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DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A local reporter for The Associated Press in Gambia was released by security officials on Monday, after being detained by the country's intelligence service for more than 24 hours, the journalist and his colleagues said.
Gambian journalist Abdoulie John is the editor of the website Joloff News, and a contributor to AP. On Sunday, he was covering the release of Senegalese soldiers held by a rebel group in Senegal's southern Casamance region.
He said he was put in a military truck after the Gambian president's photographer questioned his presence, and an altercation ensued. John said he was locked in a room at the National Intelligence Agency in Gambia's capital. He was released Monday around 5 p.m.
Gambia has one of the most tarnished human rights records in sub-Saharan Africa. Human rights groups accuse the regime of arbitrary arrests, summary executions and torture


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Latest Features
USA Crushes Slovakia at WJCsSubmitted by pete on December 30, 2006 - 15:07
Team USA effectively stomped the life out of Slovakia's WJC hopes today defeating them 6-1 today in round robin play in Sweden. Vladimir Mihalik was -1 with 1 shot on goal in the game. Marek Bartanus was -2 with 2 penalty minutes in the game. The road gets worse for Slovakia as tomorrow they square off with defending tournament champion Canada in their final game of the round robin.
- 1384 reads
Slovakia Drops to 0-2 at WJCSubmitted by pete on December 28, 2006 - 18:02
Slovakia allowed three unanswered third period goals today falling to Sweden 6-3. Lightning prospect Vladimir Mihalik had 1 goal in the game and was +1 with 1 shot on goal. Marek Bartanus was scoreless with no shots on goal in the loss. Now at 0-2, Slovakia's medal round chances are on life support heading into a matchup Saturday against Team USA. The Americans were mentioned among the pre-tournament favorites but have also fallen to 0-2 early in the tournament and will be just as desperate as the Slovaks to get a victory to try and salvage their medal round hopes.
- 1490 reads
Slovakia Loses WJC OpenerSubmitted by pete on December 27, 2006 - 15:39
Germany continued their great start to the U20 WJC's today knocking off Slovakia 4-2 after defeating Team USA less than 24 hours prior. Lightning prospect Marek Bartanus registered an assist on the Slovak's second goal. Counting Slovakia's two exhibition tune ups Bartanus now has 1 goal and 2 points in 3 games since heading over to Sweden for the tournament. Bartanus has assumed a regular spot on Slovakia's second line thus far. Bartanus was even with 3 shots on goal in the game. 2005 first round pick Vladimir Mihalik was -1 with 1 shot on goal in the game.
- 1296 reads
WJC Exhibition: Slovakia vs. BelarusSubmitted by pete on December 23, 2006 - 14:30
Three days away from the opening of the U20 World Junior Championships and exhibition tune up games are well underway. Slovakia defeated Belarus today 5-3 in their second tune up match in Sweden. Both defenseman Vladimir Mihalik and left wing Marek Bartanus were scoreless in the match for Slovakia. Mihalik played on the team's first pairing and received 6 minutes in penalties in the matchup. Bartanus played on Slovakia's second line and had 6 penalty minutes as well. Both players were involved in an ugly scrum in the middle of the third period which led to double roughing minors for each.
Bartanus had Slovakia's only goal in their 4-1 exhibition loss to Finland on Friday.
- 1353 reads

subset: commoncrawl


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Abstract, explosive in red, green, other colors. India ink designs of buildings with stick figure children in the foreground, playing Red Rover, Red Rover which is also written on the image. A comment on my childhood, but one that I am not comfortable explaining on line, so I will let you insert your own interpretation.
I have been a producing artist for over 30 years, starting out as a potter/sculptor back in my native Michigan. I now paint, work with mixed media, and a bit of photography. . .and now and then, a little clay! I have become known primarily for my work in a dimensional, recycled mixed media w/acrylic, and all of my originals are also available as prints and as cards. Joining Fine Arts America has led me to pull out some of my old images, and to find a renewed interest and pleasure in the techniques and styles that I have passed through over the past few years. I am the co-owner of Riverview Gallery in Portsmouth, Va. and my work is carried in galleries and museum shops throughout Virginia. I have fun with my work, somewhat of a...
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Cabbage and Fennel or Leeks Pie
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Author Notes: This pie can be filled with all kinds of vegetables, meats, sausages, mushrooms and cheeses. I even used this batter for a deep dish pizza. —Kukla
Serves: 12
Ingredients for the batter:
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
Zest of 1 lemon
• 5 extra large eggs room temperature
For the filling:
• • 1 medium cabbage head shredded
• 1 medium onion sliced
•1 medium fennel bulb or 4 small leeks thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¾ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• ½ cup fresh parsley chopped
• ¼ cup fresh dill chopped
• 1 cup goat cheese
Juice of 1 lemon
- Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Butter and sprinkle with some breadcrumbs the bottom of a 12by 71/2 casserole or glass baking dish. In a large bowl mix cabbage, onion, fennel or leeks, lemon juice, parsley, dill, salt and pepper set aside.
- To another bowl sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda. In a large mixing bowl, whisk sour cream, mayonnaise and lightly beaten eggs, fold in to the flour mixture. Pour 2/3 of the batter in the baking dish, then squeeze with your hands the excess moisture from the cabbage and fennel or leeks filling and spread it on top of the batter. Crumble goat cheese evenly over the top, and cover with the remaining 1/3 of the batter.
- Bake for 1 hour, or until the pie is golden brown and the sides are slightly pulled from the dish. Serve at room temperature.
- Cut cooled pie in 12 portions, wrap each slice in wax paper, pack in a food container and enjoy with your family or friends.
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Picnic Dish
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Spring Vegetable Recipe


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Teaching long enough to know that I LOVE it! ... 6 years in first grade. Never want to leave. :)
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Betmar Fern Cap
Code: B612H
Product Description
The Betmar Fern Cap is a cute, casual cap perfect for chilly weather. The rounded crown is paneled from silky fabric and the short rounded peak is a fashionable modern look. The cap is trimmed in a thin hat band with a buckle detail. Fully lined for comfort, this cap is ideal for those transitional cold weather days.


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Smyert Shpionam — Death to Spies: Get Religion, January 26, 2012. January 27, 2012Posted by geoconger in Bulgarian Orthodox, Get Religion, Press criticism.
Tags: collaborators, Communism, espionage, Gertrude Stein, Soviet Bloc
comments closed
This will set the mood.
"Balkan, Balkan," they said in France of a pimp slapping a whore or three kids beating up a fourth — anything barbarous or brutal.
— Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows (2000)
Eleven of 15 bishops of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church currently in office were spies for the former communist regime's Committee for State Security — the Darzhavna sigurnost or the DS — according to an inquiry carried out by the government's Committee on Disclosure of Documents.
If you had not heard this news, I would not be surprised. While this has dominated the news in Bulgaria and in the former Soviet bloc, only the Agence France Press (AFP) among the Western wire services picked up the story. And as far as I have been able to tell via the magic of Google, only two Australian news organizations subsequently published the story — nothing so far in the U.S. or U.K.
Well what of it? Am I writing this post to capture the Bulgarian Orthodox demographic audience for GetReligion?
While the setting is Bulgaria and the characters are Orthodox clergy and secret policemen, the issues are of collaboration with evil and the battle for truth. Change the characters and the same story could be told of Vichy France, the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche and the Confessing Church in Germany, or the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the House Church movement in China.
While the canard that Pius XII was a pro-Nazi stooge continues to excite journalists — a real story of church leaders collaborating with evil is being ignored. In French there is an expression très balkan: meaning hopelessly confused with the connotation of labyrinthine or byzantine machinations. It would be easy to dismiss this story as being a très balkan intrigue more worthy of an Eric Ambler novel than hard news. However this story raises profound questions of morality and journalistic integrity.
Follow me through the Balkan labyrinth and see if we emerge in the same place.
As you might expect the Bulgarian press has been all over this story. The English-language Sofia Echo has half a dozen stories: the initial report, what the bishops did for the secret police, popular reaction, calls for the bishops to resign, actions to be taken by the church's synod — as well as the surprising revelation that the 97 year old Patriarch of the church, Maxim, was not a spy.
Before the report was released the country's largest circulation daily newspaper Dneven Trud called for the bishops to seek forgiveness.
The clergy have had 20 years to prepare the faithful for this moment, to do penance and explain how they served the police as well as God: 'To save the Church and protect you from persecution we had dealings with the secret police", or something along those lines. But only Joseph, Metropolitan of the New York Bulgarian Orthodox Church, has shown contrition for his connections to the secret police. All the others claimed to be clean and free of blame. In view of the anticipated revelations the Church must prepare itself for a retaliation from society.
After the report was released the daily Standart — which is Russian owned and follows a pro-Russian line — called for repentance from the bishops but forgiveness from the people.
The bishops did everything possible to prevent the files in question from coming to light. … But as the Bible says: "Nothing is concealed that won't be revealed and nothing is hidden that won't come to light." … What the bishops will do now depends on them and is a matter of conscience since the law does not foresee lustration. But now is not the time for excuses but for repentance. For God loves the sinner who repents more than the just. In this respect the disclosure of the secret service files could prove to be salutary for the Church.
The Echo noted that those debating the church's relation to the Communist regime could not stand in isolation from the current political scene.
… the secular political element has become most obvious with the grouping of a number of left-wing intellectuals who have publicly hit out against what they described as a politically-motivated attack on the church and on ancient Bulgarian traditions (the group accuses some media of connivance in this attack). These intellectuals, in turn, have come under fire among centre-right commentators in the media as well as from other academics and theologians as including several who were State Security collaborators and avowed supporters of the communist atheist system.
A week after the story broke in Sofia, The Australian on 23 January 2012 published the AFP story under the headline "Bulgarian bishops were communist spies." The following day the Australian newspaper chain News Limited published a story on its website entitled "Communist past catches up with bishops".
The AFP stories run in Australia give the basic details of the case, but no background or context. They also offer the voices of commentators critical of the church — when as the Echo reported a lively debate is being waged between defenders and critics of the church. It is hard to fault a wire service story for brevity — the AFP has no control over the title or the length of the story its subscribers use — but a casual reader would take away very little from these reports.
And in America we hear? Nothing.
The tone and feel of the story also would do little to challenge Western prejudices that this is a très balkan affair taking place in the back of the beyond. Yet the Bulgarians are attempting to address their past in a way no other former Soviet state has done.
Russia has yet to examine the Stalinist era. The Moscow Patriarchate — the official name for the Russian Orthodox Church — was set up on the orders of Joseph Stalin in 1943 as a front organization for the NKVD and all of its senior positions were vetted by the Ideological Department of the Communist Party, according to reports published in the U.K. following the defection of KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin in 1991.
In two books written with intelligence historian Christopher Andrew, The KGB in Europe and the West and The KGB in the World, Mitokhin claimed that Russian Orthodox priests were used as agents of influence on behalf of the KGB in organizations such as the World Council of Churches and the World Peace Council. Patriarch Alexius II was also named as KGB agent with the codename DROZDOV, whose services earned him a citation from the regime.
The Bulgarian stories — writing it is true with the luxury of space in the paper to report and the immediacy of the issues — have also spoken to the issues of repentence. How should society judge those who collaborated with evil or who were agents of evil?
Is this an Orthodox thing? A Bulgarian thing? Or a human response?
Imagine if the New York Times devoted articles on the Roman Catholic pedophile scandal to how or why abusers should be forgiven?
Over the holidays I happened to read a new book about Gertrude Stein (yes we GetReligion writers lead exciting lives). Written by Barbara Will the book Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma (Columbia University Press, 2011) examined the novelist's war years.
As one reviewer put it — the question facing biographers was:
How had Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas—foreigners, lesbians, and Jews—somehow managed to survive World War II in a rural enclave in southeastern France?
The answer Will and other researchers found was that the celebrated feminist author was a collaborator, who translated Marshall Petain's speeches into English and penned a number of articles supporting his regime — even after it was apparent what collaboration with the Nazis meant.
What is the journalist's task in all of this? Is it too much to expect a discourse of the ethical and moral ghosts that lay behind a story on collaboration with evil — or is it enough to just report the events. Or, is the behavior being disclosed not evil? Reams of newsprint have been devoted to the pedophile scandals — and rightly so — but little to no work has been done on the fellow travelers and useful idiots that provided moral sanction to an evil regime.
I would have hoped that one of the major newspapers or serious magazine would have picked up this story. Perhaps the Balkans are too far away and the Cold War a fading memory — but I believe that the truth and journalism have not been faithfully served so far.
Bishops photo courtesy of office of the Bulgarian president.
First published at GetReligion.


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Back in the saddle
Cowboy Junkies are galloping toward Granite State on latest tourBy CHRIS BIERI
Special to the Union Leader September 27. 2017 12:59PM
The Cowboy Junkies, a country, blues and folk-rock group from Canada, will visit the Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center, 39 S. Main St., Plymouth, on Friday night.
If you go...WHO: Cowboy Junkies
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday
WHERE: Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center, 39 So. Main St., Plymouth
TICKETS: $39.50 and $49.50
INFO: flyingmonkeynh.com; 536-2551
When the Cowboy Junkies emerged as alt-country trailblazers in the late 1980s, Margo Timmins' voice quickly became the band's trademark.
Her almost reluctant delivery seemed to embody a wandering horse's slow amble.
With a harder charging new album set for release next year, Timmins is taking that trot to a gallop.
"If there's a record where I'm going to let it rip, this will be the one," she said. "There are a lot more heavy rock songs (on the album), more so than what we've done in the past. They're really fun — hard and heavy."
Timmins and the Cowboy Junkies will visit Plymouth on Friday for a concert at the Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center.
While Timmins promises the still-untitled release will be more rollicking, concert-goers can expect the same type of intimate performance the band has delivered for over 30 years.
Formed in Toronto in 1985, Cowboy junkies brought together Timmins and her brothers, Michael (guitar) and Peter Timmins (drums), and bassist Alan Anton.
Despite being Canadian, the Cowboy Junkies made Americana music before the designation was popularized. Blending blues, country and jazz, the group highlighted Michael Timmins' spartan songwriting style and Margo Timmins' hushed vocals and unassuming stage presence.
"I didn't come to this easy," Timmins said. "My reticence was part of how my voice was developed. I was never a loud person, and that's never been my personality. (My brothers) never said you had to sing loud and project. My voice developed naturally, and I wasn't copying anybody. I was just trying to cope with the fact I'm standing on stage with a microphone.
"Now, on stage is a place I'm happy and comfortable to be," she said. "(The process) was finding out who I am and who I want to be and who I could be. I knew I wasn't this big dynamic personality dancing around."
The band's breakout album, "The Trinity Sessions," introduced mass audiences to the group's spare sound.
Recorded at Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity in 1987, the record quickly became an alt-country standard, and included a cover of The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane."
The band's success left Timmins grappling with her burgeoning fame. But she said avoiding playing the role of a performer left her more comfortable with herself and able to more easily connect with audiences.
"For me, whether I had a right to be up there, I really questioned it," she said. "It took a long time. In the early days when I was trying to figure it out, I decided ... to keep it honest. The person on stage is the person I am. If it wasn't, I would probably forget who I am supposed to be."
In recent years, the band has recorded its most ambitious project, the four-volume "Nomad Series," which was released in consecutive years from 2010 to 2013.
The releases showcased Michael Timmins' prolific songwriting, to the point that his sister joked it's nearly a curse.
"The faucet comes on, and oh, my God, we're going to have to take away his pen," she said.
With siblings comprising three quarters of the band, Timmins said focusing on the larger family has allowed the band to sustain success and sanity without squabbling.
"The one thing with us (is that) the larger family is just as important as Cowboy Junkies," she said. "My parents are still together. We are very involved with each other's lives. When we get to the point when Mike and I are mad at each other, I think what happens is there's a thought of a larger more important entity — the family.
"Whenever it's got to that point where it's not happy, we've been able to sit down and talk," she said. "I also really believe playing in the Junkies is something the four of us love, and we wouldn't risk jeopardizing it."
After three decades of being on stage, Timmins said the music now means more to her than it ever has.
"As I get older, it's even more important to me," she said. "It's the thing I have that's just mine. It's just about me and playing music, and I need it. I'm much more intimate with the music.
"When you're younger, you're much more aware of the stupid stuff — your hair and how much you're making and if the manager is coming and I don't want to talk to him. As you get older, you don't focus on that crap, and it allows you to have that intimacy. If there are two people out there listening, I don't care."


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- director:
- various
This year's Oscar nominations for Best Documentary, Short Subject are:
- The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed, Canada/USA/UK - English, 39 min.) - At 109, Alice Herz Sommer is the world's oldest pianist... and its oldest Holocaust survivor. At the heart of her remarkable story of courage and endurance is her passion for music.
- Karama Has No Walls (Sara Ishaq, UAE/UK/Yemen - Arabic, 26 min.) - When protesters in Yemen added their voices to those of other nations during the Arab Spring, the government responded with an attack that left 53 people dead and inspired widespread sympathy throughout the country.
- Facing Fear (Jason Cohen, USA/English, 26 min.) - As a gay 13-year-old, Mathew Boger endured a savage beating at the hands of a group of neo-Nazis. Twenty-five years later, he meets one of them again by chance.
- CaveDigger (Jeffrey Karoff, USA - English, 39 min.) - New Mexico environmental sculptor Ra Paulette carves elaborately designed and painstakingly executed sandstone caves, driven by an artistic vision that often brings him into conflict with his patrons.
- Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall (Edgar Barens, USA - English, 40 min.) - In a maximum security prison, the terminally ill Jack Hall faces his final days with the assistance of hospice care provided by workers drawn from the prison population.
There will be a brief intermission after Facing Fear.
See all the nominees before the winner is declared at the Academy Awards Ceremony on March 2!


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Marc Jacobs & Lorenzo Martone: Black & Blue Briefs!
Marc Jacobs and his fiance Lorenzo Martone break out their black and blue briefs while spending time on Saline Beach in St. Bart's on Monday (December 28).
The 46-year-old legendary fashionista has been soaking in the sun all week and spent time with Jimmy Choo boss, Tamara Mellon.
When there's no restroom in sight, the good ole towel wrap will have to do!
10+ pictures inside of Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone in their black and blue briefs….


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text: Scott Harvey Tornado Safe Rooms In Schools A Popular, But Costly Idea By Scott Harvey • May 24, 2013 In the days since a tornado ripped through Moore, Okla., talk of constructing safe rooms in public schools has become commonplace. In southwest Missouri, officials have built a few of them already, and they are seeking funding to build more. 'A Sense Of Peace' Karina O'Connell is preparing dinner tonight under the pavilion at Phelps Grove Park in Springfield, Mo., where she's eating with her 9-year-old twin sons, Samuel and John Patrick.


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Life Span:14-18 years
Litter Size:5 puppies per litter on average
Group:FCI Companion dog
Recognized By:CKC, FCI, NKC, APRI, ACR
Color:White, black and white and tricolor (white with cream, gray, light brown or light lemon and black).
Hair Length:Medium
Shedding:Lite Shed
Male Height:10-12 inches (25-30 cm)
Male Weight:12-15 pounds (5.5-7 kg)
Female Height:10-12 inches (25-30 cm)
Female Weight:12-15 pounds (5.5-7 kg)
Living Area:The Coton de Tulear does very well in a small apartment or a house. They do require regular exercise and are not considered an outside dog, they do best when inside with the family.
Energy Level:
Exercise Needs:
Other Dogs:
Cold Weather:
Hot Weather:
The Coton de Tulear is most easily identified by the soft, fluffy, cottony looking coat that is typical of the breed. They are a relatively uncommon breed outside of their native homeland of Madagascar but are gaining in popularity with dog fanciers the world over. There are actually different standards for the Coton de Tulear depending on which registry is being referenced. A general description is found below. The Coton de Tulear has a rounded skull and a well defined face that is highlighted by the soft, cottony hair that frames the dark features. The muzzle is tapered and short and there is a noticeable stop between the forehead and the start of the muzzle. The eyes are dark, lively and intelligent and are framed by dark skin. The nose is also very dark, black in color and very noticeable against the white or light colored coats. The lips cover the teeth tightly and are not loose or overlapping. The lips, like the nose and skin around the eyes is black in color. The ears are moderate in length and drop or fold over approximately two and a half to three inches and then there is an additional fringing of hair on the ears that makes them appear fuller and longer than they actually are. The head is carried very high, proud and erect on the long neck, which flows nicely into the shoulders and well developed chest. The topline of the back is straight to somewhat outwardly arched, although this arch is not predominant or highly noticeable. The legs are straight, somewhat on the shorter side and well muscled for the overall size of the dog. The pads of the feet are black in color and nicely rounded and compact. The tail of the Coton de Tulear may be carried straight or slightly curved, but will always be covered with longer, cottony hair. The breed has a noticeable beard and moustache of longer hair, plus the eyes of the mature Coton de Tulear will be covered with the long hair from the forehead. In pets this may be trimmed to help with upkeep, but in show dogs the coats and faces may not be trimmed or clipped. The overall appearance of the coat should be windblown and free, not slicked or flat against the body. They should closely resemble a fluffy cotton ball that has been slightly pulled apart.
We have Coton De Tulear Puppies For Sale, please support our Coton De Tulear breeders!
The Coton de Tulear is different from most breeds of dogs in that the cotton, dry textured coat is more like hair than it is like a traditional dog fur. This makes the coat appear very fluffy and light, almost tussled in appearance. The coat is moderately long and very full, with mature dogs often clipped or trimmed when not being used as show animals.
The Coton de Tulear is originally from Madagascar, more specifically the port of Tulear. It is believed that a dog closely resembling the Coton de Tulear was found after a shipwreck off the port city, although there is no record of the name of this ship or where it was sailing from. Many breeders believe it is more likely that the European ships sailing to this African port likely had small companion type dogs of various mixtures with them, that then were left behind as gifts or simply left behind to mate with other dogs already in the city. The result was a small, athletic and uniquely coated dog that came to be known as the "Royal dog of Madagascar". They were then brought back to Europe and reintroduced, giving rise to the debate as to whether they are originally a European breed rather than an African breed of dog. Regardless they are a relatively rare breed of dog that is slowly but surely becoming more popular around the world. The Federation Cynologique Internationale or FCI accepted the breed in 1971 and has since moved to change some of the standards used by the other breeding associations and kennel clubs. They have moved to a more Maltese looking breed standard that is not accepted or recognized by other associations.
The Coton de Tulear has a wonderful, lively and intelligent personality that makes them ideal for any type of home or family situation. They are a great dog to interact with children or the elderly and can adjust to the amount of exercise that the home can provide. They are also very easy to train, very willing to please, and enjoy being with their families as much as possible. Not a toy dog, the Coton de Tulear, despite its fluffy and somewhat toy like appearance is a very sturdy small breed that loves to play, fetch and romp around with the family. The Coton de Tulear is an excellent companion dog for either smaller or larger breeds. When properly socialized the Coton de Tulear will accept other dogs into their area without being overly protective or dog aggressive. Of course intact males are more likely to be problematic with aggression especially in the presence of females that are in heat. Neutered males and spayed females are typically the calmest of the breed when interacting with other dogs. They are also excellent with non-canine pets and tend to interact very well with cats and other household pets. The Coton de Tulear is a very happy breed. They seem to constantly be smiling, wagging their tails and wanting to be around the family. They do best when they are left alone only for brief periods of time. The Coton de Tulear is not a good breed for a family that will be gone more than they are home or that don't have time to spend with their pet on a regular, daily basis.
The Coton De Tulear is one of the healthiest breeds of dogs with no known Health Problems, likely due to breeders continued efforts to closely monitor and select the best possible Breeding programs. All Coton de Tulears in the United States must complete a blood chemistry test as well as general Health test to qualify for breeding status in the Coton de Tulear registry. Some conditions that the health exam looks for include:Cherry Eye-prolapsed gland in the third eyelid, usually corrected by surgery.Progressive Retinal Atrophy-progressive blindness.Patellar Luxation-dislocation of the kneecaps.CHD-canine hip dysplasia is a progressive weakening of the hip joint causing pain and limited movement.Legg Calve Perthes Disease-bone and circulatory disease of the hips, can be treated by removing the joint and constructing a new joint of muscles and tendons. It is genetically transmitted condition that is common in most small breeds.
Daily grooming is key to keeping the coat of the Coton de Tulear looking its best and free from mats and knots. While they are not a shedding breed the longer, dead hairs if not removed from the coat will cause skin irritations as well as mats and tangles in the coat that can become very significant in a short period of time. Daily grooming either by brush or comb will keep the coat looking soft and tangle free with just a simple routine that shouldn't take more than five minutes. The Coton de Tulear usually only sheds hair when been groomed, much like a human loses hair when they brush. Since the hair is so dry to the touch and silky, it is typically easy to groom using a wide toothed grooming comb or a pin brush. Start at the neck and groom down and back, following the direction of hair growth. The Coton de Tulear will never have a sleek, lie down on the skin type of coat so it is not essential to worry about exactly how the hair appears on the body, a windblown look is considered the best for the breed. The coat of the Coton de Tulear is naturally very clean and should only be bathed once or twice a year, never more frequently. It is important to trim the hair on the feet to prevent it from matting between the pads and becoming uncomfortable or absolutely painful for the dog. This can be done with blunt ended grooming scissors that prevent any possibility of nicking the skin. The ears should also be carefully checked and cleaned with each grooming and any long hairs in the outer ear area should be plucked to avoid irritation for the dog.Show Coton de Tulears may not be trimmed or clipped, although many pet owners choose to clip the hair over the eyes as well as clip or trim the hair on the body. When clipping or trimming the Coton de Tulear it is possible to do it yourself or simply take the dog to the groomer. If you are using a professional groomer clearly explain the type of cut you want and even ask to see pictures of what the clip or style will look like on your dog to prevent any surprises. Most groomers will allow the owners to stay with the dog, at least for the first session, to ensure that the clip is just what the owner is expecting.
The Coton de Tulear is a great indoor dog in that he or she will keep active in the house and does not need to be regularly outside in the yard. As with all types of dogs the Coton de Tulear does need regular exercise to stay fit and healthy, but this can be complete through inside activities such as fetch as well as going for regular, shorter walks. The Coton de Tulear will also adjust to long, lengthy walks or romps outside in the yard with the family. Due to its soft and cotton appearance many people mistakenly assume that the Coton de Tulear is a very delicate or fragile dog, which really isn't the case at all. These dogs love to run and play, especially with other dogs and pets. One of the best forms of exercise for the breed is a companion dog that will keep them active either in or outside of the house. The Coton de Tulear is naturally very playful and is a wonderful natural retriever, enjoying a game of fetch for as long as the owner is willing to throw the ball or toy. The Coton de Tulear is also an avid swimmer and loves to get into the water. With their cottony white coats this can often be a bit of a concern, but they are a water loving dog and will take every opportunity they can find to go in for a swim. They love long walks and hikes and are even a great jogging companion for an active family or individual. Traditionally the Coton de Tulear used to run alongside the owner's horse, able to go for miles at a brisk jog or light running pace.
Training the Coton de Tulear is a very pleasant experience although they are occasionally a bit headstrong and stubborn. The breed is very lovable and wants to please the owner, making them very responsive to positive training methods that use praise and small rewards. They are quick to learn both good and bad habits and will find many endearing little things to do when they think they may be in trouble. Many Coton de Tulear are naturally adept at learning tricks like walking on their hind legs and sitting up to beg. The Coton de Tulear, bred as a companion dog for so long, seems to have the ability to understand what the owners is wanting before the command needs to be given. They are ideal obedience and agility dogs and seem to love competition and being in the spotlight. As with all breeds they do need consistent training and a puppy obedience class is highly recommended to provide both socialization as well as a good understanding of the basic commands. Most Coton de Tulear are very clean dogs and puppies and will almost housetrain themselves given the opportunity to get outside when needed. They are also excellent dogs to crate train although the owners must be committed to following the routine and ensuring that the puppy gets outdoors or to the designated areas when in the crate. Teaching the Coton de Tulear tricks and entertaining routines is very easy. Unlike some dogs they will be able to understand multiple commands and are reported to have an uncanny ability to understand what their owner is saying. To avoid any confusion when first training the Coton de Tulear it is recommended that one person train the dog first, then have other members of the family work with the dog using the same commands and signals.
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Coton De Tulear: Weird Facts Did You Know?
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Big 12 Campus Correspondent
Although All-American hurdler Katie Grimes has already broken several records at Texas Tech, she said she plans to use what time she has left to do even better.
Grimes, a senior from Canyon, Texas, competes in the sprint hurdles and is currently pursuing a degree in petroleum engineering at Texas Tech.
Last year, Grimes broke the indoor school record in the 55-meter hurdles and 60-meter hurdles. Meanwhile, during the outdoor season, she was the Big 12 Runner-Up in the 100-meter hurdles.
Grimes earned second team All-American during both the indoor and outdoor seasons last year, but she said she still has room to improve this year.
"It was a huge honor to receive second team All-American," she said. "I didn't do as well as I wanted to, I wanted to make it to finals, but it got me to a good point to roll off of for the upcoming season. Now I have that experience to help me be more successful."
Grimes also had a breakout season in the sprint hurdles, recording the top three times in school history in the 55-meter hurdles, including the school record mark of 7.74 in the season opener at the Texas Tech Open on Jan. 14.
Grimes earned her second team All-American accolades in the 100-meter hurdles and ran a personal-best time of 12.99 at the Red Raider Open earlier in the season- the fastest wind-aided time in school history.
As far as the upcoming season goes, Grimes said she plans to start strong.
"I need to break some time barriers so I can spend the rest of the season maintaining and being consistent," she said. "Then I'll have to break out of my comfort zone toward the end."
Grimes said a huge goal for her is to earn first team All-American in the future.
"What I have already achieved is a great honor; I never in my life expected to do this well. I came in and just started to excel in hurdles," she said. "I have had so many people follow me since last season and it just shows what a great program and fans we have at Tech."
Grimes said the best part about running track is the way her teammates motivate each other.
Grimes said her coaches have also motivated her to be the best she can be.
"Coach [Dion] Miller is the best hurdles coach I've ever had," she said. "He has taught me everything I know. He has taken what I came in with and broken it down and worked individually on every part of my running ability."
"[Head] Coach Wes Kittley is always encouraging and is positive and gets me motivated," she said. "He's just an awesome person to run for."
Kittley said he is excited for Grimes' upcoming senior season.
"She's our school record holder," he said. "We are counting on her to make the NCAA finals this year and expecting her to have another breakout season."
Grimes said she believes her family to be the biggest and most important motivator to her success.
"I think my family is the main reason I have done so well," she said. "They come to every single meet, they are there the day before and sometimes even days after. They are my biggest fans and I couldn't have asked for a better seven people to support me."


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Jesse Ventura
I'll admit it, I was intimidated. I usually never am but I was.
Standing before former governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, I was struck by the thrill of being in the presence of an actor who was not only an icon for a boy of thirteen, with his roles in Predator and The Running Man, but he was also gregarious and seemed genuinely excited to talk about anything. After speaking with him you realize he's imbued with the ability to navigate politics but still have a firm grasp on common sense, and I still wonder if that's what voters saw in this straight talking intellectual.
I was there, ostensibly, to talk about his book which is now out in paperback, "Don't Start the Revolution Without Me", or even his new show on truTV that debuted this season called Conspiracy Theory, but it didn't go to plan. The interview became a conversation between two people; it was something, as an interviewer, you strive, for like a jogger chasing a runner's high. I expect to be tolerated, to have my questions answered with as minimal exposition as possible, but Jesse was genuinely excited to chat and he treated every question as a chance to expound on subjects he knows a lot about.
From how he dealt with death threats as a governor, to religion in his state, to the conversation he had with Fidel Castro while he was in Cuba about the Kennedy Assassination, there was no denying Ventura had seen and experienced more in his time in office than a lot of the lilywhite suits that purport to have our best interests at heart could ever hope to put on their resume. Jesse deserves to have a platform where he could just riff because I would bet that even though we spoke for only an hour he could easily be one of the more interesting pundits to ever have their own show. I think if there was a steel cage match between Jesse Ventura and Glenn Beck, the good money would be on Jesse. The man could do it with his hands or his mouth. He seems just that lethal.
We started our time together talking about what it was like to go from elected official to civilian and the need to pack a little heat to ensure a smooth transition.
CHRISTOPHER STIPP: So why did you feel the need to carry a gun after you left office?
VENTURA: I felt I needed it after I left office because all of a sudden you're naked. One day you're the Governor, fully protected. The next, the new governor comes in and you're naked.
CS: You don't get any sort of ancillary protection?
VENTURA: You get nothing. In my private home, I had a long driveway. I had a ranch. They set up a trailer to where the state troopers would be there 24/7 in my private home. The day after I left office, the trailer was removed, everything gone. You're naked. You go from fully protected to nothing.
CS: Regular citizen.
VENTURA: Regular citizen. Which isn't bad, but it takes a bit of adjusting to it when you are used to walking around with guys carrying guns protecting you and then all of a sudden you go to the airport, the grocery store, and you're exposed. You're not protected anymore and it happens so abruptly. I mean, the moment the new governor is sworn in, they are gone. I kinda thought, maybe, they would leave one guy around.
CS: Did you have the same detail the whole time you were governor?
VENTURA: Yeah, pretty much. A few guys would interchange now and then but my two guys were Ron and Tony.
CS: You get pretty close to them?
VENTURA: Oh, in fact, I did something to them that you are not supposed to do. I don't care now but don't let this get them in trouble. Every time we would go to New York City for something, they would be out there buying those phony Rolex's. You know those damn things, those fake Rolex's? So when I left office I went and bought them two real Rolex's. And the day that they left me I said, "No more of those goddamn phony Rolex's."
I said, "Now, whenever you look at the time, you will remember." I got so sick of them buying those $20 Rolex's and they'd break in three months.
I went on Jay Leno and Leno asked me what I missed most about being governor, now that I'm not, and, without any hesitation, I turned to Jay Leno and said, "Jay, I miss my security guys the most, because when they are with you for four years you become close and they are protecting you. They are the ones that protect your life and you become very close after four years." And Tony said when he heard me say that on the Jay Leno show it brought tears to his eyes, that I would say they were the things I missed the most. But they were. I could tell you more. I could tell you another quick story.
I used to get a death threat a week.
But people always say, "Really?" But that's how it is in these jobs. 99.9% of them are all b.s. but you can't treat them that way because the one time you think it's b.s. it's not going to be. Well, one day we were out golfing and I'm having a bad round and I'm pissed. And the troopers know, "Uh-oh, the governor is not playing well today. This isn't going to sit good. He's going to be irritated all day long." But I don't take it out on them.
All of a sudden, we're on the course and here comes a bunch of squad cars pulling onto the course. Guys jump out, they talk to my guys, my guys come over and say, "Governor, apparently there was a guy at a truck stop who said he saw you last night, that he should have killed you last night and he's going to kill you tonight." And I had an appearance that night. So right away they cancel the appearance until they get this guy caught. So then they took my wife and my daughter, who were going to go riding, they took them back to the governor's residence, spoiled their day of riding. Now they want me to leave the golf course and I have four more holes to go. I'm not playing well and I turned to my guys and said, "Guys, why is it that every time one of these fruitcakes does something I have to run and hide? Today it's going to be different. We're not running and hiding. In fact, when I finish this round we are going back to my house, I'm getting my Sig Sauer P226, my nine millimeter and we're going to go hunt this s.o.b. down."
"And then I want to call the press. When we get him down I'm going to stick my nine millimeter right in his ear and I want a photograph of this for the front page of the paper tomorrow and the next one of these fruitcakes decides that he's going to threaten me, let him see what the consequences are going to be. I'm a Navy Seal, we're hunters. We're not the hunted. We're the hunters." I said, "I'm though being the hunted we're going after this guy as soon as I finish this round."
They are panicked now. They had to call public safety. "The governor ain't coming in," they said, "He's going to get his 9 millimeter and is going to go hunt this guy down." They just don't know what to do because I'm in charge. They have to do what I tell them. If that's what I want to do, right? Here's what happened that saved the day. Remember I said I had four holes to go?
All of a sudden because of my outburst, I must have calmed down. I pared three of the last four holes. So it put me now in a good mood. I finished the day – the round – good and I turned to my guys and said, "You guys are lucky. I finished the round good, so I'll let cooler heads prevail. We won't go get my gun." And they were like, "Oh, thank God…"
CS: Let me ask something about your personal style. Why is it that today's politicians don't have the ability to talk as frankly as you do? As a working man who puts in 45 – 50 hours a week, I feel like politics happens outside of me. Why is it that I don't feel in touch with those that are leading me, or leading my country?
VENTURA: I can't fully answer that for you because you have to answer that. Why is it you feel out of touch with them? I will tell you the straight shooter part of it - I find that with career politicians, which I am not, I find it very interesting that the system will corrupt them.
Here's my view on it: Anyone that spends their entire career in politics today obviously has to be comfortable with a system that is based on panhandling and bribery because that's what we have as a system. With regard to raising money, which is what I found to be the most despicable part of the job, did you know that when I ran for governor of Minnesota I only raised $300,000?
I mean my opponents that year, the Democrats and Republican's combined, spent $12 million dollars. Now you know why I'm hated by the Democrat and Republican Party. It's because I beat them and only spent $300,000, which is nothing, for a Governor's race.
And there was no lobby money in there. You have a system in which you have to feel comfortable with bribery, and I'm not. But it's the system that corrupts them and we've got to change that system. You can change the faces and change the names but we have to change the system and that's what my revolution is about. Changing the system of how our government operates. We must find a new way to do it, in my opinion. Because think of the presidential race. They spent enough money that it could have paid the health care for everyone in America. And the money is spent simply to see who's going to be president. What has to happen, I believe, that with regard to elections and raising money there should be no limitation, but you should have open disclosure. All of it should go to the candidate.
Did you ever watch the HBO film about John Adams? Phenomenal. What was his major message? His major message was the destruction or downfall of the United States would not come from an outside entity, it would come from within. And, clearly, Adams, Jefferson, and Washington all agreed that political parties, when they get control of the government, will destroy our country because they no longer make decisions for the Republic, they make them for their party. Let the public be damned, let the country be damned.
Aren't elected officials there to serve their constituents? No. That's not what these parties are about. They are about power to their parties, control and the rest be damned. But you can't do anything because we have almost allowed our President to become a dictator today. We've almost made him a King.
CS: You mentioned something about the marriage of commerce and the church – that it's fascism.
VENTURA: Absolutely. Fascism is when corporate America teams with organized religion and controls the government. That's the definition of fascism.
I'm all for religion. People can have any religion they want, but I am a believer of the separation of church and state. Practice your religion all you want, just you can't put it on to other people. Religion is a private thing. I'm proud of the fact that I was the only governor in America that refused to declare National Prayer Day. And the press came down on me. "How can you do that?", "Every other governor…" and I looked at the press and said, "Why on earth would the people need the governor to tell them to pray?" Pray all you want. You don't need the governor to say, "Oh, today you pray." You know?
That isn't what our country is about. Our country is about freedom of religion and freedom to not have religion. If you don't desire religion, this country shouldn't force it upon you. That's what true freedom is in my opinion. People can differ if they like but, I refused to declare National Prayer Day. And then I said, "Well look, if I declare National Prayer Day, then I'm going to have to declare National No-Prayer Day because I said there are atheists out there who are citizens. So to be equal, I would have to declare, 'Today's the day you don't pray, by decree of the Governor.'" Well, how ridiculous is all that? I got other things to do than worry about whether everyone's praying or not. That's their business. Like I said, pray all you want. You don't need the government telling you what to do on religious matters.
CS: That's also the other thing about the Bush administration – about how they gave money to faith-based initiatives.
VENTURA: That's wrong. That's government instilling religion in people – "Well, OK, we'll give you something to do here but you have to go to three religious classes before we do it for you." That's wrong.
I'll give you another example. Schiavo, the girl in Florida. They violated the constitution. How come no one said anything? The constitution clearly states you cannot pass a law for one person. What did they do? Congress comes back, they pass a law, the President signed it, for one person, and that violates the constitution.
I'll tell you a great story. I walked into the Secretary of State's office when I first got to be Governor in Minnesota. I walked in there and there was a massive wall of books. Nothing but books. I walked in and I said, "What's all that?" And they said, "Oh, those are all the laws in the State of Minnesota."
And I said, "You mean ignorance of the law is no excuse? We're all supposed to know all this?" I said it's like ten Encyclopedia Britannica's up there. And those are all the laws of the State of Minnesota and ignorance of the law is no excuse. We've all heard that. So, in other words, we are supposed to know all this? So, I thought, "You know what? Let's do something really revolutionary. Let's make it where every third year the legislature can only come back and repeal only outdated laws rather than create any new ones." But wait until you hear what happens. I'm ready to go full forward on this, right? One hour later I'm in my office and one of my people comes in and says, "Governor, we have a problem. On that thing you want to do every third year where the legislature can only repeal laws, you have to change the State Constitution." I said never mind. That would take eight years and I wasn't going to be there eight years. Right there, I said, "Never mind." You have to change the State Constitution to do that.
Now, getting back to my point, you're telling me that President Bush, when he was president, no one on his staff walked in on the Schiavo thing and said, "Excuse me, Mr. President, but this is unconstitutional. The constitution says you can't pass a law for one person." Here's my answer: I believe he was told that. I believe that it was arrogance. He didn't care. Constitution be damned.
CS: Public opinion was what he followed.
VENTURA: What you had was a banana congress made up of Democrats in control who were spineless pukes. They had no guts, no courage. I hated the Democrats when they came back and said, "We'll we can't get out of Iraq because we can't override Bush's veto." They didn't have to. They controlled the money. All you had to do is deny the money and we could have been out of Iraq. Simple. Have some courage. The 2006 election gave them a mandate. The 2006 election, the people of America said, "We want out of Iraq." Did the Democrats do anything? No. In fact, they even gutted the 4th Amendment again and gave Bush the power to wiretap us, read our emails, and all that, so tell me they are different and that they are not together on the whole thing. I don't buy it and I'm the 3rd party guy. That's why I don't lie and I'll give you the best example.
Politics in America is identical to pro wrestling.
In front of the crowd, in front of TV, they pretend they hate each other. They pretend like they are big adversaries and that's the sell job they do to us, the citizens. Just like pro wrestling, my job was to go out and piss everybody off so bad they would pay their hard earned money to go out and see me get my butt kicked. Well, the point is, we are all friends in the locker room. We all work together. It's entertainment. We put on a show and this is no different. They are putting on a show, because behind the scenes, they are all friends. They go out to dinner together and cut their deals together. It's a show. That's what I believe. I taught at Harvard in 2004. Do you know what one of my classes was? How Pro Wrestling Prepares You For Politics.
And everybody at Harvard chuckled until they sat in on my class and they left one day and went, "My god, he's right." And I'll tell you how. Here's my class: first of all, pro wresting prepares you for politics that in pro wrestling you have to sell yourself. You have to sell yourself so people will pay money to come see you. What's different than going out to get a vote? Now you sell yourself to get their vote, rather than the money, although money is in there too with our system. Alright, that prepares you. Second thing, yes, wrestling is all planned but there are no rehearsals. When you go to the ring it's all adlib. And Murphy's Law always happens. Anything that can go wrong will so you have to be able to think quickly on your feet, you have to be able to take situations and continue with the match, make it look like no mistake happened and everything is hunky-dory out here. So you have to think on your feet, perform to a live audience. Third, you get very comfortable in front of a TV camera and comfortable talking. Because the matches are not sold by what happens in the ring, they are sold at the microphone. For example, Denver was one of my favorite towns because I would insult them and call them a bunch of Denver drug store cowboys. I said "You are a bunch of phonies" and here I am with bleached blonde hair, 6 earrings….and I'm insulting the drug store cowboys of Denver. I would get to Denver and I would be wresting my opponent and ten minutes would go by and we haven't even touched each other because I would be working the crowd. They'd be booing and I'd be posing. Before the match started I'd take out every earring slowly, one at a time and the bell's already rung and I'm just killing time doing it as easy as possible before you get to the action.
So you sell yourself. The same as a politician.
You have to be able to talk and communicate on a microphone. So it comes natural. Finally, and probably the biggest, is that in pro wrestling you portray a character that you may be nothing like. Jesse "The Body" Ventura that you see on TV may be nothing like what I am in private. Nothing. I mean, I'm on TV telling people all the women I got while I've been married to my wife for 33 years. There are no other women. But when I'm wrestling I'm telling people, "Yeah, I hung out with Erika Kane last week…blah blah blah." And the same holds true for the politicians.
But the politicians portray themselves as one thing to you when in reality they may be nothing like the person they portray to you in public – which is just like wrestling. Case in point – Mark Foley. Here's a guy working on all the laws for child molestation all the while he's emailing the Pages trying to seduce them. Now there's your classic example of somebody who is not what he has portrayed himself in public to be.
CS: He professed to be such a moral, anti-gay…
VENTURA: For me, the ones that profess it the most are usually the gay ones. Because if you aren't, then you don't need to profess it. I'm proud of the fact that I'm as hetero as you can get. I'm a Navy Frogman, yet I got voted in Minnesota, by the gay magazines, as the best politician they've ever had for gay rights.
CS: I read that interview. Gay or straight, it doesn't matter to you.
VENTURA: To me, we're all citizens. It isn't my job in government to get into your sexual orientation. That's not the place of government. Like I tell people about the gay thing, we've gone so far but now, today, the government is going to tell you who to fall in love with? That's where we're at today? You have to get the government to approve? And the reason I'm so passionate about the gay issue is because when I wrestled, I had a friend in wrestling who was gay. And he had a partner for over thirty years. He was married as any hetero couple. In fact, his partner used to hang with the wives when the guys would all get together to go golfing, he would go with the wives shopping. He fit right in. All the wives loved him. They thought he was a good guy. Well, he got ill. Got very ill in the hospital. His partner, my friend, the wrestler, could not sit bedside because hospital rules state spouse or next of kin. Well, a gay person is neither. They are not allowed to marry so how can they be a spouse or next of kin? I find that cruel and inhumane when a person cannot sit bedside with the person they love, whoever that person might be, and yet he was denied because the hospital rules stated you must be a spouse or next of kin. He was neither because he wasn't given that ability by our government to be a spouse or next of kin. So that carried with me throughout my life. I thought what a cruel thing that is. How cruel that is. You have government telling you who to fall in love with.
CS: It is odd that the government is playing such a large part in defining marriage as of late.
VENTURA: I could solve gay marriage for you. A girl at Harvard told me how to do it. Simple. Government should not acknowledge marriage at all. Government should only acknowledge civil unions. That way, when you fill out something for the government, you don't even have to put your sex down. It's just two people forming a civil union. Let marriage be decided by the church. The church is private sector. If the church doesn't want to recognize gay marriage, that's the church's business because they are not the government. Solves the whole thing. Government only acknowledges civil unions. Not even marriages between husband and wife. So that way, every hetero would have to go down and fill out a civil union thing for you and your wife to get the same benefits. That way it will be equal across the board and government won't even acknowledge marriage at all.
CS: It seems like common sense.
VENTURA: That's the problem. It's bringing common sense in the government. That's what my major problem was. I brought common sense to government.
CS: Is that the problem? I'm thinking logic should be the means by which these things are determined.
VENTURA: And government today is illogical. There is no common sense in government today.
CS: Is that why we can't get out of Iraq? That it would be logical to extricate ourselves from a situation that would save us money and lives, to say nothing of the fact that some soldiers have said this isn't a winnable war?
VENTURA: There is no designated enemy.
And I'll add to that. Pundits love to tell you the Iraq war is so different from Vietnam. No, it's not. It's identical. Do you know how I know that? I've been to Vietnam. I have kind of a surrogate son who is in the Seals now and he did a tour of Iraq. When he came home he came over to my house and I said to him, "Brad, I only want to ask you one question." He said, "Ask me anything. I'll tell you anything." I said, "No, I just want to ask you one question. When you were in Iraq, did you know who the enemy is?" He said, "We don't have a clue." So, that makes it identical to Vietnam. Same thing. In Vietnam, the guy who is cleaning your hootch that day will be the guy who shoots a B40 rocket at you that night. Well, I'm sure in Iraq, the guy who is your buddy all day over there is the guy who's going to use a car bomb at night.
You are the only one wearing a uniform. They're not. And that's the same as Vietnam. We're the ones with uniforms. We're the target.
CS: So, it's not a winnable war. Everyone says you don't know who the enemy is. There have been countless documentaries about what is going on over there and there seems to be a barrier of information that we are not being told everything much in the same way a documentary on Waco shed light on what really happened. It sometimes feels like we're fighting a disinformation game with those who control the information.
VENTURA: It's government.
CS: Why are there so many barriers between me and what I should know about this? You can't show pictures of flags draped over caskets because that might get people riled up…
VENTURA: Why do you think they didn't bring the draft back? Why do you think they use the National Guard in lieu of the draft? Because if they brought the draft back, the war would have ended.
The point is the public now has a perception that we have a professional military so they are there because they want to be. Which is true, to some extent. We do have a professional military. But it's our job not to put that professional military into danger unless it's absolutely necessary. That's our job as civilians to do that. And even though you have the professional military, the attitude that is, "Well, they have to do whatever the government wants them to do because they signed up for it."
I was at a Timberwolves game and Bill Walton was there and I approached him. Bill was an ultra hippie. I knew Bill back in Portland, Oregon back in '75. So Bill was at an NBA game around when the Iraq War was starting and he said, "We've got to bring back the draft." Bill Walton said that. I almost fell over. I said, "Bill, what are you talking about, 'Bring back the draft'?" He said, "It will end the war." And then I sat and thought a moment and thought, "He's right." Because here's the difference: In Vietnam when we had the draft they would take kids who didn't want to go, making them go, when little Johnny leaves the neighborhood, and comes back six months later in a body bag, that has impact because little Johnny didn't want to go in the first place. Now's he's dead.
Nor did his parents want him to go.
And now, he's dead. Bush knew that. He knew that a draft would end the war so he used the National Guard instead. He made the National Guard a front line combat unit.
You want to read a great book? Read Chasing Ghosts by Paul Rykoff. Phenomenal book. Paul was an officer in the National Guard in New York. The day they sat over there on hold until the day George Bush stood on the deck of the carrier and said, "We won"? That's the day they went in. That very day Bush stood on the carrier. They had been waiting and waiting. Bush stands on the carrier and declares victory, right? That day they were moved in. And do you know what they were sent in to do? They were sent in to replace the 82nd Airborne. I said, "A National Guard unit is replacing the 82nd Airborne?" Read Rykoff's book. And remember when Bush said, "Bring it on"? Paul Rykoff said the attacks doubled after he said that. He goes, "the son of a bitch put us all in danger with his big mouth because he's back there." Rykoff was in Iraq the day Bush said that. "OK, we'll bring it on." Here you have a phony president who never would go to war telling, "Bring it on."
He was a little phony Texas cowboy. Did you read President Fox's book about him? President Fox of Mexico calls him a windshield cowboy. That's a cowboy that can't ride a horse, but he can drive a pick-up truck.
That's a windshield cowboy.
CS: Do you have any insights into any other past presidents?
VENTURA: Bill Clinton. I'm not going to let him off the hook, either. Bill Clinton said to me the scariest thing I've ever heard, just about. And that was he said, "How can you love your country and not your government?" Well, I would challenge President Clinton and say, "Ask a German in 1939 that question." It's easy to love your country and not your government.
CS: But why do I feel that, because I'm against what I think is going on, that my president will tell me I'm not a real American? I'm either with them or against them.
VENTURA: Because you are not following Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers who said that dissent is the biggest form of patriotism. Instead, we followed Herman Goring, the Nazi. I'll give you the philosophy.
Thomas Jefferson said that dissent is the greatest form of patriotism. Do you know what Herman Goring said? Herman Goring said it's easy to take a country to war. It doesn't matter if it's a democracy, a dictatorship, communist or free, whether people have a say or don't, he said all you have to do to go to war is convince the people that are under attack to denounce the pacifists for being unpatriotic and denounce them for putting the country in danger because of their position, that they are empowering the enemy. Now isn't that what we've been told since 2001? That's the philosophy of Herman Goring, a Nazi. And yet, Thomas Jefferson says, dissent is the greatest form of patriotism, we follow Goring rather than Jefferson?
CS: Do you think people, for the most part, enjoy your straight talk?
VENTURA: I get in trouble for that. People in this country tell you they want the truth but do they really? I'll give you the case in point. Who is the only baseball player telling the truth about steroids? Jose Canseco. He came out to be the truth teller and what have they done to Jose? I read they took the sign with his name off the street. But yet, Jose told the truth, didn't he? So tell me we necessarily want the truth. Jose was a truth teller. He said, "Steroids are running rampant in baseball. Everybody is taking them." "Me included," he admitted, "I wouldn't have been a 40/40 man without them."
They all knew it. But it made him money. It brought baseball back. When they had that big thing with McGwire against Sosa, it brought baseball back. Baseball was hurting before that. All of a sudden, do you think those owners gave a crap that they were all juiced up? Not a bit.
Tell me of another 140 pound second baseman who can hit a 440 ft. home run. Something was obviously going on.
Even the balls! The pitchers juice them too, you know. I knew that after the '87 World Series when the Twins won. Because [pitcher] Juan Berenguer, in the playoffs against Detroit that year, was brought in for relief and faced five batters and struck out four of the five. So the next year, Juan went pheasant hunting with us because Juan was a friend of a friend and Juan wanted to pheasant hunt and he asked if Juan can come along and we said "We would love to have Juan come with and pheasant hunt" because we always did it on the first day of the World Series and the Twins weren't in that year. We thought, "This will be great. We can pheasant hunt and barbeque and then we'll sit back that night and watch the first game of the World Series and we'll have Juan Berenguer with us. A guy who played in last year's World Series. What a fountain of information, right?" So we're watching the game and Juan is getting a little boozed up and he starts telling us about juicing the ball. And we go, "What?" And he says, "Remember the Detroit playoff series when I came in and struck out four of the five guys?" He said, "three of the four I was juicing it." We go, "How?" He said, "Well, if you watch the ball go around the horn, watch me. I'll always be tucking my shirt in the back because I got the Vaseline on my belt in the back. So when I go to tuck my shirt in, I'm getting the Vaseline on my fingers." So, the ball is going around the horn on the strike out, Juan will take his glove off, and tuck his shirt back in.
CS: What does that do to the ball?
VENTURA: It makes your fingers to where you can change the velocity. You can spin it to where it will break more. It's an illegal substance put on the ball, just that little bit when they are throwing can be the difference of a ball breaking six inches to breaking twelve inches. They get more juice on it. So Juan admitted to us. We're laughing and saying, "No kidding? You were juicing up the ball on three of those four strikeouts?" He said, "Absolutely."
Baseball is a game of cheating. People have done it all along.
CS: Is there no way to catch these things as they happen?
VENTURA: The best thing I can tell you, remember All the President's Men, the movie about Woodward and Bernstein? Woodward goes to the bowels of the parking lot to meet with Deep Throat? And what does Deep Throat tell him? Follow the money. I can tell you 99 out of 100 things in government, if you want to find out the answer to it, follow the money.
CS: As a lowly citizen how can I do it? If I want to try to do something like that, how can I follow the money?
VENTURA: It's difficult. They have a thing called national security that they can place anything under that they don't want you to know about. This very day today we cannot get Lee Harvey Oswald's tax return because of national security. Now, how is Lee Harvey Oswald's tax return back in 1962 a matter of national security? You tell me. Because Lee probably got money from the government that year. He was on the government payroll and the tax return would show that, wouldn't it? Which would then lead us to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the government. And then the government killed our president.
CS: I saw your ideas about that. I also read a little bit about your time with Fidel Castro. How illuminating was that regarding things?
VENTURA: Well, Castro was a very interesting man, to say the least. The Bush administration didn't want me to go. I said, "I'm going. How am I going to know about Cuba? Believe you? What you tell me about it?" If you want to find out about something, go there. Look at it. It's the old thing – don't believe your lying eyes. Go down there and see. So I went down there. I will say this about Fidel Castro, number one he has the most energetic, unique handshake – and I've shaken a lot of hands – he had the most memorable handshake I've ever had in my life.
CS: What made it so memorable?
VENTURA: Well, here's Fidel. When you meet Fidel he smiles at you and takes that hand and pulls it up high and thrusts it down – he's like a pitcher winding up. I never had my hand shook that way before. Very enthusiastically. I found him to be very patriotic towards his country. For 40 minutes all he did was expound how terrific Cuba was and I don't blame him. I did the same for the state of Minnesota when I was governor. That's your job.
Castro was also very perceptive. When I was sitting, I only had an hour with him and so at the 40 minute mark, when I used to wear watches, I happened to turn my wrist and glance at my watch real quick and he said, "I'm sorry, am I keeping you from something?" That's pretty perceptive for a 70 year-old man. And I look at Castro and said, "No, sir." I said, "I'm only looking at my watch because I know I have only 1 hour with you and I wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to ask you some personal questions, if that's OK." And he looked at me and said, "Ask me anything you want." And then I went into it. Here's my opening. I've got Fidel Castro. I said, "Mr. Castro, I was a young boy of about 12 or 13 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I have been studying that assassination for about 20 years of my adult life and quite frankly I don't believe the story we have been given. I said, "Naturally in many of the scenarios, you figure very prominently." I said, "I would just like your perception of what happened that day."
I couldn't shut him up.
CS: He had a lot to say about it?
VENTURA: I couldn't shut him up. And the first thing he said to me was, "Oswald couldn't make the shot. You know that as well as I do." Now how would he know that from me? Actually, let me backtrack.
When Castro shook my hand, the first thing he said to me, looking me right in the eyes, he said, "You are a man of great courage." And I looked at Castro and said, "How can you say that when you don't know me?" He said, "Because you defied your president to come here." He already knew. I said, "Well, sir, you'll find I defy most everything."
Maybe he saw a little of him in me, I don't know. And I'll tell you another thing that shows me a little bit more about Castro. The main downtown building in Havana has this huge flat wall and it has got a huge portrait on it. It's not Castro. It's Che Guevara. The biggest photograph in downtown Havana was a mural on a wall of Che. Now if Castro was such an egomaniac and all this, wouldn't he put himself up there instead of Che?
Getting back to Kennedy he said, "Oswald could not make the shot. Did you know he had to shoot through a tree?"
CS: I didn't know that.
VENTURA: Oh yes. I got up there in the plaza, they obviously won't let you in the sniper nest because that's all blocked off, but you can go to the one next to it. So I walked to the window and I'm looking out there and there's this massive tree. And I said to the curator, clearly 40 years ago that tree had to be much smaller, correct? The curator said, "No sir, this is a national monument that tree is kept as close to 1963 as we can keep it. It's trimmed that way so it stays the same." I started laughing. I said right out loud, You mean to tell me they want us to believe that he shot the rounds through the branches of this tree?" I said, "That's absurd."
CS: So, how do you think it happened?
VENTURA: Kennedy? He was killed by the CIA, in my opinion. He was going to break them up. He was pissed off at them because – he was killed because of the Bay of Pigs.
Have you seen the video of the security guards being called off his car? They had handles on the back of his car and there was a video of those guys being pulled off – and the Secret Service is going, "Why would we do this?" You can see, you can read their body language, they are confused. They don't know why they are changing procedure. They changed the route. You know the story.
Getting back to Castro, first of all he said, "Oswald couldn't make the shot." Second of all, he said the quote that we like to hear. Castro goes, "It was an inside job. That time when I was very close to the Soviet Union? The Soviet's didn't want Kennedy dead. In fact, the Soviets quote to me was that, 'You can talk to this man.'" That was their quote about John F. Kennedy. "Second, I didn't want him dead," adding, "Do I look suicidal? If I would have killed John Kennedy, Cuba would have been wiped off the face of the earth." He said, "I love my country too much for that." I believe him. And he said it was an inside job, he said he couldn't make the shots, he said the Soviets didn't want him dead, "I didn't want him dead," he said it happened internally. And I believe that.
VENTURA: Not only LBJ, Nixon too. We know there is a confession to Kennedy. The same guys who did Kennedy did Watergate.
CS: Really?
VENTURA: Yeah. Howard Hunt. Sturgis and all the Cubans. Howard Hunt confessed to it. Mainstream media won't write about it. He wrote that confession to his son. That he was part of killing Kennedy but it never made it to the papers, of course. Never makes the media. You know who had it? Go to Rolling Stone.
CS: But then, how did things happen with Bobby? Did they take Bobby out too?
VENTURA: Bobby I'm not sure but I heard another thing that you'll find real interesting. You know Chappaquiddick? I've heard rumor that that was supposed to be the death of Ted. And when you think about it, Jack was killed. Bobby was killed. They had Ted either way. They either killed him or killed him politically so they accomplished that. It was a win win there. Because if he died, he's dead and they killed him politically. Conversely, if he happened to live, he could never run for president because of the Mary Jo Kopechne. He could never run for president after that so they got him either way. Win / Win.
I also think they had to get Bobby because after JFK died, Bobby was the man. He made so much sense on so many things. He was a man for the people. He really was and I think they saw his star rising like crazy.
The other thing to remember is why is it in the 60's every assassination was a lone nut? None of them, no one else was involved, in Jack, Bobby or Martin Luther King's murders. Nobody else. All lone nuts. Well, that just seems a bit – I find it hard to believe that three lone nuts did all this. I never studied the Bobby murder as much as I have the Jack murder but I heard there were too many shots. That the gun didn't hold enough rounds for all the bullets they pulled out. And the fatal shot hit him right behind the ear. Sirhan Sirhan was in front of him the whole time. How did the fatal shot that entered behind the ear? Who shot that?
CS: Why does anyone who questions these things always looked at as conspiracy nuts?
VENTURA: Because the government portrays you as such. That's their job. That's the only way they can do it is to kill your credibility.
There is a great book called Dumbing Us Down and it explains the educational combine process that we are actually indoctrinated in from birth to elementary school to where it's something like you've got to believe what the government tells you so if you step out of those bounds, you are a conspiracy nut or a wacko and everyone tries to herd you back in.
Let's look at the theory the government has given us for 9/11. It's only a theory. They've provided no proof. In fact the justice department hasn't even indicted Bin Laden. Why? They indicted him when he attacked our Embassy in '98. They convened a grand jury, they presented evidence, grand jury ruled and they got an indictment. Why haven't they done that on 9/11?
He's denied having anything to do with it.
And there's no evidence he did it. And the government, if you question them, like I said, your credibility, you are labeled that by the likes of O'Reilly, or any of those guys on Fox, anybody that differs from the government's story. Here's what the government is telling us: They are telling us that 19 Islamic radicals, armed with box cutters, defeated our multi- billion dollar air defense system all while conspiring with a guy in a cave in Afghanistan. That sounds plausible?
110 story building gone in ten seconds, free falling speed, building seven wasn't hit by a plane, six point two seconds free fall speed.
They won't even show you the film of it on TV. Building seven going down.
You want to follow the money? Find out what was in building seven. Follow Daniel Pearl.
And there were over 150 records of pending insider trading cases – all destroyed.
Enron, WorldCom, all those…
Now you want to know about behind the scenes at the Pentagon? The day before 9/11 Rumsfeld came out and said there were billions of unaccounted for dollars – guess where it hit? Right where those records were. Nobody is investigating. You never hear another word about that. Nobody cares. The day before 9/11 and said we can't account for 2.3 trillion dollars of Pentagon spending and nobody cares.


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The bears flexed some muscle yesterday. The Dow Industrials dropped 217 points, the biggest one-day decline since Nov. 7, the day after the presidential election. It was a combination of things bringing the stocks market down including renewed worries about Europe, realization that nothing good is going to happen in Washington regarding the budget, and a general belief that prices have gone up too fast. By the way, the losses yesterday were enough to tip the Dow and S&P 500 into negative territory for February. As I mentioned in the briefing yesterday, combined gains for January and February have been 100 percent accurate in predicting gains for the year going all the way back to 1945. Let's hope we can get back into positive territory in the three remaining days of the month.
One of the 30 stocks in the Dow Industrials is having a good day. Shares of Home Depot are up 6 percent and less than a buck from a 52-week high after reporting strong fourth-quarter earnings. A lot of the increase in revenues was associated with Superstorm Sandy, which hit the Northeast hard at the end of the year. The company also said it is raising its dividend by 34 percent and will spend $17 billion to repurchase shares.
Another report out today provides more evidence of the housing rebound. The Case-Shiller home price index shows prices rose in December by 6.8 percent compared to the same month a year ago. That is the biggest increase since 2006. Here in San Diego the increase over the past 12 months was 9.2 percent. Lest we get too excited about the recovery, S&P's David Blitzer was quick to say, "while housing is on the upswing some of the strongest numbers may have already been seen."
Well, what do you know? Despite being constantly bombarded with dire economic news, U.S. consumers are actually growing more confident. The Conference Board today released its consumer confidence index for February showing a rebound in attitude by households after dropping in the three previous months. "Consumers are cautiously optimistic about the outlook for business and labor market conditions. Income expectations, which had turned rather negative last month, have improved modestly," said the board's Lynn Franco.
The delinquency rate on auto loans has dropped to an all-time low. TransUnion reports the portion of borrowers more than 60 days late on making their car payments fell to 0.41 percent at the end of 2012. Another interesting statistic in the report: The average debt per borrower rose 5.4 percent to $13,747 in January, the seventh consecutive month the amount has increased. That, by the way, is a positive sign for the economy as people seem comfortable taking on a bit more debt to finally replace that old car.
This year we "celebrate" the 100-year anniversary of the passage of the 16th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. You know, the one that authorized the income tax. A study by CCH, a business tax consulting service, calculates the original 1 percent tax, which applied to incomes of $20,000, today -- adjusted for inflation -- would cover incomes all the way up to $465,212. In fact, people with that income today are taxed at a rate of 35 percent and that is just on the federal level.
All contents herein copyright San Diego Source ® 1994-2018


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Rutgers Symposium on Lunar Settlements
3-8 June 2007
New Brunswick, NJ
©Drawing by Ana Benaroya: www.anabenaroya.com
Harrison H. Schmitt, Ph.D.
Honorary Chair
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Pope Adrian V
- Ottobuono Fieschi
- Hadrian V
Nephew of Pope Innocent IV. As cardinal, he worked to restore peace in England between King Henry III and his barons. Pope for six weeks. Annulled the rigid enactments of Pope Blessed Gregory X concerning papal conclaves. Mentioned in Dante's Purgatorio; Dante may have confused him with Pope Adrian IV.
- Catholic Encyclopedia, by James F Loughlin
- Dictionary of Saints, by John Delaney
- New Catholic Dictionary
- "Pope Adrian V". CatholicSaints.Info. 15 November 2017. Web. 25 September 2018. <>


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Lynx remain a hot-button issue for Maine trappers. That much is clear from Norm Trask's Maine Trappers Association Legislative Liaison report in the November 2011 issue of Trapper & Predator Caller.
Trask's report details the latest on the possibility of the creation of an incidental take permit for lynx in the state and the conditions required to get that permit, which will ultimately lead the association to support or oppose the legislation. Trask also updated readers on the "emergency rules" adopted last December to help protect against lynx being injured or killed in some areas of the state.
The full text of Trask's lynx-related Association News briefs is below:
The conditions that the state will be asked to accept in order to receive the ITP will be the key to whether the MTA will support or oppose the issuance of the permit. On the one hand, as we have stated time and again, we desperately need an ITP to protect both the Department and individual trappers from liability whenever a lynx is taken incidentally in a trap. On the other hand, we may be better off continuing to trap without the protection of an ITP if the restrictions that accompany the ITP are as bad, or worse, than the terms of the Consent Decree that we are saddled with now. We won't know for sure what the ITP will require of us until the proposal appears in the Federal Register. Once that happens and we learn what's in store, we'll notify our members accordingly and then make a decision on whether to live with what's being proposed or fight it. I've already received information from reliable sources that the Department is less than pleased with some of the language that is expected to be included in the federal proposal. I've been told that the Department has suggested several changes to the Feds within the past few months in hopes of making the proposal more palatable, but it appears that those suggestions have been largely ignored. I guess that's not surprising, given that at least one of the authors of the proposal has said and done things over a long period of time that, in my opinion, indicate a strong bias against trapping. Before we jump to conclusions, however, we need to see the proposal for ourselves.
220's Legal on the Ground in WMDs 7, 14, 18 and 19
Trappers throughout the state may eventually be able to set 220's on the ground. They will, of course, have to set those traps in enclosures protected by lynx "exclusion devices". I know, there are lots of places where lynx don't exist, but lynx exclusion devices will also prevent other non-target species from getting into the 7-inch body-grippers, including domestic dogs. This year, however, the use of 220's on the ground will be limited to Wildlife Management Districts 7, 14, 18 and 19. Lynx do exist in all four of those WMDs, so smaller body grippers, including 110s and 120s, will also require the protection devices when used at baited sets on the ground.
As I'm sure you remember, increasing numbers of lynx in WMDs 14, 18 and 19 prompted the Department to adopted emergency rules last December to help protect against lynx being injured or killed in traps in those WMDs. Those emergency rules imposed the same "lynx related" trapping restrictions that have been in place for some time in WMDs 1 through 6 and 8 through 11. Under the terms of a court approved Consent Decree that settled the first of two lynx related lawsuits, those "lynx protection" measures must remain in place in WMDs 1 through 6 and 8 through 11 until the Department receives an Incidental Take Permit (ITP) for lynx from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (the Feds). The same does not hold true in WMDs 14, 18 and 19. Those WMDs were not part of the Consent Decree, and the Department was not required to make changes to protect lynx in those districts.
Emergency rules only remain effective for 90 days, so they "self-destructed" early last spring. That meant that the Department, in order to continue to protect lynx in those WMDs, had to adopt new rules through the regular rule-making process. Prior to that happening, I petitioned the Department, on behalf of the MTA, to modify the lynx protection rules in WMDs 14, 18 and 19, as follows:
· Remove restrictions on the jaw-spread of foothold traps at land sets.
· Remove restrictions on the size of cage-type live traps.
· Allow the use of wooden-base (killer-type) rat traps for taking weasels.
· Allow the use of killer-type traps with a jaw-spread of 5 inches or less on the ground in baited boxes, or other enclosures, equipped with "lynx exclusion devices".
The Department not only agreed to do what we requested, they went a couple of steps further. They increased the jaw-spread of body-grippers that could be set on the ground in conjunction with lynx "exclusion devices" to 7 inches (220s) and added WMD 7 to the list of districts where "protected" body-grippers could be set on the ground (WMD 7 has a small lynx population but was never one of the WMDs covered by the Consent Decree).
The use of "protected" body-grippers on the ground will be used this trapping season as a kind of experiment. If all goes well, and we believe it will, trappers can expect to eventually be allowed to use 220s on the ground at "protected" sets everywhere in the state. How soon this happens will depend, in part, on when the state receives an ITP for lynx from the Feds and what trapping restrictions are included as part of that permit.
The definition of a lynx exclusion device, as it applies to WMDs 7, 14, 18 and 19 this trapping season, was adopted by the Department through the rule-making process (has the force of law) and reads as follows:
In Wildlife Management Districts 7, 14, 18, and 19, killer-type traps with a jaw spread not to exceed 7.5 inches may be used on the ground level if the trap is placed within a lynx exclusion device. The trap jaws must be completely within the device, the trap springs can be outside of the device. The lynx exclusion device must not have an opening greater than 6 inches by 8 inches, the set trap within the device must be a minimum of 18 inches from the closest edge of the opening to the trap (intended for 160 and 220 conibear traps) or; if the device has a 4 inches by 4 inches or less opening, the trap must be a minimum of 12 inches from the closest edge of the opening to the trap (intended for 120 conibear traps). The opening must not be directly in front of the trap rather on the top or on the side of the device. The back of the device must be secured to withstand heavy pulling; if using wire mesh with a wood box, the wire mesh must wrap around two opposite sides of the box and be secured. There must be at least 2 attachment points for each side of the device were there is a joint or panels come together. The exclusion device can be constructed of wood, or wire mesh that does not exceed 1.5 inch openings (side to side). The wire mesh has to be 16 gauge or less (wire diameter of 0.05 or greater). The opening slot in the exclusion device that allows the trap springs to extend outside the device can be no more than 7.5 inches wide and a height of no more than 1.5 inches. The trap must be anchored outside of the exclusion device. Bait must not be visible from above.


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Hey. Recently recovered from a back problem and trying to get back into rhythm.
In this video I would say I'm bowling at about 60%. At full throttle, I sprint to the wicket and have a high jump. But just getting back, my action looks all out of sorts. I was bowling pretty rapidly few months back and really want to get the zip back.
I already know that I need to:
-Increase hangtime and jump.
-Use non bowling arm more.
-Whip non bowling arm away to create a faster and more effient downswing.
-Make top half front on.
Also, I do this weird stop and go thing. I load up and just before the downswing, I take my bowling arm upto near my chin before bowling. I haven't seen anyone else do that. How bad is that? In terms of momentum loss?
Also sorry about the quality of the batsman I'm bowling to.
YouTube - Zohaib Bowling