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Christopher Heyerdahl's name is synonymous with such characters as John Druitt and Bigfoot of "Sanctuary," Todd the Wraith of "Stargate Atlantis" and the vampire Marcus in the "Twilight" films.
Add to that list The Swede, his menacing character in AMC's post-Civil War Western, "Hell on Wheels."
"Isn't he amazing? What a great character, huh," Heyerdahl said during a recent interview, giving credit to pretty much everyone on the production but himself.
Yet Heyerdahl turns in the unforgettable, Emmy-worthy performance as The Swede, who is actually a Norwegian survivor of the Confederate prison at Andersonville. As head of security for railroad boss Doc Durant (Colm Meaney), The Swede (real name Tor Gundersen) suspects that Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) of murder.
Heyerdahl, who had just finished about six hours of "Sanctuary" ADR for Biggie, called from Vancouver for a wide-ranging chat about how he tapped his Norwegian heritage to play The Swede, what's coming for Biggie on "Sanctuary" and about the upcoming "Twilight: Breaking Dawn."
Great talking to you again. And congrats, you are so great in "Hell on Wheels." I've been looking around at the reviews and you're getting all kinds of props.
Oh really. Thanks a lot.
It's not just me; everybody's agreeing with me.
And why would they not agree with you? What silly people to not agree with you.
Right? I was excited to see you. And also Ian Tracey.
I know, isn't that great?
It's a "Sanctuary" reunion.
Yeah well, I'll tell you, because I've seen his work for so many years, and been an admirer of his, you know, him as a craftsman, he's such a great actor. And so to have the opportunity to work with him and get to know him a little bit on "Sanctuary" and there we are, flopping around on horses in the beautiful countryside of the foothills of Alberta. It was pretty sweet.
And your characters are so bad.
We're quite the team.
Tell me about Tor.
Tor Gundersen, not Gunderson. Gunderson would be Swedish. Gundersen; he's Norwegian.
And you're half Norwegian and half Scotch?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My father emigrated from Norway back in the '50s. So he's a Norwegian lad and I still have all sorts of wonderful family in Norway.
Did you hit them up for accent help?
I went to university in Oslo and learned the language. So I have a rusty, rusty Norwegian that I get to exercise on a regular basis with my dear father. Most of our conversations are in Norwegian. And then when I speak with my family in Norway, it's almost always in Norwegian as well, so.
So you just had to apply that as if you were Norwegian speaking English.
Yeah, I listened to the creative pronunciations of English words that I've listened to my entire life by my father and his friends. My father's a major—he likes to socialize and likes to share the great things that this world has to offer with friends and family. So there were lots of Norwegians and Scots around the house.
So between those two I was exposed to the creative use of the English language from the Scots tongue as well as the Norwegian tongue.
With each show, especially with a period drama, it's the trying to get back to a certain mindset and Norway has been protected from the outside world because, really, who would want to go into the frozen wasteland. I say that in sort of sidebar, but for them—for people in our hemisphere, hell is a hot place. But for the Northern Europeans, hell has frozen over. It is a cold, bitterly cold place.
Anyway. The Norwegian man is very distinct and to try and bring that into this character—it's not a modern mindset. Norway is a place that has been, for many years, isolated. Maybe over the last couple of decades, immigration has come in and there are less than just white faces in the Land of the Midnight Sun. And so it's interesting—the point of view of this one man in this foreign world. To try and bring that sort of beautiful faraway place into this world of "Hell on Wheels" was really a wonderful exercise, and to try and bring a little bit of my heritage to this show that's true to that.
How much did you have to think about it being 1865?
With anything that's done in this time period, obviously, we're going to bring some kind of modernisms to bear because that's what we have to draw upon. But it's trying not to fall into that trap of being modern. With a lot of the issues in the show, our modern sensibilities are deeply affronted by a lot of the character's actions. And yet, at that time in many ways, the show is actually quite forward because, you just have to put yourself in the mindset of the period. You can't look at it from somebody in the 21st century; it doesn't work like that.
So yeah, it is an exercise in not falling into the trap of being an advanced modern man.
And did you do a lot of studying up on the period and the Civil War? I love the scene in Episode 2 or 3 where you talk about the immoral mathematics at Andersonville.
Andersonville. I had no idea about the Norwegians in Andersonville. In our story their supply train is captured and this one Norwegian is put into Andersonville, but there was actually a whole troop of Norwegian soldiers as well who were in Andersonville. And there was quite a large Norwegian population there, which is something I'd never heard of. My father didn't realize the amount of Norwegians that were involved in the Civil War and that were held captive in that horrible swamp of a place.
So that was eye-opening to myself and to my extended family. So that kind of education was great. Yeah, I did lots of research on that because it was something that I was completely ignorant of because it's not something that's really taught in school, certainly no schools that I've ever been to.
If you think about it, it's not that long ago, the Civil War. Strangely, it's still very fresh in so many minds. At the beginning of the year I was down in the South and the Civil War, it's almost like it happened yesterday in many ways.
And yet for me, it seems such a long time ago, a foreign experience. So to try and bring the reality of that very fresh—I mean, this is just a year away from the end of the Civil War, it's incredibly fresh. The wounds haven't even healed or even close to healed. And I don't even know if they're healed necessarily today. But at that time these are still open wounds. Everything that everyone in this story has gone through—this is a horrible period in American history. And this story in many ways is part of the healing process, the rebuilding of the American dream.
And then, of course, he's out hanging somebody else.
Well, you know, somebody has to lay down the rule of the law, right? It's funny, because—I don't know. When somebody says, "Oh, you're playing the villain." Oh, I'm playing the what? The villain? No, he's not a villain. You know, you always want to blame the guy who has to be papa.
He's just doing his job, right?
Well, I don't even know if it's so much doing a job as much as it's always circumstantial, right? Everyone has to survive in this town. It's not called Hell on Wheels for just a fun little name. It's filled with murderers and thieves and someone who would steal the last penny out of their mother's purse. These people are there, not just because they're out of work, but because they're all running away from something. Every single person there is running away from something or perhaps they've convinced themselves they're running to something.
And they're not law-abiding citizens. It's not like the nice, friendly little town in the West where people are setting up a nice little shops and taking their kids to school. No, this is a very violent place. What's the saying? "One less every day."
People are dying or being killed through one action or another in this town. And he's the guy who has to try and keep body and soul, law and order together in a lawless place. Do that by being understanding and cuddly? No, you got to lay down the law.
He doesn't need to extort money from everyone though.
He's the tax collector. You pay taxes. Do you not pay taxes? For your apartment, do you not pay tax to the person who runs the town?
I wish I didn't have to.
Exactly. So, it's just the beginning of modern government, modern municipal government.
I see your point. I think everybody's going to kind of forget that even though Bohannon didn't actually kill the guy that The Swede accuses him of killing, he's killed plenty of other men in cold blood.
Yeah, but just before the guy gets his own throat cut, what's Bohannon doing? He's holding in his hand a knife. And he was going to kill him.
Right, exactly.
So the great thing is, we always want to root for the hero or the anti-hero, or however you want to pigeonhole Bohannon. But the character of The Swede sees in the eyes because The Swede has done his fair share of killing in order to survive in Andersonville. He knows what that is. He sees into the eyes of Bohannon, and he sees a murderer. He knows that he was or has in some way had something to do with the death of Johnson. He can see it; he can smell it. Everything in him tells him that that's the case. And he's right. He's absolutely right. He's not going to hang an innocent man.
So it's not as black and white as saying, "Oh, here's the hero and here's the villain." It's the great thing about this show is that there really are no heroes; there are no villains. Everyone is just doing his best to survive in this, in hell.
So how did you come about the role?
I don't know—providence? The Gayton brothers wrote an incredible role. I don't know how they came up with this character.
But it's an amazing story of generosity. You think actors are usually out for themselves and they never want to tell anybody about a wonderful opportunity that comes up. But one of my best buddies is a Shaman and a Yogi and an actor and just an amazing human being. … He was so excited about this character that he called me up and he says, "I'm getting ready to do this audition tomorrow, but every time I read it, I just think of you. So are you going to audition for this character?" And I hadn't heard about it.
And the next day, I had a call from my agent saying, "We've got an audition for you. The character's called The Swede, it's in a new Western for AMC, and you're going to put yourself on tape tomorrow."
And I started reading the sides, and I'm looking at it and going, "Oh yeah, he calls himself 'The Swede.'" And I'm going, "Oh gosh, man, if I could convince them that he's actually Norwegian." And then I read the next line and it says, "But I'm actually Norwegian." [Laughs.]
The voice of the character was there; the words were so great. When you read something like this, and it just resonates. It's such a great character. I'm speechless at how brilliant this character was when I looked at it on the page.
How he was communicating with [Bohannon in "Immoral Mathematics"] and the secrets that he was sharing with this man who is going to die. He's telling him things that he wouldn't tell someone. There's a vulnerability in these scenes that you're talking about in the pig car. There's a vulnerability between these two men that he wouldn't normally share with somebody. There are truths being told, secrets being told. And that resonated so much.
Anyway, so I did the audition, was brought in for a call back and I did it in front of David Von Ancken, Jeremy Gold was there. Who else was in the room? Anyway, the guys were there and I did it for them and I think I heard the next day that they wanted to move ahead and away we go. The rest is joyful history.
When you read it, did you just feel like, "I could kiss that guy who told me about this?"
Oh, I have. [Laughs.] I have since kissed him many times. I just actually saw him and his wife when I was in Toronto just a couple of days ago and it's just funny how it starts off with that and you end up, you know, saying, "Yeah, I was just at the premiere for 'Hell on Wheels,' and you'll be able to see it in a couple of weeks."
So it clicked with you immediately?
Immediately. … It resonated with me right off the top. And it's a very happy story.
What do you think The Swede does for fun?
The Swede does for fun? He practices faith. He's a very devout, very devout man. I think that him practicing his faith in God is a huge part of his fun. As a strong Lutheran, one of the great joys in life would be practicing his faith.
I think at the same time, surviving is something that he does that, I don't know if it would be fun so much. Fun, that's a tough word. I don't think that he would ever think that he was having fun, in all honesty. But pleasure, I would say, he gets a lot of pleasure in surviving and the creativity of surviving.
There are some wonderful moments of pleasure for The Swede. Usually in his ironic way he takes great pleasure, I don't know, in observing life and observing the existence of interacting with all these damned characters that he sees around him. There's this, I don't know, battle of his own guilt and his own penance and how best to exist by the rules of immoral mathematics.
I don't know. It's a tough one. That's a tough one to answer. I could say he has some fun perhaps, I don't know, he has fun in eating a biscuit. Because the biscuit, well, Number 1, it's going to make his bowels not react in a bad way. [Laughs.] That poor man's lower intestine after living through Andersonville, it's not like they had the antibiotics to take at the time.
Yeah, so I think he finds pleasure in the small things.
Do you think he takes joy in being the enforcer too?
I don't know if he does. I think it's not so much the joy of hanging people; it's the pleasure in creating order, the pleasure in showing limits to the populace. I think one of the most difficult things that the human animal has to deal with is making choices and making the right choices. And when those people who have the power to use or abuse—and I think The Swede falls into both of those categories as anyone does who's in a position of power—is that his job is to show people the limits of their actions. And if somebody is not there to show the limits then there's anarchy and there is chaos.
So imagine Hell on Wheels without The Swede. Nothing would get done. The railroad would not be built. He's an essential part of the workings of that society. And does he fall, does he make mistakes? Absolutely. Does he make the wrong choices sometimes? Absolutely.
But he is an essential part of the workings of that society just as the law enforcers of our time who are perpetually being blamed and praised and challenged and reviewed and investigated because of their failings and also their great successes. But it's not an easy thing to be the lawmaker or the law enforcer.
Then he feels he's doing right, right?
Well, he is.
He's doing a just and noble job.
Absolutely. And he is. … He fails sometimes, absolutely. But he is, for lack of a better [term], he is the Sheriff of the town. He just hasn't been given the stamp of approval by the federal government. He's been given the stamp of approval by Durant.
How was the experience filming in the mud all the time?
Again, the reality of the situation is that they were in nature. They couldn't hide from nature. And nor could we.
I would say probably the grips had a harder time than we did because they were the ones having to lug everything around. We had the great joy of PA's running around with umbrellas and coddling us. … So we were in a great position, but when we're actually in the muck and doing the work, it's a great help because it's real. You can't hide from the weather in southern Alberta. In the foothills, it just comes, and it comes with a vengeance. You can't hide. The wind comes up and was blowing everything over. The hail storms coming down the size of baseballs. You can't hide from that anywhere.
So the reality of that just helps the moment of the scene and because this is what those people had to deal with on a regular basis.
That's just a lot different than on "Sanctuary" where you're just pretending something's there, isn't it?
Isn't it just. [Laughs.] Yeah, yeah. The northern winds, when they blow, you can't just flick the switch and say, "Can we turn off that fan please because there's some sand getting in my eyes." It doesn't work that way.
No green screens in the wilderness.
No. No. No, the only green screen in the wilderness is when you need 100 miles of track.
Right. I hear you had to go back and forth shooting both shows at the same time.
Yeah. It was great. [Producer] George Horie and the gang at "Sanctuary" were very, very good to me and allowed me to do "Hell on Wheels." Without their support, without George and ["HOW" producer] Chad Oakes getting together and saying that this impossible schedule could be worked out, we wouldn't be having this conversation about this subject.
I would arrive to work at "Sanctuary" at four in the morning, shoot all day, Gordy MacDonald, our first AD, would make sure that I was in the chair and out the door at 8 [p.m.]. The car would pick me up and drive me to the airport. I'd get on the 10:30 flight, arrive Calgary at 12:30, 1 in the morning. Get into the hotel; get picked up at 6 the next morning. Drive to set and either stay for a day or two and then jump on a plane, fly back the next night, get up at 4 in the morning, back on "Sanctuary." And that was basically what it was like for five months. And it was fantastic. I was in heaven.
Yeah. I'm working on two shows with people I already loved in one show and people I grew to love in the new show and with producers who were all supportive of the stories, of everyone working there. Writers were writing these amazing situations on both shows.
I just finished doing ADR for three episodes with Biggie and looking at all the wonderful transformative tales that were going on there and then going into a serious period drama and galloping along on horses and dealing with hail storms and rebel soldiers and Indian attacks. I mean, who could ask for anything more?
That's great. I'm happy for you. But didn't that sort of scramble your brain going back and forth like that?
No. It's funny, one morning walking with my overnight bag through the Calgary airport I just started to giggle. That was me doing the one-hour drive from the suburbs, from my bedroom community, to go to work. But I'm flying.
"Hell on Wheels" was worth it. The amount of testosterone on that set is lunatic, and yet we all got along; there were not conflicts. You know, [there was] the usual stuff. But … it was a frickin' love fest. It's just a good group of people. They have done an amazing job of casting this show because everyone exists so well together. It's a great group. It's wonderful. It's hard to put into words.
Common told me that the area outside of Calgary was gorgeous, that he had never seen anything like it.
It's stunning. We're on the Tsuu T'ina res. And we're in a beautiful valley, sort of a dent in the landscape. And there are 1,500 wild horses running around in this area. And we're just in a dip and 360 degrees, we cannot see a single telephone pole. We cannot see suburban sprawl. We cannot city. We cannot see anything that reminds us that we are in the 21st century.
And you go to the top of a hill, and you've got, oh my gosh, look, at that, a row of houses, and they all look the same. Right there. And yet, you get below that and we are in the mid-19th century. It's phenomenal. It was a beautiful, beautiful spot.
Had you ridden horses before?
I grew up riding horses as a city slicker. I love that stuff. … I kind of was thrown into the saddle [for this]. I'd worked with the wranglers about five, six years ago on "Into the West." And there, it was actually with Ryan Reynolds and Piper Ferguson, and we were basically sitting on horses for, I don't know, 10 hours a day on that show. And we'd set up a shot and we'd say to the guys, "OK, you can go like for 45 minutes, we're going to take off on the horses." And we'd just take off, had walkies, and then we'd just come back and shoot the scene and ride off on the horses again. It was pretty great.
So that was six years ago. It was tough getting back on the horse, I must say. My arse and my legs are definitely feeling it. And I was walking like a cowboy there, maybe not riding like a cowboy—but certainly walking like a cowboy.
I've stood back-to-back with you. I bet you sit pretty tall on a horse.
Well, I had this beautiful, beautiful horse. And the name of the horse was Tall Man. And it is the tallest horse that they had. A stunner, just gorgeous. And this horse would get up to a canter as quickly as it could, just beautiful.
They really wanted to make you look intimidating, didn't they?
Well, Wendy Partridge did a great job with creating that costume, because from minute one, as soon as she started describing what she had in mind when we were talking on the telephone before I got up there, it laid down the character so perfectly. Her vision really solidified The Swede, absolutely. So I think that Wendy has had a major part in creating The Swede. The Gaytons and Wendy Partridge have made an amazing character.
And you. The last time we talked, I asked you who you like more between Bigfoot and Druitt? I'm going to expand that to The Swede. And do you have a favorite of the three?
I can't choose a favorite. It's like, I don't know, choosing a favorite of three people whom you love. As I said, I just finished doing ADR on Biggie, and he's beautiful. I love Biggie, and I love the way he breathes and thinks and reacts. They're all wonderful characters. And I take great joy in playing them all and having them surprise me and I'm a lucky man and the great thing is I don't need to choose.
What's coming up for Biggie?
What can I say? What's coming up for Biggie is probably the biggest challenge of his hundred-year existence and the biggest challenge of his relationship with Magnus in the Sanctuary.
Does that come into play later with the rebuilding of the Hollow Earth homeland?
No, well that's part of it, but no. That's definitely an influence because that whole story line is part of it; it's partially related to that.
Are we going to hear you sing too?
No, unfortunately. I was written into that episode and then they realized, oh no, no, no. We've already given him that time off to do "Hell on Wheels," so you'll see Rob Lawrenson, Declan, come in and take over for Biggie. So Rob's in the musical. Yeah.
And you're and you got "Twilight" coming up, too.
Yeah, the big we've got the big premiere on the 14th.
Anything you want to say about that real quick? About Marcus?
Well, being a part of something like that is such a great thing to witness. Marcus sits back and observes and is not terribly active in society anymore, but he certainly observes and feels and ponders and yearns and reminisces. In a way, that's very much my experience as well in this whole thing because I am in it and yet I'm not a part of the madness like a lot of the young people in this show. I get to witness this kind of event that doesn't come along very often.
And that's a wonderful and amazing thing to be a part of. So, you know, part of that will come to a culmination on Monday the 14th, when we walk down the red carpet and share it with a select few, and then on the 18th, when it comes out. It's a great experience to be a part of because, let's face it, you can do all sorts of wonderful films or have any kind of wonderful experience, but you know, how many times is it going to be relished by so many people?
Not very often. So it's quite an experience.
Well, I think The Swede's going to be a fan favorite, too.
Ah, well, that's certainly a favorite of mine. He's a wonderful character.


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The Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Program is a National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) initiative administered by the Florida Department of Emergency Management to help communities identify and implement measures to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk of flood damage to homes and other structures insurable under the National Flood Insurance Program.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach assists property owners who have a current flood insurance policy, and have a documented history of flood damages. Special consideration is given to owners of "repetitive flood loss" properties. The FMA program is a competitive grant, awarded annually based on the availability of Federal and State funds and the availability of local resources to administer the program. The program provides homeowners with reasonable, cost-effective hazard mitigation options and potential public/private financing alternatives.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency contributes up to 75% of eligible mitigation costs. The remaining 25% must come from non-federal sources. The homeowner must contribute at least 12.5%. At the present time, the Town of Fort Myers Beach requires the homeowner to contribute the full non-federal share.
The application period for FMA grant applications typically opens in March and closes in May to the Town of Fort Myers Beach. We must process the applications and submit them digitally to FDEM typically by June. FDEM will forward eligible applications to FEMA for funding consideration.
Examples of flood mitigation projects that might qualify for FMA funding assistance include:
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If you have been notified that your property is on the NFIP repetitive flood loss list you may qualify for financial assistance under the FMA program. To find out if the program is being offered and whether you qualify, contact the Floodplain Manager.
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SEC Announces Latest Charges in Joint Law Enforcement Effort Uncovering Penny Stock Schemes
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the latest in a series of cases against microcap companies, officers, and promoters arising out of a joint law enforcement investigation to unearth penny stock schemes with roots in South Florida.
In complaints filed in federal court in Miami, the SEC charged five penny stock promoters with conducting various manipulation schemes involving undisclosed payments to induce purchases of a microcap stock to generate the false appearance of market interest. The SEC also charged a Massachusetts-based microcap company and the CEO with orchestrating a pair of illicit kickback schemes and an insider trading scheme involving the company's stock. A stock promoter in Texas is charged for his role in the insider trading scheme.
"These stock promoters employed a menu of schemes, tricks, and deceits in their pursuit of unearned money at the expense of other investors," said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC's Miami Regional Office. "Their bold misconduct highlights the continuing need for law enforcement action to aggressively root out microcap fraud."
The SEC has now charged 48 individuals and 25 companies in this series of penny stock investigations out of the agency's Miami Regional Office, which has worked closely with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The first of the joint enforcement actions was announced in October 2010.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida today announced criminal charges against many of the same individuals charged today by the SEC.
According to the SEC's complaint against Boca Raton, Fla.-based stock promoters Kevin McKnight and Stephen C. Bauer, they engaged in market manipulation fraud involving the penny stock of Environmental Infrastructure Holdings Corp. (EIHC). They generated the appearance of market interest in EIHC to induce investors to purchase the stock and artificially increase the trading price and volume. In a separate complaint against Jeffrey M. Berkowitz of Jupiter, Fla., the SEC alleges that he participated in a market manipulation scheme involving the stock of Face Up Entertainment Group (FUEG) and similarly worked to falsely generate the appearance of market interest in that stock. The SEC's complaint against Eric S. Brown of Brooklyn, N.Y., alleges that he engaged in a pair of market manipulation schemes involving the stock of International Development & Environmental Holdings Corp. (IDEH) and DAM Holdings Inc. (DAMH), the latter of which is now known as Premier Beverage Group Corp. (PBGC). And according to an SEC complaint against Boca Raton, Fla.-based stock promoter Richard A. Altomare, he engaged in market manipulation scheme involving the stock of Sunset Brands Inc. (SSBN).
The SEC alleges in a separate complaint that North Andover, Mass.-based Urban AG Corp. (AQUM) and its president and CEO Billy V. Ray Jr. of Cumming, Ga., schemed to make an undisclosed kickback payment to a hedge fund manager in exchange for the fund's purchase of restricted shares of stock in the company. In a separate kickback scheme, Ray made an inducement payment to a stock promoter who would purchase shares of Urban on the open market ahead of planned press releases to help him manipulate the stock. Meanwhile, stock promoter Wade Clark participated in Ray's insider trading scheme involving Urban stock by providing the hedge fund fiduciary with an advance copy of a press release containing material nonpublic information about the company so the hedge fund manager would purchase stock prior to the news being issued.
The SEC's complaints allege that Altomare, Bauer, Berkowitz, Brown, Clark, McKnight, Ray, and Urban AG Corp. violated Section 17(a)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933 and/or Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5(a) and 10b-5(c). The SEC is seeking financial penalties, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest, and permanent injunctions. The SEC also seeks penny stock bars against all of the individuals charged in these cases as well as an officer-and-director bar against Ray.
The SEC's investigations have been conducted by Michelle I. Bougdanos, Trisha D. Sindler, and Amy L. Weber under the supervision of Chedly C. Dumornay in the Miami Regional Office. The SEC's litigation of these complaints will be led by James Carlson, Patrick R. Costello, Russell Koonin, and Andrew Schiff. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Miami division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


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The first trial in a criminal case that features bikers, drugs, guns, people nicknamed Bigfoot, Mountain and Dirty and a dog named Pumpkin got under way this week in Snohomish County Superior Court.
Because some of the witnesses and defendants have ties to gangs and many have lengthy criminal histories, sheriff's deputies stepped up security in the courthouse. A security guard posted outside the courtroom is searching purses, bags and backpacks and double-checking spectators for weapons.
"Even the lawyers are getting searched," a staffer said Thursday.
Ronald Brown is the first of three men to go to trial for the Dec. 1, 2011 home invasion robbery in Marysville that ended in the death of a Tacoma man.
Patrick Buckmaster, 30, was shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave in east Snohomish County. Prosecutors allege that Johnathan "Bigfoot" Frohs shot Buckmaster after he mistook him for a rival when the Tacoma man walked into the house wearing a hockey mask.
Buckmaster's family was told by a suspected member of the Aryan Family prison gang that Buckmaster was taken on vacation because he'd done right by an outlaw motorcycle gang during a recent job. Relatives believe that was the gang's way of notifying them of Buckmaster's death.
Investigators suspect that the home-invasion robbery was set in motion after two men robbed a drug dealer of $4,700 and methamphetamine. That man reportedly rounded up some friends and stormed a house in search of his robbers. They weren't there, but the crew held two people inside the house hostage, demanding money and threatening their relatives, according to court papers.
One of those allegedly taken hostage was on the witness stand Thursday. He said he knew trouble was breathing down his neck after hearing that Kenny Easley, aka Dirty, had been ripped off. He told the jury drug dealers don't just roll over when someone steals their dope, money and car.
"It's about respect," the man said.
He said he was certain things were headed south for him after he took a call from a man, who said, "First the boys are coming over and then the men will be showing up."
The man said he was home with his dog, Pumpkin, a Labrador Poodle mix who wouldn't hurt a flea, when the heavily-armed crew showed up and began searching for the two men accused of robbing them. His wife returned home a short time later and also was held against her will, court papers said.
After Buckmaster was shot, everyone scattered. People later returned to the house to clean up and move Buckmaster's body, court papers said.
A handful of men have pleaded guilty for their parts in the home-invasion robbery and drug rip-off. Frohs, who is charged with murder, is scheduled to go to trial in June, along with Clark Johnson. Jeffrey Brinkley's trial is scheduled for next week. He's accused of robbing, assaulting and kidnapping Easley. If convicted, that would be his third-strike, sending him to prison for life, according to prosecutors.
Brown's trial could last a few weeks.
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By Beryl Forman & Sam Ollinger
Last year, SANDAG began the work of implementing their Early Action Projects that are part of their 2050 Regional Bicycle Plan. Within the City of San Diego, SANDAG is currently working on the design of the Uptown and the North Park/Mid-City regional bike projects both of which are currently in the design phase of implementation.
The design phase of the implementation process to date has included putting together the working group composed of over 40 individuals representing a wide variety of stakeholder interests for each of the two urban core projects. The draft plan initially presented by SANDAG to the working group provided a skeleton of a map that was designed to get the working group efforts to coalesce around some specifics on where they thought the bicycle facilities to be implemented would be most effective and most utilized.
In developing a regional bicycle network, SANDAG planners are expecting to see an increase in the number of people choosing a bicycle as a transportation mode. Given the population increases being projected by SANDAG, redesigning our city streets to be less terrifying and more inviting would certainly go a long way toward accommodating all modes of travel including that by bicycle.
For years, only 1% of San Diegans have been taking to the streets on a bicycle and for good reason– a lack of a region-wide and comprehensive bicycle network composed of protected bicycle facilities has not been a top priority for our city.
The initial discussion of the two urban bike projects focused around the reasons why most San Diegans between the ages of eight through eighty weren't comfortable riding on the busy, commercial roads such as University Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard. While the SANDAG maps included several hundred 'community assets' and other gathering places that exist along these main corridors, the existing bicycle network does very little to connect people to these destinations. The draft plan presented by SANDAG was focused on placing bicycle facilities on the existing bike network – the side streets that run parallel to these commercial corridors on residential streets.
To support good active transportation planning and bike safety, a majority of the committee members that comprised these working groups expressed displeasure with SANDAG's draft plan. The reasoning behind the displeasure stemmed from the reality that the side streets were (relatively) safe in their current state in comparison with the commercial corridors which is dominated by fast moving traffic. It is these commercial corridors that need and can benefit the most from the investment that SANDAG is looking to make in the next two years.
Furthermore, local businesses rely on customers that ride bikes, walk, utilize public transportation, as well as drive. If the goal is to improve San Diego's neighborhoods like Mayor Bob Filner has in mind, we can not allow these commercial corridors to remain in the state they are – which is unsafe for everyone including those who drive.
To pick one of these corridors, El Cajon Boulevard connects many neighborhoods in San Diego. It also has the advantage of being the most direct and level street to get people from one neighborhood to another – important considering that many of the side streets have steep inclines that most people would find challenging to ride up. Additionally these parallel side streets don't connect the neighborhoods in as direct of a manner that the commercial corridors do.
With businesses including restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, bars, music venues, and hundreds of other service oriented destinations already existing on these corridors, SANDAG would be doing the local business community a huge disservice by not improving the main commercial corridors for customers who want to patronize these venues by bicycle. At the Mid-City neighborhood planning meeting, one working group member stated that SANDAG's draft plan was great, as long as one wasn't interested in going anywhere.
In the field of urban planning, the term 'complete streets' is a goal of many urban planners and municipalities. The idea is that streets must safely accommodate people who want to walk, bicycle, drive or take transit. During the course of this design process, SANDAG has done little to demonstrate that they do intend to implement a Complete Street as part of the Early Action Project program.
To achieve great neighborhoods within the region, the City of San Diego in collaboration with SANDAG must focus on implementing a regional bicycle plan that gets people around safely to where they need to go. This will simultaneously result in our region attaining statewide policy goals of improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also boosting our local economy, improving public health and making San Diego that much nicer of a place to be in.
For more discussion of this topic read here and here.
Beryl Forman is the Marketing Director for the El Cajon Blvd Business Improvement District, which includes North Park and City Heights. She is currently working on her Master's degree in City Planning at SDSU.
Samantha Ollinger is the Executive Director and Board President of BikeSD. She has a vision to transform San Diego into a world-class bicycle friendly city. She and two friends originally created BikeSD.org to change the conversation about bicycling in San Diego. She now has formalized the site into a non-profit organization that will push San Diego in reaching its potential as a world-class bicycle friendly city. You may reach Sam at email@example.com


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the Week of Proper 21 / Ordinary 26
Bible Commentaries Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible Henry's Concise
* One of the angels who had the vials, explains the meaning of the former vision of the antichristian beast that was to reign 1260 years, and then to be destroyed. (1-6) And interprets the mystery of the woman, and the beast that had seven heads and ten horns. (7-18)
Verses 1-6
1-6 Rome clearly appears to be meant in this chapter. Pagan Rome subdued and ruled with military power, not by art and flatteries. She left the nations in general to their ancient usages and worship. But it is well known that by crafty and politic management, with all kinds of deceit of unrighteousness, papal Rome has obtained and kept her rule over kings and nations. Here were allurements of worldly honour and riches, pomp and pride, suited to sensual and worldly minds. Prosperity, pomp, and splendour, feed the pride and lusts of the human heart, but are no security against the Divine vengeance. The golden cup represents the allurements, and delusions, by which this mystical Babylon has obtained and kept her influence, and seduced others to join her abominations. She is named, from her infamous practices, a mother of harlots; training them up to idolatry and all sorts of wickedness. She filled herself with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus. She intoxicated herself with it; and it was so pleasant to her, that she never was satisfied. We cannot but wonder at the oceans of Christian blood shed by men called Christians; yet when we consider these prophecies, these awful deeds testify to the truth of the gospel. And let all beware of a splendid, gainful, or fashionable religion. Let us avoid the mysteries of iniquity, and study diligently the great mystery of godliness, that we may learn humility and gratitude from the example of Christ. The more we seek to resemble him, the less we shall be liable to be deceived by antichrist.
Verses 7-14
7-14 The beast on which the woman sat was, and is not, and yet is. It was a seat of idolatry and persecution, and is not; not in the ancient form, which was pagan: yet it is; it is truly the seat of idolatry and tyranny, though of another sort and form. It would deceive into stupid and blind submission all the inhabitants of the earth within its influence, except the remnant of the elect. This beast was seven heads, seven mountains, the seven hills on which Rome stands; and seven kings, seven sorts of government. Five were gone by when this prophecy was written; one was then in being; the other was yet to come. This beast, directed by the papacy, makes an eighth governor, and sets up idolatry again. It had ten horns, which are said to be ten kings who had as yet no kingdoms; they should not rise up till the Roman empire was broken; but should for a time be very zealous in her interest. Christ must reign till all enemies be put under his feet. The reason of the victory is, that he is the King of kings, and Lord of lords. He has supreme dominion and power over all things; all the powers of earth and hell are subject to his control. His followers are called to this warfare, are fitted for it, and will be faithful in it.
Verses 15-18
15-18 God so ruled the hearts of these kings, by his power over them, and by his providence, that they did those things, without intending it, which he purposed and foretold. They shall see their folly, and how they have been bewitched and enslaved by the harlot, and be made instruments in her destruction. She was that great city which reigned over the kings of the earth, when John had this vision; and every one knows Rome to be that city. Believers will be received to the glory of the Lord, when wicked men will be destroyed in a most awful manner; their joining together in sin, will be turned to hatred and rage, and they will eagerly assist in tormenting each other. But the Lord's portion is his people; his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure, to his glory, and the happiness of all his servants.
These files are public domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that is available on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library Website.
Henry, Matthew. "Concise Commentary on Revelation 17". "Henry's Concise Commentary
on the Whole Bible". https://www.studylight.org/


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2012 Raptor Run Endurance Race
Hello riders! Thanks for checking out my Raptor Run pics. I hope I got at least one good one of everybody. I only saw the LD's once, so just had that one shot! Remember you can re-crop them however you like during checkout. I tried to leave enough room to give you some cropping options if you want. I love this ride. Hopefully next year I'll be riding it & someone else will be there taking my picture! See you at the next ride! -SusanRead More


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Alex Ross first achieved fame by performing an unusual task with unusual artistry: painting superheroes who look real enough to touch. Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1970, Ross attended the American Academy Of Art in Chicago. Later, while working for an ad agency, he found his way into comic books, which had been a lifetime obsession. After cutting his teeth on a Terminator project, he teamed with writer Kurt Busiek for Marvels, the 1993 miniseries that made Ross' name by presenting the Marvel universe from the perspective of a humble, and often helpless, photojournalist. Ross and writer Mark Waid then visited a possible future DC Universe for the wildly popular, unrelentingly apocalyptic, and oddly hopeful Kingdom Come in 1996. The politically charged, left-leaning Uncle Sam, written by Steve Darnall, followed the next year. While overseeing the Earth X series for Marvel (with which he has since acrimoniously parted ways), and turning out countless comic-book and magazine covers, images for collectibles, and other works, Ross and writer Paul Dini have spent the last six years producing oversized graphic novels in which DC icons take on real-world problems. Superman: Peace On Earth began the series in 1998, while later installments focused on Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel, leading up to the recent JLA: Liberty And Justice. Though only in his mid-30s, Ross was also recently the subject of a career retrospective of sorts–Mythology: The DC Comics Art Of Alex Ross. A thick volume designed by Ross' friend Chip Kidd, the collection details the painstaking process behind Ross' work, which sometimes requires his friends and loved ones to dress in superhero costumes in the name of art. From his home in suburban Chicago, Ross recently spoke to The Onion A.V. Club about why he paints superheroes, the occasionally ugly business of comics, and how Superman can help make the real world a better place.
The Onion: How did it first occur to you to paint comic-book characters as if they were taken from life?
Alex Ross: I think it's just a natural instinct. Growing up, everybody wants to see these characters realized in some greater three-dimensional form. You don't think of them as being two-dimensional, flat images with an ink outline. When you're reading the comic books as a kid, you're imagining this character as being real. Growing up anywhere within the last 50 years, you would have had that influence–from actors on television to movie actors, playing these parts in real-life cotton or spandex–and so you've gotten used to imagining them as real. I have distinct memories of going to a record store as a kid where a guy in a Spider-Man suit was signing Power records, and I remember him chastising me because I was buying the Fantastic Four one instead of his. It's a very odd to be chastised by Spider-Man at the age of 4 or 5.
O: The actor clearly had a lot invested in his character.
AR: I think he was just being a smart-ass, but when you're a little kid, you don't understand why Spider-Man is being a smart-ass to you. It's too fresh, too new of a reality.
O: Well, the realistic style in comics isn't entirely unprecedented, is it?
AR: No, no, not at all. There are lots of painted comics before mine. In a weird way, I was the main guy to come along and say, "I really want to do that," so much that I try to knock everyone off their socks with how physically real I can make these characters look, how much I invest of myself into that goal. There were the precedents of the painted graphic novels of Dave McKean and Bill Sienkiewicz, but in a way, approaches to characters like Batman and Daredevil were still restrained. They didn't want to show that brightly clad superhero character too much, for fear that it would compromise the more literary and artistic qualities of their painted graphic novels.
O: One of the most striking images I've encountered in your work was an image of Batman in a store: It's this perfectly realized convenience store with an iconic character in it.
AR: Well, it's sort of like the boldness of saying, "I'm going to put that character in broad daylight." I'm going to do everything within my power, through my interpretation of that character, to make you believe that it is legitimate, and not foolish, that it's not a man walking into a convenience store wearing a pink tutu. That somehow, up against the cold light of reality, this guy can still seem credible.
O: How comfortable are you with using the term "realism" to describe what you do?
AR: I'll use any term. You've got to get used to your characterizations in this business. I get termed as the Norman Rockwell of comics, and if I really hated Rockwell, then I'd be stuck.
O: That does come up in most pieces about you.
AR: Absolutely every single piece. I can't show any amount of contempt for that, because I'll come out looking like an ass. And I don't have contempt for it, because I do love Rockwell, but you have to get used to your characterizations. People can try and wrap their brains around this thing I do, which is so mysterious, but really isn't. I mean, when we see big-budget films made now every year, with actors put in costumes made to look like a four-color comic-book character made real, my work within this business is not any kind of strange or absurd thing. It just seems odd that I'm one of only a few people who have any interest in doing it.
O: Apart from your Spider-Man incident, what was your first comics-show-related memory?
AR: Easily The Electric Company with Spider-Man on it. That would have been the first exposure to a superhero for sure. As a little kid… I was born in the '70s, so seeing whatever was on television at that time, it would have included that or reruns of the old Adam West Batman. But ultimately, the clearest impression is Spider-Man, because I have all these comics that I was drawing at the age of 3 and 4 of whatever I was seeing on TV. I would start drawing this little stick-figure Spider-Man, and folding over sheets of 8x10 paper to create the implications of a comic book with a little cover on it.
O: Your collaborations with Paul Dini all have superheroes taking on real-life problems–or, most recently, the Justice League taking on a science-fiction version of a real-life problem. Why did you decide to do the series that way?
AR: The feeling that most comics take with their representation of the real world is such an extreme that it never feels that real. Like in the DC continuity of today, you read an average Superman book, and Lex Luthor is the president of the United States. I wanted to ground it to where the problems are much more human-based. The superhero solution isn't necessarily for solving that problem in a way that we can't, but through using their colorful representations or iconic status, we show how difficult that problem is to confront, and maybe at least the intentions of how they would handle these things. I mean, Batman can't solve the problem of crime, but maybe he can begin to understand some of the roots of where crime erupts from. So his graphic novel is about the issue of race and economics that creates a lot of the problems we have with what we understand as modern-day crime, urban crime. I didn't want to come up with science-fiction results or answers to these questions. It's more like you take the fantasy/sci-fi type character, or mythical character in the case of Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel, and you put them into a very believable part of the human condition, like war, famine, crime, and other issues we all struggle with. Anybody looking for the moral to the story could think, "Okay, I can imagine how I can use my own actions to help in this regard, in this part of our lives." At the end of the day, I was chomping at the bit, like all my fans were, to just draw characters punching each other in the face, and have Superman fight Brainiac and whoever. But I sort of had this cross that I wanted to bear, of making these things seem more legitimate. Because growing up with these characters, I loved them too much, and I wanted them to seem metaphorically justified to exist in our contemporary culture.
O: Uncle Sam is the most obvious example, but there's a political component to a lot of what you do. How important is that element?
AR: At first, it seems like it shouldn't be such an overriding consideration as I'm putting together what is ultimately supposed to be an entertainment product. But once I get my feet deep into it, I keep coming up with angles about how the story relates to a particular political disposition. It's more a social kind of politics, and not necessarily a party-politics issue. Uncle Sam is not so much about the domination of a Republican age or a Democratic age, because the publication date on that was 1997. We were in the middle of what was supposed to be the Clintonian utopia, and here Steve Darnall and I were commenting on the poor state of the American spirit at that time. Imagine if we had made that thing today. We wouldn't necessarily have to rewrite it, but we probably would have composed it with much more venom. We would have been insulting much more the issue of war and empire. All those themes are there in that book, but we were discontented under a Democratic leadership. Anyone who reads that now is going to think, "Oh, what a pinko liberal fool!"
O: How consciously do you load Superman with religious imagery? Of all the characters you draw, he seems to have a religious element that the others don't.
AR: It was more slight at first. The stuff that happened in Kingdom Come, showing him looking like the bearded, long-haired carpenter version of either Clark Kent or Christ was just a lot of fun that seemed to come together sensibly. These two things work together. I don't run around doing shots of him with arms akimbo in a cross-like formation. I think of Superman as kind of a progressive, Christ-like figure. You don't get caught up in the wheres and whyfors or the argument of "Is he the true Christ?" when we all know Superman is a fictional character. If anything can be gained from Superman's inspiration, there's nothing we really have to argue over. You can dismiss him as a cartoonish entertainment tool. Or you can take him as being an inspirational idea created by Americans, as almost an American invention. The medium of comic books and superheroes is an American invention, and he's the embodiment of the best we can be as human beings. There's something to that which goes beyond dismissing him as an icon to stick on T-shirts and product.
O: Have you ever encountered a character that's resisted your style?
AR: Actually, I think that when you have me doing cartoon characters per se, like where their drawing style is more exaggerated, then the use of me on them is less valid, because then it's a painted image of, say, Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny or the Powerpuff Girls. Imagine me painting the Powerpuff Girls. I wouldn't just make them look like little girls wearing those dresses, because what would be the point? They would look too real. And I'm not going to make this weird hybrid where it's a very realistic little girl except the eyes are gigantic. Then it just becomes grotesque. Which would be funny, but… My mixing with cartoon characters isn't too valid. Some superhero characters lean a little bit that way themselves. Losing time debating whether Spider-Man has white lenses or mirrored lenses is… Too many hours went into that personal debate.
O: How much do you feel your work is a reaction to the prevailing comics trends in the late '80s and early '90s?
AR: Well, my work was definitely a rebuttal to what the early '90s had been doing, in part. The exaggerated styles of that time period were so prevalent that they were almost destroying everything I believed, in terms of the graphic imagery of comics. Realistic figure-drawing styles were downgraded as a lesser commodity, so great graphic artists I had followed throughout my youth were suddenly kicked to the curb in favor of the more extreme styles of your Todd McFarlanes or Rob Liefelds. And so when you put the spit-and-polish finish of this painted interpretation on top of the now-decreed-as-dull realistic figure drawing, you suddenly have a competitive edge that seems to be working the kids over. It's really distressing when you think that kids don't necessarily discern good art from bad art: They look at art with more detail to it, and assume that's better because it's got more in it. Whereas something that's more broad and simplistic graphically may have a way of communicating with people simply, but it gets dismissed as being more of an adult taste. But these things go in cycles. Right now, we're in a cycle that's a lot more artistically pure in terms of how characters are drawn and what the dominant styles of the medium are.
O: Looking at your work, Bruce Timm's animated series, Alan Moore's America's Best Comics line, and, to a certain extent, Grant Morrison's run on JLA, there seem to have been efforts to return to a Silver Age approach. Even Superman's dog Krypto is back.
AR: What you have is a bunch of 40-year-olds and thirtysomethings like myself. We grew up with this stuff thinking of it a certain way, and we're rejecting what was kind of knocked around on us the last few years. Basically, what still is going on in modern continuity, especially at DC Comics, is a rejection of everything they did in the 1990s to compete with the then-hip-and-happening changes coming from the more tumultuous time of what Marvel and then Image comics did. We're sort of in a repairing stage. Those of us who are kind of these Silver Age purists who think you don't need to fix what isn't broken, we're getting our way because more of us are in control at the moment.
O: Bringing comics to a wider audience is important enough to you that you put it in your bio. How is that going?
AR: [Laughs.] That's funny. Um, you know, I have no clue. I'll be told one thing by all the people I meet at signings and whatnot. They'll say that they've either turned their girlfriends on to my work or passed on their collecting habit to their kids, and you can only hope that's part of a trend. Obviously, I've done relatively well for myself by reaching out to people, and getting a lot of attention for my work and my name. How far will that extend into the next generation? I haven't a clue. I know that I've got a certain synchronicity with the generation that I'm a part of. Guys from the age of 30 up through 50, we're kind of keeping this business going at the moment, but do we know that there is a tomorrow that's followed by likeminded consumers, or are those consumers looking for something much sexier than we could ever give them?
O: There seems to be a dearth of entry-level comics, stuff for kids just learning to read.
AR: I did want to create the books that Paul and I did together for that purpose. You can genuinely take one of those things and pass it on to a little kid. You don't have to worry about any craziness. There's not a lot of violence, there's no insulting aspects to it that would offend parents, and the language is very easy to read. It's perfect to read to kids. But in the end, the main thing that sells in comic books is the periodical that comes out once a month or bimonthly. I need to return to that myself to bolster my own fan base and regain a lot of people I've lost. The biggest failure of my career is that I became one of the harder-to-afford talents. If you're paying for one of my graphic novels, that's 10 bucks. The average, say, 48-page comic-book graphic novel is going to be five bucks. I'm already doubled in price. Even though I'm twice the size, people are still counting their pennies and considering what they can afford. A lot of the other stuff I've done in terms of products and prints and posters… It all gets relatively expensive. I need to get back to a point where I never was before, a product cheaper than five bucks.
O: Would your style allow you to do a monthly comic?
AR: I could achieve a bimonthly schedule. I've been putting together something for DC for the last year with the thought that I'll be conspiring with a realistic penciler who I will follow over as a finishing artist, doing a final component that will look like an Alex Ross painted comic book with my photorealistic style in play, but with a helping hand that will help the work go a lot easier for me. And I'll be allowed to do all the co-plotting and designing with these other series that I'm really more the art director and grandfather of than the hands-on art team. I'll be sinking my teeth in in such a way that I don't think people would be missing any part of what I would normally do for one of my graphic novels.
O: It seems like the comic-book world has a lot of infighting. How successful have you been at avoiding that?
AR: Oh, I'm bloody and bruised. It's in a terrible state right now. The current leadership of Marvel has introduced a way of marketing comics, or selling the industry, based on the way that wrestling is promoted. That kind of adversarial approach is not very natural for the comics community. For decades, the publishers would be very friendly with one another, and certainly the workforce was going back and forth all the time. Now, there's the splitting up of this person being signed exclusively to this company, and that person being signed exclusively to that company, and it's destroying a lot of the goodness that was there, out of the impetus to stir up excitement to buy more books on the fan level, when that really doesn't last. The ill will and destroyed relationships can last a lot longer.
O: You haven't done a lot of youthful superheroes. What appeals to you about older heroes?
AR: [Laughs.] Well, I did Battle Of The Planets. They're all teenagers. I've created some youthful heroes. But the stuff I'm going to be known for is when I've worked with your older Superman. I think I embraced something that our culture as a whole was rejecting, which is the notion that age is wisdom or strength. Well before I was growing up, in the '50s and '60s, your heroes mostly had a paternal quality to them. They had an older-gentleman thing that was never reviled. Never considered inappropriate for leading men. And this was going through Hollywood as well as comic books. Superman looked like a man between the ages of 35 and 40. This is commonly what we thought of as the heroic archetype of old, and that has been handed in, in favor of putting a sexier, younger face on everything for one vain reason: the buying age. If the 18-year-olds have the most money to spend on video games, then let's make all the characters 18-year-olds. I think those 18-year-olds have the ability to see beyond themselves and not be kept from buying product because they think Batman looks too old. You don't have to have everything fall into these nice patterns. My way of working with these icons was to return to them something that I think was stolen from them: their right to be as old as they are. To be men who are mature men, not guys in their 20s. Most people I know in their 30s aren't close to being mature. I'll leap into the 40s before I start thinking people begin to reach a period in their life where they can achieve self-control.


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Yesterday, in a move many considered impossible in a state characterized as the "cradle" of America's organized labor movement, Michigan became the 24th right-to-work state in the nation. Gov. Rick Snyder signed two bills, one dealing with private sector workers and the other with government employees, hours after the state House passed both measures.
Leading up to the historic moment, the reaction of the pro-union crowd, numbering around 10,000 by late afternoon, was predictably thuggish. The mob destroyed an Americans For Prosperity tent on the lawn of the Michigan State Capitol. An invective-filled diatribe followed by a vicious assault on Fox News contributor and conservative comedian Steven Crowder was captured on camera. 26,000 children missed school because their teachers called in sick, or took a vacation day, to join the protests. Police in riot gear clashed with angry demonstrators, even as some union members shouted "traitors" at the officers. Two arrests were made. Even a legislator, Democrat Douglas Geiss, behaved like a mobster. "There will be blood," he threatened as he stood on the floor of the Michigan House of Representatives.
Unions and their supporters may be furious, but they have no one but themselves to blame. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder explained. "I asked [the unions] not to go forward," Snyder said. "And the reason I said is, 'You're going to start a very divisive discussion. It'll be about collective bargaining first, but it'll create a big stir about right-to-work in addition to collective bargaining.'" Snyder is referring to an effort by unions to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state's constitution during the last election. Such a move would have completely insulated unions from any attempt by the legislature, barring a constitutional amendment, to enact a right-to-work law. Proposition 2, as it was dubbed, failed spectacularly, with 58 percent of the voters rejecting the measure in the same state Barack Obama won handily on November 6.
Before that effort took place, Snyder had asked the legislature to hold back on a right-to-work measure because "it would be a divisive issue, and it's not something we should debate," said Representative Jase Bolger, speaker of the Michigan House. Bolger and his fellow lawmakers initially honored the governor's request. Snyder was apparently also prepared to deal with the frustration illuminated by _Detroit Free Press_ columnist Tom Walsh, who contended the Governor was upset by union opposition to stricter emergency manager laws that would enable swifter action to rescue cities and school districts that had bungled their way to the brink of insolvency. Walsh cited Detroit as an example. The city is on the verge of bankruptcy, due in large part to union intransigence. Yet all of it might have remained status quo–until Big Labor decided to go for the kill.
Greg McNeilly, who runs Michigan Freedom Fund, a political action committee in favor of right-to-work legislation, noted the connection between the defeat of Proposition 2, and a GOP-controlled legislature emboldened by that defeat. "[UAW president] Bob King put this on the agenda," McNeilly contended. "He threatened this state. He tried to bully and intimidate the state with this disastrous proposal that was so bad a majority of his members didn't even back it. The whole state had a conversation. They lost," he added.
In an interview, King blamed the defeat on the Koch brothers and multimillionaire conservative activist Dick DeVos, describing them as wealthy benefactors who "bullied and bought their way to get this legislation in Michigan."
Hardly. Despite being a state where 17.5 percent of workers are still unionized, compared to a nationwide average of 11.8 percent, several polls taken in the state over the last few years reveal an electorate decidedly in favor of a law that guarantees no one can be forced to join a union, or pay union dues or a fee to cover costs associated with union bargaining, as a condition of employment.
Furthermore, the electorate may have noticed what occurred in the neighboring state of Indiana, when it became a right-to-work state last February: the state moved up 18 rankings to 5th place on the Pollina Corp.'s Top Pro-Business States List, attracting 90 new companies willing to do business there. Michigan, by contrast, is ranked 35th in overall prosperity as measured by per capita income, has the nation's sixth highest state jobless rate at 9.1 percent, and has had one of the lowest rates of personal income growth from 1977-2011. An analysis by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance reveals that if Michigan had adopted right-to-work laws in 1977, per capita income for a family of four would have been $13,556 higher by 2008.
None of it matters to the unionists and their supporters, who converged on Lansing in an attempt to intimidate lawmakers. Even Democrats in the Michigan Congressional delegation, who met privately with Snyder on Monday, attempted to intimidate the Governor, promising him years of "discord and division" if he signed the bill. And just as they attempted to do in Wisconsin, labor leaders are talking about staging recall elections for Republican legislators and Gov. Snyder. They are inspired by what occurred last year in Ohio, where Democrat activists successfully overturned a measure to curb collective bargaining. In Michigan however, spending bills cannot be overturned via referendum. Since an appropriation measure was added to the bill, a referendum to overturn it becomes impossible.
On Monday, President Obama weighed in on the legislation. "What we shouldn't be doing is try to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions," he said. "We don't want a race to the bottom." Right-to-work laws "have nothing to do with economics and they have everything to do with politics," Obama added. "They mean you have the right to work for less money."
No one is taking away anyone's right to collectively bargain. This law simply curbs the power of union bosses to extract dues from those workers who don't wish to pay them. But the president is correct when he says there is political aspect to this legislation. Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, illuminates the obvious connection. "President Obama was the recipient of literally hundreds of millions of dollars from union officials," he says. "If union officials can't compel union workers to pay dues as a condition of their employment, the fees that they use for political activity would dry up very quickly."
As well they should. Nothing illustrates this better than an "education" video produced by the California Teachers' union that depicts "the rich" urinating on "the poor." It is exactly this kind of over-the-top propaganda that is underwritten by union dues–even as the individual teachers' political beliefs are rendered totally irrelevant in the process. And make no mistake: it is the loss of union leaders' power to shape a political agenda, underwritten by the coercion of mandatory dues, that scares those leaders the most.
When Wisconsin did away with mandatory dues, 6,000 out of 17,000 members of the American Federation of Teachers–Wisconsin left its ranks. More than 30,000 out of 68,218 members also opted out of that Wisconsin's chapter of AFSCME, the union that represents state, county, and municipal workers. In other words, when union "solidarity" becomes voluntary, it becomes far less solid.
Michigan joins 23 other states that prize individual freedom and genuine economic prosperity for struggling workers. Absolutely nothing is preventing unions from making their case to workers in Michigan. In reality, it now becomes necessary for them to do so, in order to keep as many dues-paying members as possible. Nonetheless, UAW president Bob King characterized the passages of the right-to-work laws as a "deep disappointment." "Symbolically, it's a huge setback," he said in an interview. "Practically, maybe no. Maybe it will awaken a sleeping giant." That's exactly what happened on election day, when the "sleeping giant" known as the public was awakened by union arrogance and overreach. That overreach led directly to the passage of right-to-work legislation.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.


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Crowds (Soft Synthesis)Jack R. Mesa
Fiber artwork New
Ready to hang
Signed on back
54" h x 37" w x 2" d |8 lbs. 0 oz.
I then had the image woven with museum-quality dyed thread on an industrial loom. It is stretched over heavy duty stretcher bars and comes ready to hang. The tapestry is an image of sound. In the detail images, you will notice many colors throughout the composition. I used a weaving for the final artwork because the surface textures most closely resemble the analog sound's image. This work is one in a large series.
The work is framed with a matte black wood canvas floater frame. It is 2'' deep with a 3/8'' face and 5/16'' of space between the art surface and the frame face.
Jack R. Mesa
Honolulu, Hawaii
Jack R Mesa depicts his subjects in a visual medium blended with a layer of sound to explore his personal experience of synesthesia. Synesthesia is the phenomenon where the brain interprets one sense as another - experiencing sound as colors, for example. His earlier series of paintings uses color blocks and abstract shapes to depict sounds, as seen in his series '100 Sounds' (see Sold works). His newer series explores a new medium, using tapestry to literally weave together sounds and colors into his large format works, for example his series 'Soft Synesthesia.' In addition to capturing a photo of his subject, he also records the sounds of a place and overlays the two into a final image in his Oakland studio. He joins other artists, including Carol Steen, David Hockney, and Kandinsky who reportedly see sounds. This is the closest that a non-synesthete may come to viewing the world through Jack's eyes. Mesa has recently exhibited at Berkeley Art Museum (Berkeley, CA), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco, CA), and Material Art Fair (Mexico City, MX).
Here's more work from Jack R. you may enjoy
Hear what collectors say about Jack R.'s work
For the "200 Sounds" piece, is each individual wood piece mounted or glued to a big piece of canvas or wood? And how do you mount the entire piece? Thank you.
Excellent work
wow!!!! so cool... amazing way to express yourself-- love it!!! k
This is amazing and awesome. Excellent work!
Meet James, our resident synesthete, and learn more about his work at the Ugallery blog: http://ugallery.com/blog/post/Artist-in-Focus-James-Cordas.aspx
I asolutely LOVE THIS!!!
This is amazing and awesome. Excellent work!- A Martin


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Beau, Joe Biden CNN photo
Associated Press
DOVER, Del. (AP) — Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden planned to return home with his father, Vice President Joe Biden, aboard Air Force Two following a successful medical procedure at a Houston cancer center.
The vice president's office said Beau Biden would fly to Delaware aboard the aircraft Thursday as Joe Biden returns to Wilmington, Del.
Beau Biden underwent a medical procedure at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center on Tuesday. The procedure came more than two weeks after emergency dispatchers were called to the vice president's Delaware home, where his son was staying, in response to a report of a possible stroke.
Three years ago, Beau Biden suffered a minor stroke.
In a statement released by the White House, the vice president and his wife Jill said their son underwent "a successful procedure," but they did not provide any details.
"He is in great shape and is going to be discharged tomorrow and heading home to Delaware," they said in the statement Wednesday. "He will follow up with his local physicians in the coming weeks."
The White House declined to answer any questions about what procedure was performed, including whether it was diagnostic or therapeutic in nature.
Beau Biden, 44, was hospitalized last week after becoming weak and disoriented while on a family vacation in Indiana.
Biden was initially admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He traveled the next day to the Philadelphia hospital where he had been treated for the minor stroke in 2010 to consult with his doctor. He spent last weekend at home in Wilmington before going to Houston, where he was admitted at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The Delaware Department of Justice released a statement saying the younger Biden had spoken Wednesday afternoon with his chief deputy and with the state prosecutor about several issues, including efforts to fight violent crime in Wilmington, and that he would speak with them again Thursday after returning to Wilmington.
It was not immediately clear when Beau Biden would return to work. He was not available for comment and Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Justice, declined to elaborate beyond the written statement.
A hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday afternoon that officials had no additional information.
Authorities in Delaware, however, confirmed that emergency responders were called to the vice president's house, where Beau Biden has been living, two weeks ago.
A county dispatch center log indicates that on Aug. 1, someone at the vice president's home was reported to be possibly having a stroke and apparently not alert. Beau Biden has been staying at his father's Greenville home while his own house is renovated.
Rickie Clark, a staff supervisor with the Cranston Heights Fire Co., confirmed Wednesday that county dispatchers received a call for help from Joe Biden's home. However, he refused to provide further details.
The dispatch log on the fire department's website shows two references to the vice president's home on Aug. 1, one at 9:25 p.m. and another about a minute and a half later. Both cite "Cva-Not Alert," indicating that a person was in distress and apparently not alert or responsive to his or her surroundings. Clark said "Cva" is shorthand for cerebrovascular accident, or stroke.
The younger Biden has posted two photos of himself in recent days — one of him smiling with his father Sunday, the other of him smiling with his wife, Hallie, on Tuesday.
"Touched by all your well wishes–thank you. Nice evening in Houston w/ Hallie; will share update when we have it," said the tweet accompanying the photo with his wife.
The White House said Vice President Biden had canceled scheduled appearances in Rhode Island and Maine on Thursday to remain in Houston with his son and other family members. The vice president is still scheduled to join President Barack Obama in Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pa., on Friday during the second day of an Obama bus tour to discuss college costs.
Beau Biden is the eldest son of Joe Biden. After the 1972 accident that killed his first wife and daughter and critically injured Beau Biden and his brother Hunter, the vice president devoted himself to caring for his two sons as a single father.
Beau Biden served a yearlong deployment to Iraq with his Army National Guard unit, returning stateside in 2009.''


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National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is the primary scientific computing facility for the Office of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy. As one of the largest facilities in the world devoted to providing computational resources and expertise for basic scientific research, NERSC is a world leader in accelerating scientific discovery through computation. NERSC is a division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, located in Berkeley, California. NERSC itself is located at the UC Oakland Scientific Facility in Oakland, California.
More than 5,000 scientists use NERSC to perform basic scientific research across a wide range of disciplines, including climate modeling, research into new materials, simulations of the early universe, analysis of data from high energy physics experiments, investigations of protein structure, and a host of other scientific endeavors.
NERSC is known as one of the best-run scientific computing facilities in the world. It provides some of the largest computing and storage systems available anywhere, but what distinguishes the center is its success in creating an environment that makes these resources effective for scientific research. NERSC systems are reliable and secure, and provide a state-of-the-art scientific development environment with the tools needed by the diverse community of NERSC users. NERSC offers scientists intellectual services that empower them to be more effective researchers. For example, many of our consultants are themselves domain scientists in areas such as material sciences, physics, chemistry and astronomy, well-equipped to help researchers apply computational resources to specialized science problems.
All research projects that are funded by the DOE Office of Science and require high performance computing support are eligible to apply to use NERSC resources. Projects that are not funded by the DOE Office of Science, but that conduct research that supports the Office of Science mission may also apply.
SDAV Software at NERSC
The SDAV Toolkit
I/O Frameworks
In Situ Processing
Statistics and Data Mining


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The teaching staffs of an educational institution are all come to the five clouds mountain for improving our psychological quality this week.
We took a four-day practical experience, there have been a variety of health education activities, such as radio communication direction finding equipments, Making figures and images in clay, installation art, broiled. Among which the lesson of Herve Leger dress is indeed the most memorable day of my life.
That is the third day we develop extracurricular activities. We heard that we will have a lesson of Herve Leger dress that we all got excited. The class tools are ready early in the morning. We are come to the dress design room immediately after breakfast. Whoa! What a beautiful dress, even though it made of waste materials, but Gold cliff, steep embedded beads, the south-pointing carriage. I can not believe that the dress made by the same age as us. I could not help gasp in admiration. We searching for a place to sit and the teacher ask us, what is the different between those dress and ordinary clothing? Some students say these dress are made of paper, but the ordinary clothing are made of cloth, nylon and so on materials, it can stand wear and tear, but the paper dress rips easily. And some students say a flashy suit of extreme cut. The teacher says, there is, in addition, one further point to make a lack of symmetry tailor.
After a while, the teacher told us to select a model for ourselves, to design costumes for the model, there is a fashion show tomorrow, we will have chance to shoes the dress what we design who do it better. All who heard she were delighted, so we make a hurried journey without stop to enjoy it. My model is Bella; I thought for a moment and decided to design a warrior-style outfit for her. We took the paper and cut it from right to left, took model's measurements, I afraid that it does not fit well. After a while, we finished the Herve Leger dress, but I thought should be lacking accessories, so we add a helmet, a weapon and so on, finally we pack the Bella as a one-eyed warrior. Everyone had been most complimentary about the costumes, all these dress are well represented at the exhibition, we could have a good time just sitting and watching.
I had experience hard working and enjoyable of the lesson about Herve Leger dress, But for the first time, we felt free and safe, you can do anything if you set your mind to it.
Kitty Jones like shopping online, expecially like shopping Herve Leger Dress at herve leger canada online outlet store, where she can buy cheap herve leger 2011, herve leger sale.


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Storrs, CT – Tiffany Clarke notched a double-double for the eighth-seed Vanderbilt Commodores who edged the St. Joseph's Hawks, 60-54, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament at Gampel Pavilion.
Clarke had 16 points and 12 rebounds and Jasmine Lister tallied 14 points for Vanderbilt (21-11) which will take on top-seed Connecticu in the next round.
Chatilla van Grinsven had 14 points and came a rebound short of a double- double for St. Joseph's (23-9). The ninth-seed Hawks also got 10 points apiece from Natasha Cloud and Ilze Gotfrida.
The Commodores went into the locker room leading 33-27 after holding the Hawks to just 37.5 percent shooting in the first half. The two teams combined to go 0-of-12 from 3-point range in the first 20 minutes.
After the break Vanderbilt took its largest lead, 40-30, after a 7-0 spurt early in the second period. The Hawks remained within striking distance though and actually tied the game, 48-48, with 6:50 left on a layup from van Grinsven. The Commodores answered with a layup from Heather Bowe and a jumper from Christina Foggie after a Hawks' turnover to put them back ahead for good. The Hawks had plenty of chances to come back but hit just 2-of-11 shot attempts in the last four minutes.
Vanderbilt had a 47-22 edge on the boards. The game featured nine ties and six lead changes.