text:
American public sculpture began to flourish in the late 19th century.
The unveiling of the Farragut Memorial by Augustus
in New York City in 1881 signaled a new standard of artistry. The
City Beautiful movement
was taking hold in metropolitan areas throughout the country. The
World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, in 1893, was filled with
and architectural sculpture. Talented artists such as Augustus
John Q.A. Ward and Daniel Chester French began to fill a growing
national demand
for beautiful public sculpture. In many instances the need was to
commemorate the Civil War but just as often it was a matter of civic
pride. This
mood was
especially prevalent in New York City where the Piccirillis were
about to begin their prolific careers as sculptors and stone carvers.
As Albert Ten
Eyck Gardner, former curator of American Sculpture at the
Museum of Art, put it, "The arrival of the Piccirilli family in New
may well mark an epoch in the history of American art" (1).
Giuseppe Piccirilli settled in New York City in 1887 with his wife, six sons, and a daughter. Giuseppe was a successful sculptor and stone carver in Massa Carrara, Tuscany. All six sons worked in their father's studio and expressed keen interest and talent. Attilio, perhaps the most gifted, studied sculpture for five years at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. This is where Giuseppe had received his training and where, later, Attilio's younger brothers would be sent to study. Shortly after arriving in Manhattan, Giuseppe and the older sons began working at Adler's Monument and Granite Works on East 57th Street. After initial financial hardships, steady commissions from Samuel Adler enabled the Piccirillis to open their own studio on West 39th Street where they began to prosper. In 1890, however, Mrs. Piccirilli became seriously ill, and the doctor urged the family to move to the "country". They purchased property on 142nd Street in the Bronx and built their residence and two large studios.The South Bronx was hardly rural then but it was there that the Piccirillis were to become "America's first family of carver-sculptors" (2).
Just prior to establishing the Bronx studio, the Piccirillis met Daniel Chester French, who was emerging as a leading American sculptor. French was so impressed with their artistry that over the next thirty-five years all but two of his stone sculptures were carved by the brothers (3). Included in this immense volume of work was Abraham Lincoln (1922), the colossal central figure of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Piccirillis used 28 blocks of Georgia marble, weighing 150 tons, to carve the 19-foot statue from French's seven-foot plaster model (4). Prior to the Piccirilli studio, sculptors like French sent plaster models to Italy to be carved in stone. This was no longer necessary and, in effect, the Piccirillis helped establish New York City as a center for the production of art.
This is where we first got interested in the Piccirillis. A friend had shown us a brief entry in McNamara's Old Bronx which stated that the Lincoln Memorial was carved on 142nd Street in the South Bronx (5). Bill was fascinated but also puzzled because he grew up a few blocks from the studio in the 1940's and 50's and never heard a word about the Piccirillis. Also, sculpture had become a passion for him in recent years as a result of his own work in that medium at the Art Student's League in New York City.
Our first step was to contact the Bronx County Historical Society which led us to a biography of Attilio (6). The book, written in 1944, discusses Attilio's sculptures quite thoroughly, but, unfortunately, has very little information on the stone carving work. We visited 467 East 142nd Street and found the site occupied by a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall. We decided to dig deeper into the questions of what other art works were created at the studio and why so little was known of the Piccirillis. Our research is still in progress, but we've summarized some of our findings below. Piccirilli works can be found all over the country and beyond, but, for the most part, we've restricted our present discussion to sculptures in New York City. In addition to the Lincoln Memorial, the Piccirillis executed several other large scale projects for Daniel Chester French, including:
• the Four Continents (1907) at the entrance to the United States Custom House (now the Museum of the American Indian) in Bowling Green (7),
• all thirty statues and the pediment by eleven sculptors (including Attilio), supervised by French, on the façade of the Brooklyn Museum (1909) (8)
• the colossal Manhattan and Brooklyn (1916),
located at the Brooklyn entrance to the Manhattan Bridge,
to the entrance of the Brooklyn Museum in 1963 (9).
Over the decades, French spent many, many
hours at the studio and built a lasting affectionate friendship with
the family.
He was known to
be artistically and professionally generous and referred the
to numerous other sculptors
and commissions. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was helpful too. In a letter
to The Architect of the Capitol, Furio refers to a letter of
by "Mr. A. St. Gaudens" in
1891 (14).
The enormous success of the Piccirillis as stone carvers was due in part to the fact that the brothers were, themselves, talented sculptors. Probably the two best known original sculptures were done by Attilio: the Maine Monument (1913) (15), at the southwest entrance to Central Park, near Columbus Circle, and the Firemen's Memorial (1913) (16) at Riverside Drive and West 100th Street in New York City. The Maine Monument commemorates the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898, and the subsequent Spanish-American War. The 60-foot monument consists of ten marble figures at the base and a gilded bronze Columbia surrounded by three sea horses at the top of a 40-foot stone shaft.
The Maine Monument
William Randolph Hearst was instrumental in raising funds for the Maine Monument (18). (Some say he was instrumental in starting the Spanish-American War.) Another mother and child sculpture appears at the Firemen's Memorial and a bronze version marks the Piccirilli family plot in Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx (17). He used his newspaper, the New York Journal, to organize a popular subscription campaign which raised $100,000 from a vast number of New Yorkers including many schoolchildren. The Maine Monument met with opposition from rival newspapers, Pulitzer's World and Adolph Ochs's New York Times. Originally the monument was to be located in Times Square, but a bureaucratic "oversight" in 1902 prevented this. A public "comfort station" was built exactly where the monument was to be located. Some historians believe the oversight was instigated by The New York Times to avoid the embarrassment of seeing a Hearst triumph in their backyard. Ultimately, the monument was unveiled in 1913 at Columbus Circle and enjoyed a widespread enthusiastic reception despite negative press from The Times.
Another mother and child sculpture appears at the Firemen's Memorial.
A bronze version marks the Piccirilli family plot in Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx (17).
The brothers did two kinds of work at the studio; their own original sculptures and carvings (usually in marble) for other artists that didn't do their own carving. Traditional sculptors began a figure in clay typically working from a model. The finished clay was then used to make a plaster cast which then led to a bronze casting or a stone carving. The carving was often enlarged from the plaster cast.Throughout this discussion we try to make a clear distinction between original Piccirilli sculptures and carvings for other sculptors. Below we see Attilio working in clay from a model and the finished work.
Riverside Church is twenty-two blocks north of the Firemen's Memorial. The brothers designed and/or carved over 600 separate sculptures for the church. Ferruccio's son Bruno worked extensively with his uncles on this project for three years.The church was opened in 1930.
The brothers also executed numerous smaller sculptures, often to satisfy their own artistic interests. Dixie Willson interviewed the brothers at the studio for a magazine article in 1930 which refers to two prizewinning works (19).
"It was odd," I said to Maso, "that you all made up your minds to be sculptors." "there is no 'mind' to it," he said. "Our souls are all the same one." Presently Attilio comes in. "Furio! Getulio! Maso!" he calls as he pushes open the door. "We have won a prize. In the exhibition of the National Academy of Design, the gold medal is given to Furio." "This ragged man wins the prize!" Orazio shouts. And laughing, shouting, they all pummel the prizewinner. But I could think only of what `Attilio had said. "We have won a prize!" Not "Furio has won a prize;" not "Our brother has won" -- but "We have won!" It is Furio's black marble Seal which has won the prize. A sea lion just rising from the water. It seemed to me I had heard before of a National academy prize in connection with the name Piccirilli. "Didn't he win the same prize last year?" I asked. "That was Orazio with his Black Eagle," Maso explains. Then in the midst of laughter, Getulio rises, lifts his thick white cup. It is a signal for silence. In that rambling old kitched suddenly there is no sound but the brazen clacking of a clock on the wall, and from one of the studios the echo of the steady beat of a hammer. "Furio," says Getulio, "we - as brothers - are proud of you!" Nothing more. Just one moment of silent, solemn tribute - every cup lifted.
Furio's Seal is in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as is Attilio's Fragilina which is a beautiful white marble of an awkward adolescent girl emerging into graceful womanhood. Also in the American Wing are several important carvings by the brothers. Three are shown below.
important "personal" work by Attilio is in Woodlawn Cemetery
and marks the grave
of his nephew, Nathan, who was killed in World War II. This
and moving sculpture called The Outcast is actually a copy
of the
original which was located in the churchyard of St. Mark's In The
Bowery. The original,
however, disappeared twenty years ago. Church officials think it
was destroyed in a fire.
After the Statue of Liberty the marble lions that flank the entrance to the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, are probably the best known and best loved public sculptures in New York City. The Piccirillis carved the lions for sculptor Edward Clark Potter (20). They were installed in 1911. In many people's minds the lions have achieved the status of Mascots of New York City.
If the lions have become an icon of learning, the pediment of the New York Stock Exchange has become an icon of capitalism. The pediment was sculpted by John Q. A. Ward and Paul Wayland Bartlett and carved by Getulio Piccirilli in 1904. The original marble figures had deteriorated so badly that by 1936 they were replaced by lead-coated copper replicas (21).
The Washington Arch in Greenwich Village underwent a complete restoration in 2003-4. A new lighting system was installed in December, 2004. The Piccirillis carved the two George Washington figures and the bas relief panels behind them (22). Alexander Stirling Calder, father of the famous mobile sculptor, Alexander Calder, did Washington as President and Hermon Atkins MacNeil did Washington as Commander -in-Chief. The brothers also carved the four spandrels by Frederick MacMonnies and the eagle by Philip Martiny. The arch was designed by Stanford White in 1895, but the formal dedication with the completed sculptures was delayed until 1918 by, among other things, the murder of Stanford White by Harry Thaw in 1906.
In 1919, shortly after the carving of French's Lincoln was completed, W. M. Berger visited the studio. Writing in Scribner's Magazine (23), he observed,
The family has been for nearly a generation famous in artistic circles, not alone for the great ability shown in executing the important work of other sculptors, but for the original work accomplished by the different members of the family; for each is an artist of exeptional ability...
He goes on to describe the studio:
Once within this busy hive, where the sculptors and their many assistants work early and late, you leave behind for awhile the life of the city and feel transported into an entirely foreign atmosphere; and it is not a great stretch of the imagination to feel that this place resembles, with its mountains of marble and granite, its antique busts and plaster reproductions of Greek and Roman art, more the ancient "bottega" where the old Italian masters of the Renaissance carved their masterpieces, than anything which our modern city can offer; for the mehods of work employed by the sculptors of today have changed but little from that time...
One reason for the relative obscurity of the Piccirillis is that when they carved for other sculptors, their names never appeared on the work, and they were seldom publicly acknowledged. In some cases the sculptor simply did not want the public to know they didn't do their own carving. (Ironically, if a sculpture is cast in bronze, the foundry's name is almost always stamped on the piece.) This anonymity also made the research difficult. When trying to determine whether or not they carved a particular piece it was necessary to examine the artist's papers where we sometimes found an answer. The Inventory of American Sculpture compiled by the Smithsonian Institution and the Archives of American Art have also been helpful in some cases. Unfortunately, we've never been able to locate the studio's business records, and to this day there are still some sculptures we're not certain about.The brothers' hospitality was legendary. Artists were always welcome to work at the studio on their own projects; Saint-Gaudens is said to have lived there for weeks at a time. Indeed, for decades, the studio was a popular informal gathering place for American sculptors.
Not only sculptors found their way to 487 E. 142nd Street. According to Josef Lombardo, Attilio's biographer, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the studio (24). John D. Rockefeller consulted there on a number of occasions on the subject of Attilio's glass reliefs for Rockefeller Center (25). Enrico Caruso was a friend of the brothers and frequently sang at the studio. Fiorello LaGuardia and Attilio were close friends for decades. Attilio sculpted the LaGuardia Grave Memorial in Woodlawn Cemetary after Mrs. LaGuardia's death, which followed her one-year-old daughter's death by three months.
The following is an excerpt from Fiorello's preface to Attilio's biography (26):
Attilio Piccirilli reminds me of a well cultivated, perfect, sweet California orange. It is so typically American - only the seed came from Italy. I say he is purely American because he is part of the artistic life of our country. He hasn't deviated one bit in the sixty years he has been here. There would be indeed a long list of names if all American artists who have enjoyed the benefit of his friendship and help and sound artistic guidance were to be mentioned in this book. There are so many things in his life that enriched our city and country. I wish that they all could be told for the life of this unusual person is replete with interesting events in the growth and development of art in his country
In 1936 Attilio completed what was then the largest glass sculpture in the world. It is installed over an entrance to a Rockefeller Center building on Fifth Avenue, opposite Saint Patrick's cathedral. Four years later, The Policemen's Memorial was unveiled. This was one of Attilio's last major works. His first major work in this country appears below. The McDonagh Memorial is located in New Orleans and was completed in 1899.
Attilio was a co-founder and President of the Leonardo da Vinci Art School, which opened in 1923 on the Lower East Side (27). The sculptor, Onorio Ruotolo, was the other co-founder and Director. Fees were kept low to attract working class students.Most classes were scheduled at night. The school closed in 1940, probably a victim of the Depression and the outbreak of World War II. But in those 17 years thousands studied art and attended Saturday lectures. Four "Leonardo" students won the prestigious Prix de Rome which enabled the winner to study sculpture in Rome for two years. Another student was a young man destined to become one of the 20th century's most famous abstract sculptors. His name was Isamu Noguchi (28). The school received testimonials from, among others, Thomas Edison, Theodore Dreiser, Al Smith, Arturo Toscanini, Calvin Coolidge, Sherwood Anderson, Luigi Pirandello, Herbert Lehman, Thomas Dewey, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanora Duse, and Charles Dana Gibson (29).
A bronze bust of Leonardo, sculpted by Attilio, was installed above the entrance to the art school. When the school closed (it was then located on E.16th Street) we believe Attilio gave the bust to his friend, Angelo Patri, who was principal of PS 45 in the Arthur Avenue neighborhood of the Bronx. PS 45 is now MS 45, but the bust is still in the library. Nearby MS 45, in a small park on Arthur Avenue, is Attilio's marble bust of Christopher Columbus.
From time to time, Attilio would invite talented, interested students to his studio to give them an idea of how a professional sculptor worked. In the course of our research we had the good fortune of meeting one of these students. In 1938 Jerry Capa was 13 years old when he was invited to the studio on a Saturday afternoon. He still remembers vividly how warmly he was received by Attilio and his brothers. "They treated me with great respect - engaged me in conversation - answered all of my questions - treated me as an equal" (30). He recalls, "The upstairs studios were immense, flooded with light from the skylights - and packed with plaster casts of work by Ward, Saint-Gaudens, French and others... there was a powerful elevator the size of a large room - which carried marble up and finished work down to the street level..." Jerry was invited the following Saturday and every Saturday thereafter until Attilio's death in 1945. Attilio always prepared a hot lunch and liked to critique Jerry's art work. Often he simply reminisced. Jerry remembers Attilio describing people "...who sat in my chair - Teddy Roosevelt, Caruso singing Neopolitan love sons with moist eyes - and so many others." Jerry also remembers that in those years, the regular Sunday visitor was Mayor LaGuardia. Fiorello and Attilio would then go to dinner, usually at Gracie Mansion. Fiorello's nickname for Attilio was Uncle Peach presumably due to the correct pronounciation of Piccirilli, which is close to Peach-ir-eel-i.
The art critic, John Russell, writing in The New York Times on December 8, 1935, said Augustus Saint-Gaudens had as much to do with shaping the American spirit as Walt Whitman. "For it was he, as much as Whitman, who distilled from the American Civil War a sense of grandeur in human affairs. In a literal sense, he gave form, shape, and resolution to feelings that without him would have been as confused as they were widespread" (31). But he adds that even though his art is well known, his authorship is not. We feel that the Piccirillis are in a similar position. Their role in creating so many of the treasures of the century deserves to be better known among Bronxites, among New Yorkers, among Americans.
Not long after we began to assemble the story of the Piccirilli Studio in 1999, we felt strongly that the story be brought to the public. Together with our wonderful colleague, Jerry Capa, and many other talented people, we've been working on this in a variety of ways. Our first step was to put the story, as we knew it in 1999, in writing which the Bronx County Historical Society published in their Spring 1999 Journal issue. This website article is based closely on the Journal article. Since then, newspapers (The New York Times, The Daily News, The Bronx Times, Bronx Beat) and television stations (NY1, News 12 – The Bronx, RAI-Italian Television) have done stories on the studio. The National Italian-American Foundation (NIAF) published a cover story in their quarterly journal. With the generous help of the superb photographer, John Orth, we accumulated a collection of about eighty slides, contemporary and archival, of Piccirilli works. All of the photos in the website come from the same collection of slides. Two talented students from Riverdale Country School, Derek Tarnow and Omri Shiv, were extremely helpful in putting the original website together; the efforts of Tim Alborn and Pamela Burger enabled a move to the Lehman Arts and Humanities website in Fall 2010. Most of the archival photographs are from the collection of the Art Commision of New York. We've given numerous slide lectures – the first was in 1999 at Lehman College (CUNY) at the invitation of Professor David Bady as part of The City and The Humanities Program. This lecture was videotaped by the Bronx County Historical Society. The slides were also used to mount two photographic exhibits – first at the Belmont Branch of the New York Public Library with the support of the Enrico Fermi Cultural Committee and currently at the Mott Haven Branch nearby the site of the studio. Chief librarians Marisa Parish and Ken Giles provided hospitality and enthusiasm. The street where the studio was located was officially renamed "Piccirilli Place" in March, 2004. The Parks Department also helped us "spread the word" by allowing us to write portions of historic signs at Brook Park near the studio site and at the Maine Monument in Central Park at Columbus Circle. City Councilman Jose Serrano and his staff have been invaluable in making a reality of the Mott Haven Library exhibit and the street renaming. Other projects that we're currently working on include a museum exhibition and a television documentary.
If you have questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you. The best way to contact us, Mary Shelley and Bill Carroll, is by e-mail. Our address is firstname.lastname@example.com.
1. Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, "American Sculpture." A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1965) p. 94.
2. Donald Martin Reynolds, "Monuments and Masterpieces." MacMillan (1988), p. 352
3. Michael Richman, "Daniel Chester French." (1976), p. 23.
4. Ibid, p. 171-186.
5. John McNamara, "McNamara's Old Bronx." (1989), p.23
6. Josef Vincent Lombardo, "Attilio Piccirilli." (1944).
7. Richman, "DCF," p. 103-110.
8. Inventory of American Sculpture, June 1998, National Museum of American Art/Smithsonian Institution, Record ID: IAS 77003068 et al.
9. Richman, "DCF," p. 143-150.
10. Ibid, p. 71-79.
11. Ibid, p. 112-120.
12. Ibid, p. 151-163.
13. Ibid, p. 153.
14. Architect of the Capitol, Curator's Office.
15. Michelle H. Bogart, "Public Sculpture and the Civic Ideal in New York City, 1890-1930." p. 185-217.
16. Reynolds, "Monuments and Masterpieces," p. 351-352.
17. Ibid, p. 351-352.
18. Bogart, "Public Sculpture," p. 196.
19. Dixie Willson, "The American Magazine," Feb. 1930. p. 70.
20. Inventory of American Sculpture, Record ID IAS 76007484.
21. Ibid, Record ID IAS 77006222.
22. Ibid, Record IDs IAS 76009122, 87870089, 75007058.
23. W. M. Berger, "Scribner's Magazine," Oct. 1919, p. 424.
24. Lombardo, "Attilio Piccirilli," p. 63.
25. Ibid, p. 252-262.
26. Ibid, p. xxi.
27. Ibid, p. 310-316.
28. Armstrong et al., "200 Years of American Sculpture," p. 296.
29. Lombardo, "Attilio Piccirilli," p. 311.
30. Letter from J. Capa to Bill Carroll, Aug. 12, 1997.
31. John Russell, "The New York Times," Dec. 8, 1985, p. 39.


text:
Vega, Jerome Timtiman is running in the 2022 Philippine elections as a member of the Nacionalista Party. He is campaigning for the post of Municipal Vice-Mayor in Numancia. The ballot for the election will list Vega as "2 VEGA, JEROME (NP)".
This candidate is running for the position of Municipal Vice Mayor. The vice mayor is responsible for presiding over the sangguniang bayan (municipal council) and signing warrants for expenditures appropriated for its operation, appointing officials and employees of the sangguniang bayan, with exceptions provided in the Local Government Code, exercising the powers and perform the duties and functions of the municipal mayor in cases of temporary vacancy, and assuming the municipal mayor's office in the event of a permanent one.
This profile was generated with the help of OpenAI GPT-3 and reviewed by Rappler Research for accuracy.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Main Specifications of DIN934 M8 stainless steel hex nut nut former with wire heater
|Max. Cut Off Diameter
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text:
Abu Dhabi 2011
- This topic has 44 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 10 months ago by Anonymous.
- AuthorPosts
- 19th October 2011, 20:41 at 8:41 pm #130387
Abu Dhabi will host a non-championship event in support of the grand prix this season. As far as I know only Gutierrez is signed-up (sticking with ART). Who else goes where is a mystery, though judging by the names involved in testing the likes of Tom Dillmann, Alexander Rossi, Craig Dolby and Roberto Mehri are all looking to join the party whilst old hands like Ericsson, Razia and Bird could all be back. Whadda we think?19th October 2011, 23:43 at 11:43 pm #183317Prisoner MonkeysParticipant
The event is a non-championship race. I'm pretty sure that most of the GP2 regulars will be there, even if there are no points on offer. I don't think it will be like the V8 Supercars' Gold Coast 600 where guest drivers come down for the race.20th October 2011, 6:50 at 6:50 am #183318
Not guest drivers, but drivers from GP3 etc looking to race GP2 next year. Grosjean obviously won't race and I doubt Bianchi, van der Garde or Vietoris will. Melker, Dillmann and Rossi meanwhile all look like they plan to. ART will probably run Bottas and ORT will likely have da Costa in the car. I would say it'll be 50/50 between established and rookies.25th October 2011, 12:51 at 12:51 pm #183319
James Calado will race for ART in Abu Dhabi AND for the 2012 season. Surprised about this: firstly I assumed Bottas would get the seat (two GP3 champs at the GP2 team) and secondly it's a shock that Racing Steps are funding it.25th October 2011, 17:19 at 5:19 pm #183320AnonymousInactive
Only Calado and Ceccon (Coloni) are yet confirmed for the season finale according to GP2series.com.25th October 2011, 17:45 at 5:45 pm #183321Felipe BomenyParticipant
I think Ocean have already confirmed Antonio FDC for Abu Dhabil.
Meanwhile, according to a rumour from a Finnish daily paper, Valterri Bottas is headed for iSport.25th October 2011, 20:28 at 8:28 pm #183322
Gutierrez is confirmed at ART. Not sure da Costa has been confirmed but chances are he'll be at Ocean.
@Portugoose didn't know that about Bottas. How's that come about? Surely it made sense for ART to stick with him, cash permitting, and farm Calado out for a year. Bottas looks like the finished article.26th October 2011, 6:15 at 6:15 am #183323GeeMacParticipant
Regardless of who drives it should be worth watching. Thanks for the heads up, I didn't realise this was going to be supporting the GP.26th October 2011, 8:30 at 8:30 am #183324
The fact that it'll be a largely rookie field looking to impress people ahead of 2012 it should make it pretty tasty on-track.27th October 2011, 8:46 at 8:46 am #183325
Racing Engineering will run Fabio Leimer (who drove for Rapax in the main series this year) and Nathanael Berthon.
Press release:
Following on from their very successful testing at Barcelona, Racing Engineering are pleased to announce that Fabio Leimer and Nathanaël Berthon will be driving for the Spanish team in Abu Dhabi at the season-ending 2011 GP2 Final to be held from the 11th to 13th of November.
Swiss driver Fabio Leimer has been the undoubted star of the recent GP2 test sessions held at Jerez and Barcelona. Leimer dominated the Jerez test, setting the fastest time in three out of the four sessions held as well as setting the fastest overall time of the two days. Although the Racing Engineering team spent more time at Barcelona in working on race set-ups than looking for quick laps, Leimer once again set the fastest overall time.
With his previous race-winning experience of GP2 and his form in testing, Leimer must be one of the strongest favourites to take win the Abu Dhabi races.
Although Frenchman Nathanael Berthon is still a relative newcomer to GP2 racing, his speed in the Barcelona tests and his previous experience with the Racing Engineering team in last year's GP2 Asia Series means that he too is a serious contender for the 2011 GP2 Final.
Team Quotes:
Alfonso de Orléans-Borbón, president of Racing Engineering: "After the great results of both drivers in Barcelona, I am really pleased to continue with them at the Abu Dhabi races. It's a great opportunity to see their performances under race conditions. I think that both the drivers and the team have a good fit. This makes me confident of good results for that weekend."
Fabio Leimer: "The two successful GP2 tests in Jerez and Barcelona with Racing Engineering have shown us what is possible if everything is working well. Therefore, I am happy that I have the chance to additionally test the potential of this team under race conditions. We have obviously already tried different solutions for Abu Dhabi during the Barcelona test and I am actually quite confident we will make a good impression during the race weekend. I am very much looking forward to the races in Abu Dhabi."
Nathanael Berthon: "It's almost a year ago I was racing in Abu Dhabi and I am looking forward to another race weekend there with Racing Engineering. It's a real pleasure to work with the team again. I am sure that everything will go well during the Abu Dhabi weekend as the car is good. Physically I am strong and I like the track. I was competitive during the Abu Dhabi races last winter and since then I have gained quite a lot more experience. Additionally I know the car and track now. I am really, really confident for the race weekend in Abu Dhabi."27th October 2011, 8:56 at 8:56 am #183326
Leimer's tested for them a few times now and been quick. Guess he's looking to do 2012 with them. Not sure if he's up to all that much though – he's failed to shine (bar a pair of sprint race wins from pole) in his two years of GP2.
Berthon – good first year in 3.5, awful second year. Probably decent enough but no world beater. When GP2 has these guys, whilst 3.5 is attracting the likes of Magnussen, probably Nasr, maybe Robin Frijns, you have to say the balance of power has swung.1st November 2011, 9:33 at 9:33 am #183327
Marcus Ericsson will remain with iSport, as he will in the 2012 championship:
https://www.racefans.net/groups/gp2/forum/topic/gp2-silly-season-1/?#post-464661st November 2011, 12:23 at 12:23 pm #183328
Ericsson and Gutierrez have to be pre-race faves at the minute.1st November 2011, 13:55 at 1:55 pm #183329
And Tom Dillmann will be iSport's other driver for Abu Dhabi:
iSport would like to welcome Tom Dillman into the team for the GP2 Series Abu Dhabi Finale which is due to take place on 12 and 13 November.
Paul Jackson, Team Principal
"Tom has shown great pace and capacity to learn in the recent tests and has demonstrated that he is ready to move up from the GP3 Series. As a GP3 graduate, he is eligible for the special prize fund and we will be hoping to help him secure a share of that.
Many thanks to the sponsors and individuals who continue to support iSport and our drivers."1st November 2011, 14:31 at 2:31 pm #183330
Dillmann taking the wise approach of, "huh, so I've finished 14th in GP3, I guess I'm ready for GP2 now."
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USAC Competition Director Dave Brzozowski has tendered his resignation following two years of service overseeing the National Racing Operations for the Speedway, Ind.-based organization.
Citing his need to direct his skiils in another direction after months of deliberation, his resignation, submitted August 31, becomes effective October 1.
"I am grateful to USAC for the opportunities extended me the past two years," says Brzozowski, "but feel the time for me to move in another direction has arrived. This decision was not generated by another job opportunity, although I have been fortunate to secure another motorsports-related position which I will assume shortly."
Brzozowski has indicated that he will continue to work with the organization until his departure to ensure a seamless transition of duties and despite the demands of the post is appreciative of the many friendships he forged while at USAC.
"I have been very fortunate in my 33 years in motorsports that opportunities have presented themselves for me to maintain my involvement," says Brzozowski. "The USAC post is one which certainly offered me a challenge and one which taught me many facets of the sport."
Brzozowski expects to remain active in the USAC arena through his new involvement with Wilwood Disc Brakes, which is headquartered in Camarillo, Calif. "I'm looking forward to this new challenge and plan to remain in the Midwest," he says.


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What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?
|TPPA - Neoliberalism without borders
Groser, New Zealand's negotiator to the Agreement, insists that "excessive sovereignty" is a big problem for the New Zealnd economy because it allows obstacles such as trade tariffs in countries that want to protect their workers' rights, to hinder "outstanding growth opportunities" for New Zealand.
The TPPA is designed to remove obstacles to economic globalisation – Profiteers Sans Frontieres. To do this, it has drafted provisions that will allow corporations to sue governments for loss of profit caused by pesky things like health and safety regulations, labour laws, minimum wage laws, food laws, environmental protection laws, trade tariffs, privacy laws, the Treaty of Waitangi, etc. Um, did we learn nothing from the neoliberal economic reforms of the 1980s and 90s?
The TPPA poses a clear threat to workers' pay and conditions, access to affordable medicine, internet freedom, local media content, our sovereignty over natural resources, our ability to hold private companies accountable for environmental destruction. This amnesty applies mainly to foreign multi-nationals – local investors would still be subject to the laws of their own country. Go figure.
Needless to say, this will affect the citizens of every country in the Partnership, as well as those not part of the deal (who will lose out by being forced to compete with the 'streamlined' economies of TPP countries).
Dubbed 'NAFTA on steroids', the TPP will be the most expansive 'free trade' agreement in history, if it is allowed to go ahead, which at this point seems imminent. The Partnership includes New Zealand, Australia, USA, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Malaysia and now Mexico and Canada.
The lack of transparency is in itself cause for concern. The news media have been disturbingly (if predictably) quiet on the subject, knowing which side their bread is buttered on. The beneficent, smiling public face of the negotiations is skin-deep. The TPPA will be a gross violation of international law – or rather, a drasic rewrite of international trade law, drafted by lobbyists for international capital. Elected politicians, journalists, non-profit groups and the public have been almost entirely excluded from negotiations (except for a few necessary Trade Ministers), whereas representatives of corporate interests, numbering in the hundreds and named as 'official trade advisors', have been setting the agenda.
New Zealand's opposition parties have taken a less-than-united stance on the TPPA. Mana have announced their policy to terminate negotiations completely. The Greens, in a joint statement with the Green parties of Australia and Canada, are calling for transparency and "to open these negotiations to public input and comment". Although they haven't denounced the Agreement outright, they have expressed concerns that it will prevent governments from "performing effectively". The Labour Party have cautiously skirted around the issue of secrecy, and merely touched on a few specifics of the Agreement, such as the implications for local tobacco laws and our international image in regard to ties with China. They are not voicing any concerns about the big-picture implications of signing over our national sovereignty in favour of big business. After all it was the Labour-led government that in 2007 initiated the TPP negotiations.
Straight from the horse's mouth (the US Trade Representative Office): the TPPA will introduce new measures "making the regulatory systems of TPP countries more compatible so U.S. companies can operate more seamlessly in TPP markets".
An added benefit to the US is the softening up of China's neighbours in the Pacific so they have allied territories on which to place their big guns if China 'misbehaves'. Hugh White, former Australian Defence Adviser, shed some light in an interview on Radio NZ: "[the TPP] is aimed by the United States as being part of its approach to contesting China's growing influence in Asia and trying to reassert American influence...To the extent that New Zealand supports it and for that matter to the extent that Australia supports it... I think it will contribute to a sense that we're lining up with the United States against China". On this issue, Groser announced "there is no ambiguity around this... TPP is not anti-China". Why America thinks it has more right to assert its influence in Asia than China does is baffling, but that's another matter.
The next round of negotiations is scheduled to take place in Auckland on 3–12 December, providing a perfect opportunity to get out in vast numbers and embarrass our roughshod government when they are trying to look all shiny and agreeable to international capital! Watch this space.
-Sian R.


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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Last month, I gave a talk at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference on Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues. For those who couldn't make it to the conference or would like a recap, we've reproduced the talk on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel. Below you can see the short video reproduced from the content at SES:
You can view the slides here:


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Higher cigarette taxes steering some smokers to quit
ADDISON COUNTY — When John St. Germain, 21, of Shoreham made his daily trip to Maplefields to pick up a pack of cigarettes on July 1, he looked past the cashier, realized the price of cigarettes had skyrocketed overnight, pushed his wallet back into his pocket and walked out the door empty-handed, swearing never to buy another pack again.
What happened was the state's 38-cent cigarette tax increase went into effect, raising the total tax per pack from $2.24-$2.62.
"I walked into a store and a pack that's usually five and change was $6.99," said St. Germain last Friday about a pack of cigarettes that he said was the cheapest in the store. "Now they're easily double the price of when I started smoking and that's why I refused to buy cigarettes this morning.
"I just simply saw the price and turned around and walked out … This is going to irritate me to the point that I'm going to quit smoking cigarettes."
So, too, was the case for Tyler Ballard, 24, of Middlebury, who's accustomed to smoking one to two packs a week.
"Since the tax went up, I haven't bought a pack of cigarettes," he said. "They're just too expensive. As a smoker it stinks, but it's going to be good for people quitting."
Vice Chairman of the House Healthcare Committee Rep. Mike Fisher, D-Lincoln, explained that reducing the number of young smokers in Vermont is directly linked to reducing the overall cost of healthcare. One aim of the heftier tax, he said, is not only to sway people away from smoking, but to prevent teenagers from starting.
"The real essence (of this tax hike) is that it reduces the number of people that start smoking. We're not just talking about cessation here, we're talking about preventing people from starting in the first place."
But there's another government motive at work: generating revenue. Member of the House Weighs and Means Committee Rep. David Sharpe explained that the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office projects that the new tax will raise an extra $4.6 million in revenues. These funds, Sharpe said, will go to funding the state's Medicaid program.
The problem of trying to generate state revenue on the one hand, however, and the goal of smoker prevention and cessation on the other creates an inherent conflict.
"There's a counter conversation about raising the money," said Fisher. "If we're successful on the first (front of smoker prevention and cessation) then it interferes with our success on the second (front of generating revenue). My main motivation is around changing behaviors."
There's always an option for individuals like St. Germain and Ballard to buy cigarettes out of state instead of quitting. But the question is: Is it worth the drive and the price of gasoline, not to mention the inconvenience and time spent.
As Vermont's cigarette tax jumped up on Friday, New Hampshire's dropped by a dime, from $1.78-$1.68.
"More people will just get cigarettes out of state," said owner of Middlebury Discount Beverage Joseph Controneo, who indicated that he's seen tax hikes before and they only drive business out of state.
Sharpe, on the other hand, isn't convinced.
"In order to recapture sales that we've lost to New Hampshire both in terms of sales tax and the cigarette tax, we'd have to drop our rate substantially."
Vermont's new competitor, Sharpe explained, will be Massachusetts, whose traditionally higher cigarette tax now sits 11 cents cheaper than Vermont's at $2.51.
"I think the real question (in terms of displaced sales) is going to be the Massachusetts border because New York is a lot higher than we are and we have enjoyed a surge in sales to New York residents due to their tobacco increases," he said.
For individuals like St. Germain and Ballard who are hoping to walk away from cigarettes, several programs are available to help.
The state-sponsored Vermont Quit Network — accessible via Internet at www.vtquitnetwork.org or by phone at 1-800-quit-now — provides a free program that includes: over the phone coaching sessions; a wide range of online support, tips and methods to quit smoking; and an eight-week dose of nicotine gum, patches or lozenges on the state's dime.
Pharmacist of 30 years Margaret Moore of Marble Works Pharmacy in Middlebury told the Independent that many insurance companies and even Medicaid will generally cover the costs of products to help smokers quit for up to three months. And today's smoker cessation products, she said, are more varied than ever, with electronic cigarettes that vaporize liquid nicotine, patches, gum, inhalants and lozenges to help people wean themselves off smoking.
But regional smoker cessation programs in Addison County are lacking. In March, the county's mainstay program at Porter Hospital shut down due to fiscal belt tightening.
"The smoking cessation program was within the department of community health outreach … so it was one of the programs that was impacted by the elimination of the department," said Ron Hallman. "It also was a program that was funded through the Vermont Department of Health, and the funding for that particular program had been diminishing over time to the point where it had been reduced so dramatically that it was not really covering the costs of the program."
So as the tax on cigarettes has been raised and more smokers might look to quit, the county's in-person smoker cessation infrastructure is almost non-existent.
"There is no doubt that we have not invested enough of our resources in helping people change addictive patterns," said Fisher. "There are people in our community who need a strong partner in making these life changes."
Despite cutting the Porter program, Hallman did indicate that primary care physicians are a great source of support and guidance when it comes to quitting smoking.
St. Germain and Ballard also agree that while programs like Porter's previous offering might help some smokers, quitting is ultimately a test of one's own will.
"If it's something you really want to do, there are quit lines and patches and gum and different things work for different people. But if it's something you really want to do, there are means out there to help you," said Ballard.
"I think it's more that you've got to do it yourself and you've got to want to do it yourself," said St. Germain. "When you see somebody smoking a cigarette, you could go up and ask them for one or you could tell yourself, 'No.'
"It's a matter of will power at that point."
Reporter Andrew Stein is at [email protected].
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Hawaiian Shochu Co.: In Haleiwa, Making Shochu out of Sweet Potatoes
Left: sweet potato fermenting in 100-year-old ceramic vats partially buried in the ground; right: Nami Hana, Hawaiian Shochu Co.'s first batch of shochu
Up in Haleiwa, Ken Hirata is turning sweet potatoes into shochu, or what he likes to call a distilled sweet potato spirit. Hawaii, it turns out, is a great place to make sweet potato shochu—the temperate weather, the abundance of locally-grown, starchy, not-too-watery sweet potatoes.
Shochu is not well known outside of Japan, but for about a decade now, shochu consumption there has overtaken sake (though in an alcoholic beverage popularity contest, they both lose out to beer).
Hirata makes his shochu using traditional methods, learned through a three-year apprenticeship with a shochu master ("Just like a kung fu movie!" Hirata says). He steams rice in a wooden koshiki and mixes it with koji to kickstart the fermentation process. The rice and sweet potatoes are fermented in 100-year-old, partially below-ground ceramic vats—passed down from Hirata's shochu's master—inherited from his father and grandfather before him. Hirata distills the mash into a cypress still, and then he lets it age for six months to round out the flavors before bottling.
The result: an unfiltered, yet clear spirit—as clear as vodka, but with more character and a smooth, sweet finish and notes of lychee. It's about 30 percent alcohol, somewhere between sake and whiskey in proof.
Hirata is one of only two shochu producers in the United States. At the moment, he describes his operation as a micro, micro-distillery; with only one holding tank, his production is limited to two batches of about 5,000 bottles a year. Restaurants like Roy's and Wada and hotels such as the Moana Surfrider and Hyatt Waikiki carry his shochu, and you can also buy it directly from Hirata at his production site for $39 a bottle. Sometime down the line, he hopes to play around with other fruit and starches that grow well in Hawaii—pineapple perhaps, or banana—for more unique, made in Hawaii spirits.
Hawaiian Shochu Co., P.O. Box 952, Haleiwa, 96712, firstname.lastname@example.com


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From: Andrew Johnson
Date: 2007-05-08 20:43:35
prisonplanet.com/art… From Unlikely Quarters, Bruce Willis Ends The JFK DebateThe Kennedy assassination furore is over and the "conspiracy theorists" won, 9/11 is soon to follow Paul Joseph WatsonPrison PlanetTuesday, May 8, 2007 Bruce Willis' insightful and definitive comments to Vanity Fair about the assassination of JFK, in which he boldly states that Kennedy's killers were never caught and are still in power today, are a benchmark as to how far the truth movement has progressed since 9/11. "They still haven't caught the guy that killed [President] Kennedy," Willis told Vanity Fair's June issue. "I'll get killed for saying this, but I'm pretty sure those guys are still in power, in some form. The entire government of the United States was co-opted," adds the Die Hard star. Bruce Willis is a perfect example of how the rampant corruption of the U.S. government and the overwhelming evidence proving that the entire war on terror is a manufactured hoax has ostracized even the administration's most fervent cheerleaders. The son of a military man, Willis was and still is an ardent patriot and like many was caught up in the post-9/11 fervor, believing that his beloved America had been attacked from outside and committed his work to supporting a positive and healthy message that America's motives in the war on terror were just and necessary. Willis' genuine patriotism and moral compass was exploited and perverted by the Neo-Con agenda to police the world not in the interests of America but to serve the agenda of the military industrial complex. Again, like the majority of the nation, for a time Willis was fooled into supporting the lie, but soon came to the realization that he had been double crossed. After Hollywood director Richard Linklater handed Willis DVDs of Alex Jones' documentary films Terror Storm and Martial Law on the set of Fast Food Nation, Willis underwent a political awakening and his entire paradigm was shifted. Sources tell us that Willis is now virtually obsessed with "conspiracy" material and, like Charlie Sheen before him, spent months researching the JFK assassination as well as 9/11 before he spoke publicly to Vanity Fair. We salute Mr. Willis for having the courage to use his huge profile to draw people's attention to subjects of vital importance, flying in the face of the fear, in his own words, that they might kill him for doing so. Willis' comments follow last week's definitive revelations concerning the role of CIA veteran E. Howard Hunt in the murder plot and his deathbed confession that the assassination of JFK was a conspiracy on behalf of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The establishment news media have completely blackballed one of the stories of the decade and it would take a very naive person to believe the ignorance wasn't deliberate. As Bruce Willis said, the U.S. government was overthrown in November 1963 and the military-industrial complex have been running the show ever since – they are still in power today. The press are afraid to cover this story because a lot of people who have pursued the truth about the assassination or simply been in a position to know certain information – have ended up in a coffin pretty soon after. Some even scoff at the tape's authenticity simply because it was aired first on Coast to Coast Live, a show that tackles a multitude of controversial and quirky issues. How else could Saint John Hunt have got the tape released when no corporate media outlet dare touch it? Coast to Coast has 20 million listeners every night, in using them as a forum, Hunt was ensuring the maximum exposure possible outside of mainstream channels. The tape is real, the confession is real – burying your head in the sand and pretending it's all a fairy tale is not going to make the truth of this story go away. We are now declaring victory on proving the assassination of JFK was an inside job – polls routinely show that around 90% of Americans agree and one of the main conspirators has now admitted this to be the case, in addition to others on the inside like Madeleine Duncan Brown and LBJ's lawyer who also blew the whistle on the fact that it was a coup de 'tat orchestrated by Johnson. There can no longer be any debate, the establishment press can continue to use their little "grassy knoll" cliches to try and debunk anyone who questions the official government version of anything, but the fact is that they now reflect a tiny minority of popular opinion in this context. Similarly in the case of 9/11, polls show that around 84% distrust the government's account and suspect a cover-up, and no amount of ad hominem attack slurs and Popular Mechanics style hit pieces are going to reverse that growing trend. The game is almost up, we are in the fourth quarter and we have accrued an unassailable lead – the "conspiracy theorists" have won and though things may get worse before they get better, the success of our mission to rouse the human race from its sleepwalk will soon begin to catalyze measurable change in the world around us and freedom will rise again.


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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Celebrity White House gate crasher Tareq Salahi filed for divorce Friday, claiming his wife was flaunting her affair with the lead guitarist for the rock band Journey.
Tareq Salahi filed paperwork in Warren County saying his wife, Michaele Salahi, abandoned the marriage when she left their Virginia home Tuesday to be with Neal Schon in Tennessee. He also accused Schon of emailing him a picture of a penis, though he doesn't elaborate as to why.
"Over the objections of me, she continually exposes our friends and acquaintances to her adulterous relationship and has flaunted the same throughout the community, the nation and indeed the world, and thus caused … me to suffer great harm, humiliation, and embarrassment," he said in the divorce petition.
Schon did not return an email. A representative for the group did not return a call seeking comment. Neither Tareq Salahi nor his attorney returned messages seeking comment.
Tareq reported his wife missing the day she reportedly ran off with Schon. He told police he feared she had been kidnapped, but authorities who talked to her said she told them she was "where she wanted to be."
Court documents say the couple had a prenuptial agreement, but the terms were not specified. The couple was married in November 2003.
"There is no hope or possibility of reconciliation," Tareq Salahi said, adding that he "has been greatly hurt and disturbed" by Michaele Salahi's actions.
The couple gained notoriety in 2009 when they crashed a White House state dinner. Michaele Salahi was a cast member of the reality show "Real Housewives of D.C." last year, but the show was canceled after one season. She was thrown off the reality show "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" when it became apparent she wasn't addicted to anything.
Tareq Salahi said in the court filing that Schon was his wife's former boyfriend. Schon's band had played at the couple's northern Virginia winery, and photos on social networking websites show them partying with the band on several occasions. He also said the band paid for his wife's travel, accommodations and other expenses.
Tareq Salahi claims he has suffered both emotional and physical harm from his wife's actions. In addition to being able to stay in their home, he asked the court to ban both parties from harming the value of their assets, threatening or harassing each other.


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In the framework of the World Heritage Thematic Programme, Human Evolution: Adaptations, Dispersals and Social Developments, more than 40 international experts and site managers will convene in Antequera - Málaga, Spain, 20 to 24 September 2011, for the meeting, Megalithic Sites and the World Heritage Convention , organized by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the Spanish Funds-in-Trust for World Heritage and the Junta de Andalucía .
The Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of megalithic properties has been recognized in the context of the World Heritage Convention through the representation of related properties on the World Heritage List and the Tentative List. There is, however, further scope for establishing definition, broadening the geographical focus, developing greater scientific basis in evaluating OUV and implementing conservation methodologies, and fostering cooperative frameworks and opportunities for further research and capacity-building initiatives.
The megalithic phenomenon is a remarkably human phenomenon. Stemming from the Latin monere, 'to remember', megalithism is the practice of commemorating places of special significance through the erection of large-sized monoliths. These large stones are often cut or carved, and range from single-standing stones, line or circle arrangements, simple chambers made using a lintel structure, complex buildings with multiple chambers, entrances and passages, and also appear in their natural state as part of a geological formation.
A universal phenomenon, megalithism has been present over the past ten thousand years in a vast number of human societies throughout the world, ranging from Atlantic and Mediterranean Europe to Korea, the Near East, South America, Africa and Melanesia, to name but a few. From an anthropological perspective, megaliths are at the crossroad of human diversity and communality, inviting a reflection on the universality of human behaviour as a product and result of our common needs of adaptation and social organization.
Andalusia itself is a region rich in megalithic sites, both in number and diversity. From Huelva in the west to Almería in the east, all of the Andalusian provinces display megalithic structures that vary widely in shape and design, both through time and space. From its very beginnings, the study of megalithic monuments has played a key role in prehistoric research in Andalusia.
Co-organizers: Junta de Andalucía


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1. From Madrid: Day Tour to Toledo
The bus will pick you up in the center of Madrid. During the bus trip to Toledo, a travel assistant will share some of the most interesting facts about the city. Discover Toledo, a city declared as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1986. Once arriving in Toledo, enjoy a magnificent panoramic tour. The bus will make a couple of stops for you to photograph the most impressive views of the city. The guide will take you to the main square of Zocodover to explore Toledo. Then, enjoy a walking tour of the city's sights with a guide. Visit Toledo Cathedral, the second richest Catholic building in the world after St. Peter´s Cathedral in Rome. Admire the Alcazar, an impressive fortress, and El Greco's most famous painting, Count Orgaz´s Burial. Taste Toledo's signature sweet marzipan made of almonds and honey. Explore the Jewish Quarter's narrow streets, the Santa María la Blanca Synagogue, San Juan de Los Reyes Monastery, and the Christ of the Light Mosque.


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On Tuesday, May 26th, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, a voter initiative that declared that marriage could only exist between a man and a woman. Subsequent media reports were quick to point out that unions between same-sex couples would still be recognized, and that essentially this ruling "merely" stripped gay spouses of the word marriage.
However, since from June 2008 until November 2008 same-sex marriages were legal in the state of California, the approximately 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who got married during that window of time are still married. From now on, however, all new same-sex marriages will be legally classified as civil unions.
So here we are with an oddly tiered classification system of unions, some are in, others out…a numerical majority having limited the civil rights of a minority through alteration of the State constitution. Surely if ever a situation called for escapism, this is one…
*Sigh* It's true, you can rent L-Word DVD's, rewatch the five seasons of Queer as Folk, maybe even catch a rerun of Will & Grace on Lifetime… but for my money, if you would truly like to linger in a world where same-sex marriages are normalized as happy, healthy (and property-based) direct your dial to HGTV.
In my humble opinion, Home and Garden Television has done more to quietly advocate for the main-streaming of same-sex couples than any other channel or media campaign in recent history. On any given night of the week, one can turn to HGTV and see happy couples of every color and creed, tall and short, old and young, skinny and fat, gay and straight, oo'ing and ah'ing over kitchen remodels ("Look, honey – it's granite!"), extra-large closets ("I can fit all my shoes!"), and finished basements ("It's perfect for the kids!").
Mary and Sue are looking to relocate from the city to find a yard for their dogs… Bob and Larry need an extra bedroom for Larry's new in-home business… Seung-Li and Juan are expecting their second child and want to find a place closer to her mother…
In the world of HGTV, we display our shared humanity in the universal smile that can only mean "the reveal" has been a success, and we are all equalized by our love for a move-in-ready split-level, with room for a workshop in the garage.
For one of my personal favorites, check out the husband of one of my highschool friends appearing regularly on HGTV's super cool Bought & Sold…


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Listening Devices
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> Listening Devices
Listening devices, be they hidden listening devices or covert listening
devices, are generally used for audio surveillance by means of one-way
communications. A listening device can be a voice activated transmitter or voice
transmitter that starts operating once it detects the sound of a persons voice.
When listening devices are active, they may attach to a surveillance
microphone connected to a surveillance recorder, audio transmitter, or Spy Phone, capturing all that
is said and either storing the conversation, or broadcasting it to those who
need to hear the conversation without being present.
Hidden listening devices can be made into mobile configurations to carry on a
person, while covert listening devices may be built into stationary objects or
left covered so no one would notice them.
Note: If you have a question about a listening device, please Contact
Us before ordering. Our goal is to provide you with the listening device to
meet your expectations.
Also: A listening device can always work longer if it employs a vox or voice
activated function.
Voice Activated Transmitter
The Voice Activated Transmitter is a covert room transmitter that starts working when it hears people speaking. Voice activated transmitters help cut down on battery drain during standby mode, and render voice activation transmitters nearly undetectable. Model LM-1 is our standard voice activated transmitter, offering operating times from 30 without voice activation up to 150 hours with voice activation (conditions depending).
Voice Transmitter
Model LM-2 is a mini voice transmitter that operates using voice activation. Like the LM-1, this voice activated micro transmitter can be placed in a room to gather intelligence. Smaller in size, the LM-2 is a professional voice activation transmitter able to eavesdrop and broadcast clear conversations over good distances.
Remote Controlled Listening Device
The remote controlled listening device is a voice transmitter used for remote audio surveillance, activated by remote control. Also called the Sleeper Transmitter, this voice transmitter model RLM-2 is also a voice activated transmitter with a standby time up to 4 years.
Listening Devices and covert surveillance equipment are available with operating times up to 2.5 days. This extended operating time is what makes the ZA-1 an ideal covert listening device when you do not know how long your surveillance operation will take.
Listening Device
Listening Device model ZA-2 is a surveillance transmitter used for surveillance monitoring. In order to monitor conversations, this audio transmitter can be placed in a room or area where targets are speaking. Audio surveillance of their conversation is then sent from this investigative tool to a surveillance receiver.
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My Heart is Yours™
They won your heart. What better way to let them know than with this romantic surprise? For that extra special touch, your sweetheart's gift will arrive in a heart-shaped keepsake vase they can cherish for years and years.
Surprise your special someone with red carnations, pink mini carnations, daisy poms, and more beautifully arranged in a heart-shaped vase.
Product ID UFN1307
Approximately 8" W x 8" H
What People Are Saying
August 20, 2023
My daughter loves her flowers. They were beautiful as she welcome her baby boy. Thank you so much!!!
amy rosario
July 20, 2023
Losing a loved one is an incredibly challenging and emotional experience. During such difficult times, we seek comfort and support from those around us, and I am grateful to have found a florist that truly understands the significance of their role. I recently had the opportunity to avail the services of Ava's Rainforest for a funeral, and I cannot emphasize enough how their compassionate and thoughtful service made a significant difference during this somber occasion.From the moment I contacted Karl, I was met with warmth and empathy. The staff was attentive and understanding, taking the time to listen to my preferences and offering gentle guidance when needed. Planning a funeral is overwhelming, but their calming presence helped me navigate through the process of choosing the appropriate floral arrangement.The floral arrangement was nothing short of breathtaking. Each piece was carefully crafted, reflecting the essence of the departed soul and bringing a sense of serenity to the environment. The choice of flowers and the arrangement style were precisely what we had envisioned, and they captured the true spirit of our beloved one's life.What truly touched me was the attention to detail shown by Karl. They incorporated meaningful elements into the floral designs, such as a favorite flower or color, which added a personal touch to the display. The result was a beautiful tribute that left a lasting impression on everyone present at the funeral service.Furthermore, the delivery and setup were seamless. Punctuality was vital, and the florist ensured that the flowers were delivered on time, even amidst the tight schedule. The arrangements were set up with utmost care and consideration, creating a serene and comforting atmosphere that brought solace to all who attended the service.In times of grief, it is crucial to have supportive individuals who go above and beyond to ease the burden of arranging a funeral. Ava's Rainflorist did just that, exhibiting professionalism and genuine empathy throughout the entire process. Their unwavering commitment to making the funeral a memorable and meaningful event speaks volumes about their dedication to their craft and the communities they serve.In conclusion, I wholeheartedly recommend Ava's Rainflorist to anyone in need of floral services for a funeral or any significant event. Their compassion, attention to detail, and exceptional craftsmanship transformed a solemn occasion into a beautiful celebration of life. They provided a source of comfort during a time of grief, and for that, I am sincerely grateful. Thank you, Karl, for your outstanding service and support during this challenging time.
June 14, 2023
Flowers are beautiful! Thanks! Great job!
Reviews Sourced from Lovingly and Google


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GENEVA — The Grand Canyon, Mount Everest and Loch Ness will vie with more than 200 other spectacular places in the next phase of the global competition for the New 7 Wonders of Nature, organizers said Wednesday.
The 261 nominees from 222 countries include some of the most famous mountain peaks, lakes and other attractions, such as the Great Barrier Reef and Niagara Falls.
Over a billion people are expected to join in Internet voting that will nominate 77 semifinalists for the top natural wonders, which will share in the glory already enjoyed by the seven man-made wonders chosen 18 months ago.
"We are calling on people all over the world to actively show their appreciation for our … natural world by joining together to celebrate the most extraordinary sites on our planet," said Tia Viering, spokeswoman of the New 7 Wonders campaign.
The Swiss-based nonprofit foundation collected 441 nominations over the Internet since it opened the selection process in 2007.
The foundation then chose the top vote-getter from each country, making a list of 222 sites. The overall list rose to 261 with the inclusion of sites shared by two or more countries — such as Niagara Falls and Lake Superior between Canada and the United States, and the Matterhorn, between Switzerland and Italy.
Votes can be cast until July 7. Registration on the Web site aims to prevent people from voting twice.
The quarterfinalists include some lesser known sites, such as Yasur Volcano on the south Pacific island of Vanuatu or Nigeria's Zuma Rock, a giant monolith in the middle of the African country.
A panel of experts in nature, chaired by Federico Mayor, former chief of UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, will reduce the list to 21 finalists in July.
The seven winners will then be chosen in another round of public voting lasting until 2011, this time by Internet, telephone and text messages.
Around 100 million people voted in the selection of the seven man-made wonders. The winners were the Colosseum, Italy; the Great Wall of China; the Taj Mahal, India; Petra, Jordan; Christ the Redeemer Statue, Brazil; Machu Picchu, Peru; and the Pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico.
"The enthusiasm for the campaign, which brought culture out of dusty corners and back to life on front pages, TV screens and computers everywhere, crossed all social and economic lines," said Viering. "Everyone from schoolchildren to entrepreneurs eagerly participated."
Choosing world wonders has been a continuing fascination over the centuries. UNESCO keeps updating its list of World Heritage Sites, which now totals 878 places.
The New 7 Wonders campaign led by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber aims to promote cultural diversity by supporting, preserving and restoring monuments and natural sites. It relies on private donations and revenue from selling broadcasting rights.
See the list
The full list of nominees is at www.new7wonders.com
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text:
This bandana is 100% cotton. The same print is on the front and back. Each bandana is handmade with love in Honolulu, Hawaii. Every one is unique and the placement of the patterns may differ. This secures with snap buttons at the following sizes.
Small - up to 12 inches
Medium - up to 16 inches
Large - up to 22 inches
Snaps are placed at top of size. For the tied look, you can also fold down the top of the bandana and tie then snap in back.
We recommend measuring your pups neck before selecting a size. Custom sizing available upon request. Before ordering a custom size please email (firstname.lastname@example.com) or DM us on insta (@portsandpaws) for custom orders.
Please hand wash the bandana in mild detergent, air dry and iron as needed for that perfect look.
Please tag us on Instagram @portsandpaws
Leave your pups Insta name at checkout for a shoutout!


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Facebook's Two Faces
Last spring, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg invested in an impressive domain name: internet.org. Then, in August, he posted a video featuring snippets of John F. Kennedy's "Strategy of Peace" speech and blogged that he would "share a rough proposal for how we can connect the next 5 billion people and a rough plan to work together as an industry to get there." With that, Facebook and six corporate partners—including Nokia, Samsung, Qualcomm, and Ericsson—became part of a swelling movement of tech companies declaiming a commitment to connectivity, seemingly moved by the fact that only 2.7 billion of the world's seven billion people have Internet access. In October, Google helped launch the Alliance for Affordable Internet (whose members include Facebook and Ericsson). It is pushing for cheaper Internet access through policy and regulatory reforms.
Behind the focus on the world's unconnected lie some complicated realities. The companies involved tend to emphasize delivering more data to people who already have network access rather than extending communications connectivity to people who have none. And despite Zuckerberg's lofty statements, Facebook in particular is falling short of some of Internet.org's goals: the company isn't investing in network extensions in developing countries, and its business practices, in many cases, have obligated Internet service providers in such places to incur extra costs.
Internet.org is still more of a press release than a plan. But its first formal statement, a 74-page white paper cosigned by base station maker Ericsson and chipset maker Qualcomm, is telling: it sets a goal of delivering data 100 times more efficiently to mobile phones, the devices most Internet newcomers will use to link to the Net.
Increasing efficiency is a perennial goal. And if it makes it possible for ISPs to offer broadband more cheaply, it could make people better off. (Research from the World Bank says that increasing broadband penetration in developing countries by 10 percent boosts their annual economic growth by 1.4 percentage points.) But getting people more data faster is quite a different objective from introducing connectivity in the first place.
Ground truths
Facebook is a major online presence around the world. Take Africa, where it often ranks first or second in popularity among websites. Yet Facebook doesn't have data centers there, which means content generated by Facebook members in Kenya, for example, has to traverse undersea fiber-optic cables to data centers on other continents. That costs local ISPs at least $100 per month for each megabit of traffic. This charge wouldn't apply if Facebook stored user content locally.
Things Reviewed
Alliance for Affordable Internet
The ISPs pass those extra costs on to consumers—which surely can't help Internet expansion efforts on a continent where only 16 percent of people have Internet access, compared with 39 percent worldwide. "It's a bit disingenuous," says PharesKariuki, who runs Angani, a cloud computing startup in Nairobi. "On the one hand, Facebook claims to want to give Africa access through Internet.org, but when it comes to the business decisions they are making, as far as Africans are concerned, I have not seen anything that reflects that value yet." (It is worth noting, however, that Akamai, the Web optimization service, is establishing infrastructure in more and more African locations. To the extent that Facebook uses Akamai's service, it reduces the extra costs that ISPs in those regions would incur.)
As part of Internet.org, Zuckerberg published a white paper titled "Is Connectivity a Human Right?" in which he wrote that the company has "invested more than $1 billion to connect people in the developing world over the past few years." But the details were absent: spent on what, to connect whom, and to what? Through a spokesman, Zuckerberg turned down an interview request. But on closer inspection, that statement apparently means "connect people to Facebook."
Facebook spokesman Derick Mains e-mailed a clarification: the company, he wrote, hasn't invested in any "physical buildout of infrastructure" to connect people. He declined to say where the $1 billion went, giving only one example: Facebook's $70 million purchase of Snaptu, whose technology makes it possible for apps like Facebook's to run on the basic phones that are common in developing countries.
Such acquisitions, of course, are meant to improve Facebook's own operations: the company, like others, is keenly interested in having its service accessible on as many phones as possible. Facebook is also doing important work to develop ways of delivering information more efficiently to smartphones that run the dominant Android operating system, says Jay Parikh, Facebook's vice president for infrastructure.
Facebook will surely come up with technologies that are useful on all kinds of mobile phones. But Ethan Zuckerman, who has helped lead several Web projects in poor countries, says that "to wrap that into a press release that turns Facebook into the savior of the developing world is hard to swallow."
Tapping the airwaves
Other Internet companies have gone much further, funding Internet infrastructure projects that also happen to advance their own interests in getting more people to use their services.
One is in the capital city of Kampala, Uganda, a metropolis where you can get relatively slow connectivity from any of about 10 mobile carriers or Internet service providers. In November, Google announced that it had installed 170 kilometers of fiber-optic lines in Kampala, a major step forward that could enable local carriers and ISPs to provide faster speeds at lower prices. (Fewer than 1 percent of sub-Saharan Africans have fixed broadband, defined by the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union as a data rate of two megabits per second; 11 percent have mobile broadband, defined as 3G or similar service.)
A handful of other projects are meant to provide Internet access where none previously existed at all. One is unfolding in the region around Nanyuki, Kenya, a town at the foot of Mount Kenya. In poor and sparsely populated areas like this, extending fiber makes no sense economically—wireless carriers often fail to recoup their investments in even conventional cellular base stations powered by diesel generators. But in Nanyuki, an experimental low-cost wireless Internet system is radically altering the economics.
It works like this: first, a powerful microwave transmitter delivers a high-bandwidth connection from a fiber terminus to several fixed wireless base stations over tens of kilometers. These base stations retransmit data on unused television frequencies—called "white spaces"—to 40 solar-powered Wi-Fi routers and phone-recharging stations in schools, clinics, businesses, and community centers. The Nanyuki apparatus already serves 20,000 people, and this capacity is set to triple. Most important, it does so for less than $5 per user per month—5 percent of the region's average annual income
of $1,200.
The company behind this effort is Microsoft, but Google has just completed a similar trial to provide bandwidth to schools in Cape Town, South Africa. Companies are testing many other white-space efforts around the world. The impact could be large: what many places need is simple access to the airwaves, which is frequently restricted by national governments. "If you look around the world—whether in the U.S. or the Philippines—the issues around digital inclusion and universal access are mainly policy challenges," says Paul Garnett, director of Microsoft's technology policy group.
Reaching the remotest
But white spaces are only as good as the base stations and power supplies at the farthest endpoints. Vanu Bose, CEO of a company called Vanu that develops cheap cellular base stations, tells the story of an enterprising man in Zambia who collects cell phones every morning from his fellow villagers. He then drives three hours to a spot where he can get a signal from a cellular tower—and switches on all the phones so they can ingest all the text messages and voice mails that have accumulated since the previous day's excursion.
This workaround is a reminder that there are still more than 200 million people in Africa alone who don't even have the most basic cellular phone service. For Zambia, Bose has developed what he claims is the lowest-power base station on the market: a rugged unit that can connect to the Internet in a number of ways, including microwave links, satellite links, and white spaces, and serve up access to 1,000 villagers per node. All it needs is 50 watts of power from solar panels, with a few watts left over for a communal phone-charging dock. This provides very basic voice and data service and maybe one low-bandwidth Wi-Fi hot spot.
Broadband it ain't. But such service can be transformational—enabling families to stay in touch, emergency medical aid to be summoned, educational materials to be delivered. "Internet.org is all about higher-capacity networks and more bandwidth," Bose says. "But we shouldn't think about bandwidth first but connectivity of any kind first. They are very different things. One communications transaction per day is infinitely better than zero."
Beyond hyperefficient setups like Bose's, Google has prototyped a new concept: fleets of solar-powered balloons in the stratosphere, networking among one another and beaming Internet connectivity to far-flung rural areas at speeds comparable to 3G. It's been criticized as a marketing stunt, and it may not even work. But in contrast to Facebook's effort to increase data efficiency, "at least it's funky and new, at least it's interesting, at least it's ambitious," says Ethan Zuckerman, who today is director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT's Media Lab.
Facebook says its focus is in the right place, and that helping more people who already own phones to afford data plans is a crucial job. That's why the broad outlines of Internet.org involve figuring out how to deliver data more efficiently, in part through new business models. "A good way to look at it is that it's a first step, and a really hard problem to solve," says Aaron Bernstein, a former Qualcomm executive who is now a director of mobile partnerships at Facebook. And all the companies and organizations promoting and working toward Internet connectivity agree that there will be no silver bullet. "Only a lot of lead bullets," as Facebook's Parikh puts it.
But Facebook must shoot those bullets at the right targets. If the company really wants to make access more affordable, it can make sure its data is in the countries where people are using the service. If it really wants to connect more people, it can fund and support cutting-edge wireless networks. As John F. Kennedy said about the Peace Corps, 24 years before Zuckerberg was born: "Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past."
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