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Paul Grillo
Sept. 1, 2012
In my opinion piece earlier this year, we dealt with what we consider the defining trend of our time, debt deleveraging, and its effect on economic activity. We also talked about central bank responses to this phenomenon and how financial markets have been influenced by this whole environment. We now have two important updates to this story, which we outline below.
Our original commentary, "The Great Central Bank Roller Coaster," highlighted an April 2012 report from McKinsey & Company that provided a deleveraging report card. The graphic that we showed from their report explained that only three major developed countries had made progress in deleveraging their economies: South Korea, the United States, and Australia.
*Defined as an increase of 25 percentage points or higher.
Data: McKinsey & Company, accessed in September 2012.
However, the latest flow-of-funds data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis show that the deleveraging progress made by the U.S. has since stalled. On a nominal basis, progress is virtually nonexistent. The increase in government-related debt has kept the nation near a debt level of 350% compared to gross domestic product (GDP). (Data: Federal Reserve.)
Charts shown are for illustrative purposes only.
The deleveraging progress in the U.S. has stalled as economic conditions have slowed. Data: Federal Reserve, accessed in September 2012.
Other developed nations are having the same issue, as economic weakness has depressed tax receipts. Spending in these nations has not been restrained to avoid bigger deficits. Recent reports show French government debt reaching 89% of GDP, and Italy's public debt climbing to 124% of GDP. Almost all of the European Union's 17 countries have deficit issues. As renewed economic weakness has set in, small or negative growth in nominal GDP has made their situations worse. (Data: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).)
The Purchasing Managers' Index, published by Markit Group, is an indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing sector. Any reading below 50 is considered to indicate contraction within the manufacturing sector. Data: Bloomberg, accessed in September 2012.
As global market participants and government officials watch the economic deterioration in Europe and stubbornly slow growth in the U.S., many investors have also questioned the recent economic vigor of emerging market countries. Brazil and India, for example, have since experienced dramatic declines in economic growth. China was a strong engine of global growth in the years after the global financial crisis, but that is now changing.
The uneven, investment-led boom that characterized the Chinese growth miracle is finally showing cracks. With officials trying to contain a red-hot housing sector, centrally planned constraints against further real estate speculation has spilled over to other sectors, and has exposed weakness. Foreign direct investment had been a huge stimulant to Chinese growth. Foreign investors have begun to doubt that China can deliver adequate risk-adjusted return on capital.
Additionally, the currency of choice for the payment of provincial Chinese megaprojects was land sales. Chinese state operators are having a harder time with this activity as land values have declined. European financing of Chinese projects and trade with China have dramatically declined as well. China, considered by many to be the global engine of growth, is now operating on fewer cylinders and may be experiencing a so-called hard landing.
After reaching approximately 12% in early 2007, and again notching double-digit gains in 2010, economic growth in China has been on a downswing. Industrial production has followed a similar pattern. (Industrial production is an economic report that measures changes in output for the industrial sector of the economy.) Data: Bloomberg, accessed in September 2012.
As noted in part one of "The Great Central Bank Roller Coaster," five central banks have already provided significant liquidity to confront the challenges facing their countries (the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, Swiss National Bank, Bank of England, and European Central Bank). As current economic pressures get harder for politicians and populations, we believe it is likely that a growing constituency will call for easy solutions (solutions with less sacrifice and more short-term rewards that prolong necessary fiscal adjustment). In our opinion, they will want some form of asset purchase activity and/or monetization of debt, which many central banks have already done in their efforts to ease their respective countries' pain.
Asset purchase activity takes investment supply out of the private markets, often times pushing investors into alternative investments. In this way, commodity and equity markets have benefited in recent years when money is moved into those markets. Bond sectors that include high yield and bank loans also have benefited from this activity. When the liquidity effect wears off, however, markets typically reverse course and head lower, leaving many market participants with the feeling that they are on a roller coaster.
The issue with these liquidity programs, in my opinion, is that they have the potential to create more inflation than intended (the commodity surge that took place during the second round of quantitative easing, or QE2, for example). In the current environment, oil and gasoline prices are already close to near-term highs. The push through of higher petroleum prices in the system should force substitution away from other consumer products. Food prices are also high due to drought conditions around the globe. Additional price pressure should come from the liquidity boost and could cause a difficult environment for low-income families.
The asset purchases also tend to divorce risk markets from fundamentals. It has been stated (by Ben Bernanke, in this case) that the current environment of significant global central bank intervention creates an effect of "all corporations having the same CEO." Company management decisions matter much less than billions of dollars of potential liquidity. Additionally, the moral hazard risk could keep growing as future market downturns will likely be met with calls for a liquidity solution. This action already led to a major mispricing of risk assets going into 2007 and 2008, and finally, in my opinion, led to the global financial crisis.
What calamity could this current intervention lead to? Societies are patiently waiting through these liquidity exercises because they deliver immediate relief, if only temporarily. We do not know the longer-term effects of these actions, but I remain fearful.
Given this new investment landscape, it is often hard to make portfolio decisions as asset prices move sharply back and forth. Compounding this difficulty is a never-ending cadre of "specialists" who provide fundamental reasons for what are, in effect, liquidity-driven moves. What is an investor to do?
We believe investors are best served by sticking to established themes that conform to today's macroeconomic and investment environment. Within the U.S., these themes include: (1) an improved banking sector (after significant deleveraging and recapitalization), (2) a corporate sector that has (generally successfully) taken steps to address a challenging economic landscape, and (3) U.S. growth that will remain challenged as the country deals with its bloated public-sector debt and promises to retirees (future liabilities).
Moreover, European growth is at significant risk as Europe tackles the dual task of bank and public-sector debt deleveraging. Finally, global growth potential has fallen as China copes with imbalances in the private sector (a superheated real estate sector, and comparatively low domestic demand when compared to internal levels of investment). With this in mind, emerging countries face growth headwinds but, in my opinion, have the fiscal, monetary, and currency reserve "ammunition" to deal with these economic fires.
Across the diversified funds of which I am a part of managing, we have maintained overweights to the corporate sector, but we remain mindful of our European exposures. We have positions in what we consider to be high-quality sovereign investments and emerging market debt (sovereign and corporate exposure). Within our multisector portfolios, we are currently maintaining hedges in case various policy measures prove inadequate. Interest rate sensitivity has not been dampened at this stage because, in our opinion, interest rates should stay far lower than the mainstream media and popular strategist-types project.
Good luck to us all.
The views expressed represent the Manager's assessment of the market environment as of September 2012, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell any security, and should not be relied on as research or investment advice. Views are subject to change without notice and may not reflect the manager's current views.
Carefully consider the Funds' investment objectives, risk factors, charges, and expenses before investing. This and other information can be found in the Funds' prospectuses and their summary prospectuses, which may be obtained by visiting delawarefunds.com/literature or calling 800 362-7500. Investors should read the prospectuses and the summary prospectuses carefully before investing.
Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.
Fixed income securities and bond funds may also be subject to prepayment risk, the risk that the principal of a fixed income security may be prepaid prior to maturity, potentially forcing the investor to reinvest that money at a lower interest rate.
Fixed income securities may also be subject to prepayment risk, the risk that the principal of a fixed income security may be prepaid prior to maturity, potentially forcing an investor to reinvest that money at a lower interest rate.
High yielding, non-investment-grade bonds (junk bonds) involve higher risk than investment grade bonds. Adverse conditions may affect the issuer's ability to pay interest and principal on these securities.
International investments entail risks not ordinarily associated with US investments including fluctuation in currency values, differences in accounting principles, or economic or political instability in other nations.
International fixed income investments are subject to currency risk. Adverse changes in foreign currency exchange rates may reduce or eliminate any gains provided by investments that are denominated in foreign currencies and may increase losses.
If and when the Fund invests in forward foreign currency contracts or uses other investments to hedge against currency risks, the Fund will be subject to special risks, including counterparty risk.
Chief Investment Officer — Diversified Income
(View bio)
Senior Vice President, Chief Investment Officer — Diversified Income
Paul Grillo is a member of the firm's taxable fixed income portfolio management team with primary responsibility for portfolio construction and strategic asset allocation. He is also a member of the firm's asset allocation committee, which is responsible for building and managing multi-asset class portfolios. He joined Macquarie Investment Management (MIM) in 1992 as a mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities analyst, assuming portfolio management responsibilities in the mid-1990s. Grillo serves as lead portfolio manager for the firm's Diversified Income products and has been influential in the growth and distribution of the firm's multisector strategies. Prior to joining the firm, Grillo was a mortgage strategist and trader at Dreyfus Corporation. He also worked as a mortgage strategist and portfolio manager at Chemical Investment Group and as a financial analyst at Chemical Bank. Grillo holds a bachelor's degree in business management from North Carolina State University and an MBA with a concentration in finance from Pace University.


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Following last week's discussion on EIA, I think it's useful to look at the economics of EIA, that is, compare the economic costs and benefits of assessing projects, granting or refusing consent and imposing conditions.
The costs are:
- the cost of the assessment process: the cost to the project proponent of engaging consultants to do an initial assessment of the environmental impact and prepare an environmental impact assessment; the cost to government of considering the impacts, making its own enquiries where necessary and making a decision about consent and conditions; and the cost to third parties of informing themselves about impacts and making submissions to government.
- the cost to the proponent of the project being refused or the cost of taking extra measures to comply with conditions of consent.
EIA is therefore efficient from a cost-benefit point of view when the negative externalities that are removed because of conditions (or consent being refused) are greater than the cost to the proponent of complying with the conditions plus the cost to government, the proponent and other interested parties of going through the EIA process.
The benefits are therefore likely to outweigh the costs when the negative impacts of the development are easily identified and can be reduced at a reasonable cost. The EIA process for the bald hills windfarm (see my earlier post) was a classic case where the EIA process could have been efficient but where the decision in my opinion was not. The relevant environmental impacts were the impacts on the orange-bellied parrot and could be estimated as the death of one bird on average every 109 years. I don't know the cost of the assessment process but the cost of the decision was very substantial: the Minister refused consent to a substantial and otherwise commercially viable energy development. Whether the benefits of that decision outweigh the costs can be debated but, as Harry Clarke has pointed out, the costs of the decision are certainly far higher than the costs of imposing conditions on the development that could have had a far greater benefit for the survival of the parrot: the parrot can be bred in captivity and returned successfully into the wild at a quite modest cost: one that the windfarm could certainly have afforded. This measure could quite cheaply have benefited the parrot population by two or three individuals per year. Compare that to an expensive decision that benefits the population by, on average, one individual every 109 years.
When the environmental impact that you're worried about is greenhouse emissions from downstream use of a product, I doubt that EIA is an efficient way to attempt to reduce those impacts. First, as discussed last time, the impacts from this particular development are difficult to assess so the assessment process is likely to be difficult and costly. Secondly, the conditions that can be imposed are unlikely to deal with the problem. The only substantive way to reduce emissions from burning the coal from a mine is not to mine it (other than – perhaps - placing some conditions on how it's processed to, say, reduce the fuel's moisture content). So the only effective decision the government can make is to approve or not approve the mine. Conditions about how the fuel is used etc really need to be placed on the user of the fuel. As discussed yesterday, since power stations can source their coal from anywhere, it is questionable whether refusing consent for a mine would reduce greenhouse emissions in any case.
Cumulative impacts
A closely related issue is that of 'cumulative impacts'. This is the 'death by a thousand cuts' problem: each development has only a small, possibly trivial, impact on its own but collectively the impact is serious. Assessment of each project on its own fails to protect us from these serious cumulative impacts.
The solution, according to the applicants in the Isaac Plains case, is that the 'cumulative impacts' contributed to by a proposed development should be considered by the decision-maker. As I've discussed before, this is the basis on which the federal Environment Minister made a decision earlier this year to refuse consent to a windfarm: it would have an impact on the orange-bellied parrot that is trivial on its own. But the impact, in combination with existing and under-construction windfarms, was so serious that the proposed development should be refused: enough was enough and the Minister had to draw a line somewhere.
I'm not sure about this. In principle, a project should be assessed on its own merits. You should compare the costs of this project with the benefits of this project and determine whether the project should go ahead or what conditions should be attached. It seems inappropriate to compare the costs of this project and others like it with the benefits of this project and others like it and then determine whether the project should go ahead or what conditions should be attached – it just seems to be asking the wrong question.
That said, the alternative is not particularly attractive either. Consider a threatened plant affected by development. There are 100 hectares of the plant left. A development proposes to clear 1 hectare of it for some modestly beneficial community infrastructure. The modest community benefits are deemed to outweigh the environmental costs (it's only one hectare) so the development is approved. Similar developments are proposed again and again and the equation is the same. Imagine that soon there's only 30 hectares left. Suddenly a project that will bring enormous benefits to the community is proposed but it will involve clearing 10 hectares: a third of the entire distribution of a now critically endangered species. The choice is now difficult: miss out on huge community benefits or push a species to the brink of extinction. Perhaps the choice could have been avoided if, earlier on when 100 hectares were still left, a decision had been made that the cumulative pressures on this plant were likely to be huge over the next few years and so only projects that had either very large benefits or negligible impacts on the plant would be considered.
It is difficult to do this when approving individual projects though. At which stage do you decide that although the benefits of this project exceed the costs of this project, you'll nevertheless reject the project because, if projects like this keeping being approved, in a couple of years we'll reach a stage where it's too costly to approve any more?
The cumulative impacts problem is a big one and EIA is one way of dealing with it. A better way in my opinion is to deal with it at more strategically: either through planning law (eg, zoning certain areas to protect threatened species so that these conflicts don't emerge) or economic instruments (providing economic incentives to protect and rehabilitate threatened species sites).
And those instruments are a discussion for another day...

subset: commoncrawl


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Next GradleFx releaseSo let's get started with the next release which is right around the corner. The two biggest changes will be:
- Better error and warning messages.
- Big improvements to the FlexUnit integration.
Better error and warning messagesDid you also got that nasty error when you didn't specify the FLEX_HOME environment variable when you first ran a GradleFx project? Well, you won't get that one anymore in the next version of GradleFx, including some other checks which will produce some more meaningful error and warning messages, like when you use a compiler property which is also being used by GradleFx.
FlexUnit improvementsSome major changes have been made to the FlexUnit integration. The configuration process has been greatly simplified. This is what you won't have to do anymore:
Manually download FlexUnit Specify the name of the FlexUnit ant task Create a FlexUnit Runner mxml class Update the test cases in the FlexUnit Runner
- You have to define the FlexUnit ant task as a maven dependency (the artifact should be on Maven Central shortly), so no need anymore to manually download FlexUnit.
- The FlexRunner is now created automatically
- GradleFx will scan for classes ending with Test.as in your test source folder. This pattern can be changed by overriding the flexunit.includes and flexunit.excludes properties
What will come after the upcoming GradleFx version?The features that will be implemented after this upcoming GradleFx release will revolve around automatically downloading the Flex SDK and Flash executable (used for the unit tests). This is the last step to make a GradleFx build stand on its own without needing initial configuration by the end-user.
Automatic download of the Flex SDKRight now you have to create a FLEX_HOME environment variable or specify the flexHome property which point to the Flex SDK installed on your machine. I want to improve this process by automatically downloading the Flex SDK and unzipping it to a directory which can be accessed by GradleFx. Now, how will this work? I've got the following idea in mind: Create a flexSdkUrl property to which you can specify the url to a Flex SDK zipfile, which you can specify like this:
flexSdkUrl = 'http://fpdownload.adobe.com/pub/flex/sdk/builds/flex4.5/flex_sdk_126.96.36.19928A.zip'This will then download the Flex SDK, unzip it to a %USER_HOME%/gradlefx/sdks/flexsdk-x.x folder (which will be configurable) and which will be used by GradleFx to run the compiler etc.
Again a great improvement which follows the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid). This should allow a great deal of flexibility in which SDK you use and where you host it. You can even create your own custom SDK (e.g. with a different AIR version in it) and link to it.
Automatic download of the Flash executableThis will follow the same principle as the SDK download. You will be able to specify the Flash executable download url like this:
flashExecutableUrl = 'http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/10/flashplayer_10_sa_debug.exe'Then it will automatically download the executable and store it in a %USER_HOME%/gradlefx/flash/ directory, which will be used by GradleFx.
I hope this update gave you a clear view of what is coming up. There are of course a lot of other features on my list, but I first wanted to polish the existing features before implementing new ones (although some of these could be seen as new ones...)


text: Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > I have a colleague who's still swearing at that one whenever he > recalls it :) One of my first comments via his blog to Ian Murdock when > he joined Sun was that he should make it easy to install a full GNU > toolchain on all versions of Solaris. Luckily, when I last did this, > I had an earlier version of GCC to fall back on - but the process of > building GCC 4.01 on Solaris, though very instructive, was still > bondage and discipline. [virtual coffee hits real screen] > > [You know it's bad when you have to build newer versions of > tar, gzip and sed just to be able to deal with the GNU source code > tarball :) ] Yup. Had to do that already. Wasn't amused by this. I keep hearing how this is "better". Yeah. Ok. FWIW: Nextenta is Solaris inside of a Ubuntu wrapper. Haven't loaded it yet, plan to at some point. FWIW2: (and not a sun shill here) Studio 11 is *free*. Doesn't seem to generate as good (e.g. fast) code for linux as its commercial competitors under linux (nor for that matter is the code it generates under Solaris as fast as the code other compilers generate under Linux, at least for my test cases) -- Joseph Landman, Ph.D Founder and CEO Scalable Informatics LLC, email: landman at scalableinformatics.com web : http://www.scalableinformatics.com phone: +1 734 786 8423 fax : +1 734 786 8452 or +1 866 888 3112 cell : +1 734 612 4615


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Independence Day
After nearly a year spent inside, Bryan Lindsay has now come home, back to his mother's place in Delmont, Pa. It's the house he grew up in. As of today—Independence Day—Bryan has been free from incarceration for just shy of two weeks. He's still attending group counseling on a regular basis, but he's no longer in the halfway house that comes after prison and mandated rehab. The only obstacle in the way of his freedom is himself now.
"I'm fortunate," he told me when we spoke last week. "Not a lot of people have a supportive family, but I do. They'll do whatever they can to help me. So my biggest fear is myself."
In a recent Facebook status update, Bryan wrote, "I guess in [prison] you have some hope—some dreams of the outside—and then you're out and you realize why you did the things to put you in there. Can't really escape reality…"
On Friday, June 3, 2005, eight years before he would be incarcerated on charges related to his heroin addiction, Bryan graduated from Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pa.
Unpredictable weather made it difficult to determine the ceremony's location, and though the class had practiced outdoors, on the football field, when the morning of graduation hinted at rain, the proceedings moved indoors, into the gymnasium. As it turned out, it didn't rain, and families gathered in gymnasium humidity on the laminate yellow bleachers, to listen to the valedictorian.
I graduated alongside Bryan. We were born five months apart and grew up near each other; Bryan in Delmont, and me in Murrysville. A suburb of Pittsburgh, about a 40-minute drive from the city, Murrysville is the "gateway to Westmoreland County," according to the sign that greets drivers as they leave Allegheny County. (Seven heroin related deaths were reported in Westmoreland County last year, 27 in Allegheny.) Drive from Pittsburgh into Murrysville along Route 22, and you move down a gently curving hill until you hit a traffic light that brings the four-lane highway to a stop beside the McDonald's at the corner of Route 22 and Vincent Hall Road. This McDonald's made news headlines in January of this year because if you asked for a toy, you could buy heroin through the drive-thru. A McDonald's in East Liberty, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, was the site of a similar bust later that same month.
Continue down Route 22 for about two miles and you'll pass four of the buildings that make up Franklin Regional: Heritage Elementary, Newlonsburg Elementary, the middle school, and the high school—where 20 students and a security guard were stabbed in April. In the shopping center that runs parallel to the school complex and 22, there's an Eat'n Park, a chain of diners synonymous with Western Pa., where everyone used to go after middle school dances. Unlike other Eat'n Park locations closer to Pittsburgh, it is not open late, which fits Murrysville's temperament: The town feels old, conservative, and white, like a Dennis the Menace cartoon where you're always in danger of stepping on someone's lawn.
Of the three main towns that feed into Franklin, Murrysville is the more affluent; Delmont and Export less so. If you turn off 22 and get onto Old William Penn, you'll pass through downtown Export. The houses have less privacy, are built closer together. Places like Jigger's, a bar with incredible wings, and the Export Moose, a bowling alley, are the kind of blue-collar businesses that make it seem like Western Pa. never emerged from the '70s; you can smoke in these establishments, and many patrons do. They are not particularly friendly to non-regulars there. Contrast them to the Panera Bread and Five Guys in Murrysville and you have easy shorthand for the divide between Murrysville and Export/Delmont. Delmont is the most rural of the three towns, though it's also home to a large shopping center and movie theater. There are practically no sidewalks in any of these towns. No street lights. You can get heroin pretty easily, though.
"Seek and you shall find," Bryan told me over the phone, four days after being released from the halfway house, the second phase of his step-down from jail after a mandated period in rehab. He first began using after coming home from junior college in 2006. He played football during high school and went to Buffalo, N.Y., to keep playing but it didn't work out. "I wouldn't say that I have mental health problems, but something happened up there," he says. "Perhaps it was just too much much freedom for me or something like that. I was in a real bad space." Bryan speaks with a Western Pennsylvania accent, a yinzer accent, and turns the word that into aht. Real becomes rull. The accent either warps or degrades vowels, elongates them to the point of exaggeration or grinds them down. Downtown becomes Dahntahn, said slow; color becomes a quicker, almost swallowed culler.
"I moved home and then I don't know," Bryan continues. "I got real self-destructive, and I sought out the worst people I possibly could. Before I knew it I was using heroin. I don't know. I know a lot of people got started on pain pills and shit. But I don't know, man."
"You remember John Doe?" (He uses the name of a former Franklin Regional student; the name has been changed.) "That's who it was," he says. "I started hanging out with the Doe boys and within a couple weeks it was a wrap for me."
When it's working, heroin picks the user up and sets you back down. After the euphoria, you typically experience a drowsiness that fades in and out, like highway driving. You nod off, then come back, only to nod off again. It is extremely difficult to overcome your dependency, and usually requires the aid of another opioid, like methadone. You step down from the drug.
As an addict, Bryan's been picking up and pulling away from the drug for years. After coming back from Buffalo, he worked a number of jobs but nothing for very long. He struggled with his dependency and would get in trouble with the police as a result. His first case was a DUI in 2010. Around this time, his relationship with the woman who would become his fiancee got serious. In early 2011, she became pregnant with their son. Inspired by this momentous development, Bryan got clean and stayed clean for nearly a year. A Facebook status from September 16, 2011 reads: "Instead of waking up at 3 a.m. and shooting up, I now wake up at 3 a.m. and make pie. Gonna be a daddy soon...had to grow up. My son will be in this world within a month!"
But it didn't last. And when he began using again, the old problems came back.
"I had to do things to feed the habit and get money," he says. "My incarceration, it's all little stupid stuff. Retail theft. I worked at Dakota Watch Company at the Westmoreland Mall, and I was required to make deposits and I never made the deposits." He laughs and it sounds just like exasperation, two exposed palms and a shrug. "They never made their way to the bank. That's one of my cases."
Bryan was also charged and pled guilty to endangering the welfare of children. When the police would toss his apartment looking for him after he stopped seeing his probation officer, they'd throw the child's toys around.
"The police in Westmoreland County have done illegal search and seizure," he says. "When the sheriffs were looking for me, they'd routinely break into my apartment and they're not allowed to do that unless they have visual proof that I'm there. I would find all my son's toys thrown around, his playpen turned over—things that there was no point for them to trash."
Eventually they caught up with him. "There was a warrant issued for me because my PO knew I was getting high and I'd stopped reporting to him. I was driving down to the methadone clinic and I passed a Westmoreland County sheriff. They knew my car and jammed me up. I didn't run, just took that one on the chin. " He was 26 at the time.
The charges brought against him, exacerbated for violating the terms of his parole, amounted to 10 months of jail time in Westmoreland County Prison, in Greensburg, Pa. (He describes this as sitting down: "Then I had to sit down for about 10 months.") When I ask about the location of the prison, Bryan relays it to me via its proximity to a King's, another local diner chain similar to Eat'n Park.
Withdrawal set in his first night. It hits you in the gut, makes you nauseous, and can bring on vomiting and diarrhea. You can experience pain in your bones, too. The guards, of which there were two for the approximately 90 men in his block, would've got him Tylenol or Imodium had he said anything. But it's best to not speak up. "They'll put you in isolation," he says, "and you'll be on suicide, so you'll be stripped down to just a pair of shorts. No sheet, no blankets. Most people don't say anything. I didn't."
Bryan's acute withdrawal lasted 10 days. But he says he didn't sleep for a month: "My body would shut down for 10 minutes at a time, but I didn't get a full night's sleep for probably two months. When you're incarcerated, sleep is your friend. It's the most important thing. You're not there."
Reading offered the other means to not be there. "There wasn't counseling available but luckily I am able to read and you could have books sent in. A lot of guys read those True Blood books. That's real escapist literature. I read Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck. Vonnegut is cynical and I maybe wanted something to back up the way that I was thinking."
In Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, moving as if through liquid from one period to the next, adrift. For Bryan, nothing but stuck, there was only lost time. His fiancée could visit but she was not allowed to bring their child. Each visit was through the a glass window—no contact was allowed. "They offer a class that if you take it you're able to have visits with your children," he says, "but there are so many guys in there I wasn't able to get into the class."
As for his relationship with his fiancée, he says, "Both of us try to pretend that nothing's changed but I lost an entire year. Not being able to touch someone." He pauses for a long time. "I'm having a hard time coming up with the words to describe it."
Still, he is emphatic about the fairness of his sentencing. Twice during our conversation he describes it that way, fair. "I was given numerous opportunities and I blew it. I didn't want to stay clean."
He conceives of his addiction as inherited. His father, an alcoholic whom Bryan hasn't seen in nearly a decade, bequeathed to him a kind of trap that lay open and waiting in his son's future. "I'm genetically predisposed and once the opportunity [to use] presented itself, my fate was sealed. I can't blame anyone else."
Inside, another one of the books he read, the one he admits he read most often, was Desperate Journeys. Written by Edward E. Leslie, the book is a collection of non-fiction accounts of survivors of shipwrecks, maroonings, and plane crashes. "I read it as a way to not give up so much hope. When I looked at how drastic the situations these people were in, I realized that the time I'd spend incarcerated wasn't that much and that I knew when I was getting out, whereas these people had no idea if rescue was ever coming."
But if life outside is just as much of a maroon, what do you escape to? A normal life? That's the word Bryan uses when he sketches his future plans. "I need to do the things that normal people do," he says and his voice becomes more certain. "I need to get somewhere where I can start supporting my family. I do have a son and a fiancee. I want to become self-sufficient. At this point, I'd work at a fast food place."
It's like a bad joke. A fast food job; a fast food drive-thru pushing heroin. As a person born in this place, it seems like I should either laugh or get angry, given that I've already taken the third option and left town. It's a young person's fallacy to think that what you're seeing in your own age is the worst it's ever been. I remind myself of that. But in the last few years there have been two teachers who plead guilty to inappropriate conduct with students, a 21-person mass stabbing, multiple heroin busts, and when I talk to Bryan he lists classmates he knows who are struggling with addiction just like him.
At what point do you actually concede that this is, in fact, a remarkable sort of terrible, that this pain beneath the surface of a supposedly well-to-do and successful community is noteworthy? Having made the concession, what do you do? Bryan talks about harm prevention, and help for addicts—rehabilitation, not mere punishment—but he doesn't have a concrete plan for reform of the system he's exiting, nor should he. He's experienced the punishment but what of rehabilitation? That's something that can only be confirmed with each day. You are sober one day at a time, as the 12-step literature says. The 12-step programs offer stories about the power of prayer. Bryan initially thought it was "bullshit," but has changed his mind: "Hitting your knees in the morning and hitting your knees at night, it really does something mentally. It's helped me."
He tells himself a kind of story each morning and night, about all the things he wants for himself and how, first and foremost, he wants it for the people he doesn't like. I imagine it becomes like a text you memorize, the way you might memorize an account of a pilot stranded alone on an island after a crash. Eventually, the pilot's report gets back to the mainland, where it is repeated many times. That tale winds up in a book read in a prison. It means something to someone, becomes a truth to cling to. It's told.
"I believe in reporting," Bryan says, "I do." It's the last thing he tells me before saying goodbye and take care.
Ross Scarano is a deputy editor at Complex. He was born in Pittsburgh.
[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]


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The Bills already have fired their head coach, even though their G.M. said he was safe.
Now, their G.M. may be in danger, grave or otherwise.
Tim Graham of the Buffalo News reports that team CEO Russ Brandon has traveled to Detroit to meet with owner Ralph Wilson. The fact that Brandon went alone is being viewed as bad news for General Manager Buddy Nix.
If so, we should find out soon enough.


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"It takes more than love to save someone," summed up Marc Frenette, of Lewiston. His family knows personally how drug addiction can kill. Marc's wife, Lu Ann, lost her cousin in 2009 to a drug overdose.
That's one big reason why Marc, an attorney, and Lu Ann, a school nurse, have made sure their three children know the dangers of addiction. And their prevention efforts have spread. Spearheaded by their 11-year-old daughter, Isabelle, this fall the family joined a nationwide public awareness event called the Red Ribbon Campaign, which is organized by the National Family Partnership.
Marc, Lu Ann, Isabelle, Lucy, 9, and Miles, 7, decorated the front of their home to fit the theme "the best me is drug free," took a picture and then uploaded it to the Red Ribbon website. From there, during a voting period in November, they encouraged everyone they knew to vote for their picture online. When they spread the word on Facebook and in person, it gave them an opportunity to encourage others to talk about drug prevention.
More than 140,000 people cast votes across the country for the different entries in 10 designated regions. Region 1 included Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.
To the joy of the family and their school, the Frenettes won for their region. They received a total of 2,712 votes, according to Red Ribbon staff.
Isabelle, who is in sixth grade at Louis J. Martel Elementary School in Lewiston, won $1,000 for the school, to be used for drug prevention awareness. The family will also receive an iPad for the home.
"Funds are limited, and, especially with all of the financial issues with the state and federal government, this will be a big help, and we also think it's a great effort by a family to promote this and do something positive," said Steve Whitfield, principal of the school.
Marc and Lu Ann said it's important for parents to talk honestly with their children about drugs.
"Obviously we talk to them in words they can understand, and we try to set a good example," Marc said. "When you see someone die from this, it wakes everyone up."
"We put the message out there: Just don't even start," Lu Ann said. Talk to your children about peer pressure, she said. If a friend urges your child to just try something, make sure your child knows "that's how the addiction starts, just by trying something."
There are ways to lower the chance young people will try drugs. The National Family Partnership says that children of parents who talk to their teens regularly about drugs are 42 percent less likely to use drugs than those who don't. Only a quarter of teens, however, report having these conversations with their parents.
It takes individual, personalized, sustained talks to get the message across. The Frenette children already understand the importance of spreading the word.
Nine-year-old Lucy said if she could tell other children about drugs, she would say: "You're putting yourself in a spot that's really dangerous and that no one really wants to be in and that you could kill yourself in."
If only her peers would hear her and listen.


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Ill Drawing Skills: Guy Makes A Pencil Portrait Of The President Barack Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama!
Jerry reports "This is my all pencil portrait of the President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama! Estimated completion time = ....still calculating.
R.I.P. Jerry LaVigne Jr. 1984-Present ....does realistic portrait artwork from photos."
Heres his contact info
email@example.com myspace.com/jerrylavignejr zazzle.com/jerrylavignejr
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Kentucky Legend Launches Applewood Smoked Bacon
Bacon is one everyone's menu these days and now Louisville, Ky.-based Kentucky Legend launches Kentucky Legend premium bacon as a response to this consumer trend.
"Kentucky Legend is synonymous with premium hams so it made sense to extend that premium positioning into bacon," says Janet Sweeney, marketing director. "Our Kentucky Legend bacon delivers on the promise of high quality and great taste consumers have come to expect from the brand. The bacon is center cut so it is leaner than regular bacon and doesn't shrink as much when cooking. It is naturally smoked with real apple wood to add mouth-watering flavor and aroma. It's a perfect choice for breakfast, sandwiches or in salads or casseroles."
Kentucky Legend bacon, distributed by Specialty Foods Group, is packed in a 20 oz. stack pack with a distinctive gold and black label.


text: HippyTree is a nature inspired surf and outdoor apparel company. Founded in a Hermosa Beach garage in 2004 by a local surfer, climber and artist, HippyTree is dedicated to designing products and graphics that embody the "surf & stone" lifestyle. HippyTree's rugged apparel designs and hand drawn graphics featuring waves, mountains and wildlife reflect the company's passion for surfing and the outdoors. Marked by the "green tree" logo, HippyTree is committed to softening its environmental impact by using eco-friendly materials and manufacturing.


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A Center for Health
A Destination for Beauty
Thirty years of providing service par excellence to local and international patients has led Yanhee Hospital to where it now stands - prominent, respectable, and taking the lead among the other institutions that provide the best health and beauty services at the most reasonable rates.
Giving a mighty boost to rising health concerns and the burgeoning popularity of medical tourism, its phenomenal rise in the local and international clientele from 162 countries of late, attests to the superior quality and safety of patient care that the hospital provides.
As you browse through Yanhee's web pages, you will get a better look into its services - as a Center for HEALTH, and a Destination for BEAUTY…


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Linking HIV and women's human rights | Petra Lanz & Susana Fried
22 Aug 2013
Women living with and affected by HIV often suffer stigma and discrimination, along with egregious violations such as coercive sterilization. Gender-based violence (GBV), meanwhile, puts women at increased risk of contracting HIV: One South African study found that one in every eight new infections in young women is the result of GBV.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, is unequivocal on women's rights to equality and health. It sets out specific measures States should adopt to advance gender equality in all areas, including the elimination of sex- and gender-based discrimination in the context of HIV.
Examples of how gender inequality exacerbates HIV risk vary widely and span the globe. They include inadequate or non-existent legal and property rights; child marriages; higher dropout rates; denial of life-saving health care; and intimate partner violence.
Globally, HIV is still the leading cause of death of women of reproductive age and contributes to at least 20 percent of maternal deaths. Every minute, another young woman is infected with HIV, according to UNAIDS (PDF).
We have CEDAW, with its accountability mechanism, and abundant data and research on our side. How then, do we move from laws to action? As Jacinta Nyachae, Executive Director of Kenya's AIDS Law Project says, we have enabling laws, but women often cannot make use of them.
As part of an unprecedented global, public consultation on what citizens around the world believe should succeed the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after their target date in 2015, one HIV-positive woman in Papua New Guinea shared a story highlighting the complexities surrounding HIV, violence, rule of law, gender and policy.
The woman, a young mother, has a long walk to an urban medical centre to receive antiretroviral HIV treatment. But rising crime and insecurity, and the women's fear of being raped or attacked, often kept her at home and away from her treatment, threatening her own health and the well-being of her children.
Women worldwide make similar calculations every day, and face choices no one should have to make. New global development goals should aim for a world in which they never do — protecting women and girls from violence and HIV is a good place to start.


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This is almost a trick question, because in order to buy an individual stock on an exchange, you must always go through a brokerage house that is a member of that exchange, and the transaction will be completed by a registered broker. Perhaps the more important question is whether you should use a full-service broker, a discount broker, or some combination of the two.
If you have more money than time to manage it, you may find the full-service broker well worth the additional expense. Full-service brokers typically charge a fee or commission but provide research, individual planning assistance, and investment advice. Many full-service brokers also offer the option of using mutual funds for some part of your investment portfolio. Typical discount brokers may provide little or no investor services but can charge much less to complete whatever transactions you desire.
Competition for market share and advances in technology have given rise to a whole host of brokerages that combine the elements of these two extremes. Whatever broker you choose to work with, make sure you know what you are getting and how much you are paying for it, before you invest.
Prepared by Broadridge Investor Communication Solutions, Inc, Copyright 2011


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Someone put the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers opening music to the recent trailer for Guillermo del Toro's giant mecha-vs.-monster movie Pacific Rim, and the results are divine. The only problem I have is that I wish it had ended with its own mashed-up title card, instead of just the Pacific Rim logo. Hmm... let's see... Mighty Morphin' Pacific Rim? Huh, that's still MMPR, but it's a bit awkward. Pacific Rangers? Too generic. Power Rim?
...maybe it's fine as is.
[Via Blastr]


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EBone Hoodrich (Feat. King Bizzle) - Boston George [Unsigned Hype]
"CHICAGO ARTIST EBONE HOODRICH Back wit another trap hit (BOSTON GEORGE) feat. King Bizzle off the up and coming mixtape "Books and Kush" video shot and edited by Seuss Leroy stay tuned!!!!!!!!!!!! PMBMB"
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President Obama set what sounds like an ambitious target this week: Cut the federal deficit by a total of $4 trillion over the next dozen years.
It's a popular number. Rep. Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin set a similar goal last week. The president's deficit commission aimed to cut about the same amount from the deficit over nine years.
But for all the attention on the number – $4 trillion – it's not so obvious how big that number really is.
Is it too small to dent the nation's federal debt problem? So big that the resulting austerity will be draconian? Or a Goldilocks amount – just the right balance for taxpayers and the economy?
First, for context, the president's number would not eliminate budget deficits. Rather, he's seeking to reduce annual deficits to a level where the economy is growing faster than the national debt. The result, if Mr. Obama's goal is achieved, would be that public debt would begin to decline as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).
Some nonpartisan experts on government finances say the Obama number is a good start, but that it falls a bit short of what the country needs.
"The plan itself contains less in savings than the White House Fiscal Commission recommended, which we look at as the minimum of what is needed to reassure credit markets and get our debt levels back on track," the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in a statement Wednesday.
Obama's plan seeks a level of deficit reduction in 12 years that the fiscal commission sought in a nine-year period, says the nonprofit group, which includes Democratic and Republican advocates of fiscal responsibility.
Of course, that's just one take on Obama's target. Still, that's a view from a centrist organization that thinks a lot about the nation's debt problems.
To the right of Obama, many Republicans would like to see a balanced-budget amendment to the US Constitution, including a cap on federal spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Such an amendment might allow a bigger reduction in deficits.
To Obama's left, some Democrats are outlining budget visions that don't make such steep cuts.
For example, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) of Maryland this week introduced a budget proposal for House Democrats. The plan seeks to cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion more than the budget Obama introduced earlier this year, but significantly less than the plan announced Wednesday.
Members of both parties generally agree that the public debt is a serious danger to the economy, and that policymakers can't afford to delay much longer in crafting long-term plans to hold the debt in check.
"We have to, for our own creditworthiness, ... demonstrate that Washington can make decisions" on tough fiscal issues, White House budget director Jack Lew said in a briefing Thursday.
How does the Obama plan compare with the Republican budget proposal put forward last week by Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee?
Both would reduce the level of deficits sharply compared with a status quo option in which tax rates and spending stay essentially unchanged. Both call for having the national debt on the decline – if measured as a share of GDP – by later this decade. Neither calls for balancing the budget or paying down the debt by 2021.
The Republicans say their deficit reduction adds up to $4.4 trillion over the 10 years from 2012 to 2021. Their spending cuts are deeper – about $5.8 trillion – but they also cut taxes.
But both plans come with some uncertainties. For example, it was not immediately clear this week what baseline the Obama plan is measured against. He wants $4 trillion in savings, but relative to what starting point? A senior White House official, in a Wednesday briefing, didn't give a detailed answer but cited an "adjusted" baseline from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
On Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney described the president's plan as roughly sharing the Ryan target – with both plans in the ballpark of $4 trillion.
The CBO has estimated that the Republican plan would hold the public debt to 70 percent of GDP as of 2022, measurably lower than the 95 percent debt-to-GDP ratio the CBO expects under an alternative (basically status quo) scenario. The Obama plan might achieve similar results.
Time would tell whether such plans would persuade financial markets that the US is successfully correcting its fiscal course. A key is not just whether debt ceases to grow by the end of this decade, but whether the outlook for the decade after that improves. That's when baby boom retirements will ramp into higher gear, potentially straining programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Regardless of the right number for deficit reduction, another, equally vital question is how to get there.
While the Obama budget plan relies largely on tax hikes for well-to-do Americans, Republicans brag that their plan won't raise taxes. Meanwhile, Obama harshly criticized the GOP plan for its cuts to Medicare and other programs that benefit middle-class or lower-income Americans.


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Motor Trend
Saab Seeking New Name for 9-3- What should It Be?
Saab is on the search again and this time it isn't money (surprise!). Instead, the automaker wants to change the name of the next-gen Saab 9-3. In an interview with Automotive News, Tim Colbeck, president of Saab Cars North America, said the company wants the 9-3's successor to carry a badge that represents the brand's heritage.According to Colbeck, the Saab…Read More


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1959 Article
Special levies or fines were imposed in the 16th century as a milder form of persecution alongside the harsher forms of confiscation of property, exile, imprisonment, and execution, and were continued on down into the 18th century after the harsher forms were abolished. In Zürich in 1525 parents who would not have their children baptized were fined up to five pounds, while in 1526 those who baptized others were given fines of 10-15 pounds. In some cases the Anabaptists had to pay the trial costs. Later those who aided Anabaptists were given fines, while the Anabaptists themselves were fined more heavily. In the mandate of the diet of Augsburg of 1577 lenient judges were threatened with money fines. In most of the mandates of the time similar threats were made against all who would favor the Anabaptists. In the Palatinate those who failed to report Anabaptists were threatened with fines, while in Hesse recanting Anabaptists who returned to their faith were required to pay into the treasury for the poor; Anabaptists leaving their homeland had to pay an emigration fee of 10 gulden.
In the 17th and 18th centuries in the Palatinate all Mennonites were subject to special taxation. A head tax was collected for attendance at their services, which had previously been forbidden. Another special tax was imposed as compensation for exemption from military service. Soon a general tax was imposed. Hutterites living in Mannheim in the mid-17th century were freed from guard duty on payment of two to three gulden per family. Although the Concession of 1664 granted by the Electoral Palatine government mentioned the right of exemption from militia duty, in the course of time a special annual tax was imposed toward the cost of maintaining the militia, at first three gulden per family, later six, and finally twelve gulden. The Mennonites protested this tax, at times on the grounds of poverty, at other times on grounds of conscience since they did not want to contribute toward war in any respect. Frequently special fees were levied for registration of deaths, births, and marriages. The Mennonite settlement of Ibersheim was a special case, since here the settlement paid an annual special tax of 50 gulden in place of head taxes.
The collection of the Mennonite head taxes in the Electoral Palatinate, Baden-Durlach, and other territories often led to quarrels between the local and general authorities; usually the general authorities won out, while the Mennonites paid the bill. With every change of rulers the Mennonites had to petition for a renewal of their privileges and usually had to pay extra "donation money in this connection." At times large sums of money were forced out of Mennonite pockets into the princely treasuries by simple pressure or extortion. In Alsace the Mennonites had a long and hard struggle to secure and maintain the privilege of exemption from military service, in the course of which heavy payments of money had to be made. Sometimes families preferred to immigrate to America rather than keep on paying the severe taxes. It was only toward the end of the 18th century, when the valuable contribution of Mennonite farmers to the improvement of agriculture was recognized, that the levies of special "protection money" finally lessened and later ceased. The French Revolution (1789) in general finally put an end to the special taxation of Mennonites in South Germany and Alsace.
In other parts of Germany as well special levies were imposed upon Anabaptists and Mennonites, in effect in return for limited toleration. In East Friesland, for instance, the ruler Rudolf Christian in 1626 introduced the practice of requiring a certain payment per family annually in return for a Schutzbrief (letter of protection), thereby setting a pattern for his successors until East Friesland became Prussian in 1744. But even the Lutheran pastors in this area, particularly in Norden, joined in extorting money by demanding that the Mennonites pay taxes for the upkeep of Lutheran churches and by collecting fees for services, such as funerals, which they did not render. It was only in 1894 that the Mennonites were freed from making contributions to the state church. Similar fees had to be paid by Mennonites in Krefeld to the Reformed Church until they were released from them by the king of Prussia ca. 1720, although in 1721 he required the payment of a fee for the privilege of exemption from military service.
In other places also in Germany, money payments were required in lieu of military service. In 1814 in West Prussia, when the Landsturm (militia) was established, Mennonites were required to pay a certain sum per acre to support the Landsturm. In Prussia Mennonites were everywhere required to pay the same church taxes (for the support of the state church of course) until into the 20th century. In West Prussia the long legal battle necessary to free the Mennonites from the state church taxes was not victoriously concluded until 1922.
War Taxes. Among the Anabaptists in Moravia the differences regarding payment of special war taxes to support the war against the Turks led to a serious division in 1527. In Nikolsburg Hubmaier led a group ("Schwertler") who paid the tax and approved the use of the sword in self-defense against the Turks, while the opposing group ("Stabler") were negative on both points. In 1511 the "Pikards" in Austerlitz declared they could not pay the war taxes, which were against their conscience. The agreement of 26 November 1556 between the Palatine and Hutterite Anabaptists in the region of Kreuznach stipulated the following regarding the payment of war taxes: "But what is blood money, and serves wars or other unrighteous things or undertakings of the government out of itself and not out of divine orders and thereby attacks the conscience, the God-fearing man is not obliged to pay them, because God demands of him that he love his enemy (Matthew 5; Romans 12), and the God-fearing man has promised this to God, and he shall not make any weapon that serves only that end (Isaiah 2; Micah 4), that the God-fearing man may not be a partaker in their wickedness or blood guilt."
The Hutterites consistently refused to pay war taxes and special levies. Peter Riedemann's Rechenschaft of 1545 says on this point: "For war, killing, and bloodshed (where it is demanded especially for that) we give nothing, but not out of wickedness or arbitrariness, but out of the fear of God (1 Timothy 5) that we may not be partakers in strange sins."
In the United States some contemporary pacifists have refused to pay that portion of their federal income taxes which they calculate goes to support the military department and preparation for war, which in the 1950s was about two thirds of the total; few if any Mennonites had taken this course. However, in the time of the Revolutionary War (1776-1783) the Mennonites of the Franconia Conference in Pennsylvania divided over their attitude toward the Revolution, including the payment of special war taxes to the rebellious colonies, the majority being opposed to the payment of such taxes. As a consequence Bishop Christian Funk and his small group of followers were expelled in 1777. -- Harold S. Bender
1990 Update
Taxes and war are inextricably linked together. When governments wage war, they eventually levy taxes to pay for them. The taxes may be explicit or indirect. Unfortunately most citizens find themselves implicated in making payments to a military leviathan, regardless of which century or country they live in. Anabaptists almost consistently avoided military service but, with the exception of the Hutterites, expressly urged payment of tax money which made war possible. Can Mennonites still be conscientious objectors when the primary tool of war is money?
For 16th-century Hutterites the issue of "blood money" was clear and unequivocal. They could see no significant difference between fighting a war and supporting it with taxes. Still Anabaptist and Mennonite histories reveal a lot of indecision about the propriety of paying military-related taxes. Much of this is due to the widespread assumption that there was a biblical mandate to pay all taxes much like other financial obligations. These assumptions are being challenged again by scholars and others in the 20th century.
Conscience was alive among Mennonites and Dunkers (Church of the Brethren) on 7 November 1775, when they submitted a joint declaration to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, saying that they were ready at all times to help those in need, but that they were "not at Liberty in Conscience to take up Arms to conquer our Enemies." Drafters of the U.S. constitution (1783-89) recognized the equivalence of conscientious objection to war taxes, as well as military service, by the historic peace churches. Recognition of this connection failed to remain in the final draft of the second amendment to the constitution. As a result, states then required payment in lieu of military service.
In Prussia Mennonites were disinclined to pay the military and church taxes based on land ownership. By the 1780s they were apprehensive about the growing military preparations, particularly the annual tax of 5,000 thaler required for the support of military schools. This factor prompted many to relocate in southern Russia and was among the factors leading others to form the Kleine Gemeinde by 1814.
There were no income taxes in the United States until 1862, when they were imposed to pay for the Civil War. Americans were outraged at the imposition of war taxes, which were lifted again in 1872. It is notable that the first proposal of a general federal government income tax was made in 1815, in part to pay for the expenses of the war of 1812-14.
When Mennonites were migrating to Kansas, an existing law (1865) required the payment annually of a $30 fine for the privilege of exemption from military service. In response to recommendations from the governor, the legislature repealed the "onerous tax" on March 9, 1874.
Income taxes reappeared in the United States in 1913 just in time to pay for World War I. It was a "class tax" upon the wealthy. Most Mennonites were not affected by it. However, they cooperated with patriotic expectations as best they could, "developing their own programs of voluntary benevolence and relief to provide a moral equivalent of military service and war bond drives." With increased pressure practically everyone "bought a few bonds." Bond drives were a problem in that they were designed not only to finance the war but also to foster patriotism. The bonds did focus the money aspect of war (Margaret Entz in Menn. life [Sept 1975], 4-9), and some Mennonites who refused to buy bonds suffered violence as a result.
World War I proved to be a watershed experience for the Mennonites. Their confrontation with the government's military authorities on the draft was so traumatic that the peace churches turned almost the whole of their attention to military duty requirements and forgot their testimony against taxes for war.
World War II saw the Victory Tax of 1943 established as the first "mass tax" through withholding at the source of income, the employer. Continued uneasiness with governmental pressure to purchase war bonds led to a Mennonite Central Committee effort to substitute "Civilian Bonds." However, U.S. Treasury officials did not clearly commit themselves to use the proceeds strictly for civilian purposes.
The war tax issue remained largely dormant during World War II. The first Mennonite to mention the subject was Austin Regier, a non-registrant, who was sentenced to a federal penitentiary for refusing to comply with the draft. He firmly believed that "the consistent pacifist would refuse war taxes." The idea of organizing war tax resistance in the United States seems to have begun with the Peacemaker Movement which was formed by a heterogeneous group of pacifists in Chicago early in 1948.
An increasingly larger portion of the U.S. federal budget has gone to finance past, present, and future wars in the 1970s and 1980s. Numerous statements have been issued as part of a new wave of concern beginning in 1958. "A Call to Action" was issued by Mennonites and Brethren in Christ meeting in Minneapolis on 21 November 1970. The Way of Peace, a Christian declaration supporting war tax refusal, was adopted by the General Conference Mennonite Church at Fresno, CA, on 19 August 1971. Other statements and resolutions followed in 1974, 1977, 1980, and 1983. The Mennonite Church (MC) issued resolutions in 1979, 1981, 1985, and 1987. A special conference (GCM) was held in Minneapolis in February 1979 specifically to discuss and explore war tax options. The General Board was mandated "to use all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption." This followed the Inter-Mennonite/Brethren in Christ War Tax Conference held in Kitchener, ON, 30 October-1 November 1975. In response to the growing war tax concern, the Commission on Home Ministries (GCM) began publishing the God and Caesar newsletter in January of 1975.
As early as 1959 the Society of Friends introduced into the U.S. Congress the "People's Program for Peace" bill. They also circulated a proposal called the "Civilian Income Tax Fund." Other peace tax fund legislation was formulated in 1973. Many Mennonites had refused to pay the telephone excise tax during the Vietnam War.
In March 1974 a Mennonite pastor, Michio Ohno, refused to pay his allotment for Japanese military expenses. Out of the protest, Japanese Fellowship of Reconciliation members, Quakers, Mennonites, and other nonviolent activists worked together to form a group called COMIT (Conscientious Objection to Military Tax). Within 10 years COMIT grew to 400 members, half of whom filed to refuse payment to the military. During the 1980s 22 members brought their appeal to the Tokyo Local Court to challenge the Japanese Government and its tax offices for collecting and spending tax funds unconstitutionally. Hearings were held 23 times during a five-year period. The judges seemed to be avoiding their responsibility. The issue of national defense was so political that the courts refrained from making a decision.
In 1975 Cornelia Lehn (a Canadian citizen) requested her employer, the General Conference Mennonite Church, to refuse to withhold taxes from her salary. Months of intense, agonizing debate followed. In the 1980s similar requests by church employees came before both the Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Central Committee. Both institutions declined to comply with employee requests and continued to withhold taxes and forward the money to the government. Finally, on 1 September 1983, the General Conference Mennonite Church honored such requests. By official conference action "the employees of the Church administration are given the power to be true to the high demands of Christ's Law of Love, in that they can decline to remit withholding taxes from employees that have requested it and therefore open up the possibility to resist for reasons of conscience to pay for the preparation of war." The conference reported these decisions to the federal government's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) but as of 21 September 1987, no action had been taken against the conference. Because of this shift of attention to the corporate level, new opportunities for witness have opened up. It is believed that never before in U.S. history have employers refused to withhold taxes for those employees who request this action for reasons of conscience.
In 1978 "Conscience Canada" was organized at the instigation of a few Quakers in Victoria, BC. John R. Dyck of Saskatoon, SK, was among the Mennonites who invested energy in this peace education effort. In 1980, Canadians learned that "freedom of conscience" was to be included in the new constitution. Since 1982 this recognition of conscience has become the basis for a new wave of action to create a legal alternative to paying taxes for war. (Peace tax legislation was introduced in 1983 and 1985. The first nationwide meeting was held in April 1987 at Ottawa).
An increase in open tax resistance is evident despite the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 which provides that, in the United States, an individual "shall pay a penalty of $500" if he or she files an income-tax return that is incorrect due either to taking a frivolous position or to seeking to delay or impede administration of the tax law. The 1982 tax law is unique in that there is an automatic penalty imposed on taxpayers. Furthermore, the penalty is assessed before opportunity for appeal is given. This is quite discriminatory and suggests that the Internal Revenue Service may be guilty of violating the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution.
Italy has demonstrated that legislation can remove the burden of military taxes. Italians accused of propagating the Peace Tax Campaign since 1981 have been fully acquitted on "grounds of particular moral and social value," or "the act did not amount to a crime." Peace tax campaigns have emerged, not only in Japan, Canada, Italy, and the United States, but also in Germany, Spain, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, Luxembourg, Austria, Norway, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and The Netherlands. This movement has gathered such momentum that an International Peace Tax Campaign Conference was held for the first time in Tübingen, West Germany, 18-21 September 1986. Marian Claassen Franz of Washington, DC, was among the 100 people who met to share information with War Resisters International in London. In 1987 the IRS approved tax deductible status for the Peace Tax Foundation. The campaign for a Peace Tax Fund in the United States now can focus its limited resources on lobbying, while the foundation expands its outreach and research programs.
Conscientious objectors to war in the United States recognize that the solution to their dilemma of conscience concerning the government's tax demands lies in the United States Congress. "So long as the Internal Revenue Code is deficient in recognizing freedom of conscience as protected by the first and ninth amendments, we shall be journeying through this dungeon of IRS levies, summonses and court trials. The origin and the solution to our problem lie most immediately with Congress, and ultimately with a restored public community of conscience" (Robert Hull, 1987). Today's combat soldier is the taxpayer -- the person who provides the money to produce and deploy the push-button hardware and software for mass annihilation. Individuals shoulder great responsibility for warfare and for peace. At times the most effective way to take responsibility is to refuse to collaborate. The task is progressively to make the coercion of conscience unthinkable by the majority who put their faith in military solutions. -- Donald D. Kaufman
Adamson, Edith and Marian Franz. "Struggling with Taxes for Military Force." Mennonite (10 March 1987): 104.
An Annotated Bibliography of Mennonite Writings on War and Peace, 1930-1980, ed. Willard Swartley and Cornelius J. Dyck. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1987: 185-200.
Bohn, E. Stanley. "The Missionary and the War Tax Refuser." Mennonite (11 June 1985): 308.
Brown, Dale W. and Vernard M. Eller, eds. "Symposium on Tax Resistance." Brethren Life and Thought 19 (1974): 101-24.
Charles, Howard H. "The Troublesome Tax Question." Builder (November 1972): 19-20, 30.
Coffin, Linda B., Peter Goldberger, Robert Hull, Jay E. McNeil. Fear God and Honor the Emperor: a Manual for Military Tax Withholdings for Religious Employers. Philadelphia and Elkhart: Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and New Call to Peacemaking.
Consultation on Civil Responsibility -- a resource packet of 15 papers presented at Elkhart, IN (1-4 June 1978) under the a auspices of the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Dick, LaVernae J. "A Noose for the Minister." Mennonite (21 April 1964): 263-65.
Driedger, Leo. "Positions on Tax Dollars for War Purposes," a 6-page compilation circulated by the Board of Christian Service (General Conference Mennonite Church). Newton, KS, 1960.
Dyck, C. J., ed. Introduction to. Mennonite History. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1967: 52-53, 106, 120-34, 295-98.
Entz, Margaret. "War Bond Drives and the Kansas Mennonite Response." Mennonite Life 30 (September 1975): 4-9.
Franz, Marian C. "Conscience is Contagious." Mennonite (28 July 1987): 316-19.
Friesen, Duane K. Christian Peacemaking and International Conflict: a Realist Pacifist Perspective. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1986: 134-40.
Goossen, Richard J. "An Examination of the Legal Justification for War Tax Resistance: the Scope of Freedom of Conscience Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." Conrad Grebel Review 4 (1986): 21-42 with response 4 (1986), 158-60.
Hershberger, Guy F. The Mennonite Church in the Second World War. Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Pub. House, 1951: ch. 11, pp. 138-148, on "Civilian bonds."
Hershberger, Guy F. The Way of the Cross in Human Relations. Scottdale, PA, 1958: 167, 179, 184, 196-97.
Hull, Robert. 1040 Peace Tax Form. Newton, KS: Commission on Home Ministries, Peace and Justice, GCM, 1987):1-8.
Juhnke, James C. A People of Mission: a History of General Conference Mennonite Overseas Mission. Newton, KS: Faith and Life, 1979, 123 (Japan).
Kaufman, Donald D. "War Taxes: Should They Be Paid?" Program Guide 1971. Scottdale, PA: 38-42.
Keidel, Levi. "The Mennonite Credibility Gap." Mennonite (23 December 1975): 730-31.
Kraus, Wolfgang, ed. Was Gehört dem Kaiser? Das Problem der Kriegsteuern. Weisenheim am Berg, West Germany: Agape Verlag, 1984, 127 pp. and response by Victor Janzen. "Gebt dem Kaiser was des Kaiser's ist." Der Bote 60, no. 21 (25 May 1983): 21.
Kreider, Robert and Mary S. Sprunger. Sourcebook: Oral History Interviews with World War One Conscientious Objectors. Akron, PA: MCC, 1986: esp. pp. 116, 128ff.
MacMaster, Richard K., Samuel L. Horst, and Robert F. Ulle. Conscience in Crisis. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1979: 29-31, 68, 78-80, 113-15, 247-49, 354-62.
Mennonite Reporter (11 May 1987): 1.
Mennonite Weekly Review (31 August 1978): 6 (Japan); (8 January 1987): 5 (on Japanese war tax trial, 1986).
Minutes of the 109th [Seventh biennial] General Conference, Brethren in Christ Church, July 5-July 10, 1986. Nappanee, IN, Evangel Press), with minutes of earlier General Conferences cited with corresponding changes in dates: 40-41.
Neufeld, Elmer and John Unruh, report of MCC Peace Section meeting held in Chicago, IL, 21 January 1960. Akron, PA: MCC: 1-5.
Regehr, Ernie. Making a Killing. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975.
Ruth, John L. 'Twas Seeding Time: a Mennonite View of the American Revolution. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1976: 59-88, 162-63.
Ruth, John L. Maintaining the Right Fellowship. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1984: 150-58.
Schmidt, Melvin D. "Tax Refusal as Conscientious Objection to War." Mennonite Quarterly Review 43, (1969): 234-46.
Souder, Eugene K. "Nonresistant People and the Federal Income Tax." Gospel Herald (27 December 1960): 1103.
Stoltzfus, Ruth C. "War Tax Research Report: Challenging Withholding Law on First Amendment Grounds : a special study prepared for Com mission on Home Ministries (General Conference Mennonite Church)." August 1975: 1-16.
Toews, John E. "Paul's View of the State. Christian Leader (25 April 1978): 5-7.
United States Comptroller General. Illegal Tax Protesters Threaten Tax System. Gaithersburg, MD: U.S. General Accounting Office, Document Handling and information Services Facility, 8 July 1981, 70 pp.
The Way of Peace -- position statement (General Conference Mennonite Church), August 1971. Newton, KS 1972.
Yoder, Edward. "Christianity and the State." Mennonite Quarterly Review 11, no. 3 (July 1937): 171-95.
Yoder, Edward. "The Obligation of the Christian to the State and Community -- 'Render to Caesar'." Mennonite Quarterly Review 13 (April 1939): 104-22.
Yoder, John Howard. The Christian Witness to the State. Newton, KS 1964: esp. p. 54.
Yoder, John Howard. "Why I Don't Pay All My Income Tax." Gospel Herald (22 January 1963): 81, 92, cf. Mennonite 26 February 1963): 132-34, and Sojourners 6, no. 3 (March 1977): 11-12.
|Harold S. Bender
|Donald D. Kaufman
|Date Published
Cite This Article
MLA style
Bender, Harold S. and Donald D. Kaufman. "Taxes." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1989. Web. 20 Apr 2019. http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Taxes&oldid=143767.
APA style
Bender, Harold S. and Donald D. Kaufman. (1989). Taxes. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 20 April 2019, from http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Taxes&oldid=143767.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, pp. 687-688; v. 5, pp. 873-875. All rights reserved.
©1996-2019 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.


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Photo Gallery: ABC Multi-Agency IMPACT Operation
When Ernesto Hernandez decided to take a walk to his neighborhood convenience store over the weekend, he was shocked to see nearly a dozen law enforcement agents swarming the Ontario business.
"I thought it was a raid or something," said Hernandez, who lives a few blocks away from the Amigos Speedo Liquor Store at Holt Boulevard and Cypress Avenue.
Authorities were at the small convenience store to make sure the owner complying with his liquor license regulations as well as other city and state laws.
"It's good they check on this stuff," Hernandez said. "I just hope they don't give him a hard time because he's a good guy"
Nearly 100 law enforcement agents from various agencies converged on the Inland Empire on Friday for an alcohol-enforcement operation known as IMPACT, resulting in numerous citations for such offenses as selling alcohol to minors, public intoxication, selling unauthorized alcohol. One man was arrested on suspicion of selling illegal cigarettes and possession of methamphetamine.
Agents from the Ontario Police Department, state Alcoholic Beverage Control, the state Bureau of Security and Investigative services, the California State Lottery, city code enforcement and other Inland Empire law enforcement agencies, including the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, checked 105 locations – including liquor stores, bars, grocery stores and restaurants – in 11 cities.
"The main objective isn't to write citations but to educate business owners on the rules and regulations in operating a business that sells or provides alcohol," said police Cpl. Bill Russell. "Selling alcohol is a privilege."
Authorities hope that by educating the owners, they can in turn help to reduce alcohol-related crimes such as vandalism, assaults and drinking and driving.
From operations such as IMPACT and have special DUI enforcements, Ontario has seen "a dramatic drop in those alcohol-related crimes," Russell said.
While the owner of Amigos Speedo Liquor reportedly had some code enforcement violations, officials said the area has improved greatly since Ontario police began the compliance checks.
The graffiti that nearly covered the walls of the store are nearly gone and in its place are two signs warning people that alcohol may not be consumed on the premises and loitering is not allowed.
At bars and restaurants, officers checked to make sure bartenders weren't serving minors, that they were purchasing their alcohol from a wholesaler and not a retail store, and to check for insects or other contaminants in the bottles of liquor.
During the compliance check, officers arrested 62-year-old Bipinchandra Patel of Diamond Bar after they reportedly found methamphetamine and illegal cigarettes smuggled into the country to avoid paying taxes on the items, Russell said.
The cigarettes lacked the proper stamp indicating California taxes had been paid and in fact, Russell said, the packages were clearly marked as not for sale in the United States.
It was unclear if Patel or any of his employees were selling drugs from the business, said Russell, adding that authorities would be investigating.
Officers also reportedly found a handgun not registered to Patel. He was not arrested on any firearm charges because officials couldn't determine if it was legally registered to another family member or employee, authorities said.
The operation, which went into early Saturday morning, resulted in state ABC violations at 83 locations as well as city code and fire violations at 45 establishments, officials said.
Authorities reported three security violations, two bars cited for selling alcohol not purchased through a proper wholesaler, a drunk-in-public arrest, three minors cited for possession of alcohol, one citation for selling alcohol to a minor and three people cited for having an open container of alcohol in public.


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It has been nearly five years since Corona del Mar High freshman Amy Matsuoka traded the balance beam for a bucket of golf balls.
Both gymnastics and golf can be sports where an inch makes a difference. Matsuoka was not seeing the results she wanted as she practiced for hours a day at the Gym-Max Academy of Gymnastics in Costa Mesa.
The gym has been in the news lately. Kyla Ross of Aliso Viejo, who won a gold medal at the London Olympics as a member of the U.S. women's gymnastics team, trains there. Fellow Olympian McKayla Mulroney of Long Beach also trained at Gym-Max for years before relocating.
Matsuoka kept training, but the best she could do was place third in an event at a small meet.
"She kind of got a little bit frustrated," said her father, Denis. "She finally said, 'Dad, I want to quit gymnastics, I want do something else.' She had already tried soccer, all these other sports.
"I said, 'How about golf?' And she goes, 'That sport is boring!'"
But Denis Matsuoka persisted. Just after she turned 10 years old, he took Amy to Newport Beach Golf Course and set her up with a bucket of balls. What resulted was one of those unforgettable moments.
"She had a natural swing, and she could hit the ball really well," Denis Matsuoka said. "She goes, 'I like this sport, dad!' Before I ruined her strokes, I decided to get her a coach. And she just took off."
Amy Matsuoka, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, certainly did. At just 14, she has turned into a top junior girls' golfer. She made a big difference this year for Coach Mike Starkweather's CdM girls' golf team, a team that went 0-16 last year.
CdM improved to 7-7 this year and tied for third in the Pacific Coast League. Matsuoka medaled in 11 of the Sea Kings' 14 matches, and eight of 10 matches in league. She was named the league MVP.
But Matsuoka's season didn't end there. She shot a 79 at the CIF Southern Section Individual Final on Nov. 1 at Western Hills Country Club in Chino Hills. The score made the cut for Thursday's CIF Regional State Qualifier, and she was the only Newport-Mesa golfer to do so.
"I was really excited," Amy Matsuoka said, and you won't get many more words than that out of her. Just like there's not a lot of wasted motion in her golf stroke, there's not a lot wasted words when she talks.
Matsuoka's season did end Thursday, when she shot a 78 at The Golf Club at Rancho California in Murrieta. The cut was 72 to advance to the CIF State Championship.
But, to Starkweather, it was a very successful freshman year. He certainly holds Matsuoka in high regard. She was a leader for a CdM team with just one senior, Emily Turner.
"Amy is an amazing young lady," Starkweather said. "She's probably one of, if not the best, young golfers to come to Corona del Mar High School in the [18] years I've been there. She just has a great work ethic."
Making the cut at Western Hills wasn't easy. Matsuoka, who tied for 27th and had three birdies in her round, made it by just one stroke. Starkweather said it was a great feat considering the golfers played from the silver tees, which added about 400 yards to the course.
Matsuoka said she can drive the ball 220 yards, but she's still just 5-foot-1. On that day, however, she got the job done.
"My chipping was really good that day," she said. "I chipped it close to save par."
Amy Matsuoka said she couldn't imagine her freshman year going so well. But it makes sense. She put in work over the summer with her private coach, Mike McNary of Willowick Golf Course in Santa Ana.
Amy played a challenging junior golf tournament schedule. She won five Southern California PGA tournaments in two months, including the 23rd annual Costa Mesa City Championship tournament. She ranked second in the SCPGA summer rankings, despite playing in just eight tournaments. The first-place finisher, Kaitleen Shee of Diamond Bar, played in 30 tournaments.
Denis Matsuoka said his daughter has qualified for the Toyota Tour Cup a couple of years in a row. The next step is to qualify for national American Junior Golf Assn. tournaments. Matsuoka did play in one from July 30-Aug. 2, the Genesis Junior Championship at Sycuan Resort in El Cajon. She had to play a qualifying round to make the main draw, where she tied for 11th.
"These are the top girls in the nation," Denis Matsuoka said. "I was really proud of her ... she stepped up her game."
Someone who watches from a distance is Amy's older sister, former CdM tennis phenom Melissa Matsuoka. Melissa is now a junior for the Dartmouth College women's tennis team, and she's currently studying abroad in London.
"We're really close," Amy Matsuoka said of her relationship with Melissa, who helped CdM win four PCL girls' tennis titles and the 2006 CIF Southern Section Division 1 title.
Denis said his daughters will often Skype, or talk on Facebook. Both are respectful young women who are known for their sportsmanship.
"Melissa says as soon as she finishes up with tennis in college, she wants to learn golf," Denis Matsuoka said. "The thing is, I tried to get Melissa into golf, and [she said], 'That's boring, I don't want to play' ... It's funny how the mind kind of turns around."
Both daughters are tough.
Amy Matsuoka certainly has the drive to succeed in golf.
"She's got the best work ethic of the kids that I've coached," Starkweather said. "She works really, really hard. She's just truly an amazing golfer, and she's got three more years after this one. Keep your eye on her."
Twitter: @mjszabo
Amy Matsuoka
Born: Feb. 23, 1998
Hometown: Newport Beach
Height: 5-foot-1
Sport: Golf
Year: Freshman
Coach: Mike Starkweather
Favorite food: Mom's Chinese noodles and wontons
Favorite movie: "Dear John"
Favorite athletic moment: Winning the SCPGA Bridgestone Tournament of Champions, in August at Menifee Lakes Country Club.
Week in review: Matsuoka shot a seven-over-par 79 at the CIF Southern Section Individual Final on Nov. 1 at Western Hills Country Club. She tied for 27th and advanced to the CIF Regional State Qualifier.


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Jun 22, 2017 AM EDT Here is something we didn't know about Ancient Egyptians.
Jun 23, 2018 AM EDTWhat if you can control robots with a simple flick of a finger? A team of experts is trying to make that a reality through this latest experiment.
Jun 16, 2018 AM EDTScientists from the Boston University School of Medicine looked into the effects of flavored e-cigarettes to the lining of blood vessels. Here are ...
May 31, 2018 AM EDTLendingTree outs its study that identifies places in the United States with the most student debt. Here's the complete list.


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text: On Fri, 1 Apr 2005 at 10:01pm, David Kewley wrote > Joshua Baker-LePain wrote on Friday 01 April 2005 10:10: > > > > For one thing, xfsdump/xfsrestore actually backs up all FS info, including > > ACLs. dump/restore doesn't do ACLs, and neither does tar, meaning on > > RHEL3/4 there is no "official" way of fully backing up a FS with ACLs. > > Thanks for clarifying that for me. > > BTW: I see that RHEL4 has star, and that RHEL4's star does ACLs and extended > attributes. I don't know how mature this version of star is, nor how much RH > suggests it as a solution, but it's there. According to the timestamps at <ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star/alpha/>, RHEL4's star is from 9/13/2003(!!). It also does not support incremental restores. So it's not much of a solution in my book. -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University


text:
The Philadelphia Eagles are down a tight end after James Casey underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee Thursday.
An Eagles spokesman told USA Today that Casey might miss the rest of the spring because of a procedure to clean out loose cartilage, but the fifth-year player sounds optimistic he'll return much sooner.
I had a minor scope done on my right knee. I'll be back to full speed in two weeks. Better to get it taken care of now. #GoEaglesâ James Casey (@jamescasey85) May 23, 2013
The Eagles are in fair shape at tight end, with Brent Celek and rookie Zach Ertz atop the depth chart in Casey's absence. That duo is backed up by sometimes-linebacker Clay Harbor and the recently signed Will Shaw. Still, Casey was brought to Philly to play more than tight end.
He wasn't used creatively by the Houston Texans -- playing mostly fullback -- but Casey figures to line up all over the place as coach Chip Kelly's "Joker" in Philly. He recorded just 34 catches last season, but people forget Casey caught an outrageous 111 balls during his final campaign at Rice.
We expect Kelly to use him liberally.
It's not unfair to view Casey as a potential poor-man's Aaron Hernandez heading into the 2013 NFL season -- but not until he's back on the field.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.


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