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Glove Profile
Mizuno Pro Select 11.75" Baseball Glove: GPS1-600D
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11.75 Inch Length
Recommended For Infielders (SS & 3B)
Stiffer Feel Will Require A Break-In
Designed To Fit A High School-To-Adult Sized Hand
Premium US Steerhide Leather Offers A Firm, Long Lasting Shape
Steersoft Elite Inner Palm Liner Creates A Comfortable Feel
Colorway: Brown
Conventional Open Back
Index Finger Pad On Shell Backing For Protection & Comfort
Hand Based Patterns Set Your Pocket Under The Web To Provide A Perfect Break In
Padded Thumb Slot Provides Additional Protection & A More Secure Fit
Using Mizuno baseball gloves is the best choice any player can make on their way to a high-caliber career. With over 110 years of experience in the sporting goods industry, Mizuno knows what it takes to create high-quality baseball equipment and that you cannot begin to field on defense without a glove. The Pro Select baseball gloves are here to transform your game and take it to the highest level of play. With a premium US steer hide construction, each model offers a firm, rigorous feel that is sure to last for multiple seasons. Inside of each model, Mizuno has applied their steer soft elite palm liner combined with a padded thumb slot to deliver exceptional comfort, added protection, and a more secure fit that conforms to each individuals' hand. The features that set this series apart from others is the hand based pattern structure and the player pocket designs. The hand based pattern structure places the pocket under the web and helps to shape and break-in your glove perfectly, without fail, while the player pocket designs are tailored specifically to each positions' needs, whether that be a shallow, regular, or deep pocket. Mizuno: Driven By Athletes, Crafted To Win!
This Mizuno Pro Select Baseball Glove (GPS1-600D) features a popular 11.75-inch pattern, an H-web, and an index finger pad that provides added protection on defense. Due to the size and the web, this model is recommended for infielders, especially third basemen. Dominate the hot corner and purchase one of these Mizuno baseball gloves today with free shipping.
Mizuno is kind enough to extend a limited twelve (12) month warranty on their gloves. They will review any defects that could have potentially come from their manufacturing process within 12 months of the purchase date. If you have a Mizuno glove that was purchased at JustGloves and feel as though a warranty issue has arisen within the first 12 months since the purchase, please contact our Glove Experts. The Glove Experts are kind and knowledgeable. They will get you set up with all the info needed to begin the warranty process with Mizuno. Don't forget, we'll be here for you from click to catch!
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About the Brand
Mizuno USA, Inc.'s roots stem from its parent company Mizuno Corporation. Mizuno Corporation was established in Osaka, Japan in 1906 by Rihachi Mizuno. Today, Mizuno USA is located in Norcross, GA and continues to manufacture and distribute golf, baseball, softball, running, track & field and volleyball equipment, apparel, and footwear for international markets.
Since our founding in 1906, we at Mizuno have taken special pride and pleasure in being able to participate in the exciting world of sports and in making the entire globe the stage for our activities. Each and every one of us is guided by the ideal of true sportsmanship. That was true nearly 100 years ago and is still true today. It is evident in our corporate philosophy which, simply stated, is "To contribute to society through the advancement of sports and quality sporting goods." This philosophy is clearly reflected in our strong support of numerous worldwide sport events and in our dedication to advancing sports through cutting edge technology and research.
Our product development strategy is to create products with features that enhance athlete performance and are unique to only Mizuno. These technological advancements make our sporting equipment and apparel go the extra mile and keep you in tip top playing form no matter the sport nor the conditions. Whether it's our Breath Thermo® line of clothing which generates heat from the absorption of moisture to keep you warm in cooler temperatures, to our line of Arctic Touch™ garments that expels heat and moisture generated by the body during exercise to keep your body cool and comfortable, your comfort and performance are at the forefront of our innovation. From the diamond to the track, from the court to the fairway, Mizuno's commitment to Serious Performance shines through.
Today, the high quality equipment that only Mizuno can produce are relied upon by athletes throughout the world. We produce superior quality equipment for serious performance, through the artful combination of technology and craftsmanship. Because, at Mizuno, your passion is our obsession.
Glove Properties
|Age Range
|13-15 High School-Adult
|Closeout Gloves Deal Of The Week
|Glove Type
|Infield Short Stop Third Base
|Pro Select
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VICTORIA – BC Ferries CEO David Hahn is leaving his post at the end of the year, part of a cost-cutting plan that freezes wages and reduces other executive salaries as the province's ferry service endures a slowdown in traffic.
Hahn's million-dollar salary makes him the highest-paid provincial employee, and the BC Ferries board's decision to increase his pension added to a storm of controversy that overshadowed the performance of the ferry service.
BC Ferries board chairman Donald Hayes confirmed that quitting with a year left on his contract means he will be paid no severance. Hahn said he made the decision to go early, and he also forgoes salary as well as taking a reduced pension.
Hahn has argued that a drop of three to four per cent in this year's BC Ferries traffic is not a response to high fares, but fuel costs, the U.S. slump and a high Canadian dollar that have also reduced traffic at B.C.'s free inland ferries and airports.
The B.C. Ferries Commissioner is reviewing the government's user-pay mandate for ferries, which has been in place for nine years and led to steeper increases on the minor routes. Until that review is complete and fares are set, Hahn said the company will cut costs by $11 million to offset an anticipated loss of $20 million this year.
Cost-cutting moves include a two-year wage and salary freeze, hiring freeze on non-essential positions, "select early retirements," reduced use of contractors, elimination of charity and community donations and the cancellation of arena advertising for Vancouver Canucks games, BC Ferries said in a statement.
Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom intervened in May to cap ferry rate increases at 4.15 per cent for all routes next year. A preliminary ruling by the commissioner had indicated rates for smaller and northern routes would go up eight per cent.
The Coastal Ferry Act currently requires BC Ferries to reduce the subsidy paid to keep smaller ferry routes running, and prevents BC Ferries from using revenue from its large, busy routes to support service to smaller islands and communities.
Lekstrom said the ferry rate review will focus on affordability for ferry users and the impact of rates on tourism and other business in ferry-dependent communities.
Long-time civil servant Gord Macatee took over as B.C. Ferry Commissioner this year, and his review is to make recommendations in early 2012 about changes to the legislation.
Largely in response to public anger over Hahn's salary, in 2010 the B.C. government passed amendments linking BC Ferries executive salaries to those of other public sector executives.

subset: commoncrawl


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Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The Gift of Downtime
I didn't realize how addicting running can be until I was forced to take a break. It really is like trying to quit smoking or crack! Well, maybe not crack, but it's up there. My legs didn't get the memo from the doc about a "mandatory month of rest", and they would start shaking and twitching around 6am every morning, ready for that daily run. When they didn't get their fix, they sent a message right to my brain – get depressed, angry, or something, but get back in the running groove! Finally Christi set me straight, and said I had to change my daily routine so I wasn't "missing" my workouts. Much to my surprise, I found great satisfaction in doing housework, spending long chunks of time with Sophie, slow swimming, and reconnecting with Debby Weil who is recovering from her cycling accident.
One of the first things I wanted to do was give Christi, my wife, a break every day that I could. She has been great about giving me the time to train in the mornings and weekends, and I wanted to return the favor even if she doesn't obsess about exercising like me. I made sure I was the first up in the mornings, feeding Sophie breakfast (or "breckee" as we call it), washing dishes, cleaning up, etc. Christi spent the time sleeping in, working out, or reading a magazine that had been gathering dust for months. On the occasional weeknight, I took Sophie out on "dinner dates with Daddy" to give Christi some time to catch up with friends. Turns out it is quite a work out! I certainly have a new appreciation for the sacrifice Christi and Sophie make just so I can get my daily run fix.
I have spent a lot more time with Sophie in the last month, and it has been wonderful to experience our bond grow. She's almost one year old, and changing every week (not walking yet, but darn close). It was nice to have her for big blocks of time, and be able to hit the zoo, walks in the park, going to weddings, try out new words, etc., instead of constantly wondering how I could fit her in or around my workout schedule. No surprise, I have more photos on HER blog these days. ;-) If you're a running blogger with an entry in the last month, Sophie has probably heard your adventure read out loud (that means you, Vermont 100 winner AJW, Olga the 12-hour dominator, Peter Lubbers the Ultrarunner.net leader, Jean Pommier touring France, Mark Tanaka chasing ghosts, Rick Gaston mastering the Headlands Hundred, and many more!). It's been great to live vicariously through you all, and Sophie hangs on your every word.
Christi was quick to point out that I might enjoy some light swimming, if anything just to get my heart rate up for a few minutes. I joined the gang at Ladera Oaks during the noon hour, plodding along in the slow lane and doing lots of pool running. Turns out that pool running can be quite a workout for the heart and muscles, without the strain on your bones and joints. Water aerobics is not for wimps! Christi was right – my mood improved, even with 1-2 pool sessions per week.
I also made a pact with myself to make time to meet Debby Weil, the cyclist who had been in an accident on Memorial Day weekend (read blog post here). We had exchanged voice mails since she got out of ICU in late June, but I never seemed to have the time to stop by and see her. Perhaps part of this was due to the fact that I knew she was still in bad shape – how could she not be? But wouldn't I want visitors if I was strapped to the couch? Absolutely, so I called her up and scheduled some time. When she opened her door to welcome me into her home, I simply couldn't believe it – she looked great! I had to apologize for staring, because I was having a hard time seeing "Debby from the accident" somewhere behind her glowing smile. Over the next few hours, she told me about the insane recovery (four weeks in ICU, more surgeries than I could count, 19 plates in her head and arms, taking 5 days to learn to swallow again, a new nose and chin, learning to grasp a cup all over again, etc.) and how she still has a ways to go. But to me, the fact that she could be alive with her sense of humor intact was nothing short of a miracle. I gave her some ultrarunner tips on how to stomach Ensure (blended with fruit and almond butter is best), and shared tidbits of the accident that she was curious about but thankfully doesn't remember. She wanted me to pass on a thank you to all of you who wished her well and kept her in your thoughts and prayers. I was simply aglow when I returned to work. She is the closest thing to an angel I have ever experienced, and I'm hoping we can stay in touch.
The x-rays and bone scans are good and the docs have cleared me to run again (right after the mandatory speech about how people shouldn't run that far, yada, yada). So I'm ramping up slowly, being careful to step cautiously and not hit the hills too hard. So far no pain but my stride is as awkward as a newborn giraffe. It's good to connect with the trails again, but I'm setting my clock extra early so I can get back in time for breckee with Sophie and hopefully the snoring sound of my wife. This last Sunday, I took them both out on a date instead of worrying about the long run. I'm going to stick with the pool sessions to do my "speed work" – there is definitely a link to running stronger in there, but I need more experimentation. Looking forward to seeing you all again soon, refreshed and ready to run!
20 comments:
It's great that you've been able to take the mentally difficult challenge of not being able to run and make it into something positive. Hope to see you on the trails soon!ReplyDelete
This is a very neat post - it's great to see what a speedy trail runner does when he's not running. I don't know if this would be awkward or not, but perhaps someday you could add Debby to your list of interviewees - that would be a good read. Good luck as you resume running!ReplyDelete
Good post to read, Scott. And enjoy sophie- they grow up sooooo fast. You are young and should have decades of running ahead of you....ReplyDelete
Wonderful Scott! Glad to know things are going well and than you have had important time with Sophie.ReplyDelete
I have a feeling your body will thank you later for the time "off".ReplyDelete
What a great post, Scott. Nice to hear you were able to get through your recovery time without going crazy - I'm sure the extra time with Sophie will be cherished forever. And nice to hear you are back running again.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous8/29/2007 10:14:00 AM
Wonderful post...as a Dad to a 2-year-old girl, I can attest to the difficulties of trying to be a good Dad, husband and trail runner all at once. I ran Massanutten this year, and I think my daughter loved getting to see the outdoors and getting to see me run into different aid stations...so once you're back in full gear, and as Sophie keeps motoring toward 2, it will be time to run another 100! Best of luck in your ongoing recovery, and congrats again on your first 100 that you completed wounded warrior style.ReplyDelete
Great to hear you are not only recovering well and smart, but also filling time with family instead of depressing. Injuries are often a gift from above to see things around differently, as I am entering this stage too:) Sphie is a darling, and she'll always "feel" this bond with you. I should leran from you how to "ramp up slowly", so post often (or email).ReplyDelete
Great idea about an interview with Debby - I bet you guys would find it compelling. I will ask her and see what she thinks. Great pic with the dogs, Andrew!ReplyDelete
Olga, you wouldn't believe how slow my "slow ramp" is. My first day, I ran two whole laps around a track! It's so odd to see "four mile long run" on the schedule for that Saturday...how quickly perspective can change! I'm adding 50% more each of the next two weeks, but will scale it down if it feels tight.
Hi Scott,ReplyDelete
Very glad to hear you're doing well. I am sure Christi and Sophie are enjoying the new lifestyle ;)
Take care,
Go, Daddy, go!ReplyDelete
Yikes!!! 2 laps and 4M...man, you are my hero, and help me God to be any near good as you are in following this regime:) John Pearch did it same way. May be you guys are onto something...been healthy and strong that's for sure. OK, I'll se what I can do about it, right now I am still off.ReplyDelete
Good to know your recovery is going well Scott. Looks like you're getting alot of Daddy time (always a good thing).ReplyDelete
Has anyone ever interviewed/inquired you on how you're able to maintain balance? I mean, triathlons & ultras while being a CEO of a growing e-Commerce business, a pretty prolific blogger of things that are of the ultrarunning world (I bet you probably get more hits than TrailRunnerMag.com and Ultrarunning.com), and being a family man - weekend warrior is an understatement.
Great post, Scott!ReplyDelete
It's good to hear that your recovery is coming along well and that you are more than making the most of it!
Btw, I love Jon's idea of interviewing you. Everything you do is amazing to a lot of us. I would volunteer to administer the interview (you normally conduct them via e-mail, right?). You could then post it on your blog.ReplyDelete
What a nice post! I'm glad you're able to find the gifts in the downtime. Sounds like Christi is quite intuitive regarding changing your routine! And I bet Sophie is really enjoying brekee with you! Good luck on your recovery - most of us, I am sure, have been there and some of us are there again for various reasons. Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans. ;-) Enjoy the ride!ReplyDelete
glad to hear you're doing better! i was actually out running and was wondering how the stress fractures were healing up on ya.ReplyDelete
quite nicely, it sounds like! looking forward to hearing about more of your adventures soon!
Still not able to safely run from stupid calf strains on Sunday, I feel for you and your withdrawal. We are all a bunch of addicts.ReplyDelete
Sophie's cute, but sorry, my son has too many older women (ages 3 and 4) after him in his daycare, not assuming she's looking. You've probably been told this, but this next year of fatherhood gets even better, so much more fun. Enjoy it.
I'm really glad you followed up and connected with Debbi. I think most of us who read that post wanted to know that she was doing better.
Jon and Dave - I'm flattered you would want to do an interview, and would definitely be open to it. Dave if you want to coordinate, I would be happy to do it. I'm at scottdunlap [at] yahoo.com.ReplyDelete
Be sure to send Dave your questions!
This post just made my day Scott. First of all it was great to hear you make the adjustment. You made the time productive and dare I say unforgetable with the time you've had with your daugther. It was also really good to hear about Debby Weil. Thanks for the update. As a person who spends time on the bike too her story really stuck with me. Looking forward to seeing you on the trails again.ReplyDelete
P.S. From what I've read and heard from friends, water running is one of the best things you can do.
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text: Hello i am a newbie and i am trying to setup a server as shown here http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_ubuntu_5.10 Through out the installation process it asks for my hostname and i am not sure what its wants because i have setup a ulr name at noip which is monitorwaves.no-ip.org and my lan name is ubuntuserver. also when setting up the mail server can i specife my own name like @monitorwaves.no-ip.org ? In addition there is a step were you remove #application/x-httpd-php phtml pht php #application/x-httpd-php-source phps #application/x-httpd-php3 php3 #application/x-httpd-php3-preprocessed php3p #application/x-httpd-php4 php4 from the mime.types which provents me from using phpmyadmin, is there a way to run both ISPConfig phpmyadmin and phpnuke on the same system. thanks much for your time and help


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From their first hit in 1974 through their heyday in the '80s, Daryl Hall and John Oates' smooth, catchy take on Philly soul brought them enormous commercial success -- including six number one singles and six platinum albums. Hall & Oates' music was remarkably well constructed and produced; at their best, their songs were filled with strong hooks and melodies that adhered to soul traditions without being a slave to them, incorporating elements of new wave and hard rock.
Daryl Hall began performing professionally while he was a student at Temple University. In 1966, he recorded a single with Kenny Gamble and the Romeos; the group featured Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell, who would all become the architects of Philly soul. During this time, Hall frequently appeared on sessions for Gamble and Huff. In 1967, Hall met John Oates, a fellow Temple University student. Oates was leading his own soul band at the time. The two students realized they had similar tastes and began performing together in an array of R&B and doo wop groups. By 1968, the duo had parted ways, as Oates transferred schools and Hall formed the soft rock band Gulliver; the group released one album on Elektra in the late '60s before disbanding.
After Gulliver's breakup, Hall concentrated on session work again, appearing as a backup vocalist for the Stylistics, the Delfonics, and the Intruders, among others. Oates returned to Philadelphia in 1969, and he and Hall began writing folk-oriented songs and performing together. Eventually they came to the attention of Tommy Mottola, who quickly became their manager, securing the duo a contract with Atlantic Records. On their first records -- Whole Oates (1972), Abandoned Luncheonette (1973), War Babies (1974) -- the duo were establishing their sound, working with producers like Arif Mardin and Todd Rundgren and removing much of their folk influences. At the beginning of 1974, the duo relocated from Philadelphia to New York. During this period, they only managed one hit -- the number 60 "She's Gone" in the spring of 1974.
After they moved to RCA in 1975, the duo landed on its successful mixture of soul, pop, and rock, scoring a Top Ten single with "Sara Smile." The success of "Sara Smile" prompted the re-release of "She's Gone," which rocketed into the Top Ten as well. Released in the summer of 1976, Bigger than the Both of Us was only moderately successful upon its release. The record took off in early 1977, when "Rich Girl" became the duo's first number one single.
Although they had several minor hits between 1977 and 1980, the albums Hall & Oates released at the end of the decade were not as successful as their mid-'70s records. Nevertheless, they were more adventurous, incorporating more rock elements into their blue-eyed soul. The combination would finally pay off in late 1980, when the duo released the self-produced Voices, the album that marked the beginning of Hall & Oates' greatest commercial and artistic success. The first single from Voices, a cover of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," reached number 12, yet it was the second single, "Kiss on My List" that confirmed their commercial potential by becoming the duo's second number one single; its follow-up, "You Make My Dreams" hit number five. They quickly released Private Eyes in the summer of 1981; the record featured two number one hits, "Private Eyes" and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)," as well as the Top Ten hit "Did It in a Minute." "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" also spent a week at the top of the R&B charts -- a rare accomplishment for a white act. H20 followed in 1982 and it proved more successful than their two previous albums, selling over two million copies and launching their biggest hit single, "Maneater," as well as the Top Ten hits "One on One" and "Family Man." The following year, the duo released a greatest-hits compilation, Rock 'N Soul, Pt. 1, that featured two new Top Ten hits -- the number two "Say It Isn't So" and "Adult Education."
In April of 1984, the Recording Industry Association of America announced that Hall & Oates had surpassed the Everly Brothers as the most successful duo in rock history, earning a total of 19 gold and platinum awards. Released in October of 1984, Big Bam Boom expanded their number of gold and platinum awards, selling over two million copies and launching four Top 40 singles, including the number one "Out of Touch." Following their contract-fulfilling gold album Live at the Apollo with David Ruffin & Eddie Kendrick, Hall & Oates went on hiatus. After the lukewarm reception for Daryl Hall's 1986 solo album, Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine, the duo regrouped to release 1988's Ooh Yeah!, their first record for Arista. The first single, "Everything Your Heart Desires," went to number three and helped propel the album to platinum status.
However, none of the album's other singles broke the Top 20, indicating that their era of chart dominance had ended. Change of Season, released in 1990, confirmed that fact. Although the record went gold, it featured only one Top 40 hit -- the number 11 single "So Close." The duo mounted a comeback in 1997 with Marigold Sky, but it was only partially successful; far better was 2003's Do It for Love and the following year's soul covers record Our Kind of Soul.
The issuing of "greatest-hits" albums reached a fever pitch during the 2000s, with no fewer than 15 different collections seeing the light by 2008. Live records proliferated as well, with the A&E Live by Request release Live in Concert hitting stores in 2003, a reissue of their Ecstasy on the Edge 1979 concert (titled simply In Concert this time around) in 2006, and the Live at the Troubadour two-CD/one-DVD set in 2008. As far as proper studio albums go, the 2000s were lean, with only three releases -- the aforementioned Do It for Love and Our Kind of Soul, topped off by Home for Christmas in 2006. A career-spanning box set appeared in 2009, titled Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall and John Oates.
During the 2010s, the duo were very active, both together and separately. Several Hall & Oates tours were mounted, and they performed together on American Idol and The Voice. In 2011, Hall released his fifth solo album, Laughing Down Crying, on Verve Forecast, and that same year Oates released a blues tribute album titled Mississippi Mile. Three years later, Oates drafted contemporary pop stars including Ryan Tedder and Hot Chelle Rae for Good Road to Follow. Also in 2014, the duo were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & J. Scott McClintock
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Fortune/CNN | June 10, 2009
By Brian O'Keefe, senior editor
(Fortune) -- On a sunny Friday morning, Shonda Warner and I are in her red Toyota pickup heading southwest on Highway 61 out of Clarksdale, Miss., on our way to see one of her farms. While her black standard poodle, Walter, naps in the back seat, she's explaining the pitfalls of being an institutional land investor.
"It's really hard to buy property at the right price," says Warner as we roll past the famous crossroads where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil to get the secret of the blues. "Half of all farmland that trades in the United States never sees a broker. We believe you've got to have a lot of local knowledge of the marketplace. Farmers are smart and they talk. And if one Town Car full of Wall Street types rolls into town and makes a bid, suddenly all of the prices go up."
A Nebraska farm girl who went on to a globetrotting career as a derivatives trader for Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and then as a hedge fund executive in London, Warner, 45, is back on the farm pursuing what she believes is a huge moneymaking opportunity. Two years ago Warner launched an investment firm, called Chess Ag Full Harvest Partners, with a fairly simple underlying strategy: Buy undervalued farmland in the U.S. and profit from the coming global agriculture boom.
Last June she closed her first fund with $30 million from wealthy individuals and institutional investors such as the pension funds of Dow Chemical (DOW, Fortune 500) and Lockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500). She says her ultimate goal is to take the company public as the first farmland-only real estate investment trust in the U.S. "The returns in agriculture haven't looked sexy for a long time, but I think that's about to change," she says.
Warner is just one of many financiers around the world making that same bet. Over the past few years hedge fund gurus like George Soros, investment powerhouses like BlackRock, and retirement plan giants like TIAA-CREF have begun to plow money into farmland - everywhere from the Midwest to Ukraine to Brazil. Canadian private equity firm AgCapita, which raised $18 million in 2008 to invest in Saskatchewan cropland, estimates that as of the first quarter of 2009, more than $2 billion of private equity money had been raised for farmland investments globally, and another $500 million was planned.
The fundamentals remain in place for a long-term boom in the prices of everything ag-related. The simplest metric to consider is the amount of farmland per person worldwide: In 1960 there were 1.1 acres of arable farmland per capita globally, according to data from the United Nations. By 2000 that had fallen to 0.6 acre (see chart above, "Precious Acres"). And over the next 40 years the population of the world is projected to grow from 6 billion to 9 billion.
"Land is scarce and will become scarcer as the world has to double food output to satisfy increased demand by 2050," says Joachim von Braun, director general at the International Food Policy Research Institute. "With limited land and water resources, this will automatically lead to increased valuations of productive land. And it goes hand in hand with water. Water scarcity will probably increase even more than land."
Improving diets in the developing world will also help drive up prices. As per capita incomes rise in China, India, and other parts of Asia, hundreds of millions of people will be adding meat to their daily fare. In the coming decades that will have a multiplier effect on demand because of the massive amounts of grain used to feed livestock. The USDA estimates that it takes seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Even with better crop yields from new seed technology, a supply crunch is looming. And the effects of climate change - rising sea levels, more droughts - could only amplify the problem.
"I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time," says commodities guru Jim Rogers, who serves as an adviser to AgCapita. "Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that's a long ways away yet."
The biggest investors in farmland over the next decade will probably be sovereign wealth funds and governments of crop-starved countries eager to secure food supplies for their rapidly growing populations. In 2008, China announced a $5 billion plan to develop agricultural assets in Africa. That's just a start. Given that it has 20% of the world's population but only 7% of its arable land and 7% of its freshwater resources, China has no choice but to look beyond its borders. And the global recession has hardly slowed its appetite for crops. In the first four months of 2009, China imported a record 13.9 million tons of soybeans.
The Gulf States of Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia have already begun making deals to acquire or lease large tracts of farmland in Africa and Asia at bargain prices. That in turn has led to spate of headlines recently about a "land grab" by rich countries. When South Korea's Daewoo Logistics announced a $6 billion deal last November to lease roughly half the arable land in Madagascar - a plot about twice the size of Delaware - it caused so much anger that it helped spur a coup d'etat. In May a UN-sponsored study concluded that too many farmland deals were giveaways by leaders of poor countries, with only vague promises of jobs and investment in return.
The farmland phenomenon is almost certainly still in the early stages and is playing itself out in many ways around the globe. To get some insight into those strategies, Fortune focused on three investors with vastly different approaches - a British lord who's putting his money on Brazil, an American who is playing on political tensions in war-torn Sudan, and Warner, who is bargain hunting in the U.S. "Farming might not look sophisticated," says Warner. "It might wear overalls and talk funny. But it's older than Wall Street, it's a fine-tuned machine, and it's a very difficult business." Still, she says, if you execute right, "there is a big opportunity here."
Warner comes from a long line of farmers. The original deed on her family's land in Dakota County, Neb., in the northeastern corner of the state, was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1861. By the time she was 14, she had earned her grain grader's license and was managing the grain elevator her father had built in Dakota City. Even when she was living abroad, she says, she loved to get home and ride a tractor. But it was the blues that originally brought Warner to the delta.
A lifelong "music nut," she started visiting Clarksdale to hit the local blues clubs after getting divorced in 2000. In 2004, after selling her share of a hedge-fund-of-funds business in London, on a whim she bought a two-story, 19th-century brick building on Delta Avenue downtown that housed a general store, renamed the shop Miss Del's (as in "Mississippi delta"), and added antique knickknacks and British chocolate to the inventory.
When she decided to move from London to the U.S. full-time in 2006 to pursue farmland investing, Warner converted the second floor of the building to a loft-like apartment. For now, it doubles as the headquarters of her fund. When Warner's not traveling, she and a couple of employees work at a dining room table with a PC. Books like Food, Inc. and Trade Negotiations in Agriculture sit on shelves above, next to a copy of Graham and Dodd.
Although Warner's rationale for betting on farmland is very much rooted in the global demand picture, her strategy is strictly focused on the U.S. "Yeah, land might be cheap and plentiful in Russia, but if the price of wheat goes up, is your deed going to be honored?" she says by way of explanation. Rather than buy farms in what she calls the "Prada handbag" states of Illinois and Iowa, where land comes at premium prices, she concentrates on less-well-known farming areas. In addition to her home base in Clarksdale, she has an office in South Dakota, and so far the fund has bought land in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas as well as Mississippi.
To figure out how much to pay for land, Warner looks at a range of factors, from local cash rents to the area's 10-year crop-yield trend. She hires contractors to farm the land and splits the harvest, using her trading experience to hedge out price risk and lock in gains. In exchange for a seven-year lockup, a 2% management fee, and 20% of profits, she figures she can deliver the investors in her first fund an annual return of 13% to 16% - about 4% to 6% from crop yields, around 8% from land appreciation, and the rest from hedging.
Based on historical returns for farmland, that's an attainable goal. According to research by Terry Kastens and Kevin Dhuyvetter, professors of agricultural economics at Kansas State University whom Warner recruited to be advisory partners in her fund, the average annual return on U.S. farmland since 1950, including crop yield and land appreciation, is 11.5%, vs. a 12% annualized total return for the stock market. And the farm returns actually came with about half the volatility of stocks.
Despite the big price moves in grains, farmland values have stayed relatively stable. Land prices in the U.S. rose modestly last year (the final data from the USDA won't be out until August), but the picture this year is unclear. In May the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago estimated that farm prices in parts of the Midwest fell by 6% in the first quarter, the biggest such drop since 1985. However, Warner says that the markets she targets are still on the rise. "I hope we see some softening," she says. "I think it would be a great buying opportunity."
If any investor has a long view on world markets, it's Lord Jacob Rothschild. The 73-year-old scion of the world-famous European banking dynasty need only look to his own family history, which dates back some 200 years to the rise of patriarch Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt. Even after losses in his investment trust last year, Rothschild has a personal fortune estimated at $600 million. He also has a strong opinion on the prospects for farmland. "We think right now is an excellent point of entry for taking a long-term position in agriculture," he tells Fortune.
Rothschild did just that last year when he invested $36 million for a 24% stake in a venture called Agrifirma Brazil. The company is the brainchild of Jim Slater, a longtime City of London investor and investing writer known in the 1970s as one of Britain's most feared corporate raiders, and Ian Watson, a Canadian investment banker. It is not the trio's first investment in commodities together. In 2003, Rothschild invested with Watson and Slater in a company called Galahad Gold, which snapped up gold and uranium assets just as metals prices began to move up, and then sold shares publicly through the London Stock Exchange's AIM market. With commodities booming in late 2007, they liquidated the company's assets, locking in a 66% annualized return over five years. Profits in hand, the trio decided that the next big opportunity was in agriculture.
When asked about the case for buying farmland, Rothschild rattles off statistics on population growth before bringing up another issue of increasing importance: inflation. "If you look at the macro picture today," says Rothschild, "we have an extraordinary situation. If you take governments' printing money as fast as they are, borrowing as fast as they are, and bailing out white-elephant corporations, we're surely going to have an inflationary situation fairly soon." In that kind of environment, owning a hard asset like land is a good hedge.
Agrifirma has already acquired some 100,000 acres in the Brazilian state of Bahia and holds an option on another 60,000. This summer it will produce its first crops of soybeans, cotton, and corn. Rothschild and Watson say they chose Brazil in part because there was a large quantity of scrubland, or cerrado, that could be irrigated and converted to farmland, enhancing the value greatly. They also liked the fact that its economy has been growing robustly. And perhaps most important, Brazil has 14% of the world's freshwater resources, the most of any country. "The world is fully in a water crisis, and we haven't realized it yet," says Watson. "When you're exporting agriculture, you're de facto exporting water."
"They can't change the laws on me, because I've got the guns," says Phil Heilberg, pausing to take a bite of his turkey bacon. On a Monday morning in May the chairman and CEO of Jarch Capital is explaining his investment strategy over breakfast at the Regency Hotel near his office on Park Avenue in New York City. "As long as Gen. Matip is alive, my contract is good."
While Warner and Rothschild have focused on carving out a relatively risk-free way to profit from the farmland boom, Heilberg, 44, has taken the opposite tack. The American is putting his money into Sudan, Africa's largest country and one of its least stable. And he's hardly shy about the many ways his investment could go wrong. "I like to point out that it's a failed state, it's been sanctioned by the U.S., and it has a peace agreement that could unravel at any time and lead to armed conflict," he says. "The good thing is that you know what most of the risks are, and you can get paid for them."
With hundreds of thousands of acres of lush, undeveloped land in the Blue Nile and White Nile valleys, Sudan has the raw potential to develop into an agricultural powerhouse. Investors from Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have already reportedly made deals to lease land in the predominantly Muslim northern part of the country. But in January, Heilberg raised a lot of eyebrows by announcing that he had agreed to lease roughly 1 million acres of undeveloped land - an area the size of Rhode Island - in Mayom County in southern Sudan.
The deal has drawn all kinds of criticism - everything from cries of land grabbing to accusations that Heilberg is intentionally fomenting discord on behalf of the U.S. government to outrage that he is consorting with "warlords." Heilberg has cultivated connections to Washington. His vice chairman is former ambassador Joe Wilson, the husband of onetime CIA agent Valerie Plame and the man who blew the whistle on the Bush administration's obfuscations about Iraq and yellowcake uranium. Another executive is a former CIA operative.
But Heilberg dismisses any suggestion that he's working with the U.S. government. And he makes no apologies for his associates on the ground, including the aforementioned Gen. Paulino Matip Nhial, 67, a hardened veteran of the long civil war between north and south Sudan who is now the deputy commander of the army in the south. Both Matip and one of his allies, Gen. Peter Gatdet, are on Jarch's advisory board. An Amnesty International report in 2000 recorded accusations that troops under Matip's command committed war atrocities. "One man's warlord is another man's freedom fighter," says Heilberg. "If you want to be in power over there you have to control territory, and listen, that involves tribal battles. You just have to recognize who is a good man and who isn't - who's doing it for power and who's trying to better his people. Matip is a good man."
The son of a coffee trader, Heilberg spent nine years working for the AIG Trading Group, doing metals and currency deals in the former Soviet republics and opening offices for the company in Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow, and Tashkent before striking out on his own in 1999. He started Jarch (the name is formed from his children's initials) in 2002, and became captivated by the combination of political tension in Sudan and the abundance of natural resources in the southern part of the country. "There's a lot of wealth to be made when you have changes in sovereignty," he says.
In addition to farmland, southern Sudan has oil, gold, zinc, and uranium, and Heilberg has long been looking for a way to profit from developing those resources. But he is constrained by, among other things, the fact that U.S. sanctions prevent him from exporting oil out of Sudan - not that the government in the northern capital of Khartoum would allow it anyway. (His ideal investment scenario involves southern Sudan's making a relatively bloodless split from the Muslim north and being recognized by the U.S. as an independent nation.)So for now Heilberg is focusing on the farming opportunity, and he says that by the end of the year he will have more than doubled the amount of land that he's leasing. He is interviewing foreign farming contractors to develop the land, and hopes to begin growing tomatoes, corn, onions, and other vegetables by next summer. He anticipates taking on investment from a "major venture partner" within the year.
Heilberg has promised not only to create jobs but also to put 10% or more of his profits back into the Mayom County community. (Jarch's slogan: "Because it is your land, your natural resources!") And Wilson characterizes their approach as a version of doing well by doing good. "This is a deal that's certainly fraught with political risk," he says. "But we think that it has enormous potential to open an avenue of economic development for the southern Sudanese and make them shareholders in a positive outcome. That's my theory as I look at this." In theory, it sounds good. As an investment strategy, it's not for the faint of heart.
Back on Highway 61, Warner is reflecting on the fact that the wider world is mimicking her own journey back to the farm. "I think it's fun to get Wall Street types and farmers talking," she says. "They might have a lot to offer each other. A couple of years ago when I started telling my buddies in New York my little story about row-crop agriculture, it seemed really exotic. But I think people have sort of been slapped around and gotten a wake-up call, and they're thinking, 'Oh, this kind of makes sense.'"
There's another thing she finds comforting about what she's doing. "I've always personally liked the idea," she says, "that even if the bottom dropped out of this whole credit bubble and the world blew up, that the farmland, while it might not make a return for two or three or four years, was going to be there down the road. Because in the end, people have to eat."
--Reporter Beth Kowitt contributed to this article.


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If Congress actually listened to small-business owners, the minimum wage would be going up.
Instead, Thursday will mark five years without an increase since the federal minimum wage was set at $7.25 an hour in 2009.
Small-business livelihoods depend on revenue, not rhetoric. Small-business owners know there's a problem when median household income is lower than it was in 2009, adjusted for inflation, but the Dow Jones stock index has soared to record highs — nearly doubling since July 24, 2009.
Businesses rely on consumer spending, and consumer spending depends heavily on wages. The minimum wage sets the floor under worker paychecks. At $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage comes to just $15,080 a year for full-time work.
That's so low that today's minimum-wage workers make less than their counterparts did 64 years ago, accounting for the rising cost of living. Adjusted for inflation to 2014 dollars, the minimum wage was worth $7.40 an hour way back in 1950.
That's so long ago, it was five years before Ray Kroc founded the McDonald's Corporation, seven years before "Leave it to Beaver" began on television and nine years before the first Barbie doll.
Businesses need customers who can afford what they are selling. When a growing number of workers can't make ends meet, it weakens consumer demand and hurts business.
Small-business owners strongly support increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10, according to a new national poll of small businesses with employees. A striking 61 percent of small-business employers favor gradually increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 over 2 ½ years, and then adjusting it annually to keep pace with the cost of living.
Support is strong across the country among small businesses for raising the federal minimum wage. Employers favor raising it to $10.10 with a 67 percent majority in the Northeast, 61 percent in the Midwest, 60 percent in the West and 58 percent in the South.
Small-business owners expect a higher minimum wage to increase consumer purchasing power and help the economy. They also expect it to reduce employee turnover and boost productivity and customer satisfaction.
The scientific, nationally representative opinion poll of small-business employers was conducted by Lake Research Partners and released by the American Sustainable Business Council and Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. More of the small-business respondents identified themselves as Republican than either Democrat or independent.
Eric Henry, president of TS Designs, an apparel business in Burlington, North Carolina, said of the poll findings, "From over 30 years in business, I know firsthand that investing in employees is the best investment a business can make. We need our government to raise the minimum wage so that all workers can make a living and businesses have the stronger customer base we need to create lasting homegrown jobs and profitability. And by automatically adjusting the minimum wage for the cost of living in future years, we will assure it doesn't again erode and undermine our economy."
At its inflation-adjusted high point in 1968, the minimum wage was worth $10.94 in today's dollars. Those were the days when you could work your way through college and not come out with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. American families were upwardly mobile, not downwardly mobile.
We cannot build a strong economy on a falling wage floor.
Low-income workers spend their dollars on Main Street, not Wall Street. A higher minimum wage will increase sales at local businesses and reduce the strain on our social safety net and our communities caused by inadequate wages.
"Workers who make a part-time wage while working full time are not able to support their families or be a good customer base for local businesses in their neighborhoods, towns or cities," said Robert Olson, owner of Olson & Associates in Springfield, Illinois. "Raising the minimum wage is a common-sense, first-step solution to building a healthy local economy."
Most small-business owners, like most Americans, support a minimum-wage increase. Five years without a raise already is too long.
If Congress actually listened to small-business owners, the minimum wage would be going up.


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Chapter 45
Joseph makes himself known to his brothers—They rejoice together—Pharaoh invites Jacob and his family to dwell in Egypt and eat the fat of the land.
1 Then Joseph could not arefrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he bcried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.
2 And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.
3 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am aJoseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were btroubled at his presence.
4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am aJoseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
5 Now therefore be not agrieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did bsend me before you to preserve life.
6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
7 And God sent me before you to apreserve you a bposterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a aruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
9 Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not:
10 And thou shalt dwell in the land of aGoshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast:
11 And there will I anourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.
12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you.
13 And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my afather hither.
14 And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.
15 Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him.
16 ¶ And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come: and it apleased Pharaoh well, and his servants.
17 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan;
18 And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.
19 Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you awagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come.
20 Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.
21 And the children of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way.
22 To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to aBenjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment.
23 And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by the way.
24 So he sent his brethren away, and they departed: and he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way.
25 ¶ And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father,
26 And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is agovernor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not.
27 And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the awagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father brevived:
28 And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.


text:
Finnish board A3 - 2.0 mm
Finnish wood board 1010g/m², beige
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Finnish board A3 - 2.0 mm
Finnish wood cardboard 1010g/m², beige
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The finnish wood pulped paper board (Finnboard) distinguishes itself through a low specific weight despite its high material volume. Due to easy handling and durability, the Finnboard is a popular choice for all kinds of architectural models, altitude level models and more.
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I reported last week that Chris Martin and Alexa Chung were out together in New York the night after the MET Gala. Click here for a refresher. Now HEAT Magazine has the photo. Not a pap photo but a shot that looks like it was taken on the creep by someone in the restaurant on their smart phone.
HEAT isn't a reliable source for anything, really, but they do seem to have the cash to throw at people. The person who provided the shot tells the publication that the two were "tucked away in a dark corner of the back room the bar. Chris and Alexa seemed to know each other really well. They were both in a great mood, and even asked us to watch their bags when they went out for a cigarette".
Didn't take long, did it?
If you've listened to the lyrics of his new songs, you know why it didn't take long. He may have tried to re-commit himself to his marriage before ultimately deciding to consciously uncouple but he couldn't forget the girl with the big eyes under the festival sky, who knew all the strange songs, and didn't stress about daycare schedules and hemp hearts.
You'd think that girl could inspire some better music though. If I were Alexa Chung, I'd be embarrassed I'm responsible for Magic.


text:
Saturday, April 28, 2012
5 comments:
It's fun imagining what these intriguing messages actually mean :)ReplyDelete
Ah well keep trying ;)ReplyDelete
Got it :)ReplyDelete
Better then to stick to more confidence-building interpretive exercises, like the shiny new penny today :)
Derren Discusses The Assassin « Derren Brown BlogReplyDelete
22 Oct 2011 – Chris associated polka dots and the ringtone not just with forgetting and with firing a gun, but also with Derren, and it would have been safe to ... Polka Dots, Tokyo and the Tate Modern - The onefinestay blog
7 Mar 2012 – This could, quite possibly, be a list of some of our favourite things. But to our delight they have now been brought together in the form of the ... David Ike.....join up the dots What would your hypnotic message be???
just think how bad zombie-game hypnosis en-masse would be.....ReplyDelete


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Native Tongues 101
In the summer of 1988, two albums with eerily similar titles presented radically different visions for the future of hip-hop. In August, NWA's bomb of a gangsta masterpiece, Straight Outta Compton, blew up the hip-hop landscape, forever changing the posture, politics, and attitude of rap music and rappers trying to be hardcore. But Straight Outta Compton was released just a month after Straight Out The Jungle, the debut album from New York trio Jungle Brothers and the first release from a future member of the Native Tongues collective. Looking back, each album seems like a stylistic roadmap for a different philosophy on the future of hip-hop: Where Straight Outta Compton is aggressive and harsh and presents the members of NWA clad in black Raiders Starter jackets, Straight Out The Jungle is as mellow and playful as the ridiculous, endearing khaki safari gear Jungle Brothers wear on the cover.
The image of Jungle Brothers looking unabashedly goofy while rhyming about Afrocentric medallions and the difficulties of urban life in the late '80s is characteristic of the movement they spawned: Native Tongues. A loosely affiliated crew composed of three founding groups (Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest) and a who's who of innovative hip-hop at the time, the members of Native Tongues were idealistic teenagers, hanging out both in and out of the studio while making groundbreaking music. The individual Tongues may have made better records as they matured, but the core Native Tongues style can be traced back to the debut albums of its founding members: Straight Out The Jungle, De La's 3 Feet High And Rising, and Tribe's People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm.
Straight Out The Jungle is still very much a product of the boom-bap percussion that was characteristic of East Coast hip-hop at the time, but Jungle Brothers Mike G (Michael Small), Afrika Baby Bam (Nathaniel Hall), and DJ Sammy B (Sammy Burwell) still include most of the elements of what came to be known as the Native Tongues sound on this album. There's some jazz influence and extensive sampling (both of which appear on the Marvin Gaye homage "What's Going On"), and the sort of social commentary made popular by Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five's "The Message," which is sampled on the title track. It also features several verses from a young Q-Tip, who inaugurates "Black Is Black" by shouting out his newly minted group, A Tribe Called Quest.
A critical hit mishandled commercially by Warlock Records, Jungle Brothers' label at the time, Straight Out The Jungle might not have spawned a follow-up album, let alone an entire movement, if not for the group's manager Fred Krute, better known as Kool DJ Red Alert. A rising star at 98.7 Kiss FM (and Mike G's uncle), Red Alert also had a management company, Red Alert Productions, which became home to several Native Tongues acts, including A Tribe Called Quest and Monie Love. After Straight Out The Jungle failed to perform to expectations, Red Alert helped the crew dent the singles charts with the added track "I'll House You," which has been noted as the first hip-house track outside of the subgenre's native Chicago.
Red Alert was also a member of Afrika Bambaataa's Universal Zulu Nation, a quasi-religious organization promoting unity and cultural awareness through hip-hop. The Zulu ideals, embodied primarily through Afrocentrism and an emphasis on individual identity, would find a home in the music of the Native Tongues, many of whom were and remain members of the Zulu Nation.
Though the Zulu Nation began as an organization of several reformed Bronx gang members led by Bambaataa, its philosophy found its way into the music of three kids from the Amityville area of Long Island. Those teenagers—Posdnuos, Trugoy (now known as Dave), and Maseo—became Plugs One, Two, and Three as they formed the trio De La Soul. With a few sketched-out demo tracks ready, De La hooked up with Amityville producer Prince Paul, then a member of live hip-hop band Stetsasonic. The result was De La's classic debut, 3 Feet High And Rising.
In many ways, 3 Feet High And Rising is the quintessential Native Tongues album. The record's loose "D.A.I.S.Y. Age" (a backronym for "Da inner sound, y'all") concept and bright, flowery cover art are the best available distillation of the Native Tongues stereotype, but its musical innovations were far more significant. The album invented, for better or (mostly) worse, the use of skits on rap albums with a light narrative about a wacky game show. And Paul's crate-digging production exploded the possibilities of sampling as a means of creating not only new beats with a hodgepodge of classic and occasionally kitschy influences ("The Magic Number" prominently samples Schoolhouse Rock!), but also innovative pieces of music that could stand on their own without any MCing ("Cool Breeze On The Rocks").
Perhaps more important for the collective's future, 3 Feet High And Rising contained the first track to showcase all three founding Native Tongues: "Buddy," which featured Jungle Brothers and Q-Tip on the studio version as well as Queen Latifah and Monie Love on the remix. "Buddy" inaugurated an era of collaboration among the founding members of Native Tongues, as well as the beginning of the collective's recruitment of a second wave of members.
De La Soul might not have even had the opportunity to make the album without Tom Silverman of Tommy Boy Records. Silverman, an environmental science major from White Plains, New York, was immersed in the dance music and disco scene (his first venture in the music business was a disco tip sheet) and started Tommy Boy with a $5,000 loan from his parents in 1981. After getting into the hip-hop business with Afrika Bambaataa And Soulsonic Force's danceable debut, Planet Rock, Tommy Boy became a natural home for Bambaataa's musical and spiritual descendents. In addition to Bam and De La Soul, Tommy Boy hosted Queen Latifah, Naughty By Nature, and Prince Paul's solo work. Warner Bros. snapped up other artists in the Native Tongues orbit (including Jungle Brothers) with the option it acquired after buying Tommy Boy and incorporating it as an imprint of the larger label.
De La Soul turned out to be a pretty good investment for Silverman; 3 Feet High And Rising was a critical and commercial hit, eventually going platinum. All of which happened, in large part, on the back of one of the least interesting tracks on the album, "Me Myself And I." That track heavily sampled Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep" and Ohio Players' "Funky Worm"—the sampling equivalent of covering The Beatles. For years after the release of 3 Feet High, "Me Myself And I" was the only song most fans wanted to hear at De La shows, an albatross that was still putting cash in the group members' pockets. Their reaction against the success of "Me Myself And I" was a signal of the different directions each of the Native Tongues members would take as they matured and achieved success.
De La Soul and Jungle Brothers profoundly influenced A Tribe Called Quest, the nascent musical project of Queens high school students Q-Tip (né Jonathan Davis, now Kamaal Ibn John Fareed), Phife Dawg, and alias-less Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White. Q-Tip and Phife were friends from early childhood, while Q-Tip and Ali attended the same high school as Jungle Brothers. That environment proved crucial to the eventual sound of A Tribe Called Quest—while Phife and Ali worked on their battle-rapping and DJing, respectively, Q-Tip hung out in the studio with Jungle Brothers and contributed to the recording sessions for 3 Feet High And Rising. Before long, Tribe recorded its own debut, People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm, one of the most playful (and weirdest) Native Tongues releases.
People's Instinctive Travels isn't the most cohesive record, and it's the closest of Tribe's three classic albums to being a Q-Tip solo record (Phife only has a couple of verses, while Jarobi is limited to behind-the-scenes contributions), but it has remarkable depth for an album by four kids. Tracks range from being socially conscious without being lame ("Description Of A Fool") to one of the only novelty tracks to truly transcend the form, "I Left My Wallet In El Segundo." But the dual standouts on People's Instinctive Travels hit both nerve centers of carefree youth: casual swagger on the Lou Reed-sampling "Can I Kick It?" and undeniable, hormone-fueled lust blurred with a tinge of romanticism on "Bonita Applebum."
Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Q-Tip's production was also a huge move in introducing the world to jazz rap. There had been isolated jazz-influenced cuts before (such as Stetsasonic's "Talkin' All That Jazz"), but People's Instinctive Travels' various jazzy tracks—like "Luck Of Lucien" (a slick homage to French rapper and Native Tongues collaborator Lucien Revolucien) and "Youthful Expression"—created a sonic landscape where sampling jazz organ was as natural as heavy snares. People's Instinctive Travels sounds a bit like a creative combination of the De La and Jungle Brothers sounds: Q-Tip was not only lucky to have spent time learning from Jungle Brothers, De La, and Prince Paul in the studio, but he also got priceless recording lessons from famed Queens producer Large Professor and from producer/prominent Zulu Skeff Anselm, who was dating Q-Tip's sister at the time.
Those three albums display idealistic teenagers fooling around and making thoughtful, innovative music as if by accident—in Brian Coleman's hip-hop oral history Check The Technique, Phife compares the original Native Tongues recording sessions to sleepovers. The almost haphazard nature of the production extends to the origin of the Native Tongues name itself: According to Michael Rapaport's excellent documentary, Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest, Q-Tip was at Afrika Baby Bam's house playing around on the turntables with Coming Together, a record by Motown-offshoot funk group New Birth. One track on the album, "African Cry," prominently features the lyric "Took away our native tongues," which became, after being cut repeatedly as a joke and then in earnest, the name of a collective where all the members seemed to be speaking the same language. Native Tongues was born.
Intermediate Work
As the Native Tongues sound spread, other artists were sucked into its orbit. One of the first and most important of these additions was a pre-film career Queen Latifah. After Latifah came up as part of the trio Ladies Fresh while she was still in high school in New Jersey, her first single, "Wrath Of My Madness," found its way to Tommy Boy A&R man Dante Ross, landing her a deal at the label. In 1989, Latifah released her debut album, All Hail The Queen, which includes production from Prince Paul and KRS-One. All Hail The Queen is more vocal in its consciousness and in its Afrocentrism than almost any other Native Tongues release. That's especially true of its unabashed feminism, a subject rarely addressed by the boys' club of Jungle Brothers, De La, and Tribe. On the Prince Paul-produced "Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children," Queen Latifah plays the knowing mother while De La Soul plays the soul children. And in "Ladies First," along with its accompanying music video, Latifah's lyrical activism found an outlet strong enough to sustain academic examination, as it shouts out several prominent black women and takes South African apartheid as one of its major themes. But "Ladies First" isn't just an exercise in trying to engage with feminism from within hip-hop—it's also dope as hell, and holds its own with the other Tongues.
In addition to being a badass political statement about apartheid and feminism, "Ladies First" introduced Latifah's protégé Monie Love to American hip-hop fans. An import from London who contributed verses for Jungle Brothers and De La Soul, and learned the business touring with Queen Latifah behind "Ladies First," Monie Love released her own debut album, Down To Earth, in late 1990. Down To Earth is much more of a party record than All Hail The Queen, spawning several charting singles ranging from the Spinners-sampling exhortation to a woman in an abusive relationship "It's A Shame (My Sister)" to "Monie In The Middle," a song written about Big Daddy Kane's refusal to ask her out himself while they were both on tour with Latifah. It's hard to imagine Monie Love, a female MC with a British accent who was more interested in wholesome partying and poetry than props, being even remotely successful without the founding Native Tongues.
Instead of being focused on poetry and positivity for idealistic reasons, Dres (Andres Titus) of Black Sheep avoided gangsta rap because he had actually been in prison for almost a year before spending the better part of a second year in a halfway house. After that unpleasant experience, Dres vowed not to glorify the life that had put him there. Once he was released from the halfway house, Dres ran into Mista Lawnge, an old friend who had started running with Red Alert and Jungle Brothers. With Dres rapping and Lawnge on the boards, the pair set out to record A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing, their debut as Black Sheep. Both the Black Sheep and A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing names served to distance the group slightly from Dres' criminal background—in a HipHop DX interview, he recalls spending the entire year before the release of A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing with a gun on him and feeling more comfortable around hustlers than people wearing kente cloths. Musically, A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing distinguishes itself from releases by De La and Tribe in a few ways: It embraces the less wholesome parts of the "party" half of party records in its obsession with sex (Q-Tip is featured on a song titled "La Menage") and the radio-ready rowdiness of its singles (especially "The Choice Is Yours," a ridiculously catchy track now famous mostly for being featured in Kia commercials). It is also more down-to-earth than any Jungle Brothers or Tribe release—the big posse cut is called "Pass The 40." Otherwise A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing, a record made in part to prove Black Sheep could hang with the rest of the Tongues, fits right in with their collected discography, particularly the gangsta-mocking skit "U Mean I'm Not," which reportedly caused the entire Tongues crew to fall over laughing when Dres played it for them.
In the same way Queen Latifah introduced American audiences to Monie Love on "Ladies First," the founding members of Native Tongues often used their own singles to break in new affiliated artists. None of these introductions was more successful than A Tribe Called Quest's classic posse cut "Scenario," which prominently featured the group Leaders Of The New School. A group composed of Long Islanders Charlie Brown, Cut Monitor Milo, Dinco D, and a young Busta Rhymes (Trevor Smith), Leaders Of The New School was anointed by Chuck D (who named Busta and Charlie Brown) during a stint opening for Public Enemy. After Chuck introduced Leaders Of The New School to Q-Tip, the group collaborated on a few of the sessions for Tribe's second album, The Low End Theory, including several alternate versions of "Scenario" featuring Posdnuos, Jarobi, and even Tribe's manager at the time, the late Chris Lighty, who was a protégé of both Red Alert and Russell Simmons. The crew's debut, A Future Without A Past, spawned tracks like "Case Of The PTA" that were far more focused on daily life in high school than the releases from their fellow teenagers. Though they released two solid albums, Leaders Of The New School are still remembered most for their verses on "Scenario" and spawning the often-absurd, sublime career of Busta Rhymes.
Leaders Of The New School were also members of The Nation Of Gods And Earth (also referred to as Five Percenters), an offshoot of the Nation Of Islam popular in the hip-hop community that found a home with other Tongues affiliates, most notably Brand Nubian. An old-school crew composed of three MCs (Grand Puba, Sadat X, and Lord Jamar) and two DJs (DJs Alamo and Sincere), Brand Nubian came out of New Rochelle, New York, where the older Puba had been a part of another group called Masters Of Ceremony before hooking up with Sadat and Jamar. The first artist signed by Dante Ross after he left Tommy Boy for Elektra, Brand Nubian released 1990's One For All, its only album as a full group before Puba left to pursue a solo career. (He later returned for 1998's Foundation, which lacked Sincere.) Like A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing, One For All combines serious, political material that might be more aptly compared to KRS-One than De La Soul with playful, sexual humor and funky beats on tracks like "Drop The Bomb," which includes the hippest-ever description of the politics of poverty. "Slow Down," the group's breakout hit, features rhymes about the desperation of crackheads over an infectious Edie Brickell sample, effectively capturing Puba as a man Ross describes in Check The Technique as "caught between the Koran and the street."
As One For All dropped, the founding Native Tongues were preparing to release their sophomore albums. Jungle Brothers released the excellent Done By The Forces Of Nature in 1989, which improved on Straight Out The Jungle and included one of the great Native Tongues collaborations: "Doin' Our Own Dang," which featured De La, Q-Tip, Queen Latifah, and Monie Love. But 1991 saw the release of A Tribe Called Quest's and De La Soul's remarkable sophomore albums, The Low End Theory and De La Soul Is Dead. Down one man (Jarobi left the group to go to culinary school) and dealing with the health problems of another (Phife's diabetes), Tribe came together on an album that, while still lyrically excellent ("Yo, microphone check, one two, what is this? / The 5-foot assassin with the roughneck business"), takes the Native Tongues to a new sonic level. With the help of engineer Bob Power, Q-Tip explored his fascination with none other than N.W.A. by ramping up the bass on tracks like "Buggin' Out" and "Scenario" while simultaneously bringing the Native Tongues' affinity for jazz to fruition—going beyond the track "Jazz (We've Got)," jazz bassist Ron Carter plays live on "Verses From The Abstract." And De La Soul Is Dead took the raw musical talent of 3 Feet High And Rising and went darker. While there are still joyous moments—"A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays,'"—there are just as many tracks like "My Brother's A Basehead" and "Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa" that deal with crack addiction or child abuse. And De La's skits, once used for game-show shenanigans, were now employed to declare the end of the D.A.I.S.Y. Age. Native Tongues wasn't dead, but it certainly wasn't the same.
Advanced Studies
What was arguably the driving force of Native Tongues—teenagers hanging out and making music—met its logical conclusion in the work of Chi-Ali Griffith (better known simply as Chi-Ali), who got his first famous verse on Black Sheep's posse cut "Pass The 40" and recorded his debut at age 14. That album, The Fabulous Chi-Ali, was released in 1992 when he was 16. The record, though nothing to sneeze at lyrically, features solid production and was a surprising commercial success on the back of tracks like "Age Ain't Nothin' But A #" and "Funky Lemonade." The older Tongues' influence on the album was palpable—"Let The Horns Blow" featured Dres, Trugoy, The Beatnuts' Kool Fashion, and Phife Dawg, and the graffiti on the album cover reads "Native Son… Native Tongue." Though Chi-Ali did little musically after his debut (besides an appearance on Dres' first solo album), he made headlines in a much sadder fashion. In 2000, Chi-Ali shot and killed his then-girlfriend's brother in the Bronx and evaded arrest for a period of just over a year, during which he was featured on America's Most Wanted twice. He then served a prison term from which he was released in 2012.
The Fabulous Chi-Ali was successful in large part because it was almost entirely produced by Native Tongues affiliates The Beatnuts. The only Latino members of the collective, producers JuJu and Psycho Les, then calling themselves Beat Kings, were introduced by Afrika Bambaataa to Jungle Brothers, who dubbed them "nuts" for their clownish personas and for carrying so many records to every show. After starting their musical relationship with Native Tongues producing "Pups Lickin' Bone" on Monie Love's Down To Earth and most of The Fabulous Chi-Ali, The Beatnuts released their own debut, Intoxicated Demons, in 1993, showcasing the slimy jazz and funk of the then-trio (including rapper Kool Fashion). Intoxicated Demons took the Native Tongues sound and lyrically amped up both the comedy and the hedonism with lyrics like "Now, I'm on a rampage, prepare for the slaughter / Lyrical monster busting nuts in your daughter" on the Brand Nubian-sampling single "Reign Of The Tec."
By 1993, Native Tongues seemed to be drifting apart, as the founding members each released an album representing different attitudes toward the collective. Jungle Brothers' J Beez Wit The Remedy ran into significant troubles with Warner Bros. before its final, substantially watered-down version. De La Soul's Buhloone Mindstate, though a slightly more conventional Tongues album, features little collaboration from a group that had already declared their early sound dead. And A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders, arguably the best album by a member of the collective, concludes with a series of wistful tracks that appear to be summing up the end of something special. Q-Tip has openly stated that The Low End Theory "really broke us out of the Native Tongues stereotype." On Buhloone Mindstate's "In The Woods," Posdnuos pronounces, "That native shit is dead."
But a slightly younger generation took up the Native Tongues mantle heading into the new millennium. The crew inspired similarly minded artists across the country, including Chicago native Lonnie Rashid Lynn, a.k.a. Common. Though he'd been making music since the late '80s, Common's hip-hop ambitions didn't fully take off until a trip to New York introduced him to Brand Nubian and Leaders Of The New School. His 1992 debut as Common Sense, Can I Borrow A Dollar?, was a scattered collection of demo tracks, but for the next album, Common and producer No I.D. (Dion Wilson) tried to, in Common's words, make "some cold-blooded shit that can get played with A Tribe Called Quest." The 1994 album Resurrection succeeded on all fronts. The album was a leap forward musically, especially the classic "I Used To Love H.E.R," which uses a woman enraptured by the siren song of materialism as a metaphor for gangsta rap's thoughtless domination of hip-hop. Common was only loosely associated with Native Tongues at the time, but closely affiliated with their themes and positive energy. And Native Tongues became the template for the Soulquarians, the early-'00s loose collective Common belonged to, along with Questlove, Erykah Badu, and others.
Though Common has had the most continued success of the late Native Tongues, another artist from the Midwest with a crucial role in the Soulquarians has had a substantial effect on contemporary music and greater success in growing and evolving the Native Tongues sound. Born into a musical family in Detroit, J Dilla came up with rappers Baatin and T3 as part of the Detroit group Slum Village. The group's first, unofficial record Fan-Tas-Tic, Vol. 1 caught the attention of Q-Tip, who brought Dilla in to collaborate with him and Ali Shaheed Muhammad as the trio The Ummah. As part of The Ummah, Dilla was largely responsible for the sound of the last two A Tribe Called Quest albums, and later produced much of Q-Tip's solo material before achieving a cult-like status all on his own after his death in 2006.
Back in New York, De La Soul's fourth album, 1996's Stakes Is High (the group's first without Prince Paul), a record deeply concerned with the state of hip-hop (the titular high stakes), introduced a promising young MC going by the moniker Mos Def . Though Mos Def had planned on releasing his debut with the guidance of De La Soul, his chemistry with a similarly minded artist named Talib Kweli led the solo release to be put on hold in favor of a collaboration under the name Black Star. Perhaps the biggest difference between that album, 1998's Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, and the earlier Tongues releases is a consistent thoughtfulness that largely eschews feel-good party tracks: Where 3 Feet High And Rising plays around with Schoolhouse Rock! samples, Black Star's "Thieves In The Night" is an homage to Toni Morrison, and the group's name is a reference to Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line. In many ways, Black Star is a culmination of the original ideals of Native Tongues in an era when it seemed those values were being ignored by hip-hop at large—not for nothing does single "Definition" recount and decry the violent death of multiple MCs in the mid-'90s.
Some of the specifics of the Native Tongues membership have been disputed over the years—in particular, the status of later affiliates like Common, Mos Def, and J Dilla. But other artists who were definitely affiliated with the larger crew haven't remained as relevant or immediate, even those with notable contributions to hip-hop at the time. Trio Fu-Schnickens worked with Tribe on a debut record that helped introduce kung-fu imagery to hip-hop before Wu-Tang Clan and oversaw the beginnings of Shaquille O'Neal's rap career on novelty single "What's Up Doc? (Can We Rock)," which has Shaq saying Bugs Bunny's catchphrase. Jamaican and Trinidadian trio Da Bush Babees released two mildly successful albums featuring production from Ali Shaheed Muhammad, The Ummah, and Posdnous, but the trio is likely most notable for including several early verses from Mos Def on its album Gravity.
Some artists maintained the musical innovation of the earlier Tongues records, but lacked the idealism. In particular, Prince Paul's solo work is engaging and worth listening to on its own, but can't quite be pegged as Native Tongues music—it's far too broad, and is rarely socially conscious. Still others advanced political ideology similar to Brand Nubian or Black Star, but simply weren't in the same circles—most notably trio KMD, which featured heavy sampling over intensely political lyrics from idealistic teenagers, including a young MF Doom still going by Zev Love X. Like KMD and Doom's later work, an extraordinary percentage of '90s and '00s hip-hop was strongly influenced by Native Tongues. An account of every single artist even loosely affiliated with a member of the crew would increase this list exponentially. It's enough to recognize that the original Tongues' fingerprints are all over contemporary hip-hop, from Pharrell to Kanye West to Kendrick Lamar.
The Native Tongues may have presented themselves in opposition to some of the less savory trends in hip-hop at the time, but they didn't avoid social tone-deafness. The worst of these songs thankfully never made it to an official release. During the sessions for The Low End Theory, Tribe and Brand Nubian collaborated on "Georgie Porgie," one of the most unequivocally homophobic tracks in the history of hip-hop (a genre already prone to bouts of homophobia). In one of the best decisions ever made by a record label, Jive refused to release the track; the beat was reused for "Show Business." The final track still featured the members of Brand Nubian with the exception of Grand Puba, who declined to participate in protest. The bigotry of "Georgie Porgie," while perhaps not so surprising from teenagers in the early '90s (particularly ones who made the "The Infamous Date Rape" on that same record), is still shocking from the same group that made the exceedingly nuanced "Sucka Nigga" and "Description Of A Fool."
As the founding Native Tongues aged, their musical output became less immediate. Jungle Brothers have continued to release a string of unmemorable albums but aren't currently together. While the final two Tribe albums—Beats, Rhymes, And Life and The Love Movement—have some solid tracks and an interesting new sonic direction (they were mostly produced by Dilla under The Ummah name), they're also fairly forgettable. After Midnight Marauders, A Tribe Called Quest didn't have much more to say. It's telling that the best track to appear on The Love Movement was an older bonus remix of "Scenario." Meanwhile, De La Soul has stayed together with a minimum of fuss, releasing mostly decent albums and one phenomenal late-period record (2004's The Grind Date). The group has been making the rounds again in preparation for its eighth album, You're Welcome.
There's been consistent clamor for a Native Tongues reunion since the mid-'90s, with each of the members blaming the others for the delay in making one happen. The tensions between the founding Native Tongues is unfortunate, but in some ways is a blessing; it's hard to imagine a real Native Tongues reunion going well. The Native Tongues collective was formed, more than anything else, by like-minded, idealistic youngsters developing intense friendships based in a love of music. Watching an attempt to translate the near-magical ties of wide-eyed adolescence to those same people in middle age? Say no go.


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After a week-long closing to rework both its menu and design, Boca's Red the Steakhouse (1901 N. Military Trail, 561/353-9139) has reopened and is hoping for "a second chance to make a first impression."
The classy, elegant meatery, which combines elements of both contemporary and traditional steakhouses, was foundering on the shoals of the difficult and often fickle Boca market, one that proprietor Brad Friedlander admits, "we didn't fully understand."
Adding that to a location that was at once close to major dining and retail outlets yet frustratingly obscure, an off-season April debut, and a confusing and not particularly welcoming entry combined to create "a perfect storm," that overshadowed the quality of the restaurant's food, Friedlander says.
To combat all that Friedlander sank $275,000 into some major renovations, including knocking down walls and expanding the bar and redoing the front entrance to make it more obvious and inviting. He also had the upstairs banquet rooms, which can seat from 50 to 200 people, redone.
On the food side, prices have been reduced some 15 percent, while several less expensive steaks (Certified Black Angus as opposed to Certified Black Angus Prime) have been added to the menu. Also added is an "Executive Trio" menu, three courses for $49 (including a glass of house red or white wine), meant to attract the surrounding area's plethora of corporate employees.
How all this will work, and whether Red's second first impression will be more favorable than its last. . . well, that's a good question. I, for one, hope it does. At a time when some "name" steakhouses seem to have drastically reduced the quality of their beef and others apparently feel that serving steaks with a thick exterior layer of indigestible black carbon somehow makes them more appealing, a restaurant that understands quality beef and how to cook it is essential to our carnivorous happiness.


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From chocolate to pizza - what a good food night! This Potato and Roasted Pepper with Goat Cheese pizza was a surprise hit. If you would of told me a couple years ago that I would make, eat, let alone enjoy red peppers and goat cheese I would of thought you were crazy! The combination of smokey peppers, creamy soft goat cheese, thin sliced red potatoes on top of a crispy thin and nutty whole wheat crust made my night complete. No leftovers unfortunely because we just couldn't stop eating this one.
Potato and Pepper Pizza with Goat Cheese


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In 2017/'18, more girls than boys in the third year of secondary education were studying at a higher level than recommended by their primary school.Read publication
Slightly over half of Dutch young people between the ages of 15 and 24 occasionally do volunteer work. More than half are also active in associations.Read publication
In 2017, more than half of all children aged 4 to 11 complied with the standards for physical activity as set by the Health Council of the Netherlands. Almost two-thirds were taking part in sports at least once per week.Read publication
In 2017, disrespectful behaviour was encountered relatively most often by women between the ages of 18 and 24 years; 33 percent experienced such behaviour on the street and 22 percent did so in public transport.Read publication
In 2017, 29 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds were addicted to social media in their own view, up from 19 percent in 2015. The share of 25-year-olds who consider themselves addicted is relatively lower.Read publication
A very large majority of Dutch 18 to 24-year-olds are satisfied with their lives in general and with their social lives in particular: around 85 percent in 2016. Young adults who are currently enrolled in or who have completed higher education are often more positive than their lower educated peers.Read publication
Nearly one in three 18-24 year-olds smoke, and one in five of this age group are overweight. At the same time, nearly 91 percent report their own health as good or very good. Young people who smoke and those who are overweight are less positive about their health than those who do not smoke and those who are not overweight.Read publication
If they are not at home, a smartphone is by far the most popular mobile device for young people to access the internet. Once online, they spend most of their time playing video games, watching films and accessing social networks. They also buy tickets for upcoming events.Read publication
The school dropout rate in the Netherlands was reduced in recent years to 8.8 percent in 2012. The rate across the EU was also gradually reduced. The reduction of school dropouts is high on the national and international policy agenda.Read publication
Relative to other European countries, many young people in the Netherlands attend some form of education. The number of young people leaving school without a basic qualification is also below the European Union (EU) average.Read publication