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wu-tang clan
Keeping Score: Another RZA Q&A
- 2004-04-23 12:54:52
© The Wu-Tang Corp.
- 2004-04-23
Music is an essential part of Quentin Tarantino's cinematic visions, and it takes more than a typical composer, performer or producer to fulfill the myriad desires of his kaleido-cscopic musical palette.
Luckily for him, Tarantino found rapper-producer-composer-martial arts enthusiast RZA willing and available to help him bring forth the colors of his latest opus. Having served as longtime majordomo of the music industry empire Wu-Tang Clan, the RZA (a.k.a. Robert Diggs) has long since become familiar with a vast range of musical styles and influences; unsurprisingly, this eclecticism came in mighty handy once Q.T. began compiling sounds for Kill Bill.
While Tarantino's A-list status has been all but permanently gilded on the face of Hollywood following the first-weekend success of both volumes of his grindhouse revenge epic, the RZA's position remains far from as comfortably assured, but the producer is looking to change all that in upcoming months. Kill Bill follows the RZA's dynamite work for director Jim Jarmusch, who tapped him for the score to his 2000 gangster samurai flick Ghost Dog, and will soon be accompanied by full-fledged symphonies for the upcoming pictures Soul Plane and the third (and presumably final) installment in the Blade series.
Recently, the RZA recently spoke with FilmStew about the process of moving from hip-hop to Hollywood and shared his hopes of becoming a burgeoning creative force in the film industry. Since his auspicious producing and rapping debut in 1993 with Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the RZA has also released two albums under the moniker 'Bobby Digital' and produced countless others.
Ironically, even though he has exhaustively explored and expanded the boundaries of modern hip-hop, he finds the genre somewhat limiting for his immeasurable talents. "When you are producing hip-hop, you're very limited," he says. "Hip-hop and r & b is basically a template you must follow. But when you're doing scores, or you're doing poetry, there's no template, and that's really the difference."
He confesses that the idea of composing music on a cinematic scale is one he'd thought about for some time, but not everyone was quite ready for it - until, that is, Jim Jarmusch approached him about Ghost Dog. "I already was telling all of my peers I needed to be scoring movies, because when I did that Bobby Digital album, it was too deep," he recalls.
"It's too cinematic," he continues. "Motherf**kers don't know what I'm doing. Critics are talking all this sh*t. They don't see I'm making a sixteen-bar loop for each [track]. I'm not making a two-bar loop. I'm not sampling some old breakbeat. This is me, homie. I'm letting my creativity come. The critics were like I'm going over their heads."
"I was like, you know what? This is for movies. I did a movie."
The introduction of the two, RZA suggests, may or may not have been under questionable circum-stances. "Jim shows up in my office with one of my homeboys, a guy named Dreddy Krueger. Now I don't even imagine how they met," he says with a knowing laugh. "All I can imagine is they met getting some broccoli together, and one thing led to another, and boom! They were at my office, and Jim said 'I want you to score a movie for me.' I said, wow, that's what I've been talking about with all of my peers."
Still, the RZA says he wasn't familiar with Jarmusch's work, and neither immediately was he won over by the director's deeply personal, intimate and frequently eccentric films. "I didn't know what he did, so he said, 'Let me get you a copy of some of my movies.' I threw one in, and I didn't catch on to it; I don't even remember the name of that one. The second one I watched was Dead Man."
Suggesting volumes about the mind state one might want optimally to be in to enjoy a Jarmusch movie, he continues: "Me and my brothers had some broccoli, and we zoned in. We watched that one at least four or five times. But after seeing that one, I was like okay."
Confident in his own ability to recognize talent, RZA agreed to a collaboration. "I'm the type of kid, I watch out for [talent], and I think I can judge a good director," he maintains. "Dead Man put Jim in a league like, okay, he's a deep thinker. He's a deep director."
The rest, as they say, is history, though it seems that RZA is hardly interested in letting that experience repeat itself. Well, at least not without expanding the self-educated artist's growing repertoire of talents: "Ghost Dog and Kill Bill, except for Volume 2, which was Robert Rodriguez, there hasn't been orchestration for my work. It has been mostly electronic."
With his next project, the upcoming Snoop Dogg comedy Soul Plane, RZA will stare down a full-fledged ensemble of musicians and fulfill a dream posited in the early days of his career. "Soul Plane was the first time I had a 49-piece orchestra, and they played my music beautifully. It was really a dream come true."
Expectedly, RZA is thankful for the modest steps he's already taken but sees no reason to maintain the status quo, since he has built a career out of redefining hip-hop for an entire industry. "Of course, Ghost Dog was part of a dream, and Kill Bill, hey, you can't beat that, right? But I've always said to myself, if you read my earlier interviews, that I know hip-hop can be done by an orchestra."
"I want my music to be played by an orchestra; I said it so many times in my early interviews," he adds. "And now I lived it, and now I'm going to live it even higher because on Blade: Trinity, we're actually planning for an 80-piece orchestra. So for me it's really fulfilling."
RZA sees film composition as an almost entirely different discipline than the usual production duties he performs. The reason for this, he says, is because it both enables and requires him to consider the emotional scope of the material he produces. "Typical production is limited to me, basically, because all I have to do is focus on two or four bars, and make repetitive music, and maybe a few changes here or there," he explains. "But when you're dealing with scoring, you know, you have to change mood, you have to change vibes."
Having learned from his past experiences, RZA says that the visual content must be considered in order to maximize the effectiveness of the score; it matters little if it's brilliantly composed if it's inappropriate for the characters, scene, or film as a whole. "Even in one mood, you have to keep the camera in mind, the movement of the camera and the movement of the actors," he suggests.
"There's a scene in Soul Plane when there's a guy on the stairs, and he's making a speech about being poor and all this," he continues. "In the temp track they had, you couldn't feel the poverty of the kid, because it was a black guy's poverty, and to me that's the blues, you know what I mean? So when I got up there to do my track, I did it more bluesy."
Sometimes, although no amount of calculation can make the musical proceedings easier, RZA considers sharp transitions a fun challenge and a reminder of music one might not naturally associate with his hip-hop niche. "After that scene, it goes into a big comedy scene, of course," he says. "So I have to take it from this moment where you feel sad for this guy to where it's like, '40 million dollars!' So it's a total curve, and to me that's like opera, that's like Mozart."
"That's like orchestra stuff, and that's the approach I took."
RZA's appreciation of his experiences with Jarmusch and Tarantino seems to know no boundaries, perhaps because of their outsider approach to Hollywood formulas.
"If I had my way I'd work with Quentin on every movie," he enthuses. "It's not only about work; we could relate, talk and laugh."
"There were times when he would just pop in the room and just hang out for hours," adds RZA. "With the studios, there are a lot more people involved. There is a lot of stuff that you never see, executive stuff. But for me, fortunately, I haven't had a problem either way, and I'm grateful for that, but the intimacy of working with Quentin and working with Jim felt good."
Admirably, RZA considers his foray into film composition a serious step beyond the boundaries of hip-hop and not a dalliance enabled by the fickle finger of commercial success. As with his burgeoning acting career (such as in next month's Coffee & Cigarettes), he devotes time, effort and attention to doing his job well.
"It's something I definitely have a passion for," he admits. "A lot of rappers do want to be actors, but a lot of them don't respect the art. [For Coffe & Cigarettes,] I took my weeks and weeks with an acting coach, and learned how this thing works. So if I do come to do something, I'm not just walking in because I'm the RZA. I've been trained. That's why I took my time even with my scores."
Describing the research he did to work effectively as an orchestral composer, arranger and conductor, he said, "I spent time with Richard Gibbs, a famous composer who did over forty movies, Phil Giffin, who orchestrated for me, did over 80 movies, as well as reading books, and watching great ones like Danny Elfman and John Williams, checking out what they do and just listening, how they took one melody and made it a whole Close Encounters of the Third Kind thing."
Asserting his honorable intentions, he adds, "I'm not just somebody coming in because I'm the RZA. I'm coming in as somebody with talent, know-how, knowledge and respect. I think if every artist came in with that particular weight, he should be successful."
Like a performer born, however, it's not the accolades of critics or the success of dollars moved and records sold that motivates him, but the reaction from fans and friends, people who are honest about what his music means to them, whether it's coming from a street-corner stereo or a screen forty feet high.
"The stage to me was a release," he says. "On the Kill Bill score, what made me feel good about that was, when you watch movies, you never ever see an audience, when it says 'Music by', [they applaud]. I've never seen that in my life."
"You know, at the premiere it happened, but that's Hollywood," he begrudgingly confesses."In Manhattan, at a theatre with just a bunch of kids from wherever in New York, inside the theatre with the movie coming on, they don't even know I'm the man with the music, and when it says 'Original music by the RZA,' you hear the audience clapping!"
"They didn't clap for anything else yet, because the movie's just coming on. I was like 'whoa! What the f*ck is that about?'"
Without trying to pinpoint a reason for this remarkable and satisfying outpour of appreciation, RZA says that the reaction made all his efforts worthwhile, especially since it's something he couldn't imagine ever doing for anyone else. "I think that's very different, and it actually might be something special, you know, because you never care who did that. Once you see who stars in the sh*t, you don't read who edited it. You eat your popcorn, and it goes right by you."
"But for someone to see that and clap, that felt pretty great."
Written by Todd Gilchrist for
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University College is an academic unit offering comprehensive programs and services to enhance students' academic success at Ball State University. University College is the home of academic advising for all freshmen regardless of major. Students receive advising through University College until they have achieved sophomore status and declared a major, at which time they will transfer to one of Ball State's eight degree-granting colleges and will receive faculty advising in the major department. In addition, the college houses the Learning Center, which offers free peer tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, and other forms of academic assistance to all Ball State students.
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Amelia Earhart crashes in the South Pacific
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Amelia Earhart wanted to fly around the world. She prepared in March 1937. July 2 Amelia and Fred Noonan left Florida to Howland Island across the Atlantic Ocean.She crashed in the Atlantic Ocean and President Roosevelt tried to find Amelia and Fred in the South Pacific. They were never found again!
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Innovation is vital to European competitiveness in the global economy. The EU is implementing policies and programmes that support the development of innovation to increase investment in research and development, and to better convert research into improved goods, services, or processes for the market.
As highlighted by EU Industrial Policy, industry is crucial for EU competitiveness and innovation is a key factor in this regard.
Industry accounts for 80% of Europe's exports. Some 65% of private sector research and development (R&D) investment comes from manufacturing.
Therefore, industrial modernisation in Europe must be broad-reaching and include:
Studies show that those companies who prioritise innovation are also those who experience the highest increase in turnover (Innobarometer, 2014):
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a particular target for innovation policy. The smaller the company is, the more it faces constraints to innovation or to the commercialisation of its innovations.
New growth opportunities come from providing new products and services from:
These must be combined with creativity, flair and talent, or innovation in its broadest sense.
The latest Policy Communication (June 2014) sets out the European Commission's priorities for innovation. In this context, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs:
Your opinion counts. Feel free to contact us.


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When Apple makes big announcements, the tech world seems to stand still. Or rather, it's tech workers' productivity that slows to a crawl, as they seek out live blogs of those lucky enough to be in the room at 1 Infinite Loop.
For the tech press that handle such up-to-the-minute info, it's predictable chaos—last Wednesday, the more Apple CEO Tim Cook took his time revealing whether an iPhone 5 was coming, the more we at our desks tuned in to live blogs assessing the odds.
The crazy traffic spikes and unrelenting page loads of sites covering Apple keynotes are enough to take down even the most experienced media sources. According to PCWorld, "almost every site covering Apple's event live–including Wired, Engadget and Ars Technica–suffered down time. Even Apple itself wasn't spared as users rushed to order a new iPhone."
But amidst the auto-refresh carnage, one site kept plugging, serving up news and photos like it ain't no thang: gdgt. The San Francisco-based site features user reviews of products, and from its founding in 2009, coverage of live events has been a major feature of the site and its community.
So how do they remain standing, when the other big guns fall by the wayside? "We use Rackspace Cloud Sites and Cloud Files," says gdgt co-founder Ryan Block, who is also the former editor of Engadget. "From the very start, we've counted on Rackspace to help us scale to handle major traffic during these events."
The Apple product announcements require significant preparation, says Block, because they present the most challenging scale—a huge audience in one short, intense window of time. "We wanted to work with a hosting partner we knew would be able to stand up to the pain," he says.
That preparation comes from teams at gdgt and Rackspace working together. "It's really about making sure that everybody knows the ins and outs of the system we built to actually provide this live coverage," says Block. "And making sure we know where the faults and issues are in terms of scaling to so many requests. Before this event, I looked at our previous stats, and was able to establish that we were expecting 10 million-plus requests to the live updating system that we built."
But in reality, the numbers were even bigger. "Sure enough, with Rackspace, we delivered 11.6 million update requests over the course of an hour and 45 minutes." At the keynote's peak, gdgt's live coverage had about 85,000 simultaneous users, each using auto-refreshing updates.
Block attributes gdgt's success to using a system on their side that has proven itself, and then choosing the right provider. "We really needed to pick the right type of service that helps us scale rapidly. Our software platform that delivers the live blog is relatively simple, so Rackspace can easily spin up new instances and add infrastructure to it to prevent us from falling over. It's a very rapid process. Within 30 seconds on a call with your team, they had moved us over to some of the most robust architecture anywhere. That ability to react and respond quickly to load has been really important for keeping us live."
"For short term, high traffic spikes, there's just nothing like the almost instantaneous scaling power of a cloud hosting provider," explains Block. "And what sets Rackspace apart here from the AWSes of the world isn't just the ability to rapidly scale infrastructure, but that we were also able to work with a team who was with us every step of the way in preparation, who was in the chat room with our team during the actual event communicating with our team members, and who followed up afterwards with a post-mortem. That's not something you're going to get at other cloud providers. And I think that really underscores Rackspace's commitment to support."
As a tech veteran, Block has seen a fair share of successes—and failures—when traffic spikes massively. "I've been doing this kind of thing for a very long time," says Block. "I used to do it at Engadget, which is the biggest consumer electronics news site on the Internet, and my experience there was that even at AOL we would sometimes fall over. It's a huge challenge."
"I really can't stress enough how impressive it is, what Rackspace does. That's the kind of magic of what a great hosting provider can do—taking some really difficult hosting issues, and making it look completely effortless to our team and our users."


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About Us
Find out more about who we are and what we do
About Our Guide
The Pattaya Condo Guide is the best and most comprehensive single source of condominiums for sale and to rent in Pattaya, Jomtien and surrounding areas. With hundreds of condominium units advertised for sale or rent and in-depth information on all condominium buildings in the area, latest updates and news of recent developments, all the information is here, a mere click away.
The Pattaya Condo Guide will also give you the basic background information you need to identify the important questions you should ask before you make that all important buying or renting decision. This Guide provides you with a condominium selection check-list to help you narrow down the choice between the different types of condominiums currently available in Pattaya. The Pattaya Condo Guide can help you become an informed condominium buyer or tenant and to help you make the very best choice. Many expatriates who move to Pattaya, Thailand, choose condominium living because it's a relatively carefree housing option. Currently, in Pattaya, Thailand, two out of three new homes built are condominiums.
About Pattaya & Jomtien Beach Resorts Thailand
Sun, sea, golden beaches, legendary entertainment, variety and low costs make Pattaya and Jomtien resorts, Thailand, irresistible for holidaymakers, a heaven for tourists and expat retirees and real estate investors, big or small.
Thousands of tourists from every corner of the world visit Pattaya and Jomtien in Thailand for many reasons. Most come initially for a holiday, but once they discover the fabulous lifestyle that is available here at a fraction of the cost of the Western world, many tourists return, some in search of overseas holiday homes, some to relocate permanently, or to retire with a level of luxury they could only dream of in their own countries.
About Our Company
Pattaya Condo Guide is owned and operated by Siam Casa. The company operates the website called "pattayacondoguide.com", which is the Pattaya's largest real estate website and Thailand's biggest condominium property portal.
Launched in October 2010, our aim is to be THE place for all home movers and property investors to find details of all condominium properties available to buy or rent. The website provides an easy-to-use but extensive on-line property search. With the depth of information that the company provides, including photographs, brochures, location maps, virtual tours, measurements and floor plans, condo hunters can immediately identify a preferred property and contact the advertiser by phone or email.
Pattaya Condo Guide services four key groups:
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Keys to success
Pattaya Condo Guide's advantage is that we help our advertisers by providing quality inquiries at a significantly lower cost than their traditional advertising alternatives. For estate agents and letting (rental) agents, Pattaya Condo Guide also plays a key role in generating new opportunities to win instructions(the right to offer a property for sale or for rent on behalf of the owner).
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The Pattaya Condo Guide's success is based on delivering a quality service to its customers.
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For home hunters and property investors, Pattaya Condo Guide is the largest resource available for information on new off-plan and resale condos, the easiest way for them to readily find condominium property details that meet their criteria through a user-friendly, comprehensive and reliable website.
For new condominium property developers, Pattaya Condo Guide is the perfect showcase to display detailed information about their condominium development projects.


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The Lord Calls Moses
Open Your Bible
Exodus 3:1-22, Exodus 4:1-31, Joshua 5:13-15, Matthew 22:23-33
BY Guest Writer
Scripture Reading: Exodus 3:1-22, Exodus 4:1-31, Joshua 5:13-15, Matthew 22:23-33
I've never seen a burning bush, but I know how it feels to hide my face.
Acceptance of the mission God had for Moses would mean leaving the life he had spent four decades building, facing the maniacal ruler of the most powerful nation in the world, fleeing again with only the clothes on his back and a nation to care for, and then leading the most miserable, insufferable group imaginable on a forty-year road trip through an unforgiving desert.
My calling may not be of Mosaic or burning-bush proportions, but what God asks of me, and of you, isn't altogether different from what He required of Moses.
We are called to speak the truth in love, even to those who disrespect and disagree with us (Ephesians 4:15, 25). We are called to help lead people away from their slavery to sin and toward the Promised Land of freedom found in Christ (Matthew 28:19–20). We are called to run toward, not away from, pockets of suffering and hold high the staff of hope (Galatians 6:2).
This all sounds exciting in theory, but when the opportunity arises, our gut reaction is often the same as Moses' response. We turn away from the call, begging, "Please, Lord, send someone else" (Exodus 4:13). If even a burning bush cannot compel us to run toward the mission God has for us, what will?
Remembering what's at stake.
Tucked here in between the ignition of the burning bush and Moses' decision to obey, we find an object lesson as unsettling to us as it must have been to Moses.
Moses' staff becomes a snake (vv. 2–5) and his healthy hand becomes diseased (vv. 6–7) before a third sign is promised: the Nile River will turn to blood and will be spilled out on the dry ground (vv. 8–9). Sure, these are demonstrations of God's power, but look again. This is a compelling reminder of who we are without Jesus.
We are snakebitten, attacked and weakened by the serpent who first struck in the garden.
We are diseased, desperately broken by sin and unable to cure our own sick hearts.
These first two signs show that we are enslaved to the taskmaster of sin without the means to break our own chains. The gospel is the only key that turns the lock for shackled people walking in darkness. We cannot hide our faces from this.
The third sign given to Moses runs like a river of hope through all of God's Word and overflows into the banks of our lives. As Moses turned river water into blood and dumped it onto dry ground, he was preaching the gospel, pointing toward the day when the blood of our Savior would be spilled on a cracked and desperate world for the deliverance of our sin. In Exodus, the wooden staff of a shepherd was a foreshadowing of the wooden cross where the Good Shepherd would hang for us.
Moses remembered what was at stake, slipped his sandals back on, and put one foot in front of the other, walking out his calling. And the Lord, used him mightily in order to set the captives free.
Lord, help us look across the table, across the street, and around the world, remember what's at stake, and choose declare the gift of the gospel.
Erin Davis is an author, blogger, and speaker who loves to see women of all ages run to the deep well of God's Word. When she's not writing, you can find Erin chasing chickens and children on her small farm in the Midwest.
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text: Good job on your remote demo, Clint. 73, Dee, NB2F -----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] On Behalf Of Clint Bradford Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:24 PM To: AMSAT BB Subject: [amsat-bb] Sat Presentation in Illinois I just finished giving my "How to Work Amateur Satellites with Low Power" presentation to a classroom in Southern Illinois. Club president Gregg Sperling, KB9E, contacted me a few weeks ago, asking if I could speak at the March meeting of his Southern Illinois University Amateur Radio Club in Carbondale, IL. NO - I didn't use up my wife's frequent flyer miles. We did it via Skype. Audio AND video. I prepared a .pdf file ahead of time, tailored to the club (I always have a couple club-related trivia questions ... and always have the club's grid square id'd in the program) - and emailed it ahead of time to the tech guy. All slides were numbered, so we could stay in sync. The club used a computer/projector to show the slideshow, and I was able to see and hear the classroom attendees - and they could see and hear me - via Skype. Skype is almost "full duplex," so I could hear comments and questions ... and I could see when a hand raised up for a question. It really worked out well! So, presenters: I guess we are no longer limited to "hundred mile radii" restrictions for our shows! It wasn't as effective as actually going to a site, demo'ing a FM bird, THEN presenting. But it sure got the word out to a club that I couldn't physically get to! We had a great time! Clint Bradford, K6LCS 909-241-7666 _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB at amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb


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Man on the Moon
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|Clunky bio of bizarro comedian Andy Kaufman (Carrey) who died of cancer at age 35 in 1984. The problem is that Kaufman is opaque--he doesn't seem to have a true personality but assumes bizarre alter-egos, including obnoxious lounge singer Tony Clifton. Kaufman turned out to be most appealing as innocent Latka on the sitcom "Taxi," which he professes to despise. For all Carrey's expertise, you won't care too much about what's onscreen. Title comes from R.E.M.'s song about Kaufman; they also supplied the film's music.
|Directed by:
|Milos Forman
|Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Michael Hausman, Jersey Films, Universal Pictures.
|Jim Carrey, Courtney Love, Danny DeVito, Paul Giamatti, Vincent Schiavelli, Peter Bonerz, Marilu Henner, Judd Hirsch


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Category: Money
Related Links |
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Budgeting Debt Repayment
by Gary Foreman
Dear Dollar Stretcher,
They say rent should be a third of your salary, or something like
that. How much should be allocated to credit card debt if you made
the mistake of getting into debt? If I paid each credit card a
little bit, I'd still owe about $400 a month. What should my income
be to pay that much each month but still not be in trouble? For
instance, if I only earned $1,200 a month, I couldn't be expected to
pay rent, food, etc., AND credit cards. But if I was making $100,000
a year, $400 a month wouldn't seem like much. Is there a way to calculate this?
Approximately 1 in 3 of us have at least one credit card with a
balance due. And with a new law that required higher minimums taking
effect in 2006, more and more consumers are wrestling with their
minimum payment.
So Linda asks a good question. How much debt repayment can I fit into
my budget? And, yes, she's right. Someone with a $100,000 annual
income can afford more than the person who takes home $1,200 each
month. So let's see if we can't come up with some guidelines for Linda.
Most family budgets are dominated by three categories: housing, auto
and food. Combined they typically take up 65 to 70% of the budget.
That leaves 30 to 35% for everything else: insurance, clothing,
medical, dental, entertainment & vacations, education, property
taxes, savings, and debt repayment.
Most of these categories will require between 3 and 7%. Which will
quickly consume the remaining portion of your income. Each family is
a little different but most families can commit about 5% of their
paycheck to repaying debt without twisting their budget out of shape.
How does that work out in Linda's case? A monthly payment of $400 is
5% of $8,000. So Linda would need to be bringing home $8,000 after
taxes to hold to this budget. I hope that she is making $96,000 a
year. But, there's a good chance that she's not. So she might need to
make some adjustments.
Even if she is making that much money, it's still wise to pay down
her credit card balance. That's because it is unlikely to stay at the
current level. The reason is simple. Life happens.
There will always be 'unexpected' home and auto repair bills. Even
with good medical insurance the deductible on a broken arm can be
significant. And taking a nice vacation is real tempting.
If Linda is struggling already she probably doesn't have money saved
for these 'emergencies'. So they'll go on her credit card. And, that
will boost her balance. The new minimum will only go up a little bit.
But the hill she's climbing just got a little steeper.
The sad part is that many people fall into credit card debt because
they can't afford to completely pay for whatever they bought during
the month. Trouble is the interest that they'll owe only makes the
original purchase more expensive. So they'll pay even more for
something that they couldn't afford in the first place.
So what can Linda do? Take aggressive steps to pay down her credit
card balance. Beginning now.
The biggest opportunities are where she spends the most - housing,
auto and food. It may be time to move to a smaller home or apartment,
or take in a roommate. Replace an expensive car with a cheaper one.
Commit to eating at home until her debt is paid off.
Linda should also look for ways to make small contributions to her
'debt repayment fund'. It's time to consider dropping premium cable
channels, mocha lattes and other non-essentials. You'd be surprised
how quickly these items can add up to a sizeable amount. Not only
will she be reducing debt, she'll feel better about taking steps to
reach her goal.
Some of these may seem overly drastic. But they are meant to be
drastic. Linda is heading for a financial wreck.
Here's how it will unfold. 'Unexpected' expenses will add to her
balance and her monthly minimum. If her minimum payments begin to
exceed 5% of her budget, she'll soon find herself unable to make the
monthly payment.
Then things will snowball. Each month she'll struggle to make all the
minimum payments on time. One day a payment will be a little late.
Her interest rates will go up. On all of her cards. That'll increase
her minimum payment. That, in turn, will make it almost impossible to
cover the new minimums. Her credit rating will go down. She'll
trigger a chain of events that will take up to ten years to correct.
Linda is wise to correct it now while she still has time. Some of the
steps she'll need to take will be painful. But she'll be avoiding
much more financial pain in the future.
Gary Foreman is a former financial planner who currently edits
Dollar Stretcher.com website. You'll find hundreds of ways to help
make the most of the money you already earn. Visit today!
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Somewhat belatedly, I've come upon this essay in which a "libertarian economist retracts a swipe at the left—after discovering that our political leanings leave us more biased than we think." It presents a problem for anyone trying to communicate ideas that lack popular support: we are all "my-side biased," tending to block out arguments and evidence that we know (or even suspect) will threaten any of our cherished convictions. How to overcome humanity's natural ideological defense mechanisms?
Plato's Socrates tried to do it by taking his interlocutors by surprise. First, get them to acknowledge all the key facts of a particular matter in isolation, in a way that does not present an obvious ideological threat, and only then tie them logically together so that the interlocutor cannot help but realize that his original presumption must be wrong. Hard to do.
An even tougher challenge is trying to minimize our own my-side bias so that we are not so thick-headed when one of our own convictions is contradicted by reality. Reading articles like the above from time to time no doubt helps.


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]]>Main Page]]> | ]]>Risk Factors]]> | ]]>Symptoms]]> | ]]>Diagnosis]]> | ]]>Treatment]]> | ]]>Screening]]> | ]]>Reducing Your Risk]]> | Talking to Your Doctor | ]]>Living With Ovarian Cancer]]> | ]]>Resource Guide]]>
You have a unique medical history. Therefore, it is essential to talk with your doctor about your personal risk factors and/or experience with ]]>ovarian cancer]]>. By talking openly and regularly with your doctor, you can take an active role in your care.
General Tips for Gathering Information
Here are some tips that will make it easier for you to talk to your doctor:
Specific Questions to Ask Your doctor
About Ovarian Cancer
About Your Risk of Developing Ovarian Cancer
About Treatment Options
About Lifestyle Changes
About Outlook
Kasper DL, Harrison TR. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. 14th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 1998.
Ovarian cancer. National Cancer Institute website. Available at: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/ovarian/. Accessed April 8, 2009.
Last reviewed February 2009 by ]]>Igor Puzanov, MD]]>
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © 2007 EBSCO Publishing All rights reserved.


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Jon Dawson reviews World Boogie is Coming and Viva Hysteria � Live At The Joint
New album: World Boogie Is Coming
Artist: North Mississippi Allstars
Label: Songs of the South
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Just when it looks like the blues as a genre is ready for the history books, the North Mississippi Allstars come along and let it shine through a different light.
Although they�ll never get the hipster vote because they�re so bourgeois they actually have a bass player, the NMA should be as popular as the Black Keys and Jack White. Luther Dickenson (guitar/vocals), Chris Chew (bass) and Cody Dickinson (drums) have found a way to keep the blues fresh while retaining the beautiful rawness that original crawled out of the Delta all those years ago.
Mixing in original tunes and those by the likes of Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, �World Boogie Is Coming� is dripping in tasteful bluster. Robert Plant even contributes some scorching harmonica to �JR� and �Goat Meat�. Throw in plenty of studio chatter and field recordings of whatever happened to be happening, and you�ve got the best blues rock album of the year.
Blues standard �Rollin� and Tumblin� � is reworked into a futuristic gallop, sounding as if it�s some sort of new folk tune written years after all the computers shut down for good. R.L. Burnside�s �Snake Drive� is given a smoother, groovier reading than the original that is chill bump inducing. Kimbrough�s �Meet Me in the City� rides on a groove of Jimmy Reed proportions, and Luther Dickinson�s �Turn up Satan� slams and punches in equal parts swamp and punk. Sharde� Thomas turns in a sultry vocal for Willie Dixon�s �My Babe�, and if Radiohead were to play the blues it�d probably sound like the version of Bukka White�s �World Boogie� that�s included here.
�World Boogie Is Coming� is all good all the time. Do your ears a favor and pick up a few copies.
Classic album: Viva Hysteria � Live At The Joint
Artist: Def Leppard
Label: Frontiers Records
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
As far as middle of the road pop rock goes, Def Leppard�s 1987 album �Hysteria� might as well be �The Dark Side of the Moon�. There were lots of hairspray and a bit of spandex involved, but these songs are crammed with more hooks than a fish with short term memory issues.
Def Leppard�s 1983 album �Pyromania� made them worldwide superstars, even in a year when The Police (�Synchronicity�) and Michael Jackson (�Thriller�) were hitting their respective career peaks. Before the band could follow-up �Pyromania,� drummer Rick Allen lost his arm in a drunk driving accident. Instead of replacing Allen and moving on, they gave him time to recuperate and develop a new drum kit that would allow him to remain in the band.
A four-year absence in the entertainment industry was an eternity even in the pre-information overload of the late 1980s. By the time �Hysteria� finally came out, an �Apocalypse Now�-ish myth had built up around the turmoil surrounding its creation.
The first track released to radio was �Women,� a hard rock song that seemingly picked up where earlier hits like �Photograph� left off. Although �Women� is a great song, it didn�t automatically propel �Hysteria� to stratospheric sales.
It wasn�t until �Pour Some Sugar On Me� was released the following year that �Hysteria� became a commercial juggernaut and brought the band droves of new female fans. If there can be a downside to a worldwide hit single, �Pour Some Sugar On Me� also began the erosion of Def Leppard�s hard rock fan base. Almost overnight, Def Leppard went from being perceived as a great rock band to a pop band.
Old school Leppard fans may have winced at �Hysteria� tunes such as the power ballad �Love Bites�, but at the time they were gargantuanly outnumbered by the millions of new fans who ate up them with very large spoons. Eventually seven singles would be released from the album, including a remixed �Rocket�, �Animal� and �Armageddon It�. Robert �Mutt� Lange�s tedious, multi-layered production style was an updated version of Roy Thomas Baker�s work with Queen. �Hysteria� possessed a powerful, almost mechanical punch that inspired Bono to revamp U2�s sonic palette.
The �Viva Hysteria� album/DVD set is a well-executed live run through of the classic album with a few �Pyromania� tracks and rarities thrown in for good measure. The band is in great form, and not being locked in to Lange�s maniacal perfectionism in a live setting makes the songs sound a little more human. Joe Elliot is still in great voice, and guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell expertly recreate the album�s signature musical passages.
Who knows if Def Leppard have another �Hysteria� in them. Until that verdict is in, this is a very entertaining package that any longtime fan of the band will enjoy.
Jon Dawson�s album reviews appear every Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Purchase Jon�s book �Making Gravy in Public� at Amazon.com and jondawson.com.


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Just about a year ago, the doors of the Outsider Folk Art Gallery were about to close and Gallery Director Emily A. Branch was wondering how she could feature represented artists as the gallery transitioned to a completely online presence. She ran across a call for artists for 'Circus Terminal Worldwide' soon to be opening its first showing in London, hometown of its lead curator Chutima Kerdpidtak nicknamed 'Nok.'
Artwork was curated to be within certain specifications, so Nok could transport the art easily without the individual artists shipping works. Unlike most shows, there was no fee to participate and it promised to travel the globe for two years. Branch submitted works on paper by five artists, Jim Bloom, Dave 'Big Dutch' Nally, Ed Woltemate, Jr., Ed Kingsbury, III, and Charlie Auchincloss.
This traveling exhibition is an example of just another collaboration mostly held online, with art reaching places it may have never anticipated. 'As the project has grown we have been asked to extend the showing of works into 2014 with new venues brought on by this collaboration,' said Nok, 'it's an unexpected and welcome benefit for the artists and myself, traveling and being made welcome at each country has been eye opening at how people are still willing to work together regardless of personal benefit'. The project is completely run on in-kind and voluntary contributions and its mission is inclusion of all arts and creators. Many of the artists participated in their local community and then submitted their work to travel internationally, forming bonds with fellow artists, and bridging traditional formulas for collaboration.
Branch took on planning a venue in the U.S. and approached Studio B in Boyertown where she acts as communications director. 'I was encouraged by the strengths of the arts in the Oley Valley region and the commitment of the volunteer staff at Studio B,' said Branch 'they get how you have to work with others to create something wonderful. I was overwhelmed by their generosity and trust for an untested model.'
Jane Stahl, Committee Chair of Building a Better Boyertown's Arts & Activities Alliance has been a dedicated partner in the local organization of this effort saying, 'Studio B's mission in promoting the visual and communication arts and artists as well as involving the community in the arts is forwarded mightily from this unique opportunity to work with artists from around the world.'
During the two week residency within the one month exhibition comprised of 67 artists from 18 countries, these artists and an additional group of U.S. artists will be providing Saturday Creative Workshops open to the community at Studio B, Boyertown. Events at Clay on Main in Oley include two Saturday night potlucks followed by a creative workshop. 'When I was approached to participate in this collaborative project, I was thrilled,' said Clay on Main Artistic Director, Dolores Kirschner, 'This is exactly the type of project that will expand the scope of Clay on Main and its member artists. We are embracing not just the clay arts but all genres relating back to the international resident artists who work in many media, fused with improv by Reading Theater Project, poetry with Berks Bards, an open environment for creative expression without barrier. I am looking forward to what may follow.' Local excitement for the project has been building. Branch says, 'It's complex, but also very simple. We hope people will be curious and want to participate' Creative workshops at Studio B are open to all but require an R.S.V.P. due to the classroom space. Clay on Main offerings do not require an R.S.V.P
International artists will be presenting to local groups including the Lions Club of Boyertown, Boyertown Area High School, and the seniors at Boyertown Multi Service. Artists will sit in on other Studio B classes including a popular after school programs held on Wednesdays, hoping to get students to participate in hanging the show, sharing stories of its journey to date.
Branch has spent the past six months organizing this project and admits it could not have been done without the Internet. She praises Nok's dedication to correspondence and patience 'as I am typing emails it's between 2 to 4 a.m. in London' laments Branch. 'She has a true gift and you can tell it's not the first time she has mounted a major project'. To her credit Nok has worked collaboratively with other projects both in the U.K., Thailand and in the U.S. She met many of her initial creative partners during a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. She has a firm dedication to supporting cross cultural creative practice, born in Thailand; she has been awarded multiple grants to support artists in Thailand. Nok is well versed in graphic design and social media which has boosted the attention for this project. In addition to being featured in international publications, Nok has created specific web content for each destination, each artist and partner getting a spotlight.
Twin Turrets Inn, Boyertown will be hosting Nok, Clay on Main, Oley will be hosting artists Chris and Paul Czainski from Halifax, U.K., and BMBA member Roger Lehmann and his family, Bechtelsville is hosting artist Rinaldo Klas from Suriname, South America. Local volunteers and artists are planning special meals to meet the artists and minimize their out of pocket expenses. Artist Paul Czainski will be manning a rental car to get everyone from place to place. Many challenges have been overcome and many of the organizations involved forecast future international collaborations based on the backing this project has received. Karen Haver, Berks Art Council Executive Director, has been following this project since its early stages and comments, 'Berks County has a long history of embracing the arts. This project is a very exciting opportunity to showcase our community as an international arts destination'.
An opening reception at Studio B, Boyertown is planned for Friday, Feb. 15 from 5 to 8 p.m, The event is free. There will be live art by Root222 and video screening by Chris and Paul Czainski.
Public creative workshops will be held at Studio B, Boyertown and Clay on Main, Oley, Saturdays, Feb. 16 and 23.
For more information, go to the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/StudioB.Boyertown/events or visit www.clayonmain.org/index.php


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Motorola RAZR V3m Pictures
Motorola RAZR V3m is based on the famous and successful V3c CDMA phone. It has exactly the same design, camera, and display, but adds a slot for microSD cards to expand the memory for storing music. It also supports stereo sound through the miniUSB (EMU) port. V3m features EV-DO, internet explorer, and BREW


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Wednesday, September 30, 2015
September 30 - Jerome, Ascetic, Translator, Doctor of the Church
As he looked back upon his life, Jerome could remember all too well those days that he had gone to the catacombs with shame on his face and guilt in his mind. He had enjoyed the festivities of the night before but the faces of his mother and father haunted him the morning after. They had raised him within the embrace of the Faith but he had found the World more persuasive once he was beyond their physical reach. Their faith could not save him but it could pester him and point him toward a life unlike his own. The education he was receiving was excellent but it left him on his own and to his own devices. Like all of us, Jerome's own devices couldn't save him but were more than capable of ruining him.
So, Jerome descended into the catacombs and walked among the bodies of the Christian dead. Running his hands over the inscriptions of the names of the martyrs, his guilt only deepened. The Faith that had motivated and animated them seemed conspicuously absent in his own life. He tried to fill up that void with pleasure and carnal delight and it took his mind off of his brokenness--for a moment. Ultimately, though, life would come crashing back upon him after his all-too-short reprieve. With it came the guilt that sent him underground to the dead. The light filtered down meagerly in solitary shafts of illumination that would cast the dark aside for a small section of the earthy tunnels. But, then, he moved onward and back into the darkness. In his life, the light of the faith of his mother and father would intrude upon his brilliance and fame and remind him of a life more abundant and free that still haunted his dreams and hopes. But, then, he moved onward in his life and found only more darkness and loneliness.
These late night and early morning trips to the halls of the dead were a type of penance for Jerome but they were simultaneously self-torturing and self-revealing. Jerome converted and was baptized. Further, he followed his own maxim well: "Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied." His asceticism is still regarded as extreme and devoted. He was unwillingly ordained upon the condition that he could continue a lifestyle of asceticism and disconnection from the world. His gifted mind helped him to translate the scripture from Hebrew and Greek into Latin to make one of the most influential translations in the history of the scripture: the Vulgate. He worked for unity and orthodoxy within the Church and, yet, remained disconnected from it because of some incredible desire for ascetic righteousness and otherness. He was willing to serve as a pastoral caregiver to any who sought it and, yet, he was equally comfortable in solitude and the lonely work of translation.
Reflecting back upon his walks among the dead and the importance of the lives of the martyrs for him, he wrote, "We do not worship the relics of the martyrs, but honor them in our worship of Him whose martyrs they are. We honor the servants in order that the respect paid to them may be reflected back to the Lord." For Jerome, this statement was a statement faith in practice that told much of how he found his way to the Faith of his parents. He had been ferried to repentance by shame and along the way that his father, mother, brothers, and sisters had prepared for him by living out a faith that stood in opposition to the vanities of life. Jerome died outside of Bethlehem in the year 420 having contributed mightily to the study of scripture and his Lord Jesus Christ.
Posted by Joshua Hearne at 7:00 AM
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Kira's CARMEN (Toreador) & her Piano Performance
"ARIAS & ARABESQUES" was the name award-winning dancer/choreographer Kira Seamon gave to her unique concept of combining live opera with ballet in a concert setting!!!...Hughly popular with a cross-over audience, "ARIAS & ARABESQUES" was developed by Kira further to include more singers and a larger cast...Eventually, her A & A concerts numbered more than 20 in the cast. This super flirty TOREADOR DANCE and piano performance was filmed by her PUBLIC TV STATION, as part of an 1.5 hour documentary they did on her choreography and dancing. Choreography, dancing, video design, graphic design, costume design, concept by Kira Seamon. As one of the most popular and successful dancer/choreographers in New England, she celebrates having over 180,000 total views of all her artistic works including her blogs, websites, videos, books, films, photography and more!!!


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The first Shabbos after Pesach it is customary to bake 'schlissel challah' (schlissel is Yiddish for key). Some bake a key into the challah while others shape the challah in the form of a key. The key symbolizes the opening of gates of sustenance and livelihood. After leaving Egypt, in the desert the Jewish people ate from the manna until after Pesach upon entering the land at which point they ate from the produce of the land, and became dependent on their livelihood for the first time (now they had no manna). The key in the challah after Pesach symbolizes our request that G-d should open the gates of livelihood for us too.
Start by rolling up some foil for the middle key hole. I used 1/5 of a 5lb challah dough. Divide your dough into 2 pieces, one larger then the other.
Divide the first part into three parts.
Braid the dough into a 16 inch rope. You can make it a bit shorter and stretch it out. Form it into a circle.
With the second part, again divide into three parts, form three long ropes and braid into an 18 inch braid.
Place onto a lined baking pan. Forming the two parts into a key.
Wrap the foil roll with some baking paper (or grease it well). Place the roll into the key hole of the key to maintain its shape.
Let rise for 30 minutes, covered. Brush with an egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
May this coming year be filled with success and happiness.


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At the 2013 New York Film Critics Circle Awards (NYFCC), English filmmaker Steve McQueen was named Best Director for his stunning adaptation of Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir Twelve Years a Slave. While McQueen didn't pick up the same trophy at the Golden Globes a few weeks later, he arguably took home that night's biggest prize when 12 Years a Slave was named the best drama of the year by the Hollywood Foreign Press. Having been nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, expect the film and its auteur to garner several more golden statues. Just don't expect the drama to be confined to the movie itself.
When McQueen went up to receive his honor at the NYFCC Awards, someone in the crowd allegedly shouted: "You're an embarrassing doorman and a garbage man! Fuck you. Kiss my ass." Most media outlets identified the heckler as City Arts film critic and provocateur Armond White, though White has denied the charge in his typically self-aggrandizing (perhaps justified) fashion.1 Even if White didn't try to publically humiliate McQueen, the fact that he has been accused of doing so isn't shocking. White, film criticism's most notorious gadfly, is the most prominent and caustic critic of McQueen's nearly universally lauded film.
White's opinions aren't frivolous and uniformed, and it isn't simple trolling when he calls 12 Years a Slave "torture porn" in his City Arts review, likening it to the Saw franchise and the—quite literally—execrable Human Centipede. 12 Years a Slave does depict slavery as a "horror show" at the expense of portraying the inner lives of slaves and the relationships they forged under totalitarian circumstances, but in doing so it does not ally itself with slasher films or low-budget thrillers like Paranormal Activity, which are practically minting money at the box office. Instead, it combines gothic terror tropes with classic Hollywood narrative and aesthetic elements to call into question the American variation on the desire to be terrorized by the supernatural, the psychosadistic, and the patently absurd. Our history is laced with horrors we can't bear to look at and think about for more than the length of a television news report or tweet, yet we continue to seek out the next great scare in the most unlikely scenarios. McQueen understands that the limits of this search will not be reached when horror films get too bizarre, but rather when they depict the horror too close to home, the horror that helped build the United States and continues to haunt us.
|Solomon Northup in his "plantation suit," ca. 1853. Engraving from Solomon Northrup's Twelve Years a Slave (Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853). From Archive.org.
12 Years a Slave was an important American story long before Steve McQueen put it on screen, and it was a part of a much more critical national discussion than the one about what Armond White did or didn't say. Released in the wake of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Solomon Northup's 1853 slave narrative was the kind of "as-told-to" tale that was central to the abolitionist project. It presented northern white audiences with a sympathetic figure, a professional and classically cultured black family man living in Saratoga Springs, New York, who was kidnapped into slavery by agents offering him a brief, lucrative job playing his violin in Washington, DC. Northup, portrayed in the film with subtle opacity and strength by Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, would spend over a decade in bondage under the mistaken identity of a runaway slave from Georgia, hiding the fact that he was once a free man from most of the people he met in order to avoid even more brutal treatment. Northup's masters ranged from being relatively kind to besotted and brutal. His captivity ended, due in no small part to a white Canadian itinerant abolitionist (played in the film by Brad Pitt, who also was one of the movie's producers) who got word to Northup's friends in New York.2 In the end of both the film and his memoir, Northup is reunited with his family, but those who caused his ordeal are never brought to justice. The world then lost track of Northup, as the date, place, and manner of his death remain unknown.
|Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, 2013. © FoxSearchlight.
Like McQueen's previous two films, 2008's Hunger and 2011's Shame, 12 Years a Slave is gorgeously shot, edited with a jeweler's eye, and uses its sound design to bleed scenes into one another. This technical proficiency is part of what makes 12 Years a Slave, like its predecessors, at times excruciatingly difficult to watch. Two scenes of extended torture are among the most perfectly framed in the entire film. The first, an uncomfortably long shot of Northup hanging by his neck just low enough to the ground that he can touch his toes to the mud that continuously slips out from under them, shows us how alone every slave ultimately was. It is implied that Northup hangs for hours, while other slaves who have a chance to cut him down continue with their chores, trying not to get involved. It is important to note that Northup was not strung up by his relatively benign master William Ford (played by a pitch-perfectly milquetoast Benedict Cumberbatch), but rather by an indebted carpenter (Paul Dano) working on the plantation who was jealous of Northup's intelligence and rapport with his master. When Ford eventually finds Northup, he cuts him down and apologizes. The other slaves likely knew this would happen given their master's temperament and earlier treatment of Northup. Still, the carpenter was a white man, and one who felt within his rights to hang one of Ford's slaves as payback for an earlier altercation. Cutting down their fellow slave could have led to a quick death if the enraged carpenter were still lurking around the plantation. The film's isolation of Northup, and therefore all of the slaves, within a crowd, speaks of the culture of privilege that allowed white men with even miniscule amounts of authority to destroy social bonds through sanctioned violence.
The second major scene of torture takes this idea to its logical endpoint. After the incident with the carpenter, Northup is sold to Edwin Epps, a notoriously brutal, drunken, and crazed plantation owner hauntingly portrayed by McQueen's muse, Michael Fassbender. Ford does this after Northup reveals that he is a free man wrongly imprisoned—establishing that an evil cultural logic guided even "good" slave masters. On Epps's plantation, Northup finds it difficult to learn the skill of picking cotton and is whipped when his haul is below average. Patsey, a young slave woman whose picking prowess makes Northup look particularly bad, is the apple of Epps's deranged eye. He drips honeyed, violent words on her and rapes her later in the film. Epps's obvious lust does not sit well with his wife, a prototypical icy mistress made even colder by Sarah Paulson's performance. She begs her husband to beat Patsey, only to be rebuffed until Epps thinks that Patsey has snuck off to another plantation to sleep with its lecherous owner. Patsey actually had gone to get soap to wash off the filth of suffering under Epps. What follows are some of the most stunning and horrifying few minutes in mainstream film.
|Sarah Paulson as Mistress Epps and Lupita Nyong'o as Patsey, 2013. © FoxSearchlight.
In an attempt to break (but not kill) two slaves with one whip, Epps binds Patsey to a post and demands that Northup lash her. This order is all the more heartbreaking because earlier in the film Patsey, portrayed in an Oscar-nominated performance by Lupita Nyong'o, asked Northup to drown her as an act of mercy, a request he refused for fear of going to hell. As Patsey stands stripped and Northup holds the whip in his hand, they might as well already be there. Forced to obey his master, Northup whips Patsey, but not hard enough for the liking of Mistress Epps. Eventually, Epps takes over and cuts Patsey's back to ribbons, each stroke of the whip sending a fine mist of blood into the air above Patsey's head. As viewers, we see the shot from just in front of Patsey, foregrounding her agony, but not letting us forget its wicked source, the gradual diminishment of her vitality, and the protagonist powerless to end her suffering. In one shot, McQueen forces us to confront the perverse horror of slavery without the filters of history, text, or, as is the case in Quentin Tarentino's Django Unchained, a film that many critics have compared to 12 Years a Slave, the stylized detachment of "cool" violence. This scene is overheated, but not overdone, torture, but not porn.
If these two scenes were the only striking moments in 12 Years a Slave, it would still be one of the most significant artistic renderings of American slavery. But what makes it a contender to take home multiple Oscars is that it depicts the terror of slavery and institutionalized racism on multiple registers. Indeed, two other scenes in the film brought me back to Jean Toomer's gothic dramatic short story "Kabnis," from his 1923 poetic novel Cane. "Kabnis" offers a suffocating account of Jim Crow racism wherein the reader follows the mixed-race Fred Kabnis underground in Georgia, where the mystical figure of Father John tells him that the great sin occurred when "th [sic] white folks made the Bible lie" (116). Likewise, one of the creepiest scenes in 12 Years a Slave is when Epps preaches a gospel to his chattel that justifies and demands their subservience to his will. By making "th [sic] Bible lie," slave owners like Epps helped cement cultural attitudes that survived the Civil War and Reconstruction to terrorize African Americans in the US South deep into the twentieth century. To this day, we hear the echoes of this sermon in political rhetoric that demonizes the Civil Rights Act and blames welfare programs, not the entrenched racism that found its justification in twisted interpretations of the Bible, for the poverty of African Americans.3
The gothic trope of entrapment that Toomer dramatizes by having the climactic scene of "Kabnis" take place underground is figured aboveground in 12 Years a Slave. At one point during his captivity on the Epps plantation (time in the film feels distorted and out of joint, a product of the never-ending nature of enslavement), Mistress Epps asks Northup to go to the store to pick up some goods. He is given a list and an identifying tag and sent on his way. For a brief moment we can see on Northup's face the hope that he might be able to escape. He isn't being watched, save by the God who allegedly demands his servitude, and the woods around him seem to provide endless routes to freedom. But quite quickly, Northup stumbles upon a group of white men preparing to lynch a few black men. The audience immediately imagines Northup being added to this execution, but he is saved when one of the lynchers reads his tag and sends him on his way as the other men are hanged. Deep in Louisiana, there's nowhere for Northup to run, so he must retrieve the mistress's goods and head "home." This echoes a theme that would become central to the works of African American writers from Richard Wright to Toni Morrison to Mos Def: in America, the only way for a young black man to survive is to play by the rules he had no role in writing.
Of course, there are parts of the stories of slavery and of Northup's life that McQueen's film leaves out. We never learn what Northup's family was doing during his twelve years of captivity, and while we are presented with a couple of scenes of slaves ministering to each other's wounds, sleeping, and talking about their awful conditions, there's very little of the mundane in the movie. In this sense, 12 Years a Slave is again like a horror film: terror builds upon terror, pushing all else into the background, only to release the viewer and Northup back into polite society, still in shock. However, unlike horror film franchises that dream up a slightly new scenario for the inevitable "two years later" sequels, we know that there will be no break in the violence, both casual and spectacular, on Epps's plantation. Every night has the potential for slaves to be called from their quarters and forced to dance, bleary-eyed and aching, for their master's pleasure. Every day has the potential to be the day that the mistress will throw a cut glass decanter into the face of a perceived rival for her husband's attention.And even when the Civil War ended, and with it the South's peculiar institution, the legacy of slavery's totalitarian racism lived on. This is the "horror show" McQueen's film walks its viewers through, and Armond White is correct that this choice certainly limits our understanding of the complexity of the lives of individual slaves. But in doing so, 12 Years a Slave challenges audiences that shell out hundreds of millions of dollars a year in search of terror to look behind and around them at our streets, our prisons, our decaying urban schools, and the slave trade that still keeps many women bound to men every bit as bad as Edwin Epps. Viewers numbed by years of cheap thrills need a film like this to remind them that horror is real and persistent, especially if you try to ignore it.
About the Author
Daniel Pecchenino is a lecturer in the writing program at the University of Southern California.
- 1. David Denby, "Privilege and Bad Manners," The New Yorker, January 7, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/01/steve-mcqueen-armond-white-controversy.html. In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, White refers to himself as "the strongest voice that exists in contemporary criticism," and claims that several influential New York film critics are using the concocted incident as a chance to convene a "Communist-style special 'Emergency Meeting' supposedly in the interest of legislating 'decorum'—a meeting based entirely upon something that none of them actually heard and one that is really intended to purge me from the Circle." See Scott Feinberg, "Embattled Film Critic Armond White: I Never Heckled Steve McQueen," The Hollywood Reporter, January 7, 2014, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/embattled-film-critic-armond-white-669032.
- 2. Pitt's presence in the film is one of 12 Years a Slave's few missteps. Having such a recognizable star come in and play a kind of angel figure distracts us from both the miracle of Northup's staying alive and the power of Ejiofor's performance. Had the role been played by a younger, less well-known actor, it would have highlighted the randomness of Northup's delivery from bondage. This problematic choice to cast Pitt (perhaps made by Pitt himself in his role as producer) has had repercussions outside of the film itself, as a poster advertising 12 Years a Slave's Italian release featured a huge headshot of Pitt looming over a much smaller full-body profile of Ejiofor. The poster was quickly recalled, but not before it led to a backlash from critics who felt the marketing was focusing on the film's white stars (there was also a poster featuring Michael Fassbender, who at least has a lot of screen time) at the expense of its two black leads, Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong'o. The poster was made by a third-party distributor and reflects a long-term problem Hollywood has had in marketing films focusing on people of color, particularly in international markets.
- 3. Recently, Phil Robertson, one of the stars of the astoundingly popular A&E television show Duck Dynasty, gave an interview to GQ in which he said (among many other things) that: "I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash. We're going across the field. . . . They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people'—not a word! . . . Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues." See Drew Magary, "Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson Gives Drew Magary a Tour," GQ, January 2014, http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson.


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Today sees publication of the policymakers' summary for the third working group of the IPCC, the international organization that is attempting to deal with the global climate change crisis. Last month we reported on the publication of Working Group II's summary on "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," and now it's Working Group III's turn with "Mitigation of Climate Change."
Where the last report involved describing what effect anthropogenic climate change was having on the planet, this newest part of the Fourth Assessment Report concerns itself with looking at the costs and benefits that will be associated with minimizing the extent of the damage to the planet's climate and adapting to the changes already underway.
The message from Working Group III is an optimistic one. Utilizing four different scenarios for the future, it lays out two different categories of management strategies. Bottom-up strategies involve the use of technology and practices that are sector-specific: cleaner engine technology in cars, switching from fossil fuel power stations to nuclear and other non-carbon energy sources, increasing industrial efficiency, and so on. Top-down strategies are macroeconomic in scale and assume a concerted global effort to use markets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) levels.
Both bottom-up and top-down models find that there is economic benefit to mitigating CO2 and other GHG emissions, which have risen by 70 percent since 1970 and could almost double within the next 25 years if we carry on as usual.
Essentially, the message is similar to the Stern Review, but on a global scale: the price of inaction is going to be far higher than tackling global climate change.


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Free Saturday night music concert series
The Region's Fastest Growing (and most relevant) "Edu-tainment" Event...Riverfront Nights...back for its 13th Year!
Friends of the Festival is excited to be able to lift the curtain on the dates and musical lineup of the area's most awaited series of outdoor concerts...all containing the most important lifestyle elements that have given the city such momentum and positive publicity over the last few years.
Riverfront Nights focuses on local people and institutions who promote healthy lifestyles, sustainable development/business practices and, of course, an intense love of outdoor, adrenaline producing recreation...widely considered to be the three legged stool that's given our town a step-up and over our neighboring municipalities around the southeast.
All shows are child and pet friendly, although coolers are not allowed. Doors open and beer sales begin at 6:30pm. Local opening bands start around 7pm and headliners kick into high gear promptly at 8pm and play till 10-ish. Please join us at Ross's Landing at 201 Riverfront Parkway.
Check out our Videos
Kuntry Kickoff for 2014 Series: Kickoff Night for 2014
Festival TV Spot: Snapshot of this great Series
Check out the 2013 Montage: 2013 Montage
The Commonheart: The Commonheart
West End Blend: West End Blend
Travers Brothership: Travers Brothership
The Mighty Pines: The Mighty Pines
The Hi-Jivers: The Hi-Jivers
Brownout: Brownout
More Information
Check out Riverfront Nights on Facebook at www.facebook.com/riverfrontnights.


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Information For
Upon recognizing a student in need of assistance, Jefferson faculty and staff can help students get connected with the Student Personal Counseling Center by informing them about the services available through the SPCC and supporting them in making an appointment. Many students may be hesitant to make that "first step" in seeking counseling, so giving them some information about the process can do a lot to help.
Faculty Brochure (PDF)
To schedule an appointment to see a SPCC counselor, Jefferson students can call the SPCC at (215) 503-2817 or from an on-campus phone, can call 5-HELP for counseling, health services, and support group information at Jefferson. It is helpful to inform students that they may get the SPCC voicemail and should leave their name and contact information on the confidential voicemail. An SPCC counselor will return their call within one business day.
All Thomas Jefferson University students are eligible for three visits without charge. During the initial meeting, students will develop a course of action with their counselor, which may include continuing therapy on campus or receiving a referral to an off-campus provider. Occasionally, one session proves sufficient. In some situations, the student decides to see a counselor on an ongoing basis.
For students who desire or need ongoing counseling, SPCC counselors are in-network with a limited number of insurance providers. The SPCC accepts the United HealthCare Student Resources Plan offered by Thomas Jefferson University. If students have questions about fees and eligibility, they should be encouraged to call the SPCC.
JeffHELP is a grant funded project aimed at developing a sustainable mental health awareness and suicide prevention program for the entire Jefferson community through:
H – Heightened Awareness
E – Educational Enhancements
L – Linkages to Services
P – Promoting Healthy Behaviors
Participation in JeffHELP is open to every member of the Jefferson community; all students, faculty, and staff. We are looking for motivated individuals to assist in all aspects of the project, from attending planning meetings to distributing materials to generating new ideas to present before senior leadership at Jefferson. Everyone is welcome and no amount of involvement is too small.
Please contact Rose Milani, or (215) 503-6456. Or come visit us at www.JeffHELP.org


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Obama says he regrets how she was treated, praises her for putting national interests first.
After months of criticism for her response to the terrorist attack in Benghazi, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has withdrawn her name from consideration for secretary of State, the White House said on Thursday.
Amid heavy pressure from Republican opponents and potential political backlash if she were nominated to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rice said in a letter to President Obama that she wanted to avoid a distraction.
"The position of Secretary of State should never be politicized," she said in the letter. "As someone who grew up in an era of comparative bipartisanship and as a sitting U.S. national security official who has served in two U.S. Administrations, I am saddened that we have reached this point, even before you have decided whom to nominate. We cannot afford such an irresponsible distraction from the most pressing issues facing the American people."
Rice also thanked the president for his "unwavering confidence." Obama said in a statement that Rice was "an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant," and regretted how she was treated in recent months.
"While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first," Obama said in a statement. "The American people can be proud to have a public servant of her caliber and character representing our country."
Congressional Republicans, including Armed Services ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., have for months decried the Obama administration's changing account of the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. And despite meeting with her critics, she failed to ease their concerns.
Whether a Rice nomination would be able to pass the Senate was in question, with Republicans blasting Rice's appearance on television shows in which she said the September 11 attack began as a spontaneous protest linked to anger over an anti-Muslim film, instead of calling it a terrorist attack.
The announcement means that the other top contender for the post, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., may have a clearer shot. However, if Kerry leaves the chamber, fellow Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican, would have the opportunity to regain the Senate seat he lost to Democrat Elizabeth Warren in the November elections. Democrats, having already spent almost $40 million to boost Brown, may not be able to overcome him in a special election.
NBC News first reported her decision. Rice will also appear on Rock Center with Brian Williams on Thursday night.


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"It's pretty simple when you lay the facts out about retreads to fleets: they'll save them a lot of dad-gum money." -Robert "Bobby" Ford, assistant center manager, Goodyear Truck Care Center, Dallas TX.
Got a chance to sit down with Ford and Scott Schranck the other day and talk not only about how retreading truck tires can save fleets money but also about how proper tire maintenance can save them even more - and may determine whether fleets get an opportunity to retread their tires or not.
(Scott Schranck checks over tires being readied for inspection and then retreading. The barcode Scott is pointing to allows Wingfoot to track each tire individually for fleet customers -- vital when it comes to compiling wear pattern evidence that may reveal alignment or other wheel issues.)
Schranck, regional business operations manager for Wingfoot Commercial Tire Systems LLC - the retreading arm of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. - explained to me that the economics of retreads is pretty simple. "On average, a retread is one-third the price of a new tire and is much more environmentally friendly," he says.
[Below, Bobby Ford highlights the types of irregular wear that can damage truck tires -- preventing them in some cases from being retreaded.]
Industry figures note that it takes 22 gallons of oil to manufacture one new truck tire, most of it used to make the tire casing, which is then reused in the retreading process. As a result, it takes only 7 gallons of oil to retread a tire - and that's why retreading helps save annually more than 400 million gallons of oil in North America.
According to retreading expert Marvin Bozarth, one-time executive director of the former American Retreaders Association (now merged into the Tire Industry Association), more than 33.5 million tires on North American commercial vehicles wear out and must be replaced every year - and 16.5 million, or nearly 49% of them, will be retreads.
("Old style" retreading: this is where new tread is carefully stitched on manually once a tire clears inspection, the old tread is "buffed" off and any minor nicks and dings are repaired.)
"[Truck] fleets favor retreads over new tires because it makes economic sense," he says. "That's because the cost of a retread is typically 30% to 50% lower than a new tire."
In addition, the quality of retreads has improved in recent years to the point where they provide comparable life and performance to new tires, Bozarth adds. "In the 1960s and 70s, treads would wear out in 60,000 to 70,000 miles," he explains. "Now a retread tire can go 200,000 miles or more, depending upon the wheel position and application. The tire construction has improved and today's tread compounds are more resistant to heat so they wear better."
For example, the Buy Recycled Business Alliance (BRBA), an offshoot of the National Recycling Coalition formed in 1992 in partnership with 25 major American businesses, said that when the original tread is worn off the casing of a large truck tire, less than 30% of the tire investment is realized. Retreading can recover the rest of the investment, the group notes.
(These retreads are being loaded into the "chamber" where they will be "cooked" or vulcanized so the new tread firmly adheres to the old casing. As you can imagine, this process creates a lot of heat -- and with three chambers in Wingfoot's Dallas location in operation at any one time, added to the outside temperature on a typical summer day of over 100 degrees, being inside the building is like being in a sauna at times.)
Thing is, though, truckers won't get the benefits of retreading if they don't care for their tires properly in the first place, stressed Goodyear's Ford. "Tire wear comes from heat, generated by frication on the pavement and low tire pressure," he says. "The lower the tire's air pressure, the hotter it will run and the faster it will wear out. And we're talking about running 10% to 15% under-inflated here, too."
That includes not only maintaining proper tire inflation pressure but also pulling the tire before all of the original tread is used up - usually between 6/32nd and 5/32nd of tread depth, according to tire industry averages. Go below that and you risk damaging the tire casing and thus eliminating the possibility of retreading that tire.
I also toured Goodyear's Wingfoot retreading facility down here in Dallas, TX, to get a glimpse of all the technology and care being expended on retreads - largely because more and more fleets in these tight economic times are beginning to realize retreads can save them some serious money.
[And of course, I could NOT resist the chance to have some fun, as the video below illustrates ...]
"Typically, it takes a full day - one 12 hour shift - to go through the entire retread process for one tire," Ford told me, trying to be heard above the din of tires being buffed, repaired, then retreaded. "Naturally, when fleets are sending us hundreds of casings at a time, we can't turn them all around that fast, so we typically offer a seven-day turnaround window for them."
About 75% of truck tire wear during the year occurs between April and October, leading to a falloff in retreading activity during the remaining months - the biggest drop from December through February - simply because the heat brought on by spring and summer temperatures is a major tire killer.
"It all depends on the state, though," adds Schranck. "Florida, where it's warm almost all year round, only sees a 10% drop in business over those months, whereas in an area like Dallas we may see a 20% to 25% drop."
(Good as new: once vulcanized, painted and tagged, retreads get stacked in preparation for shipping back to customer fleet terminals -- by trucks, of course.)
Ford stresses, though, that it all goes back to properly taking care of tires. "You must keep them properly inflated - not only does that prevent irregular wear, it improves fuel economy as well," he says. "Take care of your tires and you'll save a lot of money over time."


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Finding a trusted reputable moving company serving Seminole Manor can be time consuming. No one wants to spend the time to research 10 moving companies to determine who you can trust with your belongings. That's why we are here to help you with all you're moving needs.
Fill out our online form below and receive free moving quotes from moving companies that service Seminole Manor.
Our moving quotes form is simple and fast! It asks only for your basic move information. Receiving moving quotes could not be easier.
The moving companies are fully equipped to move an entire home or apartment, or simply one piece of furniture. They can help you plan well in advance of your move, or quickly assist you in an urgent or immediate situation. The moving professionals serving Seminole Manor have specially trained crews for moving art, antiques, and pianos.
In completing the form, you can view our moving guides, moving tips, and a printable moving checklist to help you save time and money with your move!
The Professional Movers provides Moving Services to these major cities in Pinellas County:
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Youth Financial Literacy Foundation
The YFL Foundation provides opportunity and knowledge regarding personal finances, credit and budgeting to students across the United States. Striving to create a future of positive financial habits, YFL's mission is to educate and prepare children and teens through interactive activities, events and scholarship opportunities.
Financial Education Services donates $2 from every FES Protection Plan payment to the Youth Financial Literacy Foundation. As a member, you'll not only gain financial benefits for yourself, but participate in creating a financially prepared future for today's youth.


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When will politicians learn to speak the truth?
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) looks like he may be facing a fresh political firestorm.
Dodd just admitted on CNN that he inserted a loophole in the stimulus legislation that allowed million-dollar bonuses to insurance giant AIG to go forward – after previously denying any involvement in writing the controversial provision. .
"We wrote the language in the bill, the deal with bonuses, golden parachutes, excessive executive compensation that was adopted unanimously by the United States Senate in the stimulus bill," Dodd told CNN's Wolf Blitzer this afternoon.
"But for that language, there would have been no language to deal with this at all."
Dodd had previously said that he played no role in writing the controversial language, and was not a part of the conference committee that inserted the language in the bill. As late as today, Dodd's spokeswoman denied the senator's involvement.
The AIG bonuses have caused a political firestorm, with Republicans and Democrats alike looking to lay blame for who's responsible, and leading lawmakers looking to revoke the bonuses.
Dodd's role in the legislation will likely come up as he faces the likelihood of a tough re-election. Former GOP congressman Rob Simmons announced he was running this week, and has already taken issue with Dodd's stewardship as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.