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Source: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
TAONDECHOREN, baptized Louis, Huron chieftain, dogique of the mission at Notre-Dame-de-Foy; b. c. 1600; d. some time after 1677.
Louis was baptized at Sainte-Marie-des-Hurons in 1640. The missionaries, who considered him at the time to be "one of the noble spirits of the country [Huronia]" and "one of the best qualified for our mysteries," were not disappointed. He was noted for his fervour: an "excellent Christian," wrote Marie de l'Incarnation [see Guyart], who had a long conversation with him and presented him in 1671 with "a very beautiful wax relief Image of the holy Infant Jesus in his cradle." The Relation adds: "It is incredible how zealous this man is in all manners of piety." In 1668 Louis was dogique of the little Huron colony at Quebec, that is to say, he was responsible for leading the Indians in their prayers and for keeping watch over their conduct in the missionary's absence. He filled this role until 1677 at least. In addition to his piety and his zeal the Jesuits spoke highly of his eloquence: "very Eloquent in his own language," he delivered addresses that were "sensible and sound" and which "have nothing of the Savage about them."
Moved by a true apostolic spirit, Louis had long dreamed of proclaiming "the truths of our Religion" in his native region and in the Iroquois cantons. The opportunity to do so was soon offered. In 1673 he accompanied Governor Buade de Frontenac on his journey to Lake Ontario. Although infirm and ill, he prolonged his stay, acting at Onondaga as "preacher, both in public before meetings of the council and in private visits to the lodges." Father Jean de Lamberville* expressed his satisfaction at "having found such a vicar."
In 1660 Louis had been one of Dollard's companions at the Long Sault. Captured by the Iroquois, he had escaped 8 or 10 days later. He had been "4 days and 4 nights on the run, without a stop," before reaching Montreal around 25 May. It was he who was the chief source of information for Father Chaumonot and the author of the 1659–60 Relation, both of whom drew up an account of the battle of the Long Sault.
From 1677 on the Relations make no further mention of Louis, who by that time was nearly 80 years of age.
Marie Guyart de l'Incarnation, Lettres (Richaudeau), II, 162f. JR (Thwaites), XIX, 148–50; L, 210–12; LII, 236; LV, 266–68, 276, 300; LVIII, 134, 148, 150, 196–98; LX, 78, 306. André Vachon, "L'affaire du Long-Sault: valeur de la source huronne," RUL, XVIII (1963–64), 495–515.
© 1966–2023 University of Toronto/Université Laval
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Cite This Article
André Vachon, "TAONDECHOREN, Louis," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 4, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/taondechoren_1E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
|Author of Article:
|André Vachon
|Title of Article:
|TAONDECHOREN, Louis
|Publication Name:
|Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1
|University of Toronto/Université Laval
|Year of publication:
|Year of revision:
|Access Date:
|October 4, 2023


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A letter filed with the court on Friday, September 14, 2018, seems to make clear where criminal defendant Kathy Russell stands. She stands by her Vanguard.
She also wants to see her friends in NXIVM – and maybe work for some of them.
Her attorney, Justine Harris, filed a letter with the Hon. Nicholas G. Garaufis, United States District Judge, Eastern District of New York, making the request.
Harris also mentions me – Frank Parlato – as a troublesome individual, who continuing exposure of all things NXIVM will require the Court to let Kathy keep her NXIVM friends secret.
Read the full letter here. https://frankreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Document-133-Letter-Motion-Regarding-The-No-Contact-Provision-Of-Kathy-Russells-Bond-09.14.2018.pdf
Here is a truncated version.
Dear Judge Garaufis:
We write on behalf of Kathy Russell to respectfully request that the Court rescind or modify the no-contact provision of her bond….
The no-contact provision provides that Ms. Russell "must avoid all contact" with "any current or former employees or independent contractors of or for NXIVM (including any and all affiliated entities) or with any individual who is currently or was formerly on the stripe path, subject to reasonable exceptions agreed upon by the parties."…
It is estimated that the number of individuals that fall within this category ranges from several hundred to over a thousand. While the government has repeatedly asserted that no-contact provisions are routine in a RICO prosecution, here the scope of the no-contact provision bears no relation to the charged enterprise – the alleged "inner circle" of trusted advisors to Keith Raniere…. NXIVM is not itself charged as a criminal enterprise…. Yet the current no-contact provision prevents Ms. Russell from having contact with anyone who ever associated with the organization, including hundreds of people who have nothing to do with the allegations in the Indictment and whose only contact with the organization may have been enrollment in a series of courses.
While the government has consented to Ms. Russell communicating with the two sureties who signed a bond and posted cash security on her behalf … the broad and unlimited no-contact provision has effectively deprived Ms. Russell of her ability to see or talk to her close personal friends.
In 2002, Ms. Russell moved to Albany from Alaska to work for NXIVM. She has lived in Clifton Park ever since, and nearly all the relationships she has formed over the past 16 years have been with individuals affiliated with NXIVM. She is divorced, and her adult son lives out of state. In fact, she is in regular contact with only one family member – a sister who also does not live in New York. Thus, because Ms. Russell communicates only with two friends and one of her sisters, the no-contact provision has dramatically isolated her.
Simply put, during the most stressful and trying period of her life, Ms. Russell is alone most days and nights.
The no-contact provision has also effectively deprived Ms. Russell of her ability to work and earn a living. Ms. Russell has few economic resources. Prior to losing her job as a result of the bond conditions in this case, she was making $27 per hour. She is barred from working at NXIVM, even though the company has asked that she consult with outside counsel and accountants to assist them in closing the books on several non-active entities and in complying with its tax obligations. She also cannot continue her freelance bookkeeping work, as almost all of her individual clients were at one time associated with NXIVM. Thus, if the current bond conditions remain in place, not only will Ms. Russell endure the trauma of this prosecution alone, she will go broke.
While Ms. Russell initially consented to the no-contact provision …. such consent was given with the expectation that she could subsequently request and obtain the government's consent to have contact with close friends, despite their connection to NXIVM. However, after it became clear that the individuals who had come forward for Ms. Russell were subjected to unwanted media attention and heightened scrutiny from their employers and perhaps law enforcement, Ms. Russell now objects to any condition of release that requires her to identify the individuals with whom she wishes to have contact. Plainly, doing so will simply put those individuals on the FBI's interview list, and earn them an entry on Frank Parlato's blogs, Artvoice, andFrank Report.
… [I]t is unfair to place the burden on Ms. Russell to identify the individuals with whom she seeks to have contact, as well as to justify her need to associate with them…
In light of the draconian impact of the no-contact provision and corresponding de-facto employment bar on Ms. Russell, and the fact that these conditions are unnecessary either to ensure her appearance in court or to protect the public, no particularized showing can be made to justify the broad restrictions currently in place. Ms. Russell has no ability or desire to control or manipulate potential witnesses, and there are no allegations that she directed or controlled any litigation on behalf of the company.
Indeed, the charges against Ms. Russell are extraordinarily limited: committing identity theft by providing a false identification document to an alien crossing the Canadian-US border in 2004 and conspiring to unlawfully access the email of an unidentified individual ("John Doe 1") between 2006 and 2008. Given the discrete nature of the specific charges against Ms. Russell, as well as the fact that they allegedly took place more than ten years ago, there is no legal or factual basis to require Ms. Russell to justify her need to associate with a given individual when the government has failed to establish any legitimate interest in preventing such contact in the first place.
In short, as to Ms. Russell, the no-contact provision is punishing in its effect, both emotionally and economically. We therefore respectfully request that the Court either rescind the no-contact provision or require the government to identify the specific individuals with whom Ms. Russell should not have contact and proffer particularized evidence justifying the need for such restriction.
Editor's notes: Karen Abney and [Name Redacted] are the two co-guarantors for Kathy Russell. It is not known if they used their own or Bronfman money as collateral.
The letter says Kathy Russell makes $27 per hour. That seems high for her and for NXIVM – even though NXIVM would get most of it back in courses Kathy would be forced to take.
I wonder if she recently got a raise, just prior to her arrest? I love the fact that her attorney says she has been with NXIVM – and taking Executive Success Courses for 16 years and yet she is an hourly worker making but $27 per hour and "Ms. Russell has few economic resources." In short, she is broke like everyone who took too many Executive Success Programs courses. It was designed that way by Keith Raniere.
The letter also says NXIVM wants her to help in closing the books on "several non-active entities." Is "non-active entities" a NXIVM euphemism for 'shell companies"?
Kathy well knows there was money collected for numerous shell companies at more than a dozen post office boxes, so she would be helpful in "closing out" these once very active "non-active" entities. She could also be helpful to the prosecution in identifying these companies and how the money was laundered.
As for the little swipe at me, I think this has the scent of a red herring. I suspect I am being used to try to broaden the scope of her contacts to everyone ever in NXIVM that the government does not specifically exclude.
Kathy's lawyers argue the need because they fear I will publish the names of everyone she requests to have contact with – if those names are made public. Kathy wants to be free to contact everyone who ever was in NXIVM unless the government excludes them – or, otherwise, she will be all alone.
That last part is likely true. She cut off her loving and distressed family long ago and she cut out everyone else who wasn't in NXIVM – to be in this destructive and exclusive cult.
She gave her life to NXIVM – at $27 per hour.
She is today – as it was always planned for her – a hapless fall girl – an aging, [and from the low-calorie diet] emaciated, balding, and a former harem member. She is now 60 and that too is scary, for women do not live long in NXIVM. Once they hit their 60s – they run into health trouble in NXIVM. Think Barb Jeske, Pam Carfritz, and Nancy Salzman.
Finally, by special request – a mention of Kathy's ballet.
It's true that Kathy has special reason to stand by her Vanguard. He has promised that she would become a top prima donna ballerina if she stuck with the Executive Success Programs long enough. She is now 60.
For years, she has been practicing in class and doing recitals with the Saratoga Ballet Company – a group of amateur ballet students from age 5 – to 16 years old. It was lovely to see Kathy appearing in recitals alongside a charming group of 12-year-old girls – where parents – most of them younger than Kathy – would come to watch their little girls.
Kathy would leap in the air and do pirouettes and one could see that with just a few more years of practice – certainly not more than a decade – she would fulfill her ageless dream.
She was thoroughly enchanting in Sleeping Beauty. And there was not a dry eye in the hall when a 57-year-old Kathy, paying the forlorn princess who, on the day of her sixteenth year, pricks her finger on a spindle and seems to die.
A graceful fairy, who has not had a chance to bestow her gift, alters the evil fairies' curse reducing it to a century old sleep. There were tears of joy in the eyes of every parent in the audience when Kathy, appearing as Sleeping Beauty, has her long-long sleep broken by the kiss of a handsome prince played by a 14-year-old boy.
Too bad someone could not kiss her in real life and wake her up from the sleepy stupor of the Vanguard.

subset: commoncrawl


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Friends Season 4 Episode 9 : The One Where They're Going To Party!
Chandler and Ross's friend "Gandalf" is planning to come to town. They are very excited until he cancels. When they're forced to try to have a fun time on their own, they're forced to realize that they're becoming older and no longer enjoy the party scene. Monica has to choose between a head chef job and catering with Phoebe, and helps Phoebe with ideas for a business of her own. Rachel gets "hired" as the assistant buyer at Bloomingdale's but do...
Episode Guide
Season 01
Season 02
Season 03
Season 04
Season 05
Season 06
Season 07
Season 08
Season 09
Season 10


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Flim Flam Fiscal Cliff LegislationWritten by Stephen Lendman Subject: Philosophy: Fascism
by Stephen Lendman
Senate members met, debated, negotiated, passed stopgap legislation, and largely delayed deficit cutting for later.
On Tuesday, the House followed suit. Obama will sign it into law or may already have done so.
Media reports announced it. The New York Times headlined "Senate Passes Legislation to Allow Taxes on Affluent to Rise." Members voted 89-8.
The Washington Post said "Obama, Senate Republicans reach agreement on 'fiscal cliff.' "
The Wall Street Journal headlined "US Budget Compromise Deal Reached."
A New York Times editorial called it "A Tepid Fiscal Agreement." As this is written, House up or down follow-through awaits. Expect House Republicans to back strong party-line Senate support.
Speaker Boehner said "The House will honor its commitment to consider the Senate agreement if it is passed."
Doing so overwhelmingly assures support. Republicans know they have much to answer for if millions of constituents lose benefits.
Obama did what he does best. He lied. He said "this agreement is the right thing to do for our country, and the House should pass it without delay."
It will "grow the economy and shrink our deficits in a balanced way," he claimed.
It's economic effect is negative. With or without cuts, deficits will grow exponentially. Addressing them was largely left for later. Whatever's agreed will resolve nothing.
The Times called the agreement "a weak brew that remains far too generous to the rich, and fails to bring in enough revenue to deal with the nation's deep need for public investments."
Provisions include raising personal income taxes to Clinton-era levels. Doing so affects families earning over $450,000 and individuals making more than $400,000.
Obama didn't surprise. He compromised on his $250,000 threshold. Repeatedly he pledges one thing and agrees to another. His word is duplicitous political bluster.
He's a serial liar and shows it. He spurns ordinary people. He's done it throughout his political career.
Unemployment benefits, low-income family tax credits, college tuition ones, and Medicare's "doc fix" were extended. A permanent alternative minimum tax fix was enacted. Its impact on middle income families was reduced.
Capital gains and dividend taxes rise from 15% to 20%. Personal exemptions and itemized deductions are limited. They'll affect families earning over $300,000 and individuals making more than $250,000. Payroll taxes revert to their Clinton-era 6.2% level.
Taxes are 40% on estates over $5 million. Currently those valued over $5.12 million are taxed at 35%. Most spending cuts are delayed for Q I discussions.
Congressional pay is frozen for 12 months. Other government workers aren't affected. A provision prevents sharply rising milk prices. Current farm bill legislation continues for another year.
Hurricane Sandy relief was excluded. Last week, Senate members passed $60 billion in emergency aid separately. House legislation didn't follow.
In the cold light of day, markets were assuaged. Little else was accomplished. Few expected more.
A Washington Post editorial headlined "Small politicians at the cliff's edge," saying:
"HAVE THE NATION'S LEADERS ever seemed smaller? It's hard to remember when." Bipartisan complicity reflects failure to do the right thing.
"Instead of crafting a bargain that could set the nation on a steadier fiscal course, (Senate members) jockeyed to ensure that their political opponents would bear the public ire when things went sour. That's how small politicians behave."
Print and broadcast editors and reporters betray readers and viewers. They support policies harming them. They conceal what they most need to know. They're not told that fiscal cliff duplicity targets America's social contract. Destroying it entirely is planned.
"Revenues have to rise," said the Post, "and spending, especially on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and military health care, has to be brought under control."
At all times, social and domestic spending should be prioritized. During hard times, when millions need help, social and other domestic spending matter most. Increases, not decreases should follow.
Progressive taxes should hit high-income earners harder. Corporations should pay their fair share. Speculation should be taxed. Military spending should be drastically curbed. Funding for imperial wars should stop.
If congressional members governed responsibly, deficit and debt problems wouldn't exist. America's social contract would be strengthened and preserved. Prosperous economic growth would benefit everyone.
Instead, wealth, power, privilege, and dominance matter most. Media scoundrels don't explain. They want ordinary Americans bearing the greatest burdens. Resolution always ends up that way.
New year negotiations remain. They'll continue in Q I. Sequester cuts and debt ceiling limits aren't resolved. Agreed on tax increases provide $600 billion in added revenue.
Last year, both parties settled on $1.2 trillion initially. Minimally they want $4 trillion over 10 years. They barely scratched the surface. Major cuts remain.
Domestic spending will be hit hard. Social programs will bear the greatest burden. Defense will be largely untouched. Overall amounts appropriated will rise, not fall.
Expect current year's spending to exceed 2012. Cutting annual amounts depends on prioritizing domestic needs over imperial ones. Political will prevents it.
Spending cuts will dominate upcoming negotiations. Expect Republicans to play hardball. They may reengineer the August 2011 debt ceiling debacle. Agreed on $1.2 trillion in sequestered cuts followed.
Before Q I ends, deficit crisis 2.0 may emerge. Another sequester may follow. Expect a larger one this time. Social spending cuts will be prioritized.
Obama's strategy gave Republicans considerable bargaining leverage. They'll take full advantage. They'll play debt ceiling brinkmanship hardball.
They'll extract unacceptable pounds of flesh. America's middle income earners and least advantaged will be hardest hit. Corporate taxes will be cut. Defense spending will be protected. So will income and benefits for super-rich elites already with too much.
Expect America's fragile economy to tip into recession. Some believe it's there now and heading south. It's been held hostage for months.
Bipartisan complicity assures fiscal squeezing. Instead of vitally needed stimulus, economic activity will be seriously curtailed.
In Part II of his "America's Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff" article, Michael Hudson discusses financial warfare. It's more than about "acquir(ing) land, natural resources, and key infrastructure rents as in military" conflicts.
It's to "centralize creditor control over society." Financial oligarchs want ordinary people hit hardest. They want domestic government spending slashed.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are prioritized. They want a tribute on the entire economy levied. "Tax favoritism for the wealthy deepens the budget deficit." It forces governments to borrow more.
Interest paid on debt "diverts revenue from being spent on goods and services." Fiscal austerity "shrinks markets." Doing so "reduce(s) tax revenue to the brink of default."
Bondholders treat governments like bankrupt families. They force them to sell prime assets. Banks treat households the same way. So does congressional fiscal cliff legislation.
Corporate and super-rich favoritism comes at the expense of destroying America's social contract. Economic activity suffers.
In its November 2012 report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said without fiscal tightening, "the economy would remain below its potential, and the unemployment rate would remain higher than usual for some time."
Force-fed austerity when stimulus is needed assures much tougher times ahead. Resources directed for growth produce jobs. Workers with money spend it.
Economic pounds of flesh extracted are contractionary. The gap between rich and poor is greater than ever. Privileged segments of society are better off now than earlier. Middle income earners and America's least advantaged are hardest hit.
Longstanding social programs are on the chopping block for elimination. Both parties agree. It's baked in the cake. Obama and likeminded Democrats match Republican harshness.
Fiscal cliff hype is duplicitous scaremongering. It's force-fed American austerity. It targets ordinary people needing help. It wants safety net protections eliminated.
It curtails economic growth. It assures federally mandated protracted hard times.
Imagine bipartisan complicity favoring policies this destructive. Imagine dismissing public need. Imagine the world's richest nation spurning their own people.
Imagine most of them too out of touch to know how gravely they're harmed. Imagine not standing up for their own rights. Imagine today's unfit to live in America more intolerable than ever ahead.
Republicans and Democrats agree. Obama's fully on board. Only America's wealthy, powerful and privilege matter. Others are increasingly on their own.
Scheming politicians target them. Double-dealing reality assures harder than ever hard times. It won't be pretty full-blown. It's coming. Expect it. They'll be no place to hide.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at email@example.com.
His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.


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Release Blitz ~~ Beat by Vi Keeland
Meet Flynn and Lucky in this rock star romance!
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Watch the trailer for Beat ➜ http://bit.ly/1yZD0Am
Dimpled smile of a boy
Hard body of a man
Sings like an angel
Fucks like the devil
I was stuck between a rock(star) and a hard place.
At fifteen, his poster hung on my bedroom wall. At twenty-five his body hovered over mine. Every girl's fantasy became my reality. I was dating a rockstar. Yet I was slowly falling for another man. The problem was—the two men—they shared a tour bus.
Flynn Beckham was the opening act.
Dylan Ryder was the headliner.
What happens when the opening act begins to shine so bright, it seems to dim everything else in its wake?
I'll tell you what happens. Things get ugly.
Despite the fact that Lucky had just casually mentioned that the lobby lounge serves coffee beginning at six a.m., I'm pretty sure of myself that she'll be down there. But when I step off the elevator, the lobby is quiet. Empty. The coffee urns are just being set up in the lounge. I pour two mugs, make them just as we like it, and settle on one of the couches on the far side of the room where it's private, yet I can still keep an eye on the door.
I grab a newspaper and begin to flip through to kill time. Then my eyes catch a pair of pink-painted toes in flip-flops. I don't know why, but it's in this moment that I realize, I'm fucked.
The sight of her toes makes me smile.
I'm falling for another guy's girl. Something I promised myself I'd never do.
But then I reason with myself. I haven't done anything wrong. Thinking a woman is beautiful and spending time with her doesn't have to turn into anything, right? They're just toes after all. But look how cute they are. I've never been a foot guy, yet I wouldn't mind sucking… Stop. Just stop. We're just friends.
Because I've been friends with so many hot women in the past and not fucked them? Yep. I'm screwed. I need to get the hell out of here.
"Good morning," she whispers and smiles down at me. My eyes lazily travel up from her toes.
I'm totally not going anywhere.
I hold up her mug of coffee. And then I realize she still has the thin shirt she wears to sleep on and I'm eye-level with the sexiest taut nipples I've ever seen.
Screw sucking her toes… "Certainly is." I grin.
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About the Author:
Vi Keeland is a native New Yorker with three children that occupy most of her free time, which she complains about often, but wouldn't change for the world. She is a bookworm and has been known to read her kindle at stop lights, while styling her hair, cleaning, walking, during sporting events, and frequently while pretending to work. She is a boring attorney by day, and an exciting smut author by night!
Stalk Her: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads


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Draped elegantly over the high walls surrounding Marrakech's wealthier villas and riads is an elegant climber known variously as pink trumpet vine, Queen of Sheba, Port St. John's creeper and Zimbabwe creeper. As the latter suggests, Podranea ricasoliana, as it's less attractively known in latin, hails from Southern Africa. I naturally assumed that there would be no chance of growing this blushing beauty at home. It turns out I could be wrong. Roseland House Nursery in my native Cornwall suggest that "it will take cold, but like campsis needs sun and heat to flower", recommending that it performs best planted in a cold greenhouse or against an exceptionally hot, sheltered wall.
My observation from today's visit to the exquisite Jardin Majorelle is that the pink trumpet vine is apt to get a little out of control. In the cool confines of Yves Saint Laurent's famous garden it positively smothers pergolas with long stems of jasmine-like foliage, each terminated with a cluster of sugar-pink trumpets. The vine's brutish behaviour is veiled behind the finesse of its glossy compound leaves and sweetly scented flowers which bounce about delicately in the slightest breeze.
Podranea ricasoliana is related to the catalpas, Australian pandoreas and the splendid jacaranda tree, all members of the family Bignoniaceae. In a slightly bizarre piece if botanical naming, I discover that podranea is, quite deliberately, an anagram of pandorea. So, if you like pink, have a sun-kissed wall to cover or a conservatory of mighty proportions, here's the climber for you. I will certainly be seeking it out on my return from North Africa.
Roseland House Nursery and Burncoose Nurseries in Cornwall both offer plants of Podranea ricasoliana in the UK.
Categories: Climbers, Daily Flower Candy, Flowers, Foliage, Photography, Plants, Travel, Tropical Gardens


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Enhancing your JBoss Integration with JBoss BRMS in Practice
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.Join For Free
In the previous article in this series, we talked about extending and expanding your enterprise integration to account for an expanding architectural landscape that included diverse backend systems.
In this article we want to provide an example project, called the BRMS Fuse Integration Demo, that demonstrates how to achieve some of the discussed use cases, specifically how to integrate your service bus with a business process engine.
The main focus of this article will be an actual integration project that provides you with an architectural blueprint for calling out to your Red Hat JBoss Business Rules Management System (BRMS) engine from your Red Hat JBoss Fuse service bus messaging routes. The use cases that were discussed in the previous article were as follows:
Use cases
- call JBoss Fuse (Camel) services from a business process (BPM)
- call JBoss BRMS to apply rules from JBoss Fuse (Camel) route, such as content based routing rules
- call a business process from a JBoss Fuse (Camel) route
The project we provide covers the last use case, where we want to trigger a business process from one of our JBoss Fuse (Camel) routes. Our project provides the following aspects to provide you with a quick way to get started and an architectural blueprint.
Example project
- Automated installation of JBoss Fuse
- Automated installation of JBoss BRMS
- Example BPM project deployed to JBoss BRMS
- Process is a three step process (Start → "Hello World" → End) that logs a message on execution
- Example (Camel) route deployed to JBoss Fuse
- Fuse (Camel) route that is triggered by messages from a specific data directory
- Logging of message from route
- SOAP Web service call from route to collect external information
- REST service call from a Bean from the camel route to start the external business process
JBoss BRMS and Fuse demo project
The reference project shows an example of integrating JBoss BRMS with a focus on the BPM component and JBoss Fuse. The environment consists of a JBoss Fuse instance with a Fuse (Camel) deployment and a JBoss BRMS instance with a BPM project. We touched on the business process, but let us examine the rest of the projects in more detail.
We have designed our architecture to loosely couple the business process allowing access by other components, like our JBoss Fuse example project, by using a REST client from our Camel route. The REST client uses the Process ID and the proper user credentials to start a new instance of the business process.
Peek under the hood
The demo project will execute a lot of the mechanics out of our sight, so let us take you on a tour of what is happening under the hood of our project. If all goes according to plan it would step through our project as follows:
- The src/data directory defined in the Camel route is checked for xml messages which contain a stock code in a SOAP message. In our example we are using RHT as the symbol to get stock data on from the external SOAP Web Service. Open up the message1.xml file to see the sample SOAP envelope and body.
- When a xml file is found then the body of the message is read in and displayed in the log message.
- Next the message is sent to the external SOAP web service to get the stock information.
- The response that is returned is then displayed in the log message.
- Next the startProcessFromCamel method in the RestClientSimple is called to start the business process that prints hello world. Additional information on calling the RestAPI that is provided by JBoss BRMS BPM component is found below. As noted in the section Future work, the stock data will be sent to to the business process.
- The process id is displayed in the log message.
The Fuse Component
The Fuse project starts with our simpleRoute project, which contains two parts. The first is our RestClientSimpleclass, which allows us to define the business process ID and the user credentials. We need this class in when dealing with starting our process through the JBoss BRMS BPM RestAPI. The second is our camel-spring.xmlfile which contains our bean and route. A bean is defined with startit as the ID and RestClientSimple as the class.
Here is a closer look at a section of the camel-spring-xml file.
Note that the SOAP web service call to get stock data and then the call for the startProcessFromCamel method in the RestClientSimple class. We aren't currently passing the stock data to the business process, but that is possible, see the section on future work.
Our RestSimpleClient gives three options for interaction with our JBoss BRMS BPM deployment.
- RestClientSimple starts a process without parameters
- RestClientStartWithParam starts a process with parameters
- RestClientTask starts a process and complete a task with form data
In our case we are will be using the first option, but for more information on the RestAPI see the Red Hat Customer Portal Knowledge base article.
Future work
This article has demonstrated how to integrate your service bus with a business process engine. This example project solved only one of the use cases and there are interesting extensions that could be added.
- The business process can be replaced by a more extensive example process, such as the Customer Evaluation Demo to show both BPM and rule integration.
- Parametrize the REST service such that diverse processes could be called.
- Pass the Stock data that was looked up in the Camel route as a parameter into the business process for display like the current Hello World.
- Deploy the SimpleRestClient service in apart bundle within JBoss Fuse container. Currently it is a bean in the route but it could be set as a proxy service that would receive a processID, user name, and user password.)
These extensions we leave for you to work out, like homework exercises, as you explore the integration scenarios that JBoss BRMS and JBoss Fuse can solve for you.
(Co-authored by Kenny Peeples & Eric D. Schabell)
Published at DZone with permission of Eric D. Schabell, DZone MVB. See the original article here.
Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.


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Apple on Tuesday introduced an even smaller version of the Mac mini, with an HDMI port, an SD card reader, and more graphics and processing power. The new Mac mini is only 1.4-inches tall and rocks a unibody aluminium enclosure, making it a potential match to your HDTV in the living room.
Inside The New Mac mini
Starting at $699, the new Mac mini comes with 2GB of RAM (supports up to 8GB) and a 320GB hard disk (up to 500GB). Graphics power comes from an NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU (as found in lower-end MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops).
The processor on the new Mac mini also received a speed boost. You can choose between a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 2.66-GHz version. The new standard Mac mini comes with an Apple 8X SuperDrive (burn/read DVDs and CDs).
If you don't use optical discs anymore, you can opt for a Mac mini server model, which comes in at $999 with the 2.66-GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and two 500GB hard disk drives (you lose the SuperDrive bay to the second HDD).
Adding to the already small size of the new Mac mini (7.7 x 7.7 x 1.4-inches), the computer has the power brick built in, so you won't get that pesky heavy attachment to the power cord anymore. It weighs 3 pounds, and you can access the panel underneath the computer to add more RAM memory.
Ready For The Living Room
What makes the new Mac mini a good choice for a living room computer is the new HDMI port at the back. You can connect it to any modern HDTV (video and audio are driven through the HDMI port), with resolutions up to 1080p (1920 by 1200 pixels).
There is also a mini DisplayPort to hook it up to an Apple display (up to 2560 by 1600 pixels), and if you have a separate sound system, you can use the audio out 3.5mm jack (no real surround sound here, unfortunately) for your home cinema.
The new Mac mini has four USB 2.0 ports and a FireWire 800 port. The mini adds an SD card slot, so you can easily pop in the card from your camera to download pictures or video from a camcorder.
To play nice with your wireless devices, the refreshed Mac mini comes with Wi-Fi built in (including 802.11n) and Bluetooth, and you also get an Ethernet port.
Unfortunately, there is no Apple Remote included in the box with the new Mac mini, so you will have to shell out another $19 for it. For TV capabilities on the Mac mini you can add a USB tuner, like the EyeTV Hybrid for $149, or install Understudy (Hulu and Neflix in FrontRow) to complement the built-in Apple Front Row, and you got yourself a complete multimedia center for less than $1,000.
Do you think the new Mac mini is good alternative for a living room computer? What other features are missing? Sound off in the comments.


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The Best Places to See Fall Foliage
Bundling up, starting school, shorter days: Some people anticipate fall's start and the quaint normality that accompanies it, while others dread the end of summer's carefree months. But most can agree on the beauty of leaves rapidly changing colors. Check out some of our favorite locations for fall foliage, before the trees are bare and surrounded by snow.
The Adirondack Mountains, New York
If you're trying to escape the Big Apple's hustle bustle, the Catskill Mountains are a great place to start. But the Adirondack Mountains are even further removed from New York City. They're often portrayed as a northern cousin to the Catskills, but the Adirondacks are actually pretty different: The mountains reside on the southernmost part of the Canadian Shield, a billion-year old geologic mass that comprises much of Canada and the northern United States. Because the Adirondacks only recently became exposed (geologically speaking) by uplift, their mountains are fairly dome shaped. Covered by boreal forests filled with unique wildlife, a hike through the Adirondacks could be just what the doctor ordered for a weary city dweller.
Turns out there's a whole lot more to Michigan than Detroit. The Upper Peninsula — you know, that confusing part of Michigan that always looks like it should be a separate state — features some of the most beautiful fall foliage in the country. More than 7 million acres of forest with over 100 species of trees cover the UP, which is surrounded by three Great Lakes. Despite making up for 29 percent of Michigan's area, only 3 percent of the state's population resides there, making the region as remote as it is beautiful. If you're looking for an excursion, try hiking through the Porcupine Mountains State Park, located on the shores of Lake Superior.
Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee
You've probably heard country songs about the Blue Ridge Mountains, which include the Great Smoky Mountains and are themselves a part of the Appalachian Mountains. Americans revere the Appalachians, and with good reason: The area is gorgeous and rich with natural and U.S. history. The National Park Service says that "ridge after ridge of forest straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee" in the Great Smoky Mountains, America's most visited national park. More than 10,000 species of plants and animals inhabit the park, which boasts sixteen mountains that are higher than 6,000 feet. Add a southern flavor to your fall leaves survey by trekking through the Great Smoky Mountains.
The Columbia River Gorge, Oregon and Washington
Many of America's premier fall destinations are located on the East Coast, but that doesn't mean the West Coast has nothing to offer. In fact, few places as awe-inspiring as the Columbia River Gorge exist. The gorge weaves through the Cascade mountain range for about 80 miles, separating Oregon and Washington and sometimes reaching 4,000 feet deep. Slow erosion from the Columbia River helped create the gorge, but so did the Missoula Floods — cataclysmic torrents of melted glacier ice that tore through the region after the last ice age. One must-see part of the gorge is Multnomah Falls, a two-tiered waterfall that tops 600 feet.
--images by iStockphoto/wasmahar, istockphoto/alptraum, iStockphoto/putmanphoto, and iStockphoto/SnehitdesignEric Brown is an editorial intern at Sierra. An Eagle Scout who has hiked in Denali National Park and kayaked down the Snake River, Eric thinks the world is worth saving, even if it has given him his fair share of sunburns. In the fall, he will be a senior at Northwestern University's Medill School, where he enjoys writing about music and editing for North by Northwestern.
6 of America's Most Dangerous Hiking Trails
The 5 Clearest Blue Skies In the U.S.


text: Hello everyone: During the course of speaking with my friends in the Bio- instrumentation and bio-informatics scientific community, I have found that they often have not heard of http://www.biomedicalprojects.com although it is an online community I have found very useful for tracking upcoming events/conferences and ongoing projects in the biomedical field. It is not a new website, they seem to have hundreds of members, maybe more than a thousand, some of which are regular contributors. Perhaps many of you will find it valuable for project blogging and connecting with resources in the following fields: * Biochemical * Bioinformatics * Bioinstrumentation * Biomaterials * Biomechanics * Tissue Engineering * Other Thank you! Regards, - Anand V. Chhatpar anand.chhatpar from brainreactions.com CEO, BrainReactions LLC +1.608.335.0791 http://brainreactions.net Online Brainstorming http://brainreactions.com Outside Insight


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My Mobil no.
Shane, for some reason I can't use pms can I emil you direct or phone?
Thanks Regrds Kim
Shane, if you still have the Royd A7s I'd like to have the I can collect in the next day or two.
Thanks Regards Kim
Oops! Pm and public message mixed up!
New Member
Senior Member
Moderator & Terminator!


text: Chicago, IL - The 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting - Dr. Penley (Chair of CCF BOD), Red Carpet photos of recipients & Dr. Penley in front of supporter banner at 2014 Grants and Awards Ceremony and Reception at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Sunday June 1, 2014. More than 30,000 physicians, researchers, health care professionals, cancer survivors and patient advocates are expected to attend the 50th Anniversary meeting at the McCormick Convention Center. The Annual Meeting highlights the latest findings in all major areas of oncology from basic through clinical and epidemiological studies. Photo by © ASCO/Zach Boyden-Holmes 2014 Technical Questions: email@example.com


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Feathers and Trees
100% synch Optional Objectives
- Do not touch the ground or water
- Find more feathers - 3/3
It's now time to climb some trees! Start by climbing the nearby tree trunk. As you jump towards a V-shaped ledge, press the A/X button to climb higher. Reach the top of the tree to trigger the next objective.
DO NOT TOUCH THE GROUND OR WATER: The navigation of the area is pretty much a straight path, so just follow where the tree limbs are pointing and climb and jump to the next area. Jumping on large rocks won't count against you, so jump on those all you want.
Midway through the watery area, your friend will need some help so make sure you pull him out of the river when he falls. Continue your climb through the trees. Jump off the branches when you get to the cliff face. Climb along the cliff until you cannot go right anymore, then start climbing up.
Once you reach the top, walk out on the large log and approach the eagle's nest to grab the feather. Optional Objective Complete!
EAGLE'S NEST FEATHER NOTEAs you explore the tree branches, a few other feathers will pop up on the map. Connor cannot reach those feathers without touching the ground (and ruining the objective), so ignore those feathers and pursue the main Feather on the Eagle's nest first! After taking the Eagle's nest feather, the "Do not touch the ground" objective will be complete.
FIND MORE FEATHERS: Now it's time to search for the feathers in the area. One feather will be on a tree almost right next to you. The second one is also indicated on your map but you will need to find a tree leaning down in order to climb up and get it. The third one is not indicated. Keep your ears out for the tinkling sound when you are near a feather to find it.
Find all three Feathers and then approach and talk to your hunting buddy to complete the mission.


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"They know that his chief business is to grow and they feed him . . . They give free play to all the wrigglings and stretchings which give power to his feeble muscles. His parents know what he will come to, and feel that here is a new chance for the world. In the meantime, he needs food, sleep and shelter and a great deal of love."
It is not dumbed-down but is somewhat intellectual and brings truth.
It is ethical so that we are well-nourished with noble ideas.
It is also artistic and makes its appeal through the emotions.


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Hugh Norton is the Director of Financial Education at Visa Inc. Norton manages the company's award-winning financial literacy initiative available in more than 44 markets and 18 languages. Featuring the Practical Money Skills and What's My Score programs, the global effort has reached more than 40 million people worldwide. Norton's responsibilities include developing and implementing new programs and interactive tools for consumers, publishing print and online educational materials and coordinating with government, financial and non-profit partners.
As part of Visa's Social Impact team, Norton supports the company's community involvement and corporate responsibility efforts. He has been an active participant in the financial literacy community for years and makes regular appearances at regional and national financial literacy events to support various national consumer education initiatives to speak on behalf of Visa's programs. His weekly Practical Money Matters series delivers expert personal finance tips to consumers of all ages.
Prior to joining Visa, Norton worked in public relations for a wide range of financial services, entertainment and public affairs clients, including publicity for multiple New York Times best sellers and an Oscar-winning best picture. He currently lives in northern Virginia with his wife and children.
Norton sits on the National Board of Directors for the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy®, the Board of Directors for Call for Action and the advisory council for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
Lisa is the national trainer for Visa's Practical Money Skills for Life Program. She travels the country speaking to educators, administrators, and students about financial literacy and the educational resources available through the program.
She has recently spoken to student groups at the University of Washington, University of South Florida, and Texas A&M to promote financial literacy on college campuses. Lisa has also delivered the Practical Money Skills program for organizations and associations including: Future Business Leaders of America Regional and State Conferences, Wisconsin Financial Institute, and the Kansas Business Leaders Association.
Variny Yim is an independent communications and financial education consultant. Currently, she works as: a Financial Literacy Trainer for Visa, Inc.; the Regional Director of Western States for the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy; and a blogger for the Practical Money Skills for Life website. Previously, Variny was Director of the American Savings Education Council (ASEC) in Washington, DC. She also collaborated on a book entitled, The Teen Girl's Gotta-Have-It Guide to Money, with Jessica Blatt Press. Variny began her career as a print and broadcast journalist at USA WEEKEND, USA TODAY, and NBC. Later, she did public relations for high-profile companies such as Maxis/Electronic Arts, Starbucks Coffee Company, 24 Hour Fitness, Kodak.com, and Monsanto.


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Reddit admins banned a controversial but legal teen picture section yesterday, spawning intense debate and causing some to accuse the social news site of censorship.
The problems began after internal power struggles led to the ouster of a number of moderators at the subreddit, /r/jailbait. Their replacements attracted the attention of Reddit admins.
According to Reddit's general manager, Erik Martin, these new moderators "had been repeatedly banned from reddit for various reasons" and the situation in the subreddit "was out of control."
Essentially, trouble-making users had taken control of a subreddit that features legal but sexualized images of teenagers that border on child pornography.
Martin banned the subreddit.
He then reached out to violentacrez, r/jailbait's top moderator, offering an olive branch: remove the troublesome mods, or the subreddit would remain banned.
Violentacrez — a Reddit Larry Flynt of sorts, who created many of the sections that test the boundaries of free speech and legality on the site — refused.
In numerous comments across the site, violentacrez claimed that none of the new moderators broke any rules in their time at r/jailbait.
"I stand behind them 100 percent," the redditor, who manges over 260 subreddits, wrote. "If they had broken a single reddit rule, I would have been okay with removing them. But they did nothing to warrant having [r/jailbait] banned, so I stand with them on principle alone."
The Daily Dot asked Martin if /r/jailbait's new moderators had posted illegal content directly prior to the ban (or had threatened to) but Martin declined to comment for this story. "Explaining who did what and how will only encourage trolls," Martin explained, "and give new ones ideas."
Moderator power struggles are nothing new on Reddit or other web forums. But with 21,000 subscribers, r/jailbait was easily the largest of a group of borderline-legal subreddits that challenge the site's laissez-faire attitude towards free speech.
So does the move, as some claim, represent a step towards censorship on the site?
Martin emphasized that the bans had nothing to do with content. "It was a very specific situation with a big reddit with specific issues and a bunch of new mods with bad rap sheets," he wrote.
It appears that other free-speech testing subreddits, such as r/beatingwomen, r/pro_teen_models, and r/teen_girls remain untouched. And it's worth noting that Martin has been a strong advocate of free speech on Reddit in the past.
"Morally questionable reddits like jailbait," he wrote about a month ago, "are part of the price of free speech on a site like this."
Still, censorship or not, many worried that the site had begun treading on a slippery slope.
Wrote one: "Interfere due to trolling and drama in one subreddit, and people will expect you to do so in all of them."


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TAIPEI, Taiwan – The administration of President Barack Obama is raising the possibility that it could sell new jet fighter aircraft to Taiwan to help redress the island's air power deficit with China.
If the move goes through, it would infuriate Beijing, which claims the democratic island as its territory and regards all foreign defense sales there as interference in its affairs.
China has 2,300 operational combat aircraft, against only 490 for Taiwan. In September, the U.S. turned down a Taiwanese request for 66 relatively advanced F-16 jet fighters, while agreeing to help Taiwan upgrade its existing F-16 fleet. Critics accused the White House of yielding to pressure from China.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. Despite a marked improvement in relations over the past four years, China still threatens to attack across the 160-kilometer-wide (100-mile-wide) Taiwan Strait if Taiwan moves to make its de facto independence permanent.
The possible change in American policy came in a letter Friday from White House director of legislative affairs Rob Nabors to Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas. The letter said that a newly appointed assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific affairs would consider the matter of selling new U.S. warplanes to Taiwan.
"The assistant secretary ... will play a lead role as the administration decides on a near term course of action on how to address Taiwan's fighter gap, including through the sale to Taiwan of an undetermined number of U.S.-made fighter aircraft," Nabors wrote.
Cornyn had been holding up confirmation of the assistant secretary, Mark Lippert, but removed the hold after receiving Nabors' letter.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry welcomed Nabors' letter.
"We welcome and express our gratitude for any acts that may help elevate and strengthen our defense capabilities," the ministry said in a statement.
Any sale of new U.S. combat aircraft to Taiwan would infuriate China, which sees the Taiwan arms issue as the biggest irritant in relations with Washington. It criticizes any Taiwan arms sales in very harsh terms, and routinely suspends defense exchanges with the U.S. to protest them.
Nabors' letter did not specify which U.S. warplane might be sold to Taiwan. However, the Taiwanese have expressed an interest in the F-35, a 5th generation stealth fighter with ground attack and air defense capabilities.
The plane, which is not yet fully operational, is so far slated for inclusion in both the U.S. fighter arsenal and those of a number of close American allies, including Britain, Italy and the Netherlands.


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As summer vacation is winding down, feminists are going out with a bang. This week, check out a hopping Midwest dance party or join a feminist library. But be sure to spend at least one night at home (perhaps nursing your sunburn) watching the awesome Gloria Steinem documentary. There's something for everyone this week, so don't Ms. out!
Nationwide: If (like me) you don't have HBO, find a friend who does so you can watch Gloria, In Her Own Words to learn more about the famous feminist who co-founded Ms. Monday, Aug, 15, 9 p.m. (PT) on HBO, and then in subsequent airings–check your listings.
New York City: Be part of history in the making–join Safe OUTside the System (S.O.S.) as it hosts the first annual Bed-Stuy Pride event. S.O.S. is a collective of the Audre Lorde Project, dedicated to organizing events for LGBTSTGNC (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming) people of color and promoting anti-violence programs. Sunday, Aug. 21, noon to 6 p.m., Von King Park, 670 Lafayette Ave..
New York City and Los Angeles: The 15th Annual DocuWeeks festival in New York and Los Angeles will include several showings of Miss Representation, a documentary exploring the sexualization and trivialization of women in mainstream media. Afternoon and evening screenings start Monday, August 15 in New York, and Friday, August 19 in L.A. Check for showtimes.
London: Did you know women hold only 25 percent of IT occupations in the U.S. workforce? Looks like London's FDM Group has the right idea: It's offering a free Women in IT Seminar to encourage more women to join the industry. Hosted at the FDM Group's office, the event is meant to give "graduates the opportunity to learn more about the different career options and support available to them."Wednesday, Aug. 17, 5 p.m., FDM Group, 55 King William Street, London
Frederick, Md.: Co-creator of The Daily Show and political satirist Lizz Winstead (photo above) continues her Planned Parenthood, I Am Here For You feminist comedy tour in Maryland. Tickets are $35 and include an opening performance by the "Indie-Mom of Comedy," Meshelle. Friday, Aug. 19, 8 p.m., Frederick Cultural Arts Center, 15 W. Patrick St.
Portland, Ore.: If you're in the Pacific Northwest this week, get your feminism on at In Other Words, a feminist bookstore and community center. Peruse their stacks or join in on one of their poetry readings or book clubs. This week, you can sit in on a meeting of the Feminist Film Society and catch their screening and discussion of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Friday, Aug. 19, 7 p.m., 14 NE Killingsworth St.
Chicago: Ladyfest Midwest celebrates its 10-year anniversary with a weekend of music, gallery exhibits and a dance party ("three DJs will be spinning punk, post-punk, riot grrl, girl groups and international weirdness"). Proceeds will benefit the Chicago Women's Health Center. Friday-Sunday, Aug. 19-21. Check out their website and Facebook page for more details and event locations.
Photo of Lizz Winstead from Flickr user matthewfilipowicz under Creative Commons 2.o.


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Gnosis Chocolate adds a new flavor, Pomegranate Açaí, to its pre-existing 14-flavor line of raw, organic, dairy-free and handmade chocolates. According to the company, raw chocolate is antioxidant rich, offers an array of neurotransmitters (like serotonin, dopamine, anandamine, PEA and arginine) and is a naturally high source of magnesium.
firstname.lastname@example.com, http://gnosischocolate.com
Published in WholeFoods Magazine, September 2009


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Stop Sen. Feinstein's Assault Weapons Ban
Fellow Americans,
In light of recent tragedies, left-wing gun grabbers have moved to further infringe on our Second Amendment right to bear arms and form militias. Senator Feinstein (D-CA) has introduced yet another Assault Weapons Ban in light of the tragic shooting in CT and President Obama has threatened to use Executive Orders to violate the 2nd Amendment. We must all unite now to stop this attempt to further limit our rights as Americans.
Sign the petition below and send a copy to your friends; use the House and Senate.gov email registry to alert your elected officials. We, the 85 million responsible gun owners, with our quarter of a billion legal guns, combined make up the largest militia in the history of the world. In the annals of history, American gun ownership was credited by Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto as the reason he did not follow up the attack on Pearl Harbor with an invasion of our mainland.
We cannot rely on the NRA's lobbying arm or House Republicans to do the right thing on our behalf. We and we alone must tell our officials that our rights shall not be trampled on, and by signing this petition and passing it along we are doing just that.
Upon reaching 85,000 signatures, every member of the House and Senate will receive a copy. President Obama shall receive one, along with the major media outlets and blogs. However, we ask that you also send copies to your friends, co-workers, and families of similar mindset. The Left have already begun their own petition drive to support this bill, and we must work to prevent it. Your signature shows that you will not stand for the politicization of these tragic shootings.
Murderers will always find the means to kill, be it through guns, or knives like the recent Beijing stabber who nearly killed 22, or bombs, or vehicles. Banning guns is not the answer, but finding ways to keep them out of the hands of the mentally insane is. Signing this today will send this important message to Congress and President Obama. Signing also says that we will not tolerate the President's plan to enact gun control through executive order, either.
The Undersigned


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What happened when a tiny knick-knack company found its products exposed to millions in the the Canadian star's "Call Me Maybe" lip-sync video Stache man.
This past February, Justin Bieber made Carly Rae Jepsen famous. In a YouTube video posted by Carlos Pena of the Nickelodeon boy-band Big Time Rush, Bieber, Selena Gomez, and a host of other teen idols lip synched along to the love-struck bubblegum pop of Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe." Overnight, the video racked up five million views. Within months, the song would be topping charts worldwide.
Jordan Szymanowski, a 29-year-old living in Los Angeles, was among those first few million viewers. Flipping open his laptop the morning of Feb. 19, he quickly came across the clip: "You couldn't touch Google that day without that video showing up," he remembers. Watching the gang bop around, Szymanowski readily recognized Bieber and Gomez. But he also noticed something else: his own product.
Perched above Gomez's lip, chained to her sunglasses, hung a jet-black intrusion to her Barbie-doll features. It was a mustache. A Sun-Stache, to be precise, a model Szymanowski knew as "The Classic," which features a hooked bit of plastic tethered to the bottom of a pair of wayfarers. About a year earlier, working as a designer for Worldwide Dynasty, Inc., an L.A. based manufacturer, he had invented "The Classic," the original Sun-Stache. There were other models, too, on other celebrities in the video.
Szymanowski opened up a new tab on his browser and emailed his boss the link. The subject line: "Shit just got real."
At the Chatsworth, California offices of WorldWide Dynasty, David Levich saw the email. The video was going viral, piling on tens of thousands of views every hour. "No way," he typed back.
"I thought, 'We need to find a way to monetize this,'" Levich recalls. "We're not specialists in marketing, or brand management. We're basically manufacturers. We were in uncharted territory, but if we did it right it could open up a lot of doors for us."
The pair, as stewards of the Sun-Stache brand, had fallen into one of those happy accidents of networking that occur along the backroads of the Internet. Without paying a dime—without even setting aside an advertising budget—WorldWide Dynasty had gotten their product in front of more eyeballs than placement in any TV show could. Eight months after the video appeared, it's notched more than 50 million views and 410,000 likes. And it checked all the right boxes. Bieber and friends were young and hip. They were having a good time, giving credibility to the Sun-Stache gag while demonstrating its use. It did everything short of displaying the Sun-Stache name across the screen.
For the guys at WorldWide Dynasty, that was the problem.
Cowboy mustache styles
"They showcased our product without really meaning to," Szymanowski says. "No one had any way to connect the dots back to Sun-Staches—no one even knew that's what they were called. I couldn't just respond to every [YouTube] comment and say, 'Oh, they're called Sun-Staches, here's where to find them.' When Justin Bieber's in your sunglasses, it's a whole different game."
Levich has seen success before. His first break came at a company he and his friends started when he was 18 in 2000, selling hip-hop trinkets like chains, watches, and bedazzled pimp chalices through eBay. The revenue was enough that he could quit college in 2003 and launch a retail site, IcedOutGear.com, and a wholesale business, Hip Hop Wholesalers, selling to chain retailers. By 2006, when Levich was 25, the company was pulling in just shy of $5 million in annual revenue under the corporate banner of WorldWide Dynasty, according to Inc. Magazine. That year, Levich and his two partners took spots 16 through 18 on Inc.'s "30 Under 30" list, an honor handed out to America's most promising young entrepreneurs. His personal wealth was estimated at $10 million. Today, Levich estimates WorldWide Dynasty takes in around $10 million in revenue each year, largely in sales to big retailers like Urban Outfitters, Spencer's Gifts, and Claire's.
The idea for Sun-Staches developed as a pitch for Spirit Halloween stores, a subsidiary of Spencer's Gifts with more than 900 seasonal shops. The myth of its genesis varies by teller. Levich, whose titles include director of product development, speaks of a brainstorming session. He talks about following trends and ending up with mustached sunglasses.
Szymanowski calls it an epiphany:
"I came home from the grocery store, and I needed to come up with something for the meeting," he remembers. "And I said, 'You know what hipsters love? Mustaches... and Ray Bans.' So why not slap those together?"
Levich sold Spirit on the idea. Then he moved on to other retailers. By the fall, Sun-Staches were in thousands of stores.
But how did Bieber & co. find the Sun-Staches? WorldWide Dynasty employs fewer than 20 people and doesn't have a marketing department. According to Levich, beyond the cost of production, the company hasn't paid for anything to build the Sun-Stache brand besides fees associated with filing patent applications and sending online press releases. Yet, even before "the Bieber video," as they call it, Levich and Szymanowski had begun to devise ways to develop their new brand on the cheap.
They set up a Facebook page, had giveaways, and sent 'staches to Hollywood-types who seemed interested. It started slowly. But then a girl who received a free pair passed them off to Carlos Pena, and things started moving faster. (After the girl took credit, the company sent her a few more pairs.)
With more exposure to manage, Szymanowski saw his job mutate. Initially, he just compiled photos on the website. As things accelerated, he started spending more and more time on Facebook concocting promotions, and managing the brand's Twitter feed under his new persona, "Stache Man." He started pushing the hashtag "#MustacheSwag." And, recently, he's tried to popularize a new mustachioed emoticon—:3.
"It's become a lot of work," Szymanowski says. "I'm a designer, first and foremost. But, to see my random idea morph into something unto itself—that's fun, too."
Sun-Staches are now showing up in unexpected places, and Szymanowski pounces on each photo op. In March, Aubrey Plaza of NBC's Parks and Recreation threw on a pair to walk the red carpet at the premiere of Will Ferrell's Casa De Mi Padre. Photos were picked up by celebrity blogs and teen-centric websites across the Internet. Worldwide Dynasty sent her more pairs.
"I don't know what traditional marketing is, really," says Levich. "If that means hiring a firm, and all that, I don't think we need it. These are not traditional products. So far, this guerrilla strategy has worked really well."
Of course, most Sun-Stache-wearing Beliebers still haven't heard of the Levich's company. But that's probably okay, says Hema Yoganarasimhan, a professor of marketing a the UC Davis Graduate School of Management: WorldWide Dynasty, intentionally or not, is undergoing what he calls a "cloaked" campaign. The result feels more organic and less engineered than a mainstream ad campaign. But in seeking to disappear, the company risks losing control over the information that starts to swirl around their product, and finding themselves stuck with a product that means something entirely different than what they had in mind.
"In terms of strategy it depends on what your goal is," Yoganarasimhan says. "If you are Gap and if you want 'everyone' to buy your product, a mainstream advertising strategy is necessary. If not, a social media-based 'cloaking' strategy would work great."
So far, the behind-the-scenes, freewheeling approach has worked for WorldWide Dynasty. While he wouldn't part with numbers, Levich says stores have seen a "big jump" in Sun-Stache sales, and that orders keep coming in ahead of schedule.
At an Urban Outfitters on New York's Upper West Side, a few pairs of Sun-Staches hang on raw wooden shelves above the store's unfinished concrete floor. The wall is sprinkled throughout with mustaches. There are mustache erasers ($3 for a pack of two) and "Stache Straws" ($12 for six). There are "Fingerstache Temporary Tattoos," which, when applied to the inside of the right index finger, can give the wearer the appearance of a facial hair whenever they choose simply by extending said finger above the upper lip. ("Add flair anywhere!" $5 for the set.) There are costume mustaches, too. One package contains a single, bendable option ($5), while two other options hold distinct sets of six different styles (these "Notable Mustache" products come in both "Classic" and "Character" collections, for $8). Other mustaches abound.
Spanish mustache style
"We have tons of 'stache stuff over here," says one salesman working the floor, a man in his mid-20s. He's dressed in red flannel and has a six-inch thatch of frayed, red beard that mocks the slick side part he combs atop his head. He points to the Sun-Staches. "We sell a ton of these, mostly to teenagers, but some older people too," he says. "I'd also say they're one of the most stolen items in the store. I find the packaging ripped up and stuff in all sorts of places around here. Mustaches are a hip theme right now."
Another sales rep comes up, this one a younger guy, shaved clean and buttoned up.
"It drives me fuckin' crazy," he says in response. "I don't know where people get it in their head to buy this shit."
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A version of this column appeared originally in THE DAILY BEAST.
The Obama administration and its allies are so eager to portray tax hikes on the rich as the solution to all our problems that they desperately desire to persuade the public that tax cuts for the rich caused all those problems in the first place.
Perhaps the most outrageous expression of this argument comes in a controversial new video from the California Federation of Teachers called "TAX THE RICH: AN ANIMATED FAIRY TALE."
This eight-minute piece of puerile propaganda features the warm and winning voice of the 83-year-old Hollywood legend Ed Asner, who previously provided his vocal talents to a far more worthy example of the animator's art: the fanciful, Oscar-winning Disney-Pixar masterpiece, UP.
This time, Asner concentrates on a distinctly downward trajectory, tracing America's steep decline from the golden age before tax cuts for the rich to the suffering and despair of the present day. "Once upon a time," he intones, "there was a land that was happy and prosperous. They had a great education system, safe streets, and jobs for everyone."
Never mind that during the idyllic Jimmy Carter era of 70 percent top marginal tax rates, the "safe streets" mentioned in the video featured rates of violent crime nearly double the levels of today, or that the Carter unemployment rate of 7.6 percent (at the end of his term) nearly equaled our current level of joblessness and hardly provided "jobs for everyone." Asner's narration insists that high levels of taxation created a virtual utopia: "The people of this land paid for their good life by investing in their future together. They called this 'paying taxes.'"
Then, the serpent of greed slithered into this American Eden: "But over time rich people decided they weren't rich enough. So they came up with ways to get richer. The first way was through tax cuts." The animation cleverly illustrates this reduction in rates by depicting giant scissors, slicing away (with heavily amplified sound effects) at benign images of parks and schools, like menacing instruments of national castration.
Asner's suddenly mournful tones then describe the predictable results: "Schools, public safety, the roads, parks, libraries, public transportation all went into decline. The rich people didn't care." Worst of all, the sultans of selfishness accumulated such obscene levels of wealth that their piles of huge gold coins became "money towers" reaching into the clouds, which inevitably collapsed and crushed ordinary people under their overwhelming weight. At this point, the victims recognized that "it was the 1 percent who built the money towers that crashed on their houses and jobs" – affirming a dubious connection between the generation of wealth by some and the accompanying ruination of others.
Naturally, the preening plutocrats in the video – plump, top-hatted, cigar-chomping folk who resemble the Monopoly Man of the classic game – began to quake at the prospect of the aroused proletariat. "Now the rich people got worried. They thought that if the people get mad enough at us, they might take some of our money. This really upset the rich people, because they loved their money more than anything else in the whole world."
At last, the long-suffering wretched of the earth reached blessed enlightenment as the timbre of Asner's well-trained voice became brighter and sweeter: "People began to say, 'Maybe the rich people have too much money now. And maybe our problems have something to do with the 1 percent not paying their fair share of taxes."
The final image in the brief morality play featured the newly determined little guys rallying in front of signs demanding "Tax the Rich," "Tax Corporations" and "Jobs Now!" while Asner posed a concluding question: "Can the people of this land do something to live happily ever after?" Accompanying material from the California Federation of Teachers urges concerned citizens to "do something" by getting involved in support of President Obama's ongoing effort to raise tax rates on the rich.
The idea that national happiness depends on piling higher tax burdens on the wealthy counts as no more irrational than the notion that lower tax rate on top-earners somehow led to devastating declines in funding for schools, public safety, parks, transportation and other public needs.
In fact, total education spending per student has nearly doubled since Ronald Reagan became president and began wielding those menacing scissors and cutting tax rates. On the federal level, the U.S. Department of Education spent $14.2 billion (in constant dollars) when Reagan came to Washington but the budget rose to $56 billion in 2006 under President George W. Bush. From that point forward, with the reduced Bush tax rates firmly in place, spending soared again to $71 billion in 2011.
The perceived decline in transportation infrastructure, depicted with cracked and pot-holed streets in the Asner video, also bears less connection to overall funding cuts (which never occurred) than to the futile folly of diverting highway money to wildly impractical mass transit boondoggles. Since the era of Reagan and Bush tax cuts, government at every level has invested lavishly in ill-considered and outrageously expensive train systems (in Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles and countless other cities) that have done nothing to relieve traffic or reduce commute times. Now the state of California and the federal government mean to collaborate on a laughably impractical high speed rail system that could cost $100 billion dollars, with a first-stage route connecting an under-populated corridor between Merced and Bakersfield, with a serious environmental impact on desert toads but no impact whatever on LA's clogged freeways.
The bottom line in federal outlays also shows that tax cuts of the Reagan and Bush era did nothing to force a reduction in overall levels of spending. In 2000, the last full year of Bill Clinton's purportedly perfect reign of peace and prosperity, the federal government spent 18.2 percent of the gross domestic product. Eight years later, after two rounds of major tax cuts and in the last full year of the George W. Bush presidency, Washington spent 20.8 percent of GDP – a substantial explosion of additional spending, not the imposition of some brutal austerity budget. After four years of Barack Obama's leadership, with the Bush tax rates still firmly in place (for a few weeks more, at least), we now spend 24.3 percent, another perilous rise. While Grover Norquist, purveyor of the now notorious "no new taxes" pledge, popularized the phrase "starve the beast" as a demand for leaner, more effective government, it ought to be obvious that the beast in question now suffers from an acute obesity problem.
The most obnoxious element in the new animated fairy tale from the Golden State's education establishment involves its irresponsible demonization of malevolent and immoral "rich people," depicting them as a separate, subhuman species and not merely a privileged class. In one outrageous image, the rich perch on top of the scales of justice, raised high by huge bags of money, and urinate in a golden waterfall on the unsuspected poor who are huddled beneath them on the lower plate of the balance.
Of course Ed Asner himself, and the other millionaire Hollywood activists who clamor for higher tax rates, could unleash lavish donations to rain down their own showers of gold on supposedly starved parks and schools and firehouses. But they prefer to fund propaganda, demanding the seizure of even more money from their fellow plutocrats, to generous investment in direct public benefits. In the last election cycle, Democrats received and spent more than 3 billion in donations; imagine the acreage of wilderness and open space that might have been purchased with even a small portion of those contributions.
Identifying the rich with wanton cruelty and urinating-on-their-heads contempt might help foment the irrational urge to punish them as a way to lead America back to the land of "happily ever after." This animated animus could also justify the fear on the part of the wealthy that an enraged populace "might take some of our money"—as if sanctity of private property counted for nothing in the face of emotional indignation. Later, Asner's narration noted that "people began to say maybe the rich have too much money now," suggesting that the public had the right to determine the maximum levels of success that productive members of society ought to be allowed to achieve.
Of course, liberal reasoning never attempts to explain how limiting such success could serve the interests of the less fortunate. Nor will the left make any attempt to sketch a rational cause-and-effect relationship between hiking tax rates and improving public services, or to establish a connection between tax rate cuts and public suffering for anyone. Despite the lurid animation from the California teachers union and skillful narration by one of Hollywood's liberal lions, those associations remain an irresponsible example of fairy tale logic.


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The recent announcement of a PlayStation 3 release of Fallout 3 content that was previously announced as exclusive to Microsoft sent us searching for answers about what constitutes an "exclusive."
Last July Todd Howard, lead designer at Bethesda Softworks, took the stage during the Microsoft E3 press briefing and did a rather un-extraordinary thing. Like so many developers, publishers, marketers, and media outlets in gaming before him, he announced an "exclusive."
Specifically, he said: "We're going to be doing substantial downloadable content for Fallout 3 and it will be exclusive for the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows."
What exactly he meant by that we can't say, as a Bethesda representative declined to comment for this story.
But what's just as important as what Howard meant is what you, the gamer, thought he meant — then or now. After all, this week, Bethesda announced that that content would be coming to the PlayStation 3.
Exclusivity, in this case, was not forever. Was it ever meant to imply it was? Bethesda won't say.
There is a difference between the idea that a piece of gaming content will only ever appear on a given console or that it is just appearing on one of them first. Such a distinction could impact the purchasing decision of a gamer looking to decide which version of a game to buy or which gaming console to support. And there are a variety of ways to telegraph which version of the word "exclusive" is meant. Witness Microsoft's Shane Kim, in the same E3 2008 press briefing as Howard, announcing that Rock Band 2 would "premiere exclusively" on the Xbox 360 in September 2008. The implication that Rock Band 2 would show up on other platforms later was obvious.
We contacted Microsoft, hoping to glean the company's take on what the announcement of an "exclusive" should mean to gamers. We wondered if, in this instance, there was reason for the company to have felt gamers were mislead.
A Microsoft spokesperson took our request as an opportunity not to look back to past uses of the word "exclusive" but as a chance to hype the future of the next two Fallout 3 DLC add-ons: "Again coming first to Xbox 360, the upcoming releases of 'Point Lookout' and 'Mothership Zeta' for Fallout 3, mean we're continuing to bring the biggest and best Game Add-ons to our customers before anyone else," the spokesperson wrote back to us via e-mail. "Xbox LIVE is hands down the most popular destination for Game Add-ons. Publishers and consumers recognize this fact and will continue to turn to Xbox 360 first to extend the lives of their games with great Game Add-ons."
That word Exclusive isn't so easy to pin down. But with Bethesda mum and Microsoft changing the topic, we needed to find an expert on these things.
Who better to ask than the gaming media's chief purveyor of exclusives, the man whose reference to them could form the basis of a weekly drinking game?
We contacted GameTrailers TV host and former Kotaku guest-editor, Geoff Keighley.
Over e-mail, Keighley made clear what no one else would be explicit about: "In this day and age, unless otherwise specified, you have to assume 'exclusive' means a timed exclusive. In other words it is 'exclusive' to one platform for a period of time, or "first." Of course no one will tell you about the length of exclusivity....This is similar to world exclusives on GTTV or in Game Informer. We have the 'exclusive' on a game for a period of time, but other outlets ultimately receive the assets. "
Keighley's analysis makes explicit what some gamers suspected all along. Still, this expert of exclusivity had to put things in more colorful context: "The one wrinkle is whether Todd actually THOUGHT the content was exclusive, only to later realize he wanted to re-evaluate his decision. When you get married you think you're in an exclusive relationship, but sometimes I guess it turns out to be a timed exclusive."
So much for the dictionary definition of the word "exclusive," though it's not precise either.
Is the English language letting the gaming industry down? Or is the gaming industry letting the English language down?
Get ready to hear and read that word "exclusive" a lot come E3 2009. We submit our exclusive request: Let it finally be clear what it means.


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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) chemists have developed new nanoparticles that can simultaneously perform magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and fluorescent imaging in living animals. Such particles could help scientists to track specific molecules produced in the body, monitor a tumor's environment, or determine whether drugs have successfully reached their targets.
In a paper appearing in Nature Communications, the researchers demonstrate the use of the particles, which carry distinct sensors for fluorescence and MRI, to track vitamin C in mice. Wherever there is a high concentration of vitamin C, the particles show a strong fluorescent signal but little MRI contrast. If there is not much vitamin C, a stronger MRI signal is visible but fluorescence is very weak.
Future versions of the particles could be designed to detect reactive oxygen species that often correlate with disease, says Jeremiah Johnson, an assistant professor of chemistry at MIT and senior author of the study. They could also be tailored to detect more than one molecule at a time.
"You may be able to learn more about how diseases progress if you have imaging probes that can sense specific biomolecules," Johnson says.
Dual action
Johnson and his colleagues designed the particles so they can be assembled from building blocks made of polymer chains carrying either an organic MRI contrast agent called a nitroxide or a fluorescent molecule called Cy5.5.
When mixed together in a desired ratio, these building blocks join to form a specific nanosized structure the authors call a branched bottlebrush polymer. For this study, they created particles in which 99% of the chains carry nitroxides, and 1% carry Cy5.5.
Nitroxides are reactive molecules that contain a nitrogen atom bound to an oxygen atom with an unpaired electron. Nitroxides suppress Cy5.5's fluorescence, but when the nitroxides encounter a molecule such as vitamin C from which they can grab electrons, they become inactive and Cy5.5 fluoresces.
Nitroxides typically have a very short half-life in living systems, but Univ. of Nebraska chemistry professor Andrzej Rajca, who is also an author of the new Nature Communications paper, recently discovered that their half-life can be extended by attaching two bulky structures to them. Furthermore, the authors of the Nature Communications paper show that incorporation of Rajca's nitroxide in Johnson's branched bottlebrush polymer architectures leads to even greater improvements in the nitroxide lifetime. With these modifications, nitroxides can circulate for several hours in a mouse's bloodstream—long enough to obtain useful MRI images.
The researchers found that their imaging particles accumulated in the liver, as nanoparticles usually do. The mouse liver produces vitamin C, so once the particles reached the liver, they grabbed electrons from vitamin C, turning off the MRI signal and boosting fluorescence. They also found no MRI signal but a small amount of fluorescence in the brain, which is a destination for much of the vitamin C produced in the liver. In contrast, in the blood and kidneys, where the concentration of vitamin C is low, the MRI contrast was maximal.
Mixing and matching
The researchers are now working to enhance the signal differences that they get when the sensor encounters a target molecule such as vitamin C. They have also created nanoparticles carrying the fluorescent agent plus up to three different drugs. This allows them to track whether the nanoparticles are delivered to their targeted locations.
"That's the advantage of our platform—we can mix and match and add almost anything we want," Johnson says.
These particles could also be used to evaluate the level of oxygen radicals in a patient's tumor, which can reveal valuable information about how aggressive the tumor is.
"We think we may be able to reveal information about the tumor environment with these kinds of probes, if we can get them there," Johnson says. "Someday you might be able to inject this in a patient and obtain real-time biochemical information about disease sites and also healthy tissues, which is not always straightforward."


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Mormon Church to Members: Quit Baptizing Dead Jews
Researcher and ex-Mormon Helen Radkey raised some eyebrows when she reported that a Mormon temple in Idaho had baptized deceased Jewish reporter Daniel Pearl. But it doesn't stop there. Radkey also discovered posthumous baptisms of Anne Frank and Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal's family. Needless to say, the Jewish community isn't thrilled, and the Mormon higher-ups have been forced to take action. (Read: they sent out a letter.)
"Without exception, Church members must not submit for proxy temple ordinances any names from unauthorized groups, such as celebrities and Jewish Holocaust victims," reads a letter sent to church leaders around the world.
It further states that disciplinary action will be taken against those who continue to perform proxy baptisms, and included directions that the letter be read to members during the next sacrament meeting.
For many, "don't baptize people who died in the Holocaust" might seem obvious, but everyone can use a reminder now than then. And the Anti-Defamation League appears pleased with the effort from Mormon leaders. National director Abraham H. Foxman released a statement in response to the Mormon letter.
We welcome this as an important step by the LDS Church to further educate its worldwide members about the Church's policies regarding posthumous baptism, particularly its prohibition of baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims. Church members should understand why proxy baptisms are so offensive to the Jewish people, who faced near annihilation during the Holocaust simply because they were Jewish, and who throughout history were often the victims of forced conversions.
So perhaps this is the last we'll hear of posthumous Mormon baptisms for a while. (Doubtful.) In the meantime, let's take solace in the fact that Bea Arthur continues to rest in peace as a Jew.
[Image via AP]


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The Delray Beach Playhouse is bringing a measure of drama to the stage when John Patrick Shanley's Pultizer Prize and Tony Award-winning play Doubt premieres on May 24. Set in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt follows three faculty members at St. Nicholas Catholic School. Sister Aloysius, the school's feared and indomitable head mistress, has a suspicion that the fun-loving and laid back Father Flynn's intentions with a young male student are not just of a spiritual nature. Sister Aloysius' doubt leads her on an inquisitorial investigation, enlisting the help of the timid teacher Sister James to uncover the truth.
- Doubt will run from May 24 to June 8.
- Showtimes are as follows: Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.
- Tickets cost $30.
- For more information and to purchase tickets, visit delraybeachplayhouse.com.
Though Doubt will put a bow on the Delray Beach Playhouse's 2013-14 main-stage season, the theatrical offerings are far from over this summer:
On May 29 at 2 p.m., the Words…Alive! staged-reading program will present "Three Daughters." The adaptation of Letty Cottin Pogrebin novel of the same name follows three sisters as they struggle with sisterly angst and family secrets.
- Tickets cost $25.
- For more information, call 561-272-1281 or visit
On June 2-4 and 9-11, the theater company's Musical Memories 2013-14 season comes to a close with "Make Someone Happy," a retrospective of the songs by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The duo's lyrics are part of the American musical canon, with songs like "Just in Time," "A Little Bit in Love," "Make Someone Happy," "New York, New York," "The Wrong-Note Rag," "Long Before I Knew You" and "The Party's Over" part of their portfolio.
- Tickets cost $30.
- Showtimes are as follows: Monday-Wednesday, 2 and 8 p.m.
- For more information, visit http://delraybeachplayhouse.com.


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City architecture:
sculpting scenery with light
Bilbao's installation at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, entitled 'Bilbao Guggenheim', celebrated the remarkable transformation the city has made over the last 25 years. Growing from a state of environmental deterioration and industrial crisis to become one of the Europe's most attractive cities, Bilbao is a shining example of urban renewal. The centerpiece of the installation at the Expo, which was constructed by artist Esther Pizarro, was a huge sculpture of light and matter representing the city's architecture.
Philips was proud to supply the light. The installation was designed as a 'closed box', in which illumination helps to create an entrancing experience. iColor Flex SL technology was chosen for dynamic lighting of the sculpture, enabling individual control of each LED. The resulting color effects, which changed and mutated in front of viewers' eyes, allowed the artist to create boxes of lights and glowing networks of LEDs. With the aid of computer programming, these networks were used to create a luminous choreography that represented the transformation of the city.
Bilbao's estuary was recreated using Philips Flexitube LED. More than 80 meters of glowing blue Flexitube were used, cutting a vibrant swathe through the city that gave a nod of recognition to the dragons of Chinese mythology. Control of the lighting effects was supplied by the Pharos LPC20 controller, which is programmed in harmony with the videos projected onto the walls. The end result was a breathtaking blend of art and light.
Philips provided the pavilion's entire turnkey audiovisual solution, including dynamic lighting systems, control and programming, video projectors, content management software, audio effects equipment, and commissioning of the installation.