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NEW YORK -- Is it possible to lead a dedicated literary life in the billionaire-filled, media-crazed New York of today? To be heedless of the material world as you burrow into novels and ideas the way the old Partisan Review gang did in the '40s and '50s, to come up with notions that rock the intellectual landscape? And if so, who exactly is still paying attention?
Those are questions three reasonably young men are asking now in much-awaited first novels that emerge over the next few weeks. Each novelist takes a very different position toward rendering literary life in a city where bohemian writers have been forced out by hedge-fund guys. And each co-edits a journal that is proud, almost defiant about its print status -- in a nation where the image has been replacing the word for at least half a century now, and even some well-funded publications are in free-fall.
Outside of a few college towns, perhaps, it's hard now to embrace the cerebral unapologetically without a sense of irony, of operating a bit out of time. But that didn't stop Keith Gessen and some Ivy League-educated friends from launching, in 2004, the ambitious and pugilistic journal n+1, which was greeted by some as a kind of knowing, intellectual stunt. "Oh, no," Gessen, who has heavy brows and a wide Russian mouth, said one recent evening. "It wasn't a joke."
That first issue was dedicated mostly to outlining what it opposed. "We were against the New Republic, we were against McSweeney's, we were against the war, we were against exercise," Gessen continued, sitting in a dive bar on the Upper West Side, where he once lived in an illegal sublet before decamping for Brooklyn, like most of the city's other literati. "And to this day we're against many things."
At this point he's kidding, but he's a serious guy: His journal is dedicated first and foremost, he said, to bringing "a fighting spirit" back to a conflict-averse literary culture.
The Moscow-born Gessen, 33, may be the end of the line, the last of the bold, hungry, text-based thinkers, a throwback to the heyday of Dissent, the quarterly at which he once toiled. His semi-autobiographical novel, "All the Sad Young Literary Men," came out last week to mostly strong reviews. His journal, meanwhile, takes what might be called the hard-line position on intellectual life: We don't need more creativity, it says, we need more rigorous argument and political commitment. With Nathaniel Rich, a Paris Review editor whose surreal novel, "The Mayor's Tongue," came out last week, and Ed Park, the Believer co-founder and author of the upcoming "Personal Days," which takes the glamour entirely out of the world of literary journalism, Gessen shows the pleasures and perils of taking ideas seriously in a city attuned more to Dow Jones than Irving Howe.
Greenwich's golden era
"It was like Paris in the twenties, with the difference that it was our city," critic Anatole Broyard wrote in "Kafka Was the Rage," his memoir of post-World War II Greenwich Village. "The Village was charming, shabby, intimate, accessible, almost like a street fair. We lived in the bars and on the benches of Washington Square. We shared the adventure of trying to be, starting to be, writers or painters."
These were also the days when the brilliant young sons -- and much more rarely, daughters -- of immigrants from the shtetl rolled up their sleeves and developed a brand of criticism both modern and vital. It was a tonic to the genteel tradition that held sway in the academy.
As the title of Alfred Kazin's 1995 recollection had it, "Writing Was Everything." Literature and ideas were akin to religion.
But that was a long time ago. "I always kind of cringe when I hear people talk about literary things as if they're separate from everyday life," said Rich, who's also interested in old movies and indie rock. "Some specialized, rarefied region of the mind or something."
Park, Gessen and Rich -- who as editors and novelists serve as gatekeepers and creators simultaneously -- show how the idea of the New York Intellectual has fragmented.
Rich, who wears blazers and has a mop of dark hair and delicate features that make him seem almost elfin, has the smooth manner of someone born into a tradition and trying not to take unfair advantage. (He's the Dalton-and-Yale-educated son of New York Times columnist Frank Rich.) He's the intellectual as gentleman: Rich spent a full five years writing his novel before telling anyone but his closest friends.
"I didn't want to be the guy at the party," he said from an airy TriBeCa cafe near his office, "where everyone was saying, 'When's Nat's novel coming out?' " He'd rather talk about his favorite obscure writers -- the cynical and obsessive but also compassionate Italo Svevo, the wildly comic Irishman Flann O'Brien -- or the hills of Italy, than discuss himself.
Park is the eldest of the three at 37 but also the one with the most contemporary sensibility: He's a fan of postmodern authors and what he calls "the outer edge of realism," especially slipstream -- fiction that blends literary ambition with genres like horror and fantasy. (He also writes a monthly science-fiction column, called Astral Weeks, for latimes.com.)
While many people live around the world and draw their paychecks from New York -- still the nation's financial capital -- Park lives the reverse: His day job is with the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, which he visits several times a month. The Believer, which he co-edits, is based in San Francisco.
A literary celebrity in an old-school way, Gessen is well enough known in the New York media world -- he broke into the New York Review of Books while still in his 20s -- that his novel went through the entire cycle of hype and backlash before publication. The media blog Gawker has been rather unhealthily obsessed with him and his co-conspirator, novelist Benjamin Kunkel, describing Gessen as having "the soulful looks of a Greenwich Village bohemian and the oh-so-erotic arrogance of a Russian-Jewish intellectual." The site chronicles his love life as though he were George Clooney, not a largely untested writer who spends most of his days hunched over a computer.
Inside the literary media swirl these days, the books can seem beside the point. Does literature retain any of that old prestige? Rich, for his part, takes a pragmatic approach.
"I think there are more people engaged with literature than there ever have been," he said. "When people think about the golden age of the novel in the 19th century, literacy rates were absurdly low. There wasn't electricity to read by: People weren't just sitting around reading all day then either."
Rich may be living a charmed life in a sense: Despite some post-college drift, he managed to intern at the New York Review of Books, live in San Francisco and write a book on the city's noir cinema, all before his 25th birthday. His time at the Paris Review, which he joined in June 2005, has coincided with a renaissance of the quarterly under editor Philip Gourevitch, with circulation now at 16,000, exceeding its early '60s apogee. He's come by his optimism honestly.
Is it becoming more difficult, with the incredible cost of living, to live the life of the mind? "I don't really know what it means to live the life of the mind," Rich said."It's becoming a lot more difficult to live in Manhattan. The things that were great about New York are still here, they're just in different places."
Finding his own voice
For a sense of a spell that's broken, talk to Ed Park, whose novel comes out at the end of May. With his rumpled-preppy dress and pointy glasses, Park, sitting at an eatery near his West 95th Street apartment, could be one of the geek-chic protagonists in Adrian Tomine's "Optic Nerve" comic. Inspired more by the hip taste and fanboy ethos of the alternative press than the intellectually striving postwar "little magazine," he worships Philip K. Dick instead of Philip Rahv.
In the years after he started at the Village Voice in 1995 -- first as a copy editor -- he thrived on the paper's cerebral and politically progressive tone. But as he rose through the ranks over a decade, eventually heading the Voice Literary Supplement, things turned dour.
"Whatever romantic view I had of what I was doing," he said of the period around '05, "I started to see it was all driven by money and profit."
"Personal Days," much of which he wrote right before and after being fired by the paper's new owners, New Times Media, in 2006, looks at the curdling of that young writer's dream: We see the hyper-intellectual workplace of the Voice -- never identified as such -- with all its literary or political idealism burned off. With its gossip and minutiae, elevator flirtations, Orwellian e-mails and looming layoffs, it could be the Dunder-Mifflin paper mill of television's "The Office" -- the Village as Scranton, Penn.
"I never say what they do," he said of the office's employees. "I wanted it to stay focused on the universal workplace environment and interactions. Everybody knows what an office is like."
But Park also burns, in his gently obsessive and sometimes tongue-tied way, with a bit of Rich's optimism. In 2003, as things were going from bad to worse at the Voice, he and some of the McSweeney's crew started the Believer, an impassioned and sometimes precious magazine that, with its retro typefaces and eccentric illustrations, seemed to revel self-consciously in its identity as printed matter.
"It was an interesting year to launch a print magazine," Park said. "It's really something you can't get on the Web. The beauty of each issue isn't simply cosmetic -- a 'cool design'; the attractiveness also has to do with a marriage of form and function."
Under the radar
The old office for n+1 -- which, notwithstanding its detractors, has also been hailed as the most important new journal in decades -- sat in what Gessen called a "dank dungeon" in the no-man's land between SoHo and the Lower East Side. Staffers would descend for entire days at a time to write, edit and think deep thoughts.
"In the time we were there," Gessen recalled, "all these clubs opened up. We would sort of emerge from the office on a Friday night, and there would be velvet ropes . . . people in line, drinking."
It was a startling way to end a day spent contemplating the Frankfurt School. But n+1's soldiers were undaunted.
"With n+1, there was a time when people thought we were kidding: 'This is just a way of drawing attention to themselves.' But we weren't kidding. About two years ago, when we were putting out Issue 5, people really started hating us a lot. Because it really became clear that we were not kidding."
The journal, which has since moved, to Brooklyn, is often seen as a manifesto of elitist, male-centered high culture, living off the fumes from bound copies of Dissent. Gessen admits he and the gang were "perhaps too conscious" of their forebears.
But his war against mediocrity and for seriousness in writing and thought, he insists, does not require living in the past. "I think it's very much a living culture," he said over his Brooklyn ale. "There are a lot of people who really share these values, who were raised on this literature but who have talked themselves out of it."
It's what drove an attack on the website Gawker in the latest issue.
"These are people who were raised on print culture, everything they know they know from print culture, who now say, 'Those values are dead. You and I,' they say, 'believe in them, but those people out there do not.' And I'm telling you, they do! There are a lot of people who believe in this stuff, and they don't think it's a joke. They don't think the only way literature can survive is as this whimsical plaything of the upper class, which is frankly what McSweeney's is doing."
He's aware of the threats, the problems in publishing and elsewhere: Gessen doesn't want insularity and chumminess to kill literature and ideas as they killed poetry, "where really nobody but poets read poetry." The forces antagonistic to intellectualism, he insisted, usually come from inside.
"It's a self-inflicting kind of thing: 'Only we who are so privileged can indulge in this thing.' " He sees reasons for hope in Oprah Winfrey choosing Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" for her book club, in the people from India and Turkey who want to write for n+1.
"For people from that part of the world," he said, "high culture is extremely democratic, it's not elitist! It costs $2 to buy a paperback classic; they're the cheapest things in the bookstore."
This struggle to engage with the world of ideas animates "All the Sad Young Literary Men." His model, he said, is Bellow, "who was able to make his intellectuals ridiculous at the same time" as he took their ideas seriously.
"This is where the humor of the book comes from, the collision of those ideas with the actual living world. 'How do I become part of this world I've been reading about?' It turns out that the process of wondering how you do it, is how you do it. . . . What I've witnessed happen is the people who stick to it, who believe in that, end up creating that culture -- either poorly or well. And the people who say, 'That culture doesn't exist anymore,' go off and do other things.
"But those people have always existed!" he said, really getting rolling. "Read Balzac! There have always been people who went off and did other things!" --
Keith Gessen will appear at Vroman's Books on April 28; Ed Park will appear at Book Soup on June 20; Nathaniel Rich appears at Skylight Books tonight.


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The life stories, when the presidential candidate tells them, have a commontheme: the quest to belong.
A boy wants to find his place in a family where he is visibly different:chubby where others are thin, dark where others are light.
A youth living in a distant land searches and finds new friends, a newlanguage and a heartbreaking lesson about his identity in the pages of anAmerican magazine.
A young black man struggles for acceptance at an institution of privilege,where he finds himself growing so angry and disillusioned at the world aroundhim that he turns to alcohol and drugs.
These have been the stories told about the first two character-shapingdecades of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's life, a story line largely shaped by hisown best-selling memoir, political speeches and interviews.
But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple.
More than 40 interviews with former classmates, teachers, friends andneighbors in his childhood homes of Hawaii and Indonesia, as well as a reviewof public records, show the arc of Obama's personal journey took him to placesand situations far removed from the experience of most Americans.
At the same time, several of his oft-recited stories may not have happenedin the way he has recounted them. Some seem to make Obama look better in theretelling, others appear to exaggerate his outward struggles over issues ofrace, or simply skim over some of the most painful, private moments of hislife.
The handful of black students who attended Punahou School in Hawaii, forinstance, say they struggled mightily with issues of race and racism there.But absent from those discussions, they say, was another student then known asBarry Obama.
In his best-selling autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama describeshaving heated conversations about racism with another black student, "Ray."The real Ray, Keith Kakugawa, is half black and half Japanese. In an interviewwith the Tribune on Saturday, Kakugawa said he always considered himself mixedrace, like so many of his friends in Hawaii, and was not an angry young blackman.
He said he does recall long, soulful talks with the young Obama and thathis friend confided his longing and loneliness. But those talks, Kakugawasaid, were not about race. "Not even close," he said, adding that Obama wasdealing with "some inner turmoil" in those days.
"But it wasn't a race thing," he said. "Barry's biggest struggles then weremissing his parents. His biggest struggles were his feelings of abandonment.The idea that his biggest struggle was race is [bull]."
Then there's the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racialawakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanyingphotographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by hisefforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographsdon't exist, say the magazine's own historians.
Some of these discrepancies are typical of childhood memories -- fuzzy inspecifics, warped by age, shaped by writerly license. Others almost certainlyillustrate how carefully the young man guarded the secret of his lonelinessfrom even those who knew him best. And the accounts bear out much of Obama'sself-portrait as someone deeply affected by his father's abandonment yet ableto thrive in greatly disparate worlds.
Still, the story of his early years highlights how politics andautobiography are similar creatures: Each is shaped to serve a purpose.
In its reissue after he gave the keynote address at the Democraticconvention in 2004, "Dreams from My Father" joined a long tradition ofpolitical memoirs that candidates have used to introduce themselves to theAmerican people.
From his earliest moments on the national political stage, Obama haspresented himself as having two unique qualifications: a fresh political faceand an ability to bridge the gap between Americans of different races, faithsand circumstances. Among his supporters, his likability and credibility haveonly been boosted by his stories of being an outsider trying to fight his wayin.
As much as he may have felt like an outsider at times, Obama rarely seemedto show it. Throughout his youth, as depicted in his first book, he alwaysfound ways to meld into even the most uninviting of communities. He learned toadapt to unfamiliar territory. And he frequently made peace--even allies--withthe very people who angered him most.
Yet even Obama has acknowledged the limits of memoir. In a new introductionto the reissued edition of "Dreams," he noted that the dangers of writing anautobiography included "the temptation to color events in ways favorable tothe writer ... [and] selective lapses of memory."
He added: "I can't say that I've avoided all, or any, of these hazardssuccessfully."
Life without a father
It was a complicated time.
Hawaii had become a state only two years before Obama's birth, and therewere plenty of native Hawaiians still deeply unhappy about it. The U.S. military was expanding on the island of Oahu, home to the new capital ofHonolulu. And a young, iconoclastic white woman who had defied the socialmores of the day by marrying a dashing black man from Kenya was coping withthe fact that her new husband essentially had abandoned her and their youngchild in 1963 to study at Harvard.
Oblivious to all of this was a perpetually smiling toddler the entirefamily called Barry. In snapshots, the boy is a portrait of childhood bliss.He played on the beach. He posed in lifeguard stands. He rode a bright bluetricycle with red, white and blue streamers dangling from the handlebars.
In the six weeks since Obama announced his intention to run for the White House, he routinely has suggested that his diverse background--raised for atime in the Third World, schooled at elite institutions and active in urbanpolitics--makes him the best-suited candidate to speak to rich and poor, blackand white, mainstream voters and those utterly disenchanted with the politicalsystem.
Not as well known is the fact that the many people who raised him werenearly as diverse as the places where he grew up. There was his mother, Ann, abrilliant but impulsive woman; his grandmother Madelyn, a deeply private andstoically pragmatic Midwesterner; his grandfather Stanley, a loving soulinclined toward tall tales and unrealistic dreams.
"Looking back now, I'd say he really is kind of the perfect combination ofall of them," said his half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. "All of them wereimperfect but all of them loved him fiercely, and I believe he took the bestqualities from each of them."
During her son's earliest years, Obama's mother, whose full name wasStanley Ann Dunham because her father desperately had wished for a boy,attended college at the University of Hawaii. Known as Ann throughout heradult life, she kept to herself. She became estranged from her husband, Barack Obama Sr., after his departure for Harvard and rarely saw the group of friendsthat they had made at the University of Hawaii.
One of those friends, Neil Abercrombie, then a graduate student in thesociology department, frequently would see young Obama around town with hisgrandfather Stanley, whom Obama called "Gramps."
"Stanley loved that little boy," said Abercrombie, now a Democraticcongressman from Hawaii. "In the absence of his father, there was not akinder, more understanding man than Stanley Dunham. He was loving andgenerous."
A close friend of Obama's from their teenage years, Greg Orme, spent somuch time with Dunham that he, too, called him "Gramps." Orme recalled thatyears later, at Obama's wedding reception in Chicago, Obama brought the crowdto tears when he spoke of his recently deceased maternal grandfather and howhe made a little boy with an absent father feel as though he was never alone.
Madelyn Dunham, a rising executive at the Bank of Hawaii during Obama'sPunahou days, was more reserved but seemed to love having her grandson'sfriends over to play and hang out.
"Those were robust years full of energy and cacophony, and she loved all ofit," Soetoro-Ng said of her grandmother, who has lived alone since her husbanddied in 1992.
Ann and the boy lived with the Dunhams in Honolulu until Obama was 6. Thenhis young mother, now divorced, met and married an Indonesian student studyingat the University of Hawaii.
In one family photo before the mother and son moved to Indonesia, Obamawalks barefoot on Waikiki Beach, arms outstretched as though embracing theentire beautiful life around him. The sailboat the Manu Kai (bird of the sea,in English) is about to set sail behind him.
Obama, too, was about to journey far from these familiar shores.
Memories of a racial awakening?
Obama has told the story--one of the watershed moments of his racialawareness--time and again, in remarkable detail.
He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved withher new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. One day while visiting hismother, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Obama passed time bylooking through several issues of Life magazine. He came across an articlethat he later would describe as feeling like an "ambush attack."
The article included photos of a black man who had destroyed his skin withpowerful chemical lighteners that promised to make him white. Instead, thechemicals had peeled off much of his skin, leaving him sad and scarred, Obamarecalled.
"I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar momentsof revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams."
Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. Nosuch photos, no such article. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said ina recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been ... whoknows what it was?" (At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebonysearched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obamarecalled.)
In fact, it is surprising, based on interviews with more than two dozenpeople who knew Obama during his nearly four years in Indonesia, that it wouldtake a photograph in a magazine to make him conscious of the fact that somepeople might treat him differently in part because of the color of his skin.
Obama, who has talked and written so much about struggling to find a senseof belonging due to his mixed race, brushes over this time of his life in"Dreams." He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian injust six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric ofJakarta.
The reality was less tidy.
Obama and his mother joined her new husband, a kind man who later wouldbecome a detached heavy drinker and womanizer, family members in Indonesiasay. Their Jakarta neighborhood resembled a village more than the bustlingmetropolis the city is today. Electricity had arrived only a couple of yearsearlier. Half the homes were old bamboo huts; half, including the Soetorohouse, were nicer, with brick or concrete and red-tiled roofs.
Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," achubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. Allsay he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood--primarilybecause he was bigger and had black features.
He was the only foreign child in the neighborhood. He also was one of theonly neighborhood children whose parents enrolled him in a new Catholic schoolin an area populated almost entirely by Betawis, the old tribal landowningJakarta natives who were very traditional Muslims. Some of the Betawi childrenthrew rocks at the open Catholic classrooms, remembered Cecilia SuginiHananto, who taught Obama in 2nd grade.
Teachers, former playmates and friends recall a boy who never fully graspedtheir language and who was very quiet as a result. But one word Obama learnedquickly in his new home was curang, which means "cheater."
When kids teased him, Obama yelled back, "Curang, curang!" When a friendgave him shrimp paste instead of chocolate, he yelled, "Curang, curang!"
Zulfan Adi was one of the neighborhood kids who teased Obama mostmercilessly. He remembers one day when young Obama, a hopelessly upbeat boywho seemed oblivious to the fact that the older kids didn't want him taggingalong, followed a group of Adi's friends to a nearby swamp.
"They held his hands and feet and said, `One, two, three,' and threw him inthe swamp," recalled Adi, who still lives in the same house where he grew up."Luckily he could swim. They only did it to Barry."
The other kids would scrap with him sometimes, but because Obama was biggerand better-fed than many of them, he was hard to defeat.
"He was built like a bull. So we'd get three kids together to fight him,"recalled Yunaldi Askiar, 45, a former neighborhood friend. "But it was onlyplaying."
Obama has claimed on numerous occasions to have become fluent in Indonesianin six months. Yet those who knew him disputed that during recent interviews.
Israella Pareira Darmawan, Obama's 1st-grade teacher, said she attempted tohelp him learn the Indonesian language by going over pronunciation and vowelsounds. He struggled greatly with the foreign language, she said, and with hisstudies as a result.
The teacher, who still lives in Obama's old neighborhood, remembers that healways sat in the back corner of her classroom. "His friends called him`Negro,'" Darmawan said. The term wasn't considered a slur at the time inIndonesia.
Still, all of his teachers at the Catholic school recognized leadershipqualities in him. "He would be very helpful with friends. He'd pick them up ifthey fell down," Darmawan recalled. "He would protect the smaller ones."
Third-grade teacher Fermina Katarina Sinaga, now 67, has perhaps the mosttelling story. In an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up, Obama"wrote he wanted to be president," Sinaga recalled. "He didn't say whatcountry he wanted to be president of. But he wanted to make everybody happy."
When Obama was in 4th grade, the Soetoro family moved. Their newneighborhood was only 3 miles to the west, but a world away. Elite Dutchcolonists once lived there; the Japanese moved in during their occupation ofIndonesia in World War II. In the early 1970s, diplomats and Indonesianbusinessmen lived there in fancy gated houses with wide paved roads andsculpted bushes.
Obama never became terribly close with the children of the new school--thistime a predominantly Muslim one--where he was enrolled. As he had at the oldschool, Obama sat in a back corner. He sketched decidedly American cartooncharacters during class.
"He liked drawing Spider-Man and Batman," said another friend, WidiyantoHendro Cahyono, 46. "Barry liked to draw heroes."
Then, one day about a year after he had arrived, Obama was gone.
"Suddenly we asked, `Where's Barry?'" remembered Ati Kisjanto, 45. "And wewere told he had already moved away."
Not one of `the brothers'
As much as young Obama stood out physically in the classrooms of Indonesia,so, too, did he at Punahou School, the elite private prep academy his mothermoved him back to Hawaii to attend.
Obama, his mother and new baby sister, Maya, moved into a small apartmentnear the school's sprawling, lush campus. And from the first day of 5th graderight up until his graduation in 1979, the young man was one of only a smallnumber of black students at a school heavily populated by the children ofHawaii's wealthy, most of them white and Asian.
Then and now, Punahou and Hawaii liked to see themselves as more diverseand colorblind than the rest of the nation. But the reality felt far differentfor the handful of African-Americans attending classes there.
Rik Smith, a black Punahou student two years older than Obama, remembers a Halloween when white students would dress as slaves, coming to school intattered clothes with their faces painted black with shoe polish. "Like beingblack was a funny costume in and of itself," recalled Smith, now a doctor whospecializes in geriatrics in California.
"Punahou was an amazing school," Smith said. "But it could be a lonelyplace. ... Those of us who were black did feel isolated--there's no questionabout that."
As a result, the handful of black students at Punahou informally bandedtogether. "The brothers," as Lewis Anthony Jr., an African-American in theclass of 1977 put it, hung out together, often talking about issues involvingrace and civil rights. They sought out parties, especially at the militarybases on the island, where African-Americans would be in attendance.
Obama, however, was not a part of that group, according to Anthony andSmith. Both of them seemed surprised to hear that in "Dreams"--which neitherof them had read--Obama writes about routinely going to parties at SchofieldBarracks and other military bases in order to hang out with "Ray," who likeAnthony and Smith was two years ahead of him in school.
"We'd all do things together, but Obama was never there," Smith said,adding that they often brought along the few other black underclassmen. "Iwent to those parties up at Schofield but never saw him at any of them."
Obama devotes many words in his book to exploring his outsider status atPunahou. But any struggles he was experiencing were obscured by the fact thathe had a racially diverse group of friends--many of whom often would crowdinto his grandparents' apartment, near Punahou, after school let out.
One of those kids was Orme, a smart, respectful teenager from a white,middle-class family. Though Orme spent most afternoons with Obama andconsidered him one of his closest friends, he said Obama never brought upissues of race, never talked about feeling out of place at Punahou.
"He never verbalized any of that," Orme said during a telephone interviewfrom his home in Oregon. "He was a very provocative thinker. He would bring upworldly topics far beyond his years. But we never talked race."
Whatever misgivings Obama had about Punahou, attending the school waslargely his decision.
When his mother, a woman said to have been born with a keen sense ofwanderlust, announced she was returning to Indonesia, Obama, then a teenager,asked to stay in Hawaii, according to Soetoro-Ng, 36, who still lives inHonolulu. Once again, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, who had been as much parentsas grandparents throughout the young man's life, said he could live with them.
"I don't imagine the decision to let him stay behind was an easy one foranyone," Soetoro-Ng said. "But he wanted to remain at Punahou. He had friendsthere, he was comfortable there, and to a kid his age, that's all thatmattered."
One place Obama has said he found a sense of community was on thebasketball court. A member of the varsity squad, though not a starter, Obamaand his teammates brought Punahou the state championship in 1979, his senioryear.
Adept at nailing long jump shots, Obama was called "Barry O'Bomber" byteammates. Alan Lum, who later would coach the basketball team at Punahou aswell as teach elementary school there, recalled Obama as always being thefirst to confront coaches when he felt they were not fairly allotting playingtime.
Obama wasn't shy about advocating for himself and his fellow backupplayers, Lum said. "He'd go right up to the coach during a game and say,`Coach, we're killing this team. Our second string should be playing more.'"
But it was on the court in the off-season that Obama seemed to be evenhappier. Back then, Punahou was a completely open campus, with severalbasketball courts where 20-something men from Honolulu would come in the lateafternoon for what often turned into flashy, highly competitive pickupsessions. Many of the men were black.
Orme would stay for the games.
"At the time, it was about basketball," said Orme, who has remained friendswith Obama over the years and who plays basketball with him almost every
Christmas when the two return to Hawaii to visit family. "But looking back nowI can see he was seeking more from those guys than that. He was probablystudying them and learning from them. He was a younger black man looking forguidance."
Old friend disputes memoir
Every senior graduating from Punahou gets to design a quarter-page in theyearbook. They compose notes to friends and family and include photos orquotes that best represent them.
On page 271 of the 1979 Oahuan, Obama's entry reflects the crossroads hefound himself at as he prepared for life beyond Hawaii. He thanked "Tut andGramps," his nicknames for Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, but didn't mention hisfaraway mother.
He also thanked the "Choom Gang," a reference to "chooming," Hawaiian slangfor smoking marijuana. Obama admits in "Dreams" that during high school hefrequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally.
"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role ofthe young would-be black man," Obama wrote in "Dreams."
In the book, Obama discusses race and racism at his high school with oneother Punahou student, "Ray," the young black man described in detail in"Dreams" as perpetually angry at the white world around him. "It's theirworld, all right," Ray supposedly shouts at Obama. "They own it and we in it.So just get the f--- outta my face."
But Kakugawa, in the interview Saturday, said Obama's recollection of thatconversation was mistaken. "I did say we were playing in their world," heexplained, "but that had nothing to do with race. He knew that."
Kakugawa explained that he had meant they were playing in the world of theelite people who populated and ran Punahou--famous Hawaiian families like theDoles, owners of the pineapple fortune, or the original developers of Waikiki,the tourist mecca. "It just wasn't a race thing," he reiterated again andagain.
Obama confirmed in an interview earlier this month that the Ray characterin "Dreams" actually is Kakugawa.
In another passage from the book, Ray complains that white Punahou girlsdon't want to date black guys and that he and Obama don't get enough playingtime as athletes, speculating that they'd be "treated different if we waswhite. Or Japanese. Or Hawaiian. Or f------ Eskimo."
But Kakugawa, a convicted drug felon, said Saturday that he had never beenthe "prototypical angry black guy" that Obama portrays. Because of hisbiracial heritage, he said, he was "like everyone in Hawaii, a mix of a lot ofthings."
A close friend and track teammate of Kakugawa, John Hagar, also said he wassurprised by Obama's description of the character representing Kakugawa as anangry young black man. "I never picked up on that," Hagar said. "He was justone of those perfect [ethnic] mixes of everything you see in Hawaii."
Asked Saturday about Kakugawa's recollections, the Obama campaign declinedto make the senator available. But spokesman Bill Burton said Obama "stands byhis recollections of these events as related in his book."
"There's no doubt that Keith's story is tragic and sad," Burton added.
While Obama rocketed to political prominence, his friend headed down thetroubled road Obama had feared he was following. Since 1995, Kakugawa hasspent more than 7 years in California prisons and months in Los Angeles CountyJail on cocaine and auto theft charges.
Another story put forth in "Dreams" as one of Obama's pivotal moments ofracial awakening checks out essentially as he wrote it. Obama recounts takingtwo white friends, including Orme, to a party attended almost entirely byAfrican-Americans.
According to the book, the characters representing Orme and the otherfriend asked to leave the party after just an hour, saying they felt out ofplace. The night, Obama later wrote, made him furious as he realized thatwhites held a "fundamental power" over blacks.
"One of us said that being the different guys in the room had awakened alittle bit of empathy to what he must feel all the time at school. And heclearly didn't appreciate that," Orme said. "I never knew, until reading thebook later, how much that night had upset him."
As Obama's senior year drew to a close, his mother sent him letters fromafar, about life in Indonesia and her work there with non-profit groups doingeconomic development. She also sent advice about his future. College would behis next stop. She mixed encouragement to keep up his grades with lamentsabout American politics.
"It is a shame we have to worry so much about [grade point], but you knowwhat the college entrance competition is these days," she wrote. "Did you knowthat in Thomas Jefferson's day, and right up through the 1930s, anybody whohad the price of tuition could go to Harvard? ... I don't see that we areproducing many Thomas Jeffersons nowadays. Instead we are producing RichardNixons."
In the spring of 1979, Obama's mother and Maya, Barack's younger halfsister by almost nine years, flew to Hawaii for his high school graduation. Ifyoung Obama had struggled to find a place at Punahou, it was well hidden onthis day as well. He laughed and posed for photos with friends.
With a trimmed Afro, Hawaiian flower leis around his neck, Obama wassurrounded by the disparate people who shaped him. In one photo he hugs hisbeaming sister.
In a striking snapshot with his grandparents, Stanley smiles proudly whileMadelyn hugs him fiercely, as though she doesn't want to let him go forth intoa world far from the remote island that for so long had been his home.
Kirsten Scharnberg reported from Honolulu and Kim Barker from Jakarta,Indonesia; Tribune staff reporter Ray Gibson contributed to this report.
COMING TUESDAY: His mother blazed her own trail against conformity in theEisenhower era. IN TEMPO
IN THE WEB EDITION: More photos of Obama's life at chicagotribune.com/obama

subset: commoncrawl


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I am dealing with a strange what-I-suspect-to-be-virus and could use some help. I have been spoiled by Linux for so long that I am clueless with virii now.
The machine is a cheap prebuilt Acer branded Pentium D 3ghz with SiS chipset. Running Windoze XP.
The machine has been used primarily for word processing and web surfing for the past 1 year.
The symptoms -
Upon booting, a few dialogues pop up, saying "Memory cannot be "read"". Name of the binary is different every time (that's why I suspect it to be a virus).
I formatted (quick option) the drive, and reinstalled Windows XP SP2 using a trusted media (XP CD with slipstreamed SP2 that I have been using for years). The problem remains upon the first boot.
I do have a second partition that I kept my data in, which might have carried the virus over, but I haven't accessed it since reformatting.
I have not installed anything yet. It was the very very first boot, not even drivers, and the dialogue shows up immediately after I log in.
The computer functions normally otherwise.


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Primary tabs
This week we begin our newsletter with an article by Diane Tessman where she writes about the "Burning Times." Next, Scott Corrales files reports from Uruguay and Peru and writes about "A Quiver of Ghosts." Then Pat Regan informs us about a military paratrooper who saw multiple UFOs and more. Chris Holly worries about the marriage of man and machine. Then, Doc Vega writes about the disinformation program plus the disappearance of US soldiers. Christian Macé reports on a UFO photographed over Toulouse, France. Then, John Foster tells us about the strange UFOs he has seen over the years. Paul Shishis writes about a black UFO and then shares a UFO sighting by his neighbor. Next, Jim Bowden warns that the Greys are kidnapping thousands of children and adults. I report on MUFON sightings over Hickory, NC, Bewleyville, Kentucky and Butleigh in the UK. Brent M. Braten contemplates the real Paradigm Shift and finally, Jose Antonio Cangco reports on his date with an alien girl! Enjoy Dirk
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THE BURNING TIMES: TESLA, WITCHES AND EXTRATERRESTRIALS by Diane Tessman. Tesla also said, "If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world." Today, we practice that hatred against extraterrestrials. This hatred is born out of not only ignorance but the blind determination not to be educated. Many prefer to wallow in ignorance, fear, and hatred fed by lies and disinformation, and in so doing become the pawns of those who lie, hoax, deceive, or often just want to make a buck from a sensationalistic "alien" urban legend. More...
CRIDOVNI TO ANALYSE UFO PHOTOS by Scott Corrales. Uruguay: The issues raised by extraterrestrial life are as ancient as the story of civilization. Various sightings have already been reported in Punta del Este and its vicinity time and again. One of them took place on 9 October, when Fernanda Romero had the chance to photograph an unidentified flying object in the sky over Punta del Este – an image that could perhaps be evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life. More... Also read: UFO VISIBLE IN THE SKY OVER ICA, PERU FOR TWO HOURS Also read: SCOTT CORRALES' A QUIVER OF GHOSTS
MILITARY PARATROOPER SEES MULTIPLE UFOS IN ABINGDON, VA by Pat Regan. Dennis J. Wisnosky Jr, a former paratrooper, contacted me this autumn with an intriguing UFO account that he informs me has been briefly highlighted elsewhere. Regardless of his military background, Dennis courageously granted me full permission to use his real name, photo, etc in an effort to bring more attention to the situation at hand. More Also read: UFO BBC CUMBRIA: INTERVIEW WITH PAT REGAN: 13 NOVEMBER 2013
THE AMAZING DISINFORMATION PROGRAM OF THE POWERS THAT BE by Doc Vega. With all the lies of the mainstream media here in the US that we must have to sift through if we bother to even listen to them or the half-baked rumors continually surfacing all over the internet it is a tough job deciphering what is true and what constitutes political rhetoric these days. If we are not already hard pressed enough with a President who tells out-right laws about the much unwanted socialized medicine in Obamacare, we must now consider some recent revelations about generally accepted stories that have shaped our culture that have been uncovered for the lies that they were fabricated to be. More... Also read: MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF US SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN
ANSWERS TO JIM MILLARD'S 'EXAMINING THE GREYS' by Steve Pearse. I've been on a similar quest for over 12 years, and while I don't think anyone has a complete picture or understanding of what or who the "Greys" really are; but least I can share some of the information that I have been able to discover so far. Your physical description is right on, from my perspective their evolution seems to have favored mental over physical, which helps to explain their brainer abilities to overpower humans mentally at will. The Preying Mantis Being also seems to be able to disguise and shape shift their true physical image as well. You're right the http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images More...
UFO PHOTOGRAPHED OVER TOULOUSE! by Christian Macé. UFO photographed in Toulouse, Haute-Garonne November 15, 2013. What was this strange alignment of three bright spots photographed in the sky by a district Minimes Toulouse, Sebastien Bousquet, in the evening of Friday to Saturday? More...
THE STRANGE CRAFTS AND OBJECTS I ENCOUNTERED DURING THE MORE COMPLEX EXPERIENCES by John Foster. Listed below are the crafts and objects I encountered during the more complex experiences…experiences that occurred intermittently from 1939 or 1940 to the mid 1980s. These were encounters that not only involved "the voice," but the old bearded men and middle-aged men who seemed to be guides…who explained what was happening…and who gave us lectures about "the brotherhoods," some science, history, and the future, etc. More...
UNKNOWN BLACK IMAGE CAUGHT ON FILM NEAR LAKE ONTARIO by Paul Shishis. I photographed an object today, November 19, 2013, that I thought would be of some interest. While on afternoon break at work in Scarborough I noticed some movement of something directly south some miles near or over Lake Ontario, so within a few seconds grabbed my camera and took three pictures. More... Also read: MY NEIGHBOR'S UFO STORY
MYSTERIOUS BLACK KNIGHT SATELLITE HAS BEEN MONITORING HUMAN CIVILZATION PERHAPS SINCE THE BEGINNING by Tony Elliott. Whether you believe in life existing in the universe beyond earth or not, one fact is certain, and that is UFOs indeed do exist because millions around the world have reported seeing strange objects in the sky since the late 1940s. In this respect, UFOs, unidentified flying objects are a reality. Only where they come from, what they may be, and who perhaps may have constructed them are the questions which remain unanswered. More...
GREYS HAVE KIDNAPPED THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN AND ADULTS by Jim Bowden. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States -- that's roughly 2,000 per day. Author David Paulides has written a series of books titled Missing 411. They deal with very odd disappearances of children and adults in North America and Canada. One father and son were together on a beach when his boy vanished. The father was 36 feet away from his son when this occurred. Thirty-six feet. More...
UNKNOWN OBJECT PHOTOGRAPHED OVER HICKORY, NC. USA by Dirk Vander Ploeg. The following sighting report was posted on the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) website earlier today (Tuesday, November 19, 2013). MUFON Case No. 52291, Date of Event: November 3, 2013, Date Submitted: November 19, 2013, Location: Hickory, NC, US. While exiting the neightborhood video store the witness spots a particularily beautiful star directly in the sky across from the store and decides to snap a few photos of it. This is what the witness reports to MUFON: More... Also read: UFO WITH FLASHING RED AMD WHITE LIGHTS OVER BEWLEYVILLE, KENTUCKY Also read: DID BUTLEIGH MAN HAVE CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A UFO?
CONTEMPLATING THE REAL PARDIGM SHIFT by Brent M. Braten. For at least the past few years a lot of people around the world have been talking about a coming paradigm shift. The problem, at least as I see it, is that very few of these people speak to what this coming shift will mea to the common man-on-the-street (referring, of course, to all of the men, women and children who call this planet home). Well, while I will not claim to be an expert on anything other than myself I can say that I have spent a lot of time over the years observing and studying this thing we call Life. My unintended emphasis - unintended in that it is something that seems to come naturally to me as opposed to having to consciously work at it - has been on the spiritual side of things, the spiritual regularities we allow to rule our lives. More...
DATE WITH AN ALIEN GIRL by Jose Antonio Cangco. In 1992, while I was working for the government, I unknowingly dated an alien girl. It was on a Sunday evening and I was on my way home when I decided to drop by at my friend's place for a little chat. This longer route would take me through the state university campus, but, being a holiday and as the darkness was approaching, traffic was light everywhere. More...
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Charmain Lynn Lavin, 24, of Effort was taken into custody Thursday after police discovered an active arrest warrant for her during a traffic stop.
Lavin was a passenger in a car that was stopped on Gilbert Road in Chestnuthill Township for a brake light violation at 2:50 p.m. She was also found to be in possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia.
Lavin was taken to the Monroe County Correctional Facility in Snydersville.
Choose the plan that's right for you. Digital access or digital and print delivery.


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The 17th annual First Night Fort Collins will be held from 6 to 10:45 p.m. at a variety of venues in downtown Fort Collins on Monday, Dec. 31.
The theme for this year's First Night is "Enchanted Voyage." The evening will feature a diverse blend of cultural experiences from around the world, family entertainment and children's activities through performances of dance, music, magic, comedy and more.
"First Night Fort Collins has really grown and become tailored to our community over the years," noted Peggy Lyle of the Downtown Fort Collins Business Association.
Headlining this year's event is the Popovich Comedy Pet Theater, which has been featured on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Show with David Letterman and more recently on Animal Planet's "Who Let the Dogs Out?"
In addition to presenting an entertaining show, Gregory Popovich raises awareness about homeless pets with his unique blend of world-champion juggling, acrobatics and comedy, which incorporates over 30 performing rescued pets.
First Night Fort Collins
When: 6 to 10:45 p.m.; Monday, Dec. 31. 5 p.m. Kids countdown in Old Town Square.
Where: Downtown Fort Collins.
Admission buttons: $12 in advance; $14 at designated locations on Dec. 31. Children 5 and under free with ticketed adult.
Info: Call 484-6500 or visit downtownfortcollins.com.
One hundred plus performances will provide something for everyone's taste from Istari World Percussion's "Drumming through the Caribbean" to vignettes from Blas Bleu Theatre Company's "Almost, Maine" to the Empty Pockets Celtic Trio.
Choice City Singers will be singing America's favorites in the Opera Galleria Atrium. A storyteller will invite individuals to take a "Trip at Sea" at the Old Town Library. At the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery the Digital Dome movie "Dynamic Earth" will be presented throughout the evening. Fale (Fort Collins African Drum and Dance Troupe) will bring "a little bit of west Africa to cold Fort Collins," said Lyle. And the list of entertainment options goes on and on.
At any given time slot, there will be at least 11 different performances to choose from. All of the shows are presented on a first-come-first-served basis. Lyle encourages individuals to "attend the early shows and to have a backup plan in case you can't get in."
With the exception of the Popovich Comedy Pet Theatre, all of the performers are from Colorado. "It's always a fun puzzle to put everything together, said Lyle. "The string that brings it all together is that they are all very talented and offer a light-hearted evening for all," said Lyle.
First Night Fort Collins will end with a fireworks show at 10:30 p.m. in Old Town Square.
All of the events, with the exception of the "Historic Guided Walking Tour," are indoors. Attendees can walk between venues or use the free Transfort buses, which will be running every 15 minutes.
First Night Fort Collins admission buttons are available for $12 in advance at local King Soopers, Lincoln Center Box Office, Fort Collins' Jax Outdoor Gear, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and at the Downtown Visitors Center in Old Town. Buttons will also be available for $14 at onsite locations on Dec. 31.
For a complete entertainment schedule, venues and free parking sites, please visit downtownfortcollins.com


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Sophiris Bio Prices its Previously Announced Public Offering of Common Shares
Aug 16, 2013, 09:28 ET
SAN DIEGO and VANCOUVER, Aug. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - Sophiris Bio Inc. (Sophiris, TSX: SHS) (the "Company" or "Sophiris"), a biopharmaceutical company developing a clinical-stage, targeted treatment for the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH or enlarged prostate), today announced that it has entered into an underwriting agreement with Citigroup and Leerink Swann, as joint book-running managers, with respect to an offering (the "Offering") of 13,000,000 common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at a price of US$5 per Share (the "Purchase Price") for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately US$65 million. Stifel and Lazard Capital Markets are acting as co-managers. The Company has also granted to the underwriters a 30-day over-allotment option (the "Option") to purchase up to an additional 1,950,000 Shares at the Purchase Price, for additional aggregate gross proceeds of up to approximately US$9.75 million. The Company will file a final short form prospectus with the securities regulatory authorities in British Columbia and Ontario in connection with the Offering.
The Company's common shares will trade on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol "SPHS" beginning on August 16, 2013. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to advance the development of its candidate for treatment of BPH, PRX302, to service its outstanding debt owing under a secured promissory note and for general and administrative purposes. The offering is scheduled to close on or about August 23, 2013 and remains subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange (the "TSX").
Certain of the Company's existing shareholders and their affiliated entities have indicated an interest in purchasing up to approximately $22.4 million Shares in the Offering at the Purchase Price. These shareholders include Tavistock Life Sciences Co. ("Tavistock") who is expected to participate (but not lead) the Offering at a level that is expected to dilute its current ownership position by approximately 50%. Together with its affiliates, Tavistock currently holds approximately 961,538 Shares or 30.5% of the Company's issued and outstanding Shares on a non-diluted basis. Following the closing of the Offering, Tavistock is expected to own approximately 2,561,538 Shares or 15.9% of the issued and outstanding Shares on a non-diluted basis, or approximately 14.2% of the issued and outstanding Shares assuming the full exercise of the Option.
The Offering was priced in the context of the market and was negotiated on an arm's length basis. The Purchase Price represents a discount of approximately 49.1% from the volume weighted average price on the TSX for the 5 trading days ending on August 15, 2013. The Shares issuable under the Offering constitute approximately 413% of the Company's currently issued and outstanding Shares on a non-diluted basis, or approximately 475% if the Option is exercised in full. It is not expected that any new shareholders will materially affect the control of the Company (as such term is defined in the policies of the TSX) as a result of the Offering.
The Company was required to receive shareholder approval for the terms of Offering pursuant to the provisions of the TSX Company Manual (the "Manual") because (i) the TSX has decided under Section 606(b) of the Manual to apply the private placement provisions of Section 607 of the Manual to the Offering; (ii) the Purchase Price is at a discount that is greater than the maximum applicable discount under Section 607(e) of the Manual; (iii) Section 607(g)(i) requires shareholder approval because the aggregate number of Shares issuable under the Offering is greater than 25% of the number of Shares which are outstanding, on a non-diluted basis, prior to the Offering and the price per security is less than the market price; and (iv) Section 607(g)(ii) requires shareholder approval because the number of Shares issued to insiders in the Offering is greater than 10% of the number of Shares which are issued and outstanding, on a non-diluted basis, prior to the date of closing of the Offering. Shareholder approval has been obtained by the written consent of more than 50% of the holders of the Company's issued and outstanding Shares, including Tavistock.
Following the closing of the Offering, the only entity that is expected to hold more than 10% of the Company's issued and outstanding Shares is Tavistock, which will no longer materially affect control of the Company.
To the Company's knowledge, there is no voting trust or similar agreement or arrangement to be entered into in connection with the Offering.
A registration statement relating to these securities was declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 15, 2013. This offering is being made by means of a prospectus, copies of which may be obtained from Citigroup Global Markets Inc., c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York, 11717, or by email at firstname.lastname@example.com or by phone at 1-800-831-9146, and Leerink Swann LLC, Attention: Syndicate Department, One Federal Street, 37th Floor, Boston, Mass., 02110, or by email at email@example.com or by phone at 1-800-808-7525.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
About Sophiris
Sophiris Bio Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company developing a clinical-stage, targeted treatment for the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH or enlarged prostate), which it believes is an unsatisfied market with significant market potential. Sophiris' lead candidate for BPH, PRX302, is designed to be as efficacious as pharmaceuticals, less invasive than the surgical interventions, and without the sexual side effects seen with existing treatments. Sophiris is planning to begin a Phase 3 clinical trial of PRX302 in the second half of 2013 subject to raising additional capital.
Certain statements included in this press release may be considered forward-looking. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements, and therefore these statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. All forward-looking statements are based on Sophiris' current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Sophiris and relate to, among other things, our ability to meet the closing conditions of the Offering, anticipated financial performance, business prospects, strategies, regulatory developments, market acceptance and future commitments. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Due to risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties identified by Sophiris in its public securities filings; actual events may differ materially from current expectations. Sophiris disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
SOURCE Sophiris Bio, Inc.


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Description of 1907 Hialeah Court, Charleston, SC 29414
Bring your horse. High & Dry! This community offers large tracts with majestic oaks, horses, ponds and serene roads for an afternoon stroll. 1907 Hialeah Court has 1.59 acres on a high hill in a cul de sac with mature trees and plenty of privacy. The house is low maintenance brick with a delightful sun room overlooking the back yard. Double French doors open into the main living space that boast a wet bar and gas fireplace. You have plenty of room to entertain with two living spaces, dining room and eat in kitchen. Hardwood floors throughout. There is a large additional storage room in the main house that is heated/cooled. You will be surprised to find 7 unattached garage spaces with two of them having controlled air/bathroom/ storage. A two car attached garage & storage for the lawn mower
Property Features of 1907 Hialeah Court, Charleston, SC 29414
Single Family Detached
Hickory Farms
West of the Ashley Outside I-526
|Elementary school: Springfield
|Middle school: West Ashley
|High school: West Ashley
|Gas log fireplace(s)
|Fireplace in family room
|Central air
|Electric heat
|Attached parking
|Detached parking
|Brick veneer exterior
|Storm windows
|Lot acreage is: 1.59
|Lawn sprinkler
|Subdivision: Hickory Farms
|Wet bar
|Ceramic tile flooring
|Eat-in kitchen
|Wood floors
|Separate dining room
|Walk-in closet(s)
|Slab Foundation
Rooms & Dimensions
|Family Room
|Laundry room
|Great Room
|Sun Room
|Utility room


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by Tom Utescher
With a considerable amount of talent and the leadership of more than a dozen seniors on the cross country team, the Penn Charter boys are looking to finish high up in the standings in both the Inter-Ac League, and at the 2013 Pa. Independent Schools Championships.
The Quakers were the Inter-Ac runner-up behind Malvern Prep last fall, and they actually finished ahead of the Friars at the Pa. Indy meet, placing second behind champ Germantown Friends.
Charter's top runner from a year ago, Etienne Dumas (third at the Pa. meet) has moved on to college, and returning junior Ben Szuhaj (fifth in that same race) has not run this fall due to injury, but PC has still made an impressive start this season.
In their first big outing in September, the Quakers placed second among two dozen teams at the Nike-sponsored Quad-X meet at Belmont Plateau, an event which included some large public school teams. Charter placed fifth at the Bulldog Invitational in Media, then went back to Belmont (also their home course for dual meets) to come in 4th in the small schools division at the venerable Briarwood Invitational.
However, the lads from School House Lane discovered that it won't be so easy to dethrone reigning Inter-Ac champ Malvern. In their only dual meet loss thus far, the Quakers fell to the Friars, 22-33. The team rebounded to record a 22-38 victory over Germantown Academy, which has been a player in the league and in the Pa. meet, and last week Charter won on the road at Haverford School, 18-43.
Leading the way against the Fords was senior Scott Mason, who travelled the course in 16 minutes, 36 seconds for the individual victory. Three other members of the team's top five are also experienced seniors; Tre Williams (who was second at the Quad-X), Charlie Hoyt, and Hans Stedman.
"Scott has put in the work he needed to do to become one of the premier runners in the area," said sixth-year Penn Charter coach Tony Farrell. "He's running very well right now, smooth and smart."
Stedman is a fourth-year cross country veteran, and Farrell noted, " Tre and Charlie are both track guys who were already under two-minutes in the half-mile by the time they were sophomores.
"No one really has a lock on the fifth position right now," the coach went on. "We actually have 11 guys competing for the five, six and seven spots."
At various times this season, the fifth man in for PC has been either Ben Richards, Geoff Zlobinsky, or Dan Marion, who are all seniors. Freshman Harper Pollio-Barbee also has a fifth-place finish under his belt.
As the calendar flips to the month of October, the Quakers will start out by wrapping up the dual meet schedule in encounters with Episcopal Academy and Springside Chestnut Hill, and they will compete in the expansive Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh University this Saturday.
At this big upstate event, high school runners are divided into Brown and White divisions (Lehigh's team colors); in their first appearance at Paul Short, the Quakers placed second in the White Division in 2012.
A few weeks later, the Inter-Ac League meet will take place on Monday, October 21, with the Pa. Independent Schools Championships following on Saturday, October 26. Both of these races will be held at Belmont Plateau.


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One Winning Powerball Jackpot Ticket Sold In Florida
Lottery luck will not strike New Jersey for a second time in 24 hours as the one winning Powerball ticket was purchased in Florida
Saturday night's winning numbers were: 10,13, 14, 22, 52 and the Powerball 11.The jackpot has an annuity value of $590 million with a cash value of $376 million.
CNN reports the winning ticket was sold at Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Florida, according to David Bishop, deputy secretary of Florida lottery. Florida has had more Powerball winners than any other state.
The Powerball website indicates there were 3-$1 million tickets sold in New Jersey for matching 5 numbers but not the Powerball.
On the heels of a winning Mega Millions ticket sold in Tinton Falls worth $95 million, hopes were high among Powerball players that there will be yet another jackpot winner from New Jersey.
More than 80 percent of the possible combinations of numbers were selected according to Powerball increasing the chances of a winner.
Powerball's jackpot rose by $50 million during the day on Friday to become the largest jackpot in the game's history at $600 million.
Mega Millions Sold In Tinton Falls
New Jersey Lottery officials say one of two winning Mega Millions tickets were sold at the Kwik Farms store in Tinton Falls, which will receive a $30,000 bonus for selling the winning jackpot ticket. The person holding the winning ticket had not claimed their $95 million prize as of early Saturday night.
The store's owner would not identify the ticket holder but tells the Asbury Park Press he came in to confirm the numbers. "I'm happy for the customer. He's one of our regulars. He comes every day and buys a cup of coffee," Narinder Sangari said.
The second ticket was sold in the Farmville, Virginia area which is located between Lynchburg and Richmond.
There has been no Powerball winner since March 23 when a ticket worth $338 million was sold in Passaic to Pedro Quezada.
Many are playing their numbers at Eagle Liquor in hopes of being the store's second winner. "He's a lucky guy," George Bruno told The Record of Pravin Mankodia, the store's owner. "It's a lucky store. But do you think it could happen twice in the same store?"
The multi-state lottery is played in 42 states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware.


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By Shawn Langlois
Good morning.
Everybody. From George Soros, Ray Dalio and Gary Cohn on down to my grocery delivery guy. They are all blowing sunshine up the markets right now. And stocks keep cooperating.
Soros is warming up to the euro zone, Dalio says the desire to hold on to cash is waning, and Cohn is calling for rising interest rates that will drive investors even deeper into equities this year. The delivery guy? He says Apple is oversold. They all can't be wrong, right?
Well, from the other camp, it seems pretty clear that several major indexes, including the U.K.'s FTSE, the Dow and the Russell 2000, are overbought. No doubt, there's plenty of fodder to support the notion that this bull has a few bloody barbed sticks dangling from its shoulders. Yet here we are, set for another uptick.
Key market gauges: A rush of buyers pushed the Shanghai Composite /quotes/zigman/1859015 CN:000001 up 2.4%, while Nikkei /quotes/zigman/5986735 JP:100000018 shed almost 1%. In the U.S., the recent rotation into equities looks to continue as futures on both the Dow /quotes/zigman/9049316 YMH3 and the S&P /quotes/zigman/8751039 ESH3 are inching higher.
The economy: Big orders for Boeing /quotes/zigman/220026 /quotes/nls/ba BA means U.S. durable goods, a critical piece of U.S. growth, jumped an estimated 2.5% in December. We'll get the final tally at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Pending home sales will hit at 10 a.m., with economists looking for a 1% improvement. Read what to watch on U.S. economy on Monday.
Earnings: Caterpillar /quotes/zigman/221644 /quotes/nls/cat CAT , which some see as a proxy for China's growth, is on the rise in the premarket session after the company reported better-than-expected sales. The other high-profile name on the schedule today is Yahoo /quotes/zigman/59898 /quotes/nls/yhoo YHOO , due after the close. Later in the week, we'll key into results from Amazon.com /quotes/zigman/63011 /quotes/nls/amzn AMZN , Facebook /quotes/zigman/9962609 /quotes/nls/fb FB and Exxon Mobil /quotes/zigman/203975 /quotes/nls/xom XOM , to name a few. Read: 10 key earnings in the week ahead.
So far, the average stock that has reported earnings this season has tacked on 1.07% on the day of its results, and that's a "very high" number, according to Bespoke Investment Group. Here's a list of some of the bigger movers.
The buzz: Toyota's /quotes/zigman/199376 /quotes/nls/tm TM recapturing of the global sales crown is among the top-trending stories on Google. The company reported a 23% increase to a record 9.75 million vehicles for 2012, kicking GM /quotes/zigman/1466682 /quotes/nls/gm GM to the curb in the process.
Jos. A Bank Clothiers /quotes/zigman/56759 /quotes/nls/josb JOSB is garnering the most attention on StockTwits following its sneakily-timed report posted late Friday. Eddy Elfenbein calls it "a cartoonish example of someone refusing to take responsibility." Shares are getting absolutely pounded early, down more than 18%.
Other top-trending tickers include Caterpillar, AT&T /quotes/zigman/398198 /quotes/nls/t T and Pitney Bowes /quotes/zigman/238474 /quotes/nls/pbi PBI , which is a component of this buy-the-losers strategy.
Keep an eye on buying in Facebook /quotes/zigman/9962609 /quotes/nls/fb FB shares as the day goes on. The stock got a lift from Raymond James and is up more than 1% ahead of the opening bell.
The chart of the day: ChessNWine on the iBankCoin blog says GE /quotes/zigman/227468 /quotes/nls/ge GE "brings a good chart to life." Here's his technical case for why this stock, which has been "in a secular bear of its own since 2000," is poised to take out $35 a share if it can manage to break down its resistance.
The call of the day: The next Research In Motion /quotes/zigman/18534 /quotes/nls/rimm RIMM or the next Todd Bridges? On The Reformed Broker blog, Josh Brown over the weekend posted this "MemeWatch" on Nokia's chances to churn out a big rally.
Like RIMM, Nokia /quotes/zigman/162154 /quotes/nls/nok NOK spent years "falling like a grown-up child star." Now, Brown is saying "traders' circles" are speculating that Nokia shares, also like RIMM's, could be about to see a rally that makes recent gains "look like peanuts."
Random reads: Two-thirds of geeks prefer real women to computer-generated characters. It turns out that 2.5D, "the intersection of reality and fantasy," is a distant third behind 2D and 3D. Read more about otaku tastes.
Apple /quotes/zigman/68270 /quotes/nls/aapl AAPL is one of "the biggest under-the-radar day traders of unknown securities nobody has ever heard of." Here's the Zero Hedge blog on what the stumbling giant is doing with all that cash. Speaking of that cash, here are five companies Apple could buy if it wanted to dip into that pile.
As for its recent woes, maybe yet another iPad will help.
"Pioneering pot entrepreneurs" line up to pitch their ideas to investors at the Washington Athletic Club on Monday.
While much of the financial world was atwitter over the CNBC beef between Icahn and Ackman, Barry Ritholtz was shuttling between terminals in Chicago. By the time he caught the replay, he was, "to say the least, underwhelmed."
Then there was Kid Dynamite, who called it the "battle of bloviating d-bags."
Need to Know starts early and is updated as needed until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your e-mail box. Be sure to check the Need to Know item. The e-mailed version will be sent out at approximately 8:45 a.m. Eastern. Follow @slangwise on Twitter.


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The Sixth International Ballet Star Gala on Saturday night at the National Theater was a delight from start to finish, but it was the contemporary pieces, more than the usual gala virtuoso works that really made the event special.
The long and leggy Russian siblings from the Berlin Staatsoper Ballet, Polina Semionova and Dmitry Semionov, got the chance to show off those limbs to full effect in Rolando d'Alesio's seven-minute Come Neve al Sole. Set to a Frederic Chopin piece arranged for cello by Peter Schindler, Come Neve al Sole was quirky, funny — amazing what you can do with stretchy T-shirts — and just a delight to watch. The goofy interplay between the two dancers seemed tailor-made for a brother-sister act.
Next up was the highlight of the evening, Itzik Galili's 2003 duet Mona Lisa, danced by Alicia Amatriain and the very muscular Jason Reilly from the Stuttgart Ballet. The Netherlands-based Israeli choreographer has crafted a little jewel of a work, set to an edgy, jazzy syncopated score by Thomas Hof.
Amatriain and Reilly were amazing, her over-extensions coming into full play in some of the spins, the like of which are usually reserved for ice-skating competitions, such as when he held her by her upper arms and swung her around as she held her legs up in a outstretched V-shape. The lifts and carries were equally breathtaking — you could hear the sharp intakes of breath around the hall. This was a true partnership in every sense of the word; although the woman's part is the flashier of the two, she can't be flashy without the man's support.
Also stunning was Igor Kolb's short solo Adam, by Daniil Salimbave, that sees a fallen angel mourn for the loss of his bloodied, tortured wings and lament the human form he must now embrace.
The piece, set to an excerpt from Mozart's Requiem, gave the Mariinsky Theatre star a chance to show off his terrific arms (and the rest of his body) as well as his flair for the dramatic.
The gala's first half closed with a roar — literally — as fans of Daniil Simkin screamed with delight at his Don Quixote pas de deux with the petite Maria Kochetkova from the San Francisco Ballet. The elfin Simkin's partnering technique has improved a lot in the past two years and he carried off the one-arm overhead lifts of Kochetkova with a huge smile on his face and hardly a visible quiver of strain.
The second half's highlights included Kolb's second solo, choreographed by Dmitri Pimonov to music by Rene Aubry, the Semionovs in the flashy classic Le Cosaire pas de deux and Jiri Jelinek and Sonia Rodriquez from the National Ballet of Canada in Luis Martin Oya's quietly beautiful Por Ti.
For sheer drama, however, it was hard to beat Roland Petit's Le Rendez Vous, danced by Isabelle Ciaravola and Yann Saiz from the Paris Opera Ballet. From the moment Ciaravola walked onto the stage you knew she was trouble with a capital T, from the black-bob hair down to the tip of her shoes. The straight-edged razor she produced at the end was hardly necessary; she could kill a man with looks alone.
Saturday night's audience called the dancers back for curtain call after curtain call, all well deserved. But for ballet fans, there was still excitement when the curtain finally fell — those who bought the program book saw the ads for the Universal Ballet's April visit, when it will be staging four modern works and a July visit by the American Ballet Theater, which will be bringing its production of La Bayadere, thanks to the gala's producers, Wang Tzer-shing (王澤馨) and her husband, Tzong Yi-shieh (謝宗益).


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One owner with Perfect Service history.
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Jarvis Jones officially is under contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The team announced Monday the signing of their first-round pick, selected 17th overall in the 2013 NFL Draft. NFL.com's Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday that Jones' contract is a four-year deal worth $8.705 million with a $4.7 million signing bonus. Jones' contract also is fully guaranteed, which is a departure from what the past two No. 17 overall picks received from their respective teams, according to Rapoport.
This means the Steelers have reached terms with seven of their nine draft picks.
Jones was a terror in his final year at Georgia, leading the nation with 14.5 sacks and 24.5 tackles for loss in 2012. The performance earned him Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2012. Jones was a finalist for the Lombardi Trophy, Butkus Award, Bednarik Trophy, Nagurski Award and the Lott IMPACT Trophy.
Jones has the potential to be an impact player for years on Pittsburgh's defense, but it remains to be seen if he's handed a starting job as a rookie. The Steelers are known for making rookies earn starting jobs, regardless of pedigree. Jason Worilds would benefit if Jones is forced to wait.
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.


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21st Century Curriculum | Feature
Districts are finding a variety of ways to gather materials that meet the needs of the 21st century classroom and align with Common Core standards.
As districts in 45 states put the final touches on their Common Core-aligned curricula, they are depending more and more on digital educational content. But where do all these new materials come from? Some districts look to outside vendors, others create everything they need in-house, and some use a hybrid of these two approaches. Here's a look at how educators across the country are building their repositories of digital content.
The Hybrid Approach
According to Matt Zuchowicz, director of educational technology services for the 20 different school districts served by the Santa Barbara County Education Office (SBCEO), these districts were among the first in California to develop an online portal to deliver digital content. Zuchowicz said, "We built out the 'shell' of the portal and then filled it in using a number of streaming resources." The portal is populated with teacher-produced digital content as well as materials from outside sources like Lesson Planet, World Book, and Maps101 (a local firm). Video streaming comes from California Streaming, a service that is supported and run by 17 county education offices in the state. Zuchowicz noted that economies of scale have worked in SBCEO's favor. "We buy at discounted rates because we're buying in bulk," he said.
The SBCEO and its partners keep close tabs on all digital content to ensure that it adheres to copyright law. For example, some of the content can only be streamed, not downloaded. "We monitor all of that very closely," Zuchowicz said, "and we trust that our vendors are meeting the same copyright laws. We rely on them to make sure they're meeting their end of the deal." (For T.H.E. Journal's legal expert's take on this issue, see "Staying on the Right Side of Copyright in Education.")
As part of its digital strategy, the SBCEO has also been filling its coffers with materials that align with Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This is where external vendors can prove their worth, according to Zuchowicz, who after several years of working with online content platforms said that attempting to develop 100 percent of the materials from scratch would be challenging for the typical district. "Realistically," he explained, "it's hard for a district to have the internal capacity to create the necessary depth of digital resources to provide a rigorous, CCSS-aligned curriculum for students." At the same time, he added, "Teachers are really hungry for these lessons that we're getting from sources like Lesson Planet," he said, "which offers content that's already aligned with CCSS."
The Wiki-Based Library
As K-12 schools nationwide explore their digital content options and try to come up with solutions that meet the needs of the 21st century classroom and align with CCSS, districts like Vail School District in Tucson, AZ, have a head start in the race to develop and maintain digital content repositories. According to Debbie Hedgepeth, assistant superintendent, the district worked with 50 others across the state to create a wiki-based library of lesson plans, quizzes, interactive Web links, ideas, presentations and related content.
That information wasn't always so well organized and accessible. "We originally had stacks of binders that housed all of the materials created by our teachers," said Hedgepeth. "Our goal was to find a good way to organize that information on the Web so that teachers, students and parents could access it." After deciding on the wiki-based approach, the district turned to its teachers — all of whom already had a strong grasp of their respective curricula and the related state guidelines for that content. This fact alone would become a key driver of Vail School District's DIY approach to digital content development.
"Our teachers started creating their own content because they knew what their targets were and how to keep their students focused on those goals," Hedgepeth explained. "Over time, more and more instructional content was added to the repository and used — to the point where we haven't done a textbook adoption in over 10 years."
According to Hedgepeth, the district takes a two-pronged approach to quality control for digital content. On one hand, teachers are entrusted with the task of providing only reliable, effective and useful resources that help their students reach their educational goals. "The teachers' names are attached to these resources," said Hedgepeth, "which have to be of incredibly high quality." To maintain quality control, the district has an employee who searches through postings to ensure that they indeed are rigorous enough and that they match objectives.
"If anything problematic comes up (i.e., a copyright issue with posted content)," Hedgepeth explained, "we send a short e-mail message to the poster and ask him or her to address it (by, say, contacting the original publisher for permission to use the content) and adjust and/or replace as needed."
When it comes to CCSS, Hedgepeth said that some of the content has been reworked to align with the new standards, but notes that the assessment piece remains something of a mystery. "Our target is fuzzy because we're not yet familiar with the level of CCSS assessment," said Hedgepeth, noting that while sample questions are available, the state of Arizona has yet to select a specific assessment firm, "so our teachers are creating their own tasks, problem sets and instructional resources to align with CCSS to the best that we are able to interpret them right now."
Vail School District's digital content challenges go beyond fuzzy targets and extend into classrooms where students are being asked to learn in very different ways than they are accustomed to — and certainly differently than their parents did. "The learning objectives that parents are used to — and that they encountered themselves — are changing," said Hedgepeth. "Because of this, some of them are struggling to support their students at home."
Hedgepeth said she believes that, "We have to allow time for the students and teachers to learn and let the struggle run its course, even when it feels uncomfortable." To help, the district modified its year-round calendar to include a "fall break" that gives teachers time to build out their digital repositories and upload tasks and lessons. "That way," said Hedgepeth, "when students come back from break the lessons are ready to go for the next two quarters of the school year."
To further help teachers create new lessons, the district allocates several days during each quarter for professional development. In October, for example, a group of math teachers spent a Friday collaborating on new course development. The district also created a video that teachers can use as a tutorial on how to capture video and transform it into classroom content.
In some instances, just letting teachers know that they're not alone in their struggles to develop, maintain and update digital content goes a long way. "We send out messages letting everyone know that we expect that struggle, that it's perfectly normal, and that we'll all work through it together," said Hedgepeth. "Teachers want to do their very best for their students and when they don't achieve that goal, it can cause a lot of stress. We want our teachers to know that we're right with them through the struggle."
The Third-Party Partnership
From Margaret Pfaff's perspective, deciding whether to develop digital content in-house or outsource it to a third party was simple. Pfaff, the director of curriculum and instructional resources at Carroll County Public Schools in Westminster, MD, said her 26,000-student district faced a number of barriers to the DIY option, including copyright issues, time constraints, cost and lack of digital content expertise. "Our resources are very limited," said Pfaff, "and we don't have the staff available to create digital content."
Since September 2013, the district has obtained its digital content from Discovery Education. An initiative funded by a competitive grant from the Maryland Digital Learning Innovation Program provides students with 24/7 access to digital science textbooks (what the company calls "techbooks") and other dynamic, curriculum-based content. As a result of this partnership, which Pfaff said wouldn't have been possible without the grant support, the district can now offer teachers and students an array of digital resources without worry over copyright issues or time and resource constraints.
When asked if those resources align with CCSS, Pfaff said that the district will address that issue "as part of the bigger picture with teachers in terms of the pedagogy involved with any multimedia resource." And while the district doesn't have to worry about the actual design and development of the content, she said her department does assess the effectiveness of the resources. It also provides a robust professional development component (as required by the grant), which comes as part of the Discovery Education package.
"We're providing training for our science teachers who are using the textbooks and for the other teachers who are using streaming," said Pfaff, who said she believes that the "trainer of trainers" model is the best approach in this case. "We're bringing in four teachers from each school and providing them with the training that they'll use to support their own colleagues."
Carroll County Public Schools recently wrapped up phase one of its professional development process. The district has also kicked off its use of streaming content, having just finished up one such rollout in October. So far the results and feedback have been positive, said Pfaff. "Teachers are excited about using the resource because it gives them quality material to use in their classrooms. We haven't run into any snags yet."
Making the Choice
Whether districts choose to buy or create their digital class materials, Lesson Planet's Jim Hurley said that the key is finding an approach that is sustainable, flexible and built on a commitment to quality content.
And while finding, curating and publishing online materials can be a monumental undertaking, that doesn't mean it can't be done internally. It just means that DIY districts need the right combination of human and financial resources to make this approach work. Open educational resources (OERs), for example, can help districts populate their digital repositories and complement materials that have been produced internally. "Most OERs can be modified, adapted, taken into the classroom," said Hurley, "and transformed into new [digital resources]."
No matter what content-creation method a district chooses, Vail's Hedgepeth said that adopting a long-term view — rather than grasping at a quick solution to the issue of CCSS alignment — is the key to success. "We've been honing our approach for years, and we're still working on it and adjusting it as needed," said Hedgepeth, who noted that her district's progress has been "remarkable in light of the thousands of students and families who have gone through the process so far."
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Although I am certainly no expert on Jewish tombstone symbols, I must comment on the caption in the Jamaica cemetery section of this blog which implies that the skull and crossbones are symbols for a Jewish pirate's grave.
I recently was lucky enough to visit the site of the oldest Jewish cemetery in England in the grounds of Queen Mary's College, Mile End in the East End of London. Here are some photographs I took on my visit.
It is now hemmed in by buildings on two sides and has little to show of its former status as the graves were horizontal and are mostly now completely covered by turf and unreadable (left below).
The Old Velho Sephardi Cemetery, as it is known, was created just over 350 years ago on the orders of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, who, overruling his own council, officially readmitted Jews to England for the first time since their expulsion in 1290. It was opened in 1657 and closed in 1742. It was the first Jewish cemetery to be opened following the readmission of Jews to this country under Oliver Cromwell.
A particular feature of Sephardi cemeteries are the flat tombstones which I am told symbolize that all are equal in death - rich or poor, high or low. Abraham Fernandez Carvajal, the founder of the modern Anglo-Jewish community, is buried in the old Velho cemetery as as well as Haham David Nieto, one of the greatest Sephardic spiritual leaders (born Venice 1654 - died London, January 10, 1728) and the physician Dr. Fernando Mendes. This interesting article discusses the background of Carvajal and the early Sephardim in London; read here about David Nieto.
Surely the skull and cross bones in a universal symbol for death and fleeting nature of life and has nothing to do with pirates who could not have lived and flourished in Mile End in the 1600s?
These symbols from an early Scottish Christian cemetery look very similar to the ones in the old Velho cemetery:


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An opportunity to take your own car onto the circuit away from the congested public roads. Virtually any vehicle is welcome - and it's brilliant fun!
|MSV Trackdays
|General Car Trackday
|Can I participate?
|Yes, please visit the link below for more information
|Telephone Booking:
|0843 453 3000
|More Information:
|Click here
|Can I spectate?
|Yes - circuit admission is free!
|What time can spectators get in?
|Gates open at 07.30
|When does circuit entry close?
|Gates close at 17.00
|Is camping available?
|Please contact circuit for details on 01507 343248
|Toilets and showers available in the Paddock