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NOTE: This page is overdue for an update and, our video players have to be replaced due to 'Flash' players becoming deprecated. Some browsers now require a permission to enable and view.
(Books listing, — bottom of page)
"No Guns For Jews"
Go to the download or view page for options
"2A Today For The USA"
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"No Guns For Negroes"
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"No Guns For Jews "
"The Gang Movie"
"Innocents Betrayed"
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|Non JPFO 2A Oriented Film Clips of Interest
Suzanna Hupp addresses Congress
The Swiss, their arms and "Militia"
Holocaust Commemoration Day 2010
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
To purchase full length movies, see below -
The "No Guns for Jews DVD" may now also be obtained from the JPFO store although viewing and/or downloading is possible from the site page. (Be aware too of the "Triple Play" DVD now available from our store, which is a combo of "No Guns for Jews", "No Guns for Negroes" and "2A Today for The USA.")
The Gang DVD - A former minor tax collection department is now a billion-dollar agency. This groundbreaking documentary exposes how this agency harasses, oppresses, intimidates, and terrifies small businesses and decent citizens. Run time 85 mins.
Innocents Betrayed - In this powerful documentary produced by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, you will learn how governments have historically deprived people of firearms ... and then wiped them from the face of the earth. Run time 58 mins. Read more about this film first.
Bill of Rights or Bust - Do you know your rights? Bill of Rights or Bust uses a lively interview format, elegant illustrations, and high-speed imagery to show what rights we REALLY have -- and why those rights are worth keeping. Run time 22 1/2 mins. Visit our original site now situated here within JPFO but temporarily not displaying correctly.
Nazi Death Camps - The Results of "Gun Control" - Official US Army film commissioned by General Dwight Eisenhower. Footage was used at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. Run time approx 60 mins. An info page here.
"The Ten Commandments of Self Defense" - Not a movie but a 2CD set of a fascinating lecture given by Rabbi Dovid Bendory dealing with the comparison between G-d's laws versus man's laws. Purchase direct from JPFO Store.
JPFO Bookstore
Fiction Books | Non-Fiction Books | Other Books.
Of particular note, and books JPFO considers important reading ........
''Gun Control'': Gateway to Tyranny - A side-by-side comparison of the 1938 Nazi Gun Control laws and America's 1968 Gun Control Act.Unfortunately, this book is now out of stock.
Death By "Gun Control" - The ground-breaking book that was the basis for our award-winning documentary, Innocents Betrayed. Unfortunately, this book is now out of stock.
Dial 911 and Die - It makes no difference what state you live in - you DON'T have a right to police protection! Addition - another article on this subject by Richard Stevens.
HOPE - This JPFO book was republished in small quantity and may be available through Amazon.com, either as new or also a used copy. Read more about it on this page, which includes several endorsements as well. There is a 50 page sample available on JPFO, to wet your appetite.
Gran'pa Jack Books. - this page will describe the various issues in the series, from there are links to the JPFO Store.
Bloomfield Press. Author Alan Korwin of Gunlaws.com has written various books covering a mountain of information, making for invaluable and important reference material for all responsible gun owners. These are available through the JPFO Store - links available on the Korwin books details page.
The Mitzvah The ultimate mugging of a liberal who becomes a conservative. For those who love freedom -- and for those who should. Read more on this page.
The State vs The People Though few realize it, "police state" and "tyranny" are not synonymous … this book goes into great detail explaining this. (Although out of print, it appears (Oct 2011) there are a few new and used issues at Amazon.com.
JPFO and Amazon - This page represents a source for many books in several categories at Amazon. Included categories are: Fiction, Self-Defense, 2a, 'Food for thought', Reference, History, Genocide, plus a useful Amazon search option. Purchases made from this site as the referrer can earn useful funds for JPFO.
Apparel: The JPFO Store has for a long time kept apparel options such as T-shirts but is currently in process of clearing out much of that stock, and may not be re stocking for some time. Check it out if you wish to see what may be remaining.


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The most important and perhaps improbable thing about the 2012-13 Miami Heat, and their monstrous 27-game winning streak, is how easily everything comes on offense now. Miami leads the league in points per possession, and on the surface that's not so surprising. The Heat have been a very good offensive team for three seasons, and they have the world's greatest player, two more All-Stars, and an array of role players picked specifically because of how snugly they fit around those stars. And those stars are putting up crazy numbers — 52 percent–plus shooting for each of them, including an insane 55.7 percent from LeBron James, who should be the unanimous choice for MVP.
But all the justified focus on the individual numbers obscures a larger, better story: These Heat look almost nothing like the 2010-11 version that melted away against Dallas in the Finals, and they don't even look much like the team that took the floor for the bulk of their championship campaign last season. The Heat, more than anything else, are a story of slow and fitful evolution — a reaffirmation that the regular season really does matter, and that true basketball chemistry is a fragile thing that almost always requires patience, time, sacrifice, and deep knowledge of teammates.1
The 2012-13 Lakers are another testament to all of this, and to the importance of good and bad injury luck. The 2007-08 Celtics stand as one of the only examples of an insta-team that had insta-success at the absolute highest level.
The Heat have almost totally reinvented their offense over those three seasons, and in the process they've done something very rare: taken a good offense and transformed it into something almost historically great. The Heat ranked eighth in points per 100 possessions last season, sporting a mark about two points above the league's overall average, per Basketball-Reference.com.2 They're no. 1 this season, a full seven points over the league's overall average — a huge five-point year-over-year jump in comparison to the NBA's general scoring output.
I normally use NBA.com's stats database, but Basketball-Reference has a handy overall league average that is useful here. The two systems are very similar, especially in terms of team rank.
How rare is that? Only 51 teams since 1953-54 have made such a large jump, relative to league average, from one season to the next, per research Basketball-Reference's Neil Paine performed for Grantland. Not surprisingly, most of the teams on this list were very bad in Year 1 and made some sort of massive (and positive) offseason change before Year 2.3 Only four teams have ever improved this much on offense in Year 2 after having merely an above-average offense in Year 1; the Heat will be the fifth such team.
For instance, the three largest jumps in this sense belong to the 2003-04 Nuggets, the 2004-05 Suns, and the 1991-92 Cavaliers. Those teams drafted Carmelo Anthony, signed Steve Nash, and got Mark Price back from injury, respectively. Other teams among these 51 include the Celtics of Larry Bird's rookie year; the Cavaliers of LeBron James's rookie year; and last season's Clippers, fresh off the Chris Paul trade.
The other four:
• 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers: an all-time great team, owner of the 33-game streak Miami is chasing.
• 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (Michael Jordan's first full season back from retirement).
• 1997-98 Los Angeles Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal plays nine more games than prior season, Kobe Bryant no longer a rookie.
• 2003-04 Sacramento Kings.
And now the Heat, a super-team that for two years was prone to puzzling and inexcusable bouts of stagnancy on offense.4 No more. Miami is a pass-happy team that whips the ball around the floor, shifts bodies all over the place in carefully coordinated motion sets, gobbles up the most efficient shots available, and generally destroys opposing defenses in a way that is both visually pleasing and nothing like how they played in the past. League observers used to talk about Orlando's four-out/one-in system, with four shooters surrounding Dwight Howard in the post or on the pick-and-roll. Miami and Erik Spoelstra have one-upped that by often playing a five-out system, with all five guys moving around the 3-point arc as the Heat run through a series of rehearsed actions while hunting for gaps in the defense. It's a system Miami settled upon through organic internal growth, free-agent signings, injury-related improvisation, and the study of everything from college football to NCAA basketball to high-profile international hoops teams.
I had a shorthand for Miami games while taking notes: "NGE." It stood for "not good enough," and marked a possession which I considered somewhat wasteful of Miami's talents — one of those trips when LeBron or Dwyane Wade would just stand in the corner, doing nothing, acting the part of a glorified James Jones.
"It's gone away from just pounding the ball," says Dirk Nowitzki, somewhat familiar with the old Heat and a League Pass junkie. "It's all about spreading the floor with so much shooting. I guess we were lucky to have caught them in the Finals that first year."5
Come on, Dirk. Don't be modest. Every champ needs a bit of luck.
"They're just outstanding," says Larry Drew, Atlanta's head coach. "But it was a gradual process for them."
The Heat in 2010-11 were an ultratalented team that took all that talent and played just like everyone else. The Heat in 2012-13 are a team that has developed a deep understanding of its talent and crafted a system around that talent; they no longer play like everyone else, something coaches, scouts, players, and front-office executives confirmed in conversations with Grantland over the last few weeks. Post-2010 free-agency signings explain some of the evolution, especially the acquisitions of Ray Allen and Shane Battier. The latter stands as perhaps the most impactful non-star signing any team has made in that stretch; Battier has both allowed Miami to play small ball more often by taking on power forwards and contributed to the team's increased emphasis on 3-point shooting. The 2010-11 Heat ranked 10th in both corner-3 attempts and midrange shots; only Houston has taken more corner 3s this season, and Miami ranks toward the bottom of the league in midrange shots, per NBA.com.
And Miami's transition into a majority small-ball team came by accident, when Chris Bosh's injury during the playoffs last season eventually forced Spoelstra into shifting James to power forward almost full-time.
The personal and on-court growth of the holdover players, including the stars, also explains a good chunk of Miami's advancement. James has become an elite high-volume post player, which in turn has allowed Miami to invert its post-up structure. Bosh almost never posts up anymore; he attempted 294 shots via the post in 2010-11, but has attempted just 116 such shots this season, per Synergy Sports. The lion's share of post attempts now go to Wade and James, a development that has allowed Miami to give the real estate under the basket to its two best passers. Heat games now feature a half-dozen possessions that look a lot like the one below; watch as Battier artfully hunts a passing lane by reading the movements of his teammates and opposing defenders in order to find a sweet spot:
Both James and Wade gradually learned to work as off-ball cutters. They now understand the unique gravitational pull each of their teammates creates, how to exploit the spaces that gravity opens, and when to cut into those spaces. Miami can bend a defense in a dozen different ways now. It could bend a defense two seasons ago, but only in the most conventional of ways — via high Wade/Bosh or James/Bosh pick-and-rolls, with shooters stationed in each corner and another big man lurking around the baseline:
It was boring, slow, and predictable; the lane was sometimes overcrowded, and Miami often went right into that simple pick-and-roll instead of confusing defenses with fast-moving misdirection leading up to that pick-and-roll. Defenses devoted to overloading the strong side by sending an extra body there — Tom Thibodeau's defenses, for instance — had plenty of time to load up on Miami's pick-and-rolls as James or Wade pounded the ball up top, confident Miami could not easily transition into some other backup plan. The Heat over their first two seasons together developed some go-to motion sets — cross-screens under the hoop for Wade or James, or those corner sets where one of the stars would come flying off a double screen near the corner — but opponents could see them coming a mile away.
Miami today uses a ton of fast-moving misdirection to get defenses on their heels before the Heat even get into the action they'd really like to use:
There is so much stuff going on here before the Heat get to the meat and potatoes — the Wade/Chris Andersen pick-and-roll that draws help away from Battier in the left corner. The play starts with Andersen6 setting a pin-down screen for Wade in the middle, and then following Wade up toward the perimeter — an action that would normally signal Andersen's intention to get into a fast-moving pick-and-roll with Wade. But not yet. Andersen instead sets a little fade screen for Allen on the right wing, and Allen is so threatening a player that Andersen's man (Chris Wilcox) has to dip down to account for him. As a result, when Andersen finally darts up to set a screen for Wade, there is no obstacle preventing Wade from getting deep into the paint and drawing that fatal help off Battier:
The degree to which Andersen has picked up on all of this and executed it smoothly is almost surprising. He's been an almost perfect fit for Miami on both ends of the floor as the third big man.
The Heat run variations of this action with Allen taking that initial screen in the paint and then faking as if he's going to set a high screen for the ball handler — a powerful fake, since one pet Miami play indeed features Allen setting a high screen for James and then fading behind a back screen for an open 3.7 There is an intelligence to Miami's offense now — one that comes only from understanding the capabilities of your teammates, how defenses will respond to those capabilities, and how to play off those enemy tendencies. Even something as simple as getting James free for a post-up might involve two or three decoy actions.
Miami swiped this play from Boston's playbook; it was one of Boston's go-to crunch-time sets.
Battier is a key player in a lot of Miami's best misdirection. A lot of fun possessions will start with Battier setting a high screen that is really a decoy, or simply faking a screen and darting to what will become the weakside corner — the corner that usually produces the best 3-point looks. And Battier's cut will often come after one threatening action and before another; here, it's sandwiched between some fast Allen movement and an Andersen high screen, so that the defense has trouble prioritizing:
Even Miami's run-of-the-mill possessions are artful pieces of constant ball movement and monitoring of how the defense contorts itself to adjust:
"They really, and I underline really, move the ball," Drew says. "It just whips around the perimeter. You may be able to defend the initial thrust of the play, but then the ball will touch two or three other hands before they take a shot. You can see they are totally in tune with one another. They play so unselfishly."
That last clip is a useful reminder: The Heat haven't deemphasized the pick-and-roll at all; they still run a ton of them. They just run them in a different way, after some motion that comes within the flow of the offense, and not as a lone centerpiece that starts the moment the ball crosses half court and involves minimal movement around it. That mirrors the evolution of a league at large that has discovered that hybrid semi-zone defenses, including Thibodeau-style overloads, have teams packing the paint and walling off any play they can dig in and prepare for ahead of time.
Miami might also use a pick-and-roll in semi-transition, before those defenses are set, simply as a way of sucking defenders in an extra step and opening up driving lanes for other Miami players:
Smart offenses keep defenses moving and off-balance. More teams are incorporating little bits of the Princeton offense, the Rick Carlisle/Terry Stotts "flow" offense, those fast-paced dribble hand-offs the Scott Skiles Bucks leaned upon, and other principles from across basketball. Heck, Boston has started to look like a Heat-style five-out team since Rajon Rondo's injury derailed its traditional pick-and-roll attack.8 Take a look at these two sets:
This was not lost on Nowitzki during our talk last week. The Mavs were preparing for the Celtics, and having just watched a ton of Boston film, Nowitzki made an off-handed remark of how much Boston now plays like Miami. He's right.
The Heat have used all the stuff, plus tools only they have, to form an offense that ranks very close to the very best offenses the league has seen over the last 30 years. None of this is to say they are unbeatable in the playoffs. The Thunder have a better point differential for the season (though not over the last 30 games), and an ill-timed injury, minor or major, can cripple any team in May and June. The Heat also have major defensive rebounding issues — they're just 21st in defensive rebounding percentage — though a large chunk of those issues stem from lineups that include both a point guard (Mario Chalmers or Norris Cole) and Allen, per NBA.com's lineup data. The Heat know this, and they've had the whole defense thing down basically since they came together. Droughts of stagnant offense were their undoing against the best defenses, and though those defenses will still knock Miami's productivity down a peg, the Heat have gone a long way toward minimizing those droughts.
It's easy to boil this down to Miami having the world's greatest player, just as Jeff Van Gundy once chalked up Chicago's success by writing "23" on a piece of paper in front of a jumble of reporters. And there's something to that. James is playing at about the highest level the game has ever seen, and a pass-heavy system devoted to hunting 3s and shots at the rim wouldn't be nearly as effective without James posting up, running the pick-and-roll, and reading defenses so that he can find open teammates precisely when defenses bend away from them. No coach has ever won over a long period of time without great talent.
But all Miami's great talent topped out with run-of-the-mill very good offenses over the first two seasons of the LeBron era, and the better offense among those two — the 2010-11 version — fell apart in big moments. This offense is something different, in terms of both style and production, and everyone involved deserves credit for Miami making that leap. This is the best of the LeBron-era Heat teams, and they've earned that standard mostly through a newly explosive offense. If the extra defensive gear they've shown in close games during this streak is the way they plan to play defense during the playoffs, Miami is the heavy championship favorite.
10 Things I Like and Don't Like
1. Dirk Nowitzki's Beard
Some of the Mavs have abandoned the team's fun "grow out our beards until we reach .500" thing, or at least engaged in some strategic trimming. But Dirk looks like he has just gotten back from another summer trekking around the Australian Outback. That thing is disgusting and awesome, and I can't believe his wife is letting him get away with it.
Nowitzki's game is coming together, too. He's hit at least 50 percent of his shots in 12 of Dallas's last 17 games, he has gradually been able to take on more responsibility as a one-on-one creator, and he's lifted the Mavs' ho-hum offense up another level. Dallas is just 1.5 games behind the Lakers for the no. 8 spot, and they have one head-to-head game left — in Los Angeles next Tuesday. The odds are still against Dallas, but the Mavs have just kept on trudging along — and reminded us you can still build an elite offense around Nowitzki's shooting and Rick Carlisle's scheming.
2. The Lakers' White Home Alternates
Maybe the worst regularly used alternate jersey in the league. There might be uglier ones, but the Lakers lose extra points for ditching their gorgeous and unique home gold uniforms in order to wear these blah duds.
3. The Recent Behavior of LARRY SANDERS!
It was almost funny last season, when SANDERS! temporarily lost his mind, got ejected, and tried to fight the entire Pacers team on his way out. It was definitely funny two weeks ago, when SANDERS!, sporting a sarcastic and somewhat deranged smirk, gave each referee an individual thumbs-up after an ejection in Washington.
But two more ejections later, SANDERS!'s temper is officially something with which the Bucks must be concerned — even as their odds of jumping up from the no. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference take hit after hit. The Bucks' perimeter defenders can't contain anyone, and so their defense collapses when SANDERS! isn't around to protect the rim. And Milwaukee obviously must avoid making a massive long-term commitment to a guy who could evolve into Rasheed Wallace–level ref-bait without anything close to Sheed's skill level on offense.
4. Brandon Bass, Driving
Bass is a borderline elite midrange shooter, but he has to do at least one other thing for a Boston offense that has scored at a bottom-10 rate even after a brief post–Rajon Rondo uptick in efficiency. We know that extra thing won't come in the form of passing or post scoring, and that Bass's offensive rebounding comes and goes. And so it has been refreshing to see Bass look a hair more comfortable this season catching, pumping, and then driving on those pick-and-pop plays where a driving lane is available:
5. Evan Turner's First Step on Defense
The development of a corner 3 is officially the only good thing about Turner's third NBA season. His overall shooting has dropped off, and his numbers are either down or stagnant across the board. That stagnancy extends to the defensive end, where Turner's slow first step makes him vulnerable to blow-bys and results in close-outs that are often just a beat too late on the perimeter. Turner's tendency to play guys ultratight on the perimeter doesn't help on the blow-by front, since they have so little distance to cover in order to drive past him.
There is a helpful and skilled player in here somewhere. We just haven't seen it yet on a consistent basis.
6. Kenneth Faried Chase-Down Blocks
Faried had two more nasty ones last week, and with apologies to Gordon Hayward, Nicolas Batum, and others, it's time to officially anoint Faried as LeBron's successor and official King of the Chase-Down Block. LeBron could probably retain the crown if he cared to, and his presence trailing a fast break still inspires suitable fear in opposing ball handlers. But Faried has reached another level; I almost worry he's going to fly through the backboard one day.
7. The Nets, Faking Brook Lopez Into an Easy Post-up Chance
Lopez in the paint is a good thing, especially if the Nets can use some misdirection to get him there. One example: Lopez will start a Brooklyn possession by screening for Deron Williams under the basket, a routine cross screen designed — one would assume — to get Williams solid post position on the left block for an entry pass there. Williams is a decent post-up guy, after all. But just as the defense expects Williams to take that entry pass, he'll spin right back around, dart back toward the basket, and set essentially the same exact cross screen for Lopez.
It's not complicated, and the initial fakery might only get Lopez's defender a half-step behind the play. But that half-step can mean everything at this level.
8. O.J. Mayo's Non-Intuitive Defense
Mayo is a heady, versatile player, but he can get weirdly off-kilter on defense. He bites on pump fakes, his reaction time is inconsistent, and he will occasionally do nonsensical things like this:
Rotating off Kyle Korver in the corner to contest Josh Smith up top is just Bad Defense 101, even if Mayo expected a rotation toward Korver behind him.
9. An Old Steve Nash Screen for Hamed Haddadi?
Nash and Marcin Gortat used to run this action, and like everything else, it's 5 percent more entertaining if you swap Haddadi into Gortat's role:
This is just a simple variation on a run-of-the-mill NBA set out of the "Horns" formation; instead of scurrying over to set a screen in the corner, as point guards typically do from this formation, Kendall Marshall just slams into Haddadi's man near the elbow and creates a decent post look.
10. Gerald Green Back?
With Danny Granger's health uncertain, it would be great if another bench spark plug could earn Frank Vogel's trust. Sam Young is basically a nonentity, and though Orlando Johnson has had some solid games off Indy's bench, he's a relative unknown. Green has snuck back into Vogel's rotation despite a miserable season — he's shooting 35 percent overall — and provided glimpses of what he might bring to an offense that can struggle for points over long stretches. Green showed last season in New Jersey that he can be the fulcrum of an offense for tiny slices of games, working from the post and as the screener in pick-and-rolls. The Pacers don't quite need him to do that, especially since they've scored at a top-10 rate over their last 20 games, but there will come a time against a top playoff defense in which Indy's bench-heavy units will need someone who can just get buckets.

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Review 165th NY Volunteers (1863) - from Linjo
Discussion in 'Reviews , Video Reviews and Open Book' started by Nap, Oct 30, 2011.
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- Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch (
27 February 1925– 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York Schoolof poetry, a loose group of poets including Frank O'Haraand John Ashberythat eschewed contemporary introspective poetry in favor of an exuberant, cosmopolitan style that drew major inspiration from travel, painting, and music.
Koch (pronounced "COKE" [cite news | last = Feuer | first = Alan | coauthors = | title = Kenneth Koch, 77, Poet of New York School | work = | pages = | language = | publisher =
nytimes.com| date = 7 July 2002 | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE1DD1F31F934A35754C0A9649C8B63| accessdate = 2008-10-02] ) was born Jay Kenneth Koch in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began writing poetry at an early age, discovering the work of Shelley and Keats in his teenage years. At the age of 18, he served in WWII as a U.S. Armyinfantryman in the Philippines.
After his service, he attended
Harvard University, where he met future New York Schoolcohort John Ashbery. After graduating from Harvard in 1948, and moving to New York City, Koch studied for and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
In 1951 he met his first wife, Janice Elwood, at
UC Berkeley; they married in 1954 and lived in France and Italy for over a year. Their daughter, Katherine, was born in Rome in 1955. In 1959 he joined the faculty in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, and he taught classes at Columbia for over forty years.
His first wife died in 1981; Koch married his second wife, Karen Culler, in 1994. He was inducted into the
American Academy of Arts and Lettersin 1996. Koch died from a year-long battle with leukemiain 2002.
While a student at Harvard, Koch won the prestigious
Glascock Prizein 1948. In 1962, Koch was writer in residence at the New York City Writer's Conference at Wagner College.
The 1960s saw his first published books of poetry, but his poetry did not garner wider popular acclaim until the 1970s with his book "The Art of Love: Poems" (1975). He continued writing poetry and releasing books of poetry up until his death. Koch won the
Bollingen Prizefor "One Train" (1994) and "On The Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988" (1994), followed closely by the Phi Beta KappaPoetry Award winner "New Addresses" (2000).
In 1970, Koch released a pioneering book in poetry education, "Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children To Write Poetry". Over the next 30 years, he followed this book with other books and anthologies on poetry education tailored to teaching poetry appreciation and composition to children, adults, and the elderly.
Koch wrote hundreds of
avant-gardeplays over the course of his 50 year career, highlighted by dramacollections like "1000 Avant-Garde Plays" (1988), which only contains 116 plays, many of them only one scene or a few minutes in length. His prose work is highlighted by "The Red Robins" (1975), a sprawling novel about a group of fighter pilots flying for personal freedom under the leadership of Santa Claus. He also published a book of short stories, "Hotel Lambosa" (1988), loosely based on and inspired by his world travels. He also produced at least one libretto, and several of his poems have been set to music by composers.
Koch taught poetry at Columbia University, where his classes were popular. His wild humor and intense teaching style, often punctuated by unusual physicality (standing on a table to shout lines by
Walt Whitman) and outbursts of vocal performance often drawn from Italian opera, drew non-English majors and alumni. Some of the spirit of these lectures is contained in his final book on poetry education, "Making Your Own Days" (1998). His students included poets Ron Padgett, David Shapiro, Alan Feldman, David Lehman, Jordan Davis, David Baratier, Loren Goodman, and Carson Cistulli.
His poems were translated in German by the poet
Nicolas Bornin 1973 for the renowned "red-frame-series" of the Rowohlt Verlag.
Koch had a brush with the infamous anti-art affinity group
Up Against the Wall Motherfuckersin early January 1968. During a poetry reading at St. Mark's Church, a member of the group walked in and pointed a handgun at the podium, shouting "Koch!" before firing one blank round. The poet regained his composure and said to the "shooter," "Grow up."
Koch asked in his poem "Fresh Air" (1956) why poets were writing about dull subjects with dull forms. Modern poetry was solemn, boring, and uneventful. Koch described poems "Written by the men with their eyes on the myth/ And the missus and the midterms…" He attacked the idea that poetry should be in any way stale.
Koch wrote of how:
The Waste Land gave the time's most accurate data, It seemed, and Eliot was the Great Dictator Of literature. One hardly dared to wink Or fool around in any way in poems, And critics poured out awful jereboams To irony, ambiguity, and tension – And other things I do not wish to mention. (Excerpt from ''Seasons on Earth',' 1987)
Though not against
T. S. Eliot, Koch opposed the idea that in order to write poetry one had to be depressed or think that the world is a terrible place. His ideas were developed with close friends Frank O'Haraand John Ashbery, along with painters Jane Freilicherand Larry Rivers, among others. He once remarked that "Maybe you can almost characterize the poetry of the New York School as having as one of its main subjects the fullness and richness of life and the richness of possibility and excitement and happiness." In his poem, "The Art of Poetry" (1975), Koch offered guidelines to writing good poetry. Among his 10 suggestions are "1) Is it astonishing?" and "10) Would I be happy to go to Heaven with this pinned on to my angelic jacket as an entrance show? Oh would I?"
Koch once remarked that "Children have a natural talent for writing poetry and anyone who teaches them should know that." In his poems:
#He mixed word usage with various levels of imagery;
#He set two contrasting tones next to each other, simplicity and silliness at the same time;
#He spoke to everything, animate and inanimate objects;
#He used parody of other poets to express his own views, both serious and comic.
Koch was labeled by some as just a comedic poet. He acknowledged this in an interview and offered his comments:
He gives a picture of this in "To Kidding Around," where the joys of being a joker are proclaimed:
To be rid of troubles Of one person by turning into Someone else, moving and jolting As if nothing mattered but today In fact nothing But this precise moment... (Excerpt from To Kidding Around, 2000)
elected Works
*"Days and Nights" (1982)
*"From the Air" (1979)
*"Ko: or, A Season on Earth" (1959)
*"On the Edge" (1986)
*"On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950–1988" (1994)
*"One Train" (1994)
*"Permanently" (1961)
*"Poems" (1953)
*"Poems from 1952 and 1953" (1968)
*"Seasons on Earth" (1987)
*"Sleeping with Women" (1969)
*"Straits" (1998)
*"Thank You and Other Poems" (1962)
*"The Art of Love" (1975)
*"The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951" (1979)
*"The Duplications" (1977)
*"The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems" (1969)
*"When the Sun Tries to Go On" (1969)
*Benfey, Christopher. "Wise Guy." The New Republic 13 Mar. 1995: 39-42. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Texas a&M University, College Station, Tx. 25 Oct. 2006. Keyword: Kenneth Koch.
*Block, Avital and Umansky, Lauri. "Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in the 1960s." New York: NYU Press, 2005.
*Kenneth Koch. Academy of American Poets. 21 Sept. 2006 [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/75] .
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*Salter, Mary J., Margaret Ferguson, and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 5th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005.
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text:
The short videos illustrate various subthemes of the 48th session of the International Conference on Education "Inclusive Education: The Way of the Future, held in Geneva 2008. Through the moving accounts of innovative education practices around the world, these videos focus on the main themes and challenges of making inclusive education the way of the future. The films are in English, with French subtitles.
© UNESCO International Bureau of Education, 2008


text:
Copyright 2007, NBC Universal, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: This new book, "At the Center of the Storm," has created its own firestorm about ignored intelligence before the September 11 attack and "slam dunk" intelligence in making the case for the Iraq war.
(Videotape, October 2, 2002)
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons, and he is
moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: The WMDs were never found, a colossal intelligence failure. What happened? With us, the author and former director of central intelligence, George Tenet. Mr. Tenet, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.
MR. GEORGE TENET: Thank you, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's go right to it, "At the Center of the Storm." I want to bring you back to the fifth anniversary of September 11. Vice President Cheney was on this program, and I asked him, in light of the fact that we hadn't found weapons of mass destruction, would he still have gone into Iraq, and this was his answer. Let's watch.
(Videotape, September 10, 2006)
VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: That was the intelligence all of us saw. That was the intelligence all of us believed. It was--when, when George Tenet sat in the Oval Office, and the president of the United States, to ask him directly, he said, "George, how good is the case against Saddam and weapons of mass destruction?" And the director of the CIA said, "It's a slam dunk, Mr. President. It's a slam dunk."
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: When you watched that interview, what did you think?
MR. TENET: Well, I, I thought quite, quite honestly, Tim, I thought that, you know, "There's a bit of a deflection here." That meeting that morning was about a public case that we might make. I, I said slam dunk. You always owe the president better and more discipline than I did that morning. But the implication left from what the vice president said was we had a meeting in the Oval Office that day and the president decided to go to war, and that's simply not the case. I, I, I am always--and, and it's important to take responsibility for what we got wrong, but it's also important that we not share responsibility for decisions others made. So my, my view of that is let's, let's be honest about what happened in that room that morning. This, this was a meeting to talk about a public case. We believed-- I believed we had better data that we could declassify to make a case that we all believed in, that every intelligence service believed in. I believe this, this meeting occurred 10 months after the president saw his worst workable war plan on Iraq, after the vice president had given his VFW speech, two weeks after
a military mobilization order. And the concern I had, Tim, was, is that this comes rolling out the door, of course, sometime in '04 after things are going badly. So did we believe he had weapons of mass destruction? Yes, we did, and we said so. Were we found to be wrong? Yes. But let's not turn this meeting into the seminal moment that I think the vice president was implying.
MR. RUSSERT: The vice president said in that interview, "We made a choice based on this." The president told Bob Woodward that your talking about slam dunk, "That was very important." Do you believe that?
MR. TENET: Tim, I can only tell you what I believe. We, we had--we, we expressed high confidence in our estimates. We had talked about this. There were numerous public speeches that had been made. I, I, I say in the book, I do not believe that that comment that morning either affected the president's views of the legitimacy or the timing of going to war, and that's my strongly held view.
MR. RUSSERT: This is how Bob Woodward described that scene on December 21st. You came into a meeting with your deputy, John McLaughlin. He had just finished his presentation. The president said, "`Nice try,'" Bush said. `I don't think this is quite--it's not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from.' Bush turned to Tenet, `I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?' From the end of one of the couches in the Oval Office, Tenet rose up, threw his arms in the air. `It's a slam dunk case!' the DCI said. Bush pressed, `George, how confident are you?' Tenet leaned forward and threw his arms up again. `Don't worry, it's a slam dunk.'" You remember that?
MR. TENET: Tim, no, I do not remember jumping up and down. There were five CIA officers in the room with me that day. There was an officer who sat next to me on the couch. I interviewed him. That officer said, "Listen, I know you said it. It was no more than a passing comment. You didn't jump up and down. And when I read all of this, the implication was you said slam dunk, and we're going to war." And he said it's just--the officer said, "That's just not the way it happened." So there was no pantomime here. And as I say in the book, Tim, you always owe the president your best discipline. If I'd said we can do better on this--on making this presentation, that would have been a better thing to say. But the notion that this moment, after months of preparation, after months of testimony, after public statements, after a military mobilization order, this was--this was a seminal moment? Well, we're, we're
all going to disagree. I just don't believe that was the case.
MR. RUSSERT: What if you said, "Mr. President, I can't make the case any better. It's not a slam dunk"?
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, we thought, on the basis of the intelligence that we had, we thought we could declassify more data to make a case that we believed in. It's, it's very, very important for people to understand, Tim, we believed it. All of our partners believed it. I've heard debate about this book subsequently, and it, and it looks like, "You knew this was wrong, and you let the president of the United States or you let the secretary of state go to the United Nations and say it." Absolutely not. You knew in the moment, at the time you lived in, all of the problems that would manifest themselves in postwar Iraq and didn't tell anybody." That's absolutely not true. None of us knew how this was going to unfold because, in fact, when we got on the ground, we did things quite opposite than we believed they were going to occur.
So what I'm trying to do is give you a reflection of the time period. People think a lot of this is go back and think about what happened because you have some historical obligation to do better in the future as a country. But the notion that we knowingly, wittingly said things that we knew to be false or that we had a full understanding of how our government would so badly manage a postwar situation and didn't say so is simply not true.
MR. RUSSERT: December 21st, when this meeting occurred, the Congress had already voted to authorize the president to go to war if necessary.
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: This is how you describe it: "National Security Council officials had asked us to start assembling a public case that might be made against Saddam regarding his possession and possible use of WMD. It was our turn to deliver [the briefing] to the president, vice president," chief of staff "Andy Card," Condoleezza "Rice," who was then head of the National Security Council, "and a few others. Some might criticize us for participating in what was essentially a marketing meeting."
And, in fact, that has happened. A former CIA officer said this: "What is the head of the intelligence community in the United States [doing] involved in marketing this war? That's not his role. His role is to give advice to the president, unvarnished advice, and speak the truth."
Why did you participate in a marketing meeting?
MR. TENET: Well, well, well, the critics have said it is--it's a marketing meeting. Intelligence was going to be used in a public case. Now, you have two choices. You can walk away from that and let policymakers determine how to use the intelligence and then face enormous risks, or you can be very, very careful, and you can do your best to ensure--which I believe is the role of the director--is to always ensure that when the president or anybody else uses intelligence, that, that it be done in a manner that is consistent with what we believe the best intelligence shows. You could have let Colin Powell go deliver his speech. You could've let him give the speech that the White House wrote and provided the secretary when he came to my headquarters. We could never let him give that speech. So you have an obligation, to the best of your ability, to always ensure that your intelligence is used in the best way. You
can choose not to do it that way, but there's also risk involved in that. The, the notion that we were marketing a war is absolutely false. That's not our intent. Our intent was to make sure that when people speak about things that have to do with data we produced and analysis we produced, that it be done so accurately and fairly.
MR. RUSSERT: In Bob Woodward's book "State of Denial," he has an exchange between you and your close aide John Brennan. And he says this: "Tenet told deputy executive director at" the "CIA headquarters John Brennan that, in his gut, he didn't think invading Iraq was the right thing to do. Bush and the others were just really naive, thinking they would just be able to go into Iraq and overturn the government.
"This is a mistake,' Tenet finally told Brennan.
"But Tenet never conveyed these misgivings to the president. Bush had never asked him directly for his bottom line counsel, although Tenet felt that Bush had nevertheless opened the door in their conversations to the point where Tenet could have said, `No, this is crazy, this won't work, you shouldn't do this.' But Tenet never said it."
Did you have that conversation with...
MR. TENET: Tim, I had conversations with Mr. Brennan and a lot of people in the run-up. I had deep concern--any time you commit men and women to war, any time you do that, you, you, you should have misgivings. I thought about it long and hard--that was one conversation. I reflected long and hard--I had other conversations. And at, and at the end of the day, where, where I ended up personally, notwithstanding one or two conversations, was--and, and you can't, and you can't deflect at this moment. Did I believe Saddam Hussein should be removed from power? I'd worked on doing it over two administrations. Did I believe--did I believe our case on WMD? Yes, I believed that case. Was this a close policy call? Yes. Did I feel so strongly about this that I went to the president of the United States and said, `Don't do it'? I did not do that, Tim. I understood it. I understood their logic. And in, in the end, notwithstanding all these conversations, I worked at this very, very hard internally. Now, when you're the director, you're, you're always supposed to be dispassionate about these things. The concern of crossing that policy line is is that then you're analysis is seen to be suspect. But I didn't do it, I waited carefully. If I, if I felt strongly enough, Tim, I would have told the president. And I didn't, so whatever misgivings I had, I weighed them carefully and thought through this. But you can't recreate history at this moment.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you thought it was naive and you thought it was a mistake, do you wish now you had come forward?
MR. TENET: Tim, I, I wrestled with this. That was one conversation. I wrestled with this very, very hard back and forth over the, over the course of the time. It's not the ultimate conclusion I came to, notwithstanding conversations with, you know, it's sort of a, a Jesuit tradition where you throw things out, try and think through things, talk about things with people. And, and I tried to bounce ideas through people. I didn't do it, Tim. I, I did not, I did not oppose this, and to, to, to dress me up as a hero at this--I wasn't a hero here, and, and that's the record.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you now believe that the war was a mistake?
MR. TENET: Tim, what I believe is is that obviously the consequences of where we are today, our interests have been jeopardized, the region is much--the region is really at risk, not only Iraq. I, I didn't tell the president at the front end not to do this. History will make that judgment. The story continues to unfold. Nobody can look at what we have on the ground and the difficulties that we have today and, and not understand all of these negative consequences.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me go back to August of 2002. The vice president gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign War. Let's watch it and come back and talk about it.
(Videotape, August 26, 2002)
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Many of us are convinced that Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Was that an accurate representation of the intelligence?
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, the, the--he will have nuclear weapons fairly soon, I don't believe that that would be our position. The national intelligence estimate said five to seven years to develop a nuclear capability unless somebody gave him fissile material. And, as I say in the book--as I say in the book, I had an obligation to step up and say something--the speech was not provided to us for clearance. I should not have allowed my silence to imply acquiescence at that moment. That's my fault.
MR. RUSSERT: But it wasn't just the vice president. You testified before the Senate in March '04, the following. Let's listen.
(Videotape, March 9, 2004)
MR. TENET: You have to have the confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: You didn't always say something about it.
MR. TENET: No, Tim, I did my best. And, and, and I will tell you that I, I, I did not succeed in every moment. I did my level best to, to ensure that the intelligence--I cannot tell you I was perfect, I certainly was not, and I did not absolve myself from that responsibility.
I'll make another point. Once you, once you write the intelligence and, and once you take a stand on issues, you always have to rely on people to stick with it as well. I mean, there's no automatic safety net. I didn't, I didn't correct every statement that everybody ever made. Certainly, when the president gave his statements, we cleared them. We understand we had that obligation. I cannot say that I did it as well as I could have; but, nevertheless, we made an effort to ensure that when words came out of people's mouth it comported with what we believed.
MR. RUSSERT: But when the president on October 7 said, "Saddam has chemical and biologic weapons and is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon..."
MR. TENET: We...
MR. RUSSERT: And then--and then he concluded with this.
MR. TENET: All right.
MR. RUSSERT: He concluded with this.
(Videotape, October 7, 2002)
PRES. BUSH: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: You had no problem with that.
MR. TENET: Well, that's a judgment the president is going to make. I mean, the--it's his--or why does the president say--you know, when you look at this carefully, what, what--what's in the back of the mind of policymakers at the time? This is their judgment. They take the intelligence, they make a judgment in the risk, so what's in their head? Their head, of course, and I can't speak for them, I'm just surmising at the moment. 1991, we believed he was seven or eight years away from a nuclear weapon, and he was six years away. So the president may have had a concern that the absence of evidence and what we didn't know may have led them to get someplace a lot sooner. We cleared that speech, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: You did.
MR. TENET: Yes, we did.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, when you hear the president say that, or the vice president's talk about the nuclear weapons fairly soon, you know what it's doing to the consciousness of the American public. Are you an enabler at that time by not objecting?
MR. TENET: Tim, we, we--we're not enablers. We, we, we write an estimate, we declassified our estimate. We told you exactly what we believed about weapons of mass destruction. We believed he had chemical and biological weapons. We believed he, he was reconstituting a nuclear program but he was five to seven years away. That's what we believed. That's what we said.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me take you back to September 8, 2002, and you write about this in the book. The front page of The New York Times.
MR. TENET: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: An article by Judy Miller and Michael Gordon. It says, "US says Hussein intensifies quest for A-bomb parts. More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb.
"In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
"The diameter, thickness and other technical specifications of the aluminum tubes had persuaded American intelligence experts that they were meant for Iraq's nuclear program."
The vice president was on this program that same Sunday; Condoleezza Rice was on CNN pointing to that story, pushing that story. And then when the National Intelligence Estimate was released to the press, something that Congress had been given, tucked in there was that the Department of Energy assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: So when you see that front page article and the vice president and secretary of state pushing the story, do you have an obligation to say "Time out..."
MR. TENET: At the time...
MR. RUSSERT: "Time out. There is dissent on this."
MR. TENET: Right. At, at, at the time, what was the date of that statement?
MR. RUSSERT: September.
MR. TENET: OK, the estimate had not yet been produced. CIA believed at the time that these tubes were intended to be used for that nuclear program. When we get to the estimate, DOE believed that, in fact, reconstitution was occurring even though they didn't buy into the tubes. All agencies agreed at the time that the tubes could be reconfigured for use for, for, for their nuclear program. So, at the time, it was a CIA view. We got to the estimate, the dissent was clearly spelled out. DOE had a different point of view. And we laid all that dissent out very, very clearly in the estimate.
MR. RUSSERT: Was there always a spin put on the intelligence which would be most favorable to the administration's position?
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, I can't say there was always a spin. Look, we worked very, very hard. Does every statement absolutely comport with the intelligence? Probably not. But policymakers also, the tension that you run into is we have intelligence, they assess risk, they think what it means. And is every word perfectly fitted to what an estimate says? Probably not.
MR. RUSSERT: In your book, you write this. Your counterpart in great Britain, "Sir Richard Dearlove, "believed that the crowd around the vice president was playing fast and loose with the evidence." Do you agree with him?
MR. TENET: Well, it was his reflection. I, I interviewed him for the book, and he's talking specifically about terrorism. You know, he, he, he--when I interviewed him, he said, "You know, it wasn't about fixing intelligence. My concern was, is when I came over in July, I had a meeting with the vice president's staff, and my concern was the question of how they were thinking about Iraqis--Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda in, in a way that we just didn't believe was accurate." That's what he was referring to at the time.
MR. RUSSERT: But do you agree that the vice president's office, the crowd around the vice president, was playing fast and loose with the evidence?
MR. TENET: There was deep, there was deep disagreement between us, and then throughout this process about how far you could take the terrorism case. We took a position. We, we said, very clearly, there are three areas of concern: contact, safe haven and training. We documented that in a paper in January of 2003, January 28 of 2003. We also said that, to the best of our knowledge, this may have been no more than two organizations seeking to take advantage of each other, and we could see no complicity, no operational relationship, no command and control between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Now, therein lied the seeds of a lot of debate back and forth and a lot of tension back and forth. Our analysts held their ground. It is what we believed, and it is the case that we made.
MR. RUSSERT: But October 7, there was a letter written in your name...
MR. TENET: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: ...by John McLaughlin...
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...in response to questions raised by Senator Evan Bayh.
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: And it says, "Regarding Senator Bayh's questions of Iraqi links to al-Qaeda, senators could draw from the following points for unclassified discussions. One, We have solid reporting of senior level contact between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Two, "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal" aggression." Three, "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad." And lastly, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making
conventional bombs."
MR. TENET: Yes. And I wish, I wish in that one letter, Tim, we had also put the penultimate judgment. We didn't in that letter. You go back to the testimony before those committees, Those judgments were voiced. You go back to every other paper that we have written, and we made that case. We believed those points, but we also believed--and everybody in the administration understood--that we never found complicity, authority direction and control, and said that very explicitly.
MR. RUSSERT: But this is three days before the vote. And you send that kind of letter, and you say these are talking points you can have, or--for declassified conversation.
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: You're giving the distinct impression that Iraq and September 11 have a connection.
MR. TENET: Tim, it, it--I understand that, and, and I wish that letter had been completed in the way that it should have been. I also know that in the statement before all those committees, when I was behind closed doors, we made the necessary closure here to understand the distinction. We believed those things. We also never took the case to the point where someone would believe there was an intimate operational relationship between--they were directing each other to undertake activities.
MR. RUSSERT: At that time, there was a poll in Time magazine, is Saddam involved in September 11 attacks? Likely, 71; unlikely, 25. Clearly there was a sense in the country, which was fueled by comments being made by the administration, that there was linkage. Fair?
MR. TENET: Well, the polling data would, would tell us that, wouldn't it? All, all I can tell you is, Tim, we were--look, people said--when people say to us, "Well you just, you just allow them--you allowed them to make the case, you've cooked the books." If we were cooking the books, we would have said, "Yes, that's true. There is authority, direction and control, all your worst fears or concerns." We would have had the secretary of state say that in front of the United Nations. We didn't. So there was a--look, was there, was there a history of Saddam Hussein and terrorism? Were these three areas a source of concern for us? Maybe--you know, it's a, it's a--it may be a subtle distinction, not so subtle in my mind, particularly when we're dealing with allegations of, you know, Mohamed Atta in Prague milling with the Iraqis. Well, by the spring of 2002, FBI and CIA analysts basically concluded, boy, this story is eroding over the course of time.
MR. RUSSERT: But the vice president kept talking about that.
MR. TENET: Well, he may have kept talking about it, Tim. It was not our, it was not our position. He also said that, you know--he also said that the Weekly Standard wrote a piece in November of 2003 that said this is the best source of your intelligence. The Weekly Standard piece said this proves there's an operational relationship. Well, the best standard--the best source is our January 2003 paper.
MR. RUSSERT: At that time, then, why didn't you stand up and go to the president and vice president and say, "Stop saying this. It's not true"?
MR. TENET: Right before the war, Tim, the vice president wanted to give a speech about the Iraq/al-Qaeda relationship that he sent to us for clearance. And I walked in and saw the president of the United States and said, "He can't give this speech. We will not support this speech." That speech was not given. There's no doubt about where we were on this issue. Everybody understood where we were, and everybody understood there was no authority, direction, control and complicity.
MR. RUSSERT: But in terms of correcting the president or the vice president each and every time.
MR. TENET: Tim, Tim, each and every time. So was, you know, did I monitor the press every day to see what everybody was saying? No. I put a paper on the table. We put a paper on the table, "This is what the American intelligence community believes." You know, we all have to act within those confines and stay within what the record tells us and what we testify to.
MR. RUSSERT: And when people deviate from the record, do you...
MR. TENET: Well, you get--you've got to do your best to correct it. And when I was aware of it and learned of it, when somebody was going to give a speech, when the vice president was going to give a speech, I walked in and saw the president and said, "He cannot give that speech."
MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned to "60 Minutes" that it never made any sense of a complicity of Iraq with September 11. But you did testify in March of '03 that the jury was still out as to whether Saddam was involved.
MR. TENET: No--well, no, Tim, by, by January, by January of '03, we understood this relationship. We understood that that there was no--there was no relationship between--we, we understood that fairly quickly, Tim. I mean, I didn't--I mean, I never saw any evidence that told us that there was complicity here. We understood--you know, we brought the Mohamed Atta story forward. We ran that down very,very hard. No complicity with 9/11 ever.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, in March of '02 you said, "There is no doubt that there have been contacts and linkages of al-Qaeda organization. As to where we are in September 11, the jury is out."
MR. TENET: March of '02.
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah. As we--as, as to where we are on September 11, the jury's out.
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: "As I said carefully in my statement, it would be a mistake to dismiss the possibility of state sponsorship..."
MR. TENET: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: "...whether Iranian or Iraqi, and we'll see where the evidence takes us."
MR. TENET: Yes. That's right, in March of '02, of course, you're running down--at that moment, you have a professional responsibility to run down is there the possibility of complicity here? You'd be derelict of your responsibility. I mentioned Iran, and I mentioned Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: When did you conclude that Iraq was not complicit in September 11?
MR. TENET: Tim, when we published--we started publishing in the fall of, of '02, and then by January 28, 2003, our definitive paper is published and we're done. We're done with that issue.
MR. RUSSERT: And so any comments suggesting otherwise after that time by the president or vice president were done after you had told them something else?
MR. TENET: Tim, any statements that say that there's operational command and control or a
relationship to 9/11 after that point does not comport with the intelligence, does not comport with our final judgments in any way, shape or form.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me take you back to, now, the famous State of the Union address of January of '03, the famous 16 words.
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: Here's what the president said:
(Videotape, January 28, 2003)
PRES. BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: You said six months after that, that those words should not have been included in the president's speech.
MR. TENET: Correct.
MR. RUSSERT: Why did it take six months?
MR. TENET: Well, well, Tim, first of all, it's interesting. Let's, let's do the history here. Identical words were intended to be put in the Cincinnati speech, and we took them out. I took them out directly in a conversation with Mr. Hadley and follow-up memos that we sent to the White House as to why you can't use this data. We document that in the book. That speech was provided to me just before it was given. Unfortunately, I didn't read it. We passed it out for comment. Nobody came back to me to say "Let's take it out." So what happens, of course, is, is by the, by the--by June or July, major, you know, press, press starts to write about the fact that these were included.
MR. RUSSERT: But one of your advisers says he warned you to take them out.
MR. TENET: Well, that's not true. That's really--that's absolutely not true. But we took it out--we took it out in the Cincinnati speech. We left it in in this speech. I believe we had a responsibility in clearing the speech to, to accept the responsibility of the fact that we didn't get our job done and allowed the president of the United States to say that. I believed there was going to be shared responsibility. We took it out of Cincinnati. We were very forceful about that. As the book notes, it was taken out of a previous speech that was to be given in September. So our record on this, I testified--you know, when we testified to the Congress in October of 2002, we were asked about this question. We said, "We don't believe it. Saddam already has 550 metric tons of yellowcake under seal. If he wants, yellowcake he has it. We disputed the British belief."
MR. RUSSERT: But if your president's giving a State of the Union address, and even if you hadn't vetted it, but then it appears in his speech...
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...why wouldn't the next day or the day after...
MR. TENET: Well...
MR. RUSSERT: ...you say, "Please, that's not accurate, you can't say that." Why did you wait six months?
MR. TENET: Well, well, Tim, you know, no one came into me to say it. I didn't watch the speech that night. I didn't go back and read the speech carefully. My fault in not doing that, our fault for not taking it out of the speech. But our position on this was very, very clear from September and October going forward about what we thought about it. This was not--nitro and yellowcake had nothing to do with our judgment that Saddam is reconstituting nuclear weapons. Nothing to do with it.
MR. RUSSERT: In the National Intelligence Estimate that you put out, it does say, "A foreign government service reported as of early 2001, Niger planned to" spend several tons--"send several tons of `pure uranium,'" possible "probably yellowcake to Iraq. We do not know the status of this arrangement."
MR. TENET: Tim, it's not in our key judgments and findings. We declassified that portion of it so everybody can understand what we said. I believe we declassified the dissent that the State Department took. We tried to put that whole piece in context. But as to the nuclear judgment, that issue had nothing to do with our nuclear judgment.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you had it in this estimate, is that where the president got the idea to put it in his speech?
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, I don't know where they got the idea to--I don't know how they got the idea to put it in the speech. All I can tell you...
MR. RUSSERT: Where, where else would it come from?
MR. TENET: Well, of course, but all I can tell you is--just--this is a very important point.
MR. RUSSERT: Yes.
MR. TENET: We outlined very carefully the critical elements of reconstitution of a nuclear weapon. This was not one of the them. We took it out of the Cincinnati speech, followed up with two memos and said, "We do not believe this. We've told the Congress that we do not believe that this is--this--we disagree with the British on this." We concluded this in the estimate because we wanted to be complete about what the records show. But our position in our--we testified to nobody about this. The secretary of state, when he went to the United Nations, he did not include this in his speech because we didn't believe it. So, yes, it may have been in the estimate, but I think the record is clear about what the nuclear reconstitution judgment was based on, and this had nothing to do with it.
MR. RUSSERT: A couple of areas I want to clear up. The--when the CIA had an assessment that said it was low in their calculation that Saddam would initiate an attack and that if we started or commenced the war...
MR. TENET: Low confidence.
MR. RUSSERT: Low confidence.
MR. TENET: Low--they didn't--we didn't know.
MR. RUSSERT: But it start--if you started a war, it could be higher.
MR. TENET: But, but we didn't know.
MR. RUSSERT: But we didn't know.
MR. TENET: We had no idea.
MR. RUSSERT: But, nonetheless, that was seized upon as a difference between the president's view as to what the threat potential was. And Condi Rice called you and said, "Would you please call a reporter at The New York Times and say there really is no difference--no inconsistency from what the president's saying and what Democrats are saying."
MR. TENET: Right. Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: You say you now regret that, because you were involving yourself...
MR. TENET: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: ...in a political decision.
MR. TENET: I shouldn't have made that call, Tim, I understand that.
MR. RUSSERT: But isn't that another example that people point to of George Tenet...
MR. TENET: Well, it is, it is, it is, Tim, and all you can do after the fact is look at people and say, "I wish I hadn't done that. It was a mistake to do that." I can't take it--you know, I can't do it any other way but to be honest with you about the fact I made a mistake.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator, Senator Levin says it's your duty not to act as a shill for the administration.
MR. TENET: He's exactly right, and I never believed I was a shill for the administration, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: But where, where do you stop enabling the administration and, and start saying, "I don't agree with you in what you're doing?"
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, Tim, I will tell you that I had many conversations, particularly on Iraq and al-Qaeda, particularly on the terrorism question, where we drew the line as sharply as we knew how. We were very, very clear about our judgments. We worked very, very hard to make sure that people comported and stayed within the bounds of what the intelligence showed. At the end of the day, Tim, they also make their own risk calculations. And is every statement that everybody every uttered perfect?
MR. RUSSERT: Colin Powell went before, as you know, the United Nations, a pivotal time, and he was someone who was seen as not particularly interested in the war in Iraq...
MR. TENET: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: ...or as supportive as others.
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: He was kind of pivotal in that regard on the world stage. He came to you and sat with you and your closest advisers...
MR. TENET: For over three nights.
MR. RUSSERT: ...three nights. He went before the United Nations and said this:
(Videotape, February 5, 2003)
SEC'Y OF STATE COLIN POWELL: Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: He now says that that presentation was inaccurate and that it's a blot on his career.
MR. TENET: And we let the secretary down, and we undermined the credibility of the United States because we, we worked very hard for three nights. We believed we put together a presentation that we thought was good and solid. And we know that once we got on the ground, and we know that once we started learning things, that that presentation didn't stand up. So, you know, I sat behind, I sat behind the secretary of state. We sat there for three and a half days trying to make sure that he said what we believed. We worked very, very hard. We started with a draft that wasn't our own. We spent two and a half days trying to figure out where, where half the stuff came from. You know, the notion that we would walk the secretary of state out on the world stage and knowingly let him say there--things that were wrong--you know, someone I was close to, someone I had an enormous amount of respect for, it was a dark moment for all of us, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: Is it a blot on your career?
MR. TENET: Well, well, well, Tim, yes, of course. We, we, we, we collectively cleared a speech that the secretary gave. Nobody regrets this more than I do.
MR. RUSSERT: Before we take a break, I want to clear up one situation in the front of your book about Richard Perle.
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: You open the book with these words: "Wednesday, September 12, 2001, dawned as the first full day of a world gone mad. As I walked beneath the awning that leads to the West Wing, [I] saw Richard Perle exiting the building just as I was about to enter. As the doors closed behind him, we made eye contact and nodded. I had just reached the door myself when Perle turned to me and said, `Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility.' I looked back at Perle and thought: Who has [he] been meeting with in the White House so early in the morning on today of all days?"
Perle yesterday sent MEET THE PRESS this statement: "George Tenet tells his readers that on
September 12, 'today of all days' I told him that Iraq was responsible for the attack of" September 11. "This false claim is an obvious attempt to escape the responsibility for the intelligence failures of the agency he headed. But more important, it shows that even five years later he fails to understand that the decision to remove Saddam was based on the danger posed by Iraq, especially Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction--the certainty of which was repeated in every intelligence report and briefing I received from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. I was out of the country on" September 11, "unable to return until September 15. When I did run into Mr. Tenet at the White House a week later, we had already concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible for" September 11. "I never made the remark Tenet attributes to me, or anything like it."
MR. TENET: We, we, we had not concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible for September 11. That conversation may have, may have occurred days later. It is the conversation that I--that, that occurred, and I stand by what happened that day.
MR. RUSSERT: He said those words to you.
MR. TENET: Yes, he did. And so for him to say that we had concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, well, I'd like to know who made that conclusion.
MR. RUSSERT: When you say "yesterday" and "today of all days"?
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, I, I obviously--this is a jumbled, very difficult period of time. I may be off by a few days. What he said seems to be corroborated by what he said to another journalist. Mr. Novak has said he was called on September 17, and Mr. Perle said something like, "Well, aren't enough--there aren't enough targets in Afghanistan; let's go to Iraq.' And it's--it also is corroborative of the fact that he sent a letter to the president on September the 20 that mirrors those feelings. So I may have been off on the day, but I'm not off on what he said and what he believed.
MR. RUSSERT: We're going to take a quick break. We are talking to George Tenet. He headed up the CIA during and leading up to September 11, and during the lead-up to the Iraq war. His new book, "At the Center of the Storm." We'll be right back.
MR. RUSSERT: More with the former director of central intelligence George Tenet and his new book after this station break.
MR. RUSSERT: And we are back.
I want to go back, leading up to September 11.
MR. TENET: All right.
MR. RUSSERT: In March, you went in to see Stephen Hadley, who was then Condoleezza Rice's deputy of the National Security Council, and said, "I want to expand my authorities."
MR. TENET: Well, we were asked to send them those authorities.
MR. RUSSERT: And you brought them in?
MR. TENET: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: The next day, you got a call saying, "Can you take these back because we want--or roll back the clock, we don't want to have to be set to this timetable."
MR. TENET: Tim, in fairness, I also said, "You've got to get your policies in order. You've got to consider covert action thoughtfully in a policy context." They weren't quite ready to get those policy deliberations done. we're not ready to receive those authorities yet.
MR. RUSSERT: So you took them back?
MR. TENET: Yes, sir.
MR. RUSSERT: You regret taking them back?
MR. TENET: No. It's, you know, authorities is--the policy process determines when covert action is going to be used. They did send them back, and, and they deliberated.
MR. RUSSERT: Then in June, a briefer of the CIA named Rich B gave a conclusion saying, based on all the reporting we've seen, that "bin Laden is going to launch a significant terrorist attack against U.S." Israeli "interest in the coming weeks." July 10 you got another briefing so alarming that you picked up the phone, said to Condoleezza Rice, "I want to come see you now," jumped in the car with some of your key advisers, went to see her. Rich B, he gave her a briefing package. Opening line, "There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months!" And then you--and later July, Rich B sitting at the CIA, said, "They're coming here." When he told you that, what did you think?
MR. TENET: It was a moment I'll never forget. We, we were sitting there trying to rack our brains, trying to figure out what we were up against at that moment. And you know, Rich, Rich said that, it hung over the room. We had no texture. We took it seriously, you know, but we had no texture at that moment. Of course, this is a, this is a human being who's been following this for many years, and he's giving us an instinctual call.
MR. RUSSERT: This is late July. The evidence coming in the intelligence: big event, spectacular, King, King Abdullah of Jordan calling, saying, "We have to go to Afghanistan. We have to do something." A presidential daily brief was prepared for the president on August 6 entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in the U.S."
Late August, you went to Crawford, Texas, first time ever, met with the president, rode with him in his pickup truck. Did you say to him at that time, "Mr. President, Rich B told me at the CIA they are coming. You got to do something now"?
MR. TENET: Tim, by, by August, remember, this threat reporting starts way back in the spring--May, June, July, August. I held nothing back from the president. He understood our concerns about threats. He understood what we were doing around the world at the time. The interesting thing is is by the end of July, everything goes silent on us.
MR. RUSSERT: But did you say to him, "I brought in recommendations in March that they sent back. I need those now."
MR. TENET: At that, at that time, the policymakers were deliberating on those things, Tim. I believe that you've got to let them come to their conclusions. You know, I, I have every confidence that everybody in our government understood what I believed to be a very, very serious time period. At the end of the day, the authorities we were seeking were to get on the ground and work covertly with, with Ahmed Shah Massoud and the northern alliance. We wanted to get more proactive on the ground. The hijackers were already here.
So what, what did you learn from all this? You know, you warn, you provide strategic warning. You work around the world. We stopped many, many attacks in that summer overseas, saved thousands of lives. You go back and look at this, people always will focus either on the intelligence community, on the law enforcement. Everybody looks at individual vignettes, this mistake, that--here's the truth: An entire government, over two administrations, we, we all have to say everybody could've done more. And this was a period of time that there's a, there's a strategic and important point. We had no system of
domestic protection in place in this country. We didn't think about the United States as a target. People focus on watch listing. Yes, we didn't watch list people in a timely way. Even when we watch listed them, they weren't put on a no-fly list.
You know, in, in, in, in the millennium period, we told the president of the United States five to 50 attacks against the United States. None occurred. We caught a guy trying to cross the border from Canada. And the message was, "You know, they're starting to think about us here." So lots of things could've been done better. We think we provided strategic warning. We think we were acting aggressively overseas. But you have to have offense and defense playing together, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think the president should've come off vacation back to Washington and pulled all the principals together and said, "This intelligence is alarming. We got to do something"?
MR. TENET: I think, Tim, that in, in the August time period, I didn't, we didn't, we weren't giving the president more. I think principal--I think, you know, Condi Rice was running the NSC, Dick Clarke was taking actions. We--you can go back and think about this. The hindsight may be perfect. But that's what happened.
MR. RUSSERT: The CIA inspector general has written a report and analysis of what happened leading up to this. Do you think that should be made public?
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, we've been evaluated by 9/11 Commission, by a joint inquiry staff. This is the same CIA inspector general who told me in, in August of 2001 that my counterterrorism center was working extremely well, we were driving the community, our relationship with the FBI was good. General Hayden has this in front of them. As long as, as long as people get the opportunity to also declassify their responses because there're many pieces of this report that many of us felt were terribly flawed.
MR. RUSSERT: Put it all out?
MR. TENET: General Hayden will have to make this decision. Two of my successors did not believe it should be. Let them wrestle--let, let them deal with all of that.
But, Tim, at the end of the day, our record here is, we--we've let everybody know. We'd--we've hidden nothing from anybody, and there was a terrible event here. I hope people will balance what we did before and after. I hope people will look at what we did in Afghanistan. I hope people will understand two thirds of the al-Qaeda leadership no longer operates because of us. I hope they'll understand thousands of people have been saved because of the work of the men and women of CIA and our intelligence community and put some balance in this.
MR. RUSSERT: The president awarded Tommy Franks, the commander in Iraq; Paul Bremer, who led the postwar effort; and you the Medal of Freedom. John McLaughlin, your top deputy, told Ron Suskind in his book, "I know he," Tenet, "wishes he could give that damn medal back."
MR. TENET: It's absolutely untrue. I've talked to John. We never had such a conversation.
MR. RUSSERT: And you won't give it back?
MR. TENET: No, sir. I, I--that medal was--it was about terrorism, it was about what we did in Afghanistan, it was about the work of great men and women, and I, I received that medal on our--on their behalf, and no, I will not give that medal back.
MR. RUSSERT: In your book, a chapter entitled "They Want to Change History," you write this: "One mushroom cloud would change history. My deepest fear is that this is exactly what they intend." Do you believe that there are terrorist organizations that now have the capability of detonating a nuclear device in the United States?
MR. TENET: Tim, what I believe is, is that al-Qaeda is, is seeking this capability. You know, when we write about this, I take you back, he was looking--he, Bin Laden was looking for uranium in the Sudan in 1993. He had a meeting with a nongovernmental organization of former Pakistani nuclear scientists, 2001, where crude weapons designs were shared. The leader of this NGO looked at him and said, "You know, the hard part about doing this is getting the fissile material." And Bin Laden looked back at him and said, "What if I already have the fissile material?"
MR. RUSSERT: You think he does?
MR. TENET: We don't know. All I'm--I don't know, Tim. I'm trying to alert people to the fact that this is an, an organization that wants to hurt us commensurate with our standing as a superpower.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe a nuclear device will be detonated in the U.S. in your lifetime?
MR. TENET: Tim, I don't know the answer to that question. All I know is, is that we should be moving heaven and earth--the best scientists, policies, where's the loose fissile material, where are the scientists?
MR. RUSSERT: A.Q. Khan in Pakistan, the Pakistanis won't let us talk to him.
MR. TENET: Well, well, but, Tim, there's a, there's a great success there, because we, over eight years we ended up taking down that network.
MR. RUSSERT: But we don't know where he sent the materials.
MR. TENET: Well, we--we're working very, very hard at it. There are lots of places that we--
remember, remember, al-Qaeda approached A.Q. Khan twice, allegedly they were rebuffed. We're now living in a world where networks of people pose threats to nation states. Men like A.Q. Khan, men like-- and other nongovernmental--how many A.Q. Khans are out there that we don't know about? You know, in the, in the Cold War, we were looking at big targets and big countries. Now we're looking at networks of people who seek to do us harm, and this issue, I think, is the most important issue we face.
MR. RUSSERT: Are you surprised we haven't been hit by more suicide bombers?
MR. TENET: Well, Tim, the interesting thing is why haven't they? I don't know, except they think about the United States as a target from the perspective of doing big, spectacular things. And that's how they think about us as a target. And, and, you know, we, we had a, we had a saying at CIA, it's all over offices out there. It said today is September the 12. We always got up every day believing today is September the 12, and we have to keep thinking that way.
MR. RUSSERT: George Tenet, we thank you for coming us, and share--with us and sharing your views. The book, "At the Center of the Storm." Thank you very much.
MR. TENET: Thanks very much, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: And we'll be right back.
MR. RUSSERT: That's all for today. We'll be back next week, another installment of our 2008 Meet the Candidates series, a live, in-depth interview, Republican candidate for president Senator John McCain. That's next Sunday right here. If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.


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Here's the fabric I chose for the outside fabric - it's from Joel Dewberry's Deer Valley collection.
The lining is Hey Sugar by Cosmo Cricket.
And, the handles are Swanky by Chez Moi for Moda.
Now that I have described the whole thing, let's hope I really get this bag done. I am loving it's potential!


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Buy Now
Butchers Broom [Circulatory], so named because butchers used it to clean their cutting boards, has a long history of use by many cultures. Traditionally, the herb was taken to support the circulatory system. Butchers Broom contains important flavonoids (natural substances that strengthen capillary walls) such as rutin. It also contains saponins, which offer a variety of circulatory benefits. Each capsule contains 400 mg of the dried, powdered root. Take 2 capsules with a meal twice daily.


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Doctor dragged off United flight reaches settlement with airline
CHICAGO (AP/FOX 26) - Kentucky doctor dragged off United flight in Chicago reaches settlement with airline for undisclosed amount.
David Dao's legal team announced the settlement Thursday in a brief statement. The agreement includes a provision that the amount will remain confidential.
Cellphone video of the April 9 confrontation aboard a jetliner at Chicago's O'Hare Airport sparked widespread public outrage over the treatment of Dao.
The footage showed airport police officers pulling the 69-year-old father of five from his seat and dragging him down the aisle. His lawyer says he lost teeth and suffered a broken nose and a concussion.
United Airlines released this statement:


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MUNCIE, Ind. -- On an unusually warm day on the campus of Ball State University, Jim Lowe is giving a tour of the campus's huge, half-completed geothermal system.
Lowe, the director of engineering, construction and operations for Ball State, peppers his explanation of closed-loop systems, chilling stations and boreholes with banter on college basketball games and the history of the school, founded by the makers of Ball canning jars.
"The irony is, they came here for the natural gas," said Lowe, of the university's founders' arrival to Indiana to take advantage of the fuel for glassmaking. "And now we're using it for renewable energy."
Ball State is building what will be in 2014 the largest district heating and cooling ground-sourced geothermal facility in the United States (ClimateWire, May 29, 2009). Completion of the first phase will allow the university to shut down two of its four coal-fired boilers, cutting carbon emissions in half.
The new system will avoid emitting approximately 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide, as well as 1,400 tons of sulfur dioxide, 240 tons of nitrogen oxide, 200 tons of particulate matter and 80 tons of carbon monoxide. The switch will save Ball State $2 million per year and shelter the university from U.S. EPA's upcoming Boiler MACT regulations for hazardous air pollutants.
Today, the university will announce the unveiling of the second phase of the project with recorded speeches from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar (R) and a keynote speech by noted renewable energy advocate Amory Lovins, chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Other schools are interested
Geothermal systems generate energy thanks to the laws of thermodynamics: Thermal energy -- or heat -- will flow from higher-temperature to lower-temperature objects. In this case, water flows through vertical pipes running underground. In summer, the earth pulls heat out of the water. The resulting chilled water is used in air conditioning systems throughout campus. In the winter, the cold ground creates the opposite effect: It warms water for renewable heat and hot water systems.
The vertical, closed-loop district system -- meaning the warm and cool water it makes does not make contact with naturally occurring groundwater -- will connect nearly 3,600 boreholes, 500-foot narrow vertical wells with loops of pipes surrounded by grout. The boreholes cover 25 to 40 acres, buried under an old soccer field, parking lots and other green fields.
The first phase began in May 2009 and became operational last November. In the second phase, the university will install 780 boreholes of the remaining 1,800 and will build a new energy station with two 2,500-ton heat pump chillers and a hot-water loop around the south portion of campus. Eventually, the system will bring heat to more than 5.5 million square feet.
The system will provide air conditioning and heating for 47 buildings on campus.
"We just keep adding to the piping the system and expanding those loops," said Lowe of the simplicity of expansion.
The influence has expanded, as well, said Lowe. Representatives of 28 colleges and universities have come to see Ball State's system. Cornell University plans to build one on its Roosevelt Island campus by New York City. Even "hardcore coal" state universities like the University of Kentucky are looking to geothermal for their residence halls.
A group of representatives from Stanford University, which is investing $438 million to overhaul its utilities, came to Muncie recently to observe the building of the facility.
"Stanford is doing something along the similar lines," said Joe Stagner, director of sustainability and energy management at the university. "We're in a position make major changes to an existing systems [and] combine the best in economics and environmental stewardship."
Stagner said that Stanford's system will be different in the way it will provide both warmth and cooling in the same season -- unlike Ball State, which will need a lot of heat in the winter and a lot of cooling in the summer. By recycling waste heat in the system, the university will reduce energy use by 70 percent.
"For us, in a milder climate, we have a tremendous amount of waste heat," he said. "Let's go ahead and reuse that."
Universities, especially suburban or rural ones, make good settings for renewable energy projects, said Robert Bell, project architect for the geothermal conversion of two residence halls at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio -- the two oldest buildings on campus.
A learning experience for undergraduates
The largest field of boreholes is next to the brick smokestacks of two of the coal-fired boilers that were installed in 1944. Two more were added 11 years later, as the campus expanded after World War II. It wasn't until about 50 years later, two decades after EPA began establishing regulations for emissions from coal-fired power plants, that the university began to evaluate the condition and remaining life of the boilers.
In the 2005 to 2007 biennium, the Indiana State General Assembly granted the university nearly $45 million for a circulating fluidized bed boiler to co-fire 30 percent biomass with 70 percent coal. Ball State found itself in a financial predicament: The boiler cost $20 million to $25 million more than what was appropriated. Although the capital cost of the geothermal project was higher, it provided $2 million in savings.
So Lowe and his colleagues began to look into alternatives. Although Indiana is not located in a prime location for geothermal energy (most of the potential is in the western United States), the technology has existed since the 1940s. Then there was the matter that EPA had begun crafting its Boiler MACT regulations for 187 different hazardous air pollutants.
"We thought, wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to build those [pollution controls]?" he said.
Outside of Ball State's own commitments to invest, funding for the second phase is still unclear, said Lowe. There have been no donors or foundation support at this point.
"We'd hope that the U.S. DOE would continue [to support] this type of opportunity," he said. Last year, federal money stopped flowing to the project. The university will have to look to Indiana or internally but will continue to search for federal grants and donors, Lowe said.
In the meantime, the system is a learning project. Geology students monitor the ground temperature for class projects. The university has engaged several other departments on campus -- from construction management to architecture -- to use the system for student theses. The fields with all the holes are also used to recruit new students.
"It's another thing that makes them happy to have come to Ball State University," added Lowe. "It's their world in about 20, 30 years."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500


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What's New
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
-Upgrade for 64 bit
-Added App previews
App Description
2-bit Cowboy is a Western action platformer game, styled after classics of the Gameboy era.
'I've got confidence that 2-bit Cowboy will deliver that faux-retro platforming experience I love so much' -Touch Arcade
'2-bit Cowboy is every bit the lost Gameboy title you want it to be' -Gamezebo
There's a new sheriff in this 2-bit town: you! And you've got a lot of work to do. Tackle challenges, earn rewards, track down bad guys, and find hidden loot. Play as a cowboy or cowgirl, then customize your look with hats, bandanas, masks, and more. Explore huge levels. Gamble at casinos and drink at saloons. Ride a horse, tame a wild bull, and traverse underground mines in a minecart. Become a legend of the old West.
* Customizable cowboy characters
* Huge levels to explore
* Gamble at casinos and drink at saloons
* Earn bits, buy powerups and costumes
* Ride horses, bulls, and minecarts
* Gameboy style retro graphics
* Gamepad support
Follow us for the latest info and game news!
• http://crescentmoongames.com/other-games/
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App Changes
- May 08, 2014 Initial release
- July 17, 2014 New version 1.0.3
- May 08, 2015 Price decrease: $0.99 -> FREE!
- May 12, 2015 Price increase: FREE! -> $0.99
- December 05, 2015 New version 1.04