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Alice's Garden expands to Greenfield congregation
The typical church partnership in large metro areas usually involves affluent suburban churches sharing their resources and talents with poorer central city congregations. Now, a new Milwaukee initiative is turning that on its head.
SeedFolks Youth Ministry and Alice's Garden, the successful growing community that fills an entire city block near N. 20th and W. Garfield Ave. in Milwaukee, will develop a second location at King of Glory Lutheran Church, 4330 s. 84th St., in Greenfield, according to SeedFolks founder Venice Williams said.
The project, which reunites Williams and the Rev. Ingrid Huebner, who had worked together at Cross Lutheran Church, aims to create a space for neighborhood residents to grow food, build community and connect with the congregation, according to Williams. It will also house additional herb gardents for the Alice's Garden Healing Herbs product line.
Contrary to the typical church partnership dynamic, says Williams: "This partnership lifts up the gifts, resources and knowledge of an urban ministry that can be duplicated and lived into in a suburban context."
Apartment development proposed for West Allis
A 38-unit apartment development is being proposed for West Allis.
Developer Chris Miller, of Hartland-based Miller Marriott Custom Homes LLC, wants to build a pair of two-story buildings, with 19 units each, on 2.2 acres on the west side of S. 92nd Street, immediately north of
the railroad overpass between W. Mitchell and W. Rogers streets, according to a city Plan Commission report.
Miller would demolish two homes and a garage on the site to make way for the new development, called 92nd Street Commons. The estimated project costs are $3.3 million.
92nd Street Commons would include 50 parking spaces, which is 10 fewer spaces than normally required by the zoning code.
"The developer's target market is the empty nesters and singles who typically only have one car," the report said. The Plan Commission is to review the proposed development at its Wednesday meeting.» Read Full Article
Bicyclist, 15, dies from New Berlin accident
A 15-year-old bicyclist struck Saturday afternoon by a vehicle in New Berlin has died, police said.
The Greenfield girl was crossing Sunny Slope Road from the New Berlin Recreation Trail when she was struck by a sport utility vehicle heading south around 4:30 p.m. She was taken to Froedtert Hospital, where she died Sunday.
The girl's name was not released.
Speed and alcohol are not believed to be factors in the crash, New Berlin police said.
Man in custody for questioning in death of woman in West Allis
West Allis police said Saturday that a man remains in custody for questioning as they investigate the death of a 63-year-old woman found dead in the hallway of her apartment building Friday.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office continues working with detectives and will determine the cause and manner of death at the conclusion of their investigation, West Allis Police Chief Charles Padgett said in a statement Saturday.
The 63-year-old woman lived in the building in the 7400 block of W. Washington St., where she was found shortly after 1:30 p.m., police said Friday.
WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) reported that the apartment complex is for people with mental health issues.
Padgett also announced that a Chicago man, Henry Davis Jr., 27, has been charged with two bank robberies and a liquor store holdup in the city in April and May.
Cheap I-94 route expensive for West Allis, officials say
West Allis officials are encouraging business owners and residents to the third set of open house public meetings on Interstate 94 options that could have a crucial affect on the city.
Officials want the on- and off-ramps at 70th/68th streets and at 60th/Hawley Road preserved as they are now partly so that businesses won't be harmed and partly because of fears that West Allis residents will be stuck in backups getting onto the freeway at rush hours.
The open houses will be held next week by the state Department of Transportation.
While most of the I-94 alternatives being considered do include restoring the existing I-94 ramps at 70th/68th and 60th/Hawley, the cheapest alternative does not include all of these ramps. City officials hope to encourage the DOT not to choose the cheapest alternative.
The first open house will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Wisconsin State Fair Park's Tommy Thompson Youth Center, gate 5, at 640 S. 84th St. The second open house will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Marquette University High School, 3401 W. Wisconsin Ave.» Read Full Article
Groundbreaking set for Greenfield Farmers Market
A ceremonial groundbreaking will be held for the Greenfield Farmers Market at 4:30 p.m. May 23 in Konkel Park, 5151 W. Layton Ave., where the market will be held.
Actually, the groundbreaking will not be for any structure, but for the path that will be created to lead to the market. Because the path also will serve the Dan Jansen Family Fun Fest, the festival board has been part of the celebration planning.
Path construction is to begin immediately after Jansen Fest on Memorial Day weekend, May 24 to 26, at Konkel Park. Weather and construction permitting the path should be ready for the market's opening day, June 23..
The Greenfield Farmers Market will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 27 offering a variety of products including fresh produce,
salsas and sauces, natural soaps, dressings, bakery and baked goods.
New Greenfield Farmers Market seeks helping hands
With the launch of a farmers market in Greenfield a little more than a month away, the Planning Committee is encouraging people to volunteer to help make the market a success.
Volunteer positions may include Farmers Market ambassadors during market hours, photographers and promoters.
A volunteer interest and feedback meeting will be held from 6 to 7 p.m. Monday at the Greenfield City Hall, 7325 W. Forest Home Ave., room 204, for those who might want to volunteer at or learn more about the farmers market.
The meeting will provide an update on market logistics and promotion plan, provide volunteer opportunities and allow time for feedback and discussion.
Those interested in attending, should email email@example.com.» Read Full Article
Greenfield police arrest man in Petco store robbery
WTMJ-TV (Channel 4).Greenfield police have arrested a 36-year-old man who is accused of trying to rob a Petco store on S. 76th St. Monday night, reports
The robbery occurred about 9 p.m. Monday. Employees were tied up, but one was able to call police, the station reports.
West Allis man was killed during drug transaction, police say
shot and killed during a drug transaction, Milwaukee police said Thursday.A 20-year-old West Allis man was
Samuel J. Bussanich was shot about 8 p.m. Tuesday while driving a car in the 2400 block of N. 23rd St. A 16-year-old boy from Milwaukee was arrested and the case was referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office Thursday, police spokesman Sgt. Mark Stanmeyer said.
For the latest crime news and an interactive map of Milwaukee police calls, visit JSOnline.com/crime.
Suspect in custody in killing of West Allis man
Milwaukee police one have suspect in custody in the shooting death Tuesday of a 20-year-old West Allis man.
Police identified the victim as Samuel J. Bussanich on Wednesday and said he was shot about 8 p.m. Tuesday in the 2400 block of N. 23rd St.
He was in his car, which traveled a few blocks to the intersection of N. 23rd and W. Center streets after the shooting, said Sgt. Mark Stanmeyer, police spokesman.
For the latest crime news and to see real-time map of Milwaukee police calls, visit JSOnline.com/crime.
Man shot last month in Costa Rica dies
A West Allis man who worked as a golf caddy while walking, hiking and backpacking around the world died Tuesday, a little more than a month after being robbed and shot in Costa Rica, his family said.
Steven Adam Flesch, 31, traveled to 34 countries in four years and had been in Central America since January, said his sister, Nikki Lannert of Waukesha.
He was shot April 2 in San Jose two days before he was scheduled to fly home, Lannert said.
"He was the biggest adventurer," she said.
A graduate of Brookfield Central High School, Flesch earned a degree in golf course management from the San Diego Golf Academy and was a caddy at Erin Hills Golf Course in the Town of Erin for the past three or four years, she said.» Read Full Article
Greenfield's PaveDrain named most promising water start-up
PaveDrain LLC, which makes permeable concrete block mats, has been named the most promising early-stage venture in the Imagine H2O Competition.
The Greenfield company won $15,000 in the competition, which attracted more than 70 start-ups from 12 countries.
PaveDrain sells the mats to companies, universities and others for paving large surfaces. The mats allow storm water to seep into the ground through joints between the blocks. Then the water goes into the ground to replenish the water table rather than running off and creating problems with potential flooding.
The company was founded by Doug Buch in his basement in 2009. Buch previously did technical sales in the civil engineering field.
"Our existing surfaces, streets, driveways and roofs are impermeable, so the water has to be taken somewhere. What we're trying to solve is all this flooding," Buch said. "This can turn the world into more of a sponge like it originally was."» Read Full Article
West Allis police seek identity of bank robber
West Allis police are asking the public for help identifying the man who robbed the West Allis Tri City Bank, 6760 W. National Ave, at 2:11 p.m. April 23.
He is described as black with a dark complexion, 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet 1 inch tall, 180 pounds with a medium build, and a large nose. He was wearing a dark/black coat with a "Lite" logo on left chest, a black brimmed hat with a Celtic cross and possible red color logo on front.
He was holding his cellphone in his left hand, and appears to be left handed based on video.
No weapon displayed. The man held up a note saying, "This is a robbery." There were no injuries.
The man was last seen running west toward 70th Street.» Read Full Article


text: The Ohio River Valley Council Boy Scouts of America honored 19 of the 42 Eagle Scouts in the Council Feb. 16 at the Council Recognition Dinner in Wheeling. The Scouts are from the 11 counties covered in the Ohio River Valley Council. The 2012 Eagle Scouts attending the dinner included, from left, front, Calvin Stabile, Lane Fledderus, Garrett Holubeck, Joshua Rhodes and Seth Klar, second row, Jordan Ferris, Chase Weithe, Joseph Dubois, Mason Lee, Zachary Runyon, Dustin Kettlewell and Jonathan Reynard, and, back, Nicholas Cecil, Kaleb McCardle, Zane Thornburg, Joel Rutan, Brent Bishop, Cole Coates and Dylon Filbert. -- Contributed

subset: commoncrawl


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Common Names: echinacea, purple coneflower, coneflower, American coneflower
This fact sheet provides basic information about echinacea—common names, what the science says, potential side effects and cautions, and resources for more information.
There are nine known species of echinacea, all of which are native to the United States and southern Canada. The most commonly used is Echinacea purpurea. Echinacea has traditionally been used for colds, flu, and other infections, based on the idea that it might stimulate the immune system to more effectively fight infection. Less common folk or traditional uses of echinacea include for wounds and skin problems, such as acne or boils.
The aboveground parts of the plant and roots of echinacea are used fresh or dried to make teas, squeezed (expressed) juice, extracts, or preparations for external use.
What the Science Says
- Study results are mixed on whether echinacea can prevent or effectively treat upper respiratory tract infections such as the common cold. For example, two NCCIH-funded studies did not find a benefit from echinacea, either as Echinacea purpurea fresh-pressed juice for treating colds in children, or as an unrefined mixture of Echinacea angustifolia root and Echinacea purpurea root and herb in adults. However, other studies have shown that echinacea may be beneficial in treating upper respiratory infections.
- NCCIH is continuing to support the study of echinacea for the treatment of upper respiratory infections. NCCIH is also studying echinacea for its potential effects on the immune system.
Side Effects and Cautions
- When taken by mouth, echinacea usually does not cause side effects. However, some people experience allergic reactions, including rashes, increased asthma, and anaphylaxis (a life-threatening allergic reaction). In clinical trials, gastrointestinal side effects were most common.
- People are more likely to experience allergic reactions to echinacea if they are allergic to related plants in the daisy family, which includes ragweed, chrysanthemums, marigolds, and daisies. Also, people with asthma or atopy (a genetic tendency toward allergic reactions) may be more likely to have an allergic reaction when taking echinacea.
- Tell all your health care providers about any complementary health approaches you use. Give them a full picture of what you do to manage your health. This will help ensure coordinated and safe care.
Search the scientific literature for potential herb-drug interactions
For More Information
NCCIH Clearinghouse
The NCCIH Clearinghouse provides information on NCCIH and complementary and integrative health approaches, including publications and searches of Federal databases of scientific and medical literature. The Clearinghouse does not provide medical advice, treatment recommendations, or referrals to practitioners.
A service of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), PubMed® contains publication information and (in most cases) brief summaries of articles from scientific and medical journals. For guidance from NCCIH on using PubMed, see How To Find Information About Complementary Health Approaches on PubMed
Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), National Institutes of Health (NIH)
ODS seeks to strengthen knowledge and understanding of dietary supplements by evaluating scientific information, supporting research, sharing research results, and educating the public. Its resources include publications (such as Dietary Supplements: What You Need to Know), fact sheets on a variety of specific supplement ingredients and products (such as vitamin D and multivitamin/mineral supplements), and the PubMed Dietary Supplement Subset.
Key References
- Barrett BP, Brown RL, Locken K, et al. Treatment of the common cold with unrefined echinacea: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2002;137(12):939–946.
- Echinacea. In: Blumenthal M, Goldberg A, Brinckman J, eds. Herbal Medicine: Expanded Commission E Monographs. Newton, MA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2000:88–102.
- Echinacea. Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database Web site. Accessed at www.naturaldatabase.com on May 11, 2009.
- Echinacea (E. angustifolia DC, E. pallida, E. purpurea). Natural Standard Database Web site. Accessed at www.naturalstandard.com on June 1, 2009.
- Fugh-Berman A. Echinacea for the prevention and treatment of upper respiratory infections. Seminars in Integrative Medicine. 2003;1(2):106–111.
- O'Neil J, Hughes S, Lourie A, et al. Effects of echinacea on the frequency of upper respiratory tract symptoms: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. 2008;100(4):384–388.
- Shah SA, Sander S, White CM, et al. Evaluation of echinacea for the prevention and treatment of the common cold: a meta-analysis. Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2007;7(7):473–480.
- Taylor JA, Weber W, Standish L, et al. Efficacy and safety of echinacea in treating upper respiratory tract infections in children: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2003;290(21):2824–2830.
- Turner RB, Bauer R, Woelkart K, et al. An evaluation of Echinacea angustifolia in experimental rhinovirus infections. New England Journal of Medicine. 2005;353(4):341–348.
This publication is not copyrighted and is in the public domain. Duplication is encouraged.
This page last modified June 24, 2016


text:
OpenSolaris on a new Shuttle SFF
By Eric Reid-ISV Engineering-Oracle on Dec 05, 2007
A new week, a new OpenSolaris install experience...
Picked up a new replacement 'everything' server last week, a Shuttle SN68SG2. The intent is to upgrade my main work server, and take advantage of some latest technologies:
- Multi-core lower-power AMD CPU
- OpenSolaris xVM technology for virtualization right on top of hardware hypervisor
- Gigabit Ethernet (I tend to schlep a lot of big .iso images from box to box here)
So I tricked this box out (under $500!) as follows:
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz, dual-core, 65W) CPU
- 2 x 2GB DDR2 400 memory
- 250GB SATA disk
Installing the latest Nevada (nv78), went fairly well, except for the NIC. The rundown:
- CPU/memory: works (frkit isn't happy with dual-core, but that's a known issue)
- SATA: works!
- Audio: not yet tested [update: it works]
- USB 2.0: works
- Firewire: not yet tested
- Onboard graphics: works great with bundled nVidia driver, driving 1680x1050 Benq monitor
- Onboard NIC (nVidia 630a chipset): 'nge' driver did not recognize this chipset, but Murayama-san's 'nfo' 2.X driver does (once again, Arigato Gozaimashita, Murayama-san!)


text:
Monday, October 20, 2014
So far Amazon has not tried to exploit consumers. In fact, it has systematically kept prices low, to reinforce its dominance. What it has done, instead, is use its market power to put a squeeze on publishers, in effect driving down the prices it pays for books — hence the fight with Hachette. In economics jargon, Amazon is not, at least so far, acting like a monopolist, a dominant seller with the power to raise prices. Instead, it is acting as a monopsonist, a dominant buyer with the power to push prices down.
And on that front its power is really immense — in fact, even greater than the market share numbers indicate. Book sales depend crucially on buzz and word of mouth (which is why authors are often sent on grueling book tours); you buy a book because you've heard about it, because other people are reading it, because it's a topic of conversation, because it's made the best-seller list. And what Amazon possesses is the power to kill the buzz. It's definitely possible, with some extra effort, to buy a book you've heard about even if Amazon doesn't carry it — but if Amazon doesn't carry that book, you're much less likely to hear about it in the first place.
So can we trust Amazon not to abuse that power? The Hachette dispute has settled that question: no, we can't.
Wednesday, September 03, 2014
We've done a parallel disservice to the theatre: we've allowed an ancient institution of high purpose to devolve to something merely decorative, an appurtenance of leisured life, not a preserver of life itself. Theatre no longer guides, it distracts. Theatre no longer orients, it diverts. Theatre no longer flashes out danger, it celebrates good feeling. We've lost any visceral sense of what theatre is for. Like the lighthouses of popular imagination it's perceived as quaint. It's become a tourist attraction.
At the summit discussion Peter Marks organized this spring at Arena Stage, five Artistic Directors bemoaned the lack of diversity in playwrights and directors, the lack of young people in the audience, the high cost of production, and the high cost of tickets. Their confab produced a flurry of derisive tweets blaming the bemoaners themselves for all these shortcomings.
I found myself unable to take sides on these questions because my mind couldn't let go of a statistic somebody mentioned in passing: according to the NEA, the audience for theatre has declined by a third in ten years.While we debate how to make theatre cheaper and more inclusive, a good part of our audience is dying off or learning to live without us.
Friday, August 15, 2014
When Another Country was published—at the very peak of Baldwin's public stature as a civil rights activist—it was taken as a document of a very small slice of the present: the Greenwich Village and Paris of the late 1950s and early 1960s, where interracial couples and gay people were able to live openly, mostly but not entirely out of the omnipresent shadow of violence. But Another Country is also an intensely prophetic book, in which Baldwin glimpses a world much more like the one we inhabit today, where overt, legal racism and homophobia is inexorably falling away, and what we have to look at, instead, is the face of the person we've feared and misunderstood and avoided. It's a plural world, a world of unstable pronouns, multiple identities, and overlapping narratives. Which is not to say that anyone in the book ends up happy: this is a novel, after all, that begins with one man's leap off the George Washington Bridge and ends with a series of betrayals—profound and petty—among his survivors. It's out of that traumatized state, Baldwin seems to say, that the most important realization occurs: our offenses, our intertwined histories and mutual obligations, are more like love affairs than legal cases—love affairs that are never really over. "It doesn't do any good to blame the people or the time," one of his characters says, "one is oneself all those people. We are the time."
Friday, July 18, 2014
A reminder that next week I'm performing two nights with two different shows at Joe's Pub.
On Wednesday, July 23rd, it's OUR MAN IN HAVANA, my travel monologue about our fractured relationship with Cuba, drive-through mojito stands, and a very special seder in Havana.
Then the next night, July 24th, I follow with YES THIS MAN, my controversial monologue about men, women, privilege, power, and the Yaffa Cafe's carrot dressing.
Hope you'll join us for this doubleheader,
"He's a brilliant trickster, a close-magician with superb sleight of hand. His furies are bright and stark, incandescently theatrical. His phrasings and delivery are ensorcelling and incantatory. He's an escape artist."
New York Magazine
"The master storyteller—one of the finest solo performers of his generation."
The New York Times
"He embraces the insightful hostillity of the best comedy."
The New Yorker
Friday, July 11, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Created and Performed by Mike Daisey
Joe's Pub at the Public Theater
Wednesday, June 25th—Doors at 9
Mike Daisey tackles what we don't like talking about: how our world is built on the subjugation and ownership of women, and how men perpetuate that violence every day. Rejecting simple catchphrases and rote thinking, Daisey doesn't try to speak for women—instead he interrogates his own history and choices as a way of framing a human discussion about how it could be possible to live an authentic life where we actually see one another. Gender, sex, violence, and passion mix together with dark humor as he does his best to try and tell an untellable story.
Mike Daisey, hailed as "the master storyteller" and "one of the finest solo performers of his generation" by The New York Times, is the preeminent monologist in the American theater today. He has been compared to a modern-day Mark Twain and a latter-day Orson Welles for his provocative monologues that combine the political and the personal, weaving secret histories with hilarity and heart. This fall he performed a critically acclaimed 29-night live theatrical novel, All the Faces of the Moon, onstage at the Public in Joe's Pub.
He has performed in theaters across five continents, ranging from remote islands in the South Pacific to the Sydney Opera House to abandoned theaters in post-Communist Tajikistan. He's been a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, the Late Show with David Letterman, a longtime host and storyteller with The Moth, as well as a commentator and contributor to The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper's Magazine, Newsweek, WIRED, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. In a brief, meteoric career with This American Life, his shows are among the most listened to and downloaded episodes of that program's nineteen year history.
He is currently at work on his second book, Here at the End of Empire, which will be published in 2015 by Simon and Schuster. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and is the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, six Seattle Times Footlight Awards, the Sloan Foundation's Galileo Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship.
"The master storyteller—one of the finest solo performers of his generation."
—The New York Times
"Pure magic."
—New York Magazine
"He embraces the insightful hostility of the best comedy."
—The New Yorker
Friday, May 09, 2014
Hello All,
Three huge shows in three great cities this month:
First, we bring AMERICAN UTOPIAS, my monologue of Burning Man, Disney World, and the Occupy movement to San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for two nights only, May 16th and 17th. These are going to be huge shows, and my first return to the Bay Area in three years—hope you can join us!
Details and tickets
Second, I go to Toronto where I'll premiere DREAMING OF ROB FORD, a brand new monologue about Toronto's notorious mayor, as an environmental piece in an abandoned porno theater. That's just three nights only, May 21st to 23rd, and tickets are selling out.
Details and tickets
Finally, I'll present the very first performance of OUR MAN IN HAVANA, my new monologue about my journey to Cuba this spring and the world America has closed itself off to for just one night only at the Public Theater in New York City on May 27th.
Details and tickets
All these shows are likely to sell out, so use the links to get yourself tickets if you're interested. Starting later this spring look out for new episodes of ALL STORIES ARE FICTION, my podcast, which you can sign up for here.
Hope you are staying busy this spring,
Mike Daisey: Our Man in Havana
May 27th at Joe's Pub in the Public Theater
Tickets and details
Mike Daisey travels to a mysterious world located just ninety miles from America—the island nation of Cuba, a world frozen in the American imagination and burned from our memories by embargoes and blockades, where communism still rules and a ballet dancer is paid the same as a surgeon or a farmer. Daisey brings his shrewd and scathing outsider's eye to the gloriously decaying streets of Havana, using this changing landscape as a window to speak about the true legacies of American imperialism, and what it means for us to live today in a world that only recognizes capitalism and corporatism as a way of life. Both a ridiculous travelogue and a philosophical journey, Daisey's monologue unearths the human connections between neighbors who can live so close and still refuse to speak.
Mike Daisey, hailed as "the master storyteller" and "one of the finest solo performers of his generation" by The New York Times, is the preeminent monologist in the American theater today. He has been compared to a modern-day Mark Twain and a latter-day Orson Welles for his provocative monologues that combine the political and the personal, weaving secret histories with hilarity and heart. This fall he performed a critically acclaimed 29-night live theatrical novel, All the Faces of the Moon, onstage at the Public in Joe's Pub.
He has performed in theaters across five continents, ranging remote islands in the South Pacific to the Sydney Opera House to an abandoned theater in post-Communist Tajikistan. He's been a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, the Late Show with David Letterman, a longtime host and storyteller with The Moth, as well as a commentator and contributor to The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper's Magazine, Newsweek, WIRED, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. In a brief, meteoric career with This American Life, his shows are among the most listened to and downloaded episodes of that program's nineteen year history.
He is currently at work on his second book, Here at the End of Empire, which will be published in 2015 by Simon and Schuster. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and is the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, six Seattle Times Footlight Awards, the Sloan Foundation's Galileo Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship.
"The master storyteller—one of the finest solo performers of his generation."
—The New York Times
"Pure magic."
—New York Magazine
"He embraces the insightful hostility of the best comedy."
—The New Yorker
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
PLAYBOY: You're more willing than most people to organize your life according to principle and see how the experiment turns out.
DENTON: You could argue that privacy has never really existed. Usually people's friends or others in the village had a pretty good idea what was going on. You could look at this as the resurrection of or a return to the essential nature of human existence: We were surrounded by obvious scandal throughout most of human existence, when everybody knew everything. Then there was a brief period when people moved to the cities and social connections were frayed, and there was a brief period of sufficient anonymity to allow for transgressive behavior no one ever found out about. That brief era is now coming to an end.
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Heart of Blandness: A Walking Tour of Silicon Valley:
Silicon Valley is also marketed as The Future of Humanity.
But as a human landscape, it's a crushingly boring sunny suburban slab of freeways, fast food, traffic, and long smoggy boulevards of faded retail sprawling out to endless housing developments of sand-colored stucco boxes. It's Phoenix with milder weather, Orlando minus the mosquitos.
Tech-loving travelers come from around the world to see Silicon Valley, but there's nothing to see—no Times Square, no French Quarter, just low-rise office parks and security guards circling the parking lots. Could anything be gained by walking from corporate landmark to corporate landmark? Maybe not, but two days of walking always beats two days of looking at a computer, even if I'd be walking from technology company to technology company.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Monday, February 03, 2014
Next week, Makers is hosting a three-day conference where Sheryl Sandberg, Eric Schmidt, Tim Armstrong, and others plan to "reset the agenda for women in the workplace in the 21st century."
Where does one gather to hit the restart on the stagnant wage gap and institutionalized sexism for the next 86 years? At "the picturesque Terranea Resort, located on a breathtaking stretch of Pacific coastline," of course. The revolution also has time for "Sunrise Yoga" classes in the morning. Work-life balance, ladies and billionaires.
Like all great equal rights initiatives, this one is also invite-only:
Davis was sitting in a parked SUV outside the Jacksonville store with friends when Dunn, who is white, began complaining about their music. An argument ensued, and then ended, when Dunn fired his 9mm handgun into the vehicle. As the SUV raced off, Dunn stepped out of his car and fired again. Then he and his girlfriend drove to a hotel, checked in, and ordered a pizza. He never called the police and was only arrested because a witness jotted down his license plate. Dunn, who is mounting a Stand Your Ground defense, claimed a passenger in the vehicle had threatened him with shotgun—or a stick. The police found no gun.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
It's a new year. To celebrate, we had a bacchanalian orgy in our Brooklyn home on the 31st, and burned a Christmas tree to cinders in a barely controlled, almost catastrophic incineration.
I also made a big new year's resolution: after years of performing, it is time to write.
So I'm letting the world know that I have committed to writing a new book.
Titled HERE AT THE END OF EMPIRE, it's drawn from many years of my monologues and will try to tell a story of our moment now at the sunset of America's golden age.
I'm delighted to announce that Simon and Schuster has enthusiastically bought the book, and have slated it for publication in 2015.
After the success of ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON I'm really looking forward to immersing myself in another gigantic project.
I'm also happy to announce that I will continue performing. We have shows happening over the next few months all across America, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Richmond, Blacksburg, and beyond.
We've also decided to keep our podcast, ALL STORIES ARE FICTION, central to our work this year. We're putting up new shows all the time, recorded live around the world, including THE STORY OF THE GUN, the brand-new monologue I just created in North Carolina about guns, their history, and our charged relationship with them.
You can listen to all these stories for free by following this link.
I hope all your resolutions are fiery,
All Stories Are Fiction
University of Richmond
Modlin Center for the Arts
January 31st at 8pm
American Utopias
Center for the Art of Performance
at UCLA
February 6th
Faster Better Social
The Center for the Arts
at Virginia Tech
February 22nd at 8pm
American Utopias
Yerba Buena Arts Center
May 16th and 17th
Given the statistics about Fox's conservative influence and the way it misleads its viewers, I think it is fair to classify much of what it does as propaganda. My liberal cynicism seemed to render me immune to that — their O'Reilly-style hectoring eliciting a few laughs, but doing little to change my worldview. But Fox, as I came to discover, indulges in another form of opinion creation. Let's call this the propaganda of ignorance. By choosing which stories to cover, and, perhaps more important, which stories to ignore, Fox is able to advance its political agenda in a much more subtle and insidious way.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
David Foster Wallace
Monday, December 16, 2013
Today, that Starbucks is gone. So is the popular brewery that was next door to it. The sandwich shop across the plaza is closed, as is the salad bar. It's not that any of these businesses were particularly distinctive or delicious, but they provided a valuable service — lunch — and also some social connection among the building's tenants and people in the immediate neighborhood.
Gone also is any sign of life the plaza ever had. Google leased as much of the complex as it could get its hands on — and the correspondingly skyrocketing rents accelerated the closing of all the ground-floor businesses, even a short-lived outpost of The Melt (a franchise that serves uniformly grilled sandwiches made with a high-tech — and tech-industry-financed — piece of machinery). In place of Starbucks there is now something called the Mozilla Community Space — that isn't open to the community. You need to be a registered "Mozillian" (whatever that is) to gain access.
Tech companies that remain in the suburbs are taking a similarly upside-down approach to urbanism. Facebook's Menlo Park campus, set in a sea of parking, is a sort of movie-set version of a city, with cafe, dry cleaner, doctor, dentist and personal trainers all accessible only to employees. Informal public gathering places (like Starbucks, for example, or a barbershop) are essential to local democracy and community vitality. But by creating "third places" (home and work are the first and second) that aren't actually open to the public, that benefit is severely compromised.
That's down the the line a bit—for now, we're looking at the eradication of low-tech cabs. Uber doesn't hide its contempt for traditional taxi cab systems and dreams of their destruction. City cab companies are rife with problems of their own, yes, but subject to regulation—the kind of regulation we now know Uber badly needs to implement itself, or be forced into. Uber wants to expand to every city in the country, and supplant existing cab systems—the ones subject to laws and regulations. For instance: if a yellow cab driver says it's going to cost an extra $100 just because it's Friday, he'll lose his job. If Uber does it, it's the magical mitts of supply and demand pushing us around.
If more drivers leave traditional taxi companies for Uber—and I've talked to many who have—we step closer to cities where price gouging is the norm, where only the rich can get around, and where outrageous profiteering is the base fare. And if you don't like it, you can hit the road.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
In other words, the Guthrie's new, huge complex and three separate spaces necessitated more conservative, less adventuresome work. This stood in stark contrast to the promises that Dowling made to the theatrical and funding community while he was actually campaigning for the new space, in which he regularly stated that the new space would allow the Guthrie room to more adventurous and diverse work. In fact, as Anne Bogart's "Conversations with Anne" reveals, major industry figures like Ben Cameron and Oskar Eustis specifically held up the Guthrie as an example of a company that was doing new building right, as a way of doing better, more interesting, more diverse work.
So given that box office was apparently such a major part of the Guthrie's considerations, it's worth looking at how the Dry White Male Season worked out for them. And it turns out it was basically a disaster. Over the course of 2012/2013 season, the Guthrie went from having a surplus to a close to half a million dollar deficit, and much of the blame can be laid directly at the unpopular, criticaly unloved trilogy of Christopher Hampton plays that Dowling went out on such a limb to produce, and which played at around 50% capacity for their runs.
If we drew the same lessons from this that theaters always draw from "underperforming" plays by Black playwrights, The Guthrie would never do a play by a British white male writer ever again. Call me crazy, but I doubt that's what's going to happen here.
Monday, December 02, 2013
Last week the Wall Street Journal published a story on the "Dirty Secret of Black Friday 'Discounts'," pointing out that although the number of deals offered by 31 major retailers increased by 63% between 2009 and 2012, their profit margins all stayed roughly the same.
The reason that holding so many sales hasn't bankrupted all these companies is because, as the Journal puts it, they're illusions. Retailers' margins have stayed the same because the average list price — the price the item is eventually discounted from — has skyrocketed.
It's almost all mental. Retailers are required to sell their products at the list price, but according to the Journal, those prices are quickly discounted. And very few people ever actually pay that list price — former JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson said in 2012 that the department store sold less than one in 500 items at full price.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
The Clocktower Gallery was instrumental in shaping the burgeoning alternative arts scene in the city. Among its most memorable exhibitions: a Dennis Oppenheim installation where the artist placed a dead German shepherd on top of a legless electric organ. As rigor mortis set in, the tones would change. (The ASPCA provided the deceased dog).
Michelangelo Pistoletto's piece was shut down by the Board of Health because he used bones that had not been properly cleaned.
One Easter, a chocolate-covered Charlotte Moorman played a chocolate-covered cello. And then there's Gordon Matta-Clark's "Clock Shower" performance, where the artist soaped up and showered while hanging off the face of the clock.
"The truth is I don't always want the audience on my side. That's not a very dynamic state. A better state is where some are on your side, some are skeptical, some are listening intelligently and are very present, others are reflecting — there's a mixture. That's what creates the atmosphere where something unexpected can happen. If you give the audience precisely what they want, they will think they are happy but will leave unsatisfied. What they really want is to be subverted, in order to be delighted."
Sunday, November 17, 2013
A recording of a new monologue, PRIVATE MANNING'S WAR, performed for one night only at the Public Theater on April 22nd, 2013. From the original production's notes: "Private Manning's War is about Private First Class Bradley Manning, who was held for over a thousand days and nights before being arraigned on charges of treason against the United States of America. An incredibly polarizing figure who is reviled by some as a traitor, credited by others as the catalyst for the Arab Spring, despised for aiding and abetting enemy combatants, and celebrated as a hero and whistleblower. Above all Manning is an enigmatic figure who has cast a long shadow across the world while imprisoned, used as a tool and symbol by many different sides. For a single night we will try to find the human story of Private Manning, and attempt to understand this war, and all of our roles in it."
Saturday, November 16, 2013
You are right to question the idea that the "experts" close to power are competent to make decisions. Experts are, by definition, servants of those in power: they don't really think, they just apply their knowledge to the problems defined by those in power (how to bring back stability? how to squash protests?). So are today's capitalists, the so-called financial wizards, really experts? Are they not just stupid babies playing with our money and our fate? I remember a cruel joke from Ernst Lubitsch's To Be Or Not to Be. When asked about the German concentration camps in occupied Poland, the Nazi officer snaps back: "We do the concentrating, and the Poles do the camping." Does the same not hold for the Enron bankruptcy in 2002? The thousands of employees who lost their jobs were certainly exposed to risk, but with no true choice – for them the risk was like blind fate. But those who did have insight into the risks, and the ability to intervene (the top managers), minimised their risks by cashing in their stocks before the bankruptcy. So it is true that we live in a society of risky choices, but some people (the managers) do the choosing, while others (the common people) do the risking.
Thursday, November 07, 2013
Monday, November 04, 2013
Recorded live at the Maine International Conference of the Arts, this was a closing keynote about where we are in arts, arts education, and the particular challenges artists face coming up in a place like Maine. This short piece is about the changing season, and how often we blind ourselves to it. If you really want the full effect, you need to put a badge on, drink some free coffee, and have spent 72 hours in breakout sessions.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
As more and more details emerge, the Snowden leaks look more and more justifiable in retrospect. The NSA has behaved like many powerful surveillance bureaucracies. Give them a hammer and they will search high and low for nails. When that tangibly harms the interests of the United States, rather than advancing them, it's time for the Congress and the White House to reform and repeal the potential for abuse. We need to spy. We don't need the massive, damaging Dyson-level vacuuming up of so much data from so many. Obama now has political cover to do this thoroughly. We'll soon find out whether he has been seduced by the prerogatives of power, or whether he will respond to the legitimate, and now proven, allegations of widespread abuse.
In New York and New Jersey, the most agile, adaptive disaster response generally didn't come from local and state governments, but from grassroots response networks like Occupy Sandy. One important thing that differentiated Occupy Sandy from governments is that it wasn't constrained by jurisdictional boundaries. As such, it could simply devote its resources where need was greatest. If governments are unable to work effectively across jurisdictions, they should partner with informal actors who can.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
The former University of California Davis police lieutenant who brutally pepper-sprayed a group of peaceful Occupy protesters was awarded a $38,000 workman's compensation settlement from the school last week. The payout is about $8,000 more than each of the assaulted demonstrators received in a settlement from the university last year, according to the Davis Enterprise.
In November 2011, Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis Police force casually sprayed the passive protesters, and was, of course, caught on camera doing so. The video went viral, becoming a sort of symbol and rallying cry for the Occupy movement, and Pike rightfully lost his job for the attack in July 2012.
About one year later, Pike, who made $121,680 per year as a cop, filed a worker's compensation claim, saying the event and its aftermath caused him to suffer depression and anxiety. He also said his family received death threats.
The school and Administrative Law Judge Harter, who approved the settlement, apparently agreed that the eight months of paid suspension (during which Pike "earned" more than $80,000) wasn't compensation enough for the self-inflicted duress and awarded the former officer $38,056.
Bernie Goldsmith, a Davis attorney supportive of the student protesters, told the Associated Press that the settlement "sends a clear message to the next officer nervously facing off with a group of passive, unarmed students: Go on ahead. Brutalize them. Trample their rights. You will be well taken care of."
Friday, October 18, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
I took in one episode of Mike Daisey's All The Faces Of The Moon live, and listened to several of them via podcast. It's quite an extraordinary feat of strength. Mike is simply one of the most purely talented stage performers I've ever seen: he's just gifted. While I've only experienced the show in pieces so far, whenever I have tuned in, I've been captivated and delighted.
It's what strikes me as the great irony of whatever controversy (still?) surrounds Mike Daisey's work is that the man is a living example of what makes fiction wonderful. We're living in a world of economists and fact-checkers, when what we really need is the humanities. Connections, magical ones, images, feelings: the things that we make up, the stories we tell. Otherwise, our lives will be pieces of information. That's what I sometimes fear most: that information is replacing imagination.
On the other hand, Daisey's show was also an attempt to engage with contemporary theater audiences in the age of Netflix. It's a show that you can binge. It's a season. It rewards the casual viewer, but also rewards the dedicated fan. While I think there might have been too much to catch up with all at once (once I got behind, each show was an hour and a half podcast to take in in order to get current); it now lives on as a digital relic and so it can be taken in entirely. Plus, there's the great artwork that was inspired by the piece. Things to collect. Things to keep. A mosaic.
ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON was a huge success—as of today we've had more than 100,000 downloads. If you want to listen to the full theatrical novel, you can subscribe via iTunes here, completely free:
I'm writing today to let you know about our next project: THE WAR TRILOGY.
These are three monologues being launched over the next eighteen months about what war means to us today in America.
The second monologue, LIFE DURING WARTIME, will focus on the lives of war veterans after they come home and my father's work as a veteran's counselor. The final monologue, NO MAN'S WAR, will be about the corporatization of war as our nation's biggest business, how drone warfare is the growing heart of that empire, and the lives of drone operators.
But the first monologue starts now, it's timely, and I can't wait.
It's called THE SECRET WAR, and is about our three most famous whistleblowers: Daniel Ellsberg, Private Manning, and Edward Snowden. These three are polarizing figures—all have been called traitors and heroes. By talking about them in a human way, I'm hoping to tell the most important story we're not allowed to talk about: the story of secrets. Why we make things secret, how we keep secrets, and the power that secrecy has over our world.
I'll be performing the first performance of THE SECRET WAR this Monday, October 21st at 8pm at the IRT Theatre in NYC. Seating is limited—you can RSVP for the free show by emailing firstname.lastname@example.com. Make sure to say whether you'd like 1 or 2 seats, and the theater will email you back to confirm that you are in.
Over the next month THE SECRET WAR tours across the country:
On Friday, October 25th I'll be performing THE SECRET WAR in Maine at the Collins Center for the Arts.
On November 8th and 9th I'll be bringing THE SECRET WAR to Philadelphia, headlining the First Person Arts Festival.
And on November 20th and 23rd I'll be performing THE SECRET WAR in Santa Fe, at the beautiful Lensic Performing Arts Center.
People kept asking me what kind of break I was going to take after finishing ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON. I guess starting the war trilogy is my answer to that: life is short, the hour is late, and there's so much that hasn't been done. A song said it first, but it's true—I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Be seeing you,
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
On Sunday, a booth appeared in Central Park selling "signed," "100% original" Banksys—at $60 a piece. Except for a few tourists, everyone ignored it. The booth seemed to be evidence of the cashing-in on any current event, from 9/11 to Occupy to a famous street artist's "residency," that we do in this most capitalist of cities. But it was real.
The Internet lacerated itself for not buying Banskys at a 10,000-percent discount. But would you recognize art if it wasn't marked as such? Banksy, who can't write the word "elephant" on a water tanker without having it crated off and auctioned, made something that was fake until the magic moment it turned out to be real.
Art's market value, like that of fashion, is derived from name more than any material properties. The Chinese factory workers sewing Chanel handbags can make the same bags, after hours, but they'll be low-rent knockoffs without the interlocking "C"s. The same goes for an assistant who painted, without the master's imprimatur, Damien Hirst's dots. The Brand does transubstantiation. It turns crackers into the flesh of Christ.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
In the five hours that followed, I was questioned twice more. During the first round I told, amongst others, my life's story, about my second novel's plot, gave my publisher's name, my bank's name and my real estate agent's name. Together we went through all the photos on my laptop and messages my phones had been receiving for the past months. They wrote down the names of everybody I had been in touch with. In my pirated software and movies they showed no interest.
During the second round of questioning, we talked about religion. I told them my mother was raised a Catholic, and that my dad had an atheist mother and a Jewish dad.
'We don't understand. Why would a Jew go to Yemen?'
'But… I'm not Jewish'
'Yeah, well. We just don't understand why would a Jew go to Yemen.'
Thursday, October 10, 2013
If you manage to lay your hands on a copy of Codex Seraphinianus and flip through its almost 400 pages of lavish illustration and handwritten commentary, the only words you will have any chance of understanding—depending on what sort of shape your Latin is in—are those on the title page. This is because the entire text of the book is written in an invented language, and alphabet, which nobody has ever been able to decipher.
And quite a few people have tried: the Codex has had a cult following since its original publication in Italy in 1981, and is often referred to as the world's weirdest book. The book, which is the work of the Italian architect and designer Luigi Serafini (who is still with us, but has remained inflexibly committed to not explaining a damn thing about it), will be republished in a new edition by the art publisher Rizzoli later this month. It's not the sort of thing that easily lends itself to classification, but probably the most accurate way to describe it would be as an encyclopedia of an invented alien civilization. It contains hundreds of carefully organized illustrations of plants, animals, people, machines, dwellings, cities, agricultural procedures, clothing, sexual practices, rituals, and so on.
It's a lavish miscellany of weird specificity; because of its combination of absurdity and inscrutable precision, reading it is a feverish experience—although "reading" is exactly the wrong word, because that is an activity the book doesn't permit. Rather, you simply look at it; you look at its diagrams of copulating couples gradually fusing together into crocodiles, at its drawings of egg-helmeted doctors rolling the flesh-pelts from supine bodies and trussing them up on hooks while detached skeletons observe, at its colorful bestiaries of impossible creatures (fish with brooms for tails, little snakes that double as shoelaces). And then you look at the accompanying text, with its lines and lines of beautiful and completely indecipherable script. And the experience is one of a book that makes perfect sense—that lays out an entire world in extensive empirical detail—but (crucially) not to you, because you don't have the experience or the linguistic tools to understand it.
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
There's this story I heard once from a homeless veteran I'll call James. He had a pinched face and a smoky voice and huge, square glasses and the kind of wicked alcoholism that accelerated from zero to knife-fight in about half a sip of beer. I was working the night shift in a coffee shop, and James, who at the time was sober and taking a computer programming class, was keeping me company. He told me about this thing he used to do, back in Vietnam.
On those days when he didn't have to be anywhere, James would go out into the jungle. His friends used to go into town to pick up some prostitutes, but James was in one of his religious phases, and so he didn't tag along. Instead, he'd hollow out a coconut, put his gold watch inside of it, and leave it on the jungle floor. Then he'd go hide, and wait. If he was lucky, an orangutan would come along and notice the watch gleaming inside the coconut. It would reach inside to see what the shiny thing was. James would fashion the hole in such a way that an open hand could get into the coconut, but a closed fist was too big to get out. The orangutan couldn't figure this out, and it didn't want to let go of the shiny thing, so its hand would be stuck inside.
The orangutan couldn't seem to make the connection between its hand being stuck and letting go of the watch. Those two problems—the stuck hand and the wanting the thing inside the coconut—were hurtling forward through its ape brain on parallel tracks, and they seemed unsolvable. And so the orangutan started to get agitated. It was at that point that James would jump out of the shadows, he told me, and quickly beat the confused orangutan to death with the butt of his gun.
James clearly loved telling the story, and I loved it, too: It seemed to have so many meanings. If we're the orangutan in the story, we don't understand that the simple solution to our predicament would be obvious if we could just let go of the thing we want. If we're James in the story, we're unknowingly acting out the cruelty and the pointlessness of the Vietnam War on a tiny scale, for recreation, even as the larger war is playing out all around us. I've been thinking a lot about James's story since the government shut down on October 1. I'll tell you why in a minute. But first, I want to talk about the internet.
This odd tension-- that narrative art creates its own world yet helps shape our view of ours-- has given birth to (or at least popularity to) a new brand of criticism that measures a story against real life to point out all the ways that it is lacking. You've seen it before, right? "Five Things Parks & Rec gets right about small town budgeting bylaws." Now with Gravity busting box office records, we're getting astronauts and scientists telling us that there are many points where the film departs from real life. Entire critical careers are now founded on churning out "What X Gets Right/Wrong About Y" blog posts, posts that often completely ignore issues of aesthetics, construction, theme or effect to simply focus on whether in "real life" a given circumstance of a story would be possible.
In real life, people don't talk the way they do in movies or television or (especially) books. Real locations aren't styled, lit, or shot the way they are on screen. The basic conceits of point of view in literature actually make no sense and are in no way "realistic." Realism isn't verisimilitude. It's a set of stylistic conventions that evolve over time, are socially agreed upon, and are hotly contested. The presence of these conventions is not a sign of quality. Departure from them is not a sign of quality's absence.
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Monday, October 07, 2013
What, then, is the future of New York, or really of any number of big urban centers, in this new Gilded Age? Does culture have a role to play? If we look at the city as it is now, then we would have to say that it looks a lot like the divided city that presumptive mayor Bill de Blasio has been harping about: most of Manhattan and many parts of Brooklyn are virtual walled communities, pleasure domes for the rich (which, full disclosure, includes me), and aside from those of us who managed years ago to find our niche and some means of income, there is no room for fresh creative types. Middle-class people can barely afford to live here anymore, so forget about emerging artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, journalists and small business people. Bit by bit, the resources that keep the city vibrant are being eliminated.
This city doesn't make things anymore. Creativity, of all kinds, is the resource we have to draw on as a city and a country in order to survive. In the recent past, before the 2008 crash, the best and the brightest were lured into the world of finance. Many a bright kid graduating from university knew that they could become fairly wealthy almost instantly if they found employment at a hedge fund or some similar institution. But before the financial sector came to dominate the world, they might have made things: in publishing, manufacturing, television, fashion, you name it. As in many other countries, the lure of easy bucks hoovered this talent and intelligence up – and made it difficult for those other kinds of businesses to attract any of the top talent.
Friday, October 04, 2013
The final night of Mike Daisey's 29-night live theatrical novel, ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, recorded October 3rd, 2013 at the Public Theater. Tonight: I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. A circle of salt holds back the darkness. Am I my brother's keeper? Yes I am, goddamnit. The cantankerous ghost and the ridiculous plan. Burning your last letter, bootstrapping yourself on the ladder made of light, blood, bone. "Everything depends on you. It always did." It's the world we actually live in, you know. We wanted to change the world, but not ourselves. Cool Ranch Doritos and Mountain Dew. The dreaded CVS, the great autistic bear, and six black glassy cards. Someone always wants to be an elf. "You are all well met at a tavern." Then: rappers love private jets, embarrassment is a sign of taste, and she is drinking in the moon, constant and inconstant. Later: cutting off the owlbear's head, the dark faerieland of Erelhei-Cinlu, and we question genocide. St. Marks Place is a Disneyland of filth. The Moon is always wounded. I have told every version of every story, spinning every version of every plate. The dice are burning like embers. The Magician's trick, the doorbell, and the dog's bark. You have to say it three times. The river pouring, the cards scattering, the last look at him through the door. Time is the longest distance between two places. He smiles in his triumph. Stage managers on your couch, tangled threads must be cut, and a very public proxy ritual. Then: a hard conversation at a deli. What was beyond the mirror, and what she saw. This is the mask and the invitation—you have to choose it, or it chooses you. A family meeting. I have yours and you have mine. At the bank of the river, the cup is offered. All stories are struggle. I drank my fill.
Thursday, October 03, 2013
The twenty-eighth night of Mike Daisey's 29-night live theatrical novel, ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, recorded October 2nd, 2013 at the Public Theater. Tonight: the narcotic attraction of affairs and the pot roast that will never be eaten. She edits out, never fabricating. Nothing insulates you from shame like power, the red line moves on, and the black ink. She wishes she was in the Village. The ziggurat sarcophagus and the Ministry of Silly Walks. Atlas Shrugged yields a different kind of asshole. Then: a white suit with rhinestones, tiny hands making intricate work, and the glass cube's mystical significance. Export dreams into your MacBook Pro. Buried him in the trench. You can not dance here. You can not be here. Knives of American kryptonite. She hasn't had a good frenzy since her sisters died. The white and blue water. The sun on your skin.
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
The twenty-seventh night of Mike Daisey's 29-night live theatrical novel, ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, recorded October 1st, 2013 at the Public Theater. Tonight: The city is shut down, the paintings are vanishing. The darkness before the lights come up is mine. The Bay Area at sunset, the bright and easy libertarians at play. Eames chair and Tiffany lamp. The island where we will hunt slaves. You give books root access to your memories. Then: he had to use modeling clay and it's embarrassing. Joseph Papp teaches wrestling moves. That fucking rucksack and tapping on your breastbone. A pink Cadillac on the BQE. The ruined utopia, a price of arrogance and delusion, and the spirit of 1964: white men and their wives. Luchadores and my second's second. Furry Cockroach. The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial is a black wall. The stars are inhuman, but the constellations are ours.
The twenty-sixth night of Mike Daisey's 29-night live theatrical novel, ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, recorded September 30th, 2013 at the Public Theater. Tonight: The end is near, the wine dark sea and all that shit. A potter's wheel exploded. Compact florescent lighting is a sin. The naked neighbor throwing handfuls of change. There is no doctor, this is uncharted waters. Then: the Gowanus a poisoned river, flooded with guns and mercury. Tonight Luna Park is open, a royal party, and real absinthe requires crushed faeries. "Crackerjack applesauce!" If you are to die, why not die at the Big Game? George Soros barks. The lost cigar box. This party contains all parties, and orgies have a kind of radiant wholesomeness. The kiss. Nothing polishes you like regret. It's not a dire wolf. Beyond the door her dreams tell the story we always knew.
Monday, September 30, 2013
The major plot development in ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON where I have challenged Mayor Bloomberg to a Mexican wrestling match is actually something that totally happened as described in the show. Here's the video.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
The twenty-fifth night of Mike Daisey's 29-night live theatrical novel, ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, recorded September 29th, 2013 at the Public Theater. Tonight: It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone. The Cruel Ones, shaking the Bank of England until she cried, and even vampires rely on human resources. The cigar box. We must have rolled a six. The moon from Brooklyn. It's amazing how small you can make your life, searching the archive, and what I wish I had always done. Teaching the ritual. Then: why Australia always matters, stripping the Red Fort of its jewels, and the mirror can never be trusted. "Go, Daughter of the Moon." The subway is a metaphor. He hungered to cut the poor off from the coasts. Amadou Diallo and Bernie Goetz. Tight as a drum. "Let's go…before I lose my nerve." Childhood's end.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
The twenty-fourth night of Mike Daisey's 29-night live theatrical novel, ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, recorded September 28th, 2013 at the Public Theater. Tonight: the Boomtown and the Beverage Manager. We are blinded to the powers age gives us, life in a rigged universe, and where you come from puts its mark on you. The snake eats its own tail. Every quote comes from Mark Twain. "LA is so psychically dead I can get a whole night's sleep." The queen of hearts knows multiplicity. Fate is in the house, stage managers love to knit, and it's six eyes and speaking in unison. "Can you close the game?" Summoning the ghost of Joseph Papp. Did you know it's anti-American to give away free tickets? Aqua velvet and despair. His face was anyone's face but once you know it, you know it. You'd know it anywhere.
A proof-of-concept theatrical event, "All the Faces of The Moon" created and performed by Mike Daisey is currently premiering at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater. Mr. Daisey invents a theatrical novel over 29 nights with each show evoking a unique card from the Tarot deck.
In this, Daisey expands his usual bare-bones aesthetic and collaborates with the artist Larissa Tokmakova, who created an original oil painting to accompany each story. The project is 44 hours of humor, mystery, the personal and political by a master storyteller critics dub a modern-day Mark Twain for his provocative monologues.
Each night Daisey creates a story and performs it extemporaneously. It is captured for podcast the next day on iTunes. Providing the podcast for free, Daisey's apparent intent, aside from reinvigorating the novel and solo performance forms in one stroke, is to subvert the standard business model of theatrical distribution. It's like he's saying, in follow up to his "How Theatre Failed America," 'this, boys, is the way it is done.' What's delightful about Daisey is that he is open about his hubristic tendencies and waggishly unbowed by his "mistakes." (See the "This American Life" retraction.)
Over many nights, Mr. Daisey mixes reminiscences of his boyhood in Maine with a mythical tale set in the present Bloombergian universe. He invents characters that personify the great institutions of this new Gilded Age -- The Grey Lady, for instance is the venerable New York Times newspaper. He weaves numerous plot lines while pit-stopping at New York City landmarks. Katz's Deli, The post-Sandy Rockaways, Zuccotti Park, and the Hayden Planetarium are just a few. He subjects each one to his laser-heated criticism that erupts from a raucously cynical viewpoint, accrued after decades of New York living that laments the loss of the magical.
Daisey blames post-9/11 counterterrorism and the domination of the Big Banks post-recession, and observes that the average New Yorker is now completely and "thoroughly fucked." He drafts real folks both from his immediate orbit, his high school friend Gibbs, a waitress at Joe's Pub, and as in No. 18, his wife, to populate his world. He uses public figures like George Soros and sets them in real life settings. He vividly paints his meet-up with Soros and the allegorical Grey Lady that occurs at Peter Luger's Steakhouse.
"All the Faces of The Moon," if nothing, is stylistically adventurous. Mr. Daisey gives full rein to his imagination. His tale-spinning risks all with its archetypal figures like the Jewish Golem and a surrealist vision of a New York that at times sounds like the half-finished back lot on a Hollywood set. It's a testament to his gifts and method that as one listens one can see his "clockwork" people munching gears and pulley sandwiches at Katz's and his Steampunk styled trains that zip pneumatically under the East River. There are mysterious occurrences, magic and magicians, the transmission of secret knowledge, tête-à-têtes with dead geniuses, vampire-bankers and Burning Man aficionados. All are subject to Daisey's garrulous scrutiny and caustic humor.
It follows that "All the Faces of the Moon" is for the aesthetically courageous. The scope is Whitman-esque in its allusions to New York and America. The form revives the ancient art of storytelling and mashes it with 21st century content delivery, bypassing the usual channels of cultural production and spiking the art (via earbuds) directly into your brain.
"All The Faces of the Moon" is a significant work and should be witnessed. It's not every day that an artist breaks new ground and entertains at the same time. The event is beyond the cliché of communal theatrical experience.
Under Daisey's influence, every night until Oct. 3, New York's warp and weft are untangled, destroyed, and interwoven anew into patterns, signs and portents that may well restore the numinous to urban life.
Friday, September 27, 2013
The twenty-third night of Mike Daisey's 29-night live theatrical novel, ALL THE FACES OF THE MOON, recorded September 27th, 2013 at the Public Theater. Tonight: we should all cultivate a healthy suspicion of standing ovations. Wasting money on a filthy experience, we want to be stirred like cake batter, and never end a monologue with a poem. Tell me souls on board. Everyone inflates their numbers, celebrities are viagra, and there will be just seven golden corporate tickets. Are we priceless or worthless? Then: golems are difficult to sleep with because they are heavy. A lone Dionysian is a sad thing. The Grey Lady and the Mole People. The Kierkegaardian turnstile. John McClane is Bruce Willis is MOONLIGHTING. German terrorists in an innocent time. This is an island off the coast of America. My familiar is a doughnut. The Staten Island Ferry. Your stage managers are calling, and they are pissed.


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expert advice MORE
Homeschooling in the Evenings
Q: Our eighth-grader is having trouble in school. We've tried everything possible to turn it all around, with no success. Is it possible to homeschool in the evening, with some days here and there? My husband and I both have to work. A lot of people say we are being selfish because I won't quit my job. But we don't live extravagantly; we live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes barely.
A: This is a tough question. Where would your son be during the day while you're at work? A 13-year-old boy still requires adult supervision. It's certainly possible to homeschool in the evening -- many parents do. Homeschooling and working can be done together -- it just takes some juggling to make it work.
Is it possible for you or your husband to change your hours or work on alternate days? Can one of you work part-time or find a position that allows more flexibility? Can either of you work from home?
You and your family are the only ones who can decide the working vs. homeschooling issue. If your family decides to give homeschooling a try, then everyone must be willing to adjust their lives accordingly. Families can save money by renting movies instead of going to the theater, not eating out, buying items used at yard sales, taking modest vacations, driving older-model or less expensive cars, etc. One homeschooling mom told me when she sat down and figured out how much she spent on clothes for work, lunch, travel, and other expenses (including take-out food for dinner), her actual take-home pay, adjusted for taxes, was not very much. With a little tightening up, and her working at home part-time, she was able to homeschool and still live comfortably.
Have a family meeting and discuss all the options. Whatever you decide as a family will be the right choice for you. What other people think you should do must not influence your decision. Good luck.
More on: Expert Advice
Isabel Shaw is a freelance writer and homeschooling mom of 15 years. She and her husband Ray homeschool their two daughters, Jessica and Amanda. Besides being a contributor to FamilyEducation.com, Shaw has written for Home Education Magazine, The Link, Homeschooling Horizons Magazine, The Homeschool Gazette, and other publications.


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Discipline is a school responsibility
Forty years ago, when citizens band radio was all the rage, it was said that CB radio had given millions of people with nothing to say a forum on which to say it.
Gimme a big 10-4 on that, Good Buddy? Today, that forum has been largely replaced by the Internet, and more specifically, by social media. Anybody can put anything on the Web, and because it's in writing, it somehow acquires unwarranted credibility.
For example, in the past week, we have received six alarmist posts declaring that the armed forces were going to start court martialing members for discussing their religious faith.
It was absurd on the face of it, but because it was posted on the Internet, and then forwarded a few million times, it took on the mantra of truth.
Polk County schools have come under the same spell in the past week over a story about a junior at Bartow High School who is accused of setting off a small explosive device on campus.
As the Polk County Schools Code of Conduct requires, she faces expulsion from school, as well as criminal charges.
Police said she took "a plastic bottle" to school, filled it with a couple of common household products widely known by kids to produce an explosion, and the device exploded. (This newspaper has chosen not to publicize the ingredients, though countless other sources have done so.) Dozens of "social media" sites have picked up the story.
One declared that the student was arrested only because she is black.
Uh . . . somebody didn't get the memo. This is the 21st Century, and we have a black president, and minorities on virtually every elected body in the land. The days of knee-jerk accusations of racism are as out of date as well . . . CB radio.
That "plastic bottle" in first reports has been downsized to "a small plastic bottle" and then to a "tiny plastic bottle" by social commentators.
Many have characterized this event as a "science experiment" or a "science project," giving the impression that a teacher had assigned the student to set off an explosive device on the school campus. This fiction finally reached such proportions that the school principal went on record denying it.
There have been dire predictions that the student's future is ruined . . . not because of her actions, but because of her arrest for those actions. If every kid with a disciplinary record faced a dismal future, there would be a whole lot more of us in trouble for life.
At latest count, some 172,000 Internet users have signed on-line petitions opposing expulsion or prosecution.
We think that Ron Pritchard, principal of BHS and a witness to the incident, said it well: "She's a good kid who just did something stupid. She's young, and like many young people, she made a poor choice."
We have no doubt that he is 100 percent correct.
The discipline relates to the act, not the person.
Polk County has 163 school sites and centers and 94,000 students. It also has a Code of Conduct that spells out consequences for various violations.
Note that it is called a Code of Conduct, not a List of Suggestions, or Standards of Polite Comportment.
That said, we often have expressed concern over the "one size fits all" approach to discipline in large institutions, including school systems, and believe there is room for more consideration of issues like both intent and results of misconduct.
But with 94,000 students, it may be a little unrealistic to differentiate between degrees of misconduct when it comes to setting off explosives on a school campus.
For the record, from what we have been able to determine, we think this student is deserving of something less than maximum discipline by both the school system and the courts.
However — and the important stuff always comes after "however" — we recognize that school principals, school boards, and school superintendents are responsible for maintaining safety and discipline on school campuses.
These matters cannot be left to the judgment of social media contributors, petition signers, or even (gasp!) the press.
We expect the school system to keep our campuses safe, and we have no wish to micromanage how they do it.
* = Required information


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What is the Actual difference between Row based and Statement based replication I actually looking in terms of replication effect's on slave.
If I am using Row based replication then whats is the effect on slave and if i am using statement based then what is the effect.
Please also take the following parameters in consideration..
replicate-ignore-db and replicate-do-db


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On September 8, 2012 The New York Times ran a front page story about Marcone, a company that may well be the largest authorized dealer of appliance parts in theU.S. it's been around since 1932.The reason for its front page notoriety is due to one of its senior vice presidents, Carlos Garcia, buying, essentially smuggling, and reselling large quantities of a banned refrigerant for appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners. Garcia imported the gas, HCF-22 which damages the ozone layer, without the necessary approvals, thereby violating international treaties andU.S.law. The substance has been prohibited in new appliances since 2010. In June, Garcia was sentenced to 13 months in jail.
Faced with a tempting or risky issue, a powerful person, a powerful company, a powerful country is most likely still to believe that there is a good chance of getting away with something. Lie low and time will make the issue recede into history. Put a band aid on and no one will dare to pierce your impenetrable shell. This is what happened to Wal-Mart in April of this year when its Mexican subsidiary was exposed as having engaged in pervasive bribery as a normal course of business. What would have happened if Wal-Mart had entertained a genuine independent internal investigation when it had the opportunity, and made those findings known to the Justice Department and to the State ofMexico? There would have been a much smaller story. Wal-Mart would at least have been accused of being honorable. Its reputation for integrity would have been burnished. It would have paid a price but perhaps not as steep a price as it will now pay.
Why don't people get it? Because there is a gambler in all of us, even when the odds are poor. Is there a chance we can get away with something? Let's give it a try. What do we have to lose? Ask Richard Nixon. Ask Bill Clinton. Ask all those who have tried to wheedle their way out of messes only to get caught. Ah but then again there is always that other guy, the guy who got away with it. We should follow him. He's a smart guy. He knew the angles. If he could do it, we can too. Right now things are calm. Let's not rock the boat. But in the long run the straight-shooter almost always wins.
What's the lesson for CEO's of organizations? It's simple really. Every organization has a "culture". An integral part of that culture should be a requirement for high ethical standards, communicated from the top down. Transmitting the idea of winning at any cost will most likely ensure that some manager or employee down the chain will misconstrue the message and take ridiculous liberties in order to be noticed. Turning a blind eye to actions that are suspect bears the same message, even if it takes a little longer to filter down. Excessive emphasis on the bottom line can put extraordinary pressure on executives and managers to wring blood out of a stone and look for routes that will pay huge rewards, oftentimes the risk be damned. Johnson & Johnson has certainly paid a huge price to its reputation under the leadership of William Weldon, who retired as CEO just a few months ago. Under his guidance J&J's wonderful standing in the eyes of the public has plummeted. The number of recalls, dirty facilities and end-runs around regulations over the last several years have contributed to the erosion of its sterling reputation of putting the consumer first as it did in the Tylenol scare of 1982.
What can a CEO do? First establish a no tolerance rule for non-ethical behavior. Anyone whose conduct exceeds the bounds of propriety is gone. Second, very careful employment screening is a must. Thirdly, establish ethical standards. Easier said than done? Perhaps but the effort should be made. Obviously if certain conduct is illegal, then it clearly has no place in the organization. beyond that if conduct is egregious enough to create the valid claim of negligence or breach of contract it should not be tolerated. Finally, if conduct would offend any one class or more of your stakeholders then it should be carefully considered. No organization should take an action that has the potential for angering its customers or clients, its investors, suppliers, employees, government officials, the public at large or the media. Of course, angering your competition is a different story, unless it angers the public at large and boomerangs.
No organization can protect itself against the errant employee who may jeopardize its reputation, legal standing or success. Nevertheless, it is imperative that the CEO and the board of any entity establish the rules of conduct by which it wishes to be known and respected.
Tags: best interests of public, business ethics, CEO's set ethical standards, creating your own crisis, crisis management, ethics versus profits, Honesty


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5 Bizarre Animal Chain Reactions Our Daily Lives Are Causing
You've been hearing your whole life about how human progress means extinction for countless species -- usually due to humans just outright paving over their habitats or dumping poison into the water they swim in. But some of the effects we have on Mother Nature are much less obvious and much, much weirder. We're talking about things like ...
Jupiterimages/BananaStock/Getty Images
The expression "happy as a pig in shit" is a bit of a misnomer. Pigs probably aren't any happier rolling around in their own excreta than we are, or at least most of us. In the wild, pigs move around and graze like any other animal, and a poop in the woods here and there is par for the course. It's only when we started farming them, keeping large numbers of pigs in a small space, that their dung started piling up. And exploding.
Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
"You want to run that last part by me again?"
You read that correctly. See, pig poop is useful stuff for farmers. They let it collect in manure pits for an entire year so they can spread that yummy juice all over the fields come fall. And it should just stay there, getting bigger and bigger but sitting safe, 'til the shit harvest comes. But sometimes something a little extra happens. From deep within the shit bank, for reasons that remain unclear, comes the Mysterious Foam.
David Schmidt, Iowa State University
Wow. That's gross even by "ocean of shit" standards.
It's gray. It's bubbly. It piles up several feet thick. It pulsates like something alive. Worst of all, scientists still don't know what it is, just that it's filled with weird bacteria that have no right to be there. It contains poisonous gases like hydrogen sulfide. Most notably, it's extremely rich in methane, which, as anyone who has been drunk enough at a party to try to light a fart knows, is super flammable. So what happens when a spark lands on the foam?
Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images
An hour at 350 degrees becomes six seconds at 4,000 instead?
Pigsplosion. The foam and all the shit blow up. Blue fire tears across the foam, melting plastic and metal. The blast rips apart the pit and the barn. Shit, foam, flame, and hog flesh meld together, and the pigs die by the thousand.
These hog shitfernos are a new phenomenon, and no one's quite sure why they've started now. They could have something to do with the pigs' diet, mash left over from making ethanol fuel. We might have created the conditions necessary for the crazy new bacteria to thrive. But once you've blown up your pigs, there's not much point in wondering why it happened. You just scrape up the crisp pork and put it on toast. Bacon's bacon.
#4. Noise from Ships Makes Squid Explode
Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
Something strange has been happening to the giant squid population over the past decade -- they have been washing up on the shore having apparently exploded from the inside. This sounds like the prologue to a Roland Emmerich global disaster movie, but scientists in the real world searched for an explanation that didn't involve aliens or space radiation or magnetic field reversals.
Michael Knight/iStock/Getty Images
"Exploding squid? No, we mostly just slice up cattle and molest rednecks."
Namely, it was suspected that human sonar might have something to do with the squidpocalypse. Generally, sonar is considered to be harmless to ocean life because our low-frequency, low-amplitude sound bursts shouldn't be loud enough to bother anything in Triton's kingdom. But after discovering that all the dead squid had exploded ears, the scientists decided to put the sonar to the test, dragging out squid from the wild and subjecting to them to careful blasts of sound waves.
The squid got hurt, all right -- after thoroughly sciencing the dead bodies, the researchers found that the squid were killing themselves in response to the sound, like a desperate parent suffering through endless choruses of "It's a Small World." Their cells showed damage, and the damage was from chemicals that the squid released in response to the sonar.
Comstock Images/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"As focus groups go, this is still the least painful one I've ever been a part of."
It began, reasonably enough, in the parts of the squid that sense the sound waves, receptors called statocysts. Little hairs that were supposed to be doing their job snapped off and floated away. Then the squid's own neurotransmitters would make its nerves start swelling up, and those nerves would explode. Finally, the squid would wind up blowing giant holes in its head and welcoming death's sweet kiss.
Laboratori d'Aplicacions Bioacustiques, Universitat Politenica de Catalunya
It's essentially Saw for a cephalopod.
And all this comes from that most innocuous of human operations -- scanning the ocean so that scientists can survey it. Then again, we should have expected something murderous when we named the invention responsible the seismic gun.
#3. Flying Animals Mistake Parking Lots for Water and Crash into Them
Digital Vision./Photodisc/Getty Images
On the timeline of evolution, perfectly flat surfaces have been around for only a quarter of a second. The only thing in nature that's flat and shiny is the surface of a lake, and as far as birds, bats, and insects know, it still is.
Unfortunately, thanks to humans, our world is now littered with parking lots, wooden decks, and solar panels that to various flying animals look just like an enticing pool of liquid refreshment on a cool day. Bats, for example, use echolocation to identify objects by their shape, so they are accidentally bashing their faces into hard surfaces all the time. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute tested this recently, which was fairly dickish in retrospect.
Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
"Stay the fuck away from scientists" seems to be the take-home lesson for today.
They set up a series of smooth and textured plates made of wood, plastic, and metal and released some bats to see if the animals would try to drink them. Sure enough, many of the bats torpedoed face-first into the smooth surfaces, expecting a mouthful of hydration but receiving a face full of painful disappointment, sometimes making more than 100 confused attempts on the same solid plate.
Greif, S. & Siemers B. M., Nature Communications
A) Liquid refreshment. B) Broken nose.
But the same thing happens to insects and birds. Apparently sunlight reflecting off of standard solar panels produces a watery illusion, attracting insects in search of a quick drink or some sexy time. And because solar panels are optimal light polarizers, insects actually find them more attractive than water. The effect is so powerful that enchanted insects will buzz about the panels incessantly until they literally drop dead from exhaustion.
Jeffrey Hamilton/Photodisc/Getty Images
Not that we really expected much from an animal that can be outsmarted by a jelly jar.
And then there was the case of thousands of migrating water birds plunging to their deaths after confusing a series of parking lots and other flat areas with lakes. Unable to walk very well, they were very likely searching for bodies of water in which to park their feathered asses when they found St. George, Utah, glistening with flat, broad, snowy surfaces. In the end, what should have been a relaxing splash and swim turned into a gruesome mass suicide as the flocks went crashing into the concrete. Yes, birds are kind of stupid.


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I have a client who is asking to format the RSS feed so the XML doesn't look so ugly. I was thinking of a plugin or something to detect the user-agent and modify the feed template based on a regular browser request as opposed to a reader that will need the raw XML. Does it sound like I'm on the right track? I was going to use something like feedburner, but this site has many authors and they add new ones all the time and don't want to have to setup something at feedburner for every new feed they get.
You won't need browser detection, RSS (as XML) can be styled without losing compatibility with machine readers. I believe the format for that is XSLT.
Unfortunately I have little hands on experience with XSLT and none in context of WordPress feeds, so can't give solid example.
Frankly, don't waste time re-inventing the wheel. Just go with an existing, automated tool like Feedburner. It takes seconds (literally) to set up a new feed. It also gives you stellar analytics so you know who's actually subscribing to the feed.
Feedburner will also automatically re-format the feed for human consumption, provide simple icons to subscribe to the feed in the user's feed reader of choice, and allows you to easily support email subscriptions without adding a second tool.
What I believe you're looking to do is create what's called in WordPress a "custom feed template."
Basically, just like you can have index.php?feed=rss2 or index.php?feed=atom you can create a new custom feed type index.php?feed=human_readable. It's not entirely straightforward, but basically you need to create this template in one file then in another plugin file hook it up to the WP rewrites.
The WordPress Google Sitemap plugin uses a custom feed template to create a sitemap and you might be able to use that as an example.


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A woman and her son have been charged in central Kentucky in connection with the fatal shooting 3 1/2 months ago of a gate company employee while he was working.
Kentucky State Police say that makes a total of five people arrested so far in the Sept. 26 death of Wendall "Gleason" Pyles. More arrests are expected.
Police said 25-year-old Derek Salyers and 58-year-old Ruth A. Salyers were arrested Wednesday at the Taylor County Jail on charges of tampering with physical evidence and hindering prosecution.
In October, police arrested William "Bobby" R. Rigdon on a murder charge and 59-year-old David Salyers of Elk Horn on a charge of complicity to commit murder. Last month, 53-year-old Anthony L. Byrd of Dunnville in Casey County was charged with facilitation to commit murder and hindering prosecution.
Police say Pyles was shot and killed while working at Tarter Gate Co. in Dunnville.


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Maya Moore leads Lynx past Fever, 86-79
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Amazon.com Review
In this monumental history, Clay Blair analyzes the German U-boat campaigns from 1939 to 1942 (a companion volume continues his narrative to 1945), which, he writes, fall into three phases: one against England alone, another against the newly arrived American navy, and a furious third against the combined Allied forces. Blair argues, against other historians, that the "U-boat peril" has been overestimated. He holds that the American submarine campaign against Japan in the Pacific was far more effective, and observes that 99 percent of Allied merchant ships on transatlantic convoys reached their destinations. Even so, the U-boats introduced a powerful element of terror into an already horrific war, diverting Allied effort into antisubmarine campaigns and delaying the transport of much-needed materiel.
Blair's outstanding work adds much to the naval history of World War II. Packed with detail, it is sure to become a standard work on the Battle of the Atlantic. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


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the Sparkling Turtle Backpackers Hostel
Real Reviews
Real reviews from fellow travellers
These are trusted reviews from guests who have actually stayed here. We hope you find them helpful.
Note: we only give a property a rating once it has received a minimum of 3 reviews.
- Page:1/1
- " Stayed in many hostels, this is definitely my favourite. Located right near the Monkey Temple which is a must-visit. And away from the noisy polluted Thamel but still within walking distance if you wish to shop. The rooftop is amazing and gives you views of the mountains and even some snowcapped ones! Defintely recommend if you want a mix of local culture and want to meet other like-minded travelers who like to be spontaneous and take life as it is. The staff are friendly and always cheerful! "
- 04 Feb 2014 T England
- " If you are travelling to Kathmandu the sparkling turtle is the place to be! It is situated out of the way from the busy city but still only a 20 minute walk into town. The beds are very comfy, wifi all night and you can enjoy a peaceful nights sleep. The staff are excellent, can help you book anything you want to do and enjoy socialising all day. If I go back to Kathmandu I will definitely be staying there again! Thanks guys!! "
- 03 Feb 2014 Anonymous England
- " the sheet and pillow case are stinky,and they charge everything extra 13%(the airport pick up/bed).i made a phone call to my friend,they charge me 50rps.be carefull if you are from asia,they charge more expensive than european.finally the staff give change(indonesia currence)and said:it's nepal currence.even a staff ask me: are you lonely? "
- 24 Jan 2014 Anonymous Taiwan


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RBMA Radio
In the mid 90s Little Dragon members Yukimi, Fredrick and Erik met at high school in Gothenburg, Sweden. After hanging out and performing together for several years they were joined by keyboardist Håkan Wirenstrand. The band then decided to move in together to a space near Gothenburg Central Station known only as the The Seal Colonie (due to the legend that anyone who lived there would eventually turn into seals) and the foundations of Little Dragon were created. Fusing electronic sounds with their love of r&b, Little Dragon released their genre-hopping first album via Peacefrog Recordings in 2007. For their second album the group decided to up the tempo, and the subsequent digital soul sounds they created became 'Machine Dreams'. With the release of this sophomore album the group caught the attention of Damon Albarn, and were asked to collaborate with Gorillaz on two tracks for their 2010 album 'Plastic Beach'. Little Dragon blend catchy melodies with their trademark electro soul style to create a sound that makes them stand out from the dreary manufactured pop of today's saturated market. If you don't believe the hype take a listen for yourself, but remember there is no smoke without fire.
José González