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Mourning, Melancholia and Melodrama in Contemporary Women's Grief Fiction: Kim Edwards's the Memory Keeper's Daughter.
|Article Type:
|Critical essay
American fiction
American fiction (Criticism and interpretation)
Grief (Portrayals)
Motherhood (Portrayals)
Loss (Psychology) (Portrayals)
Women in literature (Portrayals)
Female identity (Portrayals)
American writers
Women writers
|Andermahr, Sonya
|Pub Date:
|Name: Hecate Publisher: Hecate Press Audience: Academic Format: Magazine/Journal Subject: Women's issues/gender studies Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Hecate Press ISSN: 0311-4198
|Date: May, 2011 Source Volume: 37 Source Issue: 1
|Named Person: Edwards, Kim; Edwards, Kim
|Geographic Scope: United States Geographic Code: 1USA United States
|Accession Number:
|Full Text:
This essay examines the genre of women's grief fiction through the lens of psychoanalytic theories of mourning and melancholia. It concentrates on the family melodrama as an instance of popular, 'middlebrow' women's fiction, which addresses and sometimes exploits women's vulnerability as mothers and their anxieties around mothering. I will focus on the American writer Kim Edwards's The Memory Keeper's Daughter, (1) which explores the consequences to a family of concealing from the mother the live birth of a baby with Down's syndrome. This was her first novel, published in 2005 when she was 47. Written in an emotive and powerful fashion from the perspective of various family members, the novel explores the imbrication of the psychic and the social in its depiction of personal betrayal, family breakdown, and conventional attitudes to grieving and the disabled. Following analysis of critical reviews of the novel and a consideration of the reasons for its commercial success, I provide a psychoanalytic reading of the novel's representation of grief and loss, arguing that while it engages the classic Freudian model of mourning as consolatory substitution, (2) it also adopts the more ambivalent model of 'endless mourning' proposed in Freud's later work (3) and subsequently developed by feminist theorists. Making use of Julia Kristeva's concept of narcissistic melancholy, (4) I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter as an attempt to represent 'the real that does not lend itself to signification' (13), showing how it represents grief as a turning away from the realm of signs, a disintegration of bonds, and a retreat into asymbolia. Finally, I utilize Kristeva's concept of poetic language as a 'counter-depressant', which ameliorates the pain of loss without repudiating it, to suggest that this and other examples of women's grief fiction attempt to 'transform the woeful darkness into lyrical song' (162).
Women's grief fiction as domestic melodrama
A significant theme in contemporary women's writing is the loss of a child and the effects of this on the mother and her family. This preoccupation with the representation of bereavement obtains across generic boundaries within women's writing as a whole. Recent examples of what I call 'women's grief fiction' have taken the form of the crime thriller, for example, Louise Doughty's Whatever You Love; the gothic novel, such as Julie Myerson's The Story of You; (5) and the domestic melodrama as in Kim Edwards's The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Collectively, these texts explore the emotional impact of loss and grief on psychic well-being and relationships, often depicting the consequences of family breakdown. In terms of market, the genre is positioned somewhere between mass market and literary fiction. It belongs to a cross-over category of 'middlebrow' fiction, dubbed somewhat derogatorily 'mum's lit', which combines features of popular and literary writing to appeal to a wide audience of readers. Usually strongly plot-driven, women's grief fiction also aspires to represent psychological themes in a complex and sometimes poetic manner. Unlike mass market fiction, the genre is regularly reviewed by what is called in Britain 'the quality press', and the book blurbs often draw attention to the emotional power of such novels, if not always the presence of fine writing in them.
The domestic melodrama features strongly within women's middlebrow fiction. The term 'melodrama' comes from the Greek for 'song drama'. The OED defines it as 'a dramatic piece characterized by sensational incident and violent appeals to the emotions but with a happy ending'. (6) The Memory Keeper's Daughter, is an example of a highly successful family melodrama. As a hardback first published by Viking, the novel initially sold about 30,000 copies. It was then issued in paperback by Penguin in May 2006 and, through a combination of aggressive marketing, word of mouth customer recommendations and inclusion on book club reading lists, began to climb the bestseller lists. In July 2006 the novel entered the New York Times Top 10 bestseller list; by 2007, it had reached the Top 50 BookScan bestseller list with sales in excess of 800,000. Selection as a 'Need to Read' book in the US and a 'Richard & Judy Summer Read' in the UK added to the cumulative sales effect. Following the Richard & Judy recommendation, for example, UK sales of the novel reached a weekly average of 40,000, quite a contrast to the initial hardback print run of 30,000. To date, international sales have topped an extraordinary 4 million.
While the novel's sales figures suggest that it is a good example of cross-over, middlebrow fiction, Edwards sees herself primarily as a literary writer. In an interview she talks about how she spent years honing her craft and how she always intended to become a writer. She describes the genesis of the novel in a story told to her many years before about a family secret in which a child was given away at birth: 'I thought it would be very interesting to explore a secret and
how that dark gravity would shape how a family evolved.' (7) The novel begins in the winter of 1964 with the birth of twins in extraordinary circumstances. With no time to get to the hospital, the father, Dr David Henry, delivers the babies himself in his own practice with a nurse in attendance. The first baby, a son Paul, is born healthy but the second one, a girl, Phoebe, has Down's syndrome. Meanwhile, the mother, Norah, is sedated and not fully aware of what is going on. The father makes a split second decision, and tells her that the baby is dead. He gives her to the nurse, Caroline, telling her to take the baby to a care home. Although shocked by David's decision, Caroline takes Phoebe and drives her to the home. However, the staff seem indifferent and uncaring and Caroline can't bear to leave Phoebe there. She, too, makes a momentous decision and takes the baby home with her. The rest of the novel explores the ramifications of these decisions over the next 25 years of the characters' lives. What happens, it asks, to David, the father, Norah, the mother, Caroline, the adoptive mother, and the children Paul and Phoebe in the face of such a betrayal?
As this summary suggests, the novel is a strongly plot-driven family drama, relying on the strength of its opening premise to pull in the reader. It utilizes an episodic structure that covers significant periods in the characters' lives: from the mid sixties, through the 1970s and 80s, and ending in 1989. Within each time frame, the story is narrated from the perspective of the main protagonists: David, Caroline, Norah, and, as a teenager and young adult, the son Paul. Significantly, the daughter Phoebe is not given a point of view despite being represented sympathetically through the eyes of the other characters; as a result, her subjectivity is never explored, a point to which I'll return at the end.
In the course of the novel we learn that David's sister also suffered from a disability and her early death devastated his family; it is partly out of a desire to spare Norah from a similar suffering that he lies to her. Such mitigation is meant to humanise David; Edwards does not want him to be seen as a melodramatic villain but as a flawed human being whose motives we understand even if we cannot condone them. Of course, David's lie means that Phoebe's whole existence is erased. On Norah's insistence, they go through a funeral service for her, but David refuses ever to speak of her. By making it David's decision, the novel exculpates the figure of the mother from blame for giving up a disabled child. It also allows readers to work through the issues facing mothers and fathers in such situations but, be read as foregrounding in the issue in such heightened terms, it can also increasing anxiety around maternal responsibility.
Wracked with guilt, David eventually moves out of the family home. He is finally persuaded that he has to tell Norah about Phoebe and returns to his old house to speak to her. Inevitably, in a ratcheting-up of the plot, Norah is away. Thereafter, David dies suddenly of a heart attack without having told Norah or met Phoebe. It is only now that his secret finally comes out and the other characters are left trying to pick up their lives and come to terms with the return of the lost child, now a grown woman with a life of her own. The ending is strangely anti-climactic given that it sees the family reunited after David's death. It is as though, when his secret comes to light, the narrative momentum runs out. Notwithstanding its focus on motherhood and children, the novel foregrounds David's story: he is the 'memory keeper' of the title, so called because of his fascination with photography, which begins with a camera Norah buys him called 'The Memory Keeper'. (8)
Critical reviews and reader responses
What then accounts for the novel's success? Ron Charles in The Washington Post claims that 'anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper's Daughter'. (9) Bookmarks Magazine notes that it 'packs a hefty emotional punch that will keep readers turning the pages', (10) and the Amazon website repeatedly uses terms such as 'compulsively readable" and 'deeply moving'. (11) As Joanna Briscoe points out, it is 'a skilfully packaged debate-provoker ... perfectly attuned to the era of the book club'. (12) In July 2007 the novel was discussed by the Times book group led by Alyson Rudd who explored the reasons for its success with book club readers. She concluded that it recounts a simple story in a direct and powerful manner, giving readers the opportunity to ponder the question 'what if?': 'What if I had a baby with Down's syndrome? What if I had a test and could abort? If I kept the baby, how would it affect other members of my family?' (13) The novel therefore provokes the kinds of questions upon which book clubs thrive. As one American reader put it: it is 'an incredible discussion book [which] raised a lot of issues about how you would have reacted in the same situation'. (14)
The reviewers single out particular aspects of the novel for praise: Joanna Briscoe in The Guardian commends Edwards's depiction of the erosion of the couple's marriage in the face of grief but finds the story of Caroline's struggle to raise Phoebe to be the novel's strongest element. Similarly, Ron Charles in The Washington Post, applauds Edwards's handling of the adoption narrative:
As many commentators have observed, the novel explores attitudes to Down's syndrome in an interesting and sensitive way: David's attitude would not have been unusual in the 1960s when the condition was not well understood even by the medical profession. Down's syndrome sufferers were routinely seen as mentally and physiologically weak, and likely to die young. As a result they were often institutionalised and, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, neglect and lack of care and encouragement did lead many to ail and die at a young age. However, Caroline's determination pays off and, as the years pass, Phoebe makes good progress. She goes to an ordinary state school, plays basketball, looks after her kitten, and learns to weave. Then, as a young adult she finds a job in a photocopy shop, and a boyfriend, which tests even Caroline's views of what is possible. As the novel ends, Phoebe is due to live a semi-independent life in sheltered accommodation, a very different outcome from the life predicted for her in the 1960s.
While the novel appeals to book clubs for foregrounding plot, character psychology and moral issues, reviewers have criticised it for its 'treacly" writing, populist leanings, and lack of finesse.
Briscoe describes it rather disparagingly as family drama crossed with the misery memoir, and compares Edwards to Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve in producing a 'tasteful brand of commercial fiction'. (16) Of the plot contrivances, she comments: 'This is an unlikely scenario burdened with too many improbables and underpinned by a structure of convenient psychological justifications.' (17) Publishers Weekly calls the novel 'assured but schematic', arguing that although 'the impact of Phoebe's loss makes sense, Edwards's redundant handling of the trope robs it of credibility'. It concludes: 'This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion.' (18) Similarly, Ron Charles notes: 'Some ominously saccharine moments indicate that Edwards can slip into the treacly trade.' In his view, 'Edwards has trouble maintaining the electrifying atmosphere of [the] long opening scene' and chides the author for pointing out 'too many times' the impact of David's deception on family life. (19) Alyson Rudd in The Times maintains that the novel's flaws include 'weak description', a lack of historical context, and a dependence on romantic cliches, stating: 'There is more than a touch of Mills and Boon at work.' (20) Her book club readers were also not averse to criticism: one described it as 'a page-turner but ... not literature' and another called Edwards's style 'writing by numbers'. One reader even decried the novel as distasteful but, as Rudd comments, 'if anything ... Edwards errs on the side of being too tasteful', presenting Phoebe as a delightful girl who brings joy to her adopted family. Rudd awarded the title of 'Star Letter' to a reader who described the novel as 'carried by the strength of the storyline, not the author's craft'. (21) Finally, and somewhat damningly, Joanna Briscoe criticizes its 'sterile' quality, seeing the characters as little more than 'an enactment of a good concept' and concluding: 'It's a page turner on Valium'. (22)
As these reviews suggest, the novel has been seen largely as a potboiler about secrets and betrayal or about attitudes to Down's syndrome of the 'what would you do?' variety, rather than a representation of grief per se. In contrast, I wish to focus on the novel's treatment of mourning and its ambitious if not wholly successful attempt to trace the grieving process over 25 years. In keeping the knowledge of Phoebe from his wife, Dr Henry forces them both to internalise their grief. Edwards even suggests that Norah suffers postnatal depression which, like Down's, was not well understood at the time. Although from this point in my paper, I will not be concerned primarily with aesthetic questions of the novel's literary merits, I would like to suggest that its relentless mapping of grief does have something to do with the strong effect of claustrophobia, the static nature of the characterization, and some of the ostensible flaws that readers have perceived in the writing. I will argue that it is the very inability of the characters David and Norah to relinquish their grief and 'move forward' in their lives that inhabits and arguably inhibits the narrative. It is an impasse, beyond which they (and arguably Edwards's writing) cannot move, so overwhelming is the sense of betrayal on the one hand and loss on the other. In the next section of the paper, I turn to a theoretical analysis of melancholy and depression as a means of illuminating the novel's representation of grief and loss. By bringing together popular middlebrow fiction and abstract critical theory, I hope to set up a fruitful dialogue between them, and suggest both that the former be taken seriously as a representation of grief and that the latter has a more popular and practical application than may be assumed.
Theorizing mourning and melancholia: Julia Kristeva's Black Sun
'For those who are racked by melancholia, writing about it would have meaning only if writing sprang out of that very melancholia' (3). So begins Kristeva's psychoanalytic study of melancholy and depression, Black Sun. The title is taken from a poem by the French poet Gerard de Nerval in which he refers to melancholy as a black sun, light and dark at the same time or, as Kristeva puts it, a 'light without representation' (13). Taking Nerval's image as her starting point, Kristeva attempts to theorise this unnameable object: 'I am trying to address an abyss of sorrow, a non-communicable grief that at times, and often on a long-term basis, lays claims upon us to the extent of having us lose all interest in words, actions, and even life itself' (3). 'Where does this black sun come from?', she asks, suggesting a number of possible causes:
All these events and misfortunes are capable of causing depression, of plunging the sufferer into another life: 'A life that is unliveable, heavy with daily sorrows, tears held back or shed, a total despair, scorching at times, then wan and empty. In short a devitalised existence ...' (4). The melancholic mood is a combination of sorrow and hatred, a threshold state situated 'on the frontiers of life and death' (4). As a result the sufferer enters a kind of living death, numb to stimuli and 'absent from other people's meaning' (4). The body's rhythms appear slowed down or interrupted; it is as if time itself has been suspended, as reality becomes 'absorbed into sorrow' (4). Moreover, the body feels as if it has been wounded; 'it is bleeding, cadaverised' (4). Following Melanie Klein, Kristeva argues that erotic bonds are severed and the subject experiences a 'parcellary splitting' by which the self 'falls into pieces' (18). Psychoanalysts view this tendency toward fragmentation and disintegration as an expression of the death drive.
However, notwithstanding the immediate causes for depression in an actual loss, Kristeva follows Freud and Klein in seeing melancholia as a condition that has its roots in the loss of an imaginary rather than a real object. Moreover, depression can also 'awaken echoes of old traumas' (4), to which the sufferer has never been able to resign herself. Kristeva draws on the Freudian model of mourning, in which the sufferer's sadness at the loss of the object conceals hostility towards it for abandoning them in the first place. In classical psychoanalysis, depression is a form of mourning for a lost internal object, characterized by hostility and ambivalence. This ambivalent stance can lead to what Freud and Abraham identify as 'melancholy cannibalism' in which 'the intolerable other that I crave to destroy' is eaten alive; as Kristeva states: 'Better fragmented, torn, cut up, swallowed, digested ... than lost' (12). Melancholy cannibalism therefore represents a repudiation of the reality of loss and hence of death. Consequently, Kristeva argues, 'the analysis of depression involves bringing to the fore the realization that the complaint against oneself is a hatred for the other' (11). Only when the subject recognises the lost object as such, can it begin the process of consolatory substitution on which supposedly successful mourning depends.
Yet, according to Kristeva, this classical model does not account for the suffering of those who have lost their primary love while still in the chora, a pre-symbolic psychic space characterized by mother-child merger. Kristeva goes beyond Freud and Klein in identifying another form of depression, which lacks the element of hostility towards the other. In this narcissistic depression, sufferers do not feel wronged but afflicted with a fundamental flaw: 'Their sadness would be rather the most archaic expression of an unsymbolizable, unnameable narcissistic wound, so precocious that no outside agent can be used as referent' (12). In other words, this is a sense of loss that precedes objectal loss and goes back to the chora and the primary bond with the mother before the unconscious develops. It is as if the sufferer had lost the mother before she even becomes an Other. To explain this, Kristeva distinguishes between the Thing and the Object. While the object represents an actual person or relation, the Thing stands for what Kristeva calls 'the real that does not lend itself to signification' (13). Therefore, without being able to name it, the sufferer has the impression of having lost some absolute good they can never replace: 'Knowingly disinherited of the Thing, the depressed person wanders in pursuit of continuously disappointing adventures and loves; or else retreats, disconsolate and aphasic, alone with the unnamed Thing' (13). The retreat into asymbolia is therefore a form of mourning for the lost maternal object. According to Kristeva, 'the melancholy Thing interrupts desiring metonymy, just as it prevents working out the loss within the psyche' (14). Therefore, melancholia and depression are conditions in which the speaking subject turns away from the realm of signs. Melancholic discourse is repetitive and monotonous because sufferers are unable to 'concatenate', that is link signifiers together in a meaningful chain. Speech delivery becomes slowed and silences are long and frequent. In extreme cases, even that 'frugal musicality' becomes exhausted and 'the melancholy person appears to stop cognizing as well as uttering, sinking into the blankness of asymbolia or the excess of an unorderable cognitive chaos' (33). Having given up on language, the depressed are, in Kristeva's phrase, 'prisoners of affect': 'The affect is their thing' (14).
If the problem of melancholia may be summed up in the unwillingness of the subject to substitute signs for the lost Thing then, according to Kristeva, the only means of mitigating loss is through sublimation of one kind or another. One possible route is the poetic form, which 'through melody, rhythm, semantic polyvalency ... decomposes and recomposes signs, [and] is the sole container seemingly able to secure an uncertain but adequate hold over the Thing' (14). In the absence of psychoanalytic treatment, argues Kristeva, signifying practices such as poetry and music can act as a counter-depressant. In the interplay between semiotic and symbolic processes, the wounded psyche may be salved. Kristeva thus advocates literary production as an alternative treatment for depression. In the case of Nerval, who lost his mother before he knew her, suffered from depression all his life, and committed suicide at the age of 47, poetry represents an attempt to name the unnameable, to signify his loss. Kristeva reads his poem 'The disinherited' as a melancholic attempt to reach the realm of signs, to name the thing he mourns and thereby master his sadness. But his writing is not easily decodable because syntactical and narrative continuity would imply an identity already stabilised by the Oedipus complex and, therefore, an acceptance of loss. Instead it represents a fragmented, discontinuous attempt to put the unnameable into discourse, one which draws on the poetic trope of metaphor, as in his image of the black sun, which may be read as a metaphor of 'the psyche struggling against dark asymbolism' (151). The process of troping is as important as the finished work, as Noelle McAfee states: 'Metaphor, the substitution of one term for another, a carrying away that is never of the same order as the original, provides the poet with a way to sublimate potentially destructive energy ... The melancholic poet turns his sorrow into a sonnet'. (23)
Within the pages of Black Sun, Kristeva provides a rich language for speaking about, and potentially ameliorating melancholic grief, one that resonates with the accounts of loss contained in contemporary women's grief fiction, which also attempts, in Kristeva's words, to 'transform the woeful darkness into a lyrical song' (162).
The representation of grief and loss in The Memory Keeper's Daughter
In The Memory Keeper's Daughter all the protagonists, except Caroline, the adoptive mother, are in mourning but their modes of expression are particular to themselves: mother, father and son. Psychoanalysis offers a means to understand and 'work through' loss, yet none of the characters seeks counselling for depression. Within the terms of the fiction this could be explained by the setting of the story in the more conservative Southern states of America of the 1960s. However, the characters do attempt to sublimate their grief, using a variety of displacement activities as a means of coping, and some of them turn to signifying practices to symbolise their loss. As we have seen, melancholia is incommunicable grief; and, indeed, none of the characters can speak to each other about their loss over a lifetime. David, Norah and Paul's lives are dominated by the affect of sadness. They are each wrapped up in their grief and cannot share it in the social-symbolic realm. Like Kristeva's depressive persons, they are prisoners of affect, 'riveted to their pain' (34).
David's grief: mastering loss through art
David's decision to give Phoebe away is shown to affect every aspect of his relationship with Norah. Not only can he not talk to her about Phoebe, the couple effectively stop communicating about anything. Moreover, he won't risk another child in case it has Down's, despite Norah's desire for another baby. His grief leads to a radical disintegration of erotic bonds. By the time Paul is five, David and Norah have retreated into silence, only communicating when they have to, or through their son. When David discovers that Norah has begun an affair, he is unsurprised and sees it as an almost inevitable consequence of his own action years before:
The rock, it almost goes without saying, represents the metaphorical barrier to communication and desiring metonymy. David's grief over Phoebe merges with the earlier loss of his younger sister, June. Images of the two girls, specific memories in the case of June, and imaginary visions of Phoebe, living her life apart from him, haunt him throughout the text.
David's grief, strongly overlaid with guilt, takes the form of non-communication and withdrawal. He takes up photography, and spends increasing amounts of time developing pictures in his dark room, 'watching the images emerge where nothing had been' (144). Photography functions as a form of consolatory substitution as Freud describes it in 'Mourning and Melancholia'. (24) It enables David to deal with his loss, representing both a practical escape and a way of mastering loss in the fixing of an image in an instant of time: 'Photo after photo, as if he could stop time or make an image powerful enough to obscure the moment when he turned and handed his daughter to Caroline' (274). From Norah's point of view, David's photography increases the distance between them and their mutual isolation. Edwards represents it as a distinctly masculine pursuit concerned with mastering nature and therefore death:
Here, Phoebe becomes a kind of ghosted presence, a photographic negative, whose outline can only be glimpsed in the dark room; the same dark room where David keeps all Caroline's letters and photos of Phoebe locked in a safe. This is doubly symbolic; the dark room is his private space where he goes to retreat from the world and his grief. But the absence of light is also suggestive of Phoebe's fate: to be thrust into exile from the family's love and care. Moreover, the strange inverted world of the dark room, with its red light and negative images invokes Kristeva's black sun, a light without representation.
Through Norah, Edwards implies a feminist viewpoint on loss and family breakdown. Watching David discussing his photos with another man, Norah thinks: 'The photographs they were discussing were all of her: her hips, her skin, her hands, her hair. And yet she was excluded from the conversation: object, not subject. [...S]he understood that he did not really see her and hadn't for years' (181). David's photography may be seen as a kind of melancholy cannibalism, eating the other to hold onto it. After his death, Norah realises that photography represents David's 'desire to fix the world in place', and a form of resistance to 'loss and change and motion' (329). Kristeva points out that the 'work of art as fetish emerges when the activating sorrow has been repudiated. The artist consumed by melancholia is at the same time the most relentless in his struggle against the symbolic abdication that blankets him ...' (Kristeva 9). David's photography therefore functions as a symbolic attempt to master loss through art. (25)
Photography also operates as a metaphor for the novel as a whole: David's subjects mirror the novel's main themes of perception and transformation--the perception of loss and the transformation of lives in the face of it. The novel itself acts as a kind of camera held up to grief, providing a series of snapshots across the years of family life and collective mourning. According to Kristeva, it is through such symbolic acts of creation that depression may be mitigated. By transforming his grief into the language of photography, even if he cannot speak of it directly, David makes his loss bearable. And yet, it transpires that David's photography does not finally assuage his sense of loss. It is a symbolic substitution that fails ultimately to console. Repeatedly, the text inscribes his feelings of loss, returning to the same point, despite the movement through time implied by the family saga: 'Loss and grief: they rushed through him like a wave' (256). By David's death at the end of the novel, he has produced thousands of images, piled in boxes in his office and dark room. They feature girls of all ages, taken in remembrance of Phoebe. In the end, all these images cover over, but do not heal, his loss.
Norah's grief: endless mourning
Unlike David, Norah lacks a symbolic means to transform her grief. Kristeva argues, somewhat controversially, that women are more prone than men to melancholy because they are less able to substitute for their loss and therefore overcome it (71). (26) To be sure, at any moment, grief could overcome Norah:
It could be argued that the link with childhood Norah experiences expresses the loss of the archaic mother. It strongly evokes Kristeva's account of narcissistic melancholy, which derives from a loss suffered within the chora before the mother-child bond is externalized. Norah's loss is distinct from David's, not only because she believes Phoebe to be dead but because she didn't see her before she was given away and therefore has never been able to conceive of her as a separate being. Her melancholy is narcissistic because she has the sense of having lost something irreplaceable, which is, literally, a part of herself.
Moreover, Norah is akin to Kristeva's melancholics who wander 'in pursuit of continuously disappointing adventures and loves' (13). Following David's emotional withdrawal, Norah begins to drink and have affairs with other men. Thinking about them, Norah realises: 'Each had begun at moments when she thought the roar of silence in her house would drive her mad, when the mysterious universe of another presence, any presence, had seemed to her like solace' (293). But, having been a housewife for the early years of her married life, she then takes a job as a travel agent, which gives her a sense of purpose and increases her self-confidence. In fact, over the years, struggling with depression, Norah makes a success of her career, eventually buying and expanding the business. By the time Paul is a teenager, Norah is working long days and is often away on trips--to her husband's and son's dismay. The love affairs and career function as a form of consolatory substitution, but unlike David's photography, they don't transform grief symbolically, merely displace it into new activities. To a greater extent than David, Norah lives with loss, incorporating it rather than repudiating it, and experiencing a kind of 'endless mourning' for the lost and loved other.
At the end of the novel, David's funeral brings back Norah's grief over Phoebe's loss: 'it was not only for David that she grieved. They had stood together at the memorial service for their daughter all those years ago, their loss even then growing between them' (327). The penultimate section of the novel is set in 1989, a year after David's death, when Norah decides to clear out his dark room. Discovering all the photographs he has taken of girls, she knows instinctively that it's not sexual obsession the images record; in their distracted gaze she reads something else: 'Loss lingered in the play of lights and shadows; these were photos full of yearning' (364). Then she finds the photos of Paul, in all his ages and transformations, mirroring the photos of the unknown girls, and realises that 'all those years of silence, when he could not speak of their lost daughter, David had been keeping this record of her absence. Paul and a thousand other girls, all growing. Paul, but not Phoebe' (364).
Norah's grief for David understandably turns to rage when she learns the truth from Caroline. For 25 years she believed that her daughter died; now upon David's death, she has to come to terms with the fact of his betrayal--and the loss of a lifetime with Phoebe:
As this image suggests, grief renders Norah like one of Kristeva's cadaverised, bleeding melancholics. To some extent, she expiates her anger by destroying some of David's photos. By the novel's end, moreover, she is on the point of remarrying, seemingly embarking on the process of consolatory substitution, and even of forgiving David.
Interestingly, the moment of meeting Phoebe for the first time is told from Paul's, rather than Norah's point of view, giving us his view of her reaction. Inevitably, perhaps, the meeting is anti-climactic; as Norah, says, 'It would take a whole lifetime to catch up' (387), and Phoebe isn't sure she wants to in any case. Edwards doesn't spend much time on this aftermath; indeed, soon afterwards, Norah leaves for a new life in France. The novel ends with her marriage to Frederic, with both of her children standing next to her, some restitution made. As Paul realises, 'This finally was what pained his mother most, the lost years standing between them, their words so tentative and formal where ease and love should have been' (392). When Norah touches her daughter's hair, Phoebe pulls away and Paul realises, 'for this story, there were no simple endings. There would be transatlantic visits and phone calls but never the ordinary ease of daily life' (395). Despite Edwards's efforts to provide her character with a positive resolution, the sense of unresolved mourning in Norah's narrative persists.
Paul's grief: music as counter-depressant
Norah and David's son Paul also experiences the consequences of David's decision to give his sister away. Bereft of his twin, Paul always has the sense that she is more desired because lost to them. He becomes a withdrawn, watchful little boy, both overprotected by his parents and excluded from their preoccupation with their own grief. As a boy he takes up playing the guitar, showing a gift for music which Norah recognises as a major talent but David sees merely as a hobby. We are first given Paul's point of view in the 1977 section when he is 13. Like his parents, Paul is haunted by thoughts about his sister, especially when he is playing music: 'He reached for his guitar, wondering about his sister. If she hadn't died, would she be like him? Would she like to run? Would she sing?' (212). He remembers a picture of the family he'd drawn at the age of five, depicting himself holding hands with a mirror figure. He recalls the expression on his parents' faces, which he 'couldn't explain or describe but that he already knew had to do with sorrow' (212-13). Paul experiences an unnameable loss. He feels strangely responsible both for Phoebe's death and for his family's sorrow. Music becomes his consolation, a means of communicating his own grief, and an invitation to his parents to recognise and love him:
According to Kristeva, music is associated with the semiotic, the realm of the unconscious and imaginary connection with the mother. In accessing the semiotic via his guitar playing, Paul has a stronger ability than either of his parents to bridge the gap between semiotic and symbolic realms; to symbolize his sense of loss and therefore incorporate it creatively.
Discussing the differences between music and photography with his father, Paul rejects what he sees as the controlling aspects of David's art: 'Music is like you touch the pulse of the world. Music is always happening, and sometimes you get to touch it for a while, and when you do you know that everything's connected to everything else' (202). Indeed, listening to Paul perform at a concert, David himself recognises the power of music to evoke emotions and memories long suppressed:
At the end of the novel, music plays an important role when Paul and Phoebe go and visit David's grave together. She reads his name out slowly. 'Our father', Paul says. 'Our father', responds Phoebe, 'who art in heaven' (400), only recognising the phrase as the beginning of a prayer. 'You're sad', Phoebe observes, before saying, 'If my father died, I'd be sad too' (400). Paul realises that his anger against his father has dissipated, replaced now by grief. Edwards evokes the consoling power of music as Phoebe begins to sing and Paul joins in the hymn with her: 'Their singing merged, and the music was inside him, a humming in his flesh, and it was outside, too, her voice a twin to his own' (401). The final image of the novel is of the two children, now adults, reunited.
Phoebe's losses?
At the heart of this novel is a little girl with Down's syndrome. But what of her loss? Edwards depicts her with sensitivity and positive imagery throughout; she is happy, loving, a little too sweet perhaps, and--ultimately, unknown and unknowing. We are never privy to Phoebe's innermost feelings and we do not know how her father's decision to give her away has affected her psyche. When she is finally introduced to Norah and Paul after David's death, she is understandably wary and fearful that she is to be separated from the only parents she's known--Caroline and Al. She is happy with the life Caroline has made for her. By the end of the novel, aged 25, she is beginning to make a life for herself, having found a boyfriend, Robert, whom she wants to marry and set up home with. Paul's section at the end of the novel gives us the most insight into Phoebe's mind, when he accompanies her to their father's grave. She seems curious but unmoved before spontaneously breaking into song. Like Paul's music, Phoebe's song invokes the semiotic realm, tapping into an unconscious well of feeling, beyond symbolic language. While in one way an appropriate, if slightly saccharine, image to end the novel on, of the twins reunited through their love of music, it can only speak obliquely of Phoebe's losses, of her natural parents, of the life she would have had with them, and also of her full humanity, rescinded by David in his fateful decision to give her away. In one sense, Phoebe comes closest to Kristeva's delineation of the narcissistic melancholic subject, a girl who lost her birth mother before she even came to know her. But, of course, she gained a loving and capable adoptive mother and so never realised or suffered from her loss until adulthood. So, in another sense, she is perhaps the family's only non-mourning figure. Ultimately, Phoebe's psyche resists Edwards's powers of symbolization.
Conclusion: melodrama as mourning
In its repetitive focus on the characters' sense of loss, the novel insists on the absolute nature of grief; the affect of sadness predominates throughout and nothing can wholly mitigate it. And yet, various signifying practices and displacement activities are shown to operate as counter-depressants: photography for David; new loves and a successful self-validating career for Norah; and music for Paul. These are shown to be more or less effective in offering consolatory substitution: Norah's love affairs up to the point of meeting her second husband are less palliative; while Paul's music comes closest to a healing semiotic jouissance. Kristeva's emphasis on the melancholic interruption of the metonymic chain also helps to explain some of the perceived limitations of the narrative, not least its relentless, not to say redundant, depiction of grief and its consequences to the exception of other narrative elements. As a whole, the novel accords with Kristeva's account of melancholic discourse in which 'the rhythm of overall behaviour is shattered, [and] there is neither time nor place for acts and sequences to be carried out' (34). In this light, we can better understand the episodic, schematic character of text with its metaphorical focus on affect.
Readers' disappointment with the ending may also be understood in such terms: following the novel's painstaking charting of the depth of the characters' losses, the attempts at forgiveness and moving on seem too neat and pat, belying the overwhelming sense of unresolved grief. In particular, Norah's narrative of maternal loss feels unfinished and underwritten. As one Times book club reader commented, 'the novel died with David'. (27) However, this is a novel that I--and millions of others--enjoyed reading. To end, I would like to return to the concept of melodrama, taking it back to its Greek prefix, which means song or music. It can't pass without comment that this aspect of dramatic song corresponds closely to Kristeva's idea of poetic language as a counter-depressant. Could it be that women's grief fiction in the form of the family melodrama acts a counter-depressant to the reader, a means of articulating and thereby palliating the affect of sadness and melancholia that can intermittently affect us all? To suggest as much provides a way of reading such fiction not merely as cheesy mum's lit, nor either in terms of conventional literary norms, but as a meaningful symbolic representation of our unresolved mourning for lost and loved others.
This essay was presented as a Keynote address to the MIRCI-A Motherhood at the Margins Conference held at the University of Queensland, 27-30 April 2011. In preparing the essay for publication, I am indebted to the insightful and helpful feedback I received from fellow delegates.
(1) Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. London: Penguin, 2007.
(2) Sigmund Freud, 'Mourning and Melancholia' [1917] Standard Edition 14. London: Vintage, 2001: 243-258.
(3) Sigmund Freud, 2001. 'The Ego and the Id' (1923) Standard Edition 19. London: Vintage: 12-66.
(4) Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia UP, 1989. Subsequent references in text.
(5) Louise Doughty, Whatever You Love. London: Faber & Faber 2010; Julie Myerson, The Story of You. London: Vintage, 2007.
(6) Oxford English Dictionary. 1304
(7) Motoko Rich, 'A stirring family drama is a hit.' The New York Times, July 13, 2006. www.Select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html Accessed 28/02/2011.
(8) In this respect, the novel differs from other examples of women's melodrama which, like romance, tend to foreground female subjectivity and experience. Its focus on male as much as female characters might be seen as part of Edwards's attempt to present the novel as 'literary' rather than genre fiction.
(9) Ron Charles, Review: The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The Washington Post, 2005. Amazon Editorial Reviews. www.amazon.com/.../0143037145 Accessed 18/03/2011.
(10) Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc., Amazon Editorial Reviews. www.amazon.com/.../0143037145 Accessed 18/03/2011.
(11) Amazon Product Description. www.Amazon.com/.../0143037145 Accessed 18/03/2011.
(12) Joanna Briscoe, 'Life class.' Review article. The Guardian, Saturday 19 May 2007. www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/may/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview Accessed 28/02/2011.
(13) Alyson Rudd, 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards.' The Times August 17, 2007 www.timesonline.co.uk/tto/public/sitesearch/article2111528. Accessed 28/02/2011.
(14) Rich n.p.
(15) Charles n.p.
(16) Briscoe n.p.
(17) Briscoe n.p.
(18) Reed Business Information, Amazon Editorial Reviews. www.amazon.com/.../0143037145 Accessed 18/03/2011.
(19) Charles n.p.
(20) Rudd n.p.
(21) Rudd n.p.
(22) Briscoe n.p.
(23) Noelle McAffee, Julia Kristeva. New York and London: Routledge, 2004.
(24) Sigmund Freud, 'Mourning and Melancholia' [1917] Standard Edition 14. London: Vintage, 2001, 244-5.
(25) I accept that this is a highly tendentious way of viewing the function of photography, one that arguably overstates its instrumentalist and scopophilic aspects. An alternative theory, foregrounding the spectator, is offered by Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida in which he distinguishes between the studium or symbolic meaning of the photograph and the punctum or personal meaning of the image, that which 'pierces the viewer'. Instead of solidifying reality, this aspect of the photographic image points to the ever-changing nature of the physical world (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981). I am indebted to fellow delegates at the 'Motherhood of the Margins' Conference for pointing this out.
(26) This is a problem for psychoanalysis as a whole which tends to construct femininity tout court in pathological terms. Nevertheless, Health Science professionals confirm that women present more frequently than men with symptoms of depression. See, for example, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Carla Grayson, and Judith Larson, 'Explaining the Gender Difference in Depressive Symptoms.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 77, No. 5, 1999, 1061-1072.
(27) Rudd n.p.
As a single mother at a time when special-needs accommodations are unheard of or considered naively radical, Caroline would seem to have ... a difficult path to travel. Edwards does nothing to minimize or romanticize that struggle, but Caroline makes her humble way in the world through sheer determination and with the help of like-minded activist parents who are beginning to argue that children with disabilities should be raised at home and attend regular schools. (15)
The wound I have just suffered, some setback or other in my love life or my profession, some sorrow or bereavement affecting my relationship with close relatives--such are often the easily spotted triggers of my despair. A betrayal, a fatal illness, some accident or handicap that abruptly wrestles me away from what seemed to me the normal category of normal people ... (3-4).
He was filled with the old, sure sense that the snowy night when he had handed their daughter to Caroline Gill would not pass without consequence. Life had gone on ... he was in all visible ways, a success. And yet at odd moments--in the middle of surgery, driving into town, on the very edge of sleep--he'd start suddenly, stricken with guilt. He had given their daughter away. This secret stood in the middle of their family; it shaped their lives together. He knew it, he saw it, visible to him as a rock wall grown up between them. (193)
He'd seemed obsessed over the years, always seeing the world--seeing her--as if from behind the lens of a camera. Their lost daughter still hovered between them; their lives had shaped themselves around her absence. Norah even wondered, at times, if that loss was the only thing holding them together. (177-8)
She wept for this knowledge and for Paul, the rage and lostness in his eyes. For her daughter, never known.... For the multitude of ways in which their love had failed them all, and they, love. Grief, it seemed, was a physical place. Norah wept, unaware of anything except a kind of release she remembered from childhood; she sobbed until she was aching, breathless, spent. (304-5)
Phoebe was alive, in the world. That knowledge was a pit opening, endless, in her heart. Loved, Caroline had said. Well cared for. But not by Norah, who had worked so hard to let her go. The dreams she'd had, all that searching through the brittle frozen grass, came back to her, pierced her. (371)
All these years he had been good, but it hadn't made any difference. He'd discovered music and played his heart out into the silence of that house, into the hole his sister's death had made in their lives, and that hadn't mattered either. He had tried as hard as he could to make his parents look up from their lives and hear the beauty, the joy that he'd discovered. (290-1)
Slowly, slowly, David let himself relax into this darkness, closing his eyes, letting the music, Paul's music, move through him in waves. Tears rose in his eyes, and his throat ached. He thought of his sister, standing on the porch and singing in her clear sweet voice; music was a silvery language it seemed she'd been born speaking, just as Paul had. A deep sense of loss rose up in him, so forceful, woven of so many memories: June's voice, and Paul slamming the door shut behind him, and Norah's clothes scattered on the beach. His newborn daughter, released into Caroline Gill's waiting hands. Too much. Too much. (195)
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
The headline? "Oil spill captain headed for brig/Feds charge man at helm of Cosco Busan."
So let's see here.
1. The captain of the oil spill ship Cosco Busan was actually Mao Cai Sun. The person referred to with federal charges was the pilot, John Cota.
2. It's far from certain John Cota will ever serve any time for his actions. Perhaps a question mark after the headline would help make it operational?
3. Finally, John Cota wasn't "at the helm" Here's somebody at a ship helm, in this case the mariner is behind the wheel of a Doral:
The helmsman at the time of the accident was a Chinese national, not John Cota.
This explains it all: "Cadet Zack Townsend at the helm under the captain's command with the pilot's advice." That's how it usually works, anyway.
In another action concerning John Cota's licensing status, things are bogging down:
"The tentative hearing date of April 28, 2008 was vacated. The ALJ ordered a new hearing date of September 2, 2008. Current estimates for the length of the hearing is 15 days. The hearing will be held for four days each week until completed as follows: September 2 – 5, 8 – 11, 15 – 18, and 22 – 25. The hearing will commence each day at 9:00 a.m. and will be held in an Office of Administrative Hearings' courtroom in the Elihu Harris State Building, 1515 Clay Street, Oakland, California."
Anything for a fair hearing.
Tags: Cosco busan, Examiner, helm, John Cota, oil spill, San Francisco, ship


text:
Latest News Headlines
Commercial Credit News
|StepChange Debt Charity response to Which? overdraft research
|Wednesday, 13 July 2016
In response to Which? research showing that overdrafts can cost more than payday loans, Peter Tutton, Head of Policy at StepChange Debt Charity, said: "This research is yet further evidence of the need for action to address the problem of unauthorised overdraft charges. Many of our clients, among whom overdrafts are the second most common form of debt, are trapped in a monthly cycle of overdraft debt just to make ends meet. The level of charges incurred can simply serve to deepen existing financial problems.
"We do not believe the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) proposed remedies are sufficient to address consumer detriment caused by unauthorised overdrafts. Many of the banks already have monthly maximum charges and we believe that, as with payday loans, it is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that should be responsible for setting the level of any charge cap on unauthorised overdrafts."
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Providing information and analysis for thousands of senior credit professionals worldwide, every quarter.
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text:
Lawmakers are in crunch time for budget negotiations, but Gov. Jay Inslee went before reporters today to argue that it's not all about the budget. With less than five days left in the regular session, the Democratic governor still wants to crack down on drunk drivers, keep guns out of the wrong hands, help young people brought to the country illegally go to college, guarantee insurance coverage for abortion, and raise taxes to fund transportation projects and maintenance.
His role is to make sure all those issues stay in the mix, he said. On the budget itself, he said he's trying to get everyone to show their hands but not necessarily offering new ideas of his own to bridge the differences between the House and Senate budgets.
I can't tell you that I've provided some Einsteinian way to solve some disagreements here. We are trying to in this process, in this process trying to figure out where the highest priority is for every part of the five corners (Inslee and the four partisan caucuses of the Legislature). And that's the process of this discussion. And again, I think people are now getting down to brass tacks to figure that out.
But not without some reluctance, it seems:
I'm trying to get people to come to the table and put numbers on a piece of paper so we can get agreements on these things as rapidly as possible. There may be a thousand reasons that hasn't happened to date. …. I'm going to get this done as quickly as we can, and I'm reporting to you that a) there are many things that need to be resolved, not just one thing, and b) the governor's going to help everybody focus on all of those things, rather than just one thing, and c) I think people right now are doing as well as they can to reach sincere agreements.
Would extra time help?
Yes, I think it will. We're trying to reach an amalgam, an agreement of people with widely diverse views and communities, and time does help in some degree. I'm going to try to compress that to the extent humanly possible.
Lawmakers will likely get more time. They appear headed toward a special session, and while Inslee said they would have to "draw to an inside straight" to finish in the constitutionally mandated 105 days, he said he hasn't figured out when he would bring lawmakers back if they miss their deadline.


text:
By Edward Chaykovsky
IBF junior welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (32-2-1, 16KOs) prepares for a defense of his title in a Showtime televised fight against Edgar Santana (29-4, 20KOs). The fight will be part of a tripleheader on August 9th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The main event will feature WBA/WBC junior welterweight champion Danny Garcia in a non-title ten round fight against Rod Salka.
If Peterson and Garcia win their fights, then the two of them will get matched against each other in the final quarter of the year.
"Without winning this fight, there's no Garcia fight. Even if I win there might not be, so all I can do is focus on Edgar Santana," Peterson said.
"I've seen Edgar Santana fight; he can definitely fight. People haven't seen him so they don't think he deserves it. But he's been around for a while and still fighting. It's a tough task to stay in this game for 10 years."
"There's not a lot of guys you can go to in the 140-pound weight class that are all-time great fighters. My goal is to put my name on that list. Winning all the belts is the way to do it, even though they don't mean that much to me."


text:
The California Maritime Academy training ship Golden Bear stopped at the Port of West Sacramento this week on the first leg of a 60 day cruise with a crew of 300 cadets from the Vallejo-based CSU campus.
A reception was held on April 24th where Captain Harry Bolton presented plaques commemorating the vessel's visit to Mayor Cabaldon, Port Commission Vice Chair Sandeen and Jeff Stiles with SSA Marine. Speakers included Thomas Cropper, President of CSU Maritime Academy, and Timothy White, Chancellor of California State University. The reception attendees included executive staff from all of the CSU campuses.


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Dear friendsI have a Sokkia SRX3 Robotic Total Station and a RC-PR4 remote but I cant connect them together. I have connected the RC-PR4 with my Controler but it cont be connected with the SRX3.The SRX3 can be connented with my controler and works…Read more →
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Finding user manuals and guides for older surveying equipment can be a royal pain. Over time members have thankfully submitted their old operators documents and workflows. Lately, i have seen a rise in questions related to older Sokkia equipment so I figured I'd post a few hard-to-find manuals for your use. Hopefully one of these might come in handy for you.
anybody knows error e 003 on sokkia 5G. it is well working before 6 months of storing it. i check it myself before i left for saudi arabia and now its giving me error 003. Very much appreciated if you can help me out on this brothers...
is there is anyone have simulator for sokkia that works on windows OS ?
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Wanna learn more of the latest Sokkia product, though I am using SCT6. Thanks!
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Al Rosen: On his supposed abhorrence of vacuums
Well done.
Thank you for clarifying it is owned by Rogers. I won't buy or read any of their mags after finding out Chatelaine and McLean's receive Government funding. Blatant abuse of the program and tax payer money.
FYI - Just checked ... Canadian Business Magazine is a recipient of Canadian Magazine Fund. This funding is issued by our heritage department. The money is supposedly for smaller publishers ...
Anyhow, a simple google search and you will see Canadian business was on the recipient list for 2008-2009 for $172,752. This is one of the larger amounts this granting body issues. All Rogers publications seem to receive the largest amounts.
See: http://www.pch.gc.ca/cmf/list0809-eng.cfm
Interesting ... in this case it was probably not ad revenue making the decision about that article. Most likely someone along the chain told Canadian Business - get an "anti trust unit article in there NOW or else ..."
22 issues a year that is approx every 2 weeks.
Considering 1) the momentum on the Marshall Plan and 2) positive response (2 journalists have published and complimented the plan) and 3) when the MSP was conceived ... the timing of this "anti trust unit propaganda" article in Canadian Business, is no accident. Fits a little too well into the editorial schedule.
Just an opinion ... Either way I am very grateful Trust Unit investors see through this crap and are continuing to fight back.
Posted by Anonymous to C A I T I - O N L I N E
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Canadian Business Magazine confirmed as a "paid for" propaganda rag
Posted by Fillibluster at 3:17 PM
7 comments:
- Dr Mike said...
I wondered why Ponzi Al popped out of the woodwork with a blast at trusts after all this time.
A Ponzi scheme guy is worth his weight in CEO bucks no doubt about it.
It is becoming more obvious by the day that the Marshall Plan has merit--it appears it has touched a corporate nerve or two.
Dr Mike
- February 9, 2010 at 4:11 PM
Do you like or trust anyone?
You think everything is about self-interest. Of course you would because all of your actions are self-interested.
- February 9, 2010 at 5:05 PM
- Dr Mike said...
Hey Danny I am still hoping you will answer my question I keep asking you---what would happen that would be so catastrophic if all businesses were in the trust model.
Should be an easy one for you.
So far you have said nothing factual , just tirades against Brent Fullard---that scares me.
Dr Mike Popovich
- February 9, 2010 at 5:12 PM
"Considering 1) the momentum on the Marshall Plan and 2) positive response (2 journalists have published and complimented the plan) and 3) when the MSP was conceived ... the timing of this "anti trust unit propaganda" article in Canadian Business, is no accident. Fits a little too well into the editorial schedule."
I agree... too coincidental and I don't believe in coincidence particularly with Al Rosen and Diane Urquhart, the 2 paid assassins of the NDP and Judy Whats-her-face-Lies. Now I wonder when we'll see an article by Urquhart to back up Rosen's drivel?
- February 9, 2010 at 5:48 PM
I agree Polyian. Big business uses public funds to promote their spin. They grease the palms of the politicians, some now some later, and extract tax benefits denied to us.
Until we break their hold we are destined to get more of the same.
I don't think the CONS LIBS Nor NDP are the answer.
- February 9, 2010 at 5:50 PM
- Dr Mike said...
You are absolutely right as the onus must be on us to retake the democratic process.
The political parties are just too beholding to big business & as such , are compromised.
It is up to us to expect more & demand more of our local MPs who must in turn demand more , on our behalf , from the big guys at the top of the parties.
Right now , big business controls the agenda for us.
That has to change & the change must begin with us.
Dr Mike Popovich
- February 9, 2010 at 7:02 PM
Brent - if only the "elected politicians" in every country - on this planet - pushed as hard as you do, FOR the struggling middle class and those who strive to remain and/or become middle class, then THIS WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE.
- February 9, 2010 at 7:45 PM


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1 week Florida (not Orlando) - where would you recommend?(23 Posts)
We have a 2 week holiday. For the 2nd week we will base ourselves in
Benidorm Orlando but I need some inspiration for the 1st week.
We are going August - so it's hot and humid. We fly into Fort Lauderdale.
It's just me and DP (early 40s), and we have been before but only catching a day or two here or there either side of Orlando.
I'd love some quiet and/or quirky beaches, some small resorts or place out in the sticks (Miami scared the bejeezus out of us last time we went).
We usually only stay 1-2 nights in a place then move on, but I'd like to chill out a bit more this time.
Oh yes, we are terrible cheapskates too so want bargains please. Where would you go? Any secret escapes or fab motels/bed and breakfasts? Where are your "must see" locations?
we did a 2 centre holiday last time and spent the first week in Islamorada lower florida Keys. right next to John Pennekamp park and the snorkelling. only about an hours easy drive from Miami and like another world. would go back again like a shot. pm me for more details. magical trip canoeing in the everglades, 1.5 hr drive up to the madness of key west. lots of stops on the way for beaches, cycle rides canoeing.
That sounds fab - I've not been down to the Keys. I'll have a look on Trip Advisor & may pm you, thanks.
The "Florida is like Benidorm" thread has now got a fair few recommendations as people are keen to point out that there's a lot more to Florida than just the Mouse.
The Keys, definitely. Beautiful.
Not much help on your other questions, sorry!
The Keys are fabulous. We also loved Sanibel on ten Gulf Coast. Very low key development, much of thd island is a nature reserve, the best sea shells in the world! Has a really nice holiday feel, but in a peaceful way.
The gulf coast; not ten! If you go for Sanibel, make sure you stay gulf side, not facing the mainland. I'd recommend the Westwind Inn on Sanibel.
Another interesting place is Everglades City (not a city at all! A tiny little town!) Very pretty, lots of houses on stilts and water everywhere. You can go over a bridge onto Chokoliskee Island...then you're really in the stix!! We did a great kayaking trip from Chokoloskee.
Thanks all - doing tripadvisor porn and thinking of sunshine (yeay!)
Yes, I agree - the Keys are great.
We stayed at the Mermaid and Alligator in Key West - the best place we have ever stayed.
We travelled to Miami, stayed a few days, then drove part down the Keys and stayed at Islamorada, then drove to Key West for a few days, then drove back stopping at Key Largo for a night, then we flew to the Bahamas for a week. Flights to the Bahamas take only about an hour from Miami airport, so easy to do for just a few days if you fancy a change from Florida.
The breakers hotel in palm beach
Sanibel, Clearwater, St Petes Beach, St Petersburg - all lovely.
Will be watching closely.....I'm trying to organise two weeks post Disney in Florida for myself, DH, DS (11), DD (7) and my mother. Seem to be going round in circles and my head hurts.
Initially thought of 3 nights in Anna Maria Island (Cedar Cove resort...anyone been? or recommend another?)
Then 2 nights at Miami Beach. DH wants to go but I'm not sure if there'll be much for the kids.
Anyhow then onto to the Keys.....no idea where to go. I'm just picking hotels and have no idea where they actually are or what else is there to do around. Islander Bayside Islamoralda? Is Tranquility Bay worth the extra $$?
Just googled Captiva and Sanibel and now I'm thinking about looking at them too. Already spent best part of 3 hours looking at places on AMI and the Keys! Could really do with some direction.
Thought we'd go back up to Orlando at the end and do Kennedy Space Centre, Universal, Seaworld etc.
Have you ever stayed in Key West with children?
Added problem is there are 5 of us and so it's always 2 hotel rooms (twice the cost!), as can't find any self catering beachfront properties for less than a week's rental period.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Hi, DH and I went a couple of years ago, we stayed in Miami Beach at the Park Central on Ocean Drive, it was very nice, lots of eateries around and right on the beach.
Driving down the Keys we stayed at HAMPTON INN, 80001 Overseas Highway, Islamorada, 33036.(305) 664-0073Mile Marker 80 which was really nice (bit Holiday inn like). We had a large room with 2 big double beds, and I think you could get extra beds if required. Pool and right on the edge of the sea. Outback steakhouse on site was really nice too.
At Key West we stayed at THE MERMAID AND THE ALLIGATOR, 729 Truman Avenue, Key West, Florida 33040. 800 773–1894 / 305 294-1894, absolutely lovely, but probably not suitable for children. Not sure you would find loads to do in Key West for children, beach was nice and safe. Interesting graveyard with cryptic writings on gravestones was nice for a walk around. Lots of restaurants and bars, but as we went as only adults, not sure what would suit with children.
I think Duck Key, not quite as far down as Key West was maybe more geared to children.
On the drive back up the Keys we stayed at COCONUT PALM INN, 189 Harbourview Drive, Tavernier, 33070 - now this would be ideal for children, we had a suite/apartment which had cooking facilities etc, looked out over the sea, nice fenced swimming pool, barbecue facilities and you could use the canoes etc if you wanted to. Nice eateries nearby too.
Further up Florida on the Gulf Coast is Fort Myers beach, huge beach nice for children, also Siesta Key where you can dive for sand dollars - you could go direct from Miami across the Everglades to there - maybe miss off the Keys until you are just adults going?
Cedar Key is quaint, small, and quirky. DH and I spent our honeymoon there.
Sorry posted too soon. We always stay at the Island Place on Cedar Key.
Also, I should point out that Cedar Key is not part of the southern keys. It is an island off the west coast north of Tampa.
Speaking of which, Tampa is a great place to visit, too.
I'd go up to the pan handle . Pensacola and Tallahassee are lovely. Lots of springs/swamps and amazing beaches. Not touristy at all.
Florida keys are lovely!
I live in Florida. When our children were young, we often vacationed on Captiva and Sanibel. I love Key West, but we went there usually without the children, although DH did take them camping there once. (I don't camp.)
naples is nice for a stopover but I like st petes beach.
Thank you! I'll go off and research all those fab suggestions!
Does anyone know how Captiva and Sanibel differ from Anna Maria Island? We do lots of beach holidays (never in US) so this time want to experience typical Floridian/American beaches/resorts.
It's possibly a once in a lifetime trip so want to make sure we'll be going to the Must See places, iyswim.
I think Captiva and Sanibel are probably a bit quieter than Anna Maria. It is hard to say what is typical because all these beach communities have their own unique qualities. Anna Maria might have more for the children; it is busier, but still has some of the old Florida feel.
Just got back from 2 weeks in Florida - started on Captiva Island for 4 nights at the Captive Island Inn - not luxurious but quite sweet, I loved Captiva, also visited Sanibel and the nature reserve/lighthouse area.
then drove down to Islamorada for 3 nights at the Breezy Palms - yes, it was breezy, but the beach is right on your doorstep -
then down to Key West for 4 nights - this is quite a drive, but very scenic.
4 nights in Key West at the Courtneys Place, then back up to Naples...you can visit the Everglades from Naples.
The beach in Captiva was very quiet, don't know what it is like in the height of summer, but the beach goes on for miles...
In Key West the butterfly centre was lovely, Key West garden club was free and a really lovely shaded walk for our 2 kids, aged 2 and 4. There were also a nice playground on the beach near the garden club. There is also an aquarium there which we didn't see and plenty of boat trips to go on. The beaches aren't great in Key West, I don't think.
We avoided Miami with 2 small kids, went there on honey moon after becoming obsessed with the TV show, Dexter, but don't think its so nice with kids.
from what i understand from being there, Sanibel and Captiva are a little more upmarket than Anna Maria - a little less laid back and slightly more expensive. What put me off Sanibel was all the talk of the no see um bugs as anything that flies/hops and bites find me very tasty and i then blow up like a beach ball !
For our honeymoon we did a week in the keys and a week in Orlando, it worked really well.
You can drive between the two, I believe it's one long road. We flew, it took about half an hr from key west to Orlando, and cost about £30 each, v easy and cheap!
I can't recommend the keys highly enough! If you're into your food (as we are!) try and find the episode of man v food where Adam Richman goes to key west, I think it's on YouTube, you'll be dreaming of key lime pie and conch fritters!
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UnNews:Rigged Oscars defused by ex-wife
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
Rigged Oscars defused by ex-wife
Straight talk, from straight faces
Wednesday, March 21, 2018, 04:27:59 (UTC)
• Newsroom • Audio (staff) • Foolitzer Prize
• Indexes • Random story
8 March 2010
LOS ANGELES, California -- Kathryn Bigelow, the ex-wife of 'Avatar' director James Cameron, soundly stomped Cameron's arse, when her low-budget real-life war VDO, "The Hurt Locker" easily won the Academy Award for Best Picture on Sunday – Causing Cameron a huge loss of face.
The contest was speculated to be just about even until the ceremony began, then the pitiful tear-jerker, about a lunatic suicidal bomb-squad leader, totally destroyed the ceremony when faulty Pyrotechnics exploded, which literally blew-away "Avatar".
After the smoke cleared and the bomb squad successfully defused any remaining ordinance, UnNews caught up with Ms. Bigelow, who told us, "Ha ha ha! It's just a delightfully fun experience to have my $2,000 VDO completely demolish that arrogant bastard's, Avatar, which cost him $500 Million - plus his not getting paid!
"Really!" Bigelow went on, "If my two thousand dollar VDO, which was filmed in Iraq using real service personnel and live bombs, were to lose to his 500 million dollar kids 3D cartoon I wouldn't feel a thing. But to be the other way around is simply delicious. I mean, talk about payback! Oh Ha ha! AAaaah. Ha Ha! Haaa!"
After laughing non-stop for about 10 minutes Bigelow regained her composure and continued. "God! What a huge embarrassment. If I were my Ex then I'd be hiding my face in shame. Hahaha!! This is just exquisite. I love it!"
edit Sources
- Dan Goodwoman "Rigged Oscars Defused by Ex-Wife". Reuters, March 8, 2010


text:
WORKING together, business specialists Fedden USP, MIT Skills and Chichester College, were recently awarded European Social Funding to deliver LEAN business training to small businesses in the area.
The Lean training helps businesses improve service levels, productivity and increase innovation, which ultimately increases bottom-line profit.
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Neil Fedden, principal consultant at Fedden USP, said: "Being awarded this funding is really good news as we can now deliver real and sustainable business benefits to SMEs in terms of improved process efficiencies, reduced lead times and improved problem solving capabilities."
With the benefit of the funding, the course can be provided heavily-subsidised to employers with less than 250 employees, provided the delegates are aged 19 and over.
For more information on the training and how to get involved, contact Neil Fedden on 07899 971183 or visit www.fedden-usp.co.uk


text:
Austin contractor to build reliever route's 'Phase 2'
Published 6:00 pm, Monday, January 19, 2009
An Austin contractor was the apparent low bidder Tuesday for a state contract to build a 3-mile section of the new Highway 349 reliever route northwest of Midland in the second phase of the 16-mile project to connect Farm to Market Road 1788 with 349 north of the city.
Dan Dalager, a construction engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation, said Ranger Excavating of Austin submitted a $4.7 million bid 32 percent under the department's $6.9 million engineering estimate for the project.
Dalager said the Texas Transportation Commission is expected to award the bid at its Jan. 29 meeting and that work could be underway in April. There are 179 working days allotted to the project, which includes work on Farm-to-Market Road 1788 north of Highway 191 and an interchange at 1788 and the new roadway.
Two local bidders, Jones Brothers Dirt & Paving Contractors of Odessa and the Reece Albert Co. of Midland, had unsuccessful bids 17 and 15 percent under the engineering estimate. Six of the seven firms bidding submitted bids below the estimate.
The project is described both as a "reliever route" to reduce commercial truck traffic congestion on Loop 250 in Midland and as the first section of La Entrada al Pacifico trade corridor.
Jones Brothers was the successful bidder for the first phase at $10.3 million and is already working on the 13.2-mile stretch of highway from Texas 158 to 349 north.
That construction got underway in August 2008 with work on two large drainage structures west of where the reliever route will intersect with a new extension of Holiday Hill Road, a city of Midland project under state oversight that is also being built by Jones Bros.
The 16-mile connector has been promoted by the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance as the first link in an eventual trade route spanning from the Pacific Ocean in western Mexico through Midland-Odessa to the American heartland.
Entrada runs from the port of Topolobampo in the Mexican state of Sinaloa through Chihuahua City and Presidio-Ojinaga to Midland-Odessa. The Texas portion of the route was designated in 1997 by the Texas Legislature.
A 36-mile section skirting the rugged Pegues Mountains south of Ojinaga was built in the State of Chihuahua connecting Federal 16 with State 67 in Mexico and opened as a toll road in 2003. Dalager said the project around Midland is being built as half of the eventual freeway type facility.


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text:
Andrea Pirlo tells Juventus Monday's trip to Roma is "an important stepping stone towards something very prestigious."
The Bianconeri are the only side still unbeaten and must get a win to stay clear at the top of the table, though they are resisting talk of the Scudetto.
"This can be an important stepping stone towards something very prestigious," said Pirlo.
"Francesco Totti is going through a difficult moment because of injuries, but he remains a great champion. I often talk to Daniele De Rossi when we're on international duty. His contract with Roma expires in June, but it's up to him to decide whether or not to change clubs."
Few expected Pirlo to walk away from Milan after 10 years, but the move to Juventus has revitalised his career.
"Last season, for the first time in a decade at Milan, I was out for a long while due to an injury. I knew that I had more to give and this year started with even more hunger to prove how much I'm worth.
"Antonio Conte is a great motivator who has given the team a specific identity. By following him, we can reach prestigious targets."
See the latest Serie A predictions and betting tips with Eurotips.co.uk


text:
Not so long ago -- say when the Soviet Union was crushing rebellions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary in the 1960s or the US was invading half the Middle East in the 2000s -- a big country picking on a small one was mostly a physical activity. Tanks would roll in, buildings and people would be blown up, and that would be that. The aggressor might face the occasional trade sanction from otherwise-impotent "powers," but this was relatively painless in a world that was not yet financially or technologically integrated.
Contrast those simpler times with today's Ukraine crisis, where a whole range of new battlefields might soon open up. First is telecommunications, where both sides apparently have the ability to launch a cyber-strike:
Watching for a Crimean Cyberwar CrisisAn info-war is under way as websites are blocked and telecom cables to Crimea are mysteriously cut.
Russia's takeover of the Crimean peninsula has been accompanied by a elements of an information-control campaign: telecom cables connecting that region to the rest of Ukraine have been severed, and the Russian government has moved to block Internet pages devoted to the Ukrainian protest movement.
But so far there is no public evidence of more serious cyberattacks against military or government institutions. Indeed, Russia may need to tread a fine line with such tactics, since they could be seen as acts of war under evolving military doctrine. A report from a NATO group chaired by Madeleine Albright, a former U.S. Secretary of State, has said that if NATO infrastructure were the victim of a cyberattack, it could lead to a physical response such as a bombing.
So far, anyway, "Russia has limited themselves to the things they usually do in the onset of a conflict to try to shape opinion, stifle critics, and advance their own viewpoint," says James Lewis, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C. "They are doing the informational side, which is the opening move in the playbook." Over the weekend, though, Ukraine's national telephone company, Ukrtelecom, said that unknown vandals had seized telecommunications nodes and cut cables, severing much of the data and voice links between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine.
Info-war tactics have been seen on the Ukrainian side too. Someone sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause managed to hack the Russian government's English-language news organ, Russia Today, and substitute the word "Nazi" for "military" in some headlines, with results such as "Russian Senators Vote to Use Stabilizing Nazi Forces on Ukrainian Territory."
The region has a colorful history of cyberattacks against smaller states and organizations seen as opposing the Kremlin. In Estonia in 2007, the local government antagonized Russia by relocating a bronze statue commemorating Russian soldiers. A flood of attacks against government, media, and telecom websites in Estonia followed, paralyzing them for weeks. (The attacks were "denial-of-service" events, flooding servers with page requests to overload them.) The Russian government denied responsibility, saying "patriotic hackers" were to blame.
In 2008, similar events played out when Russia invaded South Ossetia, part of the neighboring republic of Georgia. Again, the attacks--on sites associated with government offices and the embassies of the United States and United Kingdom, among others--could not be provably linked to Russia's government (see "Georgian Cyberattacks Traced to Russian Civilians").
Ukraine may be something of a different case. Both Ukraine and Russia are well-known centers of international cybercrime, and both are home to talented computer engineers. But for whatever reason, this sort of mass cyberattack is not happening. "In Georgia you had cyber incidents coördinated with military operations. But the Russians haven't done that here," Lewis says. "If violence breaks out in the Crimea, I think they will bump it up a notch."
The events provide a way for the United States to see what Russia's cyberwar capabilities are, says Stewart Baker, a former policy chief at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and now a lawyer in private practice. "From the U.S. point of view, it is an opportunity to watch one country that has integrated cyber [tactics] into their military-Russia-and see what their current doctrines suggest they do," he said. "But it may be they have decided they don't need to show what they've got, and won't do it."
Four years ago, Vladimir Sherstyuk, a member of Russia's National Security Council and director of the Institute for Information Security Issues at Moscow State University, boasted of significant capacities. "Cyberweapons can affect a huge amount of people, as well as nuclear," he said in an interview with MIT Technology Review (see "Russia's Cyber Security Plans"). "But there is one big difference between them. Cyberweapons are very cheap--almost free of charge."
Even more serious, or at more least wide-ranging, is the fact that Russia owns a lot of dollars and could disrupt the global financial system by dumping them:.
Putin Advisor Threatens With Dumping US Treasurys, Abandoning Dollar If US Proceeds With SanctionsWhile the comments by Russian presidential advisor, Sergei Glazyev, came before Putin's detente press conference early this morning, they did flash a red light of warning as to what Russian response may be should the west indeed proceed with "crippling" sanctions as Kerry is demanding. As RIA reports, his advice is that "authorities should dump US government bonds in the event of Russian companies and individuals being targeted by sanctions over events in Ukraine." Glazyev said the United States would be the first to suffer in the event of any sanctions regime.
"The Americans are threatening Russia with sanctions and pulling the EU into a trade and economic war with Russia," Glazyev said. "Most of the sanctions against Russia will bring harm to the United States itself, because as far as trade relations with the United States go, we don't depend on them in any way."
From RIA:
"We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds - more than $200 billion - and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner," he said. "We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency and leave the US market."
To be sure, a high-ranking Kremlin source was quick to distance his office from Glazyev's remarks, however, insisting to RIA Novosti that they represented only his personal position. Glazyev was just expressing his views as an academic, and not as a presidential adviser, the Kremlin insider said.
That said, putting Russia's threat in context, the Federation held $138.6 billion in US Treasurys as of December according to the latest TIC data, making it the 11th largest creditor of the US, which appears to conflict with what the Russian said, making one wonder where there is a disconnect in "data." This would mean the Fed would need just two months of POMO to gobble up whatever bonds Russia has to sell.
The bigger question is if indeed, as some have suggested, China were to ally with Russia, and proceed to follow Russia in its reciprocal isolation of the US, by expanding trade with Russia on non-USD based terms, and also continue selling bonds as it did in December, when as we reported previously it dumped the second largest amount of US paper in history.
Some thoughts
Basically, what this means is that in a world where everyone's networks are vulnerable and where countries that are emphatically not US allies own a mountain of dollar-denominated paper, small, obscure conflicts can spread in a heartbeat from the physical battlefield to cyber-space and/or Wall Street.
The Ukraine crisis sounds, at the moment, like more of a chance to threaten such attacks than to actually try them. So no cyber or financial Pearl Harbor is likely this week.
But that such things are now on the table and would, should they occur, be sudden, adds yet another layer of complexity to a financial world that already has too many black swans cluttering up its sky. And it raises the appeal of hard assets that 1) don't reside in accounts that can be hacked and 2) don't depend on the value of fiat currencies that can simply evaporate. Put another way, the proper response to peak complexity is hyper-simplification via gold, silver, and farmland.