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Emma Trelles
Emma Trelles is the author of the chapbook Little Spells (GOSS183) and Tropicalia, winner of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize and forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press.
Interests: books, bands, poems, peace, hiking, camping, politics, cats, gardens, movies, and mulling.
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Unknown Distances, inkjet print on canvas, 2012, iliana emilia garcia "UNKNOWN DISTANCES" by Francisco Aragon Not this deserted stretch of beach this morning fog… And that slick border of sand would make a slapping sound were I to run barefoot along the very edge (the foam on my left receding) as I did after school those years four of them, striding to the Cliff House and back: practice. Not this shoreline—a kind of liquid lace gathering at the corners of your mouth that Sunday you ran with me: the starter's pistol, mile 1, mile 5, veering off at mile 10… —The San Francisco Marathon I finished at fifteen. Not this ocean's palette—muted, barely green: a fringe of froth along the top dissolving into sky, half this canvas white —a kind of absence. But rather: this human invention —two of them— of weathered wood, tightly woven for sitting. And if you were seated on the right, in the distance and I in the one on the left in the foreground, we'd be facing each other We might even speak Photo by Mike Cook In 1998, after a ten-year residence in Spain, Francisco Aragón began a period of activity that included his own literary output, editing, translating, and curating. In 2003 he joined the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) at the University of Notre Dame, where he founded Letras Latinas, the ILS' literary initiative. In 2010, he was awarded the Outstanding Latino/a Cultural Arts, Literary Arts and Publications Award by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, and in 2015 a VIDO Award by VIDA, Women in the Literary Arts. A CantoMundo Fellow and member of the Macondo Writers' Workshop, Aragón is the author of Puerta del Sol (2005) and Glow of Our Sweat (2010) as well as editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (2007), these latter two winners of International Latino Book Awards. He teaches a course on Latino/a poetry at Notre Dame in the fall and directs Letras Latinas in Washington DC in the spring and summer. For more: franciscoaragon.net . "Unknown Distances" first appeared in Nepantla and was written as part of PINTURA:PALABRA, a project in ekphrasis. Continue reading
Posted 4 days ago at The Best American Poetry
Guadalupe, acrylic on wood, by Sylvia Ji she broods in her pen: LA GALLINA by Alexandra Lytton Regalado October cuts furrows of cloud in the Salvadoran sky as papier mache skeletons dance on our mantle, mariachi band of the dead in a glittering box, and a votive of la Virgen de Guadalupe draped in her green cloak next to the American pumpkin we've yet to carve. On this Day of the Dead, my children return from a piñata with two baby chicks dyed lime green and tangerine—a strange fad in party favors in El Salvador. The children squeal, watching the chicks rush about, like wind-up toys their beaks open and shut on crumbs of bread, gullets twitch as they swallow water, and tuck their heads into a wing—a bare bulb for mother's warmth. The next day, we return from ballet class to find one pitched across the newsprint with legs rigid as a cartoon's. And when the kids ask for a burial ceremony, already the other chick is staggering, asleep at the wheel and suddenly peeping. My daughter strokes the chick's walnut head and says, Ok, Mami, I'll go play while you wait for it to die. So I sit at the kitchen table, the limp bird hammocked in my hand—and with each breath I think—this is it, this is the last, and no, another breath—just as the children at bedtime lean into me with plumes of sweet breath, their limbs jerk as they approach the edge—as I hope this is—that they will abandon themselves to sleep, but again they turn and grip me tighter. Outside these four walls is my hot bath, the soup in the pot, a chapter, my other life. So I wish for the bird's last breath—how like matchsticks are his bones. Now there is no return to the dancing skeletons in their glittering box—this is where I am supposed to dim the lights, and yet I have to describe how my daughter broke a branch of purple bougainvillea, point out that my son scooped up the dead bird and pitched him into the hole in the earth as one would toss a paper cup into a wastebasket, that it was 8pm on a school night and they stood like statues as they clutched my hands and whimpered Angel de la Guardia, the only prayer they know by heart. It ends like this: my children came alive again when it was time to pat down the shoveled dirt—but the next day they did not paint the stones to mark the graves as they had promised. Co-founder of Kalina press, Alexandra Lytton Regalado is the author, editor, or translator of ten Central American-themed books. Her poems and short stories have appeared in cream city review, Gulf Coast, Narrative, NANO Fiction, Notre Dame Review, OCHO, Puerto del Sol and elsewhere. Her full-length collection of poems, Matria, (Black Lawrence Press) is forthcoming in 2017. She is the winner of the St. Lawrence Book Prize, the Coniston Poetry Prize, and... Continue reading
Posted Oct 13, 2016 at The Best American Poetry
LYCANTHROPES IN LOVE by Steven Cordova The first man is in a chair, his barber behind him shaving the hairs off the back of his neck. There's another, a second man: He's in the very next chair, also having his neck, the upper regions of his back, shaved. He is bigger, less effete than the first & no doubt that is why, across the shop's full-length mirrors, the second man is shooting the first a look full of the hostility two lycanthropes feel, one for the other, when first they sniff each other out. Still, in hairy, recurring dreams they're bound to find themselves, just the two of them in a dark wood where they will once more expose their fangs to each other, & then, their puny arms having become legs, clawed & roughly padded, their bodies having become far more the same than different, they will run, they will run & run & they will not stop running until their tongues hang down. And they will do it again—they will run & run & run—the very next time the moon grows full. Steven Cordova is the author of Long Distance (Bilingual Review Press, 2010), and his poems have appeared in many journals & anthologies, including Bellevue University Press, Callaloo, and Northwest Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. "Lycanthropes in Love" was first published in The Good Men Project. Continue reading
Posted Oct 9, 2016 at The Best American Poetry
The eighth season of the Mission Poetry Series opens with a reading on Saturday, September 17, at 1 p.m. at Antioch University Santa Barbara. "The Ringing and the Bell: Three Poets in Autumn" features three award-winning California poets: Mary Brown, William Archila, and Catherine Abbey Hodges. The title of the event is taken from a poem by Barry Spacks, a beloved Santa Barbara poet who is widely admired and who served as the city's inaugural poet laureate from 2005 to 2007. The reading will be held at Antioch University Santa Barbara • 602 Anacapa Street • Santa Barbara, CA• and is free and open to the public. The event offers complimentary broadsides, refreshments, and poets' books for sale. The Mission Poetry Series is hosted by program director Emma Trelles and production coordinator Mark Zolezzi. Continue reading
Posted Sep 13, 2016 at The Best American Poetry
The sixth season of the Mission Poetry Series wraps up on Saturday, April 18, at 1 p.m. at Antioch University Santa Barbara. "People, Earth, Sky, Stars: Two Poets in Spring" features nationally-acclaimed poet Denise Duhamel and San Francisco poet and activist Paul Fericano, one of the original founders of the series. The title of the reading is taken from a poem by Frank O'Hara, a New York School poet and an aesthetic mentor to both readers. The reading will be held at Antioch University Santa Barbara, 602 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA, and is free and open to the public. The reading will also offer complimentary broadsides, refreshments, and poets' books for sale by Chaucer's Bookstore. The Mission Poetry Series and its program director Emma Trelles is also excited to welcome long-time Santa Barbara resident and author Melinda Palacio as a curator. Continue reading
Posted Apr 17, 2015 at The Best American Poetry
Le sombre Malembo, Dieu du carrefour, 1943, by Wifredo Lam 1. After an entire lifetime in South Florida, I now live 3,000 miles away on the central coast of California, in a small city ringed by mountains and bordered by a Pacific which appears paler and vaster than the Caribbean-Atlantic I have always known. This is where I hear that the Cuban embargo is unraveling, the news a fragment floating from my car radio right before I turn off the ignition to trundle groceries from the trunk to our garden apartment. The U.S. will further ease travel restrictions to the island, open an embassy, lift some trade and banking sanctions. It is as if a mythic bird has winged overhead and I've only caught a glimpse of a few bright feathers. My first thought is what was that? It doesn't really register. 2. I get busy putting away eggs and carrots grown at nearby farms. But the news keeps simmering somewhere inside me, a place as intrinsic to me as my ardor for lists or the invisible work of my lungs. It is the tiny island of Cubania I have carried within me since I was a child, born in the U.S. and trying to belong in Miami, a city that, in the 70s, still viewed my Cuban family and so many other recent immigrants as outsiders, no matter how quickly we learned English and how hard we worked. 3. As a young girl, I saw Fidel Castro as the camouflaged villain standing between the rotary phone in our kitchen and my family in Havana, whom we could only talk to briefly and on rare occasion. I'd shout in Spanish over the crackle of lines and wonder what their faces looked like. We didn't have any pictures of them. When I eavesdropped on talk of Castro's demise, a long-cherished topic in Miami, I imagined a scene much like the one in the The Wizard of Oz, where an oppressor is felled with one crashing stroke. Everyone is giddy and sings in three-part harmonies. A land returns to color, and instead of shoes, two black boots would curl and crumble to dust. 4. I think about this part of my childhood when I think of Cubans on the true island-nation, who, like we once did, have begun their own migration from perceived outcasts to rightful neighbors, with whom we share bloodlines and friendships and a percussive, slangy Spanish. I'm not talking about those who created a palm-fringed prison of the body and its free will. I mean the everyday Cubans who have kept on keeping on. Their relentless optimism and resourcefulness are at the core of Cubanía, something that is also seen in the micro, self-written psalm of my people: Todo se resuelve. Everything will work out. 5. In my imagined island of Cubanía, there is a little boat anchored near the shore and a blue-striped cabana on the beach. It contains a crazy-quilt of culture: *café con leche, large, and... Continue reading
Posted Dec 24, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Death of Rubén Salazar (1986), by Frank Romero. In Miami the ocean behaves like a painting, diversity like an artist's brushstrokes on a canvas, the immigrant like a dreamer. Swaying like a northerly, "Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art"— a powerful art exhibit curated by E. Carmen Ramos and a permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum — made the second stop on its national tour in the temperate landscape of South Florida. From May 9th until May 11th, nine poets from Miami, Tampa, and El Salvador — Elisa Albo, Adrian Castro, Silvia Curbelo, Mia Leonin, Rita Maria Martinez, Caridad Moro-McCormick, Alexandra Lytton Regalado, and yours truly — convened at Florida International University's Frost Art Museum to respond to the exhibit'sdiverse collection of works. Under the guidance of Francisco Aragón and Emma Trelles, we engaged in a phenomenal workshop entitled, "PINTURA:PALABRA, a project in ekphrasis"—the brainchild of Letras Latinas, the literary initiative of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Luis Jiménez's Man on Fire I felt at home around these brilliant writers whose work I had previously read but who now sat next to me, taking down notes and preparing to give me feedback on my ekphrastic pieces. With these poets, I knelt on the floor to engage with a sculpture, or I hopped imperceptibly to establish a relationship of movement with a large painting. I also laid flat on the floor to re-appreciate certain lines and photographed myself against any piece that could reflect me. Throughout, I maintained mental discussions with a sculpture (Luis Jiménez's Man on Fire) and with how I could offer it a poem. "How do you want me to read your nakedness?" I asked. "How can I be your medium?" Each time I received a different answer. Through rich exchanges with my fellow poets, I found out some of them had received a newfound creative jolt from the exhibit and this project. We were provided with context and outside materials to help us consider, for example, each work as a cultural artifact or a visual text. My creative productivity increased since I, too, found myself a part of an inclusive community of Latino writers — a community seldom seen while I was growing up in Allapattah, Florida, but which is currently burgeoning in Miami through a wide range of projects and festivals, such as the O, Miami poetry festival. Spending time with the exhibit itself, the poetry we were assigned to read, the theoretical essays we analyzed, and what we ultimately produced allowed us to discuss ekphrastic poetry as an exchange that occurs in translation, the body, sensuality, gender, borderlands, Spanglish, diaspora, and family. Lotería-Tabla Llena (1972), by Carmen Lomas Garza Trelles found ways to engage us with the artwork and with the work of other poets who have embarked on similar journeys. She gave us an outstanding bibliography to understand what we were there to produce. Suddenly, we developed the perspicacity to unravel multifarious tensions between... Continue reading
Posted Jun 15, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
In the quest for a happier, better informed NaPoMo, The Tropical Roundup has returned. This is essentially where I post random or thematically or geographically linked tidbits from Poetry Land. Or culled from news, music, art, gossip, and other realms. Or simply netted from my aquarium brain. "Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it." **The Mission Poetry Series wraps up its 5th season this Saturday, April 5th, at 1 p.m. with a new partnership with Antioch University Santa Barbara and with "April Voices: Three Poets for the Spring of It," featuring Teddy Macker, Phil Taggart, and Friday Lubina. Offering two readings each year in September and April, the series was founded in 2009 by poet and author Paul Fericano, (who also writes a regular column for The Santa Barbara Independent), and Susan Blomstad, a religious sister in the Order of St. Francis and the former director of the Mission Renewal Center in Santa Barbara. ** In other Santa Barbara poetry news: Inaugural poet (and all-around nice guy) Richard Blanco popped into The Book Den recently to say hello and sign his inspiring new book: For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey. The Book Den is one of California's oldest bookstores and stocks a bounty of new, used, and out-of-print books. Shop indie, folks. It tastes good. ** Over on Barbara Jane Reyes' Poeta y Diwata blog, the Oakland-based poet serves up yet another thoughtful post in which she considers the evolution of her latest poetry project ("And the word was a woman....") along with the complexities of allusion, form, and language. Here's an excerpt: "...we stretch from our initial frames into others' frames. We build from our foundations and into the cultures that surround us, and which we now inhabit. As a poet frequently referenced for my code switching/operating in multiple registers, this is a no brainer; there's a language that's introduced itself into my repertoire. As poets, we sponge up languages, from everywhere." Read the full post here. **And, from the unconfirmed, but no-less enticing, rumor bog: The winner of the 2014 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize hails from California! A full announcement with the poet's name and details is slated for April 14 at the University of Notre Dame reading featuring 2012 winner Laurie Anne Guerrero (A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying) and prize judge and poet Francisco X. Alarcón. The Letras Latinas blog will post all the good news later that evening.The Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize supports the publication of a first book by a Latino/a poet in the United States, in collaboration with University of Notre Dame Press. Continue reading
Posted Apr 2, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Coming Fall of 2015 from Sibling Rivalry Press -- The Collected & New Collaborative Work of Denise Duhamel & Maureen Seaton. Excitement! And here are more 2015 titles from SRP, via cue cards & poet extraordinaire Ocean Vuong. --et Continue reading
Posted Jan 28, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Hey Chicago! Just a reminder: This Thursday, the Poetry Foundation will host two gifted Latino poets at its HQ for a reading, book signing, and reception: Dan Vera -- author of Speaking Wiri Wiri, which won the inaugural Letras Latinas/Red Hen Press prize -- and Orlando Ricardo Menes, who judged the contest and whose newest collection, Fetish, won last year's Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Poetry Off the Shelf: Orlando Ricardo Menes & Dan Vera Thursday, Oct 24, 7:00PM Poetry Foundation 61 West Superior Street Free admission And here's a preview. Windfall Antiques Overdrawn, repoed Grand Prix, workshop in hock To the dogs, Papá mends houses of refugees Who niggle over how much grout to squeeze Into a crack, who bathe in their girdles and socks To skimp on Fab. Checks bounce, taxmen hound, the truck's Muffler shot, Papá scouts groomed lawns for settes, Divans, chaises meant for Goodwill, windfall antiques To fix with mallet, strainer, needle, twine, & chalk. "Waste is for gringos," he'd say, tapping brass nails That wiggle on warped pine or straining buckram On a crippled carcass, my hands dull as I shear Chintz for skirts, though Papá, reverent with details, Irons burlap, measures the tweed sleeves & trim In metrics, smoothes out horsehairs to cashmere. --from Fetish (University of Nebraska Press, 2013), by Orlando Ricardo Menes -- Learn more about the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Press Poetry Prize here. -- Visit the Letras Latinas blog here. --et Continue reading
Posted Oct 21, 2013 at The Best American Poetry
Attention Chicagoans! Next week, the Poetry Foundation will host two gifted Latino poets at its HQ in Chicago for a reading, book signing, and reception: Dan Vera -- author of Speaking Wiri Wiri, which won the inaugural Letras Latinas/Red Hen Press prize -- and Orlando Ricardo Menes, who judged the contest and whose newest collection, Fetish, won last year's Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Poetry Off the Shelf: Orlando Ricardo Menes & Dan Vera Thursday, Oct 24, 7:00PM Poetry Foundation 61 West Superior Street Free admission And here's a poem from Vera's winning collection. Next week, before the reading, we'll offer one from Menes' book as well. My Double I tease you about the dog's affections. You have his eye when you're in the room and when you walk away his ears keep pace in case his feet must follow. He wants for you so dearly when you've departed. I tell you, What am I, chopped liver? But you are his beef bourguignon. You are the steak tartare of his every dream. I play green with envy but the truth is, he is my clearest mirror. If I lived in the lovetime of a dog and thought that every time you left you might not make it back wouldn't I climb the chair near the window? wouldn't I pace the floors in deep distress? --from Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen Press, 2013), by Dan Vera -- Learn more about the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Press Poetry Prize here. -- Visit the Letras Latinas blog here. --et Continue reading
Posted Oct 17, 2013 at The Best American Poetry
I first heard Xánath Caraza read her work last year in Milwaukee at "Cantos Latinos! A Mosaic of Latino Poetry," a poetry and panel of quite diverse Latino poets assembled at the city's library. Xánath sort of blew me away with her reading. I recall her dark hair and a red shawl that, on her, resembled a queenly sort of cape, but what I remember most was the forceful passion she put into the poems she read, the wake-up punch of each word, how, the longer she read, the less her Spanish sounded like language and more like raw sound. I kept thinking of Shangó, the Yoruba deity (or orisha) of lightning and thunder and one whose presence is often associated with music, specifically the percussive power of drums. Her voice had that kind of command to it. I could not imagine a better title for her collection Conjuro, which is the Spanish word for a spell or incantation. She recently spoke to me from her home in Kansas City, and I learned as much about her consideration of culture and history in her work as I did about the sway color holds over it. "Poetry is a feeling of orange," she writes in "Linguistic Filigree." I wanted to know more. ET: I saw you hold a crowd rapt when you read in Milwaukee last year, particular with "Yanga," which felt like one of the central poems of this book, both in its homage to how Africa has helped shape Latin American history *and* because oral tradition has a powerful claim in your work. Let's talk about Yanga first. Tell us who he was. XC: I fell in love with Yanga early in my childhood; we studied him in grammar school. It captured me that he was a real person. He was, while a slave, a community organizer and was able to create the first free zone in the Americas in 1630. In a way, these slaves were unconquerable. The original name of the zone was San Lorenzo de los Negros, but now this town is known as Yanga. I was always fascinated with language, and I pay attention to idioms. We have all these words we know come from Africa, and there are towns in Veracruz,, Mexico, that are named after African voices. So Yanga speaks to the history of Veracruz, and I wanted to put together Yanga's language and the Spanish versions of these words into a poem. Louis Reyes Rivera, an African Puerto Rican scholar and performance poet, had a deep impact on me when I saw him in Kansas City. He was such a nice person when I met him, very calm, down to earth, and then when he stood up to read, he turned into a drum, like a conga, pounding right in front of you. I put all of that together to create "Yanga." Yanga (para Louis Reyes Rivera) Yanga, Yanga, Yanga Yanga, Yanga, Yanga, Hoy, tu espiritu invoco Aqui, en este lugar. Este,... Continue reading
Posted Aug 31, 2013 at The Best American Poetry
South Florida is the coolest part of the country right now, which is kind of spooky but not so much that I won't take that news as a bizarro blessing. Outside the rain is delicate and softens the world to gray and insistent green. I'd like to make a bouquet of grass or wrap its thick pelt around my shoulders. I'd like to hide in it for a while. My desk is beside floor to ceiling windows and I perch here like an invisible finch, never tiring of the view of trees and tennis courts, inlet and boats, the parking lot, the delivery trucks, recycling and garbage bins slicked clean. The windows sound great, right? But not so much when there's a hurricane. I've watched them bow, glass like lungs taking in and expelling air. If you have lived in Florida all your life, you usually don't evacuate for any storm rated category 3 or under. You are filled with equal parts savvy and foolishness. I watched Katrina through these windows, days before anyone knew the fear and suffering that would accompany her. We haven't had any hurricanes this season, not yet, so I can delay thinking about the 42 year old panes busting open, or buying water, sardines, and batteries, or losing hours to the local TV meteorologists. They call themselves storm trackers but I think they are sinister geometry buffs because they love nothing more than conjuring cones and grids and oddly pulled shapes that resemble lethal amoebas or a noxious taffy. Instead of all that, I get to sit here and ignore deadlines, maybe take my umbrella to the park across the street. There's a hawk that lives there. We named him Joseph, after a bygone mayor of the little city where we live. This summer, Joseph has been observed grooming his wings, lunching on the small and feathered (his beak makes fine cutlery), and terrorizing the mockingbirds who also live in the park but are not so afraid of him that they won't dive-bomb his head in protest. Sometimes I walk through the park listening to the soundtrack to The Harder They Come, my summer anthem album, a gospel record, really, if you think about it. I sing "You Can Get It If You Really Want" and "Many Rivers to Cross." I hum "Sitting in Limbo." Sometimes I stand beneath the canopy of a royal poinciana, which, when in bloom, hazes the space beneath it to a watery and pale red. This summer, I've been working and looking for work, doing and waiting, thinking maybe I should worry more, or less. There's no silencing the reel. I've been keeping modest lists: Go to bank. Call doctor. Hawk, storm, faith, here. Continue reading
Posted Jul 14, 2012 at The Best American Poetry
The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity is an anthology of 20 essays that, according to its co-editor Blas Falconer, aims to counter a narrow perspective of Latino/a writers and honor their diversity. In his own essay, Falconer writes, "When Spanish enters the poem, it is often done because it is part of the memory, not because it is the language of the reader or of the audience." This idea of how Spanish is mysteriously fused to the neurons of Latino writers resonated with me, and I wanted to hear more from Blas. He and co-editor Lorraine Lopez will present the book this Thursday, April 26, at noon, as part of the Books and Beyond series at the Library of Congress in partnership with Letras Latinas and the University of Arizona Press. At 6:30 p.m., both Falconer and Lopez will read selections from their own work. For details, visit here. ET: What was the source of inspiration for this anthology, for the idea that Latino writers are more than a globbed together demographic or a brightly colored (I'm guessing red) wedge in a pie graph? BF: The book began, in part, as a presentation on an AWP panel I wrote in 2008. The acquisitions editor from University of Arizona Press was in the audience and came up to me afterwards and suggested we do a whole book. I told her I was thinking the exact same thing. We wanted to open it up beyond the Latino identity that's been seen through a small lens. The book also originated from the fact that I didn't really understand my own relationship to the Latino community or to Puerto Rico. I had traveled there a lot when I was younger, but after my grandmother passed away I stopped going. I also knew that there was this rich Puerto Rican community in New York that I didn't feel quite in sync with because I grew up in Northern Virginia, and there just weren't a lot of Puerto Ricans there. As a writer, I kept asking myself, 'Am I Latino?' 'What does it mean to be Latino?' I have a white father and a Latina mother, but I have an estranged relationship to Puerto Rico. What does this mean? Then I realized that I saw two of my dearest friends as Latinas - Lisa Chavez, a Chicana from Alaska, and Helena Mesa, who is Cuban and grew up in Pittsburgh - even though they too felt disconnected. I thought, 'Let's explore this.' I realized that many writers were challenging the term of Latino in various ways, and I thought reading about their experiences might be interesting. Another source of inspiration is that sometimes I just don't want to write. I'm on empty. But I'm still fueled by great poetry or writing, so I want to be involved somehow. Editing kind of satisfies that need. Seeing how different people write, how their work or books come together. It's inspiring. ET: How did you seek out... Continue reading
Posted Apr 24, 2012 at The Best American Poetry
"A book ought to be an ice pick to break up the frozen sea within us."-- Franz Kafka -- etrelles Continue reading
Posted Jan 14, 2012 at The Best American Poetry
Above: store-bought bow and discount wrapping paper, pieced together with magic tape and love. Yes, I know there's only five days left till Christmas, that by the time this post is completed Hanukkah is already twinkling its arrival, that some holiday shoppers are sitting smugly alongside their craftily wrapped presents, the kind with hand painted angel paper and chiffon bows and berries artfully attached. But the Tropical Roundup is not one of these shoppers. She is on Cuban time, which technically means that while everything will get done, it will all happen in a great flurry, at the last minute, with some presents and cards assembled in the driveway outside the recipient's home. Wine will assist in these endeavors, as will cortaditos and pasteles de guayaba (both of which I'd consume twice a day if I didn't care about looking like a gourd). One does not have to be Cuban to exist in this perpetually behind (but well fortified) state. But it helps, as does living in South Florida, where "Cuban time" is as common an expression as Turn down the a.c. and Coño! Here are a few quick gift ideas for those of us who consider Cronus a nemesis: 1. Behold the beauty to the left, a Great Gatsby tee from Out of Print Clothing, displayed prettily alongside my high school copy of the novel. My birthday, wedding anniversary, and Christmas are all within a couple of weeks of each other, so my husband is doomed to hunt for gifts for me throughout December. I assist (read: prod) him with tips, such as this shirt I'd been eyeballing for about a year now. On its website, Out of Print states that it "celebrates the world's great stories through fashion. Our products feature iconic and often out of print book covers. Some are classics, some are just curious enough to make great t-shirts, but all are striking works of art." Indeedy. Other choice picks include Thoreau's Walden, Darwin's The Origin of Species, the mysteries of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys (The Sign of the Twisted Candles and The Mark on the Door, respectively), and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, in a festive red and white. To browse women's, men's, and kid's shirts, visit here. If you select overnight or second-day air delivery, your prezzies will arrive before Santa does. 2. Last month I was lucky enough to read at the Miami Book Fair International and hear many fine poets, whose fine books I bought as well. I think you should buy them too, particularly from independent bookstores like Books and Books, Powell's, Politics & Prose, or whatever book shop is in your town and is battling Amazon, the real world version of the Dark Lord of the Sith. Here's some of what I scored: Susan Briante's Utopia Minus (Ahsahta Press); Sandra Beasley's I Was the Jukebox and Gerald Stern's Everything is Burning (both from W.W. Norton); Radha Says: Last Poems by Reetika Vazirani (editors Leslie McGrath and Ravi Shankar... Continue reading
Posted Dec 20, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
A Fantastic Cave Landscape, with Odysseus and Calypso (1568-1625), by Jan Brueghel the Elder Dear Stacey, I've been slack in my letter writing because of work, which is, at the moment, attending to the sentences of others. I'm sweeping clean the muddiness of poor word choices and useless repetition, employing the foot soldiers of concise writing: grammar and punctuation. It's tedious, but I also kind of dig it. It's a lot easier to fix someone else's mistakes. But when the work seems insurmountable, I think about what else I'd rather be doing, or, to put it another way, what might be my own kind of Ithaka, "...the island of them all" - something that I greatly desire and whose attainment is continually delayed. The promise of it keeps me going. One of my Ithakas is riding my bicycle, a pearly white Raleigh that my husband gave me before we were married. I love it so much that I instantly named it Pegasus, and soon after bought a bike bell, which I mostly ring just to hear its thick trill. It is searing hot in South Florida at the moment, the norm in late July, but when I'm on my bicycle the temperatures seem less oppressive, as does everything else, and I get to fly around town smelling the ocean and checking out the poincianas and palms and the little green parrots that like to nest and screech in both. I feel like the me that was once a 10 year old, skinny-legged girl explorer. And I suppose she too is another kind of Ithaka. What I'm getting at is that even though I haven't been writing you, I have still been reading and thinking. Books IV-VI are my favorites so far. I like how the mundane tasks of servants are described in painterly fashion: Here a maid tipped out water for their hands from a golden pitcher into a silver bowl, and set a polished table near at hand; the larder mnistress with her tray of loaves and savories came, dispensing all her best... And also here: "...but Helen called the maids and sent them to make beds, with purple rugs piled up, and sheets outspread, and fleecy coverlets, in the porch inside the gate. The girls went out with torches in their hands..." Whether cooking, doing laundry, or making beds, no chore seems too mundane for Homer to depict with color and physical touch. Even scent is not overlooked, as when Eidothea, daughter of the god Proteus (and a nereid), dabs ambrosia beneath three lads' noses to drown out the "bestial odor" of the seal skins in which they hide. The ambrosia is likened to perfume, and, to me, the moment hints at how man aligns himself with both the beautiful and the monstrous, how often the two can be experienced within breaths of one another. "Eidothea," by Linda Carlson I also admire the simple, fairytale connotations of these books' titles, such as "Sweet Nymph and Open Sea," although... Continue reading
Posted Jul 30, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
"Cayuga Lake, Ithaca NY," watercolor by Nari Mistry Dear Stacey, I am in receipt of your letter and will say I was pretty tickled when I saw the first mention of Ithaka in Homer's verse because I knew that you were reading it from your own Ithacan abode. I wrote "Stacey!" in the margins beside line 30 and then again alongside line 213: Another thing --- this too I ought to know --0 is Ithaka new to you, or were you ever a guest here in the old days? Far and near friends knew this house; for he whose home it was had much acquaintance in the world. This is my serpentine way of saying, yes, it is very cool that you're reading The Odyssey from the Finger Lakes region. Is it also a coincidence, then, that Homer so often personifies dawn with "fingers"? There are fingers of "pink light" and "finger tips of rose," and I gather that there will be more mention of dawn's pretty grasp in the books to come. I think if you read some of them at daybreak, from Ithaca, you might dream of flying over water, "in a clap of wings," with eyes faded to the grey of Athena's. I had not planned on quoting so much of what I've read thus far, but I had also not expected to encounter such music. The sound of it! Sometimes I read lines out loud just to hear the iambic pentameter or a spondee, or some combination of both ("My word, how mortals take the gods to task!"). I actually scanned some lines in pencil, although I have not attempted to do any such thing since Campbell McGrath assigned The Poem's Heartbeat many years ago in graduate school. Good god, I was an awful scanner and have probably flubbed the above line now as well. But I wanted to share with you how Homer's long song has inspired me to listen, more carefully and with less judgement, not only to whatever words I find on a page but to the sounds around me: the rattle of a maintenance man's cart, footsteps in the hallway. A spare kind of music. It is so quiet here as I write this to you from South Florida; even the mockingbirds have taken a break from their summer chatter. Yours, Emma Continue reading
Posted Jul 5, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
1. In February, I met with P. Scott Cunningham and Pete Borrebach for lunch at a noodle house. I couldn't find the place at first because it was lodged in the lobby of a motel on Biscayne Boulevard that, in years past, was known more for hookers and guns and rock (and I don't mean 'and roll'). But this neighborhood has now reinvented itself --as is also the city of Miami's custom-- into a hamlet of galleries, eateries, and indie mom and pop shops. There are things to do here besides driving by with locked car doors. Scott and Pete were working on their own newborn - O, Miami, the city's first poetry festival. I ate basil and tofu and listened to their schemes: they were going to try to place if only one poem into the hands of my hometown's 2.5 million citizens, regardless of whether they liked poetry or not. Scott and Pete were most interested in the latter, the possible converts, and they knew how to set the trap. They'd woo the city with a relentless courtship. O, Miami would wrap buses with couplets, fly in W.S. Merwin, the sitting U.S. poet laureate, invite Chilean poet Raúl Zurita, hip hop legend Kool Moe Dee, actor-now-writer James Franco, and many more to speak and read, host collaborative art shows and a literary death match, surreptitously sew poetry tags into shirts at thrift stores, drop poems from the sky, rent a Ferrari. They had a lot of wild ideas. Had they locked it all down yet? No. When would the festival launch? In about 6 weeks and running the whole month of April. I smiled and slurped my dripping and delicious noodles. I thought a) These guys are crazy. b) God, I hope they do it. All of it. 2. Abe's Penny Live. The Brooklyn-based publishing house opens its first exhibit at O, Miami, with readings by Denise Duhamel and Gabrielle Calvocoressi and photographs by Lee Materazzi, Francie Bishop Good, Samantha Salzinger, and Robby Campbell, whose image I've swiped (below left). The gallery is filled with literatis climbing over wood pallets that have been nailed together to form a kind of writer's club-and-tree-house installation. Pencils and paper provided, as are postcards from which to make a bit of mail art. Some of them are already hanging on the walls and some are stacked into racks at the ready. And whether it's on an electric typewriter or with a bouquet of long-stemmed beauties (below right), visitors oblige. While Denise Duhamel reads a beautiful poem about all that she sees in Georgia O'Keeffe's Pelvis of Blue, ( "a nest with a hollowed-out bottom") or bluebirds on the branch of her hip bone, Campbell McGrath sits next to me, asks for a sheet of paper from my own notebook, which I am writing in because Denise's words have conjured my own. Don't you sometimes get the best sparks from hearing someone else read her poems? I do. I ask Campbell what he's... Continue reading
Posted Apr 30, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
Note: The following review first appeared in Organica magazine's Winter/Spring 2011 issue. It's not easy to pinpoint exactly what J. Michael Martinez means when he writes " Margin is the whiteness in our silence. I said, Difference is already spread between the body and the gaze. You said, We lament the name we give; we give word to find respite from the shallows between." We encounter these words as a drifting dialogue, a kind of coded prose that appears untitled and on the blank page before the opening of Heredities, winner of the 2009 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. This sense of almost knowing, of entering a frame of words without origin or apparent direction, is one of the beautiful bones that make up the body of Martinez's first collection, a book that feels at once like wading into history and lamp-lit archives, folklore and myth, personal diary and fleeting sketch pad. The young Chicano poet exhibits fearlessness in his choice of fantastical subjects and forms. In "Articulations of Quetzacoatl's Spine" and "The Sternum of Our Lady Guadalupe," anatomical drawings crown the long missive-like lines which consider faith and its accompanying sacrifices, whether in the guise of a jaguar or an eagle, or in how two ligaments attach themselves to the flawless "souls of infants," now "transformed into hummingbirds." In his poems, Martinez often considers the act of becoming, of renewal as revolution, a way of claiming power by assembling not only such earthly elements as amaranth, water, oaks, and wings, for example, but also by the parsing and reconstruction of language. "Heredities: Letters of Relation" illustrates the poet's skill with linguistic collage; the poem's lyrical sections are written completely from Hernan Cortes' letters from Mexico during the conquest. The slaughter is documented once more, yet his own words are now re-arranged to display the gleaming details discovered in the lives of the Tenochca (or the Aztecs as they are later known), particulars that offer the same historical prominence to a people as to the wars that enslaved them. "We sail the laws and beliefs/ of their idols, chambers garlanded/ in feathers of little birds/ covered with pearl shells./ Their past is a valley circular,/ fertile in fruit and cotton....Owls and sparrow hawks/ echo in the oratories..." It is particularly exciting, for me at least, to read a first book by a Latino poet who does not offer the familiar trope of nostalgia as a way of exploring identity, but, instead, mines deeply into artifact and gender, the influence of personal lore and the self-colored perceptions of language. Martinez invents his own forms to consider the idea of source and the alchemy of what makes a life. This means that Heredities requires patience and a willingness to abandon traditional narratives, to practice a negative capability, where mystery becomes the norm and, thus, a place where one can slip into an unhurried dreamscape. While reading these poems, I thought about paintings by Cuban artist Wifredo Lam and... Continue reading
Posted Feb 27, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
Introducing The Tropical Roundup, in which I, at random times, post points of interest that may be thematically or geographically linked. Or, they could be event driven or contain some kind of vital-to-obscure news peg, Said points will most likely be stolen from other sources, such as blogs and dailies, but will also be gathered by scrawling notes on the back of gas receipts, in a fruitless effort to bring order to our blue and green sphere, which is currently screaming off its invisible tracks. Also, I like lists. 1. First and foremost in the inaugural round up is FLORICANTO IN WASHINGTON D.C.: A Multicultural Reading in Response to SB 1070. The reading takes place during the AWP Conference this Friday, Feb. 4, from 6-9 p.m., at the True Reformer Building in D.C., and is sponsored by Split This Rock, The Acentos Poetry Foundation, and Poets Responding to SB 1070. Floricanto presents more than 20 poets responding in verse to what organizers call the growing "xenophobia under which the bill was created," which "targets immigrants and legalizes racial profiling." SB 1070 was signed into state law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer in April 2010 and authorizes police to arrest and charge any immigrant not carrying identifying documents. When asked to comment on how police officers might discern suspects without profiling, Governor Brewer told the New York Times "we simply have to trust in our law enforcement." Because blind trust in men with guns always works out well, doesn't it? According to Rich Villar, executive director of the Acentos Foundation, the word "floricanto" has linguistic origins in both the Meso-American and Spanish languages, re-appearing during the rise of the Chicano arts and poetry movements of th 60s.. "Poets came together for celebration, for political ends, for self-affirmation," says Villar. "In the Floricanto, the poetic and political are not only compatible, but complimentary, inevitable." "This reading is a show of solidarity," Villar adds. "It is also very a specific act. It is the unambiguous use of language, in the form of poetry, to counter the obfuscated legal language of war, death, and exile. The poets in this reading do precisely that, day in and day out." Floricanto will be hosted by Oscar Bermeo and featured readers include Francisco X. Alarcon, Tara Betts, Sarah Browning, Regie Cabico, Carmen Calatayud, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Susan Deer Cloud, Martín Espada, Odilia Galvan Rodriguez, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Aracelis Girmay, Randall Horton, Juan Felipe Herrera, Dorianne Laux, Marilyn Nelson, Mark Nowak, Barbara Jane Reyes, Abel Salas, Sonia Sanchez, Craig Santos Perez, Hedy Trevino, Pam Uschuk, Dan Vera, Rich Villar, and Andre Yang. 2. AWP Conference, Author book signings Here's a sampling of who will sign what at this year's bookfair. Is there an author/book that's been missed? Add it to the comments box. Neil de la Flor, Almost Dorothy (Marsh Hawk Press). Buy this book and score a free voodoo doll bookmark. Neil will also be taking pre-orders with Maureen Seaton for their collaborative book Sinead O'Connor and... Continue reading
Posted Jan 31, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
Last night I went to see some friends' bands play at Radioactive Records (the one in Fort Lauderdale, not the U.K.). A highlight was Boise Bob, who plays twisted country ditties accompanied by a washboard and a big ole bass made of an oar, a strong length of string, and a metal tub perfect for bobbing for apples. Good stuff. But the big sparkle find of the night was a double album set I picked up by Sylvester, the fab and forever reigning cabaret-tranny-king-and-queen of disco. The album folds open to a panoramic shot of on-stage Sylvester, decked in a blue and silver sequined jumpsuit and flanked by Two Tons O' Fun/Weather Girls Izora Rhodes and Martha Washington. Playing hard behind the power trio, most of the 1979 San Francisco Symphony in white tie and tails. Glam, glitter, and musicianship. A reckless plunge into whatever felt good and sounded fast and smooth and kinda dirty. This is some of what I dig about 70s disco. So for V-Day, Didi and I thought we'd bid adieu to our guest blog spot here at BAP by offering a list of a few of our favorite disco love songs. Think of them as poems in polyester! I Love the Nightlife, Alicia Bridges Your Love, Lime* If I Can't Have You, Yvonne Elliman Star Love, Cheryl Lynn I Feel Love, Donna Summer Pull Up to the Bumper, Grace Jones* Get Off, Foxy Reasons, Earth Wind and Fire I'm Ready, Kano Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, Santa Esmeralda Mighty Real, by Sylvester *technically not 70s but close enough Continue reading
Posted Jan 17, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
6:21 pm - Ryan Seacrest is killing minutes on the red carpet by pretending to be interested in Jennifer Love Hewitt. 6:23 pm - Seconds after her pre, pre-show commentary ends, Giuliana Rancic, the E! channel's chief reporter (for lack of a better word), has already switched into a strapless black gown. I wonder how many more dresses she'll cram into the evening. I have no idea who's the hot blond Aussie she's interviewing (above). Neither does she. 6:25 pm - I wish Mark would come home and make martinis. 6:37 pm - Seacrest talking makeup with Mark Salling from Glee, who appears to have grown a strip of soul patch over his noggin. A slew of Gleester girls preening on the carpet. Real celebs must be dawdling in their black Priuses until the kids clear out. Wait, there's Alec Baldwin! 6:41 pm - Baldwin sounds sort of torchy. Is he finally out? I hope so! 6:45 pm - Scott Caan is a wee man who just peered down Giuliana's decolletage. Non-celeb g.f. doesn't notice. Wake up, woman. 6:46 pm - Elisabeth Moss's skin (at left) resembles a pearl mousse made exclusively for the Kraken (at right). She must sit around rubbing La Mer into her pores all day. How many more months until Mad Men returns? 6: 50 pm - Ricky Gervais in big black sunglasses talking about how he's going to knock a few brews back before he hosts the Globes. "Beer's not an alcoholic drink in England." 6:51 pm - Just realized I'm on DVR time! My painstaking chronology is all off. Arghghgh 6:55 pm - Staggering down the carpet in Davy Crockett hair extensions and netted couch pillows - Helena Bonham Carter. Oh dude, she's wearing two different color shoes. 6:58 pm - Why is E! teasing the trash triplet Kardashians in a big pop up box while the immaculate Natalie Portman is floating up the stairs? She looks like a petal in that pink draped gown, and I'll forgive the Conehead updo because a) she's pregnant and still is b) wearing red stilettos. 7:03 pm - Jason Segal looking ooold. When did that happen? Maybe I've been living in the past with too much Freaks and Geeks (Bless you IFC). Jimmy Fallon next to him, also looking more doughy than his years allow. Both of them are strangely aspiring to Mad Men Brylcreem hair, but on them it looks more storefront mannequin than dashing Draper. Maybe I'm just evil because Mark just told me that there's no Vermouth. 7:04 pm - Time to look for wine. 7:09 pm - Three quarters of The Fashion Police (missing the awesome Joan Rivers) are making nice-nice about Helena Bonham Carter (so quirky! such an original!), but you know they're going to shred her like wolverines on their next show. 7:10 pm - Nicole Kidman literally looming two feet above Seacrest and her urban cowboy husband, Keith something or the other. Kidman's forehead oddness continues. 7:11 pm - Seacrest... Continue reading
Posted Jan 17, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
A Poem For the Innocents A killing moon peeks through leaves of trumpet trees in full bloom for Lent, their barks crisscrossed by wild strokes of a machete when my son tried to help me weed our garden, overrun with dandelions, branches, leaves, a bounty of seed and thorns, side by side, under clusters of suns bursting through the branches. Shadows flicker across the wall upstairs, over Buzz Lightyear's grin, Mr. Potato Head's sigh, and under a map dotted with cities that fill his dreams. What promises will I make when I climb the stairs before he falls asleep to the noise of the television with cluster bombs blooming in the sky over Baghdad? What comfort can I give him as I draw the sheets over his shoulders, kiss his forehead, when he worries that if he closes his eyes, his Aunt Batsheva, half a world away, will not rise from her bed in Gan Yavne, thirty-seven miles west of Ramah where Rachel wept for her children and refused to be comforted. The map over his bed now frightens him, and I cannot convince him, despite the miles and miles of oceans and deserts, that the machete under his bed will not make him safer, any more than the sacrifice of innocents will save us, for he knows, he knows, somewhere between the Tigris and Euphrates, a wave of steel races toward Babylon. -March 22, 2003 Geoffrey Philp was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and is the author of nine books of poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in The Misssippi Review, Gulf Stream, The Apalachee Quarterly, An Anthology of Reggae Poetry, and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, among many other places.He teaches English and creative writing at Miami Dade College, where he is the chairperson of the College Prep. Department. Visit his blog here and learn more about his books at Peepal Tree Press. -emma trelles Continue reading
Posted Jan 15, 2011 at The Best American Poetry
"He does it better with grace..." : Bill Shakespeare weighs in on LeBron James At first, there was a little hometown poetry contest, sponsored by the Miami Herald and WLRN. Just a bit of wordplay to salute LeBron's arrival to the Miami Heat. Six lines, any style, no fees and no limits to how often aspiring or practiced scribes could enter. Quicker than a Hardaway crossover, NBC, USA Today, The Plain Dealer (Ohio's largest newspaper), The Basketball Jones, and even The New Yorker - in next week's Talk of the Town - are reporting on the challenge. Here are the rules: -The poem must commemorate the arrival of LeBron James to Miami. -The poem can utilize any form but cannot exceed six lines (LeBron's jersey is No. 6). -No limit to the number of poems you can submit. -The entry must be received by Friday, October 22 at 6 p.m. Born in the brain of Dan Grech, a radio news director and producer at WLRN, the contest has received more than 500 entries since lunchtime today, and they keep coming in from all over the country. Six finalists will be selected by P. Scott Cunningham, a poet and director of the O' Miami poetry festival, which will debut next April and hopes to make poetry as ubiquitous in South Florida as coconut palms and gridlock. "I'm very much into the idea of occasional and doggerel poetry," Cunningham told me via email. "I actually have a poem about Heat Center Zydrunas Ilgauskas published in a journal, in addition to an interview about why writing poems about basketball is legit. Here's a pseudo-cento Cunningham penned in under a minute: They shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence two roads diverged on ESPN and Lebron took the one more traveled by — rush hour on the 826. Think you can do better? Enter here. Remember, the deadline is Oct. 22, 6 p.m. The winner will receive two Heat tickets and the chance to read the winning poem at the finale of O'Miami: A Contemporary Poetry Festival, held at the New World Symphony Campus on Miami Beach. (photo: Robert Frost, objecting and aghast) Continue reading
Posted Oct 21, 2010 at The Best American Poetry


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John Duncan murdered a Houma man in Mid-City near the New Orleans Heritage and Jazz Festival in 2004, putting a bullet through the back of his skull after the music fan shrugged off the teen's attempt to rob him of his wallet, an Orleans Parish jury concluded Monday after a week-long trial.
Duncan, 20, faces imprisonment up to age 31 for the second-degree murder of Daniel Breaux, 57, because he was only 14 at the time of the killing.
Judge Robin Pittman will sentence Duncan on April 9.
The jury returned an 11-1 verdict after about four hours of deliberations at Criminal District Court in a trial that brought back to the witness stand the victim's relatives and the three teens police originally swept up with Duncan days after Breaux was found shot to death at the corner of Orchid and North Dupre streets.
"Daniel was about peace, about South Louisiana culture," Assistant District Attorney Myles Ranier told the jury. "He was the anti-John Duncan. The victim got his respect through hard work and through generosity and through love. It takes a little more time than guns and threats and shooting someone in the back of the head."
Teenagers recant stories
Duncan is the only one of the original four teens charged with murder to stand trial. Kelvin Atkins was sentenced to five years in prison for a lesser crime, while prosecutors dismissed the charges against the other two, Cedric Curtis and Gerone Walls.
They all blamed the shooting on Duncan, but by last week, six years after the homicide, all recanted their original stories while on the witness stand. But prosecutors held up their original statements to police as evidence.
"They want to be seen as loyal criminals and not snitches," said Ranier, explaining their shaky testimony. "They all feel a little guilty for snitching to police."Atkins, 15 at the time of Breaux's death, had admitted he was one of the four teens following Breaux to the corner of Orchid and North Dupre, where he said Duncan tried to rob the man with the white beard and hair.
"Give it up, give it up, " Duncan ordered Breaux, who refused to comply and walked away from the group of boys, according to Atkins' testimony in 2005. That's when Duncan shot him, Atkins testified.
Duncan, who has never given a statement or testified in the case, was convicted of Breaux's murder in 2005. But the verdict was overturned after the courts decided that New Orleans police wrongly withheld the fact that they interviewed an 8-year-old boy who said he saw the murder.
"We had to put this case back together," said District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro outside the courthouse Monday. "We're going to continue to fight for the people of this city in the cases of violence, no matter how old they are or the setbacks we experience in the course of prosecution."
The boy and his mother didn't appear at Duncan's second trial. Instead, prosecutors and the defense team read aloud into the record their prior statements from courtroom transcripts. The boy said that only one teenager was following Breaux, but prosecutors said the statement was simply a child's attempt to help police after witnessing a terrifying crime.
Duncan will get a second chance at life when he turns 31, prosecutors pointed out.
"These are all privileges that Daniel Breaux didn't get on May 1, 2004," Ranier said. "John Duncan didn't care about the consequences. He turned his face into hamburger meat, and left him to die on a Mid-City street, like Daniel Breaux was just a cockroach he was stepping on."
New Orleans police impugned
Defense attorney Ferdinand Valteau III had a field day during his closing argument, relentlessly pointing out the soiled reputation of the New Orleans Police Department as having a culture of corruption when it comes to "fixing" cases.
"Hiding evidence; not doing tests," Valteau said in closing arguments. "Incompetence. Are they really solving cases or just fixing cases?"
Valteau argued that Atkins was the shooter, and surmised that police merely coerced the boys to pin the murder on Duncan in order to escape prison themselves.
At one point, Judge Pittman admonished Valteau for telling the jury that prosecutors were trying to "hide" evidence - after Valteau mistakenly tried to show the jury a poster-sized page of a transcript that the court hadn't approved.
Without scientific evidence or independent witnesses, the Orleans Parish district attorney's office five years ago built its case upon the testimony of Atkins, a three-time juvenile offender who cut a deal with the state in exchange for his testimony against Duncan.
'This is how you do it'
Walls had "chickened out," Ranier said, as the group shadowed Breaux who was walking to his car after attending the Jazz Fest at the Fair Grounds.
But Breaux shooed the teens away and kept walking, prosecutors said, drawing Duncan's anger and trigger finger.
"Duncan takes the gun and says, 'This is how you do it,'" Ranier said. "He waits for Daniel Breaux to walk past him and shoots him in the back of the head."
Five years after they were teenagers narrowly escaping a murder charge for Breaux's killing, all three of Duncan's former co-defendants are facing violent felony charges of their own.
Atkins, at one point the key witness against his three co-defendants, pleaded guilty in August 2004 to attempted armed robbery, and was later sentenced to five years in prison, with credit for time served.
Atkins is currently facing three felony charges. "He's going to be in jail longer than this guy," Ranier said, pointing to Duncan.
Cannizzaro said after the verdict that Atkins, Curtis and Walls may have opened themselves up to perjury charges for "falsely testifying for the defense" this time around.
Gwen Filosa can be reached at email@example.com or 504.826.3304.

subset: commoncrawl


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SLS 4134/5134 Library Resources for Young Adults -- 3 unit(s)
Collection management strategies as these relate to resources available in, and accessible from, secondary school libraries, with a focus on resource-based teaching and learning. Role of the school teacher librarian as information specialist. Prerequisite(s): junior standing. Prerequisite(s) or corequisite(s): 350:114 (SLS 4114/SLS 5114) or consent of program coordinator.
Term: Fall 2012
Start/End Date: Aug 20, 2012 - Dec 14, 2012
Meeting Time: Arranged
This class meets via Adobe Connect Mondays, August 27, September 10, 17, 24, October 1, 8, 15, 22, November 5, 12, 26, and December 3 from 5:30-6:30pm. Students will need broadband Internet access. This class meets on campus in LIB 123 on Saturday, August 25 from 2:00-5:00pm.
Location (Facility ID): eLearning + Adobe Connect
Instruction Mode: Online
Yolanda Hood, Instructor
Class Section: 60
Class Nbr: 34905/34871
If two numbers are listed, undergraduate level class number is listed first, graduate level class number is listed second.
Course Notes: This course is for the Fall 2012 School Library Studies MA Program.
This course will utilize Adobe Connect
To enroll:
Click here to enroll through Continuing and Distance Education.
For more information:
Rita Gutman, Continuing and Distance Education
Phone: 800-772-1746 or 319-273-2504
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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This deal has ended.
This Samsung 15.6 Inch Laptop, Model NP365E5C-S04US, drops from $449.99 to $399.99 at Tiger Direct. With free shipping, this is the best price we could find for this laptop anywhere. It features an AMD dual core processor, a 500 GB hard drive, Windows 8, and more. There is no sales tax (except FL, IL, NC, TX, GA, SD and ID).No longer available


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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Foreclosure filings in Alabama last quarter dropped by nearly one-fifth compared with a year ago, but they were up nearly 3 percent from the previous quarter, according to mortgage researcher RealtyTrac.
There were 4,534 properties in the foreclosure process in the quarter, or one in every 479 properties. The number was an 18.6 percent drop from the first quarter of last year but a 2.81 percent increase from the previous quarter.
For March, Madison County ranked third in the state with 117 properties in foreclosure, or one in every 1,252. Jefferson County had 396 properties; Mobile was next at 241; followed by Madison County; Montgomery County, 114; and Shelby County,98.
There were 1,647 properties statewide in foreclosure for the month, which is one in every 1,319 - a 2.17 percent increase from February but a 29.43 decrease from March 2011.
Alabama ranked 33rd in the country for the number of foreclosures in the quarter and 30th for March.
Jackson County had four foreclosure filings, one in every 6,197 properties; Limestone County had nine filings, one in every 3,866; Marshall County had 51 filings, one in every 791; and Morgan County had 54 filings, one in every 948 properties.
Nationwide, RealtyTrac said 572,928 properties were in a phase of the foreclosure process - down 2 percent from the previous three months and 16 percent from the first quarter of 2011.
The first quarter total was the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2007, when 527,740 properties with foreclosure filings were reported, RealtyTrac said. The report shows one in every 230 U.S. housing units with a foreclosure filing during the quarter.
In March, there were 198,853 foreclosure filings nationwide, a 4 percent decrease from February and a 17 percent drop from March 2011. March's total was the lowest monthly total since July 2007, and also the first monthly total below 200,000 since July 2007," RealtyTrac said.
"The low foreclosure numbers in the first quarter are not an indication that the massive reservoir of distressed properties built up during the past few years has somehow miraculously evaporated," RealtyTrac CEO Brandon Moore said in the statement. "There are hairline cracks in the dam, evident in the sizable foreclosure activity increases in judicial foreclosure states over the past several months, along with an increase in foreclosure starts in many judicial and non-judicial states in March.
"The dam may not burst in the next 30 to 45 days, but it will eventually burst, and everyone downstream should be prepared for that to happen - both in terms of new foreclosure activity and new short sale activity."
First-time foreclosure starts, either default notices or scheduled foreclosure auctions depending on the state's foreclosure process, increased 7 percent from February to March, the third-straight monthly increase, RealtyTrac said. Foreclosure starts in March exceeded 100,000 for the first time since November 2011, although they were still down 11 percent from March 2011.
States with the biggest monthly increases in foreclosure starts included Nevada (up 153 percent), Utah (up 103 percent), New Jersey (up 73 percent), Maryland (up 53 percent) and North Carolina (up 47 percent). Thirty-one states - including Alabama - posted monthly increases in foreclosure starts in March.
California's 133,245 properties with foreclosure filings in the first quarter was the highest total of any state and accounted for 23 percent of U.S. foreclosure activity during the quarter. Florida was second highest with 73,344 properties with foreclosure filings during the quarter.


text:
LaRon Landry Family Day in the Park
Sunday, July 20, 2014 12:27 PM
Inappropriate photo? Alert us.
A variety of gear is on sale during the Family Day in the Park at the Westbank Bridge Park in Luling on Saturday, July 19, 2014. (Photo by Peter G. Forest)
Related articles
- NFL player LaRon Landry sponsors Family Day in Luling July 22, 2014, 8:03 AM


text:
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the header says elmwood but i still managed to show up to the spot coffee at delaware and chippewa. :( fortunately there were players at that spot too. next time i will try to show up at the right place.
whazzup Buffalo! thanks for the heads up! ill stop by the spot tonight , so be ready for my tricks!!! hehe. Peace.
Western New York Chess
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text:
CS201 High Performance Computing
From Bioinformatics.Org Wiki
This course teaches biologists how to implement High Performance Computing (HPC) strategies for data management and analysis tasks in biological research and to resolve difficult Big Data related problems. Data can be DNA or amino acid sequences, microarray or NGS data, images, mass spectrometry data, text articles, or any other kind of biological information.
The course is divided into 4 sessions, roughly 1 hour each. The 5th session is reserved for project discussion and any other issues the students may want to discuss.
- Session 1
Basic architectures and methods for implementing HPC on powerful servers, clusters and the cloud
- Session 2
Various multi-threaded applications for sequence search and read alignment, as well as basic usage of multiple cores simultaneously using Linux processes
- Session 3
Cluster computing using job managers such as SGE, LSF and PBS
- Session 4
Cloud computing and how to use Amazon Web Services to request resources (instances) at will, add datasets, and run applications
Scheduled courses
If you are interested in an upcoming course, register using instructions below. (Access to completed courses is available to enrolled students only, because of privacy and confidentiality issues.)
- Upcoming courses
- Completed courses
- Ongoing courses
Registration for courses at Bioinformatics.Org takes two steps:
- Step 1
- If you haven't already done so, create an on-line account to access the educational section of our website. Please note that the registration for our educational system is separate from that of the main website; you will require another account.
- Step 2
- Register for the course by making a payment using either the on-line registration form (click on the name of the course where it appears in the list of upcoming courses; use this form only for PayPal payments and credit card payments via secured PayPal), or by sending in the registration form (PDF; use this form if paying by US checks, credit card or corporate purchase order).
Please also check the course tuition rates and discounts.
Registration deadline: When full
Tuition & discounts
- Live instruction held on-line
- For-profit & government: $1,000 USD
- Non-profit & self-pay: $600 USD
- Live instruction held on-site
- For-profit & government: $1,200 USD
- Non-profit & self-pay: $800 USD
- On-demand instruction held on-line
- For-profit & government: $600 USD
- Non-profit & self-pay: $400 USD
Additional discounts are available as follows:
- Professional members: 20% discount
- Limited scholarships may also be available for those residing in low-income economies (please inquire).
The necessary software, lecture notes and exercises will be provided.
Live instruction held on-line
On-line/live courses use the WebEx on-line meeting system. Access information will be provided prior to the start of the course. Unless otherwise noted, each lecture begins at 16:00 GMT and runs for about two hours, depending on the topics covered.
For those who cannot attend the lectures at those times, the lectures will be recorded and placed on the course website as AVI video files each day, within one day. Students will also be able to communicate with the instructor and other students via the course forums. Lecture attendance is therefore not required.
Since this will be an interactive, hands-on workshop, all attendees will need a computer with a broadband Internet connection (1 Mbps or faster is strongly recommended for those watching the live lecture), a sound card with speakers, a modern Web browser, and Java. A microphone and webcam are not required but may be used.
This course is certified by the Bioinformatics Organization, Inc., the largest international affiliation in the field, and it will count as 6 "Continuing Scientific Education" (CSE) units (one unit per contact hour) within the Organization. Students completing the course will receive a certificate attesting to that.
Refund policy
For any course type, if a student is not satisfied with the conduct or content of a course, they may request a full refund within the first two days of lecture. After two days but within a week, a 50% refund will be granted. After one week, a 100% credit toward another course will be granted. No refunds or credits apply beyond those stated here.
Additional information
Please contact us for questions or additional information.


text:
The top basketball players rise above... literally and figuratively.
We wanted to put together a list of the top candidates for The Star-Ledger's boys basketball Player of the Year award now that we're at midseason, and we had plenty of stars to choose from. We took everything into account: offense, defense, strength of schedule, potential.
Just to be clear, this is not a list of the state's best 10 players. We have not included players from non-NJSIAA prep schools, for example, so you won't see St. Benedict's Prep star Tyler Ennis, for example, or Princeton Day School standout Davon Reed, because prep players are not eligible for The Star-Ledger's award.
What we have here is an alphabetical list of the top candidates for Player of the Year, midway through the season.
Check out our selections by browsing through the photo gallery, above.
Enjoy, and leave Comments below, whether you agree or disagree with our list. We want to hear your opinion.


text:
Entrees are served with baked potato or rice (excluding pastas),
vegetable of the day, and a freshly prepared breadstick.
Sinatra Steak & Shrimp
Two beef tenderloin medallions and five sweet, flavorful shrimp
pan-fried Cajun style with a light, buttery white wine sauce
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onions, and bacon. $19.99
Door County Cherry BBQ Ribs
Slow-roasted premium extra meaty baby back ribs smothered in our
home-made cherryu BBQ sauce. $21.99
Spinach Artichoke Chicken Breast
Grilled chicken breast topped with our home made creamy spinach
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Seven Pepper Grilled Salmon
Norwegian salmon filet glazed with honey and our blend of seven
peppers seasoning. $19.99
Pan Fried Walleye
Hand breaded to order and lightly sautéed.
Southwest Tilapia
Seasoned tilapia fillet baked to perfection.
Shrimp Pesto Cavatappi
Fresh cavatappi pasta tossed with sautéed shrimp.
Four Cheese Pasta
Penne pasta tossed with our signature light tomato cream sauce and
cheddar, Monterey Jack, Provolone, and Parmesan
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breast $4.99
Shrimp Pesto Penne
Fresh penne pasta tossed with sauteed shrimp, fresh garlic,
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All sandwiches served with potato chips. Substitute French Fries
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French Dip
Lean roast beef stacked atop French bread with au jus served on
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Certified Angus Beef Burger
A half-pound certified Angus Beef burger topped with cheddar
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Rachel Sandwich
Thinly sliced turkey, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and 100 Island
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Blacksmith Wrap
Tender marinated steak, lettuce, tomato, caramelized onions and
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Beer Battered Cod
Our chef has reeled in a secret batter recipe for you to
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Pan Fried Whitefish
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Beer battered cod plate with fries and coleslaw.
Butternut Squash Soup
Delicious oven-roasted squash seasoned with apples and a hint of
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Your server will mention our ever-changing selections. Cup or
Bowl. $2.99 / $3.99
House Salad
Lettuce greens tossed with mushrooms, red onions, tomatoes,
cucumbers & home style croutons. $4.99
Apple Walnut Salad
Fresh Granny Smith apples, candied walnuts, and fresh spring
lettuce. $11.99
Chicken Caesar Salad
A traditional romaine lettuce salad topped with grilled
chicken breast slices. Includes a fresh
breadstick. $12.99
Chicken Quesadilla
Stuffed with grilled tender chicken, Monterey Jack and
Cheddar cheeses, topped with fresh tomatoes, black olives, and red
onions. $11.99
Hot Artichoke Dip
Fresh spinach and artichoke hearts are blended together
in a creamy parmesan sauce and served hot in a freshly baked French
bread bowl. $11.50 Add extra bread for $1.50
Santa Fe Nachos
Tri-colored crispy corn tortilla chips, piled high with fixings
and served with authentic picante sauce and sour
cream. $11.99
White Cheddar Curds
Cheese at its best! Real Wisconsin cheddar cheese deep-fried to a
golden crisp. $9.99
Boneless Wings
Half pound of tender wings tossed with your choice of chipotle,
Sweet BBQ, or spicy buffalo sauce. $8.50
Garlic Breadsticks
Served with cheese sauce and pizza sauce. $8.99
Hand-tossed style crust loaded with cheese and your choice of one
topping. Additional toppings available: $1.50 ea. Pepperoni,
Sausage, Mushrooms, Onions, Peppers, Black Olives.
7" for $9.49 or 12" for $14.99
Spinach Artichoke Chicken Pizza
Creamy spinach artichoke sauce spread over crust and topped with
grilled chicken and mozzarella cheese. 12" for $17.99
Mighty Meaty Pizza
This pizza is loaded with your favorites: pepperoni, sausage,
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Gluten Free Pizza
Hot and delicious. 10" crust for $16.99
Meals in this Little Mate's children's menu are served with a
small beverage. Add French Fries to any meal for a $1.00 extra.
Cheese Quesadilla
Served with applesauce and fresh carrot sticks. $5.99
Served with applesauce and fresh carrots. $5.99
Macaroni & Cheese
Served with applesauce and fresh carrots. $5.99
Chicken Fritters
Served with applesauce and fresh carrots. $6.99
Mini Pizza
Cheese, pepperoni or sausage. $8.99
Beef and Cheese Nachos
Homemade tortilla chips with seasoned beef and cheese.
Grilled Cheese
Served with fresh carrot sticks and apple sauce.
Pasta Marinara
Served with a breadstick. $6.99
Kids Fish Fry Plate
Beer breaded cod plate with French Fries and coleslaw.
Door County Cherry Crisp
Individually baked cherry pie with a crispy crumb
crust. $3.99 Add vanilla ice
cream. $1.25
Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sundae
Warm chocolate chip cookies surround French vanilla ice cream
topped with rich chocolate and raspberry sauce.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
It's creamy, it's crunchy, it tastes like a peanut butter cup.
Dark chocolate mousse, a creamy peanut butter blend, and smooth
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Flourless Chocolate Cake Torte
Simple, elegant and timeless. Perfect for when you crave a
knockout chocolate punch. $5.99
Cherry Cheesecake
New York style premium cheesecake topped with real Door County
cherries. $4.99
4929 Landmark Drive
Egg Harbor, Wisconsin 54209
Toll Free: 1-800-273-7877
Local: 920-868-3205
Fax: 920-868-2569
Website by:Infinity Technology, Inc.


text: The library checks to make sure it is actually speaking to a FrontEnd by examining the DEBIAN_HAS_FRONTEND variable. If it is set, a FrontEnd is assumed to be running. If not, the library turns into one, and runs a copy of the script that loaded the library connected to it. This means that if you source this library, you should do so very near to the top of your script, because everything before the sourcing of the library may well be run again.


text:
I made Tinkerbell from clay, added a hook in her back, baked and glazed her. The lantern is a plastic canister turned upside down with a hole drilled in the top for the clear elastic cord to suspend Tinkerbell. I added a multi-color LED light to the bottom so that it would shine on her and change colors.
CakeCentral.com is the world's largest cake community for cake decorating professionals and enthusiasts.
(if this is a private computer)
Yes please, register now!


text:
The revolution is on hold.
A dozen public school athletic directors from the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League yesterday tabled a radical plan to secede from their conference, choosing instead to wait for a state proposal for realignment.
The move came after the athletic directors, who no longer want to compete against private schools, heard details of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association's initial plans for merging leagues and conferences for the 2009-10 school year.
Jack Dubois, assistant director at the NJSIAA, told the NNJIL athletic directors at their regularly monthly meeting in Paterson that his agency will announce next week a 30-member committee that will essentially redraw the state map for high school sports.
Dubois' goal yesterday was to put down a rebellion that threatened high school sports in the 21-school NNJIL, thought the state's long-term goal is to create more parity with larger conferences where the best teams mostly compete against one another.
"The NJSIAA has a plan, and we are moving forward with it," Dubois said after the NNJIL's meeting in Paterson. "I understand the concern here and the urgency these athletic directors have about the issue. We're taking proactive steps to address it."
The NJSIAA proposals are expected to be the most significant changes in high school sports competition since 1982, when the state mandated private schools get access to the state's athletic conferences.
Since then, competition between public and private schools has become the most controversial issue for the state's 243,000 scholastic athletes. Scores of public school officials claim it is unfair for them to have to play against private schools that can draw the best athletes from anywhere in the state while most public schools must compete with students who live within their districts.
The issue came to a head last month at the NJSIAA's annual membership meeting, where public school administrators came within eight votes of forcing public and private schools into separate leagues.
After the vote failed, 12 public schools in the NNJIL submitted letters to the conference stating their intention to secede and become independent, a move that surely would have resulted in a court fight if the schools continued to pursue it.
Nutley athletic director Joe Piro, who led the efforts to separate public and private schools and pushed to secede from the NNJIL, said yesterday the state deserved a chance to fix the problem, though he was less than optimistic.
"They are still skating around the issue," Piro said. "Regardless of how this process goes, there are still going to be some people who do not want their kids playing against non-public schools."
Dubois said the NJSIAA's realignment committee will address those concerns during a series of meetings during the next several months. The committee will produce a recommendation in September that would become the framework of a new conference alignment for the following school year.
Msgr. Michael Kelly, headmaster of Seton Hall Prep, who worked to keep private and public schools in the same leagues, said he was encouraged by the willingness of the public schools in the NNJIL to let the state try to fix the problem.
"It makes a lot more sense to do it peacefully and calmly and keep it out of the courts," Kelly said yesterday.
Dubois and other state officials have held up the 41-member Shore Conference as a model. There, schools play in divisions based on the strength of their individual sports programs.
However, Piro said such a system only works because the private schools in the Shore Conference haven't made a major commitment to athletics.
"All they have to do is make a commitment to dominate,'' Piro said. ''When a non-public makes that commitment, it has the tools in the box to make it happen."


text:
A new exhibit showcasing Alaskans who've competed in the Olympic Games is open now through Sept. 3 at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center in Alaska's largest city.
"Inspiring Generations: The Olympic Legacy of the Last Frontier," features Alaska talent and Olympiad history revealed "through photography, video and objects such as the 1984 Olympic torch," 2012 Team USA uniforms and an inter-active Olympic podium, according to the Museum's website.
With the opening ceremonies complete and the London torch lit, four Alaskans will be competing for Olympics glory and state pride.
Here's a schedule of Alaska Olympian competition times:
- Women's trapshooter Corey Cogdell, of Eagle River, competes Aug. 4 from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. AKST.
- Janay Deloach of Fairbanks, will take on the Women's long jump qualifier Aug. 7 at 1 a.m. AKST and hopefully the final round, Wednesday, Aug. 8 at 2:00 a.m. AKST.
- Fairbanks' Jamie (Beyerle) Gray will show her skill in Women's 3-position Air rifle Aug. 4 from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. AKST.
- The lone male Alaskan athlete, Matt Emmons of Fairbanks, is also a double eventer in Men's 50-meter prone and Men's 3-position rifle. His events are set to begin in August, with the 50-meter pron on Aug. 3 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. AKST and 3-position on Aug. 6, 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. AKST.
Visit the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson's website for more information. Find a comprehensive schedule of 2012 London Olympics competitions here.


text:
MONTPELIER (AP) -- Vermont legislators are concerned about the future of the Brattleboro Retreat, the private psychiatric hospital that is now housing a number of patients that would have been housed ad the now-closed state hospital in Waterbury as the facility works to correct violations that could jeopardize its federal funding and certification.
Peter Albert, vice president for government relations, told members of the Mental Health Oversight Committee on Thursday the Retreat awaits a surprise inspection by federal regulators, which will occur by Aug. 15.
"This is incredibly serious and we are taking it incredibly seriously," Albert told the committee.
The psychiatric hospital has been treating patients for 179 years. It's provided the largest share of acute psychiatric care capacity to fill the gap created by the forced closure of the 54-bed Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury after flooding from Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 inundated the state office complex.
The panel spent much of its meeting receiving briefings on the state of the mental health system 11 months into a reorganization triggered by the closure of the state hospital, according to published reports.
Rep. Ann Pugh, D-South Burlington, asked if there were contingency plans in place in case the Retreat loses its federal certification.
Interim Mental Health Commissioner Frank Reed answered, "We are pulling a work group together."


text:
On March 17, 2009, CEOs and world leaders-including The Prince of Asturias, Felipe de Borbón y Grecia-gathered in New York for the Spain/U.S. Business Sustainability Conference. At the event Chief Executive Editor-in-Chief J.P. Donlon moderated two panel discussions in which political and industry thought leaders from the U.S. and Spain discussed opportunities posed by greater investment in renewable energy, transportation and infrastructure. The following are highlights from those discussions.
Energy & the Environment
With investment in renewable energy, transportation and infrastructure serving as a cornerstone of the Obama Administration's economy recovery plan, it's clear that the U.S. is at a critical juncture in planning for the nation's energy needs, agreed panelists participating in the discussion on Energy & the Environment at the Spain/U.S. Business Sustainability Conference.
"We are right at a crossroads," noted Ralph Curry, president and CEO of Iberdrola Renewables. "The collision of three important forces—the desire for energy independence, sustainable jobs and environmental stewardships— will influence our future energy decisions. I've been in the energy business for more than 25 years and that's something I've never seen before."
"The best guess is that approximately $90 billion of the funding provided in the stimulus bill is focused on renewables and clean technology, which is an extraordinary amount," added Chris Groobey, a partner of Baker & McKenzie's energy, infrastructure and project finance practice. What's more, the Administration is currently pushing forward on capand- trade legislation; a national renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requiring that 20 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025; and an energy bill that will, among other things, mandate a level of efficiency for government buildings.
State governments have also been raising the bar by setting ambitious energy policy goals. New York State Governor James A. Paterson has announced that "45 percent of New York State's electricity needs will be met through improved energy efficiency and greater use of clean renewable energy by 2015." The "45 by 15" proposal calls for increasing the state's mix of renewable electric energy resources-now about 20 percent-to 30 percent, and decreasing electricity usage by 15 percent.
That initiative is already having a ripple effect. "In response, we have set a renewable energy business plan to invest $21 million in things like solar, wind and fuel cells over the next five years," said Victoria Simon, chief of staff, director of energy policy for the New York Power Authority (NYPA). That $21 million supplements the organization's existing plan to invest $1.3 billion between 2008 and 2015 in energy efficiency programs, she noted.
But like the rest of the country, New York City faces an accessibility challenge. "Renewable energy, particularly wind, is plentiful but not located near load centers," Simon explained. "The power authority is studying transmission expansion and looking to connect more wind and other renewables to the grid."
Wind and solar power are often viewed as the renewable energy sources with the most potential. Both are intermittent sources (the wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine) and are most efficiently collected in areas far from where power is most heavily consumed.
Despite these similarities, their merits are hotly debated. "We believe that, while there are all kinds of exciting new technology that can be developed over the long term, wind is the only economical, feasible option with scale and scope in the short term," noted Curry. "To supply 20 percent of the nation's energy needs by 2030 we have to generate 300 gigawatts. Right now, we're 25 gigawatts in the U.S.-and that will take a tremendous investment in the smart grid."
German Bejarano Garcia, assistant CEO, international institutional relations at Abengoa, countered that thermo solar energy is "a technology- proven, mature high-potential course of action" that is both commercially viable and competitive. "You can store heat, which is a great advantage of thermo solar as compared to other renewables," he pointed out. "Nonetheless, there are still obstacles in the development of solar technologies in the U.S. regarding the transmission lines, land permits and [the lack of a cap on carbon dioxide emissions]."
But the biggest obstacle may be the paradigm shift that a U.S. transition to renewable energy sources will demand across the board. "Sustainability requires the alignment of public, private and user perspectives and interests," asserted Silvia Iranzo, Spain's Secretary of State for Commerce. "Spain ranks second in solar energy and third in wind power. We have gotten there by combining three forces: production, industry and a stable regulatory framework."
The U.S. will need to advance in all three areas, noted Garcia. "To make this transition faster and efficient we will need the support of public policies, as well as public and private sectors working efficiently and thoughtfully."
"After a checkered past, we're moving in the right direction with the passage of the recent stimulus bill," summed up Curry, who cited President Obama's pledge to end U.S. dependence on Middle East oil as a reason for optimism. "We have a lot of work to continue, but the vision for the future has been set."
Transportation & Infrastructure
The recent stimulus package-which earmarked some $150 billion for public works projects for transportation, energy and technology-suggests that investment in renewable energy, transportation and infrastructure is serving as a cornerstone of the Obama Administration's economy recovery plan. And for good reason.
Each year the average American living in an urban area spends nearly 38 hours, close to a full work week, stuck in traffic delays. In fact, transportation is now the second-biggest expense for most American households. What's more, reliance on a transportation system that is increasingly outdated contributes to a national dependency on oil.
In addition to a production-fueling necessity, updating transportation and other elements of the infrastructure on which productivity and the general well-being of the population rely-such as water supply, sewers, power grids and telecommunications-is also viewed as a way to help dig the nation out of an economic slump. "Infrastructure development is at the top of the agenda of many governments in these days of economic distress and downturn," Iranzo told attendees of the panel on Transportation & Infrastructure at the Spain/U.S. Business Sustainability Conference. "Infrastructure development allows for job creation. And building infrastructures fosters innovation and technological progress."
But viable solutions to fixing an inadequate infrastructure require strategic investing-taking a hard look at what projects have the best prospects for efficiently reducing congestion, carbon footprints and foreign oil dependency, and allocating funds accordingly. "Roads have been the single most important statewide infrastructure focus," reported Susan Combs, the comptroller of public accounts for the state of Texas. "That's partly because roads are what people see. You go someplace and get stuck or your child's school bus is forced off the road. So that's very present in people's minds."
Yet plans to invest heavily in building new roads are often contested by those who won't benefit from the improvement or by vocal opponents of the toll hikes that such improvements generally bring. "We've found that a regional plan works much better," Combs reported. "In Houston, Dallas and some other areas, traffic is so awful that people are willing to pay almost anything for speed. But rural dwellers don't see the value-why should they pay for somebody else's quality of life to improve?" To address the dilemma, she suggests a legislative policy shift that allocates toll road revenues to places with the most traffic and where "you see an immediate tangible effect."
There are significant enhanced capabilities to be had by upgrading to "smart" infrastructure. Current technology allows for highways that will warn drivers about traffic jams ahead, bridges that will transmit an alert when in danger of collapsing and electric power grids that can heal themselves in the event of a blackout. Already, radio receivers installed on several freeways in the San Francisco Bay area read the electronic toll tags in passing cars and use that information to track the speed of individual vehicles and determine travel times that can be posted on electronic road signs. But would the enhanced productivity and potential for eased-or possibly saved-lives justify the considerable expense of upgrading?
Probably, suggests Richard Chang, principal of The Carlyle Group, who notes that in addition to improving capacity, technology enhancements can also mitigate the need for costly road construction. "To the extent you can improve capacity of the road because you have free-flowing traffic, you can defer-not completely eliminate, but defer-some capital expenditure that would be required to widen the road, improve it or put in reversible lanes."
"We invest more money [in building and operating highways], but we supply more options, more alternatives, more facilities to the driver," asserted Juan Miguel Villar Mir, vice chairman of Spain's OHL Group, an engineering and construction firm. "Obviously, we get more paying cars each day. In Brazil [where OHL operates highways], we hire doctors, ambulances, and even teach kids from the small towns through which the toll road passes lessons of traffic, of driving experiences. We are sure that we get a return in excess of the amount of investment. No doubt about it."
Furthermore, in some cases the need by far outweighs any potential new or increased toll, he added. "My private perspective echoes what governors from Korea to Texas usually say: Free roads are better than toll roads, but toll roads are better than no roads-and that is the true alternative."


text:
|[Towertalk] EXACT resonant freq of a dipole --> AEA CIA HF analyzer?
|firstname.lastname@example.com (Tom Rauch)
|Mon, 8 Jul 2002 17:37:21 -0400
> > Before I buy one, can you please advise whether I will be able to do > this with an AEA CIA HF analyzer? It sure looks good on the > manufacturers specifications. I had an Autek RF-1 analyst before and I > was quite dissapointed with its accuracy. What else do you use for > tasks like this? Should I get the CIA or the VIA model? > > > (Why do I want to measure so exactly? I want to determine the velocity > factor of the wire used. The velocity factor is introduced by the > insulation covering the wire. Therefore the wire elements are always a > bit too long when cutting them to the dimensions taken from a computer > simulation. This is not a problem with dipoles but with wire yagis and > quads, where the parasitic elements must have exactly the proper > resonant frequency.) The length of feedline from the antenna to the measurement device will affect the measured resonant frequency, so you also must be sure the feedline is an exact multiple of 1/4 wl to determine EXACT resonant frequency. If it is not an exact multiple of 1/4wl, the line will shift the reactance off center or even create a "false' indication of antenna zero reactance. That's because the line will have some SWR, and the SWR will cause reactance shift in the line. An odd- 1/4 wl line will invert the sign of the reactance, but will not alter it's absolute value assuming the line is lossless. The next problem you might have is line loss. Feedlines do not have evenly distributed losses between conductor series resistance and dielectric losses. The conductor loss dominates the system. The end result of using a lossy feedline is it adds reactance to the system, skewing the results. You are trying to measure one of the most difficult things to measure with near-perfect accuracy. You will probably learn more about how difficult measurements like this actually are than you will about the insulation. Be careful the measurement method you use and equipment errors don't determine the results! 73, Tom W8JI firstname.lastname@example.com
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