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Accompanied by his photographer and his personal assistant, Li Yang stepped into a Beijing classroom and shouted, "Hello, everyone!" The students applauded. Li, the founder, head teacher, and editor-in-chief of Li Yang Crazy English, wore a dove-gray turtleneck and a black car coat. His hair was set off by a faint silver streak. It was January, and Day Five of China's first official English-language intensive-training camp for volunteers to the 2008 Summer Olympics, and Li was making the rounds. The classes were part of a campaign that is more ambitious than anything previous Olympic host cities have attempted. China intends to teach itself as much English as possible by the time the guests arrive, and Li has been brought in by the Beijing Organizing Committee to make that happen. He is China's Elvis of English, perhaps the world's only language teacher known to bring students to tears of excitement. He has built an empire out of his country's deepening devotion to a language it once derided as the tongue of barbarians and capitalists. His philosophy, captured by one of his many slogans, is flamboyantly patriotic: "Conquer English to Make China Stronger!"
Li peered at the students and called them to their feet. They were doctors in their thirties and forties, handpicked by the city's hospitals to work at the Games. If foreign fans and coaches get sick, these are the doctors they will see. But, like millions of English learners in China, the doctors have little confidence speaking this language that they have spent years studying by textbook. Li, who is thirty-eight, has made his name on an E.S.L. technique that one Chinese newspaper called English as a Shouted Language. Shouting, Li argues, is the way to unleash your "international muscles." Shouting is the foreign-language secret that just might change your life.
Li stood before the students, his right arm raised in the manner of a tent revivalist, and launched them into English at the top of their lungs. "I!" he thundered. "I!" they thundered back.
"Tem! Per! Ture!"
"Tem! Per! Ture!"
One by one, the doctors tried it out. "I would like to take your temperature!" a woman in stylish black glasses yelled, followed by a man in a military uniform. As Li went around the room, each voice sounded a bit more confident than the one before. (How a patient might react to such bluster was anyone's guess.)
To his fans, Li is less a language teacher than a testament to the promise of self-transformation. In the two decades since he began teaching, at age nineteen, he has appeared before millions of Chinese adults and children. He routinely teaches in arenas, to classes of ten thousand people or more. Some fans travel for days to see him. The most ardent spring for a "diamond degree" ticket, which includes bonus small-group sessions with Li. The list price for those seats is two hundred and fifty dollars a day—more than a full month's wages for the average Chinese worker. His students throng him for autographs. On occasion, they send love letters.
There is another widespread view of Li's work that is not so flattering. "The jury is still out on whether he actually helps people learn English," Bob Adamson, an English-language specialist at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, said. The linguist Kingsley Bolton, an authority on English study in China, calls Li's approach "huckster nationalism." The most serious charge—one that in recent months has threatened to undo everything Li has built—holds that the frenzied crowds, and his exhortations, tap a malignant strain of populism that China has not permitted since the Cultural Revolution.
"I have seen this kind of agitation," Wang Shuo, one of China's most influential novelists, wrote in an essay on Li. "It's a kind of old witchcraft: Summon a big crowd of people, get them excited with words, and create a sense of power strong enough to topple mountains and overturn the seas."
Wang went on, "I believe that Li Yang loves the country. But act this way and your patriotism, I fear, will become the same shit as racism."__
The global headquarters of Li Yang Crazy English holds about two hundred employees (another two hundred work nationwide) and sprawls across four floors of an office building in the southern city of Guangzhou. Li is rarely there. He likes hotels. Even in Beijing, where he shares an apartment with his wife and their two daughters, he often keeps a hotel room nearby so that he can work without distraction. (A third daughter from a previous marriage lives with her mother in Canada.)
For several days this winter, Li and his lieutenants were ensconced in the presidential suite on the top floor of Guangzhou's Ocean Hotel. The suite was furnished in a modern clubby style: a faux fireplace, white leather couches, a cavernous Jacuzzi, a large wooden model of a schooner. Fresh air was needed. Li had just wrapped up an annual marathon of meetings with managers from around the country, and a dozen young men and women were huddled, heavy-lidded, over laptops. He fiddled with the thermostat and threw open the curtains to reveal a view, from the twenty-sixth floor, of dun-colored apartment blocks and blue-glass high-rises twinkling in the sun.
He sat down on a couch and began explaining to me a list of new projects, including a retail plan that would create, in his words, the Starbucks of English education. "People would get off work and just go to the Crazy English Tongue Muscle Training House and then go back home," he said. "Just like a gym."
Li's name adorns more than a hundred books, videos, audio boxed sets, and software packages, such as the "Li Yang Crazy English Blurt Out MP3 Collection," which sells for sixty-six yuan—a little more than nine dollars—and his motivational memoir, which costs twenty yuan. He encourages companies to buy the memoir, whose Chinese title translates as "I Am Crazy, I Succeed," in bulk for employees; orders of a thousand copies or more receive a forty-per-cent discount. (The original title used a word that implied "I Am Psychotic, I Succeed," but the publishing house rejected it.) Most of Li's products bear one of his portraits: well groomed, rimless glasses, a commanding grin. He says that he has no idea precisely how many books he has sold over the years. One of his publishers (he has several) estimates that the figure is in the millions.
China has been in the grip of "English fever," as the phenomenon is known in Chinese, for more than a decade. A vast national appetite has elevated English to something more than a language: it is not simply a tool but a defining measure of life's potential. China today is divided by class, opportunity, and power, but one of its few unifying beliefs—something shared by waiters, politicians, intellectuals, tycoons—is the power of English. Every college freshman must meet a minimal level of English comprehension, and it's the only foreign language tested. English has become an ideology, a force strong enough to remake your résumé, attract a spouse, or catapult you out of a village. Linguists estimate the number of Chinese now studying or speaking English at between two hundred million and three hundred and fifty million, a figure that's on the order of the population of the United States. English private schools, study gadgets, and high-priced tutors vie for pieces of that market. The largest English school system, New Oriental, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
Li long ago expanded from language instruction to personal motivation. His aphorisms mingle Mao with Edison and Teddy Roosevelt. Li's shtick is puckish and animated. He mocks China's rigid classroom rules, and directs his students to hold his books in the air, face the heavens, and shout in unison—a tactic known in Crazy English and other teaching circles as T.P.R., or total physical response, a kind of muscle memory for the brain. His yelling occupies a specific register: to my ear, it's not quite the shriek reserved for alerting someone to an oncoming truck, but it's more urgent than a summons to the dinner table.
Li's cosmology ties the ability to speak English to personal strength, and personal strength to national power. It's a combination that produces intense, sometimes desperate adoration. A student named Feng Tao told me that on one occasion, realizing that he had enough cash for tuition to an out-of-town Li lecture but not enough for train fare, "I went and sold blood." Collect a crowd of those fans and the atmosphere can be overwhelming. "There have been times when I've had to run in, or ask someone bigger, a guy, to go pull my daughter out of a crowd that is just pushing so much that I'm scared," Li's wife, Kim, an American teacher who met him on a trip to China nine years ago, said. "Those aren't like a 'Wow, he's famous' moment. Those are like an 'Oh, God—this is out-of-control famous' moment."
Li's indispensable asset is his voice, a full-throated pitchman's baritone. He delivers it in an accent of his own creation that veers between Texan and Midwestern, stretched by roomy vowels. He has spent only a few weeks in the United States and Great Britain, but he makes few mistakes. He exudes the restlessness of a performer who has long since mastered his repertoire. Even among professional speakers, who market their indefatigability, he is known for a startling energy level. After Li appeared in Shanghai last fall, as an interpreter for the peak-performance coach Anthony Robbins, Robbins told me, "Usually, I do my translations through headsets and burn through two or three different translators in an hour and a half to two hours—I go onstage for about ten to twelve hours a day—but he lasted the entire day." Robbins added, "It was really, really extraordinary."
At times, Li can be grandiose, comparing his business to Oprah's and claiming that he has sold "billions of copies" of his books. But at others he is self-deprecating, mocking his occasional English flubs or the strangeness of his approach. He knows that these shortcomings reinforce the image he has fashioned: that of the hardest-working man in the study of English, an archetypal Chinese citizen for the twenty-first century.
On the couch at the hotel, Li turned one of our interviews into a lecture for his employees, who crowded around to listen. (Someone recorded it on a video camera.) "How can we make Crazy English more successful?" he asked me, his voice rising. "We know that people are not going to be persistent, so we give them ten sentences a month, or one article a month, and then, when they master this, we give them a huge award, a big ceremony. Celebrate! Then we have them pay again, and we make money again."
He turned toward the assembled employees and switched to Chinese: "The secret of success is to have them continuously paying—that's the conclusion I've reached." Then back to English: "How can we make them pay again and again and again?"
In late January, China faced its worst winter weather in half a century. The blizzards coincided with the travel weekend for Lunar New Year, the most important family holiday in the Chinese calendar. The havoc was unprecedented; at a train station in Guangzhou, hundreds of thousands of stranded travellers were sprawled in the streets around the terminal.
Still, some seven hundred adults and children managed to make it to a college campus in the southern city of Conghua for Li Yang's Crazy English Intensive Winter Training Camp. In a typical travel tale, one ten-year-old boy told me that he journeyed by car for four days, with his older brother at the wheel.
The camp had a military motif: supervisors dressed in camouflage, with megaphones, escorted students in formation around the campus. Li's face could be seen on oversized posters everywhere, accompanied by English phrases. Above the stairs to the cafeteria: "Have you thought about whether you deserve the meal?" Along the plaza where they lined up before lectures: "Never let your country down!" Above the doorway leading into the arena: "At least once in your life, you should experience total craziness."
Each student received a red backpack filled with books and a matching jacket emblazoned with the words "2008 International Elite Club." Shortly before nine o'clock on opening day, the students filed into the arena. It was unheated and frigid, like their dormitories. (The previous night, I had slept in a full set of clothes and a ski hat.) In his teaching, Li associates physical toughness with the ability to speak English. At one point this winter, he announced a new campaign for "physical intelligence and ability," and posted photographs on his blog of himself on a treadmill.
A long red-carpeted catwalk sliced through the center of the crowd. After a series of preppy warmup teachers, firecrackers rent the air and Li bounded onstage. He carried a cordless microphone, and paced back and forth on the catwalk, shoulder height to the seated crowd staring up at him.
"One-sixth of the world's population speaks Chinese. Why are we studying English?" he asked. He turned and gestured to a row of foreign teachers seated behind him and said, "Because we pity them for not being able to speak Chinese!" The crowd roared.
Li professes little love for the West. His populist image benefits from the fact that he didn't learn his skills as a rich student overseas; this makes him a more plausible model for ordinary citizens. In his writings and his speeches, Li often invokes the West as a cautionary tale of a superpower gone awry. "America, England, Japan—they don't want China to be big and powerful!" a passage on the Crazy English home page declares. "What they want most is for China's youth to have long hair, wear bizarre clothes, drink soda, listen to Western music, have no fighting spirit, love pleasure and comfort! The more China's youth degenerates, the happier they are!" Recently, he used a language lesson on his blog to describe American eating habits and highlighted a new vocabulary term: "morbid obesity."
Li's real power, though, derives from a genuinely inspiring axiom, one that he embodies: the gap between the English-speaking world and the non-English-speaking world is so profound that any act of hard work or sacrifice is worth the effort. He pleads with students "to love losing face." In a video for middle- and high-school students, he said, "You have to make a lot of mistakes. You have to be laughed at by a lot of people. But that doesn't matter, because your future is totally different from other people's futures."
He strives to be as unprofessorial as possible. On book covers, he wears a suit and tie, with his cuffs rolled up to the elbow, like a bond trader. It affirms his image as the anti-intellectual who has wrested English from the grip of test proctors and college-admissions committees. At one point mid-lecture, Li called a student up from the crowd, a middle-aged man with glasses, and asked him for his story.
The man, whose name was Liu Donghua, responded in Chinese, explaining that he was the president and former editor of the magazine China Entrepreneur, in Beijing. "I just came back from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," he said. (Li, turning to the crowd, interjected, "Many of them flew in on their private jets!") The entrepreneur continued, "One of the greatest benefits was that I was irritated there—as I stood in front of thousands of the most important people in the world, I was as stupid as a fool, because my English is extremely poor."
Turning to the class, Li commended Liu's gumption: "If he goes crazy, all enterprises in China will go crazy!"
In the hours that followed, Li swooped from hectoring to inspiring; he preened for the camera; he mocked Chinese speakers with fancy college degrees. By the time the lecture ended, he had spoken for four hours, without a break, in numbing cold—and the crowd was rapt. In the days afterward, students would run together at dawn, shouting English. On the final night, they walked on a bed of hot coals. Between classes, the campus was scattered with lone learners, muttering like rabbinical students, Li's books pressed to their faces, their lips racing.
Li's parents were committed Communists who heeded Chairman Mao's call, in the late sixties, for students to train the peasantry. After college, they settled in the remote northwest province of Xinjiang, in a town so bleak and cold that the Chinese describe it as "a place haunted by the Devil." The family was privileged, with a house equipped with an indoor toilet. Li's father, Li Tiande, ran the provincial broadcasting bureau, and his mother was a senior engineer there. They were essentially high-ranking propagandists. Until he was four, Little Yang, as Li was known, lived thousands of miles from his parents, in the care of a grandmother, because his parents felt ill-equipped to raise him in rugged Xinjiang. After the family was reunited, Li's father spent most of his time on the road, returning every two or three months.
When Li Tiande was present, he was severe. Once, after Li and his friends were caught poking holes in melons on a farm, his father was incensed. "I felt I'd lost face," he told a Chinese interviewer years later. "When I got home, I hit him. This incident let everyone see that this quiet kid of few words also had another side." His mother was equally stern. She would watch as Li practiced his penmanship. If he made a mistake, she tore up the page. Even so, he remained an uninspired student.
In time, Li developed a crippling shyness. A ringing telephone unnerved him. "I would count it: one, two, three, four," he recalls. "I'd say, Should I do it? Maybe something important? A phone call for me? Still I could not. I don't know why. It's really hard, even for me now, to directly address my parents. I cannot blurt out 'Mama!' or 'Baba!' "
In high school, Li grew his hair to his shoulders and considered dropping out, but, ultimately, he enrolled in the mechanical-engineering department at Lanzhou University, in one of China's poorest provinces. He failed his classes. Wu Jianjun, an older student who taught Li, recalls, "He was very introverted. He was not good at expressing himself."
Toward the end of 1987, with a mandatory English test looming, Li and a friend decided to practice reading in an outdoor campus pavilion every day at noon. Li discovered that the louder he read, the better he felt. "I could concentrate, I felt really brave," he recalls. "If I stopped yelling, I stopped learning." He had harnessed something universal—the cloak of confidence that comes with slipping into a language not one's own—and added a Chinese twist.
On Chinese campuses, there's a tradition of reading aloud to hone pronunciation. Li simply turned up the volume. He began reciting English everywhere. "Lights-out in the dorm was at eleven o'clock," Wu Jianjun, who is now a professor of mechanical engineering, told me. "After the lights were off, he would read English in the hallway outside his room. His reading drew criticism from other students, since it disturbed their rest." But when the annual English test came around, Li told me, he took second place: "I became instantly, instantly famous."
After graduation, Li obtained a state job at an electrical-research institute, and taught English classes to groups on the side; he charged students eight yuan per month—a little more than two dollars, at the time—a fine haul in 1989. With his father's connections, he soon moved to Guangzhou as an English-language host on radio and television. After two years on the air, he was well known but bored. He quit and founded a company whose name was a phonetic spelling of "crazy": the Li Yang-Cliz International English Promotion Workshop.
He hired his sister, Li Ning, and they rented a single room, which served as both the company's headquarters and their home. They had desks but no beds, and slept on an oversized windowsill. They posted flyers for lectures, and they began to draw crowds. From across China, letters started to arrive, asking for teaching materials. Li's sister was in charge of the mail, which she carried home from the post office each day in a backpack. Soon, she needed two large nylon sacks to hold it all, and, eventually, a second person to help drag them. "Then we stayed up all night opening letters," she told me.__
There was little reason to bank on the business of teaching English. China and the language didn't have an auspicious history. In 1636, King Charles I authorized a small fleet of four ships, under the command of Captain John Weddell, to set sail for the East. The expedition headed for Canton but encountered a firefight with a Chinese fort, and more clashes ensued. As the linguistics scholar Kingsley Bolton recounts in "Chinese Englishes," an exhaustive history, the British blamed their problems partly on a failure to communicate; they had no English-Chinese translators. By the eighteenth century, though, local tradesmen in Canton had begun to make sense of the alien language. Eventually, they composed a pidgin-English vocabulary, using Chinese characters to capture the phonetics: January became "che-na-wi-le" and the west wind was "wi-sze-wun." They wrote it all down in "The Common Foreign Language of the Red-Haired People," a pamphlet of sixteen printed pages and three hundred and seventy-two entries, beginning with the numeral "one" and ending with "shoe buckle." The cover depicted a man wearing a tricornered hat and flouncy knickerbockers, and carrying a cane.
Speaking basic English was no virtue. It was the language of the compradors_,_ the middlemen, who were so roundly reviled that they had trouble finding women who would marry them. "They serve as interpreters only because they have no other means of making a livelihood," the reformist scholar Feng Guai-fen wrote. "Their nature is boorish, their knowledge shallow, and furthermore, their moral principles are mean."
China urgently needed proper English for diplomatic negotiations. Feng called for special new language schools that would provide "double rations" to talented students and expose them to foreign teachers. "There are many brilliant people in China; there must be some who can learn from the barbarians and surpass them," he wrote. And, by the twentieth century, a fresh crop of mission schools was spreading foreign languages in China in the name of God.
But when Mao Zedong took power, in 1949, he expelled the missionaries and declared Russian the primary foreign language. Within a decade, China had fewer than nine hundred secondary-school teachers of English in the entire country.
By the mid-seventies, the study of English had been cautiously restored, with limits. " 'Foreign language is a tool of class struggle.' That was one of the first English phrases we learned," Zhang Lijia, who, at the time, was a teen-ager in Nanjing and is now a bilingual author, told me. "The other was 'Long live Chairman Mao!' "
Finally, in the two decades that followed, Deng Xiaoping thrust his country into the world and returned English to prominence. __
In 1997_,_ Li was trooping from city to city. In the soot-stained industrial redoubt of Zhuzhou, in Hunan Province, he met a man with a red face and an earthy farmer's accent. Ouyang Weijian was the deputy principal of Zhuzhou No. 1 Middle School. He had first heard Li speak in the city of Changsha, and was so impressed by his "magic English-study method" that he encouraged the local board of education to invite Li to lecture in Zhuzhou. Ouyang rented the city's largest venue, the Zhuzhou Sports Stadium, but he wasn't prepared for the response. "It was a three-thousand-seat arena," Ouyang told me. "We got five thousand people."
They were an improbable pair: Li, the scion of a cosseted cadre family, and Ouyang, one of five children raised in a dirt-floor farmhouse. He was the family's only college graduate. China, in the nineties, was crackling with new ventures, and Ouyang wanted to try his own luck. He was a natural salesman—he knew "how to talk," as the Chinese expression puts it—and he thrived among backslappers. "Even after I became a principal, my desire to do something big was still not satisfied," he said. After Li spoke in Zhuzhou, Ouyang quit his job and joined him as general manager of the company.
For their first big gig together, Ouyang badgered the radio station, the schools, and the education officials in the southern city of Guilin to help him promote a show. This time, Ouyang recalls, "there were three thousand stuck waiting outside." The crowd toppled a stadium gate. The police arrived to try to control traffic on the surrounding streets. The city's vice-mayor approached Ouyang and urged him to call it off, because the temperature inside was climbing dangerously high. "I said, 'No, we can't stop now. Everybody is moving and sweating and happy. It's O.K. as long as everybody is moving. We can't stop this now.' "
With recognition came controversy. Li was harshly criticized by both newspapers and professors in the province of Guangdong and the western city of Chengdu. Yet the business continued to grow. On several occasions, Li received a rare disposition to lecture inside the ancient walls of the Forbidden City, in Beijing. He led English-yelling classes for soldiers on top of the Great Wall. A prominent Chinese filmmaker, Zhang Yuan, made a documentary entirely about Crazy English.
Li was teaching in the northern coal city of Jilin, in June, 1999, when he met Kim Lee, a tall, confident brunette from Florida who had been sent by the Miami teachers' union on a research trip to study foreign-language teaching practices. When Li introduced himself, he joked that he was a computer engineer from California. Kim brushed him off. He then approached her again, this time with the truth. "He said, 'I'm just kidding. I'm really an English teacher, and I've never even been to America,' " Kim recalls. "So, at this point, I just think this guy is a nut job."
Within days, Kim was teaching beside Li onstage. They had a natural rapport. Her dry wit and all-American looks were the perfect foil: an American Alice Kramden to his Chinese Ralph. They married four years later, in Las Vegas. Even there, on the Strip, Kim said, a Chinese shopkeeper spotted Li and chased down the newlyweds to shake his hand.
Kim was baffled, at first, by Li's antics, his fire-breathing. When she noticed how students responded, however, the educator in her came to see things differently. "This guy is really passionate about what he's doing, and, as a teacher, how can you not be moved by that?" she said. Today, she rolls her eyes at his critics—"P.C. crusaders," she calls those who object to Li's nationalism—and plays a major role in Crazy English, both as an editor and as a performing partner. In social settings and in classrooms, he often glances her way for a nod of judgment or encouragement. She has imposed a "ten-day rule" on his tours: if he's gone for more than ten days straight, she gets on a plane with the kids. ("I'm just a mom who came into a bizarre life by happenstance," she says.) While we were having dinner one night at a neighborhood restaurant near Guangzhou, Li and Kim took turns depositing shreds of chicken on a plate for their two-year-old, Lila. At one point, Li was caught up in a conversation about management styles and the toddler got her tiny hands on a drumstick. Kim nudged her husband: "So you're just going to let her eat like a Viking?"__
Last fall, Li's blog site posted photographs from a middle-school lecture in Inner Mongolia. One picture showed hundreds of students on their hands and knees, kowtowing. Bowing one's head to the ground is, in China, a potent symbol reserved mainly for honoring the dead. It was once required of visitors to the Emperor, and during the Cultural Revolution it was used as a tool of humiliation against those who were accused of committing political crimes.
The response to the photographs was swift. A columnist in the state-run China Daily pronounced Li a "demagogue," and his lectures "like cult meetings." "Cult" is a dangerous word in a country that affixed that label to the spiritual group Falun Gong nearly a decade ago and has been rounding up its followers ever since.
Li fought back. "I was pissed off," he told me. The students, he asserted, were bowing not to him but to their teachers, at his suggestion. The explanation did little good. An article in the South China Morning Post asked whether Crazy English was becoming "one of those cults where the leaders insist on being treated like deities." Kim's cell phone rang so much that she stopped answering. To her, the storm felt unjust, as if they were being blamed for China's "burning passion" for learning a language.
"People have that within them," she told me. "He's just bringing it out."
For weeks after the kowtow story, Li avoided the spotlight. (The controversy "scared me to death," he said.) His most high-profile contract was on the line: the Beijing Organizing Committee had appointed one of his companies—a joint venture between Crazy English and Aigo, an electronics-maker—to teach as many volunteers as possible. Officially, Beijing wants half of its hundred thousand volunteers to be able to speak a foreign language. That seems unlikely, but the city is going to unusual lengths in the effort. Cabdrivers have been issued an "Olympic Taxi Handbook," a three-hundred-and-twelve-page primer on the world, which features not only a list of useful English expressions—"I want to go to the People's Hospital"—but also a section of do's and don'ts that account for purported national preferences and taboos: never rub the head of a Thai child; a Frenchman likes his handshakes brief and light; Americans shun "goods and packaging that use a bat-shaped pattern, believing that those animals suck people's blood and are inauspicious." (In China, bats signify good fortune.) The "Olympic Taxi Handbook" concludes with a section on emergencies, including how to escape from a burning cab (use your belt buckle to break the glass) and how to retrieve, bag, and ice a severed finger. When Li began to speak publicly again, Olympic officials told him to skip any signature Crazy English flourishes, like having students hold his books aloft, Mao style. The Olympic organizers were determined to avoid anything that might attract controversy, a hope that now seems quaint amid the clamor of protests abroad over China's hosting of the Games. Still, Li has mostly held back, and his Olympic campaign continues to thrive.
Among those I met at the Crazy English camp was Zhang Zhiming, a slim, inquisitive twenty-three-year-old with a plume of hair in the front that makes him look like Tintin. He prefers to use the name Michael, and has studied Crazy English for five years. He is the son of a retired coal miner and could never have afforded a ticket to the camp, so last year he got a job as a camp security guard and strained to hear as much as he could from the sidelines. This year, he was promoted to teaching assistant at the camp and received a small stipend.
"Usually when I see Li Yang, I feel a little nervous," Michael told me one morning, as we sat outside. "He is a superman." Michael had trouble sitting still. His enthusiasm was infectious, and I liked him instantly. "When I didn't know about Crazy English, I was a very shy Chinese person," he said. "I couldn't say anything. I was very timid. Now I am very confident. I can speak to anyone in public, and I can inspire people to speak together." Michael first encountered Crazy English through his older brother, who had worked for Li as an assistant. His brother never learned much English, but Michael was mesmerized by it. He began spending as much as eight hours a day on English, listening over and over to a tape of Li's voice, which sounded, to him, "like music."
His favorite book was Li Yang's "American Standard Pronunciation Bible," which helped him hone his vowels and punch up his consonants. Eventually, he got a job teaching at an English school, with the hope that, someday, he might open a school of his own.
I met scores of Li Yang students this winter, and I always asked them what purpose English has served in their lives. There was a hog farmer who wanted to be able to greet his American buyers. A finance worker, studying during his vacation, wanted to get an edge in the office. Michael had no doubts about what English might do for him. A few years ago, his brother got involved in a direct-sales network, pushing health drinks and potions. Schemes like that, known in Mandarin as "rats' societies," have proliferated in China's era of surging growth, fuelled by get-rich-quick dreams and a population adrift between ideologies. "He always wanted me to be involved in that," Michael went on, and I tried to picture him extolling the benefits of a health tonic with the same passion that he now expressed about English. "I spent half a year doing this business, and I gained nothing." Neither did Michael's brother, who flew to the United States six months ago to try to earn the money to repay his creditors. He now works as a waiter in New York, Michael said, and, until he returns, it's up to Michael to support their parents.
As Michael talked, the vigor in his voice faded. His brother wants him to go to America, too, to help earn money. "He has big dreams," he said. "But I don't really want to go there, because I want to have my own business. If you are a worker, you can't be a rich man. You can't buy a house, buy a car, support a family."
Michael stared at his feet and said, "I have no choice. This is life. I should always keep smiling. But, actually, I feel I'm under a lot of pressure. Sometimes I want to cry. But I'm a man."
He stopped. The air was silent, except for a warm wind that carried a trace of Li's voice, booming in the stadium behind us.
A few weeks later, Michael invited me for lunch at the apartment he shares with his parents in Guangzhou. It's in a cluster of modern high-rises on Gold Panning Road, in the center of the city, formerly known as Canton, where the compradors once chattered in pidgin English.
When Michael met me at the gate, he was in a good mood. ("I got promoted to teaching supervisor," he said. "I got a raise.") The family's apartment consisted of a living room, two small bedrooms, and a kitchen. His parents were cooking, and the air smelled of ginger. Michael and his father shared a bunk bed in one room, and his mother and his older sister occupied the other. Michael's room was cluttered with English-study books, an overfilled desk, a laptop. English felt tangible, like a third—and messy—roommate.
He rooted around in a box to show me the homemade vocabulary cards that he carries, just as Li once did. He pulled out a card marked "Occupations: Astronomer, Baker, Barber, Barkeeper, Biologist, Blue-Collar Worker, Boss/Superior, Botanist. . . . " He wanted to play some recordings that he'd been making for his students, as models of pronunciation. He clicked on a recording called "What Is English?," which he'd cribbed from the Li Yang Crazy English Web site. He had layered the sounds of waves and seagulls into the background and recorded it with a girl named Isabell, trading sentences as they went: "English is a piece of cake. I can totally conquer English. I will use English. I will learn English. I will live in English. I am no longer a slave to English. I am its master. I believe English will become my faithful servant and lifelong friend. . . ."__
It went on for another minute, and, while Michael listened intently, my eyes settled on a small handwritten Chinese sign, taped to the wall, at the foot of his bed: "The past does not equal the future. Believe in yourself. Create miracles." ♦


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This recipe comes courtesy of Martha Holmberg, author of the new cookbook, Modern Sauces.
"Here is another recipe created by my friend Matthew Card. It's a riff on eggs Florentine (eggs Benedict but with spinach instead of Canadian bacon or ham) and, like every dish he makes, it is turbocharged with flavor. It would also be delicious with any of the other sauces in this chapter, so feel free to experiment.
Avoid using a hard-crusted bread here. If you can't find focaccia, substitute something tender and flavorful, such as brioche or a soft Italian loaf. Peppadew peppers, which originated in South Africa, are sweet, tangy, and only modestly hot. They are pickled and sold in jars in the deli section of well-stocked grocery stores."
Fried Eggs with Garlicky Chard and Saffron-Red Pepper Hollandaise
Yield: Serves 4
- Kosher salt
- 1 large bunch Rainbow or Bright Lights Swiss chard (12 oz/340 g), leaves and stems separated and stems cut crosswise into slices ¼ in/6 mm thick
- 4 tbsp/60 ml extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- Pinch of Espelette pepper or red pepper flakes
- ½ cup/80 g thinly sliced jarred roasted red pepper
- 4 tsp minced pickled Peppadew pepper
- 4 large eggs
- 4 pieces focaccia, toasted
- 1 cup/240 ml Saffron-Red Pepper Hollandaise (see below)
Cooking Directions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the chard leaves (not the stems) and cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain, rinse well with cold water, and squeeze out as much excess water as possible. Chop coarsely and set aside.
- In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, heat 3 tbsp of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the chard stems and a large pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender and lightly browned, 6 to 9 minutes. Add the garlic and Espelette pepper and cook, stirring, until very fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the cooked chard leaves, roasted pepper, and Peppadew pepper. Cook, stirring often, until the flavors are blended and the chard is hot, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl and cover to keep warm. Do not rinse the pan.
- Break each egg into a small teacup. Return the frying pan to low heat and add the remaining 1 tbsp oil. Carefully slide the eggs from the teacups into the pan so they stay whole. Season them with salt, cover the pan, and cook until the eggs are just set, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Place a piece of focaccia on each plate, divide the chard mixture evenly among the focaccia, top with an egg, and then spoon a generous blanket of the warm hollandaise over the top. Serve right away.
Saffron-Red Pepper Hollandaise
- ½ cup/115 g unsalted butter
- 2 oz/55 g roasted red peppers
- 2 tbsp fruity extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp fresh orange juice, plus more if needed
- 1 tbsp water
- Kosher salt
- Large pinch of saffron threads (about 15 threads)
- 2 egg yolks
- ½ tsp lightly packed finely grated orange zest
- 1/8 tsp hot-pepper sauce such as Sriracha
Cooking Directions
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Don't stir as it melts. You want the milky solids to fall to the bottom and the butterfat to float to the top. Keep warm.
- In a food processor, combine the red peppers and olive oil and process until a smooth puree forms. You want to emulsify the oil with the peppers; the mixture should look creamy and combined.
- Pour water to a depth of 1 to 2 in/2.5 to 5 cm into a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Rest a medium stainless-steel bowl in the pan over (not touching) the water. Put the orange juice, water, ¼ tsp salt, and saffron into the bowl and let sit over the heat for a few minutes so the saffron infuses the liquid. When you can smell the saffron, add the egg yolks and start whisking. As the bowl heats up, the yolks will begin to thicken. Whisk vigorously, scraping around the bowl with a heat-resistant rubber spatula from time to time so that bits of yolk don't get stuck and overcook. Beat until thick and frothy but not quite fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. The whisk will start leaving a clear space on the bottom of the bowl. Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk for another 30 seconds or so to stabilize the sauce and let the bowl cool down.
- Continue whisking as you slowly drizzle in the warm melted butter, taking care not to add too much of the milky-watery layer from the bottom of the pan. As you pour and whisk, make sure the yolks are accepting the butter and the yolks and butter are emulsifying. If the sauce looks at all broken or "curdly," stop adding butter and just whisk for a few seconds. Only resume adding butter once you've whisked the sauce into creaminess again.
- Once all of the butter has been added, whisk in the pepper puree, the orange zest, and hot-pepper sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt, hot-pepper sauce, and orange juice if needed. If possible, serve right away.
Worried about the undercooked eggs in hollandaise sauce? Check out this advice about undercooked eggs from Martha Holmberg.

subset: commoncrawl


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Owe San Francisco Property Tax and Need to Sell Your House Quickly for Cash? Start Below for Your All Cash Offer!
San Francisco Property Tax. Call (202) 826-8179 or You may fill out the form below to get a fair cash offer quickly on the property and a fast response!
San Francisco Property Tax
If you have received notice in the mail, delivered to you, or posted on your property that says your home or your property is "subject to foreclosure," "in foreclosure," or will be "sold at auction" because of unpaid taxes, you may be able to still be able to sell your home prior to the property going to auction.
What happens if you owe delinquent property taxes? What is a property tax foreclosure?
San Francisco charges property taxes annually. Every year, your county collects state and local taxes based on the value of your home or land property.
If you are unable to pay your property taxes, the county can sell your home to collect all unpaid property taxes. Each county has a specific deadline for unpaid taxes before they start the process of "foreclosure."
The County provides notice of court hearing.
Before the county sells your home, it must give you at least 30 days' notice of a court hearing about the foreclosure. The notice must tell you place, date, and time of the hearing.
At the hearing, you will have an opportunity to express to the judge why the county should not foreclose your home. The county will sell your home at auction unless you take steps to stop the foreclosure.
Can I Sell My House With A Tax Lien?
We buy property in all 50 states and Washington D.C. for cash--- even ones that still owe back taxes. We are familiar with helping sellers with delinquent property taxes find solutions to their problems. Even if you're not sure you're ready to sell, we can help you out! We can help you with San Francisco Property Tax and sell your house if you owe back taxes.
We buy houses in any condition, "as-is" and we also buy land with back taxes as well. We will be happy to help you out of this situation if possible. Sell any type of property; Residential, Commercial, Industrial or Agricultural. Whether or not selling your property with back taxes to a local cash buyer ends up being the right choice, we will be happy to help point you in the right direction. San Francisco Property Tax. Don't lose your property and get nothing in return!
➤ Location
San Francisco Property Tax | California USA
*Available 24 Hours!
-Troy Toliver, Real Estate | Notary Public/Title Insurancer Producer Independent Contractor | NNA Certified Signing Agent | E&O Insured and Surety Bonded


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LEGOscum wrote:In fact LEGO do benefit from higher secondary prices when collectors who've stockpiled sets to sell later on use their profit to buy current LEGO sets they'd not be able to afford otherwise.
I think that there are some logical flaws with your assumption here. First off, I'd like to say that what you're describing is basically the same as ticket scalping: buying up quantities of a limited inventory in order to sell (most likely, to people that would have bought it in the first place at normal price had they been able to get one...) at a profit, basically manipulating supply and demand for nefarious purposes, not personally adding any value to their product.
I don't see how LEGO benefits from this, at least financially. It's not like they're still trying to sell off 5 year old stock because no one wants them. No, if the jerks that stockpile sets didn't buy them up, other people would still buy them, in fact, more people would buy them based on law and demand. I'm going to throw out a scenario with really simple numbers:
LEGO releases set WXYZ, and produces 100 of them. Lego makes 10 bucks profit from each set, for a total profit of 1000 dollars. It doesn't matter who buys them, Lego scalpers or legitimate consumers. Lego still gets the same amount of money.


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The federal workforce has shrunk significantly in the past two years.
The federal government lost more than 10,000 jobs in March, continuing a downward trend in the size of the civilian workforce over the past two years.
About 1,200 of the job losses last month were at the U.S. Postal Service, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the rest of the federal government lost about 9,000. Uncle Sam has cut 85,000 jobs in the past 12 months.
Overall, the U.S. economy added 192,000 jobs in March, and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.7 percent. The federal government ended the month with just more than 2.7 million civilian employees, including USPS workers.
The number of total government jobs remained steady in March, as state and local government job gains offset the losses at the federal level.
While the number of federal employees -- excluding the Postal Service -- has actually increased by about 50,000 since President Obama took office, the workforce has trended downward significantly in the last two years. Sequestration and other budget cuts have forced many agencies to institute hiring freezes and reduce their workforces through attrition.
Click here for a chart demonstrating the job losses in the federal workforce in the last 24 months.
(Image via kaarsten/Shutterstock.com)
NEXT STORY: The Shrinking Federal Workforce, In One Chart


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Genghis Khan in the Golan
Ginges khan offer 5 Mongolian tents, which can contain up to 8 people each, in attractive price. There is an air-conditioner in the tents, private bathroom attached to each tent,
Availability & RatesTo view availability and prices please select dates and click 'Update Dates'
Hostel Facilities & Policies
- Air Conditioning
- Breakfast Not Included
- Free Parking
- Luggage Storage
- Parking
- Tours/Travel Desk
- Towels For Hire
- Wheelchair Friendly
Cancellation PolicyThis property has a 1 day cancellation policy. Failure to cancel within this time will result in a cancellation charge equal to the first night of your stay.
DirectionsShow MapHide Map
Arrival by bus:
There are two options, direct bus to Givat-Yoav or bus to Tiberius and from Tiberius to Givat-Yoav.
1. Direct bus to Givat Yoav:
Direct bus from Tel-Aviv to Kazerin via Kursi Junction, located 10 minutes drive from Givat Yoav (about 3 hours long drive from Tel-Aviv). Get off the bus at Kursi Junction.
Departure hours line 843: 09:30; 16:00
Mon - Thu
Departure hours line 843: 16:00
Departure hours line 843: 12:15
Departure hours line 843: 20:30
Direct bus from Jerusalem to Kazerin via Beny-Yehuda (about 4 hours long drive from Jerusalem). Get off the bus at Beny-Yehuda.
Sun - Thu
Departure hours line 966: 08:15; 17:15
Departure hours line 966: 12:15
2. Take a bus to Tiberius central bus station.
There are direct bus lines arriving from Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Nazareth.
Please contact the 'Egged' bus company information center (dial *2800 from any local phone or visit www.egged.co.il website) for line numbers, departure schedule and drive duration.
Take a bus from Tiberius central bus station to Givat Yoav (about 35 minutes long drive)
Sun - Thu
Departure hours line 18: 14:25; 19:10
Departure hours line 19: 12:00
Departure hours line 18: 12:05; 14:45
Departure hours line 19: 22:45
Arrival by car:
For those arriving from Acre, Zephath, Nahariya etc.
From Ami-ad cross junction (roads no. 90 and 85)
1.5km south-east on road 90
left at Korazim junction to road no. 8277 and drive 8km
In the T junction turn left to road no. 87 and drive 5km
Right at Yehudia junction to road no. 92 and drive 9.5km
Left at Kursi
See below Kursi to Givat Yoav.
For those arriving from Haifa, Nazareth, Tel-Aviv via Wadi Milek
From Golani cross junction (roads no. 77 and 65)
8.5km north-east on road no. 77
Right at the traffic light at Poria junction and drive 10km on road 768
Left at Alumot square junction and drive about 3km on road 767
Right at Kinneret T junction and drive ahead 2.5km on road 90
Drive ahead at the next 2 squares. Note the road number changes to 92 at Tzemach junction.
1.5km and turn left on Ma'agan junction (still road no. 92)
15km and turn right on Kursi junction
See below Kursi to Givat Yoav.
For those arriving from Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv via Wadi Ara
Arrive to She'an cross junction (roads no. 71 and 90)
Drive 26km north on road 90
Turn right at Tzemach junction to road 92
Drive 1.5km and turn left on Ma'agan junction (still road no. 92)
Drive 15km and turn right on Kursi junction
See below Kursi to Givat Yoav.
Kursi to Givat Yoav:
11km along cursive road no. 789 which climbs up to the south part of the Golan Heights
Right at the first square and then again right at the second square into Givat Yoav
Drive ahead for about 500 meters and turn right after the Gas station
Drive down the road until you will see 'Genghis Khan in the Golan' accommodation village on your right.
Located Near
The Golan offer the visitors colorful attraction from hiking trails, field car tours, horseback riding, to nature water pools.
Genghis khan is locat on the Golan trail, 140KM trail across the Golan North-South. about 6 days track.
we will be glad to give you more information about it during your visit.


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Sophomores Morgan Russom and Isabel Ruane competed in the A-division for the Crimson in the Mrs. Hurst Bowl on Saturday and Sunday. (photo courtesy of Gil Talbot)
BOSTON, Mass. – The Harvard sailing team took to the water for two weekend regattas as the A division duo of senior Brendan Kopp and sophomore Sarah Pierson helped lead the Crimson to a ninth-place finish during the Hatch Brown Trophy hosted by MIT on Saturday and Sunday. Harvard also completed the Mrs. Hurst Bowl taking 17th in the two-day women's regatta.
In the B division, senior Emily Lambert and freshman Reid Bergsund shared the skippering duties while senior Alexandra Jumper sailed all 16 races for the Crimson as the trio sailed to 11 top-10 finishes in the event. Highlighting the day for the B division squad was a third-place showing during the final race as the team ended the weekend with 157 points overall and 12th-place in the division.
The C division pairing of freshmen Gram Slattery and Brian Drumm recorded 162 points overall including eight top-10 finishes. At the end of the regatta Charleston took first overall with MIT (second-place), Boston College (fifth-place), trailed behind. The Crimson finished 18 points ahead of Yale in the overall standings.
The Crimson also competed in the Mrs. Hurst Bowl hosted by Dartmouth on Saturday and Sunday with Harvard completing the regatta in 17th place. Sophomores Morgan Russom and Isabel Ruane competed in the A division for the Crimson while sophomore Caitlin Watson and freshman Emma Smith sailed in the B division. During the six-race regatta the two teams combined for 105 points beating out Columbia in the process.


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Lit diamonds: Softball moms join fight for McIntire fields
Anyone who thinks that the city's plan to kill softball fields at McIntire Park has angered only aging, beer-drinking softball enthusiasts has been proven wrong this week as a new and vocal constituency has emerged to defend McIntire's fields: softball moms.
"The girls are slowly making inroads to the nice fields that the city has," says Anne Powell, a mother of a softball player and a girls softball tournament coordinator. "Parents would be upset," adds Powell, "knowing that these fields would be taken out."
So Powell and other girls softball volunteers are beginning to make their voices heard– just as Albemarle County's board chair has planned a highly anticipated public meeting to be held on Thursday.
"McIntire Park gives the town a chance to grow softball," Powell says. "Our parents have not been involved in this discussion because we haven't felt it's been our park– that it's the adult softballers' fight to fight, even though it should be our fight to fight as well."
Powell has been involved in the girls softball movement since 2000, when her daughter, Danielle–- then a fourth grader–- joined the city's recreational program. However, after wanting more than the local league could offer, the girl enrolled in a travel league that utilized various softball complexes scattered across Virginia.
"I do believe that girls in this town have been under-served for decades and, in general, girls are not given the same access to the City's really nice parks and fields," Powell says. "We've never really had a facility; the boys and the adults have all the facilities. Girls have been short-changed for a long time."
In recent years, Powell has tried bringing more travel tournaments to Charlottesville, but in attempting to get field space, her requests were often denied due to adult tournaments utilizing the same limited space.
"I had to storm City Hall with letters from parents and coaches demanding more tournament space in town for our girls," Powell says. "Eventually, the City has given us the same access as the adults, however, it wasn't easy, and it wasn't without a fight."
It was City Council's May 19 decision to revamp McIntire Park without softball that touched off this controversy. Albemarle Board of Supervisors chair Ken Boyd blasted what he sees as unilateral decision that "bothers" him, and he put together a Community Conversation on the related issue of lights for the jointly-owned softball fields at Darden Towe Park this Thursday, September 11, a 7pm at the Elks Lodge by Towe.
Bob Fenwick, a local softball player, shares Powell's worry that diminishing softball fields could diminish softball.
"If the city is going to demolish these fields and not light Darden Towe, softball will die here in Charlottesville," Fenwick says. "Not only for us, but for the little girls and the businesses who sponsor softball."
Warming up for a recent night game at McIntire, Fenwick is approached by fellow players and families offering encouragement for his campaign, which includes a Save McIntire website. Fenwick accuses Charlottesville's City Council of not being in touch with the true needs of the softball community.
"I don't think they have any idea how popular McIntire is," Fenwick says. "I've never seen a city councilor out here– they're just not out here."
According to Powell, the destruction of McIntire's fields could go beyond harming the cause of softball in Charlottesville.
"There's a reason why it's a dying sport in town for girls– we've never had a home base," says Powell. "Losing more fields right now is probably the last thing the girls of this town need, even if they never actually got to use them much in the first place."
–-story corrected at 10:32am, September 10 to give correct name of daughter who began playing in year 2000
10 comments
Let me see if I have this straight. There's a perfectly good softball complex at McIntire Park, but the City and the County want to pay millions to erase it for a rectangular field. AND they want to pay millions to the YMCA for taking a piece of this land. Okay, glad we could straighten that out!
The girls are not the only users of the softball fields who should not be described as "aging, beer-drinking softball enthusiasts" (well, at least not the beer-drinking part; but if we're not aging, we're dead). There is also a long-established and thriving church league that serves scores of players. That league will also be squeezed if the number of fields is diminished.
You know, there's a good point buried in this article. Maybe all of the companies who sponsor softball teams ought to contact City Hall and let them know they are not pleased by these developments. City Council only usually really listens to the citizens who happen to agree with them, but employers might carry a little more weight.
I so agree with you Dan, I am SO SICK of every article making some reference to beer drinking or beer swilling softball players and fans. It is judgemental and putting a negative stereotype in all of the readers heads. Although we appreciate you making an oh so generous effort to cover the story, probably because your editor assigned it to you and you could care less, truely shows poor taste in your "beer" references. It is rude and offensive and I feel safe to say I am not the only one that feels this way.
whats the difference between a softball mom and a pitbull?
Softball moms children don't run the streets scaring people.
I do not understand why Charlottesville wants to erase a perfectly great park that has the two best maintained softball fields in the area. The softball fields should stay in McIntire and lights should be added at Towe Park on those softball fields. I have played recreational softball in Charlottesville since 1999, I also have two girls that play in high school, on travel teams and in the Babe Ruth girls softball league. Finding available softball fields to play and practice on already is difficult.
I no longer live in Charlottesville, but have many fond memories of McIntire fields. For years I had fun watching my granddaughters play, and cheering them on with other families and friends. Over the years watching their confidence grow was most exciting. For the future daughters, granddaughters and friends I do hope McIntire fields will be maintained and used in the future, as is. I would like to add that I agree with what dizzy Gillespie said.
There's some kind of boondoggle inside this whole thing. It's kind of ironic that the city is unwilling to give up one square inch of McIntire Park for a road, but will abandon an enormous chunk of it and tell some of the park's most consistent users to go to hell for the YMCA.
The destruction of the great fields at McIntire is a fiscally irresponsible decision in addition to dramatically decreasing the playing opportunities for local softball players - be they little girls, church leagues, or city leagues (whether or not they may choose to imbibe). These fields were built years ago - the money is spent. Why destroy them to make room for a, um, "rectangular" field (read SOCCER field)? The whole emphasis on the adult softball players detracts from the fact that there are also children involved. Few news reports even acknowledge these girls and their need for a softball home! All the baseball leagues have a home while these girls already have to fight for space on mediocre fields. Why aren't we trying to increase the availability of playing space instead of tearing it down ... only for the city to decide in a few years that the girls need a place to play and THEN spend money again to build fields. Hmm.
I just read that it is estimated to cost between $500,000 and $700,000 to light the Darden Towe Park. Why in the world would you tear down a perfectly good set of field only to have to spend even more money to light new fields...
I thought the city has a 4 million budget shortfall?
Wouldn't keeping things "as-is" reduce a big chunk of that?


text:
Good as gold
Continuing her tradition of picking designers in the fashion vanguard, Michelle Obama Tuesday wore a gold lace sheath, cardigan and matching coat by Cuban-born American designer Isabel Toledo to her husband Barack Obama's inauguration ceremonies. It was a look that was both glamorous and suited to the formality of the occasion.
The jeweled neckline has become something of a signature for the new first lady, who likes to accessorize with sparkly brooches. She wore olive green leather gloves and matching kitten heels to complete the ensemble.
Mrs. Obama previously wore a black tunic and pants outfit by Toledo to a fundraiser hosted by Calvin Klein during the campaign. The designer got positive reviews as creative director of Anne Klein in 2006 and 2007, but parted ways with the company shortly after presenting her collection in Feb. 2007. Toledo, who has been designing since the mid-1980s, is a favorite of the fashion cognoscenti but isn't widely known by the public. While the outfit Obama wore on Tuesday was classic, Toledo is known for being avant garde.
Throughout the campaign and leading up to the inauguration, Mrs. Obama has worn outfits from such designers as Narciso Rodriguez and Thakoon Panichgul, whose work is considered both younger and more fashion forward while not necessarily less expensive than clothes by such American stalwarts as Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera. Mrs. Obama wore a camel coat, matching skirt and black beaded sweater from Rodriguez for Sunday's "We are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
What we haven't seen so far during the inaugural parade of style is anything by Maria Pinto, the Chicago-based designer who has created chic dresses for the first lady.


text:
What to Know
Sheetal Ranot was convicted of assault and child endangerment charges in July
Prosecutors said she and the girl's father, who is awaiting trial, horribly abused little Maya Ranot starting when she was 10 years old
After being hit in the face with a rolling pin, the child was taken to a hospital and found to be just 58 pounds, prompting investigation
A Queens woman was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for beating and starving her young stepdaughter for two years, depriving her of food and water and hitting her with baseball bats and broom handles so severely that in one case, the little girl was found lying in a pool of blood with a wrist cut so deep her tendons were visible, prosecutors said.
Sheetal Ranot, 35, was accused of locking the 12-year-old girl in her room, hitting her in the face with a rolling pin and beating her with a broken metal broom handle that cut her wrist down to the bone. She was convicted of assault and child endangerment charges in July.
The victim's biological father, Rajesh Ranot, is also charged with assault, unlawful imprisonment and child endangerment. He will be tried at a later date. It's unclear what happened to the child after the arrests.
Prosecutors allege the Ozone Park duo terrorized the child from December 2012 to July 2014.
According to a criminal complaint, Sheetal Ranot repeatedly hit her stepdaughter, causing bruising and pain, locked her in her bedroom and starved here for extended periods of time during that two-year span. In one case, the 31-year-old woman allegedly kicked the then 10-year-old girl in the face while wearing shoes.
Six months later, Ranot repeatedly hit the girl with a broken metal broom handle, leaving her with a cut near her knee and a cut so deep on her wrist that her tendons were exposed and she needed to have surgery, the complaint said.
Rajesh Ranot also allegedly starved the girl for years, and prosecutors say he forced her to take cold showers while he beat her with his fists and other household objects, including a baseball bat.
In April 2014, Sheetal Ranot allegedly hit her stepdaughter in the face with a wooden rolling pin. The girl had to be taken to the hospital, and doctors there saw she was painfully thin -- weighing 58 pounds -- and wearing dirty clothes. It wasn't clear if they contacted authorities.
Over the next three weeks, prosecutors allege Rajesh Ranot continued to beat his daughter with a baseball bat. The girl was taken to the emergency room, where doctors noticed various bruises, marks and scars in different stages of healing all over her body. An investigation was launched and the stepmother and father were arrested shortly afterward.
Child-welfare authorities ultimately removed the girl from the home.


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text:
Plate Tectonics as Expressed in Geological Landforms and Events
This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Collection
Resources in this top level collection a) must have scored Exemplary or Very Good in all five review categories, and must also rate as "Exemplary" in at least three of the five categories. The five categories included in the peer review process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
For more information about the peer review process itself, please see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.
This activity has gone through an observational review process.
This resources was tested in a classroom and feedback was provided using this protocol. The activity was modified in response to the feedback.
This page first made public: Oct 30, 2009
Learning Goals
Context for Use
This activity can be assigned as homework, or it can be conducted in part as a classroom demonstration, followed by a homework assignment. Student access to Internet-capable computers, onto which Google Earth and GeoMapApp software can be downloaded, is essential for its use. How an instructor approaches the this activity will depend on the degree of facility students have with accessing Internet-based data resources - it may be that some how-to training for the use of such resources is necessary. Fortunately, both Google Earth and GeoMapApp are relatively intuitive software.
The activity may be used, with some modification, in either introductory geology courses, or in Junior/Senior level courses on tectonics or petrology. Lecture and reading materials on the basics of plate tectonics, plate boundaries, and plate boundary interactions should precede its assignment.
Description and Teaching Materials
Provided is an example handout sheet for the activity, along with Google Earth kmz overlay files for the Central America/Gulf of California MARGINS focus areas. The images are "nested," so that switching from one to the next focuses onto a smaller and smaller region. Depending on how the images are viewed, one may wish to re-create them with different point sizes in GeoMapApp, which is relatively simple to do.
The more recent versions of GeoMapApp permit customized color-coding and sizing of symbols, which might be a desirable way of preparing these files. Also, it may be necessary now to download the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Network kmz file for the positions of active volcanoes on the Earth, as newer versions of Google Earth may not include it as an upload. The Smithsonian file is updated periodically.
Data and overlay files for the Izu-Bonin/Japan focus areas discussed in the handout (or overlays for any other region of the Earth) can be generated in GeoMapApp, and transferred to Google Earth in the form of .kmz files, produced as a "save as" option in GeoMapApp.
- Updated Assignment sheet 09 (Microsoft Word 53kB May28 09)
- KMZ file for earthquake epicenters in the eastern Pacific ( 1.5MB Feb19 07)
- KMZ file for the Costa Rica/Cocos area ( 1.6MB Feb19 07)
- KMZ file for the Nicoya Peninsula close-up area ( 1.4MB Feb19 07)
- KMZ file for regional plate boundaries from Bird (2003) ( 909kB Feb19 07) (for instructor's use)
Teaching Notes and Tips
Critical to the effective use of this activity is that the instructor become facile in manipulating both Google Earth and GeoMapApp. Fortunately, this is rather easy to do. As with much of science instruction in the Information Age, what students need is to learn how to access and interpret information, so anticipate "mechanical" questions related to the use of the applications, so as to address them quickly and move on to examining the data.
It may be necessary to ensure that students grasp the necessary functionality in GeoMapApp, and even in Google Earth. Students aren't as familar with these resources as investigative tools as an instructor might expect. It's also a good idea to discuss the similarities and differences in the datasets represented by GeoMapApp (especially the Virtual Globe presentation) and Google Earth.
My approach to assessment in this activity is to develop rubrics for evaluating student responses to the two sets of questions. How the rubrics are cast will depend on how the activity is used (i.e., straight homework, an in-class computer lab, or as a lecture/homework combination) and the level of the student audience. The questions are intended to ultimately get students past the simple identification of plate boundaries, though making these identifications from the combined earthquake and volcanic datasets is obviously a big part of the activity.
Rubric for Mini-Lesson, by Sandra Swenson, CUNY-John Jay College (Microsoft Word 27kB May29 09)
References and Resources
Google Earth: http://earth.google.com
GeoMapApp: http://www.geomapapp.org/
Smithsonian Global Volcanism Network: http://www.volcano.si.edu/ (more info)


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Le Creuset Stoneware Butter Crock
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- Summary
A fixture in European kitchens, this vessel keeps butter fresh and spreadable at the breakfast table or countertop. Le Creuset Stoneware is an extremely strong and durable choice for serving and storing, as it resists chips, cracks and stains and will not take on food odors or flavors.
- Holds 6 oz. butter (about 1 1/2 sticks) packed into cup on underside of lid.
- Fill the crock with cold water to keep butter soft and spreadable–without refrigeration–for 3 to 5 days. Change the water to keep butter fresh.
- High-fired stoneware is exceptionally strong.
- Durable porcelain enamel-glaze finish is easy to clean and resists chips, scratches and stains.
- Will not absorb odors or flavors.
- Colors coordinate with Le Creuset enameled cast-iron cookware.
- Dimensions & More Info
- 4" diam. x 4" high.
- 6-oz. cap.
- Made in Thailand and China.
- Use & Care
- Avoid using steel wool, steel scouring pads, harsh detergents or abrasive cleansers.
- Dishwasher safe.
- Stubborn food residue and stains can be removed with a nylon scrubbing pad or sponge.
- Shipping
Shipping Information
UPS can deliver most in-stock items within 3–5 business days. UPS is unable to deliver to P.O. boxes.
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Orders received by 9:00 p.m. ET Monday through Thursday will arrive the next business day; orders placed Friday through Sunday will arrive on the following Tuesday.
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- More about Le Creuset
The first Le Creuset foundry opened in 1925 in Fresnoy-le-Grand, France, and specialized in cast-iron cookware. The cast-iron pieces are still made at the original factory, using the traditional techniques of hand forging and casting in individual sand molds. The brightly pigmented porcelain-enamel glaze that first set Le Creuset cookware apart from other cast-iron cookware now comes in a wide range of traditional and contemporary colors. In 2013, Le Creuset began producing innovative stainless-steel cookware in Portugal with lids that incorporate the same signature three-ring design as the company's classic cast-iron pieces. This stainless-steel collection was awarded the prestigious 2014 Red Dot Award for product design.
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Rated 5 out of 5 by bettywit from You had me at wow I received this product as a gift and I did not know what it was or how to use it. The instructions were easy to understand. The butter crock is very well made and durable. You fill the crock up with cold water to the fill line, then you take the top and turn it upside down and fill it with soft butter, I use salted sweet cream. Make sure you press it down firmly so it does not fall out into the water. Then you just put the top back on the crock and it stays fresh on your counter as long as you change the water every 2-3 days. I love it, my butter never turns dark yellow and it's easy to spread. This is a must buy you never have to have cold fridge butter again.Date published: 2015-09-21Rated 5 out of 5 by PeeAye from Butter Crock is Tops It's exactly what I was looking for. I don't have to keep taking butter out of the refrigerator in the hot humid summer. It stays perfectly fine all the time. Just follow the directions. I had an old ceramic butter dish that sweated butter if I left it out to soften.Date published: 2015-08-17Rated 5 out of 5 by YumYummy from Love this butter crock! I had been watching this crock for several months but was hesitant to buy it because of the cost. I finally broke down & bought it when I received a WS gift card. LOVE it! It is perfect! I have spreadable butter all the time now! Hate I waited so long. I have not had any problems with the butter falling out into the water like a few mentioned. I pack 1 stick of butter tight into the bell & add fresh ice water to the reservoir every day. No big deal since I do cook every day which requires cleaning the kitchen afterwards. I just add fresh ice water when I clean the kitchen. Never any problems at all. I live in the Deep South & it is hot here. Still no problems like the others mentioned. I keep the crock sitting on my kitchen cabinet & my butter is always ready! I liked it so much I bought my mom a crock for Mother's Day.Date published: 2015-06-01Rated 5 out of 5 by MtnCRNA from Perfect for ready to use butter! I have wanted a butter crock for years....just couldn't justify it. My daughter sent me one for a gift and I absolutely love it! Softened butter anytime I want it! I have now purchased several for gifts. I would recommend changing the water daily.Date published: 2015-04-28Rated 4 out of 5 by Jane1073 from Keeps Butter Well, Especially in Cooler Months I have had this butter crock for a year and just ordered one for my daughter. I did notice that during the summer months (I live in Virginia) that, even in an air conditioned kitchen, the butter tended to separate a little and sometimes fall into the water. So we put it away for the summer and brought it out again in the fall. Thus, I would recommend this item for MOST of the year in Southern climates. This will be perfect year round for my daughter, who lives in New England.Date published: 2014-12-07Rated 5 out of 5 by venaivy from Love this butter bell Years ago we decided to only use real better. We missed having the soft margarine to spread on toast. My husband would melt a stick of butter in the microwave, to have soft butter to spread on toast. I hated that! Now we have soft butter all the time.Date published: 2014-10-02Rated 5 out of 5 by AddingComment from Great idea and looks nice We enjoy having our little red butter bell on our cooking island. The butter stays soft and can quickly and easily be spread. we use salted butter. We make sure to stuff the butter down hard against the bell with an expresso spoon.Date published: 2014-01-05Rated 2 out of 5 by sterlinghawk from really wanted to like this! Looked cute, read the reviews and I ordered. Butter did not last that long and then fell into the water. Will be returning it and will order the more standard butter dish.Date published: 2013-11-26


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2014 NAIA Men?s Golfer of the Week ? No. 1
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Dylan Freeman of Coastal Georgia has been named the NAIA National Men's Golfer of the Week, the national office announced Wednesday. Freeman, who is the first weekly award winner of the 2014 season, was selected based on his performance from March 10 – 16 and was chosen out a pool of conference, independent and unaffiliated group winners.
Freeman, a native of Athens, Ga., won his second individual medal of the season and fifth of his career with a 3-under, 213 at the USC-Beaufort (S.C.) Sand Shark Classic at the Oldfield Golf Club in Okatie, S.C., March 10-11. The senior, who is the reigning Southern States Athletic Conference Player of the Year, holed a birdie on the first sudden-death playoff hole to win a three-man playoff. As a team, the Mariners won the event by 21 strokes to extend their tournament winning streak to three-straight.
Freeman's previous victory of the season came at the St. Andrews (N.C.) Fall Invitational in Aberdeen, N.C., Nov. 4 – 5.
The next Men's Golfer of the Week will be announced on March 27. For the complete 2014 Golfer of the Week schedule, click here.
Nominees: Michael Steelman, Columbia (Mo.); Andy Dusek, Union (Ky.); Justin Raskin, William Jessup (Calif.); Kyle Bahnick, Saint Xavier (Ill.); Michael Civitate , Ottawa (Kan.); Ben Johnson, Bethany (Kan.); Franck Medale, Lindsey Wilson (Ky.); Michael Pospisil, Cumberlands (Ky.); Andy Fraser, AIB (Iowa); Ryan Connolly, Wayland Baptist (Texas); Josh Moss, Mobile (Ala.); Frederic Thieriz, Southeastern (Fla.); Alan Cooke, USC Beaufort (S.C.); Jorge Benitez, Davenport (Mich.).
2014 NAIA National Men's Golfers of the Week
Week 1 (March 19): Dylan Freeman, Coastal Georgia


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Welcome to Stagg, Terenzi, Confusione & Wabnik
Stagg, Terenzi, Confusione & Wabnik offers zealous representation and the work quality of a big firm, but with the personal feel that has allowed the partners to build long-lasting relationships with clients. The firm recently expanded its Garden City, New York headquarters to more than 16,000 square feet to accommodate the growing practice of 50+ employees. In addition, STCW has offices conveniently located in downtown Manhattan, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The partners at STCW bring with them more than 20 years of experience representing clients in litigation and claims in various areas, including banking, foreclosure, bankruptcy, real estate, debtor-creditor, and personal injury. They also provide assistance to in-house counsel, offering support through presentations, lectures, opinion letters and consulting. The firm has achieved an "AV" Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating, which is assigned to lawyers who have reached the height of professional excellence and who are recognized for the highest levels of skill and integrity.


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Embroidered shark design in black onto a unisex white t-shirt for a loose fit.
Model wears a size small ,sleeves have been rolled to style. small- chest 35-36 roughly a size 8-10 worn oversized medium 38-40 roughly a size 12-14 worn oversized large 42-44 roughly size 14-16 worn oversized.
Please allow 2-3 working days for me to embroider and ship your order, you will be notified when your garment is being embroidered and provided with a shipping date :)
Photos by Darina


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Wives' Group Ends Semester with Holiday Flair
05 December 2011 • On-campus Event • St. Juliana Society
Our seminary wives' group, the St. Juliana Society, wrapped up its fall semester activities with a how-to in Christmas wreath-making. Tanya Penkrat, who is the Special Events Coordinator here at St. Vladimir's and a former florist, instructed the women in creating holiday decor, using fresh (and free!) branches cut from the variety of evergreens that adorn the seminary grounds. The fun session capped a semester of twice-monthly get-togethers, which ranged in nature from the practical to the sublime: everything from engaging with a panel of "PKs" (i.e., "Priests' Kids") to reflecting upon the art of prayer.
Matushka Thekla Hatfield, who coordinates the group, remarked upon this past semester's topics, saying, "According to feedback given by the wives, it was a very satisfactory and beneficial semester. They are all pleased with the direction in which the society is moving and are looking forward to the spring semester programs."
After the session on holiday decorating, the group expressed its enthusiasm and thanks to Matushka Thekla for her efforts by presenting her with a topiary.


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NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of New York City's largest landlords, Thor Equities LLC, has offered more than $2.1 billion in cash to buy the Empire State Building, the real estate firm's broker said on Thursday.
It was the third unsolicited offer for the landmark skyscraper, which is set to become the centerpiece of a publicly traded real estate investment trust.
Thor Equities confirmed the offer but not the price. A representative from Malkin Holdings LLC, which oversees the Empire State Building's investors and operations, could not immediately confirm that it has received the offer and declined further comment.
Broker Jason Meister of Avison Young, which is representing Thor Equities, said the offer was all cash.
Earlier this week, Malkin Holdings said in a letter to investors that it was reviewing two unsolicited bids - one for $2.1 billion and the other for $2 billion - to buy the 102-story building. The letter was included in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Malkin Holdings had said it would consider the two previously unsolicited offers, consistent with its fiduciary duties.
In addition to its presence in New York, Thor Equities owns and develops urban real estate throughout the United States, Latin America and Europe.
Meister Seelig & Fein LLP, the law firm representing investors who oppose the REIT plan, disclosed a letter last week from privately held Cammeby's International Group offering to buy the building for $2 billion.
The second bidder's identity was not disclosed in the most recent SEC filing.
Malkin Holdings led the plan to put the Empire State Building and more than 17 other properties into a real estate investment trust called Empire State Realty Trust Inc, which would be publicly traded under the proposed symbol "ESB" on the New York Stock Exchange. Investors recently approved the REIT plan.
Malkin Holdings, the Helmsley Trust and investors would have to approve a sale. The Helmsley Trust is the majority owner of the company that owns the building's sublease, which expires in 2076.
An appraisal conducted last summer valued the Empire State Building at about $2.33 billion, after debt, according to the SEC filing. Including the mortgage, the historic skyscraper is valued at about $2.53 billion, that appraisal showed.
Reporting by Ilaina Jonas; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz


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I am not the only person I know who uses Linux, speaking of my immediate sphere of relationships (in other words aside from you, humble reader). I have mentioned some of them in the past, and they're probably worth an update, since some have Linux resumes that date back as long as mine. Some longer.
For example, about two and a half years ago I put Ubuntu on two laptops for friends — one was an Asus W3J, and the other was a Toshiba Centrino machine.
Both were, at the time, quirky in their own way, but at latest correspondence (those two both live in the United States now) they had both purchased new laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled. And to the best of my knowledge, they're still using it today.
In the "cautious adoption" department, my brother has tapdanced around Linux for years — even longer than I have, and can even claim firsthand experience with System V on an Intergraph CLIX machine.
These days he seems to be slowly encroaching on a full-time Linux installation, and even sent this photo a day or two ago, showing a Dell Optiplex 745 with 9.10 on it.
That particular machine is a Celeron D, with 1Gb of memory, the Radeon X1300 and about 160Gb of storage space. The aforementioned dv7 has had both Ubuntu and Windows on it in comparable amounts, but the rumor mill says it will be showing up on eBay sometime soon.
My mother has a time-in-service with Ubuntu that rivals mine, and actually exceeds it if my general desertion for lighter distributions is taken into account.
She started with 5.10 and hasn't looked back. The same Inspiron 600m that ran Dapper was traded in for a preinstalled Dell dual-core machine, and that has been in service on a daily basis for years now. Two or three self-managed upgrades and there is no sign of it quitting, from a software or hardware point. Which is how it should be.
Locally I have had one machine prove to be a little more cumbersome than others — my neighbor's Celeron. It's a nice machine and works great; the problem is now and has been that Ubuntu has bloated to such a point as to make it nigh-unusable.
As mentioned a while ago, putting a little more memory in the computer helped quite a bit, but the system was still sluggish and crept along at times.
An obligatory (and pointless) downshift to Xubuntu was only a tiny bit better, and as a result it now runs Arch Linux. Arch is leaps and bounds faster, as anyone will tell you, and runs the full Gnome suite on (literally) a fragment of the memory that Ubuntu requires.
The difference is night and day, with the only "downside" being that the Gnome version of Arch holds your hand less than the Ubuntu version. I've had to add two or three things manually, to include things like a certain music player, or VLC.
I've also been looking for a graphical front-end to pacman — gtkpacman seems okay — if only for my neighbor's general peace of mind. Humans require the illusion of control, but some don't take well to the CLI. That is nature.
On the other hand, putting together a system with the same array of software as what was used in Ubuntu is easier, really. Not only does pacman take a fragment of the time of aptitude, but for some reason the rolling-release system is proving more trustworthy, if you can believe that.
Twice now the Radeon-based graphics card in the machine has gone to an unrecoverable "safe graphics" mode. Once it was fixable with a system update, but the second time was the last straw. Slow performance, repeated video failures and my own advice that Ubuntu was not the only (or best) solution, and we have another Archer on our hands.
That too is nature. 😉


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This is my interpretation of mash ki dal, which is traditionally a lentil dish made from tikki dal. For this version, I prepared it with pearled barley, which I think has a marvelous texture that works well for the dish. I soaked the barley overnight so the grains were fully hydrated.
The rest of the preparation consists of a few coarsely chopped tomatoes, dried red chiles, thinly sliced ginger and chopped coriander. It's nutritious, tasty and not that complicated. Perfect for our family's dinner meal!
I'll be in Los Angeles this weekend sharing samples from my latest cookbook, Banh Mi, at a pre-party for the Golden Globes. Stay tuned for pictures!
Prepping the chiles: Using a paring knife, make a 2-inch incision in the green chile pepper. For less heat, remove the seeds (don't forget to wear disposable gloves). Set aside.
Prepping the ginger: Clean the chunk of fresh ginger, carefully removing any dirt. Peel the ginger root with a paring knife or the edge of a spoon, then grate it using a Microplane.
Soaking the barley: In a bowl, wash the barley thoroughly. Soak in about 1 quart water for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Drain as much liquid as possible. Set aside.
Assembly time:
In a large pan, heat the canola oil. Add the yellow onion and cook for about 6-8 minutes until soft and nicely golden. Leaving as much oil as possible in the pan, transfer to a platter. Set aside.
In the same pan, add the chile and cook until softened. Add barley, ginger, turmeric, dried chiles, red chili powder and garam masala. Add about 1 cup water (as needed), the chopped tomato and stir. Bring to a boil without covering, then lower to medium heat and cook for about 15 minutes. Check the softness, add a little more water and continue cooking if necessary (I didn't). If the grains start sticking to the bottom, add a little more water (¼ cup). Season with salt. Turn off the heat. Add the reserved caramelized onions and cilantro. Gently stir the grains without mashing them. Cover and let stand until you're ready to serve.
Serve warm or at room temperature with roti or basmati rice on the side.
Bon appétit!
Pearl barley is a grain that has been processed and had its tough, inedible outer shell removed.
If you want to make authentic garam masala, stick to the main ingredients such as cardamamom, black pepper, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and cloves.


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How could we possibly welcome fall, and celebrate Thanksgiving, without pumpkin? For me, this also one of the symbols in my family's Rosh haShana seder and under the sukkah. One of my favorite ways to serve it is in a creamy and delicious risotto!
Those who were born in the Veneto region, like me, also celebrate red radicchio and like to incorporate it into many different recipes. While a similar type of lettuce was already grown in North-Eastern Italy before the 16th century, the exact kind we eat today, with its white-veined leaves, was engineered in the late 1800s by a Belgian agronomist. The different varieties are named after the Nothern Italian regions where they are cultivated: the easiest to find here in the United States is radicchio di Chioggia (maroon and round), and sometimes the radicchio di Treviso, which looks like a large red Belgian endive. Its mildly bitter flavor blends beautifully with the sweetness of the pumpkin or squash!
- 1/2 pound fresh pumpkin or butternut squash, peeled and cut into small dice
- 2/3 head of red radicchio
- 1 1/2 cups Italian rice (Arborio, Carnaroli, or Vialone Nano type)
- 1 medium white onion, finely diced
- 1/2 cup dry wine
- 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
- About 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 7 to 8 cups vegetable stock
- 4 to 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 to 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (to taste)
- salt and pepper to taste
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet. Add the pumpkin and half of the onions and cook on medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes. Season with salt, nutmeg, pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the pumpkin is tender, another 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly, then transfer to a food processor and puree the pumpkin. Rinse the skillet and heat another tablespoon of oil in it. Add the radicchio (sliced into thin stripes) and cook for 5 minutes, seasoning with salt. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan, bring the stock to a boil, reduce the heat and keep it hot.
In a heavy pot, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Add the remaining onion and cook for 2 minutes. Add the rice and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, for a few minutes. As soon as it starts sticking to the bottom, pour in the wine and allow it to evaporate. Immediately lower the heat and pour in one ladleful of the hot stock and cook, stirring constantly, until all of the liquid has been absorbed. Gradually add more hot stock, 1 ladleful at a time, stirring frequently until absorbed before adding the next. After about 15 minutes, stir in the pumpkin puree and continue cooking, adding more stock, 1 ladleful at a time, until the rice is tender but "al dente" (about 5 to 15 minutes longer, depending on the type of rice). The risotto should be creamy and loose. Add the radicchio, and more salt if necessary. The risotto will be quite loose. Spoon the risotto into warmed soup plates and drizzle with little balsamic vinegar. Serve immediately. Of course if you want to be really fancy and impress your guests, you could also serve the risotto in the pumpkin shell.
*** For a slightly different result, you can also cook the pumpkin with the rice. Just add the pumpkin to all the onion at the beginning, and then add the rice. Try both versions, and see which one is your favorite! In the context of a dairy meal, this risotto tastes delicious with the addition of butter and parmigiano. On the other hand, the creaminess and sweetness of the pumpkin make it very enjoyable as a Parve (non-dairy) dish!


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I guess bilingual books may speed up the learning process a little bit.
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I guess bilingual books may speed up the learning process a little bit.
Questions on Spanish Language Stack Exchange are expected to relate to the Spanish language within the scope defined by the community. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about reopening questions here. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
I can´t think of any good site for that purpose. There are places in which you can find free books, both in English (mostly) and in Spanish (few), such as "Project Gutenberg", but they tend to be "old books", and old Spanish, as old English is sometimes not easy to understand, and they both use expressions which are obselete nowadays.
In my opinion, one of the best ways to compare equivalent sentences in both (modern) languages are bilingual DVDs: watching a movie (or part of it) in both languages. But that is not free. It can be cheap, if you rent the DVDs or you buy films which are not recent hits, but not free.
My favorite site is the International Children's Digital Library which also has an iOS app if you're so inclined. It essentially presents a searchable collection of scanned children's books in many different languages and skill levels. There are many filtering criteria which makes it easy to browse. Create a login for free to save your favorites. The amazing thing about the entire site is that it's entirely free.


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#143 of 200, Snake Plant
#143 of 200, Snake Plant
How it's made: Embroidered with DMC embroidery floss onto quality white linen, set in a 4" wooden hoop, and backed with linen.
How it's unique: This item was stitched for the book 200 Embroidered Flowers. A certificate of authenticity will be included with purchase of this item.
How it's packaged: Item is placed in a pink kraft envelope and tied with baker's twine for gifting, free of charge.
How it's shipped: Item will ship within 3-5 business days after date of purchase.
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