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Scientists have long puzzled over the origin and evolution of our closest relative, the Neanderthal. Now, researchers say Neanderthals seem to have developed their distinctive jaws and other facial features first, before they evolved to have big brains.
That's according to an analysis of 17 skulls, all taken from one excavation site in a mountain cave in Atapuerca, Spain, known as the Sima de los Huesos — the "pit of bones."
This shaft inside the cave yielded a huge number of bones, the biggest collection of ancient human fossils ever recovered from a single site. Since 1984, scientists have been painstakingly removing thousands of bone fragments and assembling them.
These skulls show Neanderthal features in the face and teeth, but have more primitive-looking braincases, according to a report in the journal Science from a research team led by Juan Luis Arsuaga of Madrid's Complutense University. The work shows that the start of the evolution of the Neanderthals began at least 430,000 years ago.
"If we understand how Neanderthals evolved and what has been going on, exactly, in the course of Neanderthal evolution, then we could say what is special with us, what is different," says Jean-Jacques Hublin, who studies human evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
While the Neanderthals were emerging, the ancestors of modern humans were evolving in Africa. Then, around 50,000 years ago, some of those modern humans ventured into Europe, where they apparently outcompeted their more-lumbering cousins, who went extinct.
Both Neanderthals and modern humans developed big brains, but they took different paths, says Hublin.
"By studying the divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans, we can understand what happened in our recent evolution," he says, "and maybe why we expanded in such a dramatic way all over the planet."
Now let's imagine staring into the face of a Neanderthal - think heavy brows, big jaw, they had big brains too, like our ancestors who lived alongside them for a time in Europe. But it now appears those distinctive facial features may have come before the big brains. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports on a new study of some ancient human skulls.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Scientists want to understand the history of Neanderthals because in some ways they were so much like us, even though they died out. The latest twist in the story of the Neanderthals comes from a mysterious place in Spain known as the Pit of Bones. Jean-Jacques Hublin has been there. He studies evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. He says the Pit of Bones is deep inside a cave in the mountains.
JEAN-JACQUES HUBLIN: And it's a very impressive place to visit because you have to walk a long time underground and then to go along a rope ladder in this deep well in the dark before you get into this kind of small chapel with a bed of bones under your feet.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The bones are from an early species of human that lived almost half a million years ago.
HUBLIN: There is only one site like this on Earth. I mean a site which is so rich in term of the number of fossils that it yields.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says bones from the bodies of at least 28 individuals somehow ended up at the bottom of this narrow shaft. How they got there, no one knows.
HUBLIN: It's strange. It's a mystery. It's difficult to imagine a natural scenario. My Spanish colleagues propose that actually these bodies had been thrown in this well.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Now those Spanish researchers, along with others on their team, have painstakingly assembled and studied 17 skulls from this bone pit. In the journal Science, they say they used half a dozen different dating techniques to show conclusively that these people lived about 430,000 years ago. That makes these folks the earliest humans to have any Neanderthal-like features. They had faces that look like Neanderthals - no chins, but teeth and jaws that could open wide. Their brain cases were still small and primitive. Rolf Quam, of Binghamton University in New York, was on the research team. He says, it looks like the evolution of Neanderthals may have started with a kind of specialized chewing - why chewing? Quam says they're trying to figure that out. It must have served some purpose.
ROLF QUAM: Because it's a complex set of features, it does seem like a good candidate to represent an adaptation, rather than something that occurs randomly by genetic drift.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Maybe they used their teeth almost like a third hand. They could hold a big hunk of meat in their jaw while they cut it, for example. There were other groups of early humans living in Europe at this time. Maybe their powerful jaws gave this particular group some kind of advantage. Quam says, all these skulls seem to be from the same species.
QUAM: We do believe that they are probably closely related. They probably are some kind of extended clan.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Scientists are still trying to learn exactly how they're related because that might explain how they all ended up in the same pit. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Iggy and the Stooges, "Ready to Die" (Fat Possum Records)
Really, Iggy? Ready to die? Not possible. I always thought it would be you and cockroaches at the end of time, man.
"Ready to Die" is the first album from Iggy Pop and members of his old band, the Stooges, since 2007 and the 2009 death of band mate Ron Asheton. And it's the first to feature former guitarist James Williamson since the 1970s.
It's classic "Raw Power"-era Stooges from the get-go on "Burn," a heavy-duty groove that kicks off the collection. And there's no letup for the next several tunes, including "Gun," which skewers a violent culture that just might lead its lone-wolf protagonist astray.
Yet the highlight of the collection might be when the assault lets up: on the un-Stooges like "Unfriendly World." Over spare, acoustic country blues, the 66-year-old Iggy is less your wild uncle and more wise elder, singing in a tender, wistful growl: "Hang onto your girl, cause this is an unfriendly world."
Even after more than four decades, Iggy doesn't go down easy — in all senses of the phrase. But the man and his band have some things worth saying before the cosmic end of the tour.
Follow Jeff Karoub on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffkaroub

subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Militant groups in Afghanistan could still obtain U.S. government contracts and siphon off American taxpayer dollars because administrative flaws and misunderstandings are hampering a law aimed at weeding out corruption, a top auditor warned Thursday.
The special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, John F. Sopko, said weaknesses mar procedures that the Defense Department tightened in 2012 to comply with a new federal law aimed at preventing militants from obtaining U.S. contract payments. Sopko said nearly $2 billion in government contracts was awarded in 2012, but he did not identify how much money was in jeopardy.
The U.S. military has estimated that up to $360 million ended up in the hands of Taliban and criminal elements in Afghanistan over the past decade, according to a 2012 Associated Press report.
Sopko said his new audit detected flaws in a provision that Congress added last year to a defense authorization bill. The provision gave the Defense Department the authority to "restrict, terminate or void" any contracts with individuals or organizations opposing U.S. or coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Sopko said his audit found that language in some contracts did not contain the new provision, which is legally necessary to sever any contracts unwittingly given to militants. Sopko said that in some cases, military contracting authorities were not given up-to-date lists of militants and their supporters, preventing them from voiding ineligible contracts.
In testimony Wednesday before a House committee, Sopko also said that in one instance, Army officials ignored classified information that would have enabled them to void contracts obtained by Afghan militants and sympathizers. During testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Sopko said Army officials failed to debar contractors "affiliated with the Haqqani network, the Taliban and/or al-Qaida" because they ignored documents that had been made available to them in a room designated for classified material.
"They apparently did not read — did not take the time to walk 150 feet to a classified skiff to read the classified appendices," Sopko said. "I took the time. I went to the skiff. I read them."
Sopko said that when he urged Army officials to void deals with those Afghan contractors, the officials refused. "So it's probably easier to use a drone strike than it is to stop somebody from contracting with the U.S. government," he said. Sopko said he has since provided the committee with the list of the suspect contractors.
In the audit, Sopko urged Congress to tighten the law further. One change he suggested was to eliminate a $100,000 threshold that prevents lesser contracts from being covered by the anti-militant provisions. Sopko also said the provision only affects Defense Department contracts but should be expanded to contracts overseen by the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other government departments working in Afghanistan.
Sopko also warned the Pentagon that it needed to develop a standard process for tracking suspect contractors and notifying contracting officials and contractors about suspect contractors and their obligations under the law.


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Summit County Sheriff's Office awards scholarship
April 3, 2013
The Summit County Sheriff's Office (SCSO) is pleased to announce that Chelsea Christianson of Frisco is this year's recipient of the SCSO Citizenship Award Scholarship. The award was presented by Sheriff John Minor at last night's Summit High School local scholarship presentations.
Chelsea was selected by members of the Sheriff's Citizens Advisory Committee from a field of over 50 applications. The committee based their selection upon criteria including a high ethical standard, outstanding citizenship, serving as an exemplary peer role model, notable public service and displaying individual courage or fortitude in the face of adversity or peer pressure.
As part of what has become an annual tradition, Minor presented Christiansen with a package of doughnuts and a sheriff's office hat in addition to the scholarship award.


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American Idol fans saw judge Jennifer Lopez break down Wednesday night as she informed Illinois native Chris Medina that he did not make the top 24 contestants.
"It was just honestly a pleasure to meet someone like you," a teary Jlo 41, told Chris, 26. "It was a blessing and a moment in my life I'll always remember. Jennifer then got even more emotional "I just didn't want to tell him no," a sobbing J.Lo expressed. "I felt so bad."
Jennifer continued to sob despite being consoled by her fellow judges Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson. "I didn't feel like I told him in the right way," she said. "You did it in the best way possible," consoled Randy.
Chris wowed the judges and viewers during the audition rounds, not only due to his voice but also due to his personal story of his paraplegic fiance. Chris's fiance Juliana Ramos was in a car accident that left her with brain damage two months before they were set to be married.
"What kind of guy would I be if I walked out when she needed me the most?" said Chris during his first audition. But despite getting emotional upon hearing the news that he would not be part of the top 24, Chris vowed to focus on his music and his fiance.
"I'm going to go home and keep writing music," Chris said. "I'm going to take care of my fiancée and make a miracle happen."
And despite his elimination for AI, Chris's story does seem to have a bit of a happy ending as fans have donated a handicapped van, a home furnace and more than $29,000 to his girlfriend. Plus Chris is also scheduled to perform on The Tonight Show this Friday.


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NEW YORK (AP) — Groupon's stock soared Thursday after the beleaguered online deals company named co-founder Eric Lefkofsky permanent CEO and posted stronger-than-expected revenue for the second quarter.
Groupon Inc. reported a 7 percent increase in quarterly revenue, to $608.7 million, inching past Wall Street's expectations. It also announced plans to buy back $300 million of its stock over the next two years, further boosting investor confidence.
Lefkofsky, who is Groupon's largest shareholder, replaces Andrew Mason, who was fired in February amid growing concerns about Groupon's financial and stock performance.
Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said the Chicago-based company is in a good position to benefit from two e-commerce trends — local and mobile. Groupon said that nearly half of its North American transactions came from mobile devices in June, up from about 30 percent in June 2012.
Bhatia, who has a "Buy" rating on Groupon's stock, said he thinks that Groupon's addressable market is bigger than most people think and its potential growth rate is "stronger than is commonly believed."
Competition "has eased in recent quarters and it has become increasingly evident that (Groupon's) scale is a real advantage," the analyst wrote in a note to investors.
UBS analyst Eric Sheridan upgraded Groupon's shares to a "Neutral" rating from "Sell" citing the company's mobile commerce prospects. He added that Groupon now has a "deep" and "stable" management team to turn the company around.
Groupon's stock rose $1.88, or 21.6 percent, to close at $10.60. The shares have gained 90 percent in the past three months. The company went public at $20 per share in November 2011.


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England v Italy, Six Nations, March 10
Robshaw emerges from 'dark' place
ESPN Staff
March 4, 2013
Chris Robshaw boasts an impressive record of nine wins in 14 games as England captain © PA Photos
England captain Chris Robshaw believes the intense scrutiny he was subjected to during a testing autumn campaign has made him a better leader.
Robshaw, whose side resume their quest for a Six Nations Grand Slam against Italy on Sunday, saw his decision-making questioned during defeats to Australia and South Africa back in November but has since spearheaded an impressive run of results including a 38-21 victory over world champions New Zealand.
"There's been good times, there's been tough times, there's been a lot of learning. The more you do something the more experience you get," Robshaw told PA Sport. "The autumn was my first time in that kind of dark, negative place. As an international captain you see it in other sports and you see managers under pressure and you don't really appreciate what it's like until you experience it yourself. It makes you a stronger person when you come out the other side. The players, in particular, were brilliant during the whole of that stage. A week is a long time in sport, never mind a couple of months."
Robshaw, who boasts an impressive record of nine wins in 14 games as England captain, is now a leading contender to skipper the British & Irish Lions this year and he is also pushing for domestic honours with Harlequins who remain in the running for both Premiership and Heineken Cup glory.
The 26-year-old has also revealed some novel methods employed at The Stoop to improve their leadership skills. "At the club as a leadership group they try and take you out of your comfort zone so that if an issue does come up you're calm and composed," he said. "About two years ago we did a stand-up comedy thing at Quins; this year we tried our hand at a little bit of acting.
"We had an acting teacher who came in and talked to us about body language and how to express yourself in certain ways. It's about doing something different that keeps your mind ticking over. He spoke about the skills you needed on a stage and how to get things across if people are making a lot of noise or if they're quiet and not responsive.
"At the time you're thinking: 'I look like a complete idiot'. Of course you don't always get it first time, you might make a fool of yourself trying to give it a go, but once you find out what works well for you can build on that and hopefully get a type of style."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Communication error please reload the page.


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Tajikistan is a landlocked, low-income, food-deficit country with a population of approximately 7.5 million, three-quarters of who live in rural areas. Only seven percent of land is arable. The rugged, mountainous terrain poses enormous challenges for people, especially during the winter when bad weather and natural disasters impede movement and routinely trigger energy and food shortages.
The country is the poorest in the Commonwealth of Independent States, with 47.2 percent of the population living on less than US$1.33 a day and 17 percent subsisting on less than US$0.85 a day. Tajikistan ranks 125 out of 187 countries on the 2012 UNDP Human Development Index. The majority of the population spends between 60 to 80 percent of their income on food. Access to food is a major challenge, with around one-third of the population affected by food insecurity.
In recent years, income from remittances from migrants working abroad, mostly in the Russian Federation, has increased to almost 50 percent of GDP. Fifty-five percent of rural households depend on remittances as their main source of income. However, while remittances represent an important contribution to the country´s economic growth, they are also the last resort of poverty-stricken rural families who are unable to survive on other more sustainable livelihoods. Although, the direct impact of the global financial crisis has been limited as Tajikistan is not integrated into global markets, the indirect consequences have been serious, with the reduced global prices and demand for aluminium and cotton (the main export commodities) decreasing.
The goal of WFP operations in Tajikistan is to provide food assistance to the most vulnerable and food-insecure people through relief, recovery and development activities. WFP addresses the immediate food needs of those affected by recurring natural disasters, especially floods, earthquakes and droughts, with targeted emergency responses. WFP supports the livelihoods of food-insecure households through seasonal vulnerable group feeding (VGF) and helps improve the nutritional status of malnourished children through targeted supplementary feeding. Under the food-for-assets activity, WFP assists fragile communities to rebuild their livelihoods through the restoration and creation of community assets that will promote food security. WFP provides school meals to 360,000 primary schoolchildren and their teachers, creating a safety net for vulnerable families. WFP also provides food assistance to TB clients and their families, contributing to increased success rates for treatment.
WFP's activities in Tajikistan are aligned with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, the Government of Tajikistan's Poverty Reduction Strategy and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 1 (eradication of poverty and hunger), MDG 2 (universal primary education) and MGD 3 (promotion of gender equality), as well as WFP Strategic Objectives 1, 3, 4, and 5.


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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Kyrie Irving scored 33 points, including a pull-up jumper from the foul line with one second left, to lift the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 106-104 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats on Friday night.
Irving had 14 of his team's final 16 points and 26 points in the second half as the Cavaliers snapped a three-game losing streak.
Irving was 10 of 21 from the field and converted all 10 free throws while scoring 16 points in the fourth quarter. He also had six assists and five rebounds.
Tristan Thompson added 19 points and C.J. Miles added 18 for the Cavaliers.
Ben Gordon led Charlotte's second-half charge, finishing with 27 points.
Ramon Sessions added 20 points and Gerald Henderson had 17, including a career-high four 3-pointers for the Bobcats, who have lost 19 of 20.
The Cavs led by as many as 18 in the third quarter but the Bobcats battled back to take the lead at 91-90 with 4:43 left when Gordon knocked down a step-back jumper and a floater and Sessions hit a pair of free throws.
Irving answered seconds later with a 3-pointer to give the Cavaliers the lead back.
He was just getting started.
He knocked down another 3-pointer on the next possession and put his finger to his lip to silence the crowd.
The Bobcats rallied and Henderson tied the game with a turnaround jumper in the lane with 16 seconds left.
That set up Cleveland's final possession where Irving drove from the top of the key against rookie Jeffery Taylor, and made the jumper with a second remaining as his teammates congratulated him.
Henderson got a good look on the ensuing inbounds play, but his desperation 3-pointer hit the rim and fell away.
Irving was 7 of 13 in the second half from the field.
The Bobcats came in looking for their first two-game win streak since Nov. 21 after snapping an 18-game losing streak Monday night with a 91-81 win against the Chicago Bulls.
Charlotte committed 10 turnovers in the first half, leading to eight Cavaliers points and fell behind 62-48 at the break.
The Cavaliers, led by 16 points by Miles, came out hot shooting 59 percent from the field and led by as many as 17 in the first half.
NOTES: Charlotte forward Tyrus Thomas returned after missing the past 23 games with a left calf strain. He played 12 minutes and scored four points. ... The Cavaliers only played eight players and Charlotte's bench outscored Cleveland's 59-19.
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|September 7, 2012, 08:37 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: June 23, 2011
Location: asheville north carolina
Posts: 556
Odd idea
So I have to take down a large twisted maple. Im thinking maybe make a stock out of a section? I could cut, file and shape the wood... But how hard would it truly be to do this? And what rifle should I make a stock for? I was thinking of buying an old enfield or a mosin. I dont know where to srat and would appreciate any but of help. Thanks for reading.
|September 7, 2012, 08:57 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: March 17, 1999
Posts: 24,384
First, maple makes fine stocks, hard and durable, but this sounds a bit like buying a cow to get a glass of milk; it will work, but it is not the easy way.
Stock wood has to be dried and seasoned. Using fresh-cut wood would not be feasible since it would warp as it dries, not to mention being nearly impossible to work with.
Depending on the rifle and type of stock, you would want to start with a plank about 3-4 feet long, 12" or so wide, and around 3" thick. If you have a stock you want to copy, it is easy to lay it on the rough plank, draw an outline of it on the plank, then cut away the unwanted part with a band saw.
Then using various wood-working tools, and a lot of patience, you shape the wood to the general shape of the stock, inlet it for the action and barrel, and finish off the outside to the final shape. Sanding and staining complete the job.
It is not easy to make a stock from scratch, and it is very hard with maple because, well, maple is very hard. Worse, it is a grainy wood that tends to split easily.
For some info, try googling "wood for gun stocks". There are a couple of sites that have a lot of information; you will also get an idea of prices.
All I can say is that if you choose to have a go at it, good luck.
Jim K
|September 7, 2012, 09:27 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: May 3, 2012
Location: Southwestern Colorado
Posts: 507
I gotta agree with James, this is a more difficult project then you would think. Seasoning the wood in and of itself could drive you crazy. It occurs to me that maybe the answer here is to call somebody who does this for a living and either send them the wood and have them give you back a rough blank for a fee or trade them your wood for a blank, good, interestingly grained maple is expensive and hard to get.
Gaily bedight, A gallant knight In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of El Dorado
|September 8, 2012, 09:13 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: October 28, 2006
Location: South Central Michigan...near Ohio, Indiana.
Posts: 5,260
Without a wood-drying kiln, you would have to store the slab of wood to dry in a barn for several years.
|September 8, 2012, 09:33 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: June 23, 2011
Location: asheville north carolina
Posts: 556
Im working on the kiln part. I got this idea because my father wants to make a dinner table out of a large section of the tree so it would have to go to the saw mill anyways, so why not throw in a small section to make a stock aswell. I figure even if I fail that it would be a fun thing to try. I am thinking about a mosin for the project but adding a pistol grip to the stock. I know that it will be a lot of cutting, filing, and sanding. I also was thinking that worst case scenario I fail and bolt the original stock back on.
|September 8, 2012, 10:15 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: August 5, 2012
Location: Roanoke, Virginia
Posts: 182
If you are going to kiln dry the wood for the table I'd try to get as many slabs in there to use for gun stocks in the future also. You might make a mistake on the first attempt and it would be nice to have one or two more blanks as backups for that oops moment.
|September 8, 2012, 10:55 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: June 14, 2004
Location: NY State
Posts: 6,516
Is the trunk really twisted ? If so it can be dangerous to cut as when cutting the stresses released can twist around the whole tree !!
Drying is another problem .It's not just a matter of finding a kiln but the proper 'drying schedule' has to be used for that wood and size. If not done properly you'll have serious warping as you make the stock !
And Watson , bring your revolver !
|September 8, 2012, 12:33 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: June 23, 2011
Location: asheville north carolina
Posts: 556
Mete, its called a twisted maple.its the kind of tree. Rem 74, the multiple stock slab idea is a good one that I didnt even consider... Glad to be in such a helpful forum.
|September 8, 2012, 05:22 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: June 14, 2004
Location: NY State
Posts: 6,516
It's an import , no wonder I never heard of it !
Japanese Twisted Red Maple
One of the trees popular for bonsai because of it's interesting shapes.
And Watson , bring your revolver !
|September 8, 2012, 06:03 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: January 6, 2011
Location: Thornton, Texas
Posts: 3,481
Do dry several potential stock chunks. And make sure the chunks are a good big larger than the stock has to be. Just yesterday my wood router slipped and I butchered a good looking slab of wood beyond salvage. I had worked on it for days and now I have to start over. As for drying time, the rule of thumb for air drying is one year per inch of thickness, to get it to the normal moisture content for where you are drying it. And seal the ends of the wood with paint to keep the ends from drying much faster and splitting.
And since this is a gun forum and not a woodworking forum, let me say that the moment I'm finished with this jewelry cabinet (in Cherry), the ammo reloading stuff gets set up and I load for my late Father's 270 and 223, so that the rifles will be ready for opening day in Louisiana. His greatgrandsons will use the rifles.
|September 9, 2012, 03:44 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: July 15, 2012
Location: Wonderful, Windy Wyoming
Posts: 133
There's two parts to doing a stock from a blank:
1. Inletting the action and bottom metal into the stock blank.
2. Shaping the outside of the stock.
#2 is the easier part. NB I said "easier." I did not say "easy."
Part #1 comes in varying degrees of difficulty. First, there's two issues in inletting. The one issue that everyone sees is where the wood meets the metal of the action and the barrel.
The second part of inletting that most people never see is the contact between the bottom of the action and the wood. On high-end guns, having a wood/metal inletting on the bottom of the action is more "pure," but if you're not a purist, you could get the top line of the inletting tight, then make a clean, but non-contacting job of inletting below the top line and glass bed the action with Acraglas or something similar.
Now, if you want to go for the purist route, there are actions that are more difficult than others:
The early bolt actions like the Mauser and Springfield '03 are more difficult in a "purist" inletting job because they have smaller recoil lug surfaces and they have "lungs" in the rear of the action where wood humps up off the bottom of the receiver channel to catch the rear of the action.
The Winchester M70 has a cleaner bottom line and is easier to inlet along the sides. A pre-64 M70 is a little trickier for the rear tang.
A Remington M700 is pud-easy, because it had a pretty featureless bottom and the recoil lug is removable so you could inlet that apart from the rest of the action.
I have no idea what inletting a Mosin is like. Personally, given the effort to inlet a stock & barrel into a nice piece of wood, I wouldn't ever bother putting a Mosin into a custom stock. It would be like putting leather seats, a fine English walnut dashboard and a racing motor into a Trabant. Sure, you've shown everyone that you're an excellent craftsman... but in the end, you still have a Trabant.
On all of the above, you'll want all your metalwork done before you start inletting. If you're going to put a new barrel on the receiver, or you want to use custom bottom metal, or you want to polish up the bottom metal or action, you need to have all of that done before you start inletting.
You'll need some inletting black:
The gold is typically used where the wood is too dark to see the black - places like dark woods used for foreend tips. You coat the bottom of the receiver with a thin coat of the inletting black and you put the receiver and barrel into the wood. You cut away the mark as you sink it in. You should cut a channel through the wood from foreend to the rear of the receiver with a ball nose end mill that is small enough to miss all the features on the bottom of the receiver, then inlet a) down then b) outward. Don't inlet outward first, you want to get the receiver and barrel down to the centerline of the bore.
Maple can have some really nice figure to it, but as others have said, it's hard. It tends to chip out unless your tools are very, very sharp. You need to consider the grain flow under your cutting tools very carefully. And when you're laying out the stock pattern on the blank, try to get good, smooth grain flow through the grip area up around the magazine on the rifle, and make the grain flow "rise" as it goes forward to the foreend. Don't position the stock so there's lots of figure in the grip area, or you might have to reinforce the grip by putting a steel rod down through it.
If you're really interested in going this route, there's a book which details the steps a professional stockmaker does a stock from a blank:
I have this book and it is a good starting point. I'll warn you tho, it is a long way from looking at the pictures to getting a usable stock under your rifle.
Tools: You'll need a set of chisels and gouges for your inletting. You'll need to make or buy a narrow (like 1/8") "dogleg chisel" to inlet the recoil lug on most any bolt action.
On the outside - a good, steady bandsaw is a nice way to hog off pieces you know you won't need once you get the outline drawn on the blank. Lacking that, I'd suggest a good coping saw. A planer to get the sides parallel and the top line perpendicular to the sides is a really nice thing to have. When you start cutting in a stock from a blank, having a flat top on the blank that you know is 90 degrees to the sides is a huge time saver when you start laying out the action and barrel on the blank.
You'll need to make or buy a set of inletting screws to keep the receiver upright as you're sinking the barreled action into the wood. These screws are usually made from simple cold rolled steel rod, with threads turned on the receiver end with a lathe. When you drill the holes for the receiver screws, don't go too far oversize, because this is how errors start to creep into the inletting.
Once you have the barrel and receiver inlet, you'll need to start inletting the bottom metal, trigger bow, etc. You want to mark the bottom of the receiver and lay out where the magazine has to come up from the bottom. Don't drill straight through from top to bottom, especially on maple. You'll want to drill halfway down from the top, halfway up from the bottom, so any break-out will be contained in the middle of the magazine height where you won't break out the receiver inlet channel, nor the bottom of the stock.
When you're inletting the bottom metal, don't pound the snot out of the bottom metal to get a reading with the inletting black. As you sink the magazine into the wood, if you drive the magazine or bottom metal in too hard, you could split the stock.
On one-piece bottom metals, you will want the top of the magazine to NOT make contact with the bottom of the receiver. If it does, then what will happen is that there is no way to tighten the action and bottom metal together against the wood - ie, the action and/or bottom metal will rattle around in the stock. To prevent this, keep the top of the magazine from touching the bottom of the receiver by, oh, 1/32nd to 1/16th of an inch.
Shaping the outside:
Oh, let's see - you should get a Nicholson #49 and #50 cabinetmaker rasps. I've been told by some that their quality has dropped since Nicholson has outsourced production to Brazil, I think. But if you get a chance in a woodworking shop or dealer to see them, you'll get an idea of what you're looking for and you can find equivalents.
You should look around for a farrier's rasp. When you need to make wood come off a stock quickly, a farrier's rasp does the trick.
Then you'll need a bunch of smaller files and such to work on details.
That's about all I can get off the top of my head just now...
|September 9, 2012, 05:20 PM
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Join Date: January 6, 2011
Location: Thornton, Texas
Posts: 3,481
I'm a woodworker, as I mentioned above, and I have most all of the tools one would need to make a gunstock. But...I'm not going to make a gunstock. I really don't think I could make just one. I'd have to botch a couple of them before I learned enough about what NOT to do before I could actually get it right. Just like what I'm working on right now, which is (in theory) relatively simple, I did mess up some wood before I finally figured out a way to do a certain thing in a better way. So I'd make the first gunstock out of cheap white pine to make sure I was comfortable with the whole detailed process, and then and only then would I take a good looking chunk of wood and start turning it into a gunstock. Good luck to the OP. And buy the absolutely best chisels you can find. You'll need them and they'll need to be super sharp.
|September 10, 2012, 12:58 AM
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Join Date: February 13, 2006
Location: Washington state
Posts: 13,355
Cut down the tree in such a way that you don't shatter it when it hits the ground.
Let it sit 6 months or so to start curing.
Slab the wood 5"-6" thick.
Air dry (preferable) or kiln dry the wood.
Cut into 16" wide x 48" long pieces.
Seal the wood, let it sit a year or so to stabilize.
Cut into 2.5"-3" thick pieces.
Cut into a 3" X 8" X 48" stock blank.
Now here's the critical part:
Find a stock carver who can rough carve the stock blank and rough inlet it for the action you intend to use.
Inlet the stock, shape and finish the outside of the stock.
Total time from tree to rifle= 3+ years.
Never try to educate someone who resists knowledge at all costs.
But what do I know?
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Savoring, yes. It's been a long time since I last deliberately slowed my reading of a book so that it would remain new in my life for as long as possible. Usually, even with books I deeply enjoy, I work hard to get to the end and absorb it all so that I can move on. Once every two or three years, though -- seldom more frequently -- I encounter a book that, were a particularly mischievous demon to come by and condemn me to read said book for the rest of eternity, I would say, "Well, I guess that's not so bad." Burger's Daughter is such a book. While reading, I could not imagine that any other novel would satisfy me as fully, because few ever have. The last one was actually not so long ago: Bolaño's Savage Detectives -- and I read it too quickly, with the opposite sort of love-experience I had with Burger's Daughter -- I couldn't believe something so bizarre and baggy and entrancing existed, and out of fear that it would run away or evaporate, I felt the only recourse I had was to devour it, like some giant unwitting cartoon monster who doesn't realize that eating the things you love in one big gulp does not do them any favors, despite the passion involved.
Burger's Daughter is a very different sort of book from The Savage Detectives -- more focused, more interior. Both, though, share one of the features of fiction that most captivates me: a vividness and richness that I can point to, but barely describe. The books I most passionately respond to tend to be of either what I think of as the richly vivid variety or of the austerely precise variety (which for me finds its apotheosis in that other white South African Nobel laureate, J.M. Coetzee). Some writers manage to be one or the other in different works -- Paul Bowles, another of my personal gods, is austerely precise in his early short stories and richly vivid in one of the other novels I once forced myself to read slowly because of its genius, The Spider's House.
One day I may try to analyze these two modes more fully and accurately, and perhaps attempt to show how they work for me, but I don't want to do that right now -- I'm still too possessed by passion for the whole of Burger's Daughter to want to atomize it to the extent that such an analysis would require. The effect, though, is to create a feeling that the words on any one random page of this novel evoke more life and thought than many entire books by lesser writers. And most writers are lesser writers than Gordimer, it seems to me.
Entire volumes have been written about Burger's Daughter, so even if I were inclined toward rigorous critical analysis of the novel, it would likely be redundant, but I'm more interested in what it feels like to read the book, because for all the intellectual power of the novel, it is how the structure blossomed in my mind as I read that separated Burger's Daughter from, for instance, My Son's Story, for which I have a mostly intellectual appreciation. If someone I knew to be a good reader disliked My Son's Story, it wouldn't bother me. If that same person disliked Burger's Daughter, I would likely think there was, at some fundamental level, a way in which we could not really communicate with each other. (And then, of course, I would realize this was a silly idea, but I know it would be the first one for me, and the suspicion would be difficult to dispell, given how deeply and complexly the novel affected me -- it spoke to some core part of my self as a reader and a person.)
Such a response is appropriate to a novel that is, among other things, concerned with communication and the recognition of self. The plot is a simple one: Rosa (named for Rosa Luxemburg) is the daughter of white anti-apartheid activists in South Africa; her father is particularly famous for his work. Both of Rosa's parents die early -- her father in prison ("in the second month of the third year of his life sentence"), of nephritis from a throat infection. She spends the next decade or so trying to find a place for herself in the world, trying to first distance herself from her parents' legacy so that she can have some freedom, finally gaining permission to travel to France and then England, but a bitter encounter with a black man who, as a child, had lived with her family shatters the illusion that she could ever be comfortable in the alien territory of Europe, and so she returns to South Africa and accepts her legacy, which, in the apartheid state, inevitably leads to prison.
The story is told through alternating points of view: third-person, "objective" narration that often seems to mimic the diction and viewpoint of a particularly precise (and beautifully written!) police report, and Rosa's first-person narration, her thoughts, directed toward a different person in each of the novel's three sections: first, to a lost lover; second, to her father's first wife, in France; finally, to her father. "My version and theirs," she says early on.
And if this were being written down, both would seem equally concocted when read over. And if I were really telling, instead of talking to you in my mind the way I find I do... One is never talking to oneself, always one is addressed to someone. Suddenly, without knowing the reason, at different stages in one's life, one is addressing this person or that all the time, even dreams are performed before an audience. I see that. It's well known that people who commit suicide, the most solitary of all acts, are addressing someone. It's just that with me it never happened before. It hasn't happened even when I thought I was in love -- and we couldn't ever have been in love.My version and theirs -- but both perceived via one person, a bifurcated self. The novel begins with an epigraph from Lévi-Strauss: "I am the place in which something has occurred." The first chapter gives us Rosa at 14 outside a prison, "bringing an eiderdown quilt and a hotwater bottle for her mother." The moment is preserved through what seem to be different consciousnesses -- those of onlookers and a government official. The chapter ends with a paragraph that could come from the admiring biography or documentary film of Lionel Burger that, later in the novel, various characters propose and discuss. And then a single sentence on an otherwise blank page: "When they saw me outside the prison, what did they see?" Thus: Rosa Burger trying to perceive a memory of herself through her imagination of other people's experience. Any wonder that she refers to Rosa Luxemburg as "the real Rosa" -- she has, herself, become less a person as other people are persons than a text for which she seeks interpretation.
I've only read one essay about Burger's Daughter, but it's a good one: "'What I say will not be understood': Intertextuality as a subversive force in Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter" by Susan Barrett, which convincingly reveals a technique of the novel that is mostly hidden to ordinary readers -- a technique of incorporating other texts either through allusion or through unmarked quotation so as to accomplish a few different things: firstly, to get some things past the South African censor that would not normally ever be allowed to be published; secondly, and more broadly, to raise questions about the nature of culture, exile, and Europe's relationship to Africa.
One of the masterful elements of the novel is just how Gordimer brings Lévi-Strauss's epigraph to life: the "something" which has occurred in Rosa Burger is, in a very general sense, the history of white people in South Africa. Rosa has, into herself, received European language, culture, and history; she has also received Afrikaner language, culture, and history; and she has received Marxist language, culture, and history. Her task becomes to sort this into a life, and, more than that, into a person she doesn't mind encountering in the mirror. It is not a wholly intellectual task -- bodies are a central concern of the novel: sickness, pleasure, desire, sex -- all are frequent topics, and as Rosa sorts through the many facets of her identity, her self as part of a female body is central to her experience and her reflection on that experience. She spends much time trying to find similarities and differences: where does she overlap with other people, and why? How deep can such overlapping go? What does it suggest about her? Where, in amidst all she has inherited, is her "real Rosa"?
Fate is as strong a force in Burger's Daughter as in any Greek tragedy -- but it is a fate enforced by society and government, not gods. Rosa's skin color determines her fate first, because even were she to be sentenced, as her father was, to life in prison -- or even death -- she would still be a white person in prison or a white martyr, valued higher in many ways than a black counterpart. She is also Burger's Daughter, seemingly forever to be defined by who her famous parents were. The police surveillance of her is caused not by any of her actions, but by her surname. Even were she to renounce her parents and use her white skin as a tool for social climbing, which she admits she could do, there would still be suspicion, because though she has Afrikaner heritage, it is a heritage tainted by leftist politics. She goes to Europe seeking freedom, and for a while she thinks she has found it -- she is anonymous, she feels unwatched -- but she cannot forget where she comes from, that she is a South African regardless of whether she is in South Africa. Soon enough, too, given her father's fame in certain circles, she is forced to be Burger's daughter even thousands of miles from home.
Burger's Daughter is a political novel in the sense of being about politics and people whose lives are deeply committed to political discussions and activism, but it does not come across as a didactic novel, which is remarkable, because it contains extremely didactic material (especially in Lionel Burger's testimony to the court and in a student pamphlet reproduced toward the end of the book). Indeed, this drew the notice of the South African censors, and the book was banned a month after it was published in 1979. Susan Barrett quotes from the Censorship Board's report:
The book is an outspoken furthering of communism […] [it] creates and fosters a sense of grievance which is most undesirable in a political situation where there are racial situations [sic] […it] doesn't possess one particularly positive quality – of creation, insight, style, language or composition – which can save it as work of art or as contribution to the public welfare. […] The effect of the book on the public attitude of mind is dangerous in all aspects.But, as Barrett goes on to explain, the ban didn't last:
...in an unprecedented move, the Director of Publications appealed almost immediately against the ban his own committee had imposed and appointed a panel of literary experts to evaluate the literary merit of the novel. They accused the committee of "bias, prejudice and literary incompetence" (Dugard, 41) but then went on to say that "the book is difficult to read and will therefore not become a popular book" (Dugard, 57), before finally concluding that because of "its limited readership [… and] as a result of its one-sidedness the effect of the book will be counter-productive rather than subversive" (Dugard 39). The ban was consequently lifted in October 1979.The second report was probably right about the book's ability to find a popular audience in South Africa -- it's a densely textured novel, not exactly something that will find a mass audience, certainly not in any way to be threatening to the state -- but the "one-sidedness" they note hints at the place of politics within the book: as portrayal, not advocacy. It is a novel about the lives of people who are risking everything for their political beliefs, but it is so focused on how those political beliefs intersect with and shape their lives (and vice versa) that it never feels like it is trying to make us, the audience, convert to some ideology -- instead, it simply seems to assume that we agree that apartheid is self-evidently wrong, and goes from there. Toward the end of the book, Rosa thinks:
I don't know the ideology:The world of everyday life and the world of ideology constantly interrupt each other in the novel -- again and again, political conversations are stopped by someone arriving with food, or changing the subject to something banal. The only uninterrupted political statements (that I remember after one read, and without checking) are Lionel at his trial and the students' pamphlet after the Soweto uprising. Each simultaneously reminds us that this is fiction about very real suffering, while also revealing that these two texts are no easier to assimilate and explain than is the text embodied in the name "Rosa Burger". Political theory and calls to action are one thing, but the actions of individual people within the systems they cannot escape are what really determine life: learning to walk again, putting one foot in front of the other.
It's about suffering.
How to end suffering.
And it ends in suffering. Yes, it's strange to live in a country where there are still heroes. Like anyone else, I do what I can. I am teaching them to walk again, at Baragwanath Hospital. They put one foot before the other.
There is a crucial passage that is too long for me to quote here (it's pages 286-287 of the old Penguin paperback, if you're curious) -- Rosa is in France at an art museum with the married man she's having an affair with, Bernard Chabalier, who says, "In Africa, one goes to see the people. In Europe, it's pictures." Rosa disagrees, saying that a picture, "a record of what's already passed through the painter's mind", is always abstract to her, whereas people are immediate, they're the things you live among. Chabalier adds that the pictures leave out much of life: "In the fifty years between the two paintings, there was the growth of fascism, two wars -- the Occupation-- And for Bonnard it is as if nothing's happened. Nothing. Look at them... He could have painted them the same summer, the same day." He compares that to the lives lived by the people Rosa is staying with in France -- outside of history, free to pretend there is no world beyond their frames. It is not a world that Rosa can join without eradicating every last trace of whatever hints of self she has found.
The dialogue in the novel is similar to that in other works of Gordimer's -- presented not via quotation marks, but through dashes before and after what is spoken. Often, the speakers are not clearly identified, particularly in group conversations. The effect is, for me, like listening to a conversation underwater. Words are distant, the sounds seem to float. The effect is estranging in some ways, but the ultimate effect is to make the dialogue seem not like immediate speech, but like speech recollected in memory.
One of the most breathtaking moments in the novel for me -- and there were multiple -- obviously calls to mind Raskolnikov's dream of the horse in Crime and Punishment. It ends the first section of Burger's Daughter, just before Rosa goes to France. She sees a drunken old "rag of a black man" beating a donkey attached to a cart in which his family sits. She writes for paragraphs about the agony and brutality of it, then: "I had only to career down on that scene with my car and my white authority." She realizes that she could alter the man and his family's lives, turn them over to official control and recording, stop the brutality of the moment: "I could have stood between them and suffering -- the suffering of the donkey." But no:
I drove on. I don't know at what point to intercede makes sense, for me. Every week the woman who comes to clean my flat and wash my clothes brings a child whose make-believe is polishing floors and doing washing. I drove on because the horrible drunk was black, poor and brutalized. If somebody's going to be brought to account, I am accountable for him, to him, as he is for the donkey. Yet the suffering -- while I saw it it was the sum of suffering to me. I didn't do anything. I let him beat the donkey. The man was a black. So a kind of vanity counted for more than feeling; I couldn't bear to see myself -- her -- Rosa Burger -- as one of those whites who can care more for animals than people. Since I've been free, I'm free to become one.The moment becomes her justification for leaving: "Nothing and nobody stopped me from using that passport. After the donkey I couldn't stop myself. I don't know how to live in Lionel's country."
After seeing and rejecting Europe, after creating and rejecting a conception of herself, she returns: "It's about suffering. How to end suffering. And it ends in suffering." That's the ideology. The action, though, is people learning to walk again. One foot in front of another.


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The Walrus Says
But their electronic conversation also included:
There are several other errors dealing with the song. One says it should be played with a banjo and mandolin. Another says the kid playing it was using a fivefi nger grip for the three-string banjo. Yet another says the kid didn't play it. It was another's hand coming through the shirt.
Is the answer you're looking for that the real title is "Feudin' Banjos?" That song was composed in 1955 by Arthur Smith as a banjo instrumental.
Thanks, John and Ernie, you really worked that one through.
The Friends of the Jamestown Philomenian Library will present two films in its Thursday night foreign film series in January. Both beginning at 7 p.m., La Notte di San Lorenzo (Italy, 1982) The Night of Shooting Stars and Shall We Dansu (Japan, 1996) Shall We Dance will be shown on Jan. 14 and 28, respectively.
The Friends' Sunday Afternoon Music Series this month will present Black & White Band, with music of the 1950s, 1960s and doo-wop on Jan. 17.
Congratulations to two islanders who have been promoted at the Community College of Rhode Island. Martha Vigneault is now a full professor and Patricia Lucas is an assistant professor.
Kudos to Jamestowners Megan Greene, Victoria Dolce and Samantha Leonard of the North Kingstown High School field hockey team, who were named to the Southern Rhode Island Newspapers fall sports all-area team.
Anna Templeton-Cotill also knows the lyrics to Irving Berlin's "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning."
Chopmist Charlie's is the subject of a glowing article by Linda Beaulieu in the latest issue of SO Rhode Island.
What a New Year's surprise from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island. Our Blue Chip policy increased from $94 to $146 a month without any warning and without a state hearing that we know about. How is the "change" working out for the rest of you?
Regardless of what the media has been telling you lately, we are not in the second decade of the 21st century. That happens on Jan. 1, 2011.
Last week, we had two granddaughters staying with us. Summer, 11, and Olivia, 13, get along like any two sisters that age. They sleep in late and stay up late. Joshua, our 13-year-old Vallhund, loved them, but especially Summer, who took him for walks and slipped him treats. Between the two, the computer got a workout and they taught me things about the machine I didn't know. The TV was on most of the time and I had to explain at New Year's that the bowl games are special to grandpas and we get sole possession though they can watch if they want. Food was no problem, for they eat just about anything constantly. "When is supper?" was an oft-asked question. There were also strange beep beeps from cell phones and I kept having to remind myself to leave the seat down.
I'd like to thank the Jamestown Philomenian Library for being open and having computers. Also, thanks to Melissa Maxwell, a friend of the girls' mother, for taking them on excursions and into her home.
Now they've returned to Connecticut and school time again. No more jousting for the TV and what's left of the ice cream. The house is quiet. And I no longer get any hugs.
By the way, has anyone seen Mim?
A Snapple cap moment: The most sensitive parts of the body are the mouth and fingertips.
*** We'll argue that one.
*** Be true!
Call in your stuff to 423-0383 or 829-2760, or email us at jtnwalrus@ hotmail.com.


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Mobile supper club Outstanding in the Field just announced its 2013 farm-to-table tour lineup, and some of the events have already sold out. The big red-and-white bus tours the nation from coast to coast once a year to host dinners at a slew of stunning locations including ranches, sea caves, mountaintops and community gardens. This year's North American tour has scheduled stops in Southern California in the early summer and late fall:
On June 6, Romeo Coleman of Coleman Family Farm -- a Santa Monica Farmers Market favorite -- will host an Outstanding in the Field supper at his farm in Carpinteria, along with guest chefs Rachel Main of Main Course California and Karl Holst of Birnam Wood Golf Club. Catherine Pepe and Thom Curry of the Temecula Olive Oil Co. will also be hosting an early summer soiree on June 8 with guest chef Paul Arias of the Fishery.
After touring the East Coast, Outstanding in the Field will make its way back to California, where the 2013 tour will come to a close. On Nov. 5, Wattles Farm master gardener Toby Leaman will once again be hosting an Outstanding dinner at the community farm in Hollywood, with guest chefs to be announced shortly, and on Nov. 8, Charlie Parker of Freddy Smalls will guest chef a supper in a sea cove on Catalina Island, where John King, captain of the Afishionado, will be on hand to share Catalina fishing stories.


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VIDEO: Debating the West All-Star reserves, Part 1
The big news is Golden State point guard and first-time All-Star Stephen Curry beat out the Los Angeles Clippers' Chris Paul in the fan vote and Kevin Love, despite the Timberwolves' struggles, surged passed Dwight Howard to give the Western Conference two new starters.
Now get set for big controversy: picking the seven reserves for the 63rd All-Star Game on Feb. 16 in New Orleans.
Start with injuries to Paul and Lakers star Kobe Bryant.
Despite playing only six games this season, Bryant was voted by the fans to start alongside Curry. Bryant said Thursday that someone else should play, but he also said he could play a couple minutes — if he's able. (If he's not, new commissioner Adam Silver will name a replacement.)
Paul is a different story. On Wednesday, Paul said he would like to play if he is able to return from a separated right shoulder that was expected to keep him out about six weeks. He sustained the injury on Jan. 3.
That makes things a bit complicated for the Western Conference coaches who will select the seven reserves. If healthy, Paul, an MVP candidate before being injured, is an automatic selection. Unsure if Paul, last year's All-Star Game MVP, will be back in time, coaches might go ahead and select him, then allow for a commissioner's replacement if he can't play.
If Bryant can't play, an additional spot for a deserving backcourt player will open among a very crowded field of candidates, and introduce another new starter to the mix, possibly James Harden.
Frontcourt selections also won't come without controversy. Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin join Love as the starters. Howard, who was second in voting after the third returns two weeks ago, will certainly be selected as a reserve, leaving two open spots.
Coaches will select two backcourt players, three frontcourt players and two wild cards. Some might call it Mission Impossible. (For John Schuhmann's look at the East, click here.)
Let's just go ahead and rattle off the candidates: Paul, Harden, Damian Lillard, Tony Parker, Klay Thompson, Mike Conley, Goran Dragic and perhaps even Monta Ellis. (Imagine if Russell Westbrook was healthy.) He'd be an automatic selection, forcing someone else off the roster. Fact is there will deserving players who won't get the call.
My picks: Paul and Harden. Harden is the league's fifth-leading scorer and also averages 5.4 apg and 4.9 rpg on a contending team. Paul is averaging 19.6 ppg and his 11.2 apg is a league-best by two full assists. He's a magician, plain and simple.
Like point guard, the power forward position in the West could practically fill out an entire All-Star squad, so the process of elimination is going to be tough. Look at all the deserving big boys: Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, David Lee, Serge Ibaka and center DeMarcus Cousins (and Marc Gasol, an All-Star last year, but injured for much of the first half isn't even in the discussion). Do-it-all small forward Nicolas Batum must be in the discussion.
My picks: Aldridge, Howard and Nowitzki. Aldridge (24.2 ppg, 11.6 rpg) is having a monstrous season for a top team. Howard is averaging 18.6 ppg, 12.6 rpg and 1.8 bpg. Nowitzki was the hard choice, but he's averaging more than 21 ppg and has surged up the NBA's all-time scoring list to No. 13 while keeping the Mavs in the playoff hunt.
VIDEO: Debating the West All-Star reserves, Part 2
Coaches will chose two players regardless of position. Some coaches might use this spot to balance the roster and others might just pick the two most deserving players. Either way, this could take some time for coaches to figure out because of the number of good choices.
This is also where the injuries to Bryant and Paul make it difficult. If both were out, I would suggest Harden will start and Parker would take Harden's spot as a reserve. Paul's absence would allow Lillard to take his spot. My wild cards would then be guard Dragic of the Suns and power forward Anthony Davis of the hometown Pelicans.
However, since I believe the coaches will select Paul, and Bryant is a starter as of now, the above scenario is not applicable.
My picks: Parker and Lillard. It's impossible to understate Parker's value to the Spurs. He's averaging 18.4 ppg and 6.3 apg and is shooting an incredible 51.6 percent. Lillard is fearless in the clutch and is draining 3-pointers at a record pace.


text:
A joke to die for sits at the heart of 'The Clean House'
Sarah Ruhl's popular and critically beloved 2004 play "The Clean House," starring Victoria Perez as a Brazilian maid with a penchant for comedy, opens Friday night in the Road Less Traveled Theatre. The show, which premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre and later made its way to the Lincoln Center Theatre in New York City and regional theaters nationwide, explores class, race and comedy through the lens of one peculiar character.
Matilde (Perez) is a reluctant maid on a quest to find the funniest joke in the world. In a strange twist, that quest takes her into the home of two Connecticut doctors in the midst of marital troubles, and the results are at once poignant and funny. Perez, a member of the recently formed Road Less Traveled ensemble, pitched the show to the company's artistic director Scott Behrend, who said he became an instant fan of the piece and the playwright.
"I think Victoria will be unbelievable in the part," he said. "It's gonna be a real highlight of the season."
Derek Campbell directs a cast that also includes Peter Palmisano, Christina Rausa, Margaret Massman and Mary McMahon. – Colin Dabkowski
"The Clean House" – When: 8 p.m. Friday through May 12. Where: Road Less Traveled Theatre, 639 Main St. Tickets: $17 to $32. Info: 629-3069 or www.roadlesstraveledproductions.org


text:
Many organizations want to secure the email messages of their most important individuals—for example, their senior executives. Secure MIME (S/MIME), an email security solution commonly supported in today's email software, can provide confidentiality, data authentication, and integrity protection for email messages. S/MIME secures messages in an end-to-end way—not only while the message is in transmission, but also when it's stored in the database of a mail server.
I'll show you how to use S/MIME to solve security problems in a Microsoft messaging environment. Configuring the current Microsoft Outlook versions to use S/MIME is easy, but as you'll see, the underlying certificate infrastructure required to make S/MIME work takes some careful thought and preparation.
S/MIME Basics
S/MIME adds data authentication, confidentiality, nonrepudiation, and integrity protection to MIME-formatted messages. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF at http:// www.ietf.org) standardized S/MIME 3.0 in Requests for Comments (RFCs) 2632 through 2634.
S/MIME is an excellent example of a hybrid cryptographic solution, combining the powers of symmetric and asymmetric ciphers and hash functions. (For an introduction to cryptography, see the Windows IT Security article "Keep Your Secrets Safe," August 2005, InstantDoc ID 46871.)
Figure 1 shows the steps in a typical-S/MIME scenario. Alice wants to send a secure message (meaning it has guaranteed confidentiality, integrity, data authentication, and nonrepudiation) to Bob. The S/MIME exchange follows these steps:
- Alice uses her private key to create a digital signature for the message.
- Alice uses a symmetric bulk encryption key to encrypt the message.
- To create a secure channel that can protect the confidentiality of the encryption key while it's transmitted across a public communication channel, Alice uses Bob's public key (found in Bob's certificate) to encrypt the encryption key. This step produces a lockbox that contains an encrypted copy of the encryption key.
- Bob uses his private key to decrypt the lockbox. This decryption process produces the bulk encryption key.
- Using the bulk encryption key, Bob decrypts the message. Bob can now read the message.
- Bob uses Alice's public key to verify the authenticity and integrity of the message by verifying the digital signature, which is found in Alice's certificate.
S/MIME provides persistent, end-to-end encryption of mail messages. This means that when you use S/MIME to encrypt a message, the message is not only encrypted while in transmission, it's also encrypted when stored in your local Microsoft Outlook personal folder store (.pst) or in your Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox store.
Outlook S/MIME Support
Microsoft offers four Outlook mail clients: Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, Outlook Express 6.0, Outlook Web Access (OWA), and Pocket Outlook. Both the Outlook and Outlook Express mail clients have supported S/MIME for quite a while. Exchange Server 2003 adds S/MIME support for OWA. The soon-to-be-released Messaging and Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5.0 will include S/MIME support for Pocket Outlook. Pocket Outlook, which ships with the Windows Mobile (WM) operating system, allows users to access mail from Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs or Smartphones. For more information about WM, see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/business/5/default.mspx.
Table 1 gives you an overview of the S/MIME features for each of the Microsoft mail clients. (Note that because I couldn't get access to the WM S/MIME software or feature set in time for this article, the table doesn't include the feature set for that OS version.) You can see that Outlook 2003 has the most complete S/MIME feature set and includes support for S/MIME Enhanced Security Services (ESS) and easy-to-use certificate management features.
From Outlook 2003, you can easily-publish your certificate to the Exchange Global Address List (GAL) or request a new certificate from a commercial Certification Authority (CA), such as VeriSign. To publish your personal certificates to the GAL, click Tools, Options. On the Security tab, which Figure 2 shows, click Publish to GAL. Publishing your certificates to the GAL enables other users to download them and to send you signed and/or encrypted messages. Next, click Get a Digital ID. Outlook 2003 redirects you to the Office Marketplace Web site, where you can request an S/MIME certificate from a commercial CA.
Outlook 2003 ESS includes support for secure receipts. Secure receipts provide nonrepudiation of reading, which gives the message sender cryptographic proof that the intended recipient has actually read and verified a signed message.
S/MIME supports two digital signature types, clear and opaque. A clear signed message separates the digital signature from the signed data. An opaque signed message binds the signature and the message in a single binary file. Only S/MIME-enabled mail clients can send S/MIME-signed (clear or opaque) messages. S/MIME-enabled mail clients can read both clear and opaque signed messages. Non-S/MIME-enabled mail clients can read only clear signed messages. In general, when you don't know the recipient's S/MIME capabilities, send clear signed messages. When you do know that a recipient has S/MIME capability, you can use either clear or opaque signing. The advantage of opaque signing is that it's more resistant to translation by email gateway and relay servers that can invalidate an email message's digital signature. Both Outlook 2003 and Outlook Express 6.0 support clear and opaque signing; OWA supports only clear signing.
Configuring and Using S/MIME
To configure S/MIME in Outlook 2003 (which has the most comprehensive S/MIME features), go to the Security tab (which Figure 2 shows), and click Settings. The Change Security Settings dialog box (Figure 3) appears. In the Security Settings Name box, type or select a name (Jan De Clercq's S/MIME Settings, in our example). Next, from the Cryptography Format box's dropdown list, select S/MIME. Select the Default Security Setting for this cryptographic message format option and the Default Security Setting for all cryptographic messages option. In the Signing Certificate box, specify a signing certificate. Then set the hash algorithm (SHA1 is the recommended setting). Choose an encryption certificate and set the encryption algorithm (3DES is the recommended setting). Select the Send these certificates with signed messages option, then click OK.
Back on the Security tab, you can set the default S/MIME behavior that will apply to all the messages the user sends. In our example that Figure 2 shows, the default is to send clear signed messages. You can specify to encrypt and/or sign all outgoing messages, to always send clear signed messages, and/or to always request a receipt for signed messages.
Users can override the default settings for individual messages. From the Message window, which Figure 4 shows, they can click the Encrypt or Sign icon or click Options to access the encryption and signing options from Security Settings in the Options dialog box.
Be sure users know that when they send an encrypted message, they must have access to the recipient's public key and certificate. If you use an Active Directory (AD)-integrated Windows Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Outlook 2003 can retrieve the recipient's certificate from a Global Catalog (GC) server. For recipients not defined in AD (for example, external recipients), users can get a copy of their certificates by having the recipients send them a signed email message. When users then create an Outlook contact object for that recipient, Outlook automatically includes the recipient's certificates in the contact object.
Design and Deployment Considerations
That's the easy, front-end part of an S/MIME-based mail security solution. Behind the scenes, you have a lot of thinking to do when you design and deploy an effective mechanism for handling certificates. Ask yourself the following questions to get started.
Can my current mail clients support sufficient S/MIME services? If your current mail clients don't support the full S/MIME feature set that users need (see Table 1 for an overview of the different S/MIME feature sets), you might need to upgrade your mail client software.
If your current mail client doesn't support S/MIME at all, remember that even though users can't create S/MIME-protected messages or read encrypted or opaque signed messages, they can always read clear signed messages. If you use Exchange Server 2003 messaging servers, you can enable S/MIME for users through OWA.
Should I use an internal or commercial CA? S/MIME builds on X.509-formatted digital certificates generated by CAs. To provide S/MIME certificates to your users, you can leverage internal CAs or you can buy certificates from a commercial CA (such as VeriSign at http://www.verisign.com or thawte at http://www.thawte.com). Internal CAs give your organization complete control over the operation of your certificate "engines" and allow you to provide important services such as key archiving and recovery. Because internal CAs require design, deployment, and maintenance of the PKI, they can be costly. For small organizations and organizations that need certificates for a limited set of users or applications, I recommend buying S/MIME certificates from a commercial CA. They are an easy and cheaper option.
How will users enroll for and renew their S/MIME certificates? When you consider an S/MIME deployment, you must plan how users will enroll for and renew their S/MIME certificates. In a Windows 2003 domain environment made up of XP or later clients and containing an integrated Windows PKI, I recommend that you use autoenrollment as the certificate enrollment and renewal method. In Windows 2000 Server domain environments hosting a Windows PKI, users can manually enroll for certificates by using the CA Web enrollment interface or by using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Certificates snap-in. If you get your S/MIME certificates from a commercial CA, you must adhere to the enrollment and renewal guidelines that the CA defines.
Do I need a single or a dual S/MIME key pair system? Keeping a central database of private keys can be risky when users use the same key for both encrypting and signing their mail messages. Rogue administrators could extract a user's private key from the archival database and sign mail messages on that user's behalf. To protect users from these threats, most S/MIME client and server software (including Exchange and Outlook) support a dual key pair system. In such a system, a user always has two key pairs: one for signing (the private key from the pair is archived) and one for encrypting (the private key of the pair isn't archived). If your organization doesn't have key archival and recovery requirements, you can use S/MIME with a single key pair. In all other cases, I strongly recommend that you deploy two key pairs for each S/MIME user.
Do I need key archival and recovery services? In many organizations, if users encrypt email messages, the organization's security policy requires key archiving and recovery. A key archival and recovery system keeps a copy of the user's private encryption key in a centralized database. If a user loses his or her private key and no archival and recovery mechanism is available, the encrypted data can't be decrypted.
The need for encryption key archival and recovery services can be one of the reasons to invest in an internal PKI or in a messaging server that offers this service. Exchange Server versions 4.0 through 5.5 offer key archival and recovery services in the Key Management Service (KMS). In Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and later versions, you can outsource the KMS CA functionality to a Windows CA. In Exchange 2003, the CA and archival and recovery functions have been moved completely to the Windows 2003 CA.
Do my users need advanced private key protection? If your users use S/MIME to sign important mail messages, you must use an advanced private key protection system. Microsoft offers a software-based protection mechanism that can prompt users for a password each time their applications access a private key. The Cryptographic Service Provider screen of the Certificate Request Wizard (Figure 5) lets users set strong private key protection by selecting the Enable strong private key protection option when they enroll for an S/MIME certificate. In the Creating a new RSA exchange key dialog box that appears, select High to enable password protection of the private key.
Other private key protection solutions require that you deploy specialized hardware such as USB tokens, smart cards and smart card readers, or Trusted Platform Module (TPM)-enabled workstations. These advanced solutions definitely offer a high level of private key protection but can be costly to deploy and maintain.
How will I provide up-to-date certificate revocation information to my users? The S/MIME functionality embedded in the Microsoft messaging clients and servers uses a system of certificate revocation lists (CRLs) and CRL distribution points (CRLDPs) to provide users with up-to-date certificate revocation information. CRLs contain the serial numbers of untrustworthy certificates (such as certificates of which the private key has been compromised). CRLDPs point to places from which users can download CRLs. CRLs can be stored in a directory, on a Web server, in a file, or on an FTP share.
Both Outlook 2003 and OWA generate error messages when no up-to-date CRL information is available on the local machine or on one of the CRLDPs. When you design your PKI infrastructure, make sure that you set up multiple CRLDPs, preferably on different storage providers (for example, one in a directory and another one on a Web server). If you exchange S/MIME-secured messages with people outside your organization, you must make sure that the CRLs are also available to them. If you get your certificates from a commercial CA, make sure that you understand its revocation information distribution mechanisms.
S/MIME to the Rescue
S/MIME provides powerful mail security extensions that can greatly benefit your users. Microsoft includes S/MIME functionality in the various Outlook messaging clients and in the Exchange messaging server. Configuring and using S/MIME in Microsoft software is relatively easy, but remember that successful deployment of S/MIME requires you to invest adequate time and effort in planning and designing your certificate infrastructure.


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It is evident that most of the photos in the Overson collection were taken by Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson or her father, Charles Godfrey DeFriez Jarvis from the late 1800s until about 1950. Although there is no way to identify who took this photo, I am guessing that it was likely taken by Margaret Overson's daughter, Eva Margaret Overson Tanner, my paternal grandmother. The reason I believe this is because, my grandfather, her husband, LeRoy Parkinson Tanner was a veteren of the Border War with Mexico of 1910 - 1919. General Pershing was in charge of the campaign and led the Pancho Villa Expedition in 1916. I have a few photographs showing my grandfather in his uniform, but very little information about his involvement in the campaign. The border campaign is known for the fact that George S. Patton, later General Patton, led the first assault with armored vehicles at a ranch near San Miguelito, Mexico.
I am assuming that as a veteren, my grandfather made the trip down from northern Arizona to attend the service with his former commander. If Eva's mother, my Grandmother Overson, came with them on the trip, she may also have taken the photo.
Quoting from the University of Arizona website:
Situated at the west entrance of Old Main, the Memorial Fountain, honoring those UA students who lost their lives in World War I, was the gift of Alexander Berger, an uncle of Alexander Tindolph Berger, one of those to whose memory it is dedicated.
On January 31, 1920, the Memorial Fountain in front of Old Main was dedicated amid a huge turnout of students, faculty, townspeople, and military who had come to honor the University's World War I dead and to greet the guest of honor, General John J. Pershing. General Pershing's speech was brief and impressive, following which the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by President von KleinSmid.See Wikipedia: Border War (1910-19) and The University of Arizona, History and Traditions, Berger Memorial Fountain.
It will be really interesting to see what else turns up in this seemingly endless collection of now over 5,700 images.


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Deputies: Man found dead after 911 calls
Investigation is ongoing
Deputies: Man found dead after 911 calls
Investigation is ongoing
A man was found dead at a Greenville County apartment complex after two 911 calls Saturday night, the Greenville County Sheriff's Office said.
Around 10 p.m., deputies said someone called about hearing gun shots fired at the Crescent Landing apartment complex on White Horse Road.
Deputies said, a second call came in a few minutes later with details about gunfire happening near the N building and a man victim lying in the parking lot.
Investigators said the victim was deceased by the time deputies arrived at 10:11 p.m.
The coroner identified the man as Edward Goldsmith, 47.
The Violent Crimes Unit is helping out with the investigation.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 23-CRIME.


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Brandon Mebane holds a special distinction in the Seattle Seahawks' locker room.
Through all the changes that coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider made to personnel during the infancy of their tenure running the Seahawks, the defensive tackle has managed to stay on the roster.
As the Seahawks head into Sunday's NFC championship game against San Francisco, Mebane has the most seniority of the four players still on Seattle's roster from before the arrival of Carroll and Schneider.
He's a Seattle original, drafted in the third round by the Seahawks in 2007 and now one win from helping the franchise get to the Super Bowl for the second time.
"It's very, very nice to see that and to be a part of this team," Mebane said. "Hopefully, we can keep this going and keep winning. We have high goals for ourselves."
Mebane, defensive end Red Bryant, center Max Unger and punter Jon Ryan are the only players still on Seattle's roster from before Carroll's arrival. They are a small fraternity that has stuck around for various reasons, with their on-field play topping the list.
In the case of Mebane and Bryant, both could have tested free agency in recent seasons, only to receive significant offers to continue their careers with Seattle after impressing Carroll.
"Well they got paid a lot. When it came time, pretty easy decision I thought," Carroll joked of Mebane and Bryant. "But first, the guys have kind of been the foundation blocks of the defense here and have been here throughout and they're rewarded for their work. And Red has come a long way and has done an incredible job with his career and we're thrilled about it. ... They have been so consistent. They've stuck it out because we agreed that this was a good place for them and they played really well and all of that and we're fortunate to have them."
Mebane is not a defensive tackle who gets a lot of attention because his numbers will never stand out. His responsibility is to eat up space on Seattle's defensive line and create havoc in the run game. The more blockers Mebane can occupy, the easier for linebackers Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright, Malcolm Smith and Bruce Irvin to come in and clean up the play. On passing downs, Mebane gives way to Michael Bennett, who led Seattle with 8½ sacks in the regular season, and Clinton McDonald.
Mebane finished the regular season with 45 tackles and zero sacks. But he was a big reason Seattle's run defense improved during the second half of the season. Mebane's performance was good enough that he received one All-Pro vote. But ask him and Mebane didn't see anything special about his season.
"I don't know. I don't think it was," Mebane said. "I couldn't tell you."
Last week, New Orleans had moderate success running against the Seahawks, but Mebane and his teammates know they'll have to be significantly better on Sunday against San Francisco. Since Jim Harbaugh arrived in 2011, the 49ers are 4-2 against Seattle. In the two losses, Seattle held San Francisco running back Frank Gore to less than 30 yards rushing in both games.
"He's a fantastic runner, he's got great sense, and he's got as good a sense in the line of scrimmage as anybody that's playing in the game," Carroll said. "If you make a mistake, he takes advantage of it."
AP NFL website: http://www.pro32.ap.org


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FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — The former boss of a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., testified Monday that she was shocked when the base commander asked for advance notice of any orders she planned to give regarding the confinement of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier charged with sending classified information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
The request was surprising because brig commanders have sole authority to determine the custody status of detainees, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Denise Barnes said. She testified on the 10th day of a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade, near Baltimore, to determine whether the nine months Manning spent in tight confinement at Quantico amounted to illegal pretrial punishment, possibly warranting dismissal of his case.
Barnes testified that Col. Daniel Choike, then garrison commander at Quantico, made the request after Barnes ordered in early March 2011 that Manning be stripped of his underwear each night as a suicide-prevention measure. Manning stood naked at attention the next morning, resulting in news coverage that embarrassed the military and heightened worldwide interest in his case.
Barnes said Choike called her to say that Lt. Gen. George Flynn, then the highest-ranking officer at Quantico, wanted her to run any orders involving Manning up the chain of command before executing them.
"I was kind of shocked," Barnes said. "The base commander does not control the brig OIC." The acronym stands for "officer in charge." Barnes was the officer in charge of the brig.
Barnes said she never received any orders regarding Manning's confinement conditions. He continued to be stripped of his underwear at night until he was moved to medium-security pretrial confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in April 2011.
Barnes acknowledged that nothing in the military corrections manual authorizes removing clothing from detainees who aren't on suicide watch. Manning was on less-restrictive "prevention of injury" status at the time, and remained so until he left Quantico.
Barnes was the brig commander during the last three months of Manning's confinement at Quantico. For all of his nine months there, he was held in maximum custody, with additional restrictions ostensibly aimed at preventing suicide or self-injury. The restrictions kept him confined to his cell at least 23 hours a day.
Defense attorney David Coombs claims those conditions were controlled by Flynn. Choike has denied that Flynn influenced Manning's confinement.
Another prosecution witness, Army 1st Sgt. Bruce Williams, testified that Manning told him on an almost a weekly basis that he didn't understand why he was being kept on injury-prevention status. Williams routinely visited Manning as a representative of Manning's Army command chain. He testified that a brig staffer told him Manning was at risk of self-injury, and he didn't pursue the matter further.
The hearing is scheduled to end Wednesday. To prevail, the defense must show either that there was intentional punishment or that Manning's restrictions were so egregious they were tantamount to punishment. To quash the claim, the government must prove by a preponderance of evidence that brig officials justifiably believed the strict conditions were needed to keep Manning from hurting or killing himself.
The 24-year-old native of Crescent, Okla., was an intelligence analyst in Iraq. He is charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. He is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and more than 250,000 diplomatic cables while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2009 and 2010.
He is also charged with leaking a 2007 video clip of a U.S. helicopter crew gunning down 11 men later found to have included a Reuters news photographer and his driver. The Pentagon concluded the troops acted appropriately, having mistaken the camera equipment for weapons.


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Google Nexus One spends dying days as dev phone
Final shipment arrives in Mountain View
Google's Nexus One will spend the end of its brief, sad life as a developer phone sold through some unnamed partner.
With a Friday blog post, Google announced that it has received its last shipment of Nexus Ones from the manufacturer and that once these are sold, it will — as promised — close the ill-fated webstore where it sold the phone directly to netizens.
Google will, however, begin offering phones to registered Android developers via its Android Market Publisher site. Naturally, these will be sold through a partner. Google wants to "ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS."
Much as Steve Jobs says the Judas Phone has no antenna problems, Eric Schmidt says the Nexus One was "so successful, we didn't have to do a second one." When Google announced the Nexus One, it said the handset belonged to a new class of "super phone" and boasted that in punting the phone solely through the web, it would fundamentally change the way phones are sold.
But it was far from a super phone. After more than five months, according to reports, it had sold a mere 500,000 devices, and plans for additional carriers to join T-Mobile in offering service for the Nexus One via the Google webstore were shelved.
With the Nexus One, Google was competing with its own Android partners, and according to one report, at least some of these partners weren't too happy about it.
As early as late April — the Nexus One launched in early January — Google began selling the handset through traditional carrier channels. The phone will continue to be sold by partners such as Vodafone in Europe and KT in Korea, and although the webstore will soon close, Google will continue to offer support to those who have already purchased one. ®


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Fatburger, the hub for 100 percent lean beef burgers, is now offering the Thousand Island Fatburger for a limited time, available until May 20.
The new burger takes taste buds on a flavorful journey to accompany a menu that boasts an array of burger and topping combinations.
The Thousand Island Fatburger adds a new taste profile to the already expansive Fatburger menu, taking a sauce and integrating it directly with the burger.
Starting with 100 percent lean beef, the burger touts a hearty spread of rich, creamy Thousand Island dressing along with the popular "works" toppings: crisp lettuce, juicy tomato, pickles, and onions.
Fans are encouraged to further customize their burgers with an assortment of additional topping options offered, including egg, cheese, bacon, chili, mushrooms, jalapenos, yellow peppers, grilled onions, and guacamole.
"The Thousand Island Fatburger pairs great with any of our hand-scooped shakes for a refreshing springtime experience," says CEO of Fatburger Andy Wiederhorn. "We're always looking for ways to broaden our menu and are excited to offer this zesty burger to our dedicated fan base."
The five times weekly e-newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest industry news and additions to this website.


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Guest blog: Taking on the government's assault on education & young people
By Fiona Edwards, Student Broad Left
Two years on from the enormous wave of student resistance in 2010, which saw tens of thousands of students protesting outside Parliament and occupying their campuses against the proposal to treble tuition fees, students are getting ready to take the streets of London once more in a national demonstration to defend education on Wednesday 21 November.
Over the past two years the government's war on students has intensified – the top 1% are vandalising our education system and destroying our futures. As a result young people are being forced out of education, students are being plunged into poverty and the cuts are having a devastating impact our colleges and universities.
We are told by the Tory Chancellor George Osborne that "there is no alternative" to austerity and the slashing of the welfare state.
Yet, whilst our education and our public services are being destroyed, Britain still has the fourth largest military budget in the world – with over £33 billion per year being spent on weapons and wars. For just about a quarter of that it would be possible to abolish tuition fees altogether, as well as bringing back the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) which gave tens of thousands of the poorest young people in our society the opportunity to access further education before it was scrapped over a year ago.
A further £2 billion per year is spent on maintaining Trident nuclear weapons system – which has the capacity to kill nearly 300 million people. The British government should scrap these dangerous nukes designed to destroy lives and spend the money on saving lives instead, by tackling climate change as well as funding the NHS and public services for all.
Our fight against austerity is a global one. It is vital that we broaden our horizons and look for inspiration beyond the shores of Britain and Europe to places where the poor and the oppressed are winning in the fight against global capitalism and neo-liberalism.
In Latin America, many countries have left wing, radical government that are pursuing policies of 21st century socialism.
In Venezuela, for several decades prior to 1998, the majority of the population suffered at the hands of vicious neo-liberal policies, which saw poverty and inequality rise, and the oil wealth of the country used to enrich multinational companies and the Venezuelan elite.
With the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 – catapulted to victory by enormous social movements -, a dramatic shift in priorities has followed. The vast resources of Venezuela are now being used to improve the lives of ordinary people, rather than be siphoned off to make the rich richer.
As a result, over 5 million Venezuelans have been lifted out of poverty and 3 millions from extreme poverty since 1998.
Alongside this, there has been a massive increase in spending on healthcare and education. Whilst our government is busy privatising the NHS and seeking to price the poorest students out of education with the trebling of tuition fees, in Venezuela the government is continuing to massively expand access to free healthcare whilst free education at all levels, including at university, is a constitutional right, with the numbers attending higher education trebling over the past decade as a result.
These advances inVenezuelashow that there is an alternative to neo-liberalism – and it's these sorts of policies, which put people before profit, that we need to be fighting for inBritain.
The attacks on students are part of a wider assault on ordinary people inBritain– the biggest assault in generations. For the first time since the Second World War living standards for the majority of society are declining.
Our response to this must be to build a massive movement to resist austerity. Students, trade unionists, occupiers, pensioners, environmentalists, women, Black, LGBT and disabled people – everyone under attack must unite together and fight-back.
The next big opportunity we have to strike a blow against the Tory-led government and its vicious austerity agenda is on the NUS national demonstration against fees, cuts and austerity on Wednesday 21 November. Everyone who wants to see an end to this government, their cuts, their defence of bankers and the rich at the expense of the rest, needs to be in central London on the 21 November, joining students in demanding that education cuts must be stopped and the future our of society invested in instead.