text:
Highlights: Whitecaps FC 0 - 0 Seattle Sounders
VANCOUVER, BC - In the final regular season clash between these two Cascadia Cup rivals, Vancouver Whitecaps FC (10W-12L-9D) were held to a goalless draw by Interstate 5 rivals Seattle Sounders FC (13W-7L-10D) on Saturday evening.
In what was another pulsating Pacific Northwest derby clash, Whitecaps FC were left frustrated to only take a point after creating numerous chances against the Rave Green, especially in the second half. The entertainment of the contest could be seen in the number of shots taken by both clubs, with Vancouver outshooting Seattle 16 to 13.
Though they were a threat at times, Seattle will feel fortunate to come away with a second consecutive draw from downtown Vancouver, with the result also enough to secure Sounders FC's berth in the MLS Cup Playoffs for a fourth straight year.
The weekend result keeps Whitecaps FC in the fifth and final postseason spot in the MLS Western Conference standings - two points ahead of sixth-place FC Dallas - who drew 3-3 at top MLS club San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday night.
Playing in their third kit of Arbutus brown for the third and final time this season, Rennie changed his formation to 4-4-2 and made three changes, as centre back Andy O'Brien, midfielder John Thorrington, and striker Kenny Miller came into his starting XI.
The first half had all the hallmarks of a fierce derby battle, as some robust challenges were committed by both sides. What was disappointing for Whitecaps FC was to see Thorrington and striker Darren Mattocks forced off before the break with left and right hamstring strains, respectively.
Seattle are lauded in MLS for the flow and potency of their attack. On Saturday, the visitors created chances in the first quarter of an hour through Osvaldo Alonso and Brad Evans, who just missed connecting with Mauro Rosales' cross from the left on the break.
It was not until after the half-hour mark that Whitecaps FC really tested their foes from The Emerald City. Gershon Koffie missed the target with a couple of strikes, while the speedy Mattocks got in behind the Seattle backline on two occasions.
The second occasion proved a key moment on 38 minutes. The young Jamaican international went down in the Seattle box while challenging for the ball with Sounders FC centre back Jeff Parke. Despite huge calls from the 'Caps faithful for a penalty, none was awarded by match referee Silviu Petrescu. Moments later, Mattocks came off injured for Camilo Sanvezzo.
With the match still in the balance, Whitecaps FC looked the side more likely to score after the halftime break. Camilo made his presence felt soon after the restart, while Koffie and substitute Matt Watson were wide of the mark with long-range efforts.
On 48 minutes, Alain Rochat - who looked solid again as a holding midfielder – tested Gspurning with a long-distance pile driver that the Austrian international blocked away and into the path of Camilo. The Brazilian, however, was only able to turn the rebound into a half chance.
Another positive sign from Saturday's match was the way Vancouver contained Seattle's dangerous attack. Eddie Johnson had a couple of chances, while Young-Pyo Lee had to clear Parke's redirection of Christian Tiffert's corner off the goalline on 79 minutes. Substitute Steve Zakuani forced a fine save from Whitecaps FC goalkeeper Brad Knighton with a deflected shot on 89 minutes. It earned the shot-stopper his first clean sheet with the Blue and White.
BLOG: A derby contest, a blockbuster sporting weekend
With the game there for the taking, Whitecaps FC created more chances. Watson and Miller had goal-bound shots blocked away for Vancouver corners, while in the three minutes of stoppage time, captain Jay DeMerit struck a shot straight at Gspurning before Camilo left 'Caps fans in agony when he missed the target with the last kick of the match. The South American got on the end of Miller's flick from a Barry Robson cross and struck his shot just wide of the far post.
The final whistle meant Whitecaps FC's winless streak extended to seven matches, with Vancouver still searching for a first MLS victory over their arch-rivals from The Emerald City. Whitecaps FC will have a short turnaround, as they host Western Conference rivals Chivas USA at BC Place on Wednesday night.
Budweiser Man of the Match: Gershon Koffie
Referee: Silviu Petrescu
Attendance: 21,000
Scoring summary:
no scoring
Match Stats:
Shots: Vancouver 16 – Seattle 13
Shots on Goal: Vancouver 3 – Seattle 4
Saves: Vancouver 3 - Seattle 3
Fouls: Vancouver 11 – Seattle 17
Offsides: Vancouver 3 – Seattle 1
Corners: Vancouver 9 – Seattle 3
49' - VAN - Jordan Harvey
55' - SEA - Jeff Parke
Vancouver Whitecaps FC
18.Brad Knighton; 12.Young-Pyo Lee, 40.Andy O'Brien, 6.Jay DeMerit, 3.Jordan Harvey; 28.Gershon Koffie, 4.Alain Rochat, 14.Barry Robson, 11.John Thorrington (16.Matt Watson 17'); 22.Darren Mattocks (37.Camilo Sanvezzo 42'), 7.Kenny Miller
Substitutes not used: 1.Joe Cannon, 9.Atiba Harris, 15.Martin Bonjour, 27.Jun Marques Davidson, 31.Russell Teibert
Seattle Sounders FC
1.Michael Gspurning; 5.Adam Johansson, 31.Jeff Parke, 34.Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, 12.Leo Gonzalez; 10.Mauro Rosales (11.Steve Zakuani 70'), 6.Osvaldo Alonso, 13.Christian Tiffert, 3.Brad Evans (25.Andy Rose 74'); 17.Fredy Montero, 7.Eddie Johnson
Substitutes not used: 33.Andrew Weber, 8.Marc Burch, 15.Mario Martinez, 20.Zach Scott, 26.Sammy Ochoa


text:
What man? I don't know what's up
Get past me people, get pass me hit me
That was me that you missed
I'm the one you've been missing and wishing
For listen! (alright)
All commands will be coming from the goddamn top (Hit me!)
I'm the maestro (too bad)
I'm the nigga with the stick in this bitch (oh yeah)
Arranger, director, conductor
Any other fucking names you can think of (hit me)
I got drums and shit, tom-toms and shit
I got congos and bongos and guitars and keyboards and cymbals and horns all up in this bitch ..
Hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it
Wow, wow, kind of shit you ain't heard on the Box in a while!
Even the white people sitting up in this motherfucker can't do nothing but say wow!
Hear that Helen?
He's tearing it up, that fella
I'd love to get my hands on those a capellas
That nigga sicker and slicker than oil on the pelican
We on the one
Me and KL like Abbott and Costello
We go together like stanky and smelly
Tummy and belly, peanut butter jelly (Hit it)
That's some fool, there, your mommas say, "That's my groove, there!"
Fuck the dumb shit, kill 'em with the drum kick
Give it to the nigga with the drum stick
Hit it!
I'm flipping on the record like an acrobat
You can't stop me cause it's something that I'm natural at
Even in the wake of my aftermath, I catch you bitches
I'm losing my alphabet (what)
ABCD, see these bitches?
LMNO bitches
OSTR, hit it
(Hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it)
You can tell I'm getting money by how they lining up
But when I'll lead them, they'll be whining like them Monicas
Whether they diamonds, Madonnas, designers, iguanas
Rihanna, vaginas, piranha, hit it!
I'm getting too old to be calling names
Saying bitches and hoes cause it's all the same
On top of that the rappers always getting all the blame
But is it really cause the niggas are just off the chain (hit it)
Chicka bow chicka bow bow
Toot it up, I got something for that round brown
Black man, put your mother fucking crown on
Pull your fucking pants up, band, break it down now
Even the white people sit in this motherfucker be nothing but got doing nothing but say
Wow? Look there Judy, that goddamn band's pretty groovy
I bet you two bumps off my ass
If you play this for Mum, she'll shake her booty
Hit it
Get down the beat
Never ever ever been beat on the beat
Been more speedy than a cheetah with the rhythm I keep
Bass drum thumpin like elephant feet
Cappin on these rappers like Muhammad Ali
I'm the greatest, I'm pretty
I open line in the jungle
I send a brick to the goddamn hospital
Rumble, young man rumble!
This is totally ludicrous, it's preposterous
You guys are fucking losers
You're gonna piss me off
I'm gonna run through you fucking losers
They pissed me off, and we gonna knock you bums off
I'mma run through you
Prepare the beat! It's funky I'm bad (yeah) bad (yeah)
I'mma do my thing
Baby, baby, baby, baby hit me!
Say it proud! I'm black and I'm loud!
Say it proud! I'm black and I'm loud! (loud)
Say it proud! I'm black and I'm loud!
Say it proud! I'm black and I'm loud!
You gotta give homage
Soul brother number one, James Brown, ain't nobody do it better
Hit it!
Bad man
Michael J
Hit it, hit it, hit it

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Will You Be My Black Friend?
Sure, we may elect a black president this month. And yeah, Oprah has all kinds of white ladies in her audience. But in real life, it seems the older you get, the less chance you have of being friends with someone who is not in your racial demographic. Can a nice white boy make some black friends if he puts his mind to it? Devin Friedman posts an ad on Craigslist to find out
People basically want to do one of three things on Craigslist: buy a sofa, find a place to live, or get a blow job in the next fifteen minutes. You can do other things, I guess, like find a tennis partner or someone to read your aura. But are you sure "aura reader" doesn't really mean "guy who's willing to give you a blow job in the next fifteen minutes"? It probably doesn't seem like the right place to make a new friend, only a new "friend." Friendships are supposed to happen naturally. But ask yourself: Do they? The last time I made a black friend was eight years ago.
I listed my ad in the "activities" section of the Web site. I avoided the "casual encounters" section. I had the ad vetted to make sure I wasn't using some unintended shorthand that means I'm looking for someone to beat me up while I vacuum his living room. I labeled my post "Looking for African-American Friend." I thought about saying "black." There's a difference between the terms black and African-American, and, constitutionally, I'm in the "black" camp. White people who say "African-American" are the same people who keep bottles of Purell hand sanitizer in their knapsacks. But I still wrote "African-American." It's a delicate thing, taking out an advertisement for a black friend.
My Craigslist post said, among other things, "I'm a 36-year-old white guy. I grew up in a diverse neighborhood and have always gone to diverse schools. I've always had a decent number of black friends. That's changed over time. I work in the publishing industry, which is super white, and I've realized that my group of friends is getting whiter and whiter.… It's amazing to me that almost everyone I know has either black friends or white friends, but not both. We could have a black president, and still not have a very mid country." Then I added a few more lines about don't let me show up at the bar and you've got a horse tranquilizer for my drink. I guess you could say the post ran a little long. I guess you could say I was worried about the possibility of a misunderstanding.
Why one would take out an ad on the Internet looking for a black friend is a legitimate question. Here's my answer:
I had a cocktail party the other night. A natural moment to look around at the demographics of your life. And I thought: Jesus Christ, there are a lot of white people in this room. I've always thought of the whiteness of my adult life as a temporary condition. Like somehow all these white people have been foisted on me; pretty soon it'll change; it's probably my wife's fault. But it's time to acknowledge that I've become a character in a Wes Anderson movie. I wear white tennis sneakers from the '70s. I listen to ambient music. I have dinner parties where I serve Spanish rosé and this softer version of mozzarella that has a lovely, almost liquid center that you can only get at the Italian import store. I do yoga, and I get excited when it's ramp season. Sometimes I'd really like to punch myself in the face. (You might argue that I'm not describing "whiteness" but "arugula-ness"; but when black people have this lifestyle, they get accused of being white.) I used to make jokes about "look at us here at the weekend house in the Catskills in our blazers and sneakers eating the braised pork shoulder from the Jamie Oliver cookbook with the David Gray on in the background—aren't we like that Amstel Light commercial?" You know that Amstel Light commercial about the white people's country weekend—it's white-people pornography. But I stopped making the joke, because it stopped being a joke. Because I stopped noticing it.
About the cocktail party I mentioned: I invited my friends Twan and Rem, both black. Rem couldn't come, so there was just Twan. I mean, the math here is pretty stark: If something happened to Twan or Rem—if one of them moved, or one of them stopped liking me—the number of black friends I have would drop by 50 percent. It would be like when Colin Powell resigned from the Bush administration and there was just…Condoleezza Rice. There's a bright line there. The Condoleezza line. Admitting that you count your black friends is a violation of the Unracist White Person Magna Carta, but really, I couldn't handle walking around knowing that I have the same number of black friends as George W. Bush.
The next day, no one answered the ad. The day after that, no one answered it. On the third day, someone wrote back, "What are you some idiot LOL." I tried making it less boring, less qualied. I tried using the syntax from house-swap ads: "Will Trade My Whiteness for Your Blackness." Days of silence. I had to admit that I wasn't surprised. Would you answer an ad like that? Would you go out and meet the person who posted that ad without a Taser?
I didn't really want to put GQ in the post. I gured the spirit of the project should be enough motivation. The nobility of it. People should read the ad and think, Damn, he's right; let's reengineer society one man at a time. I'll also concede that I hoped this might yield an actual friend and not someone who only thought it'd be cool to be in a magazine. But no one was answering, so GQ went into the post.
The next day, Amber C—— wrote me to say, "so u wanna get some black friends well I'm black." Amber, what's the attitude about? I like it. I sent off an e-mail. I never heard from Amber C—— again.
A guy named Ajay e-mailed: "hey yr project sounds like fun. If u are doing any project on southasian -indian guys and need help let me know -I would be interested."
Meg sent this: "I am dark skined and I am married to a white person, we are both musicians and live very happy with each other." The word shiva was part of her e-mail address. It sounded like a scenario where I end up playing the didgeridoo with a white guy in dreads wearing pants woven out of mustard greens, which seemed a little off point.
I got the impression that these were people at the margins. People outside the operating social networks. There are psychologists who study the anatomy of the social network. Human connection, as the phrase six degrees of separation would suggest, should be spread evenly over all of us like a layer of peanut butter on toast. Only what it really looks like is a ball of yarn: Everyone within a social network, real or virtual, is more or less connected to one another. Your friends tend to be friends with your friends, or they will be soon. And most networks are not connected to each other. Your ball of yarn is your ball of yarn, it is discrete, and once you are inside it, it's hard to get out. This is what some research psychologists offer up as explanation for why black people and white people don't know each other. It may also be why it feels so hard to escape my little sliver of the Manhattan publishing industry.
In time, I got some more promising responses. I received an e-mail from a guy named Mike A——. Gingerly, the way you teach an injured bird to eat from your hand, we were able to convince each other that if we met, neither of us was going to try to kill the other one and make a dress out of his skin. He was from Nigeria and worked as a doorman in Tribeca. He said he liked the spirit of what I was trying to do. "America is in the process of re-inventing itself again and that's what makes America the greatest nation on Earth," he wrote. I assumed he was talking about Barack Obama.
He got off work at midnight, and I told him I'd meet him at Puffy's Tavern in Tribeca. I got to the bar early and ordered a Corona. Mike walked in wearing a striped golf shirt and jeans with a knapsack. I waved at him to identify myself. We smiled at each other and shook hands, and then we sat at the bar, facing the Red Bull display.
"I knew it wouldn't be hard to know it was me," he said. "I'd be the only black person in the bar!"
"So what part of Nigeria are you from?" I said.
He named a city I'd never heard of. His head was big and almost boxlike, and he had a kind smile, but there was something hardened about him. It wasn't difficult to imagine that he'd moved over here by himself and had been through long periods of solitude. A lot of the people who responded to the Craigslist post seemed to be outside any ball of yarn—independent actors like Mike A——, pinging through the social universe. But in a place the size of New York City, the size of the world, the margins are teeming, nely grained beaches of souls that can be heartbreaking to ponder.
"So you're from Woodside," I said. Woodside, I thought, is the neighborhood you drive through to get to LaGuardia.
"Woodhaven," he said. Maybe that was the neighborhood you drive through to get to LaGuardia. Or was it JFK? He lived there with a roommate whom he didn't know well. He'd been in a relationship for two years, but they'd recently broken up and she went to Houston. There are all kinds of Nigerians in Houston. She'd kept him on lockdown, he said, so he really didn't have friends to hang out with in the city.
"So I always thought doormen knew everything," I said. "Who's having an affair, who's been shut in their apartment for six weeks, who's ordering cocaine delivery at 3 a.m."
Mike laughed. "I don't know anything about that! It mostly seems like people are just so busy."
We struggled on. I tried to sound casual, but the rhythm was off. Because of the mixture of anxiety and boredom you feel when talking to someone you don't know very well for more than ve minutes. He'd said in his e-mail, "I love to traveling, hangout, like bars, lounges, irting with the girls, movies too…but only if its with a girl date, I think two guys watching a movie on a wknd is corny…unless they are couples lol." But I couldn't think of anything to ask him about traveling or lounges or couples lol. What did we have in common, really, besides 99.5 percent of our DNA?
"What does your wife think of you meeting me?" Mike said. "Like this."
"Um. What do you mean?"
Mike looked at me like, What do you mean, what do I mean?
In his e-mail, Mike had assured me: "I'm absolutely 100 percent straight and just looking for hangout buddies." Maybe when he asked what my wife thought of us being here, he was asking whether we had told each other that we were straight in some elaborate Kabuki-like form of mutual self-deception that now meant we could blow each other in the bathroom at Puffy's without actually being gay. It was also possible that he was just saying like, you know how women are, keeping you on lockdown.
I took the opportunity to mention my wife seven times in the next ten minutes.
Even when we changed the subject, the weirdness of being together hung in the air around us. The fact is, we were two men who'd met on Craigslist meeting for a drink at 1 a.m., which no matter what we talked about, was a fraught situation.
Maybe it wasn't about what color Mike was. Maybe the reason I hadn't made any black friends lately was partly because it's hard for men to make new friends, period, as life proceeds and one is no longer 23 years old and no longer has roommates named Jay and Sean and Josh. All new friends come prepackaged. All new friends are couple friends. MattAndChloe, Seth-AndSusan, ElizabethAndMichael. I can't say exactly why. I have a theory that men get more bearlike as they age, increasingly taciturn, hairy, prone to long spells of slumber, prone to growly solitary rummaging. The man can get unsocialized as he ages. And the married man can come to believe there's a division of labor: The woman forms the social connections, and the man is treated in social situations as if he were just learning to feed himself solid food again after a terrible accident. That's why the older the man gets, the more isolated he becomes, the more rareed his world is, the more other humans seem to be accelerating away from him, the more his friendships become dominated by gures so long known that they're more like comfortable marriages than friendships.
I've always been a little too aware of the race of my friends. One of the most embarrassing memories I have is when I was 8 years old and I made my uncle guess whether my best friend was black or white, and he just started laughing at me. "He's black!" I said, already feeling like there was something wrong with my question. I didn't know one of the basic unspoken rules in America, which my question (and this essay) is a violation of: It's okay to be proud of having black friends.
Contemporary life can be arranged as a series of homogeneous zones that white folks can glide between with only the most glancing, waiterly contact with all but the least foreign-seeming black people, or really with anyone different from you at all.
This best friend's name was Bobby Poindexter. He was tiny but adult-seeming even in the second grade. He wore a white vest to school sometimes. He was a little Marvin Gaye motherfucker. If you could smoke menthols in the second grade, that's what Bobby Poindexter would have done. He used to take me to his church, which was way different from any church I'd ever been to. He had an Aunt Bootie who was 400 years old, ate Horehound candy, and carried a purse lled with Bibles and what must have been twenty pounds of concrete. He introduced me to the idea that you could have "cousins" who weren't your cousins, and he called me "cuz," which was in retrospect a precursor to "nigga," which I bet he wouldn't have called me. I identied with Bobby Poindexter because he was bused into my elementary school and he existed outside the social strata of my world. I felt absolutely no social anxiety when I hung out with him, which made him one of a kind, if you didn't count my mom, who I couldn't bring to school with me.
Later, in high school, Bobby Poindexter was killed in a car accident. He was drunk and crashed into someone's living room. We all turned out for the funeral, the whole high school. I wrote an elegy of our friendship in the school newspaper about how we used to be best friends but when we got to the more racially diverse high school he sort of fell in with the black people, I fell in with whiter folks, and we stopped hanging out. It was the story of amicable racial estrangement, which is the story of every phase of my life. Like, the trend line in high school was toward segregation, despite us being forced together for meetings hosted by the Student Group on Race Relations, and the colloquia held in the small auditorium by professional public speakers who used to be in the Crips. College was more segregated but somehow odder, because there was no everyday racial tension. Black was black and white was white, and there was no articial, socially engineered program to change that. (Though I did insist on joining a fraternity with at least one black person. Exactly one black person, actually. Kari.) And as an adult? I wouldn't even use the word segregated anymore. Unless you could say that the French are segregated from the British.
Amicable racial estrangement is also the story of America at large, circa right now. Demographically, studies show that the country has been quietly resegregating—and this time, self-segregating. It's the era of racism without the actual racists—8 percent of white people say they would be "uncomfortable" voting for a black man to be president; it's the other 92 percent who say they'd vote for a black person, but as often as not aren't actually friends with one, that I'm talking about. Contemporary life can be arranged as a series of homogeneous zones that white folks can glide between—Westchester and Block Island and surng retreats in Mexico—with only the most glancing, waiterly contact with all but the least foreign-seeming black people, or really with anyone different from you at all. What's changed is, in the '70s and '80s, there was a kind of post-'60s social optimism about how we were going to sit down in a big circle and talk it out and become one great human family and be free to be you and me. That's when I grew up, and I've been waiting for the big coming-together ever since. But something happened. I'm not sure exactly what. Maybe people resented the social engineering. Maybe it just felt too hard and everyone was relieved when they didn't have to try anymore. But we don't seem to have the stomach for that kind of change as a culture anymore, personally or politically—if that had been part of Obama's message, he wouldn't have made it out of Iowa.
Would anyone today make a television show about the funny culture clash that happens when a wealthy black dry-cleaning-business owner moves into a white high-rise building? Or about the funny culture clash that happens when a white guy adopts two black kids, one of them being Gary Coleman? We seem all red up about talking about other great divides. "Immigration" (i.e., there are too many Mexican people) is a hot-button issue. So is Red and Blue America. But relations between the races doesn't seem to be what you would call relevant anymore, despite what we're told about the signicance of the Obama candidacy. Two national conventions in the midst of a so-called racially historic election and not a single explicit word about race. Mike A—— might be right about how America is reinventing itself again, but it's reinventing itself as a place that thinks it's postracial and is completely segregated. Does sh fry in the kitchen? Do beans burn on the grill? No one seems to give a shit anymore.
The responses on Craigslist slowed to a trickle. I tried doing up a yer. It said looking for an african-american friend at the top. There was a description of what the idea was, and at the bottom were little flaps you could tear off printed with an e-mail address—email@example.com. I put my face on it with a little word balloon that said, "Hello! I'm Devin." I looked like an ass, but apparently that was part of the program. I guess I still wasn't sure whether this whole thing was a joke or not. I'd told a few people about what I was doing. They mostly laughed. So it's satire, they said. Not exactly, I said. I put the yers up in Harlem and in Bed-Stuy, which I didn't even know how to get to without a map. I made Twan come with me in case someone took it the wrong way (Don't punch me! Some of my best friends…!).
When I see white boys in long t-shirts and baseball caps—black-culture-identified is how I say it—i feel a sense of recognition. like i could have gone that way. a few different decisions and I'd at least know how to roll a blunt.
The only guy who responded was Mario G., a 43-year-old DJ from Harlem who loves roller-skate discos. We met for an iced coffee near my office in Midtown. He wore a white straw hat and a white mesh shirt. He said he'd had a blessed life and that he smiles every chance he gets. He kept balloons in his pocket for kids. I liked Mario a lot, but I don't think he was here to meet me because he wanted to start hanging out and playing fantasy football together.
Mario, like a lot of the people I met, seemed to see me as something more than Devin the individual. It was like I was a collection point for things people wanted to say to white people but never had a chance to. Mario wanted to tell me a story, which I think was his commentary about race in America, about a guy he'd met in the Marines.
"I loved him like a brother," he said. "He was an addict. The last time I saw him, I could tell he would die soon. And that because I wasn't in his world, you know, because I was his only black friend and he was my only white friend, that I would probably never find out that he died. And sure enough, I lost touch. I tried to call him this year, but his number had been changed. I just would have liked to have gone to his funeral, or at least found out that he died. It never sat right with me."
Then he offered to make me a balloon animal.
"Why did you respond to my yer?" I asked, before he left.
"You said on it, 'Ask yourself, how many white friends do you have?' And I had to admit, I didn't have any." Then he said, "I'm glad I did it."
7 Things My Black Friends Can't Stand About White People
- When you think it's a compliment to tell us we're "very articulate" or "well-spoken."
- Your hands-on fascination with our children's hair. Please learn to admire it from afar.
- How you assume if we're on a nice vacation with our family that we must be an athlete or entertainer.
- How you clutch your bag when we get in the elevator.
- How you won't live next to us, but you don't mind us being nannies to your offspring.
- When you guys get drunk and either become Soul Brother no. 1 or David Duke.
- Your obsession with dogs. You want to draw a crowd of white people? Get a dog and stand on the corner in a white neighborhood. Dogs are not humans. You will step over a bleeding, dying black war hero to kiss a dog on the mouth. — Interviews by Dan Riley
When I pitched this story in a GQ meeting, everyone at the conference table laughed. "That's funny. Will you be my new black friend?"
"No, really," I said.
Everyone got quiet. Like: Um, I'm not really qualified to say if that's an awful idea. That's been pretty much the reaction of all white people who hear about it. They stop talking. My feeling is: Fuck them. Unless you're willing to say what the situation is, then you're part of the problem.
Even if my intentions were noble, though, I have to admit that there was something about putting up an advertisement on Craigslist that didn't feel quite right. One afternoon I found this Web site called Rent-A-Negro.com. It's satirical. You can log on and fill out a form to rent a black person—part of the joke is that black people get used all the time, anyway, so they might as well get paid for it. On the home page it said: "What can you give a person who has everything? Give them a new black friend!" Sitting in my office, clicking through this Web site, my blood went cold. It was like it had been invented to make fun of me, personally. One of the weirder aspects of racism is that no one is ever sure whether he's racist or not, except for those few people who are totally okay with being racist. The rest of us, having internalized the knotty racial logic of this country, the contradictions about how you need to be color-blind and not color-blind, keep a wary eye on ourselves to see whether or not what we just said or did or thought was racist. And this project started to feel like the worst kind of tokenism—e-mail me here! I don't care who you are as long as you're black! I remembered what a friend of mine said about the ad I'd taken out: Why don't you just get a lawn jockey and carry it around with you to parties?
So I took a new tack. I'd ask Twan and Rem to introduce me to their friends. Twan and Rem, like almost every black person I've ever been friends with, each live in two different balls of yarn: They have a blacker world and a whiter world. I called them up. It'd be funny, I told Rem. But also serious. "I'll be careful," I said.
"Yeah," Rem said. "You should."
Rem introduced me to Bjorn, one of seven black Bjorns in the known world (I made that up). Bjorn and I met at a German beer place and he told me what a real estate banker does; he told me about his wife, Emily, and I tried to figure out whether or not she was white, because I felt like you can't just ask. Rem introduced me to Pete, who brought me to an informal drinks session for people of color in finance, mostly traders, and mostly like other traders I've known—they love Vegas, they love steak houses, they seemed to know a thing or two about whey protein. They all bro-hugged each other, but when Pete introduced me they shook my hand like I was going to interview them for a student loan.
It seemed like every other day I had a lunch or a dinner or a trip to Brooklyn planned. I'd be standing on the corner of 47th and Madison or 23rd and Seventh or some other appointed meeting spot, looking expectantly at every vaguely brown person who walked past me: Are you my black friend? It was like a second job. It was like being one of those people who decide that they're done with being single and they're going to do something about it and proceed like a headhunter looking for an account executive.
When you're the only white guy at the party and you're talking to Someone, there's a social hump between you. It's like you're having two different conversations, the actual conversation and the subtitled one, which goes: "Hello, black person!" "Hello, white person!"
In time it became clear that there was one other refinement I needed to make to The Project if I was going to make an actual friend. I kept meeting people for a drink, just the two of us, at a bar where it was quiet enough to talk. That isn't how you make a friend. That's a blind date. And blind dates are almost exactly like job interviews, where the small talk feels so incredibly small and heavy at the same time, where every word is so fully triangulated, Well, I like some of the Wu-Tang Clan's music, but some of it seems kind of unformed, but they're still total geniuses, that you end up sounding like John Kerry circa 2004, and you're just relieved when it's over. The key was to go to an organically occurring event, meet like-minded people, see if we have anything to talk about. I had to presume, since we've established that the social life of black America was pretty opaque to me these past eighteen years, that black people have parties, right? So theoretically I could go to one of these parties. I'd probably be kind of a celebrity, a token-y conversation piece—hey, let's go talk to the white guy!—and next thing you know, I'd have a new black friend.
I'd recently had a drink with Baraka, one of Rem's friends. And he'd mentioned something about a party up in Harlem. His friend Ralph was throwing it. I saw my opening. What about like, would it be cool if I came? My wife and I took the train up for it. I got all up in her business about what she was going to wear. "Don't dress like a tomboy," I said. "I feel like black women don't dress like tomboys." She said, "I don't know if you realized, but I _am _white. Even when I'm wearing the right shoes." She gave me shit the whole way up there after that. On 125th Street, I accepted a Jesus yer from a guy on the corner and said, Thanks! "If that guy were white, you'd never have taken that," she said. "That's fucked-up."
When I showed up, Ralph said, "Come in here and let me indoctrinate you." He poured me some Hennessy and gave me some fish he'd made. Ralph is 74 and from Trinidad. To meet him is to be charmed by him. And his mischievous face. He's the kind of guy who could tell you a story about how he was having a three-way with two 17-year-old girls when his wife walked in on him and you'd say, What a rascal. (His wife was actually upstairs, behind the drawn curtain in one of the windows—Ralph's been taking care of her since she had a stroke.)
I'd have to say, though, that I was not a celebrity. I didn't have anyone to talk to. Baraka was late. There were five women sitting around a baby, but there was a male-proof force field around them. I tried to make conversation with a giant guy with dreads who was cooking a deer leg on the grill.
"Do you think you can taste the mesquite?" I said.
"People say you can," he said.
"Mesquite's a hardwood," I said.
What was I talking about? What the fuck do I know about mesquite? It's hard enough to be at a party where you don't know anyone. But when you are the only white guy, you feel like you can't even be awkward in private. And when you do talk to someone, there's a social hump between you. It's like you're having two different conversations, the actual conversation ("Mesquite's a hardwood") and the subtitled one, which goes: "You are black." "You are white." "Hello, black person!" "Hello, white person!"
The feeling I had at Ralph's had been explained by research psychologists. Studies have been conducted in which a black person and a white person who didn't know each other were placed in a room together. The white person would usually start exhibiting all kinds of nonverbal cues about his state of anxiety: blink more, breathe heavier, arrange his chair farther away—the kinds of things I was probably doing to the man with the dreads working the grill. When they are interviewed, the white subjects say the anxiety comes from being worried the black person's going to think they're racist. That's why it's the more racially aware people who seem the most racist. For them the little voice that says "I'M TALKING TO A BLACK PERSON!" is deafening. And for people who aren't worried? At Ralph's my wife asked this pretty young woman in jeans and a tank top, "What _is _soul food, anyway?" It was like the scene in a movie where the guy tries to throw himself in front of the bullet—nooooooooooooooooo! It's precisely the thing I wouldn't ever ask, even if I didn't know (and I swear: I know what soul food is). But you know what happened? The woman answered my wife. And I believe they had a better chance of becoming friends because of it.
Later, when it got dark out, Ralph put on a Trinidadian record everyone knew. And one of Ralph's sons, he's a plumber on Staten Island, took out this kidney-shaped plumbing fixture and started wailing on it with metal sticks. Then this other guy, an old friend of Ralph's with a bald head and a wide mouth full of beautiful teeth, started singing this song about a woman with black eyes. And everyone started singing. I can't remember being at a party where people sang anything other than "Happy Birthday." Now I know why I wanted to go to a black party, I thought. Because they're fun. Because white people really are uptight. We have a lot of good points, too. But Jesus it was nice to be at a party where not a single person asked me what I did for a living. Still, I stood there, watching this fat woman (_Don't sit that bitch near my food, _B—— said when she walked in) plowing through a plate of deer meat, tapping her toe, thinking: This seems like some kind of made-up cultural experience, like I'd ordered it in a catalog. Yes, hello, I'd like the Harlem sing-along picnic?
Then, one night, I made a friend. I was sitting at this bar in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with Twan's friend Brett, who also could have become my friend if he hadn't torn his ACL and been laid up for weeks and fucked up my deadline. Fort Greene is one of the rare racial mucous membranes in the five boroughs—it's getting white-ified but isn't there yet, and so is temporarily integrated. We were at the bar of a restaurant called Night of the Cookers, a modern-soul-food restaurant, the kind of place that has, like, pine nuts in the collard greens.
"This is kind of the last real black spot in Fort Greene," Brett said.
"It's good for property values," I said. "The white people."
"You know what's weird?" he said. "No one talks to each other in Fort Greene anymore. Everyone just keeps their head down."
Brett said hi to a couple of people and then a couple of other people. Then he said hi to a couple more people. He said, If you're a black male and you went to college, I know you. A handsome man in a whitetank top with ripped biceps came up to us. He and Brett used to work together at the D.A.'s office in Brooklyn with Twan. Now he's a criminal defense lawyer.
I stood up and we shook. He bro-hugged me, in a more artful, more nuanced way than I do it. My shit hadn't been updated since the '90s, really. To be honest, I was just going by what I saw on TV. I told him I worked for a magazine, and he asked me if I knew Rem. They'd gone to college together. What are the chances, I wondered, that this guy knew _both _of my black friends. This is some kind of sign. He must think I'm friends with tons of black people. We talked for a while about being a criminal defense lawyer, which is what my dad does, and how every idiot who finds out what you do says, How can you do that?
"I hate that," I said. "People start to have a different attitude if their son or daughter gets arrested."
"How can I do that?" he said. "How about the Constitution?"
His name was Kenny. I got his business card. We said, Let's definitely hang out.
Kenny is kind of intense. We met for coffee at a Starbucks near the Manhattan courthouse and we talked for several hours, him in his Paul Smith suit and this impeccable knot in his purple silk tie, a knot you could tell he very carefully mastered how to tie. He told me about growing up in Brownsville and Crown Heights. And how he told his son that George Washington wasn't who the teachers at school said he was: He was a man with slaves. And how this white lady he worked with wanted to know how he could brush his hair so it's wavy instead of kinky. He told me about the time in Alabama, after he'd watched one of his uncles shoot and kill another of his uncles with a shotgun, and his family had all gone to the hospital with the dead uncle, and Kenny was outside in the twilight, jumping off the loading dock onto the ground, and a white woman and her son walked past and the son pointed at him and said, "Look at the little nigger boy jump." And he told me about getting cut with a razor blade across his face when he was in high school, which he said he deserved for getting in over his head in a fight. And he told me about his father, who had been an elevator operator in Tribeca for thirty years, who was a defeated man and told him no one would ever let a black man like Kenny accomplish anything, who Kenny said was worse than having no father at all. He told me about finding him dead on the floor of his house last year with what Kenny described as an exploded heart. He would later say to me, "I'm a militant-ass black dude." But with Kenny, while he puts on a pretty abrasive front—and he'll say he's shocked to hear people say they were afraid to talk to him at first—there's also something irrepressibly seeking in him. Something open. Racially aware, militant-ass, but seeking. He was drawn to me as much as I was drawn to him, for what you could describe as similar but reversed reasons.
This project is a stunt, yes, but it's also an entreaty. and it's not just about generic diversity; it's not just about being open to new experiences. it's an argument for american white people, specifically, to be friends with American black people, specifically.
A couple of weeks later, we went to a Trace magazine party in the meatpacking district for their "Black Girls Rule" issue and to a party at a gallery not far from where I live in Manhattan. The crowd at the gallery was 93.7 percent black, arty, filmmakers, music producers, black men in fedoras, black men in annel pin-striped pants and pink shirts and suspenders whose preppy irony was announced with the high-top Nike sneaker. It was too loud to talk. I put my hands in my pockets. I danced a little. Like: Yeah, I feel this. I have better rhythm than most white people do because I went to a kind-of-black high school. Maybe that's some racist misperception or something, but I think it's true. I have a greasy neck when I want to.
I was already feeling a little bit like the spotlight was on me. The token white boy. But I started examining myself as if I were a friend I was seeing again for the first time in twenty years. It gave me the strangest feeling, like I'd come down with a weird neural condition where I can't recognize myself in pictures. I couldn't remember ever deciding to be this person. I thought: Who picked out these clothes? Am I really wearing suede boots? Do I actually like gingham? Why am I wearing what might be called girl jeans? Do I like any of this stuff? Who picked out this personality? Not me. I don't remember making these decisions.
You can try out all kinds of personalities and styles when you're a kid, when you're a teenager. But when you get older, you become either black or white, you become a honky or a brother or an Oreo or a wigger. Those seem to be the choices. Wigger is a word I don't use and would never speak aloud, the underpinnings of which I have fundamental beef with. But if I have to use it, then I kind of always wanted to be a wigger. I just never had the balls to do it. It always seemed somehow disrespectful. But it has nothing to do with wanting to be black, per se. I wish people understood that. What music you like is as much a choice for white people as it is for black people. And how it is you want to speak. And what it is you want your pants to say about you. It seems like life comes down to am I going to wear these Nike Air Force 1s or those Bass Weejuns. All other decisions about racial identity cascade from that. When I see white boys in long white T-shirts and baseball caps, black-culture-identied is how I say it, I feel a sense of recognition. Like I could have gone that way. A few different decisions and I'd at least know how to roll a blunt. But that's fantasy.
We invited Kenny and his wife over for dinner. It would be like a final exam. I told my wife we shouldn't talk about racial stuff. It should be like we were just having a normal dinner with friends. We decided to make the eggplant pasta from the Jamie Oliver cookbook. I put on some music—this loungy Brazilian music. I hate loungy Brazilian music, but everything else I had—Mobb Deep? Cat Power?—felt too racially themey. I brought out plates and wineglasses and then a vase of owers and the salt and pepper. Our pepper mill is this mock-antique hand-crank one that I hate (did I just say I hate my pepper mill?), but our other one broke. I reexively thought: I'll just make fun of it so they know I don't actually like it.
There's a psychological term that's used to explain why white people and black people aren't friends: homophily. It means that people are likely to be friends with those who are similar to them. (There's an aphorism about homophily: Birds of a feather ock together. One of the peculiar duties of social scientists is to prove the most obvious things, make them seem complicated, and then reconstitute them as simple. For examples, see the work of Malcolm Gladwell.) I would argue that the modern world is, in many quarters, dominated by increasingly extreme homophily. If you don't want to, you'll never have to talk to anyone whose jeans are different from yours. And there's the trend toward so-called cultural cocooning, where you only have to listen to people who have the same opinion as you, be it on Fox or MSNBC or Lou Dobbs, depending on if your philosophy is galvanized around conservatism or liberalism or angry people with wet piano keys for teeth.
The idea that a black man raised by a single white mother in America can be defined as an elitist betrays a failure of our culture-recognition software and is only possible because white people look at black people with a pretty fundamental lack of perception.
This endeavor, I can now say, is the product of living in a tiny, overdeveloped culture where the signifiers are too specific and the sameness of our lives has made the tolerances almost too slight to measure. Even among white folks, my shit is pretty specific. That monoculture, where I don't even have to finish my sentences because everyone already knows what I'm going to say, where we have slightly different versions of the same conversations about the same movies and music and schools and neighborhoods and restaurants and types of people—it wasn't until I was out of it for a few minutes that I realized the oxygen deprivation that kind of scrutiny can bring on. I am sick of worrying about my pepper mill.
The Project is a stunt, yes, but it's also an entreaty. And it's not just about generic diversity; it's not just about, as someone might say before asking you to join his wife on the two-man fuck swing in his basement, being open to new experiences. It's an argument for American white people, specifically, to be friends with American black people, specifically. It's a statement that there's nothing wrong with counting your black friends. It's that familiar affirmative-action argument: If it were happening naturally, we wouldn't need something artificial to create change. And I would say that the white man who doesn't know the black man doesn't know America.
It's also an argument that says: Blackness and whiteness still matter. One of the most modern racial problems we suffer from can be boiled down to this: There is an actual debate going on about whether Barack Obama is the rst postracial candidate, if we are living in a postracial world. If we were living in a postracial world, white Americans would not have been so perpled and terrified by the videotape of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who while clearly an idiot in some ways, is certainly not an unfamiliar character in black churches. And his foolish theory that the American government invented AIDS and gave it to black people? That rumor's been spread through the black community for twenty years. Hardly defensible, but hardly surprising. He's no weirder a character than Rush Limbaugh; it's just that he doesn't normally get picked up on cable news. And the idea that a black man raised by an occasionally broke single white mother in America can be successfully defined as an elitist betrays a failure of our culture-recognition software and is only possible because white people look at black people with a pretty fundamental lack of perception.
But it's not like we need a 9/11 Commission to figure our way out of this. It turns out making black friends is easy. I put half a mind to it and found ten guys with whom I'd gladly eat dinner once a month and talk about their kids (which is what it means to be friends with someone at age 36). Baraka; Brett; Eddie, a half-Haitian dude who's in his last year of business school; Kenny, with whom, plus our wives, I'm about to enjoy a conversation and a meal of pasta à la whitey. Sure, it's scary at first. White people aren't used to being outnumbered, so if you're white that'll take some getting used to. White folks might wonder: Will they be angry at me? (No.) Is it okay if I ask to touch their hair. (No.) What should I do when it comes time to shake hands? (This is a serious fucking question and is harder than winning a game of rock-paper-scissors.) Will I always feel comfortable and able to say whatever comes to mind? (Nope.) But relax. One of the most hopeful results of this experiment: No one punched me in the face, whatever faux pas I committed. In fact, to the person, everyone I asked to participate in Operation Black Friend agreed. There is a tremendous amount of goodwill out there. All you need to do is turn off the Radiohead and walk out the door.
Devin Friedman is GQ's Senior Correspondent.


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Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Sound engineering by Mike Gentry
It seems to me that one of the reasons that certain, very specific things take our breaths away is because we're lazy. We're too lazy to recognize these things every other time they appear to us. Make no mistake that they're there more often and yet we keep our breaths in-check, uninterrupted. Every day the sun comes up. Without fail, the sun is up there. Just ask the pilots and the birds above the clouds, if there are any blocking he old girl out. Every day the sun sets. It always does - always! -- and yet, some of those times are seen or felt as mere formalities. Others are seen as being more memorable, but all told, the properties of what we're appreciating are still there, in every single case, every single night. We just aren't looking most days and the fault is solely ours. The buck stops here. We lazily ignore what we just might find to be inspiring and awesome. Woodsman's newest album, "Rare Forms," has brought us to this discussion today for the Denver band seems to get the delicate balance between the appreciative state and that of lukewarm whatever-ness when it comes to gauging awe. They tend to double-down on the appreciative state, growing and blowing out sounds and moods that cast our sight in gold leaf and silver tinsel. They smoke off, right into the blue, soaring into a descent that will take them into the heart gloriously golden light on every song we hear from them. Say we were hanging out at Wayne Coyne's house, deep into an 18-pack, just the two of us, staring out over the horizon at dinnertime and discussing what it might feel like to stop traffic or to melt mirrors with our eyes, we'd be tramping through "Rare Forms" closer, "All The Cards Fell In Place." We feel all kinds of different in the shimmery, swimmery vocals and touches of the spaced out jam brains of Woodsman songs, carrying us into what usually is a secluded part of our own heads, unlocking the glitter canons and the tripping giddiness.


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Mary Pizzi, a 72-year-old Youngstown resident, spent a year in a local long-term care facility after suffering a stroke. Thanks to her dedicated family, including her husband Guy, and the additional supports provided by the Complete Senior Care program, she was able to go back to her home.
"Mary looks forward to going to the day center three days a week," says Guy. "I schedule my appointments for when she is there, like my doctor visits, shopping and banking."
At the center, Mary has lunch, participates in activities, and socializes with participants and staff, which is something she enjoys.
"Mary has always been social," comments Guy. "Besides going to the center three days a week, I also take her out every day...including picking up our granddaughter from school."
Mary also benefits from one of the program's unique features: on-site therapy and medical clinics operated by Mount St. Mary's Hospital and Health Center.
"Mary is on a restorative program," says Lauren Martin, occupational therapist at Complete Senior Care, "and she has really come a long way. For example, Mary is now more independent with her dressing and self-care."
Dave Bluett, physical therapist at Complete Senior Care, also comments on Mary's progress: "She can now walk longer distances by herself, can self-propel in her wheelchair, and can get in and out of bed independently."
Both Bluett and Martin attribute a few things to Mary's success: the therapy she received prior to Complete Senior Care, her diligence with her home exercise program as well as her hard work in the center clinic, and her positive attitude. "Mary is definitely one of our most enthusiastic participants!" adds Martin.
Additionally, Complete Senior Care provides Mary with aide services in her home during the week to assist with such things as personal care. On the mornings Mary comes to the day center, an aide helps get her cleaned up and ready for the van service to pick her up and take her to the center.
Complete Senior Care is a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). Eligible participants must be at least 55 years old, need a nursing home level of care, be expected to need the program's services for at least 120 days, and live in Niagara County. There are no income requirements; Medicare and/or Medicaid, long term care insurance and private pay are all accepted. Call Virginia McAuliffe at 716-285-8248 for more information, to set up an assessment or schedule a tour.


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Terry Dagradi
Terry Dagradi received her BFA from Tyler School of Art of Temple University, majoring in studio arts and photography. Since 1988 she has worked as a photographer and designer at the Yale School of Medicine in ITS Photo & Design. She has taken hundreds of portraits, documented events and architecture, and covered editorial and medical assignments. Documenting brain surgery has been one of the highlights.
She Co-Founded the New Haven Photo Arts Collective in 1996, with a mission that people connected by a similar passion for photography can make great things happen together while supporting and encouraging the visions of individuals.
She has served as Director & Curator of the Yale Medical Group Art Place Exhibitions since 2000, transforming a busy clinic building into a vibrant public gallery space.
But it was a box of 5x7 glass plate negatives of Dr. Harvey Cushing's brain surgery patients that she printed some 15 years ago which started a journey leading to her position as Curator of The Cushing Center at Yale School of Medicine. 10,000 of those same negatives are still patiently waiting to be digitized and discovered.
Showing - of photos.


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Just a 5-minute drive from the Route 62 and close to the Touws River, Wolverfontein Karoo Cottages offers a garden, sun terrace and free Wi-Fi and private parking.
The fully renovated, historic cottages offer views of the surrounding area. Each has a private entrance and a patio.
You can prepare your own meals using the fully equipped kitchen or the barbecue facilities. Barbecue packs can be ordered on request.
Guest can enjoy activities such as hiking or cycling. The Touwsberg Reserve is less... than 1 km away from Wolverfontein Karoo Cottages.
|Portion 8, Wolverfontein Farm, 4 km Off \"R62\"
South Africa


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American Forces Press Service
Iraqi forces kept the pressure on terrorists over the past several days, capturing terrorists and shutting down their operations, military officials reported.
Iraqi police shut down a terrorist-run improvised explosive device factory in Mosul and arrested three suspects in southern Iraq during separate operations yesterday.
The Mosul bomb-making factory contained two bags of homemade explosives weighing about 150 pounds each, three bags of ammonium nitrate weighing about 10 pounds each and other IED-making materials. Iraqi police also detained one suspect. Iraqi and coalition soldiers were brought to the site to gather the materials for disposal.
This is just another example of the great work the Iraqi police are doing to make their communities safer, said Army Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, spokesperson for coalition forces posted north of Baghdad.
In southern Iraq, Iraqi Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) police, with coalition forces in support, arrested two suspected criminals in Maysan province and detained another criminal in Dhi Qar province. Since mid-June, Iraqi and coalition security forces have arrested more than 50 suspected criminals and seized more than 8,500 rounds of munitions during operations throughout Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Maysan provinces in southern Iraq.
During Oct. 11 operations, U.S. soldiers detained two suspected criminals and discovered a rocket during operations in Baghdad. The detainees are linked to an Oct. 10 vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack in the Abu Tshir community. Another group of U.S. soldiers discovered a 60 mm rocket during a patrol in the area.
In a separate operation, Iraqi security forces found a large munitions cache in Tikrit. The cache contained 700 artillery rounds and more than 300 large-caliber machine gun rounds. The cache was later destroyed by coalition forces.
Meanwhile, elements of the 3rd Iraqi Army Division in Rabiah captured two suspected terrorists believed to be part of a lethal smuggling ring with the ability to move freely across Iraqi's border to facilitate the movement of vehicles.
In Zaganiyah, Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured five people suspected of being members of an al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist cell. They are believed to be a part of a cell responsible for murder, kidnappings and attacks on Iraqi and coalition forces.
During Oct. 10 operations, Tips led Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers to seize separate weapons caches in Baghdad. Iraqi police seized seven 60 mm mortars, two 30 mm rifle grenades, two 57 mm warheads and a 60 mm warhead. U.S. soldiers confiscated 10 pounds of explosives, a 120 mm mortar tube, a 60 mm mortar tube and several rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition.
In Baghdads Rashid district, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi security forces discovered multiple weapon caches during operations. Iraqi soldiers discovered nearly 150 mortar rounds, 10 pounds of plastic explosives, two pounds of TNT, six rocket propelled grenade propellant sticks and various bomb making material while on patrol in the Karb De Gla community. An explosive ordnance disposal unit disposed of the munitions.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police found three rocket propelled grenades and a hand grenade in a house while on patrol in the Aamel community. U.S. soldiers discovered an 82 mm mortar round while on patrol in the Shurta community. An Iraqi munitions disposal team arrived to transport the ordnance.
Separately, Kirkuk Provincial Police captured a suspected Ansar Al-Sunna terrorist member with ties to al Qaeda. Officials believe the man to have organized multiple improvised explosive device attacks in the area since May 2008.
"These operations show the ability of Iraqi Security Forces to repeatedly capture criminals who undermine the security of Iraq," said Army Lt. Col Neil Harper, Multinational Corps Iraq, spokesman.


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boyakasha!, on 27 December 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:
He just likes to play dress up. What's the last movie where he just looked normal. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
But I agree. He doesn't need to be in any more Tim Burton movies. And there don't need to be any more Tim Burton movies.


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When The Temple Fell
H. has been patient with helping me train but I know I'll never feel quite ready. Seeing his obvious feelings for V. makes me question, too, how much he is willing to sacrifice. What binds us together? The time is soon coming when we'll find out. I will, in a strange way, miss this neighborhood. I spend a lot of time walking at night and only get a few inquisitive glances. All my communication conducted in smiles and hand signals in this city within a city.
One thing is certain. They are frightened, and impatient. They don't know their weaknesses and I'm learning my strength.


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The Senate was expected to pass a new farm bill by a wide margin on Thursday morning and that's exactly what happened. By a vote of 81-15, the bill was approved.
After yesterday's lopsided House vote (318-106), the new farm bill is now destined for the desk of an unhappy President Bush.
Currently touring the Middle East, Bush has promised on his return to veto the nearly $300 billion legislation as it isn't close enough to his payment reform wishes. With such overwhelming congressional support for the bill, however, it is unlikely his veto will amount to anything.
Just prior to the bill passing, Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln — a farm bill conferee — said the legislation would "provide tremendous economic stimulus to rural America." Besides funding agriculture, conservation and nutrition programs, "the bill funds water and waste disposal grants and loans that are absolutely critical to our rural communities."
"The problem is so few (members of Congress) come from rural areas, who understand farm programs. Nor do they understand the diversity and differences in which commodities are grown in this country."
Lincoln said she didn't disagree "that we were asked to give more than anyone else. But we were outnumbered — Southerners and Southern growers were outnumbered. We held on as best we could."
Shortly after Senate passage, Tom Buis, National Farmers Union president, said, "the Senate's vote demonstrates the broad support the 2008 farm bill has across the country. It's taken two years to get to this point and while no piece of legislation is ever perfect, this is a good bill, and I am pleased to see such overwhelming support in Congress."
Similar sentiment came in a statement from the American Sugar Alliance: "Sugar producers are struggling right now with low prices, high input costs, and the threat of unneeded sugar imports from trade agreements overhanging the market. This farm bill is desperately needed to overcome these obstacles and ensure the country will have a homegrown supply of reliable, high-quality sugar for years to come."
In a Thursday morning interview, Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany, also lauded the new bill. Asked to assess the legislation, Boustany, a Republican, first pointed to its bipartisan crafting. "In fact, a majority of Republicans supported this bill. We've worked for over two years … to come up with a bill. Clearly, a lot of compromises were made.
"The bill that passed the House (last July) had been co-opted by the liberal Democratic leadership to the point where it included massive tax increases. Because we held the line at that point, we were finally able to get a good compromise … that passed yesterday."
The bill "provides satisfactory protections for our farmers and does have significant reforms in it."
Boustany said there is so much support for the bill that "I believe we have the votes to override a veto and would urge (President Bush) to back down on that."
Was Boustany surprised at the House's overwhelming margin of passage? "I tell you, I knew it had support — but I'm pleased at that kind of margin. We worked hard to build that margin.
"On the Republican side, there was strong recognition that a lot had gone into the bill, there was a lot of give-and-take, and given the uncertain times — and the fact we want to see American farmers strong in global markets — there needed to be a good safety net. The work on the nutrition title helped to (garner) support."
One last thing, said Boustany: "My position on this farm bill is due to it being good policy. This has nothing to do with fear over the upcoming political season. I fought hard for good policy and we have that in this farm bill."
e-mail: [email protected]


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WORCESTER - A man carrying a pellet gun during an early morning break-in attempt Wednesday on Prospect Street had a very honest explanation for carrying the fake weapon: He couldn't get a permit to carry a real weapon, police said.
John Boguzis, 28, of 65 Prospect St., allegedly told arresting officers he was denied a license to carry a firearm by Worcester Police. That was the reason he was carrying the pellet gun instead, police said.
That type of honesty is rare to find in a suspect, said Police Chief Gary J. Gemme, who confirmed he denied Mr. Boguzis' application for a license to carry.
"This is the first time someone admitted they were denied a license to carry by the city," the chief said. "It shows the system we have in place works. We are trying to keep firearms away from people who are not suitable to have a license to carry."
Police were amazed on how realistic the pellet gun looked. It even had a laser sight.
"When I look at it I cannot tell the difference. I've had access to a number of firearms through training and my years on the SWAT team," Chief Gemme said. "It is real authentic looking, and I would challenge anyone to identify that from a real firearm."
Officers were called to the area of 63 Prospect St. around 5 a.m. Wednesday for a report of a break-in going on. The home was under renovation and the caller said a man was seen walking through the home.
Police received a description of the suspect and began searching the area. Mr. Boguzis was found a short time later and identified as the man who had been in the house.
"A search of the Mr. Boguzis produced a knife and rubber gloves. Mr. Boguzis informed police that he had a pellet gun in his coat," police said. "The pellet gun looked very similar to a handgun. It was all black with a large barrel and a working slide."
Police asked why he was carrying the pellet gun.
"Mr. Boguzis stated that the reason was because he was denied a license to carry a firearm by WPD," police said.
Officers checked the home and found the front door had been opened. They said evidence linking Mr. Boguzis to the crime was found. Mr. Boguzis was charged with breaking and entering in the nighttime with intent to commit a felony and carrying a dangerous weapon. He will be arraigned in Central District Court.
Police have seen people use fake guns or pellet guns in the past to commit crimes. One man was shot by police � not fatally � when he pointed a pellet gun at officers and fired it back in March 2008.
Officers are put into a difficult situation anytime a fake, pellet or real gun is used in a crime, the chief said. If a suspect points that weapon at an officer there is no room for the officer to hesitate, he said.
Contact Scott J. Croteau at email@example.com. Follow him @ScottCroteauTG


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Monday, 20 June 2011 07:28 AM
As a Princeton University professor, Ben Bernanke castigated the Bank of Japan in 2000 for a "case of self-induced paralysis" that led to a decade of stagnation. Now, the Federal Reserve chairman may be allowing the U.S. central bank to fall into the same trap after its second round of quantitative easing ends this month.
By all but ruling out another cycle of bond purchases, Fed officials have left themselves with little in the way of policy options to respond to slowing growth and rising unemployment. This raises the risk that the U.S. will remain saddled with what Bernanke himself has called a "frustratingly" sluggish recovery that leaves millions of Americans out of work.
"I worry that QE3 will be hostage to QE2," said Vincent Reinhart, a former director of the Fed's monetary-affairs division who is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "That may lead to that self-induced paralysis" in further easing policy to aid the economy.
Fed officials, who begin a two-day meeting tomorrow to plot monetary strategy, are betting the slowdown will prove short- lived and growth will pick up from July through December as shocks from Japan's earthquake and an oil-price surge fade.
GDP Outlook
Private economists agree. After growing at a 2.3 percent annual pace this quarter, the world's largest economy will expand at a 3.2 percent rate in the second half of the year, according to the median forecast of 67 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News from June 1 to June 8.
Economist Allen Sinai, who sees growth strengthening to between 2.5 percent and 3 percent in the second half and 3 percent in 2012, called the recent stock-market swoon a "consolidation" and forecast that the Standard and Poor's 500 Index of stocks will rise as high as 1,450 by the end of the year. It was at 1,271.50 on June 17.
The president of Decision Economics in New York also said the "new trading range" for the yield on the 10-year Treasury note is 2.75 percent to 3.375 percent as the Fed responds to the recent economic slowdown by putting off any move to tighten credit until next year. The yield was 2.91 percent as of 9:54 a.m. in London, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices.
The danger is that, once again, forecasts for an improved economy prove too optimistic. Economists polled by Bloomberg began 2011 looking for 3.1 percent expansion this year; they now predict a 2.5 percent rate. Fed policy makers are likely to follow suit this week.
"The last batch of data is disappointing, and it is causing us to rethink our outlook for growth for the remainder of the year," Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, told reporters on June 13.
Shaved Forecast
The central bankers may cut their estimate for this year to 2.75 percent from the 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent they foresaw in April, said Laurence Meyer, a former Fed governor who is now vice chairman of St. Louis-based Macroeconomic Advisers.
They probably also will shave their forecast for 2012, by a couple of tenths of a percentage point, he added. In April, the bulk of policy makers saw growth of 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent next year.
The odds have doubled in the last few months to 10 percent that the U.S. will suffer a growth recession -- with gross domestic product rising at an annual pace of about 1 percent for two or more quarters while other economic indicators remain soft, Sinai said.
"If I were at the Fed, I'd be looking at ways to do something like QE3," he added.
Fed officials don't seem so inclined.
"We've done enough," Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said in a June 13 speech.
Dangers of Deflation
The successes and failures of QE2 have diminished chances of QE3. When Bernanke first raised the possibility of a second round of stimulus last August, he stressed the central bank's determination to avoid deflation: an across-the-board fall in consumer prices and wages that would drive the economy down.
Such concerns have since dissipated as surging oil and food prices have driven up inflation and inflation expectations, said Roberto Perli, a former Fed economist who is now a managing director at International Strategy & Investment Group in Washington.
Consumer prices rose at a rate of 3.6 percent in May from a year earlier, compared with a 1.1 percent advance in November, when the central bank began its purchases of $600 billion worth of Treasury securities.
Further Action
The bond buys have had less of a discernible impact on GDP, raising questions inside the Fed about the efficacy of further action, Sinai said. While the purchases did lift stock prices and household wealth, consumer spending has lagged behind, dragging the growth of the overall economy down to 1.8 percent in the first quarter from 3.1 percent in the final three months of 2010.
The political opposition to QE2 -- Congressional Republicans have attacked it as an inflationary policy -- also weighs against the launch of QE3, especially at a time when fiscal policy makers are squabbling over the budget and debt ceiling.
"There are some political constraints that inhibit their willingness to do more," said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York and a former member of the Fed's economic forecasting team.
While voicing frustration with the slow pace of the recovery, Bernanke gave no hint he's ready to do anything about it in a June 7 speech in Atlanta. Instead, he spoke of the limits on the Fed, declaring that "monetary policy cannot be a panacea" for all the economy's ills.
Real-Estate Bubble
In a paper Bernanke wrote while at Princeton in 2000, he took Bank of Japan officials to task for saying they had done all they could to help an economy that had grown about 1 percent a year in the previous decade after the country's real-estate bubble burst.
While agreeing Japan faced structural problems that monetary policy couldn't solve, including a broken banking system, Bernanke argued the central bank could do more to pump up demand beyond cutting short-term interest rates to zero.
Among the steps he discussed were "nonstandard open-market operations," including the purchase of Japanese government bonds -- just the sort of strategy the U.S. pursued under QE2.
"The Fed has been a lot more proactive than the Bank of Japan was back then," said Alan Blinder, a former central bank vice chairman who is now a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey.
'Too Passive'
Still, the Fed "is a little too passive" now for Blinder's tastes. He wants it to cut to zero from 0.25 percentage point the interest rate it pays banks on the excess reserves it holds for them. To encourage the banks to deploy that money elsewhere, the Fed could go even further and effectively charge them for holding the reserves through a negative interest rate, said Blinder, a former colleague of Bernanke's at Princeton, who acknowledged such a radical step isn't likely.
"I don't think that the Fed has any options left that it's at all likely to use," Blinder said.
Bernanke instead may suggest at his June 22 press conference that he will keep short-term interest rates low for longer, according to Perli.
"It is becoming increasingly likely that the Fed will be on hold until 2013," he said.
The Fed cut its target for the federal funds rate -- which banks charge each other for overnight money -- to between zero and 0.25 percent in December 2008 and then followed in March 2009 with a declaration that rates were likely to remain "exceptionally low" for an "extended period."
Big Balance Sheet
Feroli, who doesn't expect the Fed will raise rates until 2013, said the central bank may decide to make the same sort of statement about the size of its balance sheet if the economy fails to pick up in the next few months.
One option, according to Feroli: The central bank could commit to maintaining an enlarged balance sheet for an extended period, thus reassuring investors it won't be quick to reduce its holdings of securities such as Treasuries.
A delayed tightening of policy is effectively a form of easing because it acts to restrain long-term interest rates on everything from home mortgages to corporate bonds, Meyer said. The impact, though, is smaller and less persistent than actual easing through additional bond purchases or a reduction in the funds rate, he added.
Bernanke defended the Fed's performance at a press conference following the central bank's last meeting in April.
'Extraordinary Things'
"We have done extraordinary things in order to try to help this economy recover," he said, pointing to the near-zero fed funds rate and two rounds of securities purchases.
The U.S. is on firmer ground than it was last year when the Fed started discussing QE2, according to Neal Soss and his fellow economists at Credit Suisse Holdings USA Inc.
"An extra year of economic growth, profits, retained earnings and cash holdings has added a layer of insulation for the corporate sector," they wrote in a June 10 note to clients. Soss, the bank's chief economist in New York, served as an aide to former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.
The recent rise in core inflation may have convinced Bernanke to hold off on QE3 for now, said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed official who is now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Excluding food and energy costs, consumer prices increased at a rate of 1.5 percent in May from a year earlier, up from 0.6 percent in October.
'Transitory' Increase
If the increase proves "transitory" -- as Bernanke has suggested -- then the central bank should push ahead with more bond purchases, Gagnon said, adding that "the unemployment rate is just way too high." Joblessness was 9.1 percent in May, compared with a 5 percent rate in December 2007 when the last recession began.
If Bernanke says the "little blip in inflation is temporary and it's going to go back below target, and he says he's very unhappy with the unemployment rate, then why isn't he doing more?" Gagnon asked. "It's really ironic. It's a self- induced paralysis."
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AUGUSTA — The legislative committee tasked with evaluating proposed budget cuts that could kick 65,000 people off MaineCare is scheduled to meet next on Jan. 3 — the day before the House and Senate return for their 2012 session.
Gov. Paul LePage says he needs to scale back Maine's Medicaid program in order to balance the state budget and make the program sustainable. The Appropriations Committee, which is reviewing those cuts, held three days of public hearings on the cuts last week and met again on Tuesday to talk about welfare fraud.
In the meantime, people affected by the possible cuts have sent 1,700 postcards to Appropriations Committee members to show their opposition. The citizen activist group Maine People's Alliance organized the postcard effort.
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The Pratt High School Lady Greenbacks volleyball team entered a quadrangular at Hays on Thursday ranked #10 in 4A. They did nothing to diminish that ranking, and in fact may have enhanced it— downing Ulysses, Hays and Garden City in order.
The Pratt High School Lady Greenbacks volleyball team entered a quadrangular at Hays on Thursday ranked #10 in 4A. They did nothing to diminish that ranking, and in fact may have enhanced it— downing Ulysses, Hays and Garden City in order.
PHS head coach Shelby Nesbit told her squad before the games that the night would represent a "defining moment" in their season. By any 'definition', the Lady Greenbacks showed that they are a team who has arrived.
Against 4A Ulysses, the Frogs started a bit sluggishly, and had a little bit of trouble adjusting to a slower-paced game. "We made a lot of mental errors that we had to overcome," Nesbit mentioned.
But overcome them they did, as the Greenbacks claimed a straight set 25-17; 25-18 victory over the Ulysses Tigers.
Next up for Pratt was the host, 5A Hays High. Coach Nesbit was a little disappointed in the hitting against the Indians, the Greenbacks only connecting on 10% of their efforts. "We have to find a way to put the ball down," Nesbit said. Still, Pratt was able to get by Hays 25-21; 25-18.
In the evening's final match-up against 6A Garden City, things began to click for the Frogs. "We were finally able to get going with Garden City," Nesbit remarked. "Our game really picked up and became fluid. It was a fun match to watch." Pratt prevailed 25-20; 25-18 over the Buffalos.
Coach Nesbit had words of praise for several of her players. "Jenson Maydew continues to be a very strong force at the net," Nesbit observed. "She sees holes, knows when to tip and when to swing away. When she is swinging away, she is extremely hard to stop. She had a couple hits tonight that went straight down."
"Bailey Gillig and Lauren Rambat are doing a fantastic job on the back row," Nesbit continued. "I really try to emphasize to our blockers that they have to get a solid block up so our defense can set up the way we need to. Our block struggled at certain points tonight about closing. Hitters would hit right through us, but Bailey and Lauren were right there to pick them up."
"Jaci Kolm was fantastic at reading the opponent's hitters and taking away their tip shot and continued to deliver to the hitters," Nesbit concluded.
The JVs also swept the quad, beating Ulysses 25-3, 25-19; Garden City 25-18, 25-22; and Hays 25-13; 25-19. Of the JVs, Coach Nesbit said, "We came out ready to play each time we hit the court. The team focused on improving serve receive, which in return helped our setter and hitters be more aggressive at the net."
PHS now sports a lofty 14-1 record. On Tuesday, the Lady Greenbacks travel to Hillsboro for a return match against the only team to have beaten them so far this season.


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Part 8 - Jane Eyre Audiobook by Charlotte Bronte (Chs 34-38)
Part 8. Classic Literature VideoBook with synchronized text, interactive transcript, and closed captions in multiple languages. Audio courtesy of Librivox. Read by Elizabeth Klett. Playlist for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront?: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2AAEFCAF1D04E74E Jane Eyre free audiobook at Librivox: http://librivox.org/jane-eyre-version-3-by-charlotte-bronte/ Jane Eyre free eBook at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1260 Jane Eyre at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre View a list of all our videobooks: http://www.ccprose.com/booklist
Length: 02:38:11


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Ben Affleck is closing in on the perfect thriller. �Argo� shows us how near the mark he has gotten in just three films.
Ben Affleck is closing in on the perfect thriller. �Argo� shows us how near the mark he has gotten in just three films.
Since stepping behind the camera to direct, Affleck has yet to make a movie that doesn�t pull us to the edge of our seats.
He may have showed his easy way with suspense and pathos, chases and humor with �Gone Baby Gone� and �The Town.� But �Argo� has him operating on a whole new level.
This deft blend of mortal terror, personal and national humiliations and Hollywood chutzpah is one of the best pictures of the year.
�Argo� is based on a true story that took place during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80. Six Americans slipped through Iranian clutches and hid out in the Canadian ambassador�s residence. The U.S. State Department wanted to disguise them and have them ride out of the country on bicycles. But one C.I.A. agent had a better idea. Give�em sunglasses, call them movie people and pass them off as Hollywood types on a �location scout� for a �Star Wars� ripoff, a sci-fi picture set in the desert.
It is �the best bad idea� the higher-ups (Philip Baker Hall, Bob Gunton) have in front of them. So Tony Mendez (Affleck) gets the green light for a caper so wacky it can only have been inspired by his son watching �Battle for the Planet of the Apes.� They need to pull this off quickly. The Iranians are closing in on the folks hiding out. They need this production to look legit. They need �real� Hollywood folks, �names.� Oscar-winning makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman, perfect) is an old C.I.A. contact. And he drags in producer Lester Siegel, played with his usual profane relish by the great Alan Arkin.
Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio could have easily turned this far-fetched tale into a farce. And the Hollywood scenes are exactly that � cynical, silly, downright giddy. Period-perfect rock songs litter the soundtrack, Rolls Royces dot the Hollywood hills and no Hollywood cliche � bluffing down an agent�s asking price for a bad script titled �Argo� � is too corny to revive.
Goodman ably plays the jaded old pro, full of cracks about a town filled with liars, frauds and no-talents. Arkin is the hard-nosed has-been who rolls up his sleeves and cooks up ways to build buzz, to make this seem like the real deal. (�If I�m doing a fake movie, it�s going to be a HIT!� )
But Affleck never lets us lose sight of the circumstances surrounding all this fakery and tomfoolery. Newscasts of the day are the soundtrack to many scenes, and we see graphic depictions of the torture of hostages, the bickering and day-by-day terror and paranoia of those still in hiding (Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Kerry Bishe and Scoot McNairy among them).
Woven into that are scenes where we see cold-eyed revolutionaries, hunting for Americans and allies of the former Shah, and Iranian children, laboring to piece together snippets of photos that will allow them to identify the missing Americans.
Detail after detail seems just right. The location scouts are so frightened that it takes effort for them to not cower and lower their eyes when they�re supposed to be looking, taking notes and photographs.
Affleck plays this spy as utterly poker-faced, not raising his voice to convince others to join him on this risky endeavor, never strutting like a �movie� secret agent � always wary, fearful, but ready to go all-in on the bet once he�s made it. It�s a canny, confident performance, playing straight man to Goodman, Arkin and a volcanic Bryan Cranston, his C.I.A. boss, and father confessor to the Americans he has to convince to trust him with their lives.
And the actor behind the camera, the one who brilliantly sums up Iranian/ U.S. history and the awful day the embassy was overrun in 12 electrifying opening minutes, the one who keeps the clock ticking on this superb �ticking-clock thriller�? He isn�t bad either.
Darned near perfect.
4 stars (Grade: A)
Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Clea DuVall
Directed by Ben Affleck, written by Chris Terrio.
A Warner Brothers release.
Running time: 1:58
MPAA rating: R for language and some violent images


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We all support our friends and do them favours, especially if we have known them for a long time and developed mutual trust. However, this perfectly acceptable behaviour can lead to a series of problems when it applies to relationships between listed companies, as it has been in Japan. The practice of cross-shareholdings or strategic shareholdings, whereby companies hold shares of each other, is common among Japanese companies in order to maintain good business relationships. While the practice may have helped grow and protect Japanese businesses in the past, it is now increasingly seen as problematic by investors.
Cross-shareholdings began after World War II when large conglomerates, the so-called zaibatsu, which were perceived to have excessive influence over the Japanese economy, were broken up into separate entities such as banks, trading houses and manufacturers. The companies continued to maintain strong ties through cross-shareholdings as well as trading among themselves and interlocking their boards. However, some of these holdings are unilateral and hence not technically cross-shareholdings. For instance, a supplier may hold shares of its buyer to secure sales. In addition, cross- or strategic shareholdings are not limited to former zaibatsu companies and strong business relationships have been built on cross-shareholding. Banks in particular have played a significant part by acquiring shares of a large number of companies to which they lent money, while life insurance companies have also been a major contributor to this system.
Although they have begun to decline, with holdings by banks and life insurance companies falling from over 40% of listed stocks in the late 1980s to below 20%, cross-shareholdings still account for a substantial part of the Japanese equity market[1]. Even so, the three largest banks of Japan continue to hold shares of thousands of companies each, amounting to over JPY 10 trillion ($100 billion) as of June 2016[2]. Holdings by non-financial companies meanwhile have remained at around 24%.
Need for untangling
But for various reasons, cross-shareholdings are increasingly seen as difficult by investors. Firstly, the selection of business partners based on shareholding relationships is not consistent with market principles and can obstruct fair competition. Companies should choose business partners that provide the best quality products and services at the most competitive price. We are extremely concerned that many companies are obliged to hold shares of other companies in order to maintain a business relationship with them.
Another problem is that this type of shareholdings can lead to poor corporate governance. When companies hold shares of others to maintain good relationships, they tend to support the management of the investee companies instead of exercising their voting rights appropriately to hold management to account. We believe this contributes to sustaining poor governance practices and blocking attempts by other investors to reform companies. In addition, these shareholdings can be used as anti-takeover measures.
It is also important to note that while this practice is designed to benefit certain owners – those who have a strategic interest in the investee companies by securing contracts for example – other shareholders will not see any tangible benefits. This means shareholders are not treated equally.
Breaking the deadlock
Many companies believe that selling shares of their business partners would negatively affect their relationships, leading to the destruction of shareholder value. However, pressure to dissolve cross- or strategic shareholdings has been mounting. In addition to the Corporate Governance Code's requirement for companies to disclose their plans on cross-shareholdings, the Japanese government has encouraged the country's three major banks to reduce these.
We have been engaging with various stakeholders on this matter, including regulators and companies, raising awareness and pressing for change. We have encouraged the regulator to introduce a rule for companies to disclose their cross-shareholdings as we believe detailed disclosure will help begin to untangle the resulting relationships.
Realistically however, it will take time to abolish this practice as it spans across the interests of many parties.
[1] http://www.jpx.co.jp/markets/statistics-equities/examination/nlsgeu000001q8j8-att/j-bunpu2015.pdf
[2] According to figures disclosed in the companies' financial documents submitted to FSA.
Succession planning – A key board responsibility
Untangling tight knots – Cross-shareholdings in Japan


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Climber Girl
Deb James 8/31/2006 11:17:28 AMVery nice image, Greg! I love the perspective. Detail, composition, colors - all very well done! I don't know much about stock photography, but I've read that images of women in non-traditional roles are great sellers. You might just have one with this image! #513923
Kay E. Mahoney 9/26/2006 4:49:03 PMCongratulations on your finalist. Good luck in the next round. #3365789
Lani J 9/27/2006 12:55:35 AMThis is amazing, Greg!! Wonderful capture... your friend is a great climber! 5.11 is some tough climbing!
Congratulations! #3370152
Rick Emery 9/28/2006 6:20:09 PMNice shot Greg. Maybe REI will buy it. Did you climb first to get ahead of her? I climb with my son and would like to get some shots like this. Any suggestions?
Kevin S. Jones 10/4/2006 9:02:44 PMExcellent. This belongs in a stock gallery. #3408889
This is my friend climbing a 5.11b face climb near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, just before sunset.
Uploaded on 8/31/2006 10:23:39 AM
Camera: Nikon D70 Digital SLR Camera
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