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Art In Conversation
LINDA MARY MONTANO with Charles Duncan
On the occasion of her exhibition From Chakras to Glands at the Muroff Kotler Visual Arts Gallery, SUNY Ulster (October 13 – November 11, 2011) and the release of her video Starved Survivors, performance and video artist Linda Mary Montano welcomed Charles Duncan to her hometown of Saugerties, NY to talk about her current work, Catholic reawakening, and aging.
Linda Mary Montano: I always begin with a prayer and we both close our eyes during the interview. Is that okay with you, Charles?
Charles Duncan (Rail): Of course. Please begin.
Montano: Holy Spirit, you are the teacher, you are the talker, you are the inspirer, and you are the artist; so enlighten us so that we can feel our own understanding and then help vibrate our wisdom with the wisdom of the readers. We ask this. Amen.
Rail: Amen. Since the 1970s you've been a central figure in art/life performance art. In your 1981 book Art in Everyday Life you spell out directions for performing living art. Can we approach today's conversation as a living art performance? If so, what does that entail?
Montano: Wish, intention, and will. So there's the wish that today's event is art, then there's the intention that it is a right-brained sacred activity, and there's the action of literally feeling and transmuting anything in the way of making the wish, intention, and will operative.
Rail: So we agree that this is a performance. You are well-recognized as a participant in feminist dialogue of the 1970s, but today I think we could say that you're more involved in an art/theology dialogue. Presently you are engaged in a trinity of interesting artistic pursuits. One is an exhibition, another is an ongoing performance as Mother Teresa, and the third is a recently launched video titled Starved Survivors. Let's start by talking about your exhibition at the Muroff Kotler Visual Arts Gallery at SUNY Ulster, in Stone Ridge, NY.
Montano: The exhibition is 14 Years of Living Art. Actually it's called From Chakras to Glands. It was conceived after I completed 14 Years of Living Art, which is based on the seven chakras. In 1984 I began a seven-year chakra study. After the first seven years I got so enamored of discipline and repetition and loved all the colored clothes I was wearing that I repeated it another seven years. The back story is that I was living in a yoga ashram run by my teacher, Dr. R. S. Mishra. He also has a spiritual name, Shri Brahmananda Saraswati. His knowledge was stupendous and when he taught the seven chakras I became so enamored with the beauty of this inner world that I appropriated, borrowed, commodified it in my own Catholic, female, and limited way by making art of his teachings. Because the theology is so deep, it's so multifaceted, it's so extremely complex, I only touched the tip of the beauty of the chakra system. I created a piece where for seven years I wore one-colored clothes, I did private disciplines, I talked in a different accent each year with everyone except my blood family, I listened to one note that I chose for each of the chakras—a different one each year—and lived in a colored room five hours a day. It's all spelled out on my website. Externally I went to the New Museum once a month and read palms and tarot cards in a colored room which they repainted each year. Out of that exploration came clothing and ephemera and relics that now appear in the show at the Muroff Kotler Visual Arts Gallery and this is the third retrospective of 14 Years of Living Art. The first was in Maine. Carolyn Eyler curated this. Another was in Montreal, curated by Jennifer Fisher, and this one was curated by Susan Jeffers. I love working with curators who give input and help me see my work so beautifully. I'm very happy with this show: it's colorful, it's beautiful, it's bright, and filled with work from then and a new piece which includes the seven saris my best friend, Dr. Aruna Mehta from India, gave me which just happen to be the seven colors of the chakras. The room is a kaleidoscope of beauty.
Rail: In the exhibition we travel from youth to old age and I was intrigued by the altered clothing created with Luba Donskoj called the "Seven Children I Never Had." It was curious because these were clothes you obviously did not wear during 14 Years of Living Art.
Montano: Let me explain. I have piles of clothes—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white. And then seven jackets—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white—and seven skeletons; small skeletons wearing the seven jumpsuits I wore and then, coming around the corner, there are seven little baby jumpsuits with colored scarves. These baby suits are a collaboration between me and the outsider artist Luba Donskoj, who was my mentor, my friend, and a great inspiration. She lived in Kingston, New York and was an Armenian person put in a displaced persons camp in the Second World War. She was a fabulous genius and totally in the moment at all times as an artist, creating art continually, day and night.
Rail: I believe she was one of only three people out of 3,000 who survived a train bombing during World War II.
Montano: I am childless, I am 69 years old, and Susun Weed in her book on menopause says that women who have not had children need to deal with that. I deal with it in my art and I also dealt with it literally in Los Angeles one day. I saw a Korean family with a very small child going into a McDonald's and the mourning rose up in my throat so strong that I almost fainted. I was post-menopausal and I knew that I would never give birth and I think that it is important to mourn this loss and I think a woman who does not have children really feels that at one point. And as we age there's also that question, "Who's going to take care of me?" I think those seven little empty baby jumpsuits are poignant with the scent of beauty, loss, innocence, abortion; it's multifaceted.
Symbolically the skeletons wearing my jumpsuits are complex; they're not just skeletons. I'm always interested in death, but why was I working with so many skeletons back then? Was it because I lost my job? Felt empty? I guess not, because soon after I made the skeleton installations I found out that I was clinically diagnosed with osteoporosis. So art is often a harbinger of the future, of the past, and of the present, and is a curer and a healer and a place to vent, a place to get things out and shown and shared and when the heartstrings of the artist touch the heartstrings of the viewer some dynamite goes off and great things happen.
Rail: As with the seven chakras and seven glands, the number seven also has strong Roman Catholic associations: the sacraments, the deadly sins, the seven joys of Mary. So, as you returned to Catholicism, this theme worked pretty well for you.
Montano: Also the seven sorrows of Mary. I returned to the Catholic Church 15 years ago, slowly, slowly, and started going to very fundamentalist Catholic preachers, teachers, and priests who laid the law down. No yoga, no palm reading, no tarot, no chakras, no nothing. So in response I've written something called "Roman Catholic Performance Artist Manifesto: An Email Sent to Pope Benedict," which you can read on my blog. And also I changed my focus from chakras to glands, and it's a happy change, and I hope that it's also an indication that my newfound Catholicism is a happy kind of overlay on my once wild, crazy, narcissistic, diva-like, and selfish life. I'm trying to be more generic and not ruffle feathers anymore. We all have glands but maybe swords would be drawn over the chakra inferences that I once made?
Rail: A very rich character or persona you've developed and performed recently is Mother Teresa. At this year's Art in Odd Places festival as keynote speaker you performed as Mother Teresa. Also you have a video recalling a dream where you were Mother Teresa and more intensely, near the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa, you did three-hour performances as Mother Teresa on August 25, 26, and 27, 2010, at the Empire State Building. Perhaps you could talk a little about those performances.
Montano: Well, it's again art about my life. I have dystonia, which is a movement-disordered, brain-sourced physical and chronic medical condition that is focused in my neck but is not all over my body. I don't need deep brain stimulation with implants in my chest and wiring to the brain, which many people have, but I do get multiple Botox shots in my neck. So once, about four years ago, in the throes of spasm and twisting and shrinking and turning I said, "I feel just like Mother Teresa." That day, art was born out of illness. Art is often born out of many, many things—lust and love and passion and sex. My recipe has often been the macabre, the underground, the dearth, the death, the suffering, and more suffering because I'm Catholic-trained and that's where my food of contemplation often originated from—although as a returnee I'm learning that there was not just a crucifixion but also a resurrection and that's offering me a new way to pray and see. Mother Teresa became one of my many art personas which I began exploring in 1975 when I sat in a studio for a year with a video camera and interviewed myself talking as seven different people who came out of me, and I call that exploration Creative Schizophrenia. I correlated those seven people with the seven chakras at the time. There was a nun, a nurse, a doctor, a jazz singer, a hula dancer, and many others. So it wasn't unusual for me to do a persona, but what's different about this is that a few years ago I was Bob Dylan and now Mother Teresa. I was Jill Johnston. These are real people, not fabrications, and I think it indicates that I am getting closer to being the real me.
Rail: Two personas in Learning to Talk, the video featuring the seven different characters, are recurrent types for you: healers and nuns. One is Sister Rose Augustine, and the other persona is a doctor, Dr. Jane Gooding, a British neurosurgeon interested in shamanism. In some ways Mother Teresa draws these themes together for you. She's Albanian by birth and worked within the Catholic Church but the habit by which she is recognized is a white and blue Indian sari, so this is a strong idea for you, overlaying Indian culture and Catholicism. The idea of healing has also long been an interest of yours. Mother Teresa's role was that of healer. And, again, the idea of mother itself has resonance. Mother Teresa took on the mantle of Mother only when she began her own missionary, the Missionaries of Charity. Not only was she the mother to other nuns within her order but she was literally a mother to people in the street to whom she provided nourishment.
Montano: Well, the nun in Learning to Talk was art-driven and had that old-time cynicism, mocking Catholicism in a sense, in that she's telling how to sin, how not to sin, and what sin is. It's the old Linda. It's Linda before some sort of realization of getting my own theological act together which comes late in life, I think. So my version of Mother Teresa does not break rules or poke fun at Catholicism the way Sister Rose Augustine did. My Mother Teresa blesses whereas Sister Rose kind of prods—prods belief and prods native intelligence and invokes Marx—you know, that religion is the opiate of the masses stuff.
Rail: Your performances as Mother Teresa certainly do not embrace camp and they're not ironic. They're actually quite profound and the response of viewers is interesting.
Montano: Well, by not pushing against the envelope of religion through her I'm stepping aside and I'm letting myself bless. Blessing is one of the permissions of Catholics in the Charismatic movement, of which I'm a member. I'm not going to call it a sect—it's not a sect—it's a group of people who are sometimes seen as laughable outsiders in the Catholic Church and not always embraced. We talk in tongues, we bless, we sing, there's prophecy. It's a contemporary version of the early church, stripped of a lot of the things that have gotten in the way of real spirituality. My art always prepares me for my life, and I'm afraid to go around blessing and praying with people in real life, but my version of Mother Teresa does it in disguise—I'm doing it disguised as Mother Teresa whereas I believe I'm also imitating my adopted mother from India, Dr. Mehta, who was a healer and a great, great influence on me. I'm not sure how long I will have to perform Mother Teresa to learn how to feel comfortable by being a blessing and presence. We shall see.
Rail: For those who see your performances, your version of Mother Teresa is truly uncanny and the likeness can be quite disconcerting. When you performed in front of the Empire State Building you had look-alike bodyguards based on Robert Palmer's music video, "Addicted to Love." You surrounded yourself with these women who were dressed in black and wore sunglasses. And during performances strangers came up to you on the street and were blessed, really approaching you as the actual Mother Teresa, when of course they knew she had died several years earlier. And I'm just curious why you chose the Empire State Building, because there was some controversy about trying to get the blue and white colors of her order projected onto the Empire State Building as a tribute to her on her birthday, although that was not realized.
Montano: Yeah, I did it because there's a Catholic group led by Bill Donohue who—whenever anything anti-Catholic happens, he rouses the forces. He let the Catholic world know that they weren't going to turn the Empire State Building blue and white so I got the feeling…call…impetus… that Mother Teresa had to be there and I asked through the Franklin Furnace listserv for some artists to work with me as bodyguards—not bodyguards—as collaborators. They were four totally fabulous protectors and caregivers: Andrea Dominquez, Leah Aron, Zhenesse Heinemann, and Miss Toni Silver. We were there three days, three hours a day, and on August 26, Mother Teresa's actual birthday, a man from India came up to me on the "receiving line" and told me, "My son was adopted from Mother Teresa in India 15 years ago. She, herself, presented him to me and today I would like you to give him your blessing." I was moved beyond the beyond and also had entered that place of suspended belief that almost all of us there had reached. I was truly going to bless that beautiful boy. What I learned is that the need for "blessings" is universal and touches a soul chord in us all. Had I had children, I think I would have daily placed my hand on their heads and said, "I bless you, Mitchell and Mary." Perhaps we should occupy toys and bless instead?
Rail: Your performances as Mother Teresa with entourage really were quite moving.
Montano: It looks simple but we worked for months and months and months on the costumes and what we were going to do and it was fabulous. We had such a good time, and what happens in art, and I'm finding this more and more—I really, really need to have a building where I live with other people who want to collaborate—for a long time, a little time—because what happens is we do this phenomenal piece and we're in New York three days doing this work—they're New Yorkers but I come down and we do this work—and then I go away and they go away and we miss each other. It's been happening to me all the time and it makes me almost regret performing or doing my work because there's this coming in, doing it, going. So I'm thinking about that a lot and I'm thinking about the cost of showing and telling and then leaving, or communicating and feeling and creating and then the creating of dissolution, the ending, how things end and then we all go our own way, and it's not much fun because we get very close and we want to stay together. It's time to have a co-op or a building where we all live together. Is that called a convent? Monastery? Let's do it.
Rail: Well, for about 20 years you have run the Art/Life Institute in Kingston and you created a Summer Saint Camp that sounds like a lot of fun and has been quite interesting. Is that something you still operate and enjoy doing?
Montano: In 1984 I decided, when I started Seven Years of Living Art, that I would like to share my love of performance—have a school—and so I created Summer Saint Camp and put the ad out in Franklin Furnace asking for participants. Martha Wilson's performance site has given birth to so many of us. I put the call out and each year someone came up to Kingston and lived and collaborated with me for two weeks and they got documented as performance artists and performance Saints. The Summer Saint Camp went on and on and on and stopped for a while. A few years ago I revised it and the time commitment has changed.
Rail: What kind of things would someone experience at Summer Saint Camp?
Montano: The rules were ascetic rules—you know, how much toilet paper, water, what food, silence, blindfolded experiences. It was a combination of having been a nun myself for two years—not really a nun, but a novice in the Maryknoll Sisters. I like that life, I like discipline, and I love being mother superior. I love being the boss.
Rail: So it was outrageously colorful asceticism? [Laughs.]
Montano: Yes, it was this mix of the past with an art twist.
Rail: Very recently, you released the video Starved Survivors which is a contemplation on Dante's Inferno. As always—not as always—but in many of your recent moving image works, you combine dream imagery with fairy tales, biographical sketches, psychological studies, a bit of theology, and wrap it all into a very interesting narrative. In this work you appear at two different ages: as Orphan Girl and as the wizened female elder who counsels Orphan Girl. You assume the roles of both Virgil and Dante as you descend into rings of contemporary Hell.
Montano: I'm extremely excited about this tape. I really feel it's my invitation to stop making them. I like listening to my intuition and my intuition is saying, "You did what you were here to do on this planet," and I feel that this tape and Mitchell's Death tape and a few others have my voice, my thinking, my heart, and I had to make a lot of other tapes to get to this one. It is a healing of the dark, a healing of hell, and a healing of the negative, a healing of the unspoken, a healing of the putrid, a healing of guilt, and a healing of the sins, my own sins, and the sins of the current universe. Not everything's in it, but I've mentioned a lot of current trespasses! I mention tons of sins. I remember being extremely excited about the Divine Comedy in college and this chance to imitate and repeat and use this descent into darkness as a path to healing has excited me so much that I know that it was also a poem that came out of my pen, not out of me. I was the pen the poem came out of, so to speak. It was not thought about, it was not sweat over, there were not many versions. It just came.
Rail: It poured forth.
Montano: Poured forth, yes.
Rail: In Starved Survivors you offer some new circles of contemporary Hell rife with a lot of sociopolitical statements. I should actually point out what appears within Dante's lower circles of Hell. The eighth circle specifically. Tarot reading. So it's a good thing you're not doing that anymore. Also wallowing in the eighth circle of Hell are impersonators.
Montano: Oooooohhhhhhh… Now I'm going to have guilt!
Rail: But of course only when impersonation is invoked for deception and personal gain.
Montano: Now I feel better—I think!
Rail: Another current interest played out in your performances is the brain.
Montano: I've become interested in the brain because I have a brain disorder. Dystonia originates in the brain's wiring. I was extremely inspired by Jill Bolte Taylor's video of her left brain stroke, and then in my research I found that Taylor, my meditation teacher Dr. Mishra, and Father Bede Griffith, had left brain strokes which left them with similar sensations of euphoria, ecstasy, delight, love, and compassion. Their new realities were absolutely fine with life and presence and love. They didn't need the attachments of left-brain input. Having had a small left brain stroke myself, I did not end up with these wonderful gifts of supreme compassion and enlightenment and love, but it made me interested in thinking about how artists use their right brain for similar types of ecstatic inspiration. The left brain is the filter brain, the brain of thinking and analyzing and being self-centeredly concerned with products, shopping, commodities whereas the right brain is the brain of poetry and flight. Now this is very, very fundamental, kindergarten medical thinking, but the stroke conditions of these three people did help me to make an analogy—artists are journeyers and seers who are able to choose the right brain as a pathway, a vocation, and job description and, as a result, open the door to the sacred. Artists are called to not only hang out and be in the right brain but to invite the viewer to go there to have some relief from the pressures of everyday life.
Rail: Does that have particular resonance with endurance art?
Montano: Endurance cuts through habituation and the longer one endures, the better the journeying. The brain's need for thought and action and worry and planning is endless and endurance gives carte blanche to the brain for unadulterated presence so we can be in life instead of doing life. When I endure, I don't shop for new life experiences, I rest in the minute. We are programmed towards consuming life instead of loving life, consuming life instead of sitting with the pain, sitting with the distress, sitting with the medical report, sitting with the divorce, sitting with the death of the husband. Endurance is good medicine just like art is good medicine. Each artist chooses their drug of choice including performance, painting, sculpture, video, poetry, cooking, taking care of a grandmother. And we do it with great attention and intention, music, singing, etc. Life is not just about worrying but worry and life issues can be brought over to the right brain for cleansing, purification, and mixing. That is the art/life formula. Both my grandmother and mother were great at this practice and I watched them closely.
Rail: On a collective level, do you view the Occupy Wall Street protests as a form of collective endurance art and do the people who participate in them go through the same processes?
Montano: You said it. Why do I cry when I see these crowds telling the truth en masse and enduring for justice? It is the most powerful performance going for sure.
Rail: Where else do you want to go with our conversation?
Montano: To the aging performance artist's body, maybe. Performance artists are just as vain and haughty and diva-ish and concerned and caught up with this disintegration of our physical bodies and are just as tempted to buy into what happens in L.A. to aging actresses, so it's really interesting to be aging and either avoid the body betrayal or say, "Look at my lines, look at my forehead, look at my face, look at my no-hair." Our bodies are our material, our bread and butter, and we have to think about this mirror stuff which takes time and tears and humor, so we go off to the sidelines and say, "How am I going to show myself?" How can we find new ways to present ourselves honestly and not honestly, to hide behind lifts and scrubs and peels and injections? And if we don't do that, performance artists sometimes show the truth of the betrayals of the body.
Rail: As a feminist artist, there is a great weight perhaps. There's a debate about how honestly you present yourself. If the female body is the subject at a younger stage, how do you present it and embrace it later on? Do you do that honestly?
Montano: Yeah, it's really interesting. Not to name names, but some artists literally presented this dialogue as public surgery and others as mutilation. My colleagues and I are studying each other without saying, without admitting, our dilemma, and I would love to see lots of art panels and conferences with all of us coming out nude. No nothing, no make-up, no hiding. Like the Naga female and male monks in India who actually live without clothes. They are the true artists and I always wanted to be one of them, so I may actually have to go there and do this one! By acting as Mother Teresa, who is old and shrinking and small and wrinkled and not caring about looks or wrinkles or anything except to show love, I am allowed to present the wrinkled Linda and I'm not ashamed of the aging me. You see, my art always prepares me for my life and so now because I present myself as Mother Teresa, I am preparing to present myself as me. I am rehearsing. What great healing medicine art is.
Rail: As Judith Butler said, we do tend to shield the self and its identity from the "predatory encroachments of its contaminated other."
Montano: I want ice cream.
Linda Mary Montano: Always Creative, a retrospective of Linda's work, curated by Janet Dees, in collaboration with the artist, will be shown at SITE Santa Fe, February – May 2013.


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Plurilingual Approaches to Spatial Education – Perspectives of Primary Schools in the German Context (2016)
'Plurilingual Approaches to Spatial Education – Perspectives of Primary Schools in the German Context' is a theory-based didactic study which centers on the role of migratory languages in primary geography education. Hereby, theories of space, concept development, and plurilingualism are discussed while migratory languages are recognized and actively applied in the content-based teaching of primary geography classes. A language-sensitive approach to plurilingual concept development processes is fostered in spatial education. The paper can be divided into three parts: Firstly, established theories on space, language, and plurilingualism are constituted. Highlighting possible interlinkages, a symbiosis of the different fields is developed for the educational context. Secondly, a didactical model is derived in order to be able to apply theory guided discussions to daily educational practices. Thereby, the approach of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is incorporated into the model. Subsequently, the newly generated didactic model is intensively discussed in all its complexity. In relationship to the model, an exemplary CLIL learning sequence is developed. Thirdly, this best-practice learning sequence is implemented in the field of primary school education in Germany. This process is accompanied by scientific research in order to gain insights into the concept development processes of eight-year-old learners. Here, development is understood as emergence rather then progression. Significant concept development processes as well as the core concept are retrieved through the application of the Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). The paper closes with a critical discussion on the relevance of meaning-making processes in plurilingual spatial education and their prospects in the realm of geography didactics. Key words: Space, Plurilingualism, Concept Development, CLIL, Grounded Theory Methodology, Plurilingual Spatial Education

subset: commoncrawl


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Short description of La Gueila Chinguetti
Offering a restaurant, La Gueila Chinguetti is located in Chinguetti. Free WiFi access is available.
Each room here will provide you with air conditioning and a patio. You can enjoy garden view from the room. Extras include bed linen.
At La Gueila Chinguetti you will find a garden and a terrace. Other facilities offered at the property include a shared lounge, a tour desk and luggage storage. The property offers free parking.


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The great feast of Theophany means "a showing forth of God," for when the Lord came to the Jordan to be baptized by St. John, God the Father spoke, the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, and the incarnate Second Person of the Trinity bowed His Head and went into the waters to sanctify all of Creation. This was a revelation of the Holy Trinity. Aptly, the life of St. Theophan is also a showing forth of God, and wonderful, too.
St. Theophan (a.d. 1815-1894) was born in Russia, the son of a priest. He studied in seminary and was made a monk in Kiev before he finished his theological studies at the Kiev Theological Academy. Because of his talents he was made a teacher and administrator in the Kiev-Sophia Theological School, and in 1859 was made the Bishop of Tambov. He was a great teacher and practicer of the Hesychast Jesus Prayer. After six years of service as a bishop, he asked to retire to the Vysha Hermitage, where he spent the next 29 years in seclusion, finally as a hermit. His extensive writing of books and letters affected the lives of thousands. St. Theophan speaks most directly to us in our modern times.


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The following essay was originally published in Baseball Prospectus 2000.
"Who of us would not be glad to lift the veil behind which the future lies hidden, to cast a glance at the next advances of our science and at the secrets of its development during future years? What particular goals will there be toward which the leading sabermetric spirits of coming generations will strive? What new methods and new facts in the wide and rich field of sabermetric thought will the new years disclose?"
Here at Baseball Prospectus, we're not completely immune to the general fascination with the recent turn of the world's odometer. So, with this edition marking the final year of the second millennium, let's take a look forward at what the third holds for us seamheads.
Our inspiration comes from a similar effort nearly 100 years ago. In 1900, a mathematician named David Hilbert addressed the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris and delivered what was to become history's most influential speech about mathematics. Hilbert outlined 23 major problems to be studied in the coming century. In doing so he expressed optimism about the field, sharing his feeling that unsolved problems were a sign of vitality, encouraging more people to do more research.
The above quote is, in fact, a bastardization of the opening statements of Hilbert's speech. Hilbert referred to mathematics instead of sabermetrics and spoke in terms of "centuries" instead of "years." Given the relative youth of sabermetrics and baseball analysis compared to math, it's appropriate to use a period of smaller scope than Hilbert. The quotes that appear periodically throughout this essay are similarly taken from Hilbert's speech and altered to refer to baseball analysis.
Hilbert's address was much more than a collection of problems. It outlined a philosophy of mathematics, and the problems put forth were ones relevant to that philosophy. By putting forth our own "Hilbert problems" for baseball analysts of the future, Baseball Prospectus is outlining our philosophy for how and why this kind of work ought to be done–our attempt to provide inspiration and guidance to the baseball community at large.
"It is difficult and often impossible to judge the value of a problem correctly in advance; for the final award depends upon the gain which science obtains from the problem. Nevertheless we can ask whether there are general criteria which mark a good sabermetric problem."
We used the following criteria to guide our selection of the baseball research problems for the future:
1) To be relevant, sabermetrics must inform a decision: data for data's sake is not useful. Bill James once defined sabermetrics as the search for objective knowledge about baseball. While this is still true, it doesn't cut to the heart of the matter. A list of players, cross-referenced by preferred breakfast cereal and astrological sign, is objective knowledge, but it isn't what anyone would call useful information. There is already too much irrelevant data clogging up the airwaves and the Web. Baseball analysis must focus on knowledge that can lead to an action or a commitment of resources (time, effort, money) by someone who wants to study the game. The decision can be anything from in-game tactical moves to judging player acquisitions. It can be prospect evaluation or an MVP or Hall of Fame ballot. It can even be some personal idiosyncratic award for things you might think are important. But, in order to produce useful information, you have to start with a relevant question that needs answering.
2) The industry of baseball encompasses more than just the action on the field. To be relevant to the sport as it's practiced today, baseball analysis must expand to explicitly consider the economic, social, technological, competitive and governmental contexts in which the game operates.
3) The amount of potential information is larger than the amount of information that is available today. In raising some of these research questions, we acknowledge that the resources to answer them may not yet be available. It may be years or decades before there's sufficient effort, technology or understanding to create a systematic collection of observations needed to resolve some of these issues. However, by recognizing the importance of the problem itself, we can hope to guide the efforts to acquire new information in a manner that is consistent with the problems we want to solve.
4) Numbers alone are not data, and solving equations is not analysis. Some data can be expressed as numbers, and judicious use of mathematics can yield analytical insights, but we should not abandon a line of reasoning for lack of quantification or a failure to find a tidy formula.
"If we would obtain an idea of the probable development of sabermetric knowledge in the immediate future, we must let the unsettled questions pass before our minds and look over the problems which the science of today sets and whose solution we expect from the future. To such a review of problems the present day, lying at the meeting of the centuries, seems to me well adapted. For the close of a great epoch not only invites us to look back into the past but also directs our thoughts to the unknown future."
Baseball Prospectus' Hilbert Problems for the Next Century
1) Separating defense into pitching and fielding.
This is one of the oldest and most vexing problems in baseball analysis. Pitching and fielding are so intertwined that they seem impossible to separate. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
2) Evaluating interrelationships among teammates' defensive performances.
Does having a good shortstop make the second baseman or third baseman better? Does it show up in the numbers? Does a Gold Glove center fielder cut into the apparent defensive performance of a corner outfielder? Can a poor defensive player's shortcomings be covered for by pairing him with a stellar glove man at an adjacent position?
3) Measuring the catcher's role in run prevention.
In Baseball Prospectus 1999, Keith Woolner presented a compelling case that catchers do not have a noticeable effect on a pitcher's performance. If there is no "game-calling" effect, what impact does a catcher have? Is it primarily controlling the running game? If so, how much of that is attributable to the pitching staff? Is it in preventing wild pitches and passed balls, thus giving the pitcher more confidence to keep the ball low? What about reading a pitcher's physical state and helping to keep his pitch count low? We've made some important first steps, but there's still a lot we don't know about evaluating catcher defense. (Ed. note: A follow-up essay on catchers' defense, by Keith Woolner, appears in the soon-to-be-released Baseball Prospectus 2004.)
4) Mapping career trajectories for defensive performance.
The phenomenon of the "Age 27" peak for offensive performance is well documented. However, while we still struggle with developing a reliable assessment of defensive performance, little attention has been paid to how a player's defensive skills change as he ages. Do a player's defensive skills peak earlier in his career? Later? Do strong arms last longer than quick feet? Does defensive longevity vary by position, or by the particular mix of skills a player has? Do difficult positions such as shortstop and catcher wear a player out faster?
5) Making an assessment of relative positional difficulties.
Much is made of the "defensive spectrum," where positions are thought of as if they were laid out on a ruler, with shortstop at the high/difficult end of the spectrum and first base at the low end. This makes intuitive sense and matches well with the observed differences in offensive performance: Generally, there are fewer good-hitting shortstops from which to choose, which implies a lower average offensive performance level for all shortstops. That also means that first basemen generally out-hit shortstops.
6) Quantifying the value of positional flexibility.
A player who plays two positions at a league-average level gives his manager flexibility, both in setting up the team's roster and using in-game strategies. Positional value methods that are based on playing time at a position are inadequate because they would penalize a player for time spent at the lesser position, even if a comparable offensive player who plays full-time at the more difficult position was unable to play the easier position. Because roster spots are scarce, a team gets value from a player's ability to play multiple positions, but we do not yet have an understanding of how much value there is to having a Mark Loretta or Jose Hernandez on your roster.
7) Measuring the value of non-range-based aspects of defense.
This means measuring skills like an outfielder's arm, a middle infielder's ability to hang in while turning the double play or a first baseman's ability to scoop low throws. To date, the effort spent on assessing defensive performance has focused on converting batted balls into outs, essentially measuring a player's range and sure-handedness. Fielding percentage, range factor, Sherri Nichols' Defensive Average, STATS, Inc.'s Zone Rating–these all focus on opportunities to turn batted balls into outs. While important, there are other, less-studied aspects to baseball defense.
We'd want to start measuring the impact of an outfielder's arm, both in terms of cutting down baserunners and whether an outfielder with a cannon-arm reputation intimidates runners. We'd like to establish ways to determine a middle infielder's ability to turn the double play, a first baseman's ability to handle poor throws, an outfielder's reliability in hitting the cutoff man and a catcher's success in blocking the plate. These are all non-range-based factors in defense, they're all important skills and they've all been ignored, for the most part.
8) Evaluating the impact on offensive performance of changing defensive positions up/down the defensive spectrum.
This is the flip side to understanding the defensive spectrum. Here, we ask whether a player's expected offensive production is influenced by the position he's asked to play, and whether changing his position would alter his performance. Would Jeff Bagwell be the same hitter had he stayed at third base? Or Matt Williams at shortstop? Ron Gant at second base? How much is a player helped by moving to an easier position?
9) Predicting the impact on career length from changing positions.
How much longer are players effective after changing positions, particularly if they're moved to an easier position? Is the trade-off in preventing an offensive decline worth the sacrifices you might be making on defense? Do you burn a productive catcher out by leaving him behind the plate and having him retire with knee problems at 32, or are you better off moving him to first base and keeping his bat on the team until he approaches 40? Mike Piazza would like to know the answer, and so would we.
10) Projecting minor league pitchers accurately.
One of the holy grails of sabermetrics is creating useful projections of major league pitcher performance based on minor league performance. While strikeout-to-walk ratios and other means of assessment can give us rough guides to good and bad young pitchers, we're nowhere near the level of certainty we want to achieve. Given the lack of progress from purely statistical approaches, this would be an ideal place to marry the analysis of player-development professionals with sabermetric methods to develop a more powerful predictor than either approach has produced alone.
11) Creating a way to better analyze mechanics.
The precision and consistency needed to be an effective major league pitcher is exceptional. Minute variations in a pitcher's release point, arm angle and body position make the difference between Cy Young and Matt Young. While game film and frame analysis help capture nuances in a pitcher's delivery that escape the naked eye, there's much more that could be done. Advances in data storage make it possible to record and analyze every pitch thrown in every game by a pitcher. Cataloging this information, and measuring the angles, velocities and timing of movements could open up new worlds to help instructors improve pitching. Computer-aided analysis could measure consistency in release points. You could help improve a young pitcher's consistency by having him throw 100 fastballs to the same place, and measure the variance around his optimal release point. Pitchers with greater command should see a smaller standard deviation than someone as wild as Brad Pennington. Lessons gained from biomechanics could suggest new delivery methods that improve effectiveness while reducing strain on a pitcher's arm. These kinds of approaches may help identify pitchers who should be converted to knuckleballers, submariners, or other non-traditional delivery styles.
Developmental Strategies
12) Identifying and quantifying good coaching.
Most of sabermetrics focuses on the players, and the largest portion of any remaining attention goes to managers. But a team's coaches influence the game as well, and they have rarely been studied in any systematic way. Hitting and pitching coaches affect the development of young players and may help avoid prolonged slumps for all players. Pitching coaches often influence a manager's use (or abuse) of his pitching staff. Coaches at third base make split-second calls on whether to send a runner home or hold him up. Are they doing a good job? Frankly, we have no evidence on which to base useful assessments yet. We all think Leo Mazzone is doing a great job with the Braves, but how great?
13) Assessing the "coachability" of players.
Professional baseball players, both in the majors and the minors, possess tremendous physical gifts. However, not every "five-tool" player matures into an effective ballplayer. Is the difference in the quality of his talent, his ability to learn, or both? How much patience can be taught to a free-swinger like Garret Anderson? Can you train any player with blazing speed to read pitchers well enough to become a base-stealing threat? Do draft picks who sign late diminish their peak value by missing out on a season's worth of instruction?
14) Assessing developmental strategies for minor league pitchers.
What is the optimal strategy for developing young pitching? What kind of usage pattern and what quantity of work balances the need for experience against the possibility of physical damage? Some teams have studied the issue and come up with innovative approaches; at A-ball, the A's use eight-man rotations, where matched pairs of pitchers pitch every four days with low pitch counts. By contrast, some teams still think young pitchers need to get as many innings as possible. Should a team try to expose a prospect to as many different hitters and parks as possible? Is that good for development, or bad? Was folding the American Association into the Pacific Coast League and the International League good, because it gave Triple-A pitchers more potential opponents and parks to work in, or was it more important to hone their skills against the same seven or nine opposing teams? Are the competitive structures of the minors good for player development or not? What are some potential improvements?
15) Clarifying the win/dollar trade-off preferences for major league decision-makers.
Winning has never been the only thing in baseball. The fact that baseball is a business is not news to anyone reading this book–in fact, it hasn't been news for the last 125 years. As the ultimate decision-maker for a franchise, the owner of a team values two types of outcomes: on-field success and profitability. The relationship of one to the other isn't objectively knowable, as it comes from the personal–or professional–preferences of the owner. It's perfectly rational for an owner to refuse to risk an $80 million payroll for a 10% chance at a World Series, while another would spend $90 million for a 7% chance. The second owner has a higher win-per-dollar trade-off preference than the former, or you could say he's more willing to take risks. For baseball analysis to move to the next level of relevancy for baseball teams, it must be ready to deal with varying preferences and tolerances and account for them rationally in assessing desirable trades, transactions and contracts. (Ed. note: Doug Pappas breaks down teams by marginal wins/dollar in BP 2004, and will further expand on the topic at baseballprospectus.com in the coming weeks.)
16) Creating a framework for evaluating trades.
Whether a trade is a good or bad decision is something that should be assessed based on the information known (or that should have been known) at the time of the trade. Analyzing trades with any consistency is difficult, as there are always several reasons and factors that go into every trade. Salary dumps, stretch-drive pickups, overcoming key injuries, getting rid of a troublemaker or somebody the manager just can't stand, exchanging excess talent at one position to fill some other hole on the team–these have all motivated transactions of various kinds over the years. To be successful, a framework for evaluating trades must be ready to consider financial factors (including the overall health of the club), current and future expected production from the players involved, the team's current and future competitive situation, and the premium ownership places on winning.
17) Determining the value of draft picks, Rule 5 picks, player-to-be-named-later arrangements, and other non-specific forms of compensation in transactions.
The more esoteric forms of compensation in trades are usually ignored, but they must have some real value if teams continue to exchange talent for them. What does a team give up when it signs a Type A free agent? How much is that draft pick worth? Is a typical Rule 5 pick worth the $50,000 and the roster spot? Are teams taking full advantage of the Rule 5 draft? What kinds of PTBNL deals make sense for both teams?
18) Evaluating the effect of short- and long-term competitiveness on attendance and demand elasticity.
Scholars like Andrew Zimbalist and Gerald Scully have done pioneering work in measuring the relationship between on-field success and attendance. Building on that work, we should study second-order effects in more detail, such as the impact of five or more losing seasons on long-term attendance trends. How long does it take attendance to recover from a bunch of lousy seasons in a row? How quickly will fickle fans abandon a former champion? Does fan apathy catch up with a team that consistently contends year after year, but never quite wins the pennant? Is it worth overspending in the short term to build long-term fan loyalty, thus ensuring greater financial resources to devote to the team in the future?
19) Optimizing the competitive ecology of the game.
Some issues are bigger than any single team's problems. The long-term survivability of "small-market" clubs has made headlines in the past couple of years. One theory is that "small-market" teams can't hold onto their own farm-developed talent, which supposedly departs through free agency for major media markets like New York and Los Angeles. The current argument is that the Minnesotas of the world can never retain the players produced by their farm system long enough to contend. However, if we went back to making it easier for teams to retain their own players, you risk creating long-term dynasties like the Yankees of the 1950s, which diminishes interest in baseball in the cities without the dynasty. So what's the best way to achieve league-wide competitiveness?
Strategic Decisions
20) Determining optimal pitcher usage strategies.
Ideally, a manager wants his best pitchers to throw the most and most important (or highest-leverage) innings. However, he also doesn't want to abuse his pitchers' arms, risking short-term fatigue and long-term injury. There's uncertainty about when high-leverage opportunities will present themselves, yet a regular and tolerable workload is necessary to keep any pitcher sharp. Would a return to four-man rotations with stricter pitch counts lead to greater success? Should teams use a designated closer, or use their best reliever in game-critical situations even if they aren't save situations? Does Tony La Russa's ill-fated experiment with the three-inning starter warrant a longer trial? Should relievers throw fewer, longer appearances, or should they be mixed and matched as platoon differentials dictate?
21) Determining optimal roster design.
Any team's range of in-game strategic options originates with the decisions about which players are on the roster, yet the strategies for constructing a roster have undergone little scrutiny. During the season, a team has many objectives that sometimes conflict with one another. Winning the division or qualifying for the postseason is the ultimate goal, but throughout the season there are other smaller goals: seasoning a rookie, sorting out bullpen roles, assessing a player's readiness after an injury. If a team finds itself in contention, should it ignore potential future payoffs and focus on using established veterans deemed most likely to contribute this year? How would the failure to play that rookie impact the team's competitiveness next year or the year after? Is it worthwhile to carry a player whose primary talent is pinch-running? How important is a third-string catcher? Or a second left-handed specialist out of the bullpen?
Tactical Decisions
22) Quantifying the manager's impact on winning.
Bill James published his Guide to Baseball Managers in 1997, and in it set forth some nifty tools for estimating a manager's effectiveness based on seasonal statistics. Careful observation and recording of managerial moves (e.g., roster management, in-game tactics, pitcher usage) set the stage for a detailed assessment of a manager's impact on his team. Unifying this data into a coherent whole is a challenge, but the payoff would be a much better understanding of the value of a manager's contributions to his team.
23) Developing a game-theoretic framework for analyzing elective strategies.
In the offense-crazed world of the late 1990s, it seems quaint to concern ourselves with little-ball strategies like the sacrifice bunt and the hit-and-run. These strategies are widely derided in sabermetrics, largely on the basis of expected-run analysis. Tables, indexed by the number of outs and the location of baserunners, give an expected number of runs scored for the rest of the inning, based on the results of actual games. If expected run scoring declines after a player bats, or given a typical success rate for a play, then the strategy is deemed to be bad. While this approach was an important and useful first step, there are two major problems with it: First, this method yields an answer for a league-average team because it's based on the results of the league as a whole; and second, it ignores the changes in shape of run scoring that can be important for many game contexts.
To truly understand where and when to use these strategies, they must be studied not just with an expected-run analysis, but with a true assessment of how much more likely the game is to be won using such a strategy. There is a branch of mathematics called game theory which is ideally suited for studying not only the direct impact of little-ball strategies on the outcome of games, but the move-countermove nature of two managers trying to gain whatever advantages they can against one another. An in-depth treatment of little-ball strategies that recognizes the true richness of managerial decisions and counter-decisions should be welcomed.
"The deep significance of certain problems for the advance of sabermetric science in general and the important role which they play in the work of the individual investigator are not to be denied. As long as a branch of science offers an abundance of problems, so long is it alive; a lack of problems foreshadows extinction or the cessation of independent development. Just as every human undertaking pursues certain objects, so also sabermetric research requires its problems. It is by the solution of problems that the investigator tests the temper of his steel; he finds new methods and new outlooks, and gains a wider and freer horizon."
The range of interesting avenues of exploration is larger than a single publication–even Baseball Prospectus–can possibly hope to explore. Fortunately, the community of interested and knowledgeable baseball fans and analysts is large and getting larger, and many of these Hilbert problems will be solved by researchers nobody has even heard of yet. We look forward to seeing the solutions, and with them the posing of more interesting questions, in the century to come.
Thank you for reading
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It is hard to believe that just two years ago I was drowning under a pile of prescription refill requests for ADHD medication in a busy pediatric practice. As those who have been reading my blog since its beginning know, I was disturbed by the over-reliance on psychiatric medication to treat complex problems, problems that I increasingly recognized had their origins very early in life. This approach was in effect silencing these children.
I left that practice to devote my time to prevention, both through clinical work with young children and their parents, and teaching. I wanted to bring the wealth of new research at the interface of developmental psychology, neuroscience and genetics, largely coming out of the discipline known as infant mental health, to my colleagues in pediatrics. This research offers opportunity for meaningful intervention in the early years, when the brain is most rapidly growing.
I had a resurgence of that old feeling of despair on Sunday when I read the New York Times Magazine cover story Can You Call a Nine-Year-Old a Psychopath? It was yet another example of over-simplified labeling. Problems that represent a complex interplay of genetics and environment are placed squarely in the child, adding the letters CU-for "callous-unemotional"- to a long list of letter combinations used to label children. The article speaks of teaching empathy to children, but the approach is decidedly lacking in empathy for the child.
Children like the one described in that article are a tangle of complexity. Sensory processing problems, which may be genetic in origin, are often associated with colic, sleep and feeding problems in infancy. Marriages are severely strained. There may be generations of mental illness, sometimes untreated and unrecognized. Parents feel overwhelmed with guilt and torn apart by multiple demands on their time and emotional energy. Treatment involves embracing the messiness of the problem at an early age, even before three, with support for the whole family.
Fortunately I have been given many wonderful opportunities to move this preventive model forward. This work keeps me afloat and hopeful in the face of the type of thinking represented in this article.
Michael Jellinek, president of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, hired me to build a program focused on early childhood social-emotional health. Jellinek was chief of Child Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital for 30 years. He really understands and values this preventive approach to children's mental health.
Most recently I had the honor of being invited by J. Kevin Nugent, director of the Brazelton Institute, to be on the training faculty for the Newborn Behavioral Observation System (NBO). This clinical intervention grew out of the original research of T. Berry Brazelton demonstrating the wide range of individual behaviors of newborns. The NBO was designed as a relationship-building tool used to demonstrate a baby's unique capacities, with an aim to promote a positive connection between parents and children. I will join an amazing group of people who give training sessions to a range of professionals who work with young children and families around the world.
In a previous post, I described a talk given by Robert Anda on the ACES study, a study that offers evidence of the long-term negative effects of stress in early childhood on physical and mental health, and is currently exerting significant influence on social policy. Anda spoke of the United States as a giant nursery of 4.3 million babies. He called upon us to think creatively to get those babies, especially those in an environment of risk, going in healthy direction. The NBO offers a way to do just that.
Another exciting event on the horizon is a parenting conference July 20-21 in Stockbridge, MA co-sponsored by the Austen Riggs Center and Yale Child Study Center. I will present alongside master clinicians and leading researchers in the field of child development. The conference "will examine how cutting-edge findings drawn from psychological, neurobiological and genetic studies on parenting clarify and deepen our understanding." My piece will focus on the child's contribution to the development of the parent. If any readers are interested in attending, I suggest making reservations ASAP. The Berkshires are a popular summer destination!!!
In another post I described of a great experience traveling to Seattle to speak with a group of pediatricians about this work, and our need to embrace a new paradigm of care in order to make use of our position in the lives of young children and families.
The icing on the cake is that this weekend I will have the great privilege of speaking alongside Peter Fonagy to the current fellows in the UMass Boston Infant Parent Mental Health Post Graduate Certificate program. I recently graduated from this terrific program, in which I had the opportunity to work closely with leaders in the field and a great group of fellows from a wide range of disciplines.
Fonagy, a world-renowned clinician and researcher, has had an enormous influence on my work. I learned from him to listen to parents from a stance of non-judgmental curiosity about the meaning of behavior, rather than focusing on "behavior management." His ideas form the basis for my book Keeping Your Child in Mind.
Now rather than feeling like I'm drowning, I often feel like I'm walking on air- exhilarated by the opportunity to work alongside an amazing group of people who share a passion for helping young children and their families in meaningful ways.
Relationships are central to promoting children's healthy emotional development, relationships between caregivers and children as well as between clinicians and caregivers. Perhaps equally important are relationships among colleagues. Two years ago I felt alone and discouraged. Joining in this work with a wonderful group of people, including many that I have not mentioned here, I am hopeful that together our voices will be heard, in turn giving voice to young children and their families.


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Credit Suisse plans to construct 30-storey building to highest LEED standard
In the race to build multimillion-dollar commercial office buildings in downtown Vancouver, the prevailing mantra appears to be a new take on an old expression.
Green is good.
The latest manifestation of a sustainable office building is being proposed by global financial giant Credit Suisse, which is jumping in with a $200-million plan to build a structure that will vie to be among the world's greenest.
Among other things, the building at the corner of Howe and Pender — to be completed by 2015 — is targeted to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum and 'Living Building' certifications with cutting-edge features such as on-site waste water treatment and reuse, energy consumption at a rate about half that of similar towers, a high-efficiency heating and cooling system, storm water retention and reuse, and solar thermal panels.
And tenants will be able to open their windows on warm summer days.
"It will be a very distinctive building," Selwyn Dodd, partner with design group Iredale Group Architecture, said in an interview. "This won't be your cookie-cutter Vancouver office tower."
Credit Suisse, through one of its real estate funds, has secured the 1929 Stock Exchange building, along with an adjacent property on Pender, and is proposing to build the 30-storey, 400,000-square-foot tower incorporating the heritage stock exchange building.
The investment firm is now unveiling plans for its tower, the latest in a growing number of office projects in downtown Vancouver that are aiming for the LEED rating system, a third-party certification and internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. Platinum is the highest rating.
The planned tower is Credit Suisse's first B.C. investment and would be the tallest in the company's real estate inventory of 260 buildings.
There is an open house today at the Terminal City Club, 837 West Hastings, and the group will apply for rezoning within two weeks.
Although constructing a LEED Platinum building will increase construction costs by 10 to 15 per cent, Herbert Meier, director of real estate asset management for Credit Suisse, said building green reduces operating costs and attracts clients seeking out sustainable offices.
"It's not the highest building. It's not on the waterfront. But it's the best package.
"We really believe green buildings are the most sustainable investment."
Franz Gehriger, president of minority investor Swissreal Investments Ltd., said his group will utilize local materials from local contractors as much as possible.
"There's a light manufacturing company in Langley that makes advanced [energy-efficient] LED lights. We're talking with them about making the whole building LED."
Gehriger added: "We believe this is a great way for Credit Suisse's real estate fund to expand into Vancouver, the greenest city in Canada."
Others are also aiming for LEED Gold or Platinum standards.
Last month, the British Columbia Investment Management Corp launched its 24-storey, 745 Thurlow St. office tower, making it the second of three other anticipated major office projects in downtown Vancouver to jump onto a construction timeline.
That project — scheduled for completion in 2015 — follows Oxford Properties' announcement that committed its pension-fund sponsor to build 1021 West Hastings, a 25-storey tower to be built by 2014.
Another building is the 22-storey, 500,000-square-foot office tower that is part of Telus Corp.'s $750-million redevelopment of the entire city block bounded by Robson, Georgia, Seymour and Richards streets, which the company and developer Westbank Projects aim to complete in 2015.
From the Vancouver Sun. September 25, 2011


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As if we're not already overly inclined towards the first or second generation Ford Taurus SHO, an audio company made a rare SHO Wagon and that vehicle is now for sale on eBay. Rather than dropping the SHO 3.0-liter Yamaha V6 and manual transmission into a donor wagon body, this is an original SHO with the wagon body dropped onto it. Stacked with audio equipment and for sale with bids in the low $2,000-range, this could be a steal for someone in the Midwest area. Of course, it needs new paint, has hail damage and was probably driven like a company car. But SHO Wagon! Seller description below.
Seller Description
This is a one-off custom-built fully-loaded SHO station wagon equipped with a 5-speed manual transmission, full black leather interior, power sunroof, power windows, power seats, etc. Ford never built a station wagon, so the rear valance/bumper cover has been customized with the SHO logo. There are a few other "SHO station wagons," but as far as we know they are modified station wagons. This one started out life as an SHO that had the station wagon body welded at all of the factory joints in 1993. It was done for Audiophile Systems as an attention-getting demonstration vehicle. The cost of the stereo system alone cost more than $12,000 and includes: Eclipse 510 CD, AM FM Tuner, DSP/CD Changer Controler, Eclipse ESD 530 Twelve Disc Changer, Eclipse EQS-2000 DDL Sound Processor, Eclipse EQR-2140 DDL Tuner/DSP/CDC Controller (controller removed, and not included) Info on this equipment can be found at: (www.turboegt.com/Cars/Maxima/Audio/Version%201.0/DDL%20Details/DDL%20Details-f.htm) Two Adcom GFA-4404 300 Watt RMS Amps, Two Adcom GFI 4600 Balanced Line Drivers, Audiophile 3.6 Speaker System (Two 1" Tweeters, Two 4" Mid-range, Two 6.5" Woofers), Audiophile 2.5 Speaker System (Two 1" Tweeters, Two 5.25" Mid-Woofers), Four Audiophile 10.1 Subs (Four 10" Subwoofers)..... The vehicle is a very solid, rust-free example, but is no longer a "show vehicle." It is an excellent driving car with more than $4,000 of maintenance recently performed after sitting for 5 years. Including: Axle shaft assembly, inner tie rod ends, a/c O-rings, water pump, timing belt, custom-built cat back exhaust with turbo-tuned high-performance muffler, oil pressure sending unit, platinum spark plugs, and a set of Bridgestone Turanza LS-T 215/60R16 T-rated tires. I was told the clutch has also been replaced (there is no detectable clutch problem, but I do not have proof it was replaced)...... There is some hail damage and parking lot dings, mainly on the driver's side. Car needs to be repainted, but is usable as is. This is a very fast, very strong running vehicle, and very fun to drive. It has been very well cared for. It turns a lot of heads, as many people are aware that Ford never built an SHO wagon. I have an extremely low reserve, as I do not have the time or room to turn this car back into its "show-car" condition. What doesn't work:Interior tailgate release switch (have to use key). One fog light. EATC head (I am currently pursuing fixing this, but cannot guarantee).... Car is located in Dayton, Ohio. I can e-mail photos. Tell me what you'd like to see.
[eBay Motors via Motive]


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Sunday, 16 June 2013 05:04 PM EDT
This year's stock market surge has stalled and the market is too choppy to provide any sort of reassurance. Savings accounts earn practically nothing. Bonds, a traditional haven, seem like a poor choice because interest rates are likely to go up. The stocks people invest in for safe, steady income, like utilities and health care, aren't as cheap as they used to be.
The Associated Press asked five experts where they're putting their money in these uncertain times. Their suggestions are opinions, and you should do your own research before making any decisions.
Blake Howells, portfolio manager and analyst at Becker Capital Management in Portland, Ore.
His idea: Big-name tech companies, regional banks
Howells likes Microsoft ($34.40 per share) and Apple ($430.05 per share), but not necessarily for their best-known products.
He likes Microsoft not for the Windows operating system, which has garnered mixed reviews, but for the servers it sells "that make big companies and big data farms run." He likes Apple not for the iPhone and iPad — after all, the company's stock is down 19 percent this year and it's largely because people are worried that Apple can't keep churning out blockbuster gadgets — but because of the iOS operating system. He thinks it will help Apple keep customers who won't want to go through the hassle of switching all the information on their iPhones and iPads to another system. "That gives it a little bit more sticking power than a BlackBerry or a Nokia," Howells says.
He likes certain regional banks, like Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group ($71 per share) and Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp ($35.01 per share), crediting their plain-vanilla businesses of making loans and accepting deposits. He says they're "in much better shape than they were at the start of the downturn," before the 2008 financial crisis. But he's iffy on the megabanks, even if some are selling at prices much lower than before the financial crisis.
"At the end of the day, we don't know what's in their trading books," Howells says. "And any time you have volatile markets, you can have some unpleasant surprises."
Rob Lutts, president and chief investment officer of Cabot Money Management in Salem, Mass.
His idea: Energy stocks
Lutts predicts that domestic energy production will continue to expand, fueled by new technology. He's especially interested in companies that make equipment for specialized production methods, and has an eye on a Houston-based company called Dril-Quip Inc. ($89.54 per share), which makes equipment for deepwater drilling.
The U.S. is producing more crude and natural gas. The International Energy Agency predicts the U.S. will become the world's biggest oil producer by 2017, and will produce all the energy it needs by 2035.
"If you're going to pick one cost that impacts all of America, it's energy," Lutts says. "And it's unappreciated, how the energy industry has been turned upside down by new innovation."
Margie Patel, senior portfolio manager at Wells Fargo Capital Management in Boston
Her idea: Consumer stocks
Patel likes companies that make "the products we all consume every day," from groceries and cosmetics to cleaning supplies. Returns can be more modest than in other sectors, at least when the market is rising, but they're also more stable in bad times. Lower prices for some of the commodities that companies need to make their products will trim costs. On Friday, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan monthly survey reported that while consumer sentiment came in slightly below expectations in June, May was at a nearly six-year high.
"The population is growing, and people have a little bit more money in their pocket to spend on a range of products," Patel says. And while the U.S. economic growth looks only moderate, she says, "it's still positive growth, and it's still sustainable."
Mickey Segal, managing partner at Nigro Karlin Segal & Feldstein in Los Angeles
His idea: Apartments
To Segal, it's a great time to buy apartment-related investments, thanks to a combination of high demand and low supply.
He thinks that more people will have to rent apartments because it's tough to qualify for a home loan. And with higher mortgage rates all but inevitable as the Fed prepares to pull back on bond buying, some lower-income buyers may not be able to afford a home. Already, U.S. homeownership is at 65 percent, its lowest rate since 1995, according to the Census Bureau.
Another trend that could encourage renting is the tighter supply of homes. In some areas, investor groups are buying up houses for rental properties and hoping to sell them later for a profit. That limits the number of homes for sale. The National Association of Realtors, which advocates for home buying, says there aren't enough existing homes to keep up with demand.
There also aren't as many new apartment units coming on line. Builders broke ground on new apartments at an annualized rate of 234,000 in April, compared with 351,000 at the same period in 2005. And while construction was up this April compared with a year ago, it was still down 40 percent from the previous month.
Put it all together and you can expect higher rental prices. The median asking rent for a vacant apartment was $718 per month in the first quarter, according to the Census. That was roughly flat from the year before, but up 5 percent from two years ago.
"You have more people looking for a place to live who either lost their homes or couldn't afford their homes," Segal says. "And there's been no new real development happening for a few years."
Segal recommends investing in limited partnerships, which are offered through brokerage firms.
Anton Bayer, CEO of Up Capital Management in Granite Bay, Calif.
His idea: Corporate floating-rate and shorter-term bonds
Pay attention, because this one is a little complicated.
The Federal Reserve has been buying $85 billion worth of government bonds each month to try to make long-term loans cheaper and stimulate the economy. As long as the Fed is propping up demand for bonds, the Treasury doesn't have to worry too much about enticing buyers and can pay out low interest rates on them. If the Fed pulls back on its bond-buying spree — something that Chairman Ben Bernanke has said could happen soon — then the interest rate on bonds will go up.
That's bad for people who already hold the Treasury bonds. Here's why: Most Treasury bonds pay out a fixed rate. If you own a 10-year Treasury note that pays 2 percent interest, and rates go up to 3 percent, you're still going to get paid 2 percent. That means you're missing out on investing in a higher-paying bond. It also means that the underlying value of your bond is going to go down: No one wants to buy a bond with a 2 percent yield in a 3 percent yield market. You can get all your money back if you wait until the bond matures, but that will take 10 years.
Bayer recommends floating-rate corporate bonds, because the interest rates they pay change along with the Fed's interest rate. Be careful, though, because floating-rate bonds are often issued by riskier companies.
Bayer also recommends fixed-rate bonds with shorter durations. If you own a bond paying a fixed interest rate, and then interest rates rise, it's better to be able to get your money back in one year instead of 10. Keep in mind that the shorter-term Treasury bonds will pay much lower rates: A 10-year Treasury note is paying about 2.1 percent. A one-year Treasury note is paying 0.1 percent.
Bayer says that investors who were used to the higher interest rates of previous decades will have to retool their investing strategies.
"That's the biggest mistake that investors are making right now," Bayer says. "What worked for the past decade is not going to work now."
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Home Page Chess Life Magazine 2009 September Best of CLO 08: #4
|Best of CLO 08: #4
|January 13, 2009
Searching for Fischer's Legacy by FM Mike Klein. Judges praised the timeliness and writing style of Klein's tribute. Klein is the only writer with two articles in the top ten. His U.S. Teams Celebrate Bronze Medals was chosen as Best of CLO 08-#8 , which includes links to Klein's many articles in CLO and the magazine. Mike's latest entry in his round-the-world travel blog is From (A)msterdam to (Z)agreb. He is currently in South Africa, so look for more exciting travel stories on his blog (with the occasional chess cameo.) Also watch out for his February Chess Life Magazine cover story, "Bronze Times Two" which went to the printer yesterday.
The #4 article in Best of Chess Life Online 08 is
With the anniversary of Fischer's death coming up in just four days, it's a timely occasion to re-read Klein's lauded piece.
The Judges Sound Off
Read more about the judges here.
"High on the list because it must have been so difficult to write so soon after Fischer's death; the author does an excellent job."- Peter Doggers
"Another article which is obviously very good and thoughtful and interesting. It's about a special and sad occasion yet also includes thoughtful ideas."- Alex Lenderman
"Written in good journalistic style: it moves despite its static subject. Thoughtful rather than original."- Mark Taylor
"Another Fischer Piece" is what I expected here, but the author actually goes past the surface. Too many folks these days get as far as the mental aberrations and decide there's nothing else to say, or decide it's too dangerous to try and say something nice about Fischer. A surprise- Arlen Walker
"A nice retrospective with the good, bad and ugly. I think people will remember what they want to remember from Fischer."- Mike Atkins


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In business, as in life, we constantly try to make predictions about the future. How will sales be next year if we implement a new procedure? What will the weather be like for the annual staff event next week? It's no surprise then that businesses of all sizes have started to embrace the idea of predictive analytics. However, many business managers are unsure as to exactly how to work with this form of analytics effectively. To help, here is an overview of the three main components of predictive analysis all business owners and managers should be aware of.
Together, these three elements of predictive analytics enables data scientists and even managers to conduct and analyze forecasts and predictions.
Component 1: data
As with most business processes, data is one of the most important and vital components. Without data you won't be able to make predictions and the decisions necessary to reach desired outcomes. In other words, data is the foundation of predictive analytics.
If you want predictive analytics to be successful, you need not only the right kind of data but information that is useful in helping answer the main question you are trying to predict or forecast. You need to to collect as much relevant data as possible in relation to what you are trying to predict. This means tracking past data, customers, demographics, and more.
Merely tracking data isn't going to guarantee more accurate predictions however. You will also need a way to store and quickly access this data. Most businesses use a data warehouse which allows for easier tracking, combining, and analyzing of data.
As a business manager you likely don't have the time to look after data and implement a full-on warehousing and storage solution. What you will most likely need to do is work with a provider, like us, who can help establish an effective warehouse solution, and an analytics expert who can help ensure that you are tracking the right, and most useful, data.
Component 2: statistics
Love it, or hate it, statistics, and more specifically regression analysis, is an integral part of predictive analytics. Most predictive analytics starts with usually a manager or data scientist wondering if different sets of data are correlated. For example, is the age, income, and sex of a customer (independent variables) related to when they purchase product X (dependent variable)?
Using data that has been collected from various customer touch points – say a customer loyalty card, past purchases made by the customer, data found on social media, and visits to a website – you can run a regression analysis to see if there is in fact a correlation between independent and dependent variables, and just how related individual independent variables are.
From here, usually after some trial and error, you hopefully can come up with a regression equation and assign what's called regression coefficients – how much each variable affects the outcome – to each of the independent variables.
This equation can then be applied to predict outcomes. To carry on the example above, you can figure out exactly how influential each independent variable is to the sale of product X. If you find that income and age of different customers heavily influences sales, you can usually also predict when customers of a certain age and income level will buy (by comparing the analysis with past sales data). From here, you can schedule promotions, stock extra products, or even begin marketing to other non-customers who fall into the same categories.
Component 3: assumptions
Because predictive analytics focuses on the future, which is impossible to predict with 100% accuracy, you need to rely on assumptions for this type of analytics to actually work. While there are likely many assumptions you will need to acknowledge, the biggest is: the future will be the same as the past.
As a business owner or manager you are going to need to be aware of the assumptions made for each model or question you are trying to predict the answer to. This also means that you will need to be revisiting these on a regular basis to ensure they are still true or valid. If something changes, say buying habits, then the predictions in place will be invalid and potentially useless.
Remember the 2008-09 sub-prime mortgage crisis? Well, one of the main reasons this was so huge was because brokers and analysts assumed that people would always be able to pay their mortgages, and built their prediction models off of this assumption. We all know what happened there. While this is a large scale example, it is a powerful lesson to learn: Not checking that the assumptions you have based your predictions on could lead to massive trouble for your company.
By understanding the basic ideas behind these three components, you will be better able to communicate and leverage the results provided by this form of analytics.
If you are looking to implement a solution that can support your analytics, or to learn more about predictive analytics, contact us today to see how we can help.


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The Mono project, which provides open source versions of Microsoft software development technologies for use on non-Windows platforms such as Linux, has found a new home.
Dispatched by Attachmate after its recent merger with Novell, Mono technologies will now be the domain of a new company, Xamarin, project leader Miguel de Icaza said in a blog post on Monday. Xamarin will build commercial .Net offerings for Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms as well as continue to develop Mono and Moonlight, which is an open source version of Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet platform. Xamarin also will explore Moonlight opportunities in the mobile space and the Mac application store.
[ Layoffs had left an uncertain future for open source .Net, InfoWorld columnist Neil McAllister wrote earlier this month. Also, Attachmate CEO Jeff Hawn in an interview with InfoWorld late last month was not yet ready to comment on plans for Mono. | Keep up with the latest developer news with InfoWorld's Developer World newsletter. | Follow Paul Krill on Twitter. ]
"We have been trying to spin Mono off from Novell for more than a year now. Everyone agreed that Mono would have a brighter future as an independent company, so a plan was prepared last year," de Icaza said.
"To make a long story short, the plan to spin off was not executed. Instead on Monday, May 2, the Canadian and American teams were laid off; Europe, Brazil and Japan followed a few days later. These layoffs included all the MonoTouch and MonoDroid engineers and other key Mono developers. Although Attachmate allowed us to go home that day, we opted to provide technical support to our users until our last day at Novell, which was Friday last week," de Icaza stated.
"We were clearly bummed out by this development and had no desire to quit, especially with all the great progress in this last year. So, with a heavy dose of motivation from my music teacher, we hatched a plan," said de Icaza.
New versions of .Net for Android and iPhone will be source-compatible with the MonoTouch and Mono for Android development tools launched by the Mono team when at Novell. Also, the company is seeking more funding for several projects, including plans to release tutorials for various developer stacks, as well as API documentation for Mono-specific APIs, dedicated customer support, and an upgrade to the project's bug system.
This article, "Mono project moves to new company," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.


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Follow workers.org on
Tens of thousands of people across the U.S. and around the world have mobilized to demand the arrest of Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman. Because Zimmerman maintains that he acted in self-defense, he has not been arrested by the Sanford, Fla., police department or charged by the prosecutor.
The legal justification of self-defense in the U.S has not worked in the same way for most people of color, women and lesbian/gay/bi/trans people, many of whom survive brutal bigoted attacks and then are arrested and convicted for defending themselves. John White, an African-American father living in Long Island, N.Y., was convicted of murder for protecting his son from an angry white mob in 2006. The New Jersey 7, young Black lesbians who defended themselves against a vicious anti-lesbian attack, were arrested and four of them sentenced to from three-and-a-half to 11 years in prison.
This holds true in the case of Chrishaun "CeCe" McDonald, a 23-year-old African-American trans woman who was attacked by patrons of a Minneapolis tavern on June 5 of last year. While McDonald and her friends were on their way to a nearby grocery store, the patrons assaulted them with racist and anti-LGBT slurs. Many of the vicious remarks were directed at McDonald, as a Black trans woman. All of McDonald's friends were people of color and youths, while those who attacked them were all white and older.
Desperate for help and covered in blood from having a glass mug smashed in her face, it was McDonald who first approached police arriving on the scene. The police arrested her and to this day have made no arrests against her attackers. And while there is no physical evidence tying her to the stabbing of Dean Schmitz, one of the men who attacked her, McDonald now faces second-degree murder charges.
As McDonald's April 30 trial date approaches, national outrage has strengthened the political campaign to have the charges dropped.
"Our goal is to deliver a petition with 10,000 signatures on April 24 to Michael Freeman, the Hennepin County attorney, demanding he drop the charges against CeCe," Billy Navarro Jr., an organizer with the CeCe McDonald Support Committee based in Minneapols, told Workers World. On April 24, McDonald must appear in court for a pre-trial hearing. "Young people from the Trans Youth Support Network have planned a 'dance party' protest right in front of Freeman's office on April 26. [McDonald] is a valued community member, and we want to show that there is support for her not only here but also around the country."
CeCe 'a leader and role model'
"CeCe in many ways is a leader and role model. Back when this happened, the newspapers called her a man and only used her birth name. We all know her as CeCe, so it took a few days before the community sprang into action. It has been hard on our community not having her with us," said Navarro.
McDonald was born in Chicago in 1989 and came out as a trans person at the age of 14. After moving to Minneapolis, she became active in the community, often participating in panels against racism and trans oppression. Talented in fashion design, CeCe had been pursuing her associate's degree in fashion at a local college for the last two years. She supported herself through a part-time job at a café.
One of McDonald's most important contributions was taking care of younger LGBT youth. According to Navarro: "She was the one with stable housing and finances, so she took in people younger than her so they wouldn't end up on the streets. She created a sense of family for them. … Some of those young people were forced to go back to living in hostile, anti-gay family situations or are now surfing from couch to couch."
Another thing that has been hard for McDonald is that her birth family lives far away. "CeCe is a fighter and is generally so strong, but this is one thing she really gets emotional about," said Navarro. "She misses her mother and siblings in Chicago so much, and they are really supportive of her. But it is so expensive for them to travel here for her court dates. We are trying to raise money or have miles donated to bring her family here for the trial on April 30."
Growing national campaign
"Since this whole thing started, we have packed the courtroom, the hallway and rallied outside at every court date," said Navarro. "The biggest one drew over 100 supporters. We want to have people from all over the Midwest come out for both the pre-trial hearing on April 24 and the first day of trial on April 30."
The committee is seeking endorsements as well as letters of solidarity to be sent to Freeman from individuals, unions and political groups. Midwest groups such as OutFront Minnesota, the African-American and African Studies Department of the University of Minnesota, the Trans Youth Support Network, the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department of Macalester College, the Women's Prison Book Project and the Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement have joined the effort.
Nationally, groups like the Transgender Gender Variance Intersex Justice Project, the Transgender Law Center in California and Queers for Economic Justice in New York have called for the charges to be dropped. Trans historian and author Leslie Feinberg has begun a call within the labor movement for labor union activists and unions to send solidarity statements. Support committees and activist groups are raising funds and holding events in Brooklyn and Buffalo, N.Y.; Bloomington, Ind.; Chicago; San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.; and Boston.
"We have gotten pictures from the International Women's Day march on March 31 in New York City that carried signs about CeCe, and we have even been in touch with activists in Paris who are building support around CeCe's case," said Navarro. "Between now and April 30, we need events, fundraisers and to get CeCe's name out all over the press. We not only want to free CeCe but we want to take a stand against racist transphobic attacks happening all over the country."
To sign the petition, endorse and organize to free CeCe McDonald, see supportcece.wordpress.com.


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