who signed up to serve in peacetime and without expectation of going to war, was an enthusiastic participant in Operation Desert Storm. All express doubts over U.S. motives.
Kozakiewicz and Tsangarakis are both divorced, in their 40s and have no children. They experience panic attacks and dark depression. They've struggled in the workplace, even with menial jobs. Loud noises frighten them.
Tsangarakis filed for bankruptcy last year. He's a loner, estranged from his father and brother for long periods because he can't interact without confrontational outbursts. He takes anti-anxiety medicine to sleep at night and slipped into a deep depression for days after meeting with The News for this series.
Kozakiewicz can't drive through open countryside because he feels too vulnerable and comes undone. He lashes out at well-intentioned people, even his fiancee. He has a scowl that could make a rabid dog back away.
There was a long pause after Kozakiewicz was asked to name his biggest success in life.
"I couldn't tell you," Kozakiewicz said, shaking his head. "I'm still alive?"
Alaniz's daughter, Andee, turned 21 this month. She is older than her father was when he died. She desperately wants to speak with Kozakiewicz and devour any new morsel of insight. Kozakiewicz, who just learned a few weeks ago that Andee Alaniz wants to meet him, is terrified by the idea.
Andy and Catherine Alaniz were married so briefly that they never had the chance to live together.
So Catherine stayed with her parents in Eagle Pass, Texas, and then moved with them to Oklahoma City, where her father, a U.S. Customs Service agent, was transferred with a promotion. Four years after she lost her husband in Iraq, her father was killed by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh drove a Bradley Military Vehicle in Operation Desert Storm, just like Andy Alaniz did.
Kozakiewicz, upon hearing this story for the first time recently, muttered a barely audible "Wow."
He couldn't say anything more, but his expression was quizzical, as if to ask "Wasn't what happened near Jalibah Airfield more than enough suffering for everyone?"
More than two decades since the haunting photograph was taken, former President George H.W. Bush has remained awestruck by the heartbreak and valor the soldiers portrayed.
"Not much has changed in the 20 or so years since I first saw this photo," Bush told The Buffalo News three weeks ago, "except my admiration for our troops and what they accomplished in liberating Kuwait now exceeds my power to describe those feelings of affection and respect."
The photo, Bush said, "underscored the sobering reality of war. Most of all, it reminded me why Barbara and I prayed for the safety of our troops every night. President Lincoln spoke of being driven to his knees by the life-and-death decisions he faced as commander in chief, and I knew exactly what he meant."
Hiding the truth
Alaniz, Kozakiewicz and Tsangarakis were in different Bradley Military Vehicles that were destroyed by friendly fire as they approached the airfield.
Hours before the cease-fire to a war that ostensibly had been won, two soldiers were killed and nine were wounded by their own troops, with their own devastating equipment.
With 148 servicemen and women killed in combat throughout the Persian Gulf War, it was one of the most "efficient wars" in U.S. history.
But a disproportionately high percentage of those deaths were unintentional. The Pentagon disclosed in August 1991 that 35 deaths (23.6 percent) were from accidental attacks by other U.S. soldiers.
The Washington Post reported at the time that "friendly fire now appears to have caused about 10 times as high a percentage of U.S. battle casualties in the gulf as in any other 20th century war" and cited a 1986 Army study that estimated less than 2 percent of Vietnam casualties were from friendly fire.
The Pentagon didn't own up to the mistakes for months.
The military wasn't forthcoming and told the media near Alaniz's hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas, that he had driven his Bradley over a land mine. His family believed that for months.
Parade magazine published David C. Turnley's jarring photo on its cover June 9, 1991. In between her husband's funeral and seeing the picture, Catherine Alaniz was contacted by a relative of Pvt. John Hutto – the other soldier killed in the Jalibah Airfield encounter – about investigating suspicions of friendly fire.
Parade magazine did not identify who was in the blood-soaked body bag. Alaniz-Simonds tracked down Turnley, a veteran Detroit Free Press war photographer, in search of clues.
"I probably still wouldn't know the truth had David [Turnley] not been there," Alaniz-Simonds said. "I still love him for that."
Turnley, embedded with the 5th MASH unit, told Alaniz-Simonds what he saw and heard when the chopper landed at the casualty collection point. Smoke billowed from the Bradleys in the sun-scorched desert morning. The soldiers were grief-stricken and highly agitated.
"I remember these guys' faces covered in grease and grit and dirt and sweat," Turnley said last month. "A couple guys already suspected it had been friendly fire. One guy in particular was steaming."
Battlefield confusion
Interviews with soldiers involved in the battle and a review of Army inquiries, memorandums and other government documents reveal costly mistakes amid the chaos of war.
Artillery rained down on Jalibah Airfield for an hour when the Bradleys from Charley Company were unleashed. Their mission was to sweep the area from west to east while two other Task Force units watched over them.
One of the observing units – 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment – veered too far east from its intended position and was in the process of correcting formation when it began to take small-arms and indirect fire from the airfield. In response, the 3-69 fired on a tank decoy. Iraqi soldiers, dug in nearby, emerged from their holes.
Ron Martz, an Atlanta Constitution reporter embedded with the 3-69, listened to what he called "a mass jumble of noise" on the battalion radio.
"People were saying 'There's movement over here! There's movement over there!' And they couldn't make out who was who," said Martz, now a professor at North Georgia College and State University.
"You could hear the stress. You had too many people keying the microphone at the same time. Transmissions were getting cut off because they were stepping on each other. It was a very chaotic thing."
The 3-69 fired between eight and 16 armor-piercing, 120 mm sabot rounds on the Bradleys. Sabot rounds are made with depleted uranium, a substance 2 1/2 times denser than steel and with a radioactive component.
Tsangarakis' vehicle was struck first. A missile entered through the Bradley's ramp in the back, took off two soldiers' legs at the knee (Hutto was one of them), detonated a portable antitank weapon that took off another soldier's leg and whistled straight through the vehicle's left wall.
Tsangarakis suffered flash burns on his face. He blacked out for a few minutes, regaining consciousness to the sight of black smoke and the smell of burnt flesh.
"I look to my right and I can see this guy freaking out," Tsangarakis said. "I'm, like, 'Why is this guy screaming so loud?' I had no idea. Then I notice Sgt. [Anthony] Walker, who's missing a leg, standing up on the other leg. He looked down at the leg that was missing and just shook his head."
Alaniz wanted to stop his Bradley and help. But his commander feared that whoever targeted the first Bradley was locked on and would fire again. The commander ordered Alaniz to keep driving toward the airfield.
The sabot ripped through the right side of Alaniz's vehicle, just below the turret. The missile avoided the other seven soldiers in the Bradley but flew right through the driver's compartment and cut Alaniz in half.
Kozakiewicz's Bradley was the only vehicle hit twice, but miraculously the only one without a death. The second round missed Kozakiewicz by six inches.
The wounded soldiers were shuttled off to a collection point, where helicopters would take them to a MASH unit.
"It was like a scene out of a horror movie," Tsangarakis said. "There were three legs in there, chunks of human flesh everywhere."
Kozakiewicz had a broken left wrist. He remembers trying to calm down Sgt. Matt Wehausen, a gunner in Alaniz's vehicle. Wehausen's right eye was gone because he was looking through a sight at the time of the blast.
Medics escorted Kozakiewicz and Tsangarakis into the evacuation helicopter. The rotors whomped and whipped up the sand.
"They got in the helicopter and were very manly," Turnley said, choking up at the memory. "I just thought there was something heroic in it all. There was such dignity in these guys, and that's what I wanted to photograph. They risked their lives for this war."
Kozakiewicz and Tsangarakis were dazed. But they offered comforting reassurances to each other. They were done with the Middle East and finally headed home.
But before the helicopter lifted off, the body bag was loaded on board. Kozakiewicz was surprised.
The medic leaning into the helicopter on the right side of the photo handed an ID card to the medic right behind Kozakiewicz, who demanded to see it.
The medic refused to show him at first, but Kozakiewicz was firm.
"I had to know," Kozakiewicz said. "I just had to know."
He and Alaniz were buddies. They were roommates for a while at Fort Stewart. Kozakiewicz knew Alaniz was excited about becoming a father.
Kozakiewicz returned the ID card to the medic, gazed out the right side of the helicopter and cried.
"There was almost a quiet about it, and that was disarming," Turnley said of Kozakiewicz's emotional display. "There was a timeless quality about it."
The photograph has resonated not only because of what it so plainly illustrates, but also because Operation Desert Storm otherwise was viewed from a distance.
CNN's 24-hour live coverage made the Persian Gulf War feel like a television show. And the Pentagon was accused of sanitizing the war. All news dispatches and pictures had to be cleared by military censors before they could be published.
Turnley's photo was rare – if not unique – in that it included a dead Operation Desert Storm soldier.
"It surprised me to see that photo because the restrictions were ridiculous," said Martz, past president of the Military Reporters & Editors Association. "Sanitizing images only serves to glorify war and conceal from people the true cost of war.
"That's why David's photo was a masterful piece of journalism. It told in that one image the anguish and the sacrifice soldiers went through in this war."
Feelings about the photo are mixed for Kozakiewicz, Tsangarakis and Alaniz's widow.
Alaniz-Simonds displays the photo in a shrine to Andy. Neither Kozakiewicz nor Tsangarakis has it hung at home and look at it only reluctantly.
Tsangarakis, however, noted the value of other people seeing the image as a reminder of "how much damage war really does."
"It's not something I'm proud of," Kozakiewicz said. "It's not something I want to keep looking at. Out of respect for Andy and anybody else who got killed or injured, I don't want to look at it.
"But with or without that photo, I live with it every day."
The complete series, published in June 2012:
Part I: The picture of the cost of war
Part II: Heartache without end
Part III: Still reliving the nightmare of war
Part IV: Devastation wrought by death
Nearly three years after the series ran, Tim Graham wrote this story:
Strangers linked by iconic Desert Storm photo finally meet 24 years later (with VIDEO)
PHOTO GALLERY: 60 images of Catherine Alaniz-Simonds and Sgt. Ken Kozakiewicz of West Seneca meeting for the first time.


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Ahoy, Critterfolk!
New entry Dec 07
Critter Notices
Critters is 23!
Yes, 23 years ago Critters was born. Wow! Thanks so much to all of you, who've made it such a resounding success!
Critters no longer accepting European Union members :(It's with a heavy heart that I have to announce Critters can no longer accept people in the European Union as members. This is a result of the "GDPR" privacy laws going into effect. I'm a big fan of privacy, and applaud the general idea behind the GDPR, but the way it's implemented forces me to close the door to EU writers. [read more why...]
Books from Critters!
Check out Books by Critters for books by your fellow Critterfolk, as well as my list of recommended books for writers.
How to Write SF
The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells by Ben Bova, best-selling author and six-time Hugo Award winner for Best Editor. (This is one of the books your ol' Critter Captain learned from himself, and I highly recommend it.) (Also via Amazon)
The Sigil TrilogyIf you're looking for an amazing, WOW! science fiction story, check out THE SIGIL TRILOGY. This is — literally — one of the best science fiction novels I've ever read.
P&E Has a New Caretaker!
I'm very happy to announce that P&E has been handed off to a new caretaker! Check out the site for news and such. Hurrah!
I'm being interviewed live on public radio for Critters 20th birthday. For those who want to listen, it's on the 10am (Mountain time) show on Thursday, 11/19/16, on Colorado Public Radio - www.cpr.org has streaming on the site or it's 90.1 FM in the Denver area. [Interview is done, you can listen on the site]
Free Web Sites
Free web sites for authors (and others) are available at www.nyx.net.
ReAnimus Acquires Advent!
ReAnimus Press is pleased to announce the acquisition of the legendary Advent Publishers! Advent is now a subsidiary of ReAnimus Press, and we will continue to publish Advent's titles under the Advent name. Advent was founded in 1956 by Earl Kemp and others, and has published the likes of James Blish, Hal Clement, Robert Heinlein, Damon Knight, E.E. "Doc" Smith, and many others. Advent's high quality titles have won and been finalists for several Hugo Awards, such as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy and Heinlein's Children. Watch this space for ebook and print editions of all of Advent's current titles!
Network speeding up
I'm switching the connection over to a new, shiny 10X faster network because of all the load. There might be bits of downtime as your boxes learn new addresses and things. Should be brief. Let me know of any prolonged outages you see.
Preditors & Editors Changeover
With the very sad passing of Dave Kuzminski, who ran P&E, I've taken over the P&E duties. Lots of what I hope are improvements; check it out at pred-ed.com.
Critters Server
is Dying has been Replaced
See important details here in my blog. Let me know if you find anything that isn't working right. (Manuscripts are now available for this week, FYI.)
Book Recommendation
THE SIGIL TRILOGY: The universe is dying from within... "Great stuff... Really enjoyed it." — SFWA Grandmaster Michael Moorcock
Announcing ReAnimus Press
If you need help making ebooks from manuscripts or print copies—or finding great stuff to read—look no further! An ebook publisher started by your very own Critter Captain. (And with a 12% Affiliate program.) [More]
Why Pro SF/F/H Authors Would Want to Join Critters
Yes, there probably are many things a great deal more challenging than reading the slush before it even hits the slush pile, but before you rush out to climb Everest, you might consider that...
- It's a great way to pay-forward. Think of everyone who helped you
along the way, and how you always promised you'd repay the favor.
Okay, maybe you did it all yourself; still, wouldn't it feel grand
to know you'd helped someone take their first steps toward their
first Hugo?
- Critiquing others helps your own writing. Nobody's too old to
improve, right? Not all great writers are great critiquers: Improving
your critical skills by critiquing others certainly can't harm your writing.
- Critiquing improves a piece. We all make stupid mistakes,
overlook internal inconsistencies, etc. You need not listen to what critiquers
say, but wouldn't you like to get reader opinions before it's in print?
(Can't prove causation, but four Critters were nonimated for Nebulas in
2002, including three of five in the short story category...)
- Have your own work instantly critiqued. Think of it like a sort of fast
(within one week) peer review, to check your piece for possibly
embarrassing gaffes. Critters has a wide variety of readers, who can
offer direct feedback on how readers perceive your work (and they're
polite about it, too). Not to mention, they can catch mistakes in logic,
consistency, science, or believability. Yes, we do both short stories
and whole novels.
- Shameless self-promotion. Our hundreds of members are also readers, readers who might want to read your other works. If they go on to become well known too, chances are they'll spread your name around even more out of gratitude. Not a bad reward for writing one critique a month.
So, if you think you can handle the (gosh, awfully stiff :-) requirements we ask (send in one critique a month, for which your own works bypass the queue for immediate review), send email to Ralph the Wonder-Critter (AKA Dr. Andrew Burt :-) saying you'd like to join. To be eligible for the pro perks (non-pros are asked to do one critique a week and must wait in the queue to be reviewed), please list some of your pro publication, in case my memory slips on your name.
If you're wondering whether any other pros have ever been so brave, yes, we count a couple dozen pros among our 500 or so active members. If you're still wavering, perhaps concerned about the security of your stories, or figure it'll take too long to get a novel through the group amidst all those short stories, please see our FAQ. For the full scoop, see the official rules. Or email me with questions.
Still not interested? Ah well. Perhaps I can interest you in a page about llamas? M00ses?

subset: commoncrawl


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We serve faculty and staff members to enable the responsible use of university resources through our bursar (student accounts), purchasing, general accounting, accounts payable, travel, petty cash, risk management, and student activity checking offices.
The links below provide policy information, training information, and required forms. For purchasing information, the purchasing tab to the left provides additional information. If you have other questions, then please come by our office in the Hall Moody administration building or call our departmental information number, 731.881.7815.
I welcome your suggestions to improve your experience online and in person at the Office of Business Services. We are honored to serve the dedicated faculty and staff members at UT Martin that create the student experiences.
Lori Donavant


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By our standards at Discount Home Furnishings Inc., all items purchased ship from the Discount Home Furnishings Inc or associated vendors warehouses within 2 business days unless major delaying circumstances occur beyond Discount Home Furnishings control. Most orders are delivered within 3 - 7 business days beyond the date the order is placed. If there are any known delaying circumstances pertaining to your order or any products on your order, you will be notified of the delay if the delivery time will exceed 7 business days from the purchase date. Once shipped, your order should arrive in 1 - 5 business days.. You can track your order by clicking on Order Status at the top of any page (Must have an account in order to obtain order status).
NOTE: It is the buyer's sole responsibility to provide a sufficient deliverable address. If you have different addresses for UPS and USPS deliveries, it is up to the buyer to provide us with this information. Any shipment that returns back to our warehouse due to an insufficient address being supplied by the customer, will be processed as a return with all actual shipping charges being withheld from the refund total. Only the buyer can verify that their own address is correct. Discount Home Furnishings, Inc has no way of knowing if there is an error in someone's shipping address as provided by the buyer.
In order to ship to these locations you, the customer, must Contact Us with a list of items desired. At this point, we will contact you with a shipping quote.
By our standards, here at Discount Home Furnishings Inc., all items, shipping to these locations, ship within 3-4 business days from the date of purchase unless major delaying circumstances occur. In which case, you will be informed of the circumstances and of the estimated additional handling time. To estimate the ship date, add the additional handling time to the standard handling time. Once shipped, your order should arrive in 3-12 business days.


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"Inner Space" 20x20 Original Painting
"Inner Space" 20x20 Original Painting
"Inner Space" 20"x20" house paint on canvas, 2017. *Includes floating wooden frame.*
From the Boundaries Lost and Found Series: "Inner Space" asks the question, what happens when we scale down and see that we're made of atoms that are mostly made of space? Or that there are far more bacterial cells holding our body together than human ones? A feeling I've tried to capture in my work is the moment when I've kept so still and have become so relaxed that I can no longer feel where my body ends and the space around me begins. Like all my atoms are spreading out and floating away. Maybe this is why setting emotional boundaries is so hard. There's not a strict "us and them," "this or that," "me vs. you." Energy is fluid, we are space and we are movement. It's not in our nature to be contained. I paint what I would want this tiny science to look like. The beautiful, awe-inspiring energy of it all. The boundaries, the membranes, the movement and scale of life.
This painting comes finished in a beautiful floating wood frame, wired and signed, ready to hang.
For questions, email email@example.com


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WASHINGTON, D.C. - The All American Bowl recently announced the rosters for the 2011 game in Charleston, W.Va. Gallaudet will send four participants in senior kicker Justin Wilson (Carmichael, Calif.), senior defensive end Michel Daze' (Frederick, Md.), head coach Chuck Goldstein and assistant head coach John Davis. The game is slated to begin at noon on Saturday, May 7, at University of Charleston Stadium in Charleston. All four Gallaudet representatives will play for the Stars and will take on the Stripes, including players from Duquesne University.
The All American Bowl is reserved for NCAA Division II and III seniors, as well as minor league free agents. To be selected. Players must be recommended by their coaches and nominated by the All American selection committee and the Football Scouting Bureau.
Notable All American Bowl alumni include former Pro Bowl punter Chris Hanson, former NFL running backs Maurice Hicks and Keith Williams, former NFL defensive back Ukee Dozier, former NFL kicker and punter Jeff Crowell and former NFL wide receiver Terrance Isaac.
General Admission: $10, Kids 6-12: $5, 5 and under: Free. Tickets purchased at University of Charleston Stadium on game day.
About the All American Bowl
The All American Bowl was founded in 1996 to give athletes the opportunity to compete against the best at their level in an all-star game setting. The All American Bowl was created to fill the void of the lack of all star games available to athletes in High School, DII, DIII, JUCO, and minor league football. In April of 1996, the first All American Bowl was played in Minnesota and has since been played at various cities across the country including Atlanta, Miami, and Las Vegas. The All American Bowl also gives athletes the potential to be scouted by colleges and professional football teams. The All American Bowl has several types of games for different levels of competition that include: DII, DIII, JUCO, Minor League Football, Free Agent, and High School. The participants in the All American Bowls have been nominated for their outstanding performances throughout their season and their accomplished career. For more information visit their website at www.allamericanbowl.com.


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See Mix Drink: Infographic Cocktails
The See Mix Drink Cocktail Guide is a fabulous infographic drink recipe book from Brian D. Murphy (@murph_e). Currently available for about $10 on Amazon.com, it's on my wish list. Featured on GQ.com back in October when it was released, I have been totally remiss by not posting about it until now. (My apologies Brian!)
Have you tried mixing a Mojito? What about a Rusty Nail? Or a Cosmopolitan? With See Mix Drink, the first-ever cocktail book to offer instruction through info-graphics, making the drinks you love at home is as easy as, well, See, Mix, Drink.
This unique, illustrated guide graphically demonstrates how to make 100 of today's most popular cocktails. For each drink, color-coded ingredients are displayed in a line drawing of the appropriate glassware, alongside a pie chart that spells out the drink's composition by volume for intuitive mixing. No other cocktail book is this easy or fun. Instantly understandable 1-2-3 steps show exactly how each drink is prepared, and anecdotes, pronunciation guides, and photographs of the finished drinks will turn newbie bartenders into instant mixologists.
The GQ.com feature has the designs for ten of the recipes from the book. They are all simple to understand, and easy to follow.
One thing I would suggest to improve the visualization design style is to combine the key and the ingredient portions. No need to make the reader look to both sides of the glass illustration to figure out how much of each ingredient. Just putting the name with the amount on the left side and getting rid of the color key would eliminate an eye motion for the readers.
Thanks to Brian for sending in the link (back in October!) and congratulations on the publication!


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Ze'ev Jabotinsky
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Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky (alternatively Zhabotinski) (Hebrew: זאב ז'בוטינסקי, Russian: Зеэв (Владимир Евгеньевич) Жаботинский; October 18, 1880 – August 4, 1940) was a Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Legion in World War I.
- Our habit of constantly and zealously answering to any rabble has already done us a lot of harm and will do much more. … We do not have to apologize for anything. We are a people as all other peoples; we do not have any intentions to be better than the rest. As one of the first conditions for equality we demand the right to have our own villains, exactly as other people have them. … We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody's examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to.
- Instead of Excessive Apology (1911).
- We cannot give any compensation for Palestine, neither to the Palestinians nor to other Arabs. Therefore, a voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore, it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall which the local population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy.
- The Iron Wall (1923).
- Eliminate the Diaspora, or the Diaspora will surely eliminate you.
- Tisha B'av (1937).
- The Jews might become the dynamite that will blow up the British Empire.
- Palestine Bulletin, (1934-01-04) (Source).


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The BBC's homepage displayed a video proclaiming that Tony Nicklinson, a British man suffering from Locked-In syndrome, is "happy," while simultaneously showing a breaking news headline that he had died after losing a High Court battle over his right to commit suicide. Well, which one is it, BBC? Take your pick!
- Reposted by


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The Republican Who Saved Civil Rights
How a little-known conservative Ohio congressman changed American history.
The placid town of Piqua, Ohio, sits in the state's west-central section, barely half-an-hour's ride from the Dayton bicycle shop where Orville and Wilbur Wright helped prove that man could fly. Its name comes from the Shawnee Indian phrase "Othath-He-Waugh-Pe-Qua," meaning "He has risen from the ashes!" and its best-known homegrown product is probably the Mills Brothers, the close harmony African-American singing ensemble that thrived from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War. The modern municipality incorporates a community once known as Rossville, which became the first free-black enclave in the region after a local slave owner's death in 1833.
Today, Piqua is represented in Congress by the Honorable John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives, who has shown himself politically unwilling (or at least unable) to protect gay men and lesbians from employment discrimination, to address the need for comprehensive immigration reform or simply to keep the government up and running in the face of the tea party's caprice last fall.
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Fifty years ago, the congressman from Piqua was an equally conservative fellow — but an altogether different man. His name was Bill McCulloch, and at the height of John F. Kennedy's effort to pass the first comprehensive federal civil rights law since Reconstruction, it was McCulloch — a now forgotten figure — who rose above mere partisanship to give first Kennedy, and then Lyndon B. Johnson, the power to pass the single most important law of the 20th century.
McCulloch's name is hardly a household one — even in Ohio. But one witness to the role he played in forcing the country to live up to its founding creed bore passionate, private testimony to his importance. "Please forgive the emotional tone of this letter," Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wrote from aboard the yacht Christina, when she got word in 1971 of McCulloch's planned retirement from Congress. "But I want you to know how much your example means to me."
"I know that you, more than anyone, were responsible for the civil rights legislation of the 1960s," she continued. "You made a personal commitment to President Kennedy in October 1963, against all the interests of your district. When he was gone, your personal integrity and character were such that you held to that commitment despite enormous pressure and political temptations not to do so. There were so many opportunities to sabotage the bill, without appearing to do so, but you never took them. On the contrary, you brought everyone else along with you.
"And as for my dear Jack, it is a precious thought to me that in the last month of his life, when he had so many problems that seemed insoluble, he had the shining gift of your nobility, to give him the hope and faith he needed to carry on."
In popular myth, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was the work of Martin Luther King Jr.'s street demonstrations, John Kennedy's murder and Lyndon B. Johnson's indomitable will. The full story is more complex — and far more interesting. And Bill McCulloch was at its very heart. On July 2, 1963 — the same day that leading civil rights groups met in New York to plan the March on Washington, Burke Marshall, the Kennedy administration's point man on civil rights, flew to Ohio for a crucial meeting with McCulloch, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. McCulloch was an important member of Congress, but in the custom of the day, he still kept his hometown law office in Piqua, on the second floor of the National Bank Building, where the sole decoration was a framed copy of an excerpt from Edmund Burke's letter to the electors of Bristol, in which the great 18th-century statesman had declared: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
Judgment was precisely what Bill McCulloch had been delivering to the voters of Ohio's 4th Congressional District since 1947. In most ways, he was a conventionally conservative Republican, an avatar of fiscal probity. "There is no such thing as easy money from Washington," he declared during his 1948 campaign. He was among the few members of Congress who never spent his entire office allowance, but instead returned the excess funds to the government.
But McCulloch was the descendant of pre-Civil War abolitionists, and he was an avid supporter of civil rights, even though his district had a black population of just 2.7 percent. In January 1963 — 4½ months before Kennedy addressed the nation promising a broad civil rights law — McCulloch had introduced his own civil rights measure in the House. But the Democrats who controlled the House had yet to schedule a single hearing on McCulloch's measure — or on any of nearly 90 similar Republican-backed bills, including one from New York's charismatic young Rep. John Lindsay. So McCulloch was more than ripe for Burke Marshall's appeal. But he had two strict conditions.
First, McCulloch told Marshall that he expected the Kennedy administration to support a strong but practical bill, one that could pass the full House, and then to fight for that very same bill in the Senate, without accepting amendments that would weaken its impact or effectiveness. McCulloch had backed civil rights bills in 1957 and 1960, only to be dismayed when their toughest provisions were bargained away in the Senate. If Kennedy's new bill suffered a similar fate, McCulloch warned, House Republicans would oppose it when it came back to the House for final approval — and no civil rights bill could pass either chamber without Republican support. Second, McCulloch wanted the White House to give full public credit to Republicans for the bill.
Kennedy accepted McCulloch's terms, and an improbable alliance was born. But McCulloch's demands had a fateful effect on all the subsequent legislative strategy. His insistence on no softening of the measure in the Senate – and his undoubted ability to deliver Republican votes — assured that the administration would have to attempt something that had never before succeeded in American history: to break a civil rights filibuster in the Senate, rather than avoid one by watering down the bill to cut off debate. McCulloch drove a hard bargain, but no man was ever more fair.
William Moore McCulloch was born in 1901 and raised on the family homestead. He earned a law degree from The Ohio State University, and after graduation, he taught school for a year before moving to Jacksonville, Fla., where he began the practice of law — and first witnessed the day-to-day realities of Jim Crow segregation. He returned to establish a thriving law practice in Piqua and steadily rose in local politics, eventually becoming speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives.