text:
Ep. 1: Instilling Hope and Ep. 2: Battling Procrastination
January 30, 2019
Hosted by Kathryn Zox
[Download MP3] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Guest Information
Episode Description
Kathryn interviews Pastor and Speaker John Pavlovitz, author of the book "Hope and Other Superpowers: A Life-Affirming, Love-Defending, Butt-Kicking, World-Saving Manifest". There's been a lot of talk lately about quitting Facebook, or Social Media, or media altogether. It's tempting for a lot of reasons, especially when the news is just so, so, depressing. Pavlovitz fervently believes that people can change things for the better with a little guidance and lays out a path for doing so. Kathryn also interviews Entrepreneur and Consultant Petr Ludwig, author of the book "THE END OF PROCRASTINATION: How to Stop Postponing and Live a Fulfilled Life." Even with overflowing inboxes, thousands of unread notifications, and unmet deadlines, most people still can't manage to take control of their time and stop procrastinating. Ludwig tackles this ubiquitous issue head-on, helping you stop putting off work and reclaim your time.
The Kathryn Zox Show
Wednesday at 7 AM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel
Kathryn Zox is your Social Worker with a Microphone™. She's informative and fun and opens up the mic with conversations that women need to hear. The Kathryn Zox Show is savvy and relationship oriented. Kathryn has counseled hundreds of women and their families who have suffered from eating disorders, addiction problems, marital, family and geriatric issues as well as persons coping with mental and physical disabilities. She combines her feminine perspective, social work skills and acting talents to produce a show that's smart, upbeat, informative, sometimes irreverent, but never boring! Tune in Wednesdays at 7 AM/PT, 10 AM/ET to The Kathryn Zox Show be a part of Kathryn's lively interviews on wealth, health, kids, divorce, travel, menopause, recipes, diets, and relationships. Serious and not so serious topics include hair loss, weight gain, face lifts, obsession, and rejection and even male contraception. That's the Kathryn Zox Show, right here on VoiceAmerica Variety.
Kathryn Zox
Kathryn Zox is your social worker with a microphone™. She has been producing and hosting The Kathryn Zox Show Lunchtime Talk in Albany, NY for over five years and is excited about bringing her show from the capital of NY State to the Nation's Capital. She has also recently been a co-host and featured life expert on Doug Stephan's syndicated Good Day Show. Kathryn's interviewed thousands of guests including lifestyle experts, celebrities, authors, lawyers, psychiatrists, physicians and dieticians. At Albany Medical College she has trained doctors and medical students to communicate effectively with their patients. She's an actor who can be seen on the Sopranos and Law and Order and even admits to modeling for AARP! She has Masters' Degrees in Social Work and Counseling Psychology and is a graduate of the New School of Radio and Television. Much background for her show comes from traveling the world and raising three boys now in their twenties - a rock star, an actor and a film maker. There's also one ex-husband, one boyfriend, two brothers and an aging mom!


text:
Funerals Begin In Newtown, Investigation Continues
Six-year-olds Jack Pinto and Noah Pozner — two of the 20 first-graders killed Friday when a gunman stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — are to be remembered at funeral services this afternoon.
Jack loved sports and was said to be a big fan of New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, who wrote the boy's name on the cleats — along with the words "My Hero" — he wore Sunday.
Noah was "smart as a whip" and "just a really lively, smart kid," according to an uncle, Alexis Haller.
The Hartford Courant reports that the boys' memorial services will be the first for the children and six adults killed at the school. Other funerals will be held throughout the week. (Update at 3 p.m. ET: We've posted some details of the boys' funerals here. Our original post continues below.)
Meanwhile, the investigation continues into the murders and the young man who authorities say brought a high-powered rifle, two handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition into the school — and then began killing the children and adults who tried to protect the youngsters, before taking his own life. Before the rampage at the school, authorities say, 20-year-old Adam Lanza also killed his mother Nancy at their home in Newtown.
The Associated Press writes this morning that people in Newtown who knew the mother, say Nancy Lanza spoke little about her home life. But, says the AP, "the divorced mother of two ... was always glad to share talk of her beloved Red Sox, gardening and a growing enthusiasm for target shooting."
We're expecting to learn more this morning from a news briefing Connecticut State Police plan to hold in Newtown. We'll also watch for other stories throughout the day about an event that President Obama says should be a wake-up call telling Americans that "we can do better than this." And, that "if there's even one step we can take" to prevent other such tragedies, it needs to be taken.
On Morning Edition, NPR's Quil Lawrence summed up what's known so far. State Police, Quil reported, say they have collected a great deal of evidence and that some of it "suggests a motive, which in the coming days will be made public."
Also on Morning Edition, NPR's Scott Horsley reported on the president's address at Sunday evening's memorial service for victims. And, Brigid Bergin of WNYC profiled a teacher who lives in Newtown near the Sandy Hook school, and how it's not going to be easy for him to talk with his students in nearby Fairfield about what happened.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Closed or Under EvaluationThis page shows all tenders that have closed for responses, and not yet been awarded. The list includes all public tenders, as well as selective tenders to which your business was invited to respond. You must be signed in to see selective tenders. Times presented in this website are for Queensland (without daylight saving). |


text:
Post-conference blues
Posted: - Modified: | conference, friends, life, sadSuddenly blindsided by post-conference blues. The dangerous thing
about finally having time to breathe is that it's also enough time to
Now I remember.
Left the workshop room to find an empty corridor. Talked a bit with
other people from the lab. It was nowhere near laughter and
conversation over coffee, late-night conference parties, enjoying time
with my closest friends…
That's it. This is loneliness and homesickness.
Tech conferences were always the best times for me to meet with
friends. They've always been reunions for me, from the programming
competitions in high school to the last open-source get-together I
went to right before I left for Canada. We'd chat long into the night
about all the crazy stuff that was going on.
Sometimes conferences were the only times I'd get to see
Dominique. And I miss him. I miss him
terribly. I miss going to conferences with him. He helped me prep,
stopped me from panicking, made it easy for me to talk to other
Conferences are some of my fondest memories. Today's conference was
nice, but… Cold. Strange. Empty.
I guess it's like that for everything else. I'm still trying to find
friends, still figuring out how to relate to people.
I miss being totally present, the way you can be only among friends
who know you as more than a collection of interests, who care about
you as _you_, who know the million things you hate about yourself and
love you anyway.
It doesn't make sense to feel lonely, but I feel it anyway.
Hooray for technology, though. People who say computers are impersonal
have never been on the receiving end of some heavy-duty ASCII
comforting. People who don't see the point in cellphones have never
instantly touched base with other people without having to worry about
where they were. (What's up with charging for incoming calls, anyway?
SHEESH.) And oh, I really hope that Skype upgrade gets everything
working again. I hadn't realized just _how_ much I needed to talk to
(And yes, this is a personal bit of information and most of you are
probably wondering why the heck I'm posting this, but this is what's
happening in my life and it affects me far more than the other things
I post.)
Thanks to Clair, Charo, Dominique, Mom, Dad, Diane, Mario, and everyone
else who was there in spirit although perhaps not online.


text:
So if you want the census released NOW, it has been suggested that you write the Heritage Minister, The Honourable James Moore, and ask that the 1921 Canadian Census be released now.
Minister Moore's mailing address is: The Hon. James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage & Official Languages, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6.
His telephone number is 613-992-9650, and his fax number is 613-992-9868.
He can also be reached online at www.pch.gc.ca/pc-ch/minstr/moore/cntct/index-eng.cfm, or by direct email at email@example.com
Remember, there is no postage required for sending snail-mail to Members of Parliament in Canada from within Canada.


text:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Five years ago, Somali pirates boarded an American-flagged container ship and ended up taking its captain, Richard Phillips, hostage on a small lifeboat. That led to a five-day drama at sea, much of it covered on television, as a U.S. Navy destroyer tailed the lifeboat and Navy SEAL sharpshooters eventually freed the captain.
The feature film based on Richard's film memoir called "Captain Phillips," is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for the performance of Barkhad Abdi as the Somali pirate who led the raid on the container ship. "Captain Phillips" is also out on DVD this week. Today we'll listen to my interview recorded last year with the film's star Tom Hanks and director Paul Greengrass.
Tom Hanks is a two-time Academy Award winner getting back to back Best Actor Oscars for "Philadelphia" and "Forest Gump." He also got Oscar nominations for his roles in "Big," "Saving Private Ryan," and "Castaway." Paul Greengrass began his career as a journalist making documentaries, often in war zones. He's known as a feature film director for fast paced action and documentary-like drama.
Among his films are "The Bourne Supremacy," "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Bloody Sunday" and "United 93." We begin our conversation with a clip from "Captain Phillips." Here Hanks, as the captain, is on the vessel as the pirates have boarded and are shooting their way through security gates to reach him on the bridge. He speaks to his crew through a handheld radio.
TOM HANKS: As Richard Phillips) Four pirates onboard, four pirates. Coming towards us down the main deck. Lock down the bridge. Listen up. We have been boarded by four armed pirates. You know the drill. We stay hidden no matter what. I don't want any hostages.
BARKHAD ABDI: (As Somali pirate) (Speaking foreign language)
HANKS: (As Phillips) We stay locked down until help arrives. No one comes out until you hear the non-duress password from me, which is suppertime. Jesus. If the pirates find you, remember, you know the ship, they don't. Make them feel like they're in charge, but keep them away from the important things like the generator and the engine controls.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As Somali pirate) (Speaking foreign language)
HANKS: (As Phillips) Stick together, and we'll be all right. Good luck.
DAVIES: Well, Tom Hanks, Paul Greengrass, welcome to FRESH AIR. Tom Hanks, what appealed to you about this role?
HANKS: The details of everything that happened. The story itself is written very large. It was covered in the media. You could say it was like ripped right out of today's headlines. But all of the little intricacies of how a ship like that is run and the details of the nature of the Somalis and the particulars of everything that happened in those crucial hours onboard the ship and then in the days in the lifeboat was loaded with human behavior that I thought was fascinating, compelling and unknown.
There's a style of making this movie, there's a way of making this movie, in which it pays most attention, I think, to sort of like the Cracker Jack action aspect of it, and that was always going to be a part of it in my head. But the particulars of how a guy like Richard Phillips starts working out this algorithm in his head the moment he first sees the pirate skiff approaching, that was brand new territory.
DAVIES: Now, Paul Greengrass, you know, there are filmmaking techniques, high-tech filmmaking techniques, including computer-generated graphics, that will allow you to, you know, create a ship being chased by pirates or broken in half by a hurricane without anybody having to get wet or seasick. You chose a different route. Why?
PAUL GREENGRASS: Well, I mean several reasons, really. I really wanted the experience of shooting on the ocean. Partly that was personal - my father was in the Merchant Marine and was at sea all his life, so I sort of wanted to explore his world, really. But also from the film point of view, I felt it would be a more authentic film if we all shot it together on the ocean and we had the real ships.
And that was, as it proved, you know, I think it meant that everybody, you know, for instance, was on the sister ship of the Maersk Alabama, it was an identical ship, it had a crew, it meant we could draw information from the crew and draw information and veracity from the actual environment. And I think it made it an endlessly fascinating experience, but a richly kind of creative one from a filmmaking point of view.
DAVIES: So you had a real container ship like the one that was in the actual incident. Tom Hanks, you want to talk about what shooting in a ship on the ocean, how that was different than it might have been on a soundstage, what it added to your performance?
HANKS: Well, it's actually a wonderful thing to have in your pocket. You're in the environment. You're not having to re-create the environment. So much of working on a soundstage is utilizing your imagination and the arts and crafts of the people who build sets and design them. Well, here we were in the - we were on a real bridge, and all the controls actually did operate the ship. There were some things we were not allowed to touch, and we shouldn't push that button.
But as Paul said, there was - we had a constant source of information about filling up the procedures and the behavior of what it takes in every circumstance we were on, on the boat, on the ship. So to be an actor and actually walking up and down those many, many stairways, up and down to the bridge, it just made it an environmental experience, as opposed to just a pretend one.
DAVIES: Can you think of a detail that you picked up from the crew that you think kind of just helped with the authenticity of it?
HANKS: There is a - for the captain, there is a never-ending series of pressures that are - some of it is paperwork, some of it is human behavior, much of it is physics, a lot of it is science and weather - that never go away. For example, both Richard Phillips and the captain of the actual Maersk Alexander we were on says he begins and ends his day with a walk-around of the entire ship, and that means the entire ship, every square inch of and down below.
And he's just looking, they're just looking to see that - of what might happen, and you'd be amazed at how often a bolt is not in place, or something is not lashed down correctly, and when that happens, the next thing you know, you can lose half of your deck-board cargo.
The attention to detail and I think the professionalism of all the people that I saw was fascinating. There was one night that we were moving from one port to the other, and Michael Chernus and I, Michael plays Shane, the first mate, he and I were onboard for what we thought initially would be about a 40-minute little sail, but instead it turned into all night long because you have to get out of port, and you have to go out to - past the bunker station.
Then you have to wait for your place in line, and the pilot has to come out on the pilot boat, and 14 ships are ahead of you. And just the - and there's a continuous shift of the watches onboard. You think these guys are just standing there doing nothing, but in fact they're keeping their eye on an awful lot of the gauges, as well as the horizon to see where all the other ships are.
So you just find out just how intricate it is, and it's always more fascinating than your general knowledge has already provided you.
DAVIES: Paul Greengrass, I read somewhere that it's sort of a saying among directors that one mistake you don't make is trying to shoot on the water.
GREENGRASS: Everybody said that to me before I started this movie.
DAVIES: So what were some of the challenges that this presented?
Well, you've got just the practicalities. Filmmaking is about resources. You know, you need to be able to supply your units, your camera units, your sound units. You need, you know, to be able to get all your costumes and makeup and all the, you know, the infrastructure of it, you know, charge your walkie-talkies, everything.
GREENGRASS: Obviously if you're on a ship, even a large container ship, incidentally, we were very restricted, you know, by law the number of people we could put on the ship. It's not like saying can you just get, you know, Joe to run a couple of walkie-talkies up to the stage. Well, you know, if you're 20 miles out to sea, that's quite a prodigious operation, and you've got to climb up 30, 40 feet of ladder.
So just the sheer logistics are difficult. Then you've got the weather, which is a profound issue. I mean a lot of the shooting of this involved very small craft, particularly those skiffs, and what I wanted to make the film play was water that was dangerous enough to make it, you know, so you understood, you know, the drama of a skiff attack on a fast-moving container ship.
But obviously that, you know, involves very large safety issues. So we needed, we needed sea that was aggressive enough to be dynamic but not so aggressive that it was dangerous or too dangerous.
And so that was a constantly, you know, shifting - I mean I began to get that sort of seaman's affliction of constantly looking at the weather, constantly looking at the sky trying to guess how the sea was going to go.
DAVIES: Well, Tom Hanks, I wanted to talk to you about getting this character, and I know that you had conversations with the real Captain Richard Phillips, as did we at FRESH AIR. I interviewed him when his memoir came out in 2010.
HANKS: Ah. Mm-hmm.
DAVIES: And I thought we would listen to just a little bit of that. This a moment near the end of the interview, where we're - he's been this shattering experience, and I asked him how it affected him emotionally then.
CAPTAIN RICHARD PHILLIPS: I did have problems. The first two nights, I would find myself waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning and just be crying my eyes out, bawling, something a New England sea captain doesn't do too much. It was sort of strange to me. So I would, you know, throw some water in my face, and I was just going, what are you a wimp? I'm alive. What do you got to be complaining about?
I was able to talk to - actually, one of the SEALs insisted I talk to a psychologist, and I did. And he really broke it down into chemicals that are excreted by your various glands and what happens, and he would ask me questions about things I had.
And the only problem I had was I would wake up, at that time - it happened twice to me, the first two nights I was off the life raft. After talking to him after the second morning, he gave me - he asked me, what did I do? And I said, well, I told you, just what I said. I'd throw water on my face. I'd go take a shower. I'd say what are you a wimp? What's your problem?
And he said, well, don't do that. Don't fight it. Let it flow. Let it flow as long as it goes. And so I followed his advice and I let it flow. I just sat there in my bed and I probably cried, bawled like a little kid for, I'm going to say two minutes. And then it ran its course, I dried up. Then I threw water on my face, I took a shower and started my day with my coffee. And I never had a problem after that.
DAVIES: And that is the real - that is the real captain...
HANKS: That is so Rich Phillips.
DAVIES: Yes, just for our audience, we just heard Captain Richard Phillips. He is the real Merchant Marine captain who was kidnapped by Somali pirates in 2009. His story is the basis of the film "Captain Phillips," and we're speaking with Tom Hanks, who stars in the film as Captain Phillips, and Paul Greengrass, its director. So Tom Hanks, tell us about this guy and how you got a fix on him.
HANKS: Well, he's actually a very happy-go-lucky, funny, goofy guy, and even that recollection of the clip is almost like he has a humorous pragmatism about everything that he's been through and that he went through. You find out, like for example from Andrea, his wife, there was a time that she would go visit him when he was working, and she stopped doing it long ago because as soon as he steps onboard the ship as the captain, he becomes just the opposite. He is no-nonsense, he is a stickler for detail, he is a pain in the neck to almost everybody that he comes in contact with.
And that's the pressures of the command. You know, you can always ask him questions about were you scared, were you afraid, do you think you're going to lose your life? And he had told me that there were two occasions previously, as a merchant mariner, that he thought for sure that he was going to die at sea.
Once was during a hurricane, which a fear that lasted for the better part of six hours. And another was a fire onboard one of his ships, and that went on for hours, as well. So it went on a little bit longer, the five or six days that he was being held that way, but the lesson that he told me that he learned from it all was that you can withstand more than you think you can withstand. And it's evident even in the fact that he was able to cognizant about the chemical reactions it was happening to him and the physiological breakdown that he had well after he knew that he was safe.
DAVIES: Yeah, so you saw him in conversation. How did you get the Richie Phillips that's the captain, who's on deck, in command?
HANKS: That's interesting because I didn't see any evident of it anywhere. I read about it in the book, and there was - there was a part of the environmental aspect of making the movie. You do get a sense of how much area that he has to cover and the constant concern. You're just - in that pace I was just saying, well, how do you keep - how do you physicalize(ph) the constant mental strain, the constant algorithm that's going on in your head. And I manifested it as best I could with my own countenance, basing it on, you know, what do you when you have a lot on your mind. Well, you kind of look like this, and you talk like this.
DAVIES: Right, and you talk like Richie Phillips. And I will say, having listened back to that interview, after having seen the film, when I pictured the voices, they sounded the same to me, you and - I couldn't distinguish one voice from the next. So I think you really got his voice down.
HANKS: He's got a - you know, he spent some time in Boston, but he's actually from New Hampshire, and now he lives in Vermont. And it's an interesting - it's the kind of thing you can't get unless you spend a lot of time listening to him and just talking with him in the regular vernacular.
DAVIES: Tom Hanks stars in film "Captain Phillips." Paul Greengrass directed it. We'll here more from both after a break; this is FRESH AIR.
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're listening to my interview recorded last year with director Paul Greengrass and actor Tom Hanks who collaborated on the film "Captain Phillips." It's nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for the performance of Barkhad Abdi.
Now, I wanted to talk about the Somali pirates, Paul Greengrass. There are four of them that take the ship from these little skiffs.
GREENGRASS: Mm-hmm.
DAVIES: And these are powerful characters in this drama. Tell us about the first scene on the shore in Somalia, where we see the crew for this pirate attack, this hijacking, assembled. What are we doing there? What are we learning about these guys that informs our understanding?
GREENGRASS: Well, I mean, piracy, Somali piracy is international organized crime. That's actually what it is. These young men, you know, with their AK-47s attack from the coast of Somalia, but this is activity that's financed and organized thousands of miles away, you know, in Kenya, in Nigeria and actually ultimately in Europe and in some cases in the U.S. It's a highly organized criminal activity.
The young men who are the, you know, the guys who actually attack the ships, you know, they're just the trigger men in essence, and of course, you know, they come from a country that's everything that you would expect and associate with a failed state: collapsed central government, warlordism(ph), crime, gangs, terrorism in certain parts of the country. You know, it's everything that you would imagine and more.
And what you want in this film is to portray something of that with authenticity. You know, there is nothing more dangerous than a young man with a gun who's got nothing left to lose. And so it became important from my point of view that we find young Somali actors to play those parts. And that was the real central challenge of the casting process.
I wanted to ask about that. Yeah. Where did you find the Somali actors?
Well, there's no Somali acting community in Los Angeles or New York or Chicago or whatever. So we had to go to Minneapolis, where the largest Somali community is. And what we found there was a very vibrant and rich and storied community, you know, filled with musicians, actors, filmmaking, you know, writers. Very, very vibrant.
And so what began as I thought would be a very difficult endeavor became very quickly simple. You know, we had 700 or 800 people turn up to the first casting, and, you know, very quickly we identified, you know, Barkhad Abdi and his three friends, actually, as it turned out. And they were just outstanding young actors, and, you know, we chose them, and they went off, and they trained, and they worked hard for a month and a half or whatever, you know, learned to drive those skiffs, which is, believe me, no mean achievement. They learned to climb and fight and all the things that you need, you know, in a movie.
DAVIES: Well, when people see the film, I mean, now that I know that none of this was filmed with the help of computer-generated graphics, when you see the scenes where this tiny little skiff is trying to get close enough to sling a ladder over the side of this massive container vessel, which is going at 18 knots and trying to evade them, it's a scary thing to see, and I'm just thinking these aren't stuntmen. These are your actors having to sling a ladder, going full speed, over the deck of this container vessel and scale it. You know, it's vertical, they're doing this - and they're doing this with a weapon strapped on their backs. This must have taken some effort and training and must have been a little scary.
GREENGRASS: Well, believe me, I was in some of those skiffs. It was scary because, you know, you get alongside - and it was our, I would say, one of our two greatest safety challenges in the film; is how do you get, you know, what are essentially small, you know, powered skiffs alongside a huge container ship that's traveling at speed because the, you know, the suction from one of those big ships is immense.
And that was the real problem. And, you know, we had to work out all kinds of safety distances and then the whole issue of getting the ladders there, and - but never once - I mean, the physical endurance, I think, of being out on those skiffs hour after hour, you know, not wearing much, to be honest, and having to climb and withstand that swell and judge those distances just right and just getting those skiffs alongside, too, was a prodigious feat, it really was.
DAVIES: Yeah, this is Hollywood, huh, you go and get beat up trying to climb onto a boat speeding along.
GREENGRASS: Yeah. That's what I said to them. On the first day, I said, listen, forget everything you've ever learned. I don't think this is glamorous. Moviemaking is all about hard work and desire and commitment. Of course you have to have the talent, you know, to start, but in the end it's the will to succeed, as in any walk of life, that really makes the difference.
DAVIES: There's one other little story about recruiting these Somali actors. I heard there was a lovely moment when you told them that they got the job.
GREENGRASS: Yeah. They didn't hear me. We were in a hotel in Los Angeles down on the ocean, and I said, well, listen, you know, I'd just like you to know that, you know, you've got the part. And they didn't understand. I think they were in shock, to be honest. So we carried on the conversation. I went into my speech about how much hard work it is, and somebody nudged me and said I think you're going to have to repeat it.
So I repeated it, and it was a kind of an "American Idol" moment where they all jumped up shouting.
DAVIES: And screaming. And then we went outside to take a picture, and then halfway through the picture, one of them said, I think it was Barkhad said, I've got to go in the ocean. And then the next minute, you know, the four of them were tearing off down the beach to the ocean, throwing off their tops, diving in. It was fantastic to see.
OK, I bet Tom Hanks doesn't do that when he gets a part anymore.
HANKS: Oh, you'd be surprised.
DAVIES: Tom Hanks starred in and Paul Greengrass directed the film "Captain Phillips." They'll be back in the second half of the show. "Captain Phillips" is out on DVD and is nominated for six Academy Awards. I'm Dave Davies and this is FRESH AIR.
Coming up, the scene in "Captain Phillips" where the pirates board the ship and why Tim Hanks sounded genuinely frightening. And Paul Greengrass talk about directing scenes on a real Navy vessel with Navy personnel. And David Edelstein reviews "Gloria," the new film from Chile about another divorced woman. He called it a lovely surprise.
DAVIES: This is Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. We're listening to the interview I recorded last year with Tom Hanks, the star of the film "Captain Phillips" and Paul Greengrass, the film's director. It's based on the memoir by Captain Richard Phillips about the harrowing incident five years ago when his container ship was boarded by pirates and he was taken hostage and held on a small lifeboat for five days. The film "Captain Phillips" is now out on DVD and is nominated for six Academy Awards.
One of the remarkable moments in the film - and it's a remarkable moment in the story - is when the pirates first make it to the bridge and confront Captain Phillips. I mean, you know, the captain has seen them coming on radar and then tried to repel them. And finally, you know, face-to-face, there are these people that he's feared. And, well, Paul Greengrass, there is an interesting story about the way you chose to kind of capture the drama of that moment in the scene. Tell us about that.
GREENGRASS: I think pretty much most directors would do what I did. You know, you're talking about fashioning a confrontation between four young men who've not acted professionally before and Tom, you know, who is a two-time Academy Award winner. It was a - I didn't want them to be intimidated on the one hand from the job in hand. But on the other hand, I didn't want them to have become friends, because in the end the job was to come through that door and terrorize and threaten and be believable. So we kept them apart. And it's the sort of trick you play, I'm afraid. When you're a director, you, you know you trying to create moments that everybody's looking forward to in a shoot. If there's something that's two, three weeks down the road where everybody's going that's going to be an exciting day when those two groups meet each other. And I think it got everybody excited and, you know, you could feel the set was - there was a good tension in the air. But, of course, if you're making the film there's that bit in your mind that's like a sports coach. You know, you can prepare people as much as you like. But in the end, when they cross that white line, it's about how much desire they've got.
DAVIES: Tom Hanks, I mean you didn't talk to the Somali guys at all in the shooting until that scene, when they confront you on the bridge. Is that right?
HANKS: We didn't, we figured out - us on the crew - we're not going to meet these guys, are we? Oh no, we're not, there's not going to be a party at the hotel that kick, hey, let's celebrate the beginning of principal photography and we'd have cocktails with them. We knew that that was a day. We had seen there as little dots on the horizon, because they'd be working on the skiffs, you know, far away you can maybe make a little bit out of them through binoculars, but no. We heard them coming. We had the views of them from - we were up on the bridge and here they came. And I think there's three of us actually, that are in the scene on the bridge and it was tense. We were scared in the - kind of like the best way possible because we know the guns aren't loaded, but those guys were. They came in, you know, pumped up of all the anxiety of being there in the first place and all the expertise that they had learned, all the work that they had done. So when they came in - I have to say that when they first blew that door open and came in screaming at us - I saw four of the skinniest, scariest human beings on the planet. And the hair did stand up on the back of our heads and it was chaotic, it seemed like the rules had gone right out the window.
In one way we're just trying to survive the scene, which translates to surviving the moment in the film. And what is amazing is is that having seen the film, realizing that what has takes up about maybe 12 or 13 minutes of screen time, from the moment when they first get on to when Moussy and Phillips go off to start searching the ship - that was a full, harried day of 10 hours of shooting.
Now without a doubt, after the fourth or fifth take when we start moving on, you know, to shoot another aspect of the scene, you do say hey, how you doing, nice to meet you.
HANKS: Is it cold in Minneapolis? So you have those kind of moments till they say, ah, I've been watching your movies all my life. You know, you do have those moments, but you do then get right back to it. And they were so on fire that when I saw the movie and could read the subtitles, it was fascinating to hear what they were saying, because we had no idea. You know, shouted Somali sounds like - it doesn't sound like a language you can possibly recognize. And for all the reasons that you would do it that way, it achieved its desired effect. We were petrified.
DAVIES: Wow. So they knew their lines and you knew your lines. But you didn't even know what their lines meant, so you were just playing it out.
HANKS: I had one kind of like piece of information in my pocket, which is that Rich had this fabulous lie and truth that he kept telling them at the same time: I don't know, I'm here with you. You know, they would ask questions, where is your crew. I don't know. He did know where they were. But the - that was a lie. But he'd also say, but I'm here with you. What's wrong with your ship? I don't know. I'm here with you. What's happening? I don't know. I'm here with you. That got played again and again and again because look, the lines went right out the window, the pacing went right out the window. There was no rhyme or reason to it. And I have to say, these guys were so good - the two Barkhads and Mahat and Faysal - that moments came out that did not exist even in the imagination of everybody involved in the movie. This particularly when Moussy, Barkhad Abdi says hey, I'm the captain now. That wasn't in the screenplay. That just came out because we were riding the ups and downs of the scene that suddenly had no rules.
DAVIES: Wow. You know, as we talk about these intense scenes, this would be a good moment, I think, to talk a little bit about Paul Greengrass' - your method of filming. And Paul Greengrass, I know that you began as a journalist making documentaries. And I read a fascinating piece about as you got into feature films you had to learn kind of all of the techniques and language of feature filmmaking.
GREENGRASS: Mm-hmm.
DAVIES: But if, what I've read is right, you've evolved to the point where you don't do it in the conventional ways - where you have, you know, dollies and specific kind of markers and points from which the action is shot, and the actors all know that and they're hitting their marks.
GREENGRASS: Well, listen, I started in documentaries. Going around to places and shooting, you didn't have time to put sticks down and, you know, if you're in the middle of Beirut and there's bombs dropping or wherever, you know, you just don't, you shoot on the shoulder because that's the way you do it. And if you run you run. You know, the camera is there to describe the emotional experience that you're having.
When I moved into making drama, I had to learn to shoot conventionally. But by the time I got to my late 30s, I began to feel that the films that, you know, I was making it work in television - but the films that I was making, somewhere the films didn't ever turn out like the films that I saw in my head. And eventually I gained the maturity and the knowledge of craft and courage, I think, to go back to how I had always found images. And, you know, the most important things that you can do as a director is to set an overall framework and then get out the way. That's your job is to safe space and let everybody do their thing. That's really the essence of it.
DAVIES: Well, if we look at your films, I'm thinking of "Bloody Sunday," of "United 93," the September 11th story, and this film, it's fast pace. The action is intense. There are hand-held cameras. Tom Hanks, tell us what it's like to be in a Paul Greengrass production, and how that's different from others.
HANKS: You're never aware of when it's your shot. I don't recall thinking oh, now it's my close-up and so now I get to unleash all my bags of tricks here because it's only going to be locked down on me. And this is where I get to throw certain looks or put a very particular spin on something. The way I remember Paul shooting, because we are in a very specific environment and it takes up a very specific amount of space and almost always was very small, we do the scenes from beginning to end, however long they last. Sometimes they're 16 minutes and multiple cameras are used and they reload on the fly or another camera is put on the cameraman's shoulder once one rolls out.
And so you ride the entire scene from beginning to end and then you regroup and then you go back and ride the entire scene again from beginning to end. So it doesn't have that segmented cut up sort of part. There were moments on the bridge where once we had shot it a couple of times and I would - I came over to Paul and said, are you going to get that little bit over there by where we do are things that the charts. He says well, we've already got it. I said when? In the course of doing the entire scene, the camera comes in for a close-up and then backs out again. It's swivels around so every conceivable type of segment that Paul, I think, needs for whatever his vision, is obtained without it being the sole focus of what that moment's work is doing, if that makes any sense to you.
I stopped seeing the camera very, very quickly. And that is unique. You don't have that kind of structured physics of shooting a film in which all your concentration goes into literally one aspect of what is being captured in that angle, in that lighting, in that lens size. Instead, you're just always behaving and the camera captures that behavior.
DAVIES: Tom Hanks stars in the film "Captain Phillips." Paul Greengrass directed it. We'll hear more of our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're listening to my interview recorded last year with director, Paul Greengrass and actor, Tom Hanks. Their film "Captain Phillips," is nominated for six Academy Awards.
Part of the film takes place on the containership. And then those who know the story know that Captain Phillips ends up on a little lifeboat with the Somali pirates, cast into the sea and a drama of several days then unfolds. Eventually, a Navy destroyer catches up and tension ensues. This was actually shot again, you, in making this film, you don't have a soundstage. All of the stuff in that little lifeboat is really in a little lifeboat. And for folks who don't remember what it looks like, it's not an open lifeboat. It's hard plastic, I guess, or some kind of material and it's covered. So Tom Hanks, just describe a little bit what it was like shooting inside that thing for days.
HANKS: Well, in fact, we did shoot on - it wasn't a soundstage, it was kind of like a warehouse in London in which the life...
HANKS: ..the lifeboat was put on this big gimbal. It's a, you know, it's a hydraulic thing that makes it move and rock and pitch like crazy. And that is more comfortable than being on the open sea because it doesn't have then the swells that make you upchuck. We had one day of shooting in the - actually, a couple because we did some more in Norfolk, I keep forgetting that. We did have a number of days we were in the lifeboat at sea proper. That was a bear. But for the lion's share of the interaction inside, we were in a controllable environment - although, one that was still very small, very stuffy and very, very smelly. But, that really does speak volumes. You cannot do anything but perform for the space when you're in something that small and you're on top of each other as you are.
There is a tiny bit of allowance that they could make for the realities of shooting. We had a little bit of padding on the floor for some of the fight scenes. They tried to put in these rubber seats at one moment but those wiggled too much so we had to yank them out. There was a lot of places to conk your head and scrape a rib cage or two, which we all did. But there's no substitute for being in that tight confines to ratchet up everything that you need to ratch up. You can whisper and it could be a real whisper. And when you start, you know, throwing your fists around and start shouting, it becomes even louder when you're there and it just added to it all.
DAVIES: We spoke earlier about how you did not know the Somali actors who played the pirates until the one scene where they come onto the bridge and there's this intense and dramatic confrontation. When I interviewed the real Captain Richard Phillips, one of the things he said about that time on the raft was that he was never going to give into them sort of psychologically. He wanted to remain their adversary. Did you still kind of have an adversarial relationship with these Somalis or was, I mean was...
HANKS: No. By that time we were shooting we were guys, you know, and we would compare notes. I must say they were very much a team unto themselves because after every take they would break out in some type of argument in Somali talking about what they had just did.
HANKS: And I was saying what? What? Fill me in. And you can't help, I mean, you also have the camera operators and the boom men in there so you have regular conversations. But the focus was such. And again, they were so prepped and so drilled that every time we had to gear up, it became that nature of an adversarial relationship. In fact, you know, there was an awful lot of supplies onboard that lifeboat that Richard Phillips knew was there, but he wasn't about to tell the guys.
In the book, there's one long thing about they were trying to light their cigarettes, you know, with lenses from flashlights, you know, using the sun's power through the window. And Rich Phillips knew where - there was a bunch of matches behind bulkhead number three, but he wasn't about to make their lives easier.
And there is that kind of knowledge that he has throughout that comes out. So I would say that I definitely played an awful lot of emotions much more close to the vest, and was always looking for some sort of advantage to have over the guys. But we saved the adversarial relationships for when we were gearing up for the scene, and in the course of doing the scene.
DAVIES: Paul Greengrass, you want to talk a little bit about working with the Navy? You know, you shot the container ship scenes near Malta. The Navy said well, we want to help. We can get you a destroyer. I think one of the most powerful moments in the film is after Captain Phillips is rescued, he is brought aboard the USS Bainbridge, the destroyer, and he's taken to the sick bay and greeted by personnel there. Tell us a little bit about that scene, Paul.
GREENGRASS: Well, we had a day - I think it was getting close to the end of the shoot, and the scene that we were due to shoot was actually a scene from Richard's book which was a bit later on, actually, where he'd been cleaned up and he'd been given a uniform and he was shown up to the captain's quarters and given a beer and TV and a phone to call home. That was really the scene.
And Tom and I shot that most of the day. But sometimes when you're filming, you can shoot a scene and it's fine and it's going well, but you just know deep inside both of you, without even looking, you know just know that there's something better. But where is it? Where is that elusive thing that you're looking for, that moment of truthfulness that's going to encapsulate the experience that this man has gone through?
And we happened to have Captain Frank Castellano from the actual Bainbridge onboard, I think it was, who said that he'd first seen Rich Phillips down in the infirmary. So we raced down there at the end of the day. There wasn't much time - which, in a way, was good, because I think it meant that none of us had time to think.
You know, sometimes you can get your best moments in a film in a place of absolute blind panic, because nobody's got time to censor themselves. So you get just sheer, naked instinct. And we went down there, and we went up to the young medical team, the young corpsman there, and I said, listen, just treat this as a training exercise, just except it's got Tom Hanks in it.
GREENGRASS: She looked at me as I was demented.
DAVIES: This was a corps woman, right?
GREENGRASS: Yeah. Yeah.
HANKS: First class industrial film we were shooting there that day.
GREENGRASS: Exactly. And I'll let Tom take over the story now.
HANKS: Well, yeah. Those people did not know they were going to be in a movie that day and, you know...
DAVIES: But these are actual Navy personnel. And just to reset the story, I mean, you're coming out of this - you've been through a shattering experience. I mean, you've been physically bruised. You've been sleep-deprived. You're a wreck, and you come down and there are these folks that are going to take care of you. They're actual Navy personnel who have no idea they're going to be in a movie.
HANKS: No. None. And Paul just said, well, what would you do? And she just ran through, well, I'd, you know, try to get his focus. I'd try to talk to him. I'd try to find out how badly he's wounded. I'd try to figure out what blood is his, try to figure out if there's any internal bleeding. I'd take his vital stats. She had a whole procedure, you know, equal to an emergency medical technician.
And so we just - we cranked it, let fly. It fell apart. The very first take fell apart for technical reasons, and also because it was loaded with moments of great self-consciousness, even from the Navy folks. And so they said sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. And we said, look, do not apologize. There's no such thing as sorry. This happens all the time. We stop scenes. Don't feel like you've committed anything wrong.
We'll just get up and do it again and just follow through. And there's nothing you can say that is incorrect, and there's nothing that you can do that is not going to be worthwhile. So just go ahead and do it. And we did five or six versions of it over, you know - I don't remember much of it - a dizzying period of time.
And what I was working from was actual photographs and a little bit of home video of Phillips, the actual Phillips onboard the Bainbridge when people are congratulating him and saying welcome home, and he's in an absolute daze. You can see in his body language and in his eyes he's barely cognizant of the surreal realities that has just happened to him.
And on top of that, it was, you know, a very nice lady and a very crack team being sweet to Rich Phillips. So it ended up being quite evocative.
DAVIES: Yeah. No, it's just an amazing moment, I mean, kind of seeing her doing her job in a courteous way and bringing this guy back.
HANKS: She says something that is just heart-rendering, which is that you're OK. You're going to be OK. And those are the greatest words that a human being could hear in that circumstance.
DAVIES: Tom Hanks, Paul Greengrass, congratulations on this film. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
HANKS: Thank you very much.
GREENGRASS: Thank you.
DAVIES: Tom Hanks stars in and Paul Greengrass directed the film "Captain Phillips." "Captain Phillips" is now out on DVD and is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Coming up, David Edelstein reviews the new Chilean film "Gloria." This is FRESH AIR.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


text:
One of the largest unregistered Protestant churches in Beijing plans to risk arrest by worshipping in the open air this Sunday (April 10) after eviction from the restaurant where they have met for the past year.
The owner of the Old Story Club restaurant issued repeated requests for the Shouwang Church to find another worship venue, and authorities have pressured other prospective landlords to close their facilities to the 1,000-member congregation, sources said. Unwilling to subject themselves to the controls and restrictions of the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), the congregation has held three services each Sunday in the restaurant for more than a year.
Church members have said they are not opposed to the government and are not politically active, but they fear authorities could find their open-air worship threatening.
"Normal" (state-sanctioned) religious assembly outdoors is legal in China, and even unregistered church activity is usually tolerated if no more than 50 people gather, especially if the people are related and can cite the gathering as a family get-together, said a source in China who requested anonymity. Although the congregation technically risks arrest as an unregistered church, the primary danger is being viewed as politically active, the source said.
"For a larger group of Christians to meet in any 'unregistered' location led by an 'unregistered' leader is illegal," he said. "The sensitivity of meeting in a park is not being illegal, but being so highly visible. Being 'visible' ends up giving an impression of being a political 'protest.'"
The congregation believes China's Department of Religious Affairs has overstepped its jurisdiction in issuing regulations limiting unregistered church activity, according to a statement church leaders issued this week.
"Out of respect for both the Chinese Constitution [whose Article 36 stipulates freedom of worship] and Christian conscience, we cannot actively endorse and submit to the regulations which bid us to cease all Sunday worship activities outside of [the] 'Three-Self Patriotic Movement' – the only state-sanctioned church," according to the statement. "Of course, we still must follow the teachings of the Bible, which is for everyone to submit to and respect the governing authorities. We are willing to submit to the regulations with passivity and all the while shoulder all the consequences which . . . continuing to worship outside of what is sanctioned by these regulations will bring us."
The church decided to resort to open-air worship after a prospective landlord backed out of a contractual agreement to allow the congregation to meet at the Xihua Business Hotel, the church said in its statement.
"They had signed another rental contract with another property facility and announced during the March 22 service that they were to move in two weeks," the source said. "In spite of the fact that they had signed a formal contract, the new landlord suddenly called them on March 22 and refused to let them use the facility."
The landlord offered various excuses for reneging on the contract, according to church leaders, and that disappointment came after 15 months of trying to obtain the key to another property the church had purchased.
"The space in Daheng New Epoch Technology building, which the church had spent over 27.5 million RMB [US$4.2 million] to purchase, has failed to hand the key over to the church for the past year and three months because of government intervention," the church said in its statement. "For the past year, our church has not had a settled meeting place."
Beginning as a house church in 1993, the Shouwang Church has been evicted from several rented locations. It also met outside after its last displacement in 2009. The congregation does not believe its calling is to split up into smaller units.
"For the past several years the church has been given a vision from God to be 'the city on a hill,'" the source said. "Especially since 2009, when they officially began the church building purchase, they have been trying to become a more officially established status. At this point, they feel that they have not completed the journey in obedience to God."
The number of Protestant house church Christians is estimated at between 45 and 60 million, according to Yu Jianrong, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Rural Development Institute. Yu and others have concluded that house churches are a positive influence on society, but the government is wary of such influence.
Yu estimated another 18 to 30 million people attend government-approved churches – potentially putting the number of Christians higher than that of Communist Party members, which number around 74 million.
The government-commissioned study by Yu and associates suggested that officials should seek to integrate house churches and no longer regard them as enemies of the state. The study employed a combination of interviews, field surveys and policy reviews to gather information on house churches in several provinces from October 2007 to November 2008.
Yu's team found that most house or "family" churches fit into one of three broad categories: traditional house churches, open house churches or urban emerging churches. Traditional house churches were generally smaller, family-based churches, meeting in relative secrecy. Though not a Christian himself, Yu attended some of these meetings and noted that the focus was not on democracy or human rights but rather on spiritual life and community.
The "open" house churches were less secretive and had more members, sometimes advertising their services and holding public gatherings, he found. Urban emerging churches functioned openly but independently of TSPM churches. In some provinces such as Wenzhou, these churches had constructed their own buildings and operated without interference from local officials.
While some house churches actively seek registration with authorities to avoid arrests and harassment, they would like the option of registering outside the government-approved TSPM structure, as they disagree with TSPM beliefs and controls. Many unregistered evangelical Protestant groups refuse to register with TSPM due to theological differences, fear of adverse consequences if they reveal names and addresses of church leaders or members or fear that it will control sermon content.
Support Our Work
Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month


text:
WASHINGTON – Secret Service investigators say they are close to gaining a full understanding of the methods hackers used to breach Target's computer systems last December.
But the agency says it could take years to identify the criminals who stole some 40 million debit and credit card numbers of Target shoppers and other personal information from as many as 70 million people in the pre-Christmas breach.
And it may take even longer to bring the offenders to justice. The federal investigation is complicated by the international nature of high-profile digital heists. The perpetrators are likely located overseas, which makes extradition and prosecution difficult. As a result, the Secret Service is focused on monitoring the online activities of its suspects, in hopes that they'll be able to arrest them at an opportune moment, says Ari Baranoff, an assistant special agent in charge with the Secret Service's criminal investigative division.
"We take a lot of pride in having a lot of patience," Baranoff said during a rare sit-down interview with the Associated Press at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "There are individuals we've apprehended that we've known about for 10 years and we're very comfortable indicting these individuals, sitting back and waiting patiently until the opportunity arrives that we can apprehend them."
Target says it can't yet estimate what the breach will cost the company, but some analysts put it at close to half a billion dollars. The total cost of the breach –which also would include losses incurred by banks, consumers and others– could easily reach into the billions of dollars.
Target, which is in the midst of its own investigation, has said very little about how the breach happened, except that it believes the thieves gained entry to its systems by infiltrating computers owned by one of its vendors, thought to be a Pittsburgh-area heating and refrigeration business.
Baranoff couldn't speak specifically about the federal investigation into the Target breach, since the case is ongoing, but he talked candidly about the growing threat of large-scale, financially motivated cybercrimes and the Secret Service's efforts to stop them.
Behind every major breach, there's usually a team of highly specialized cybercriminals who mainly know each other through online nicknames and reputations. Most aren't motivated by politics, just greed, Baranoff says.
If the hackers do invest in anything, it's their own operations. An increasing number are building their own server farms, sometimes leasing space to other criminals, making it harder for law enforcement to track them down.
Further complicating matters, Baranoff says the vast majority of high-level cybercriminals tend to be Russian speakers based in former Soviet and Eastern European countries, which largely puts them out of the reach of U.S. authorities.
But the Secret Service has strong ties with cybercrime agencies in many countries – including The Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom – and has found others to be helpful as well, even if they don't have extradition treaties with the United States.
While best known for protecting the president of the United States, the U.S. Secret Service was originally formed in 1865 to investigate crimes related to counterfeit currency. The passage of the Patriot Act following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks expanded its role in investigating computer-related crimes.
From the agency's unassuming headquarters a few blocks from the bustle of the National Mall, special agents infiltrate online forums frequented by hackers, monitoring their activities, and creating online undercover identities in hopes of infiltrating criminal networks.
The same kinds of activities take place at the Secret Service's other electronic crimes task forces in the U.S. and overseas. The tactics the investigators use are surprisingly similar to the law enforcement methods used by traditional beat cops everywhere. But digital investigations come with their own challenges. And based on the growing volume of stolen data now up for sale, hackers are becoming more sophisticated and more successful at evading justice.
Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser for the computer security firm Sophos, says it's the Secret Service's ability to coordinate with law enforcement agencies around the world that make it effective in fighting cybercrime and help speed things up.
"With electronic crime, criminals move extremely fast and they're dependent on the police being tied up in red tape," Wisniewski says.
But challenges remain. After years of work, agents might be able to shut down a message board where stolen credit card numbers are bought and sold, but there's nothing to stop another from replacing it the next day, he says.
Meanwhile, political and economic pressure on countries known to harbor cybercriminals can also help, Wisniewski says, noting that U.S. promises of a better trade status helped eliminate much of the cybercrime that previously originated in Romania.
Despite all of that, many countries, including Russia, follow an unwritten rule: they won't pursue cybercriminals as long as they don't commit crimes in their own countries, Wisniewski says.
Baranoff says criminals could evade U.S. capture indefinitely if they stay hunkered down in their homes, but they're generally not happy staying put and like to spend their ill-gotten gains on trips to countries friendly to the U.S.
That's when authorities can make their move.
"These actors are making a lot of money and they want to travel," Baranoff says. "Some have suggested that there's no greater punishment actually than forcing them to stay where they are."
Comments are no longer available on this story
Send questions/comments to the editors.


text:
Domains must begin with a letter or a number and be between and characters in length
:domain is unavailable
恭喜! is available!
Contact Us
Find your new domain name. Enter your name or keywords below to check availability.
Choose from a range of web hosting packages
We have packages designed to fit every budget
立即瀏覽服務計劃Transfer now to extend your domain by 1 year!*
* Excludes certain TLDs and recently renewed domains
Copyright © 2024 UCDOMAIN.COM. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Wide Leg Pu Joggers
P.S. All sizes shown are AU sizes
Returns are quick and easy; they'll usually be processed in as little as 5 to 7 days! We've gone paperless, you can return via our returns portal here.
You have 28 days, from the day you receive it, to send something back. For hygiene reasons, we cannot offer refunds on sex toys, fashion face masks, cosmetics, pierced jewellery, swimwear or lingerie, if the seal has been broken or is no longer in place.
Click here to start a refund or find out more.
Product details
Get back to basics with a pair of joggers
Look to joggers in soft touch jersey fabrics and slouchy drop crotch styles as your loungewear staples – teamed with a hoodie, they're your dressed down dream team. For a more fashion-forward fix, we've edged up your essentials with PU trims, poppin' prints and acid washes for an off duty style we're obsessed with. Mix and match your must- haves for a cool yet casual combo.
- Style: Plain Pants
- Design: Plain
- Fabric: Pu
- Length: Regular
100% Polyester, Model is 6'1" and wears size M


text:
Bear - Black - Brody
Regular price
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Meet Brody the Bear! This adorable plushie can be personalized in so many ways to make a beautiful keepsake or perfect gift for any occasion! It has a removable stuffing pod and is machine washable! Plushie is approximately 12" in a sitting position.
Please include the following information when placing your order:
- Template choice
- Thread color choices (up to 3 colors),
- Order Information including font choice (for name only), name, birthday, time born, weight and height, or any information needed for a custom design.
- A proof of the selected design will be sent to email address provided in check-out within 24 hours. All designs MUST BE approved prior to stitching. Please check your email for proofs to avoid any delays.


text:
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Ahmad Bradshaw got furious at himself, and took it out on the Cleveland Browns.
Bradshaw fumbled on the first play from scrimmage, setting up a Cleveland touchdown. After that, he was unstoppable, surpassing his yardage on the ground for the season with a career-best 200 yards in a 41-27 victory Sunday.
"I was angry at myself for the fumble and I just used it," Bradshaw said. "I was disappointed with the fumble, but you put it out of your mind. I knew I was cool. We knew the running game was there, we were confident."
The passing game was there, too. Victor Cruz made a career-best three touchdown catches. Eli Manning hit Cruz for scores of 3, 7 and 28 yards, prompting Cruz's trademark salsa in the end zone after each touchdown.
"We showed how resilient we are," said Cruz, who entered the game leading the NFL with 32 receptions and added five for 50 yards. "We started off rough, getting behind the 8-ball a bit, but we were able to keep our wits about us. We understand we'll be able to make some plays offensively."
Bradshaw added a 4-yard run as he darted inside and outside and frequently broke feeble tackle attempts. Bradshaw's yardage on 30 carries easily beat the 132 he had heading into the game.
The Giants are 9-0 in games he has rushed for 100 yards or more.
New York (3-2) also forced three turnovers, including Chase Blackburn's interception in the end zone midway in the fourth quarter to clinch it. That led to rookie David Wilson's first NFL touchdown, a 40-yard scamper, which Wilson celebrated with a flip in the end zone.
The Giants rushed for 243 yards.
"It was across the board," Bradshaw said of the rushing effort. "Inside, outside, left or right, the line was doing everything right."
The Browns weren't. They are 0-5 for the first time since their return season to the NFL in 1999 and have lost 11 straight dating back to last season, matching the franchise record. Their inexperience as the league's youngest team could not be offset by the skills of third overall draft pick Trent Richardson, who ran for a touchdown for the fourth straight game.
And their defense couldn't do anything with Cruz and Bradshaw.
Brandon Weeden, Cleveland's other first-round pick, hit another rookie, Josh Gordon, on two touchdown passes, but the Browns showed why they are winless with several critical errors in the pivotal second period, leading to 20 points for the Giants that pretty much decided matters.
"We've been starving for turnovers," said Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who tied Bill Parcells for regular-season coaching victories with the franchise, 77.
Weeden was sharp for much of the first half, but made a terrible decision on third-and-1 from the Giants 25. With Richardson not on the field, Weeden rolled out and forced a pass to Gordon that sailed high, directly to Stevie Brown. The backup safety sped down the left sideline for 46 yards.
"I was trying to make a play. It was stupid," Weeden said. "I should have airmailed it and let Phil (Dawson) kick a field goal. That was the one throw I want back."
On the next play, Manning found Rueben Randle - yet another rookie - wide open on the left side for 36 more yards. Then Bradshaw highlighted his big opening half with his TD run to tie it at 17.
Veteran Joshua Cribbs made the next mistake for Cleveland, fumbling the ensuing kickoff. Brown was on the spot again for the recovery, and Cruz caught his second touchdown pass for New York's first lead.
"We started out fast and got an early lead," coach Pat Shurmur said. "We had a three-minute stretch before the end of the first half that was, 'Wow, you can't do that against a good football team.' "
Earlier, Cruz caught a 3-yard TD pass. Cruz, Randle and Dominek Hixon stepped up nicely with Hakeem Nicks and Ramses Barden sidelined Sunday.
The Browns weren't finished handing away points. A pair of penalties led to a punt, and a 24-yard pass interference against Buster Skrine gave Lawrence Tynes a chance to kick a 40-yard field goal as the half ended.
Cleveland wound up with 10 penalties for 91 yards.
Bradshaw fumbled when the ball hit guard Chris Snee's shoulder gave the Browns a quick break at the New York 22 and Richardson took care of the yardage with runs of 7 and 15.
Wideout Gordon then beat double coverage, although with no cornerback in sight, for a 62-yard score and a 14-0 edge that didn't last long.
NOTES: Cleveland lost MLB D'Qwell Jackson, one of its defensive leaders, to a concussion. CB Dimitri Patterson hurt an ankle and DT Ahtyba Rubin to a lower leg injury. Giants backup RB left with a head injury. ... Richardson finished with 81 yards rushing and 47 receiving. ... Weeden went 22 of 35 for 291 yards, while Manning was 25 of 37 for 259. Manning has won eight straight against AFC teams ... Coughlin trails only Steve Owen, who coached the Giants to 153 wins in 23 seasons. This is Coughlin's ninth with New York.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press


text:
Save from as low as €40 per month Change modify pause
Senate leaders have yet to reach an agreement on how to end the U.S. fiscal impasse amid mounting concern in financial markets three days before the government's borrowing authority lapses.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he had a "productive conversation" with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell without reaching a conclusion on a plan to send to the Democratic-controlled chamber for a vote.
Their phone call yesterday produced "nothing new to report," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell. Earlier, McConnell issued a statement saying "it's time for Democrat leaders" to support a plan, based on one drafted by Republican Susan Collins of Maine, which Democrats rejected Oct. 12.
"The discussions were substantive and we'll continue those discussions" Reid said on the Senate floor as the parties remained divided over federal spending levels. "I'm optimistic about the prospects for a positive conclusion."
While optimism also was expressed by Democratic and Republican senators on Sunday television talk shows, there was little evidence to support their words as the government's partial shutdown entered its third week and the markets are weighing the short time left to avert a U.S. default.
Futures Slump
In Asian markets, U.S. index futures fell today while the yen gained versus the dollar, snapping a four-day slump. Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures lost 0.9 percent by 8:11 a.m. in Tokyo, erasing last week's gain.
The yen strengthened 0.3 percent to 98.32 per dollar. "The yen is considered the optimal place to invest given the U.S. troubles," Sharon Zollner, senior economist in Wellington at ANZ Bank New Zealand Ltd., wrote in a client note today.
U.S. stock markets will be open on the federal Columbus Day holiday today. Bond markets are closed.
The congressional deadlock over increasing the U.S. debt ceiling from $16.7 trillion is threatening the U.S. and world economies, said International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
"If there is that degree of disruption, that lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature, it would mean massive disruption the world over," Lagarde said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" program about the impact of not raising the borrowing limit. "And we would be at risk of tipping, yet again, into recession."
Shifting Focus
The Senate talks are shifting away from Republican efforts to curtail President Barack Obama's health-care law, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to focus on spending and the duration of the debt-ceiling extension.
Polls show the public is putting most of the blame for the 14-day partial government shutdown on Republicans.
Collins's group of moderate senators trying to frame a deal didn't meet yesterday and talks probably will resume today, said a Senate Democratic aide with knowledge of the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"It's taken far too long, we never should be in this situation, but I do believe we are going to see a resolution this week," Collins said yesterday on CNN's "State of the Union." Voicing optimism that her plan will provide a framework for an agreement, she said "a lot of constructive discussions" are going on behind the scenes.
'No Agreement'
Six senators working with Collins — Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and independent Angus King of Maine — yesterday said they don't support the proposal in its current form.
"Productive, bipartisan discussions" have taken place, "but there is no agreement," the senators said in a statement.
Obama, in a phone call with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, "reinforced that there must be a clean debt limit increase" — and a stopgap spending measure also free of policy add-ons — before budget negotiations can begin, according to a White House statement.
Obama spent yesterday calling top lawmakers and getting staff briefings about the impact of the shutdown on federal operations, according to aides who spoke on condition of anonymity. The aides didn't rule out the possibility that Obama could meet with lawmakers or make a public statement if there's progress toward a deal or markets tumble.
Vice President Joe Biden, who played a critical role in previous fiscal standoffs, has kept a lower profile this time, spending the weekend in Camp David in suburban Maryland. An aide described him as fully engaged in the discussions.
Spending Levels
The Senate negotiations include discussions of easing the spending caps imposed by the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said there is a $70 billion spending gap between Democrats and Republicans.
Disagreement over spending is the big sticking point, said Jim Manley, a former aide to Reid. Manley, in a telephone interview, said he's watching "to see if Senator McConnell demands some sort of fig leaf from Senator Reid to protect the speaker or whether he's prepared to throw him overboard to get this all behind him."
Time is running short for the Senate to pass any agreement and for the House to act on it before Oct. 17, when U.S. borrowing authority lapses. The federal government would start missing payments sometime between Oct. 22 and Oct. 31, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Market 'Scare'
Representative Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican, played down the importance of this week's deadline and said the White House "is trying to scare the markets."
"Oct. 17 is a date that won't have a major impact unless the White House can create concern about that," Huelskamp said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
That's at odds with a view from China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries. In an English-language commentary yesterday, Liu Chang, a writer with China's official Xinhua News Agency, said the impasse has put many nations' dollar assets "in jeopardy." China held $1.28 trillion in Treasuries at the end of July.
Liu called for a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar "so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil" in the U.S.
The impasse in Washington "is wreaking havoc around the world," Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, said on "Fox News Sunday." "I hope over the next week we will reach a conclusion. I think we will."
Sequestration Cuts
Reid and McConnell on Oct. 12 held their first negotiating session since the shutdown began Oct. 1. "The frameworks they had were not far apart," Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said yesterday on "Face the Nation," referring to McConnell and Reid's effort. "The dispute has been how to undo" the sequestration cuts.
Senate Democratic leaders said Collins's proposed debt- limit increase to January was too short to provide certainty, and her plan's funding extension at Republican-favored levels, until March, was too long. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, also opposed the plan because it would have locked in lower spending for discretionary domestic and defense programs.
Collins Plan
The Budget Control Act of 2011 established a $967 billion cap for fiscal 2014, a $21 billion cut compared with the fiscal 2013 level. If Congress doesn't pass legislation to reduce spending or alter the cap before January, a second round of automatic cuts goes into effect to meet that goal.
Collins's plan sought to give federal agencies more flexibility under the across-the-board cuts. The plan also would have set a mid-January deadline for longer-term budget talks and made two changes to the president's health-care plan: delay a tax on medical devices for two years — making up lost revenue through pension-rule changes — and requiring the Obama administration to verify income levels for enrollment in health benefits.
A Senate deal probably would face the prospect of a hostile reception from House Republicans still seeking to curtail Obamacare and opposed to easing spending caps.
"We are not going to increase spending," Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said on Fox. "The sequester is one of the few good things we've done to control spending."
Republican strategist Ron Bonjean yesterday described the latest efforts to find a way out of the impasse as "a Rubik's Cube from hell," adding that even if the Senate passes a plan, it would be "still pretty much a jump ball in the House."
"They may simply reject it without offering a Plan B," Bonjean, a one-time aide to former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert, said in a telephone interview.
(Source: Bloomberg)
You are signing up to receive news, updates, general market announcement, articles and product or service marketing. By signing up you are consenting to our privacy policy and can unsubscribe at any time.


text:
Hip & Knee Arthritis
Treatment of Hip and Knee Arthritis
What is Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, is a chronic, degenerative joint disease that affects mostly middle-aged and older adults. Osteoarthritis is characterized by the breakdown of joint cartilage (wear and tear). Although it can occur in any joint, usually it affects the hands, knees, hips, or spine. The disease is also known as degenerative arthritis or degenerative joint disease.
What causes Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis can be classified as primary or secondary. Primary (wear and tear) osteoarthritis has an unknown cause, while secondary osteoarthritis is caused by another disease, infection, injury, or deformity. Osteoarthritis is characterized by the breakdown of cartilage in the joint. As the cartilage wears down, the bone ends may thicken, forming bony growths or spurs that interfere with joint movement. In addition, bits of bone and cartilage may float in the joint space and fluid-filled cysts may form in the bone, limiting joint movement. Several risk factors are associated with osteoarthritis, including the following:
- Heredity
- Slight joint defects or double-jointedness (laxity) and genetic defects may contribute to the development of osteoarthritis
- Obesity
- Excessive weight can put undue stress on such joints as the knees over time
- Injury / overuse
- Significant injury to a joint, such as the knee, can later result in osteoarthritis. Injury may also result from repeated overuse or misuse over a period of time.
What are the symptoms of Osteoarthritis?
The most common symptom of osteoarthritis is pain after overuse of a joint or prolonged inactivity of a joint. The most common joints affected by osteoarthritis include the hips, knees, fingers, feet, and spine. Symptoms of osteoarthritis usually develop slowly over many years. The following are the most common symptoms of osteoarthritis. However each individual may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:
- Joint pain
- Joint stiffness, especially after sleeping or inactivity
- Limited joint movement as the disease progresses
- Grinding of joints when moved (in more advanced stages of osteoarthritis) as the cartilage wears away
The symptoms of osteoarthritis may resemble other medical conditions or problems. Always consult your physician for a diagnosis.
How is Osteoarthritis diagnosed?
In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination, the most common way to diagnose osteoarthritis in a joint is by x-ray.
Treatment for Osteoarthritis
Specific treatment for osteoarthritis will be determined by your physician based on:
- Your age, overall health, and medical history
- Extent of the condition
- Your tolerance for specific medications, procedures, and therapies
- Expectation for the course of the condition
- Your opinion or preference
The goals of treatment for osteoarthritis are to reduce joint pain and stiffness, and improve joint movement. Treatment may include:
- Exercise
- Regular, aerobic exercise, and stretching and strengthening exercises may help reduce the symptoms of and pain associated with osteoarthritis
- Heat treatment
- Treating the affected joint with heat may help reduce pain
- Physical and occupational therapy
- Physical and occupational therapy may help to reduce joint pain, improve joint flexibility when performing daily activities, and reduce joint strain
- Weight maintenance
- Maintaining your recommended weight or losing weight (if overweight) may help to prevent or reduce the symptoms of osteoarthritis
- Medication
- Medication for specific symptoms may include pain relievers (in pill form or topical cream) and anti-inflammatory medications, if inflammation is present
- Injections of thick liquids into the joints. These liquids mimic normal joint fluid.
- Joint surgery
- Surgery may be necessary to repair or replace a severely damaged joint


text:
The railroad right-of-way through Mountain View parallels Central Expressway, a four-lane divided highway that is part of Santa Clara County's expressway network. This inherently gives the peninsula rail corridor a less residential character than in communities to the north, although several new housing developments have been built near the tracks in recent years, with more planned in the vicinity of the San Antonio Caltrain station. The latter station, opened in 1999, replaced the primitive stop formerly located at Rengstorff Avenue with what was billed as a model transit-oriented development.
Vertical Profile
The vertical profile of the existing Caltrain tracks is shown in the diagram below, created from Caltrain track survey data. The tracks slope gently, with the southern end of town a full 50 feet higher than the north. The slope is steepest (a bit over 0.6%) in the section between Castro St. and the Rte. 85 overpass, near the downtown station.
There are just two grade crossings remaining in Mountain View: Rengstorff Avenue and Castro Street.
The city has been planning a grade separation at Rengstorff Avenue since 2002, which is currently entering the environmental review process independently of high-speed rail. The city's preferred alternative (see feasibility study in PDF Attachment 2) calls for Rengstorff and the nearby intersection with Central Expressway to be depressed under the tracks. The $45 million plan already includes a corridor expansion to four tracks, as shown in the figure at right. Other design alternatives were eliminated: trenching the tracks at this location would have been complicated by the nearby Permanente Creek, and residents were concerned about the visual impact of elevated tracks. Nevertheless, the HSR scoping comments submitted by the city (see p. 95) ask that all vertical alignment alternatives be re-examined for the Rengstorff grade separation. Since the technical and community constraints have not changed at this location, the HSR alternatives analysis is likely to be consistent with the city's prior study.
That leaves the crossing at Castro Street in the downtown area, the most challenging design puzzle in Mountain View, where only one vertical alignment solution stands out as realistically feasible. The options that will probably not be practical are:
- A deep bore tunnel. While technically feasible, such a tunnel would be prohibitively expensive and difficult to build because the entire Mountain View train station would need to be sunk below grade, including 1/4 mile platforms if the city is selected as an HSR stop.
- A cut-and-cover tunnel or trench. The rails would need to be sunk 25 to 30 feet deep to pass under Castro Street, but the natural slope of the terrain to the south would require a steep 3% rise back to grade level at the Stevens Creek, potentially compromising the ability of freight trains to use the corridor. (This assumes re-routing the creek is not practical.)
- An at-grade alignment. The high train speeds would require the permanent closure of Castro Street, or the construction of a bridge over the tracks with extensive impacts to the 100 block of the historic downtown and businesses on Moffett Blvd. Either way, Castro would no longer connect to Central Expressway.
That leaves just one reasonable option: a split grade separation with the tracks elevated about 15 feet above grade and Castro Street sunk by about 5 feet. Sidewalks could stay at the current grade level, and the station would be elevated, not unlike the existing design at Belmont. To the north, the tracks would require a 2% grade to duck under the bridge at Shoreline Blvd. To the south, the tracks could run level (which is of benefit for building a new train station) to meet the rising natural grade, returning to ground level at the Stevens Creek. The resulting vertical profile is shown in the diagram below, in green; compare to the infeasible below-grade alignment shown in red.
While Caltrain and high-speed rail would comfortably handle this vertical profile, a rigid adherence to a 1% grade limit for the benefit of freight trains would likely require Castro Street be closed entirely to road traffic.
Horizontal Alignment
The Caltrain right of way is quite wide throughout Mountain View, with 75 - 100 feet available to build out the corridor to four tracks. The relatively sharp curve at San Antonio (the #8 worst curve on the peninsula) just barely allows 125 mph operation, although it could be straightened within the confines of the right of way. Does that mean Mountain View will easily accommodate an expanded, four-track, high-speed corridor? Sadly, no.
In the late 1990s, Caltrain agreed to let VTA and the city construct a light rail extension on its right of way. The light rail system now runs alongside the Caltrain tracks for about one mile, ending at a 50-foot wide terminal with expansive storage tracks near Castro Street (photo by LazyTom). On the western side of the Caltrain tracks, the city built a "transit center" to replace the dingy asphalt strip that previously served as a Caltrain platform. This $20 million intermodal facility was completed in 2002 with a new plaza and modern-day replica of Mountain View's old train depot, which might have earned a spot in a register of historic places had it not been razed in 1959. All this recent construction consumed a large portion of the available right of way, where ample space to build four tracks existed as recently as 1998. Not surprisingly, the city clings to this new civic infrastructure and suggests among other options that HSR be routed via the Central Expressway median--never mind that $20 million is a relative pittance in the context of the peninsula HSR project.
Further south, one southbound lane of Central Expressway will likely be taken to route the VTA track east of the bridge support pillars at Rte. 85 and Whisman, freeing up space for the four-track peninsula corridor.
The light rail situation is further complicated by (a) VTA's inexplicable ambition to double-track the short section of single track that encroaches on the Caltrain corridor, (b) the possible need to maintain freight train access to the Moffett Drill Track (see docket FRA-1999-6254 ; the switch that connected the VTA tracks to the peninsula corridor was recently dismantled, but the Moffett spur is not formally abandoned), and (c) the difficulty of relocating the Evelyn VTA station--incidentally second-to-last in ridership on the entire light rail system, with roughly 60 daily passengers. All three of these factors need to be examined with a critical eye towards who will pay and who will benefit.
Further north, another pinch point exists near the San Antonio station, where the San Antonio Road overpass (a 1960s structure that Caltrans lists as a deficient bridge) does not provide sufficient horizontal clearance for four tracks. The nearby pedestrian underpass would also require modification, likely as part of its extension across Central Expressway to the planned residential redevelopment of Hewlett Packard's former Mayfield campus. It goes without saying that the San Antonio platforms will need to be rebuilt, just like anywhere else on the peninsula.
Downtown Done Right
To visualize downtown "done right," download Mountain View 3D Model (2.2 Mb) for Google Earth. All the illustrations in this section are taken directly from this model, built by Richard Mlynarik.
While Mountain View's transit center is billed as an intermodal, accessible facility, there is vast room for improvement in passenger circulation. The challenge of designing a rail alignment that overcomes the twin obstacles of Castro Street and the light rail tracks presents an opportunity to improve Mountain View's transit center by creating a modern, functioning gateway into downtown. While the construction impact would indeed be frustrating, especially so soon after the area was rebuilt, this would simply reflect the haphazard manner in which the existing facility was planned, with little regard to future HSR requirements or effective pedestrian circulation.
Currently, the light rail tracks end on an unpleasant concrete island hemmed in by Central Expressway and the Caltrain tracks, requiring a circuitous route for pedestrians to access the trains. Centennial Plaza, the faux-depot and the bus loop cut off the Caltrain platforms from downtown. All passengers wishing to transfer between buses and trains must use crosswalks.
There is surely a better way. One possible redesign of the Mountain View Transit Center is described below. It is an exercise to achieve the best possible transportation functionality, providing these specific benefits:
- Keeps Castro open to all traffic
- Provides direct, elevator-free access from Caltrain/HSR platforms to sidewalks on both sides of Castro, without circuitous detours
- Places the VTA light rail terminus in Centennial Plaza, where it meshes intimately with the pedestrian fabric of downtown
- Allows direct platform-to-platform, passenger-friendly transfers between light rail, Caltrain locals and expresses, HSR, buses and employee shuttles--without the need for an umbrella during the rainy season
- Locates station amenities such as ticketing, bathrooms, snacks, etc. at the crossroads of pedestrian traffic
- Provides station parking under the tracks, reducing the need for unsightly parking structures
- Does not force bus passengers to use a crosswalk
Centennial Plaza looking east | Evelyn looking north to Castro | Castro & Central looking south |
View from northbound Central Expressway |
For additional views and detail, download the 3D model for Google Earth.
What happened to the retro-faux-depot? Remember, this design is an exercise in form following transportation function. In 1895, the depot would have housed important functions such as mail and baggage handling, signaling staff, and a telegraph operator. Today, those functions are obsolete, so the depot building has no place or purpose. It's gone, for the greater good of functional 21st-century transportation. Architecturally, there are far more exciting possibilities that enhance rather than impede functionality.
Regardless of the details of how exactly HSR is integrated with Mountain View's transit center, one thing is clear: the high-speed rail authority's charter is to build HSR, period. Ensuring that the intermodal connections at Mountain View can live up to their potential will largely be up to the city and its citizens, who ought to take strong initiative to ensure it's done right--without letting their judgment be unduly clouded by the $20 million they spent this past decade.
NOTE: This post will be updated continuously, as warranted by additional information or new events relating to Mountain View.


text:
Cheap flights at September to Manchester (MAN)
Here you can see the cheapest prices to Manchester for September that other customers have found.
These prices are subject to change depending on seat availability, possible fare variations, charges and other supplements when you book.
Flights offer to Manchester (MAN) in September
FINAL PRICE Taxes, fees and carrier charges included. If you choose to pay the trip with a credit card, an additional € 5 charge per passenger will apply for domestic flights and € 8,5 for the rest of the flights.